'Til Death: DI Steven Marr

By SP Edwards

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Join hundreds of others in enjoying the page-turning debut from UK crime fiction author SP Edwards.

Today is Anna Markham's wedding day.

At least, it was meant to be.

But her body's just been found, dumped in the grounds of the very house in which she was supposed to tie the knot.

Marr thinks that the police have arrested the wrong man for the crime, and he's got just three days to find the real killer...

About The Author

Shaun Edwards has always had an interest in the darker side of human nature. As a result, he spent most of his late teens nicking UK crime thriller books from his mum's bookcase. Have devoured pretty much everything by Peter Robinson, Ian Rankin, John Harvey and John Connolly, he decided to start writing his own stuff.

Ten years later, he pulled his finger out and actually did it. 'Til Death is the combination of coffee, and a deep love for Banks, Rebus, Resnick, Thorne and Charlie Parker.

Besides writing and reading whodunnit mysteries, crime fiction and thrillers, Shaun's other loves include noodling around on the guitar, going for long walks, eating too much pizza and laughing at pictures of pugs.

He lives with his partner and a really sneaky gerbil in deepest, darkest Suffolk, UK.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shaun Edwards
• Release date: May 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533733702

Book preview

Prologue

Anna Markham wondered if the soil in her grave would feel as cold as the dirt on her face.

It had taken everything she had just to try to push herself onto the bank. There was no strength left in her body. Three years ago she’d finished a marathon for the first time, and she recognised the feeling of emptiness.

She’d woken in the water, though she didn’t know how long she’d been there. Five minutes? Half an hour? It was impossible to tell.  

Anna lifted her head and turned it so it was facing the house. She couldn’t see it through the dark, but she knew it was there all the same. 

She moved her hand to her gut, which was throbbing. The cold water had dulled the pain, but it was still there.

If she could just stand. If she could just get to someone.

Anna rested her head back onto the dirt, and for the last time in her life, she closed her eyes.

Chapter 1

‘Get back here, Hector!’

Brian McDermott moved down the hill, his breath visible against the cold air. Ahead of him, he caught a glimpse of the collie. Hector was grinning: teasing Brian with the thought that he might catch up. When there were less than twenty feet between them, the dog bounded off again, a grin on its face.

‘Come back, you bugger!’ Brian said, though he was half-smiling himself.

He managed another twenty seconds before he gave up the chase. Leaning over, he rested his hands on his knees, trying to suck in as much oxygen as he could.

Too much filching the good stuff behind the bar, he thought to himself. Three years ago, he could comfortably run a 10k. Not anymore.

Initially, he’d thought that Hector would be a good excuse to start exercising again. As it turned out, the dog was just as happy as Brian to spend all evening in front of the TV, so little had changed.

Didn’t stop the little bugger out-running him, though.

Brian smiled. Hector was a chirpy little guy. He certainly brightened up the house, which had been too quiet since Paula died. Two years ago now. Jack? Well, Jack was studying at St Andrews: way too far to pop down for the weekend. Too expensive to do by train as well. Brian helped his son where he could, but the mortgage payments were high, especially on one income rather than two.

The plan, of course, had been to pay off the mortgage and then sell up. Get a place in Europe somewhere.

‘You and me, Brian. You, me, the sun and the sea.’

No such luck.

Brian’s thoughts were interrupted by a sharp bark from somewhere ahead of him. Hector didn’t sound too happy, the bark having that nervous edge to it: the same one he got whenever the doorbell went.

Intruders, Brian, intruders.

Picking up his speed again, Brian jogged down the path to the bottom of the hill. He knew the field well: well enough to know that he wasn’t too far from the stream. He kept his eye on the ground beneath as he moved forward: the last thing he wanted to do was to fall in.

God, had Hector fallen in? The poor bugger wasn’t much of a swimmer.

Brian quickened his pace a bit more.

‘Hector?’ he called out, ‘I’m coming, lad. Make a bit more noise.’

But there wasn’t any.

No, there was. Not barking, though; it was a slight whimper, and he was getting closer to it.

Brian felt a slight chill up his spine, and his pulse quickened. The fight-or-flight response. It never stopped. He was aware of just how little he could really see around him: how - dog or no dog -he was alone, in the middle of nowhere.

‘Coming lad,’ he repeated, as much for himself as anybody. He cursed his lack of fitness as the pounding in his chest increased.

