The Girl in the Ice: A gripping serial killer thriller (Detective Erika Foster crime thriller novel Book 1) (32 page)

T
here was
a soft hissing sound and a rhythmic beep as Erika’s vision slowly swam into focus. She was in a hospital room, beside a window. The blinds were closed and a soft night light filled the room. In the corner of her vision was another bed. The bedcovers moved up, and then down, matching the hissing sound that she had heard. She rolled her tongue around her dry mouth, and realised that the patient in the bed next to her was on a ventilator.

Blue blankets were pulled up around her, and great swathes of her body felt completely numb: her legs, one arm, the left side of her face. She felt no pain, just an uneasy feeling that pain was close by. Right now, she was floating above the pain, but it would come soon and then she would have to deal with it. For now she could float above it, observing; numb body, numb emotions.

She closed her eyes and drifted off.

W
hen she woke again
it was dark, and Marsh was sitting beside her bed. He wore a smart shirt and his leather jacket. The pain was starting to encroach: her face, her legs, her arm. She also felt closer to her emotions, to the fear. The memories. That she thought she was going to die. The burning in her lungs when she hadn’t been able to hold her breath any more, and she’d pulled in water . . . The dead girl in the back of the car with her, and then the girl’s blurred face when the car had submerged, her dark hair spreading out in a halo around her head.

‘You’re going to be okay,’ said Marsh, reaching over and gently taking Erika’s right hand. She noticed her left was bandaged, and that she could only hear on one side – the opposite side to where Marsh was sitting.

‘You’ve had an operation. You’ve got a pin in one of your legs, and a fractured cheek . . .’ Marsh tailed off. He was clutching a bunch of grapes on his lap. It was almost comical. ‘You’ll make a full recovery . . . I’ve put a card on your bedside table. Everyone at the station has signed it . . . You did well, Erika. I’m proud of you.’

Erika tried to say something. On her third attempt, she managed it: ‘David?’

‘They arrested him at Ebbsfleet. He’s in custody, along with his father, Giles Osborne and Igor Kucerov. Isaac went back through the forensic evidence and has found a match to some small hair fibres found on Mirka Bratova, the second victim. They match David’s DNA. And we have Linda’s testimony, and forensics are all over the car. They pulled it out of the quarry with – with the girl inside . . .’

Marsh smiled awkwardly. He reached out and took Erika’s hand. ‘Anyway, there’s plenty of time to tell you everything. What I really wanted to say is that I’m here if you need anything. And I’m here as a friend . . . Marcie sends her love, and she went out and got you some toiletries. I’ve put them in your locker.’

Erika tried to smile, but the pain was becoming sharp and angry. A nurse came in and checked Erika’s chart. She went to the drip and pressed a button.

‘Peterson . . . I want to thank Peterson,’ said Erika.

There was a beep, and Erika felt a coldness trickle through her hand. Marsh and the hospital room blurred to a pain-free whiteness.

E
rika breathed deeply
, feeling the clean air fill her lungs. Next to her, on the wooden bench, Edward did the same. It was a comfortable silence, as they stared out at the moors, which spread away in greens and browns. Clouds hung heavy in the distance, twirling into a knot of blue-black, which was heading their way.

‘There’s a storm brewing,’ said Edward.

‘Just a minute longer . . . I love it here. Even the grass is greener up north,’ said Erika.

Edward laughed beside her. ‘Is that a metaphor, lass?’

‘No. It really is greener.’ She grinned. She pulled her eyes away from the beautiful view to Edward, who sat next to her, swaddled in his thick winter coat. A thin gravel path separated Mark’s headstone from the bench where they sat.

‘I’m finding it easier to come here now,’ said Edward. ‘Once you get over being confronted with those letters in gold, his date of birth and the date when he, you know . . . I come here a lot and I talk to him.’

Erika started to cry again. ‘I don’t know where to start; what to say to him,’ she sobbed, searching her coat for a tissue.

‘Just start,’ said Edward, handing her a little pack of tissues. He tilted her face up to his. Her hair was starting to grow back at the patch on the side where she’d had a long row of stitches.

‘Okay,’ she said, pulling out a tissue and wiping her face.

‘Tell you what, I’ll nip back, put the kettle on. You just talk. Course, you’ll feel like a lunatic at first, but there’s no one about . . .’

He patted Erika on the shoulder and started off down the path. She watched as he walked away. He turned and smiled, before picking his way cautiously through the graves and down to the village. She noticed how similar his gait and his movements were to Mark’s. She turned back to the grave.

‘So, I solved five murders . . . And I narrowly escaped the murderer, twice,’ she said. ‘But, that’s not what I came up here to tell you . . .’

Her phone rang in her pocket. She pulled it out. It was Moss.

‘Hello, boss. I thought, it’s been a couple of months, and I’d give you a call . . .’

‘Hello,’ said Erika.

‘Is it a bad time?’

‘No, well, I’m . . . I’m just at Mark’s grave.’

‘Oh, bugger, I’ll call back.’

‘No. I’ve been trying to talk to him. My father-in-law says I should talk to him. He says it helps. I just don’t know what to say . . .’

‘You could tell him that your murderer is going to trial in May. Did you see today’s news? David Douglas-Brown was declared fit to stand trial. They’ve also expelled Sir Simon from the Lords . . . And it looks like Igor Kucerov will be retried for the murder of Nadia Greco. We’re just waiting on the CPS about Giles Osborne. I’m confident he’ll be done for perverting the course of justice . . . You there, boss?’

‘Yes. And I did see. And Mark doesn’t want to hear all that.’

‘If I were stuck laying six feet under, I’d want my loved ones to keep me up-to-date on current events . . .’

There was a silence. The wind rippled across the grass. The knot of black cloud was almost above her now.

‘Sorry, I’m being crass,’ said Moss.

‘No, you’re being honest, which is far better. Did Peterson get my card?’

‘Yes. But you know him. The strong, silent type. He came to see you after, in the hospital, but you were out of it.’

‘I know he did.’

There was another silence.

‘So. When you back, boss?’

‘I don’t know. Soon. Marsh has told me to take as long as I need. I’m going to stay up here with Edward for a bit.’

‘Well, we’re looking forward to you coming back, boss. You are coming back, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah, I’m coming back,’ said Erika. ‘I’ll call you.’

‘Good. Well enjoy yourself up there, and when you . . . you know . . . talk, to Mark, say hi from me.’

‘That’s the weirdest request for passing on a hello,’ said Erika, wryly.

‘I just wish I could have met him,’ said Moss.

Erika came off the phone as thunder began to rumble overhead. She turned back to the grave and stared at the gold letters on the black granite.

‘That’s the toughest word, Mark,’ said Erika. ‘Always. I’ll always be without you. I don’t know how I can live without you, but I have to. To move on, I have to let you go at some point. I have to keep going, Mark. Keep working. Keep living my life. Most days I don’t think I can go on without you, but I have to. There’s so much bad stuff out there that the only way I think I can cope with it all is to keep working. To try and make some kind of difference to the world.’

Water splashed on to Erika’s cheek, and for once, it wasn’t a tear. The rain began to fall, spattering on the gravel and Mark’s gravestone.

‘Your Dad’s making me a cuppa . . . So I’ll be off. But I’ll be back, I promise,’ said Erika. She got up, put her fingers to her lips and pressed them against the cold stone, just under Mark’s name.

Erika hitched her bag over her shoulder and set off across the graveyard, back towards tea and cake, and the warmth of Edward’s kitchen.

F
irst of all
, I want to say a huge thank you to you for choosing to read
The Girl in the Ice
.
If you did enjoy it, I would be very grateful if you could write a
review
. It needn’t be long, just a few words, but it makes such a difference and helps new readers to discover one of my books for the first time.

I’d love to hear from you too. What did you think of DCI Erika Foster? What would you like to happen next? Erika will be returning shortly. Right now I’m working on the second book in the series, which will be called,
The Night Stalker
.

You can get in touch on my
Facebook
page, through
Twitter
,
Goodreads
or my website which you’ll find at
www.robertbryndza.com
. I read every message and will always reply. There are lots more books to come so I hope you’ll stay with me for the ride!

R
obert
Bryndza

P
.S
. If you would like to get an email when my next book is released, you can sign up to my mailing list in the link below. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

• @RobertBryndza
  
• bryndzarobert
  

T
hank you to Oliver Rhodes
, Claire Bord, Keshini Naidoo, Kim Nash and the wonderful team at Bookouture. You guys are amazing, and I’m so happy to be working with you. (And thank you for not laughing me off when I wrote that first email and said I had been longing to write a crime novel!)

Special thanks to Claire Bord, for your encouragement and pushing me to make this book better than I ever dreamed it could be. 

Thank you to Henry Steadman for the stunning cover, and to Gabrielle Chant for editing the manuscript with precision and care. And thank you to Angela Marsons, for your friendship, support, and encouraging me to go for it. And as ever, thanks to Stephanie Dagg.

Thank you to my mother-in-law Vierka who seems to have a psychic ability, when the going gets tough and the writing goes late, to turn up at the front door with delicious hot food, and love and kindness, which always cheers me up.

And thank you to my husband, Ján, who somehow manages to heap praise and encouragement when needed, but is not averse to shouting to make me stick to deadlines. Keep the praise and encouragement coming, and the shouting is essential too. Without this tough love and unwavering support, I would still be toiling away in a job I didn’t enjoy just dreaming of being a writer.

And lastly, thank you to all the wonderful readers, and Book bloggers, both the new ones who have discovered my work, and those who have followed my work from Coco Pinchard to Crime. Word of mouth really works, and without you all talking up and blogging about my books, I would have far less readers. Thank you. I told you it would be an exciting ride!