By the time he finally caught up with the dog, the ground was softening, and Brian’s boots were sinking deeper into the mud. The stream couldn’t have been more than ten feet away.

Hector looked up at his owner, his eyes pleading, his face covered in dirt. Brian felt his pulse quicken even more as he reached down to pick the dog up.

‘You’re OK, lad,’ he said, trying to keep his voice steady as he gently wiped away the mud.

The dog turned its body around to face where Hector knew the water’s edge would be, whimpering as it did so.

Brian thought about heading back; about letting someone else deal with it. He couldn’t see a thing, but if he was in any real danger, surely something would have happened already? And Hector was OK, despite the fright.

Having decided that any real risk had gone, Brian took a few more steps forward, any remnants of grass vanishing as he reached the edge of the water.

Lying in the dirt was a body. The hair was matted and stuck to the grey flesh of her face. The eyes were open and facing him. The girl was dead, and it took Brian a few seconds to realise that he’d seen her before.

He shivered involuntarily.

Then, absent-mindedly stroking the dog’s fur with one hand, he used the other to reach for his mobile.

Chapter 2

Steven Marr breathed in the scent as he gently pushed down the plunger of the coffee maker. Try as he might, he couldn’t discern any difference between this blend and the cheaper one he usually bought from Tesco. If there was a difference, it was the twenty quid he’d paid for this one.

The pot had been a gift from Lizzie as an ‘Isn’t my husband brilliant?’ present to go with his new office. His cramped, stuffy new office. First thing he’d done was pick up a desk fan, realising that without one, he’d end the week looking like a roasted pig.

A Detective Inspector, at only thirty-two. Not bad going at all. Marr knew that cops were getting younger, and that it took less time than it would have done ten years ago to get promoted. But still, it was better than not being promoted. The office itself had been a pleasant surprise: the local force was being pared to the bone. Getting his own space — even if it was a glorified cupboard — wasn’t something to be sniffed at.

Rachel West, a DI and friend who’d recently moved away to the City, had been less impressed.

‘A new office?’ she’d said, in a voice heavy with the same disgust usually saved for dogging enthusiasts.

‘Don’t get too excited,’ Marr had replied. ‘New office, but the chair’s the same, the desk is the same and I’m pretty sure the pot of pens is the same.’

She’d shrugged.

‘The life of the big cheese…’

Marr sat himself down at the desk with the mug of no-different-to-Tesco’s coffee, and leaned down to turn his computer on.

He didn’t get the chance: his mobile started ringing loudly and vibrating against the desk. The name BROOKE was a bright white against the screen’s black background.

‘Your office phone’s not working yet then?’ said DCI Christopher Brooke.

Marr looked around the desk to where his landline phone sat, the digital display blank. He pulled at the wires, and they came willingly, revealing ends that had failed to connect to anything.

‘Not yet,’ Marr replied.

‘Get the geeks onto it.’

‘Will do. Could take them a week or two.’

‘You’d think being public protectors we’d be higher up their priority list.’

‘That bank pays them more.’

‘And don’t they enjoy letting us know it? Bastards. Anyway, come into my parlour, and bring DI Reid with you.’

Marr thought he heard Brooke whistling the opening notes of ‘Here comes the bride’, as the DCI hung up.

*

Whatever cut-backs had been made so far, they hadn’t yet reached Brooke’s office. On the top floor and overlooking the city centre, it boasted two comfy sofas and a desk that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Oval Office: a huge slab of mahogany that probably took at least four men to deliver.

‘Get hold of the geeks?’ the DCI asked as Marr and DI Samantha Reid entered.

Marr shook his head.

‘They put me on hold.’

Brooke snorted as his guests sank into the armchairs. Marr could tell immediately that getting out of the chair would not be easy work: it was far too comfy.

‘Bloody good, aren’t they?’ laughed Brooke. ‘I’ve got one in my study at home, too.’

‘Not claimed on the service, sir?’ said Sam.

‘I should be so lucky,’ replied the DCI. ‘It took ten minutes of pleading with DCS Hume just to get the bloody coffee machine fixed.’

The DCI pointed at a substantial black machine balanced on one of the drawer units. Marr could immediately see DCS Hume’s point of view: there were coffee machines, and then there were coffee machines.

‘How many miles to the gallon does it get?’ Marr asked.

Brooke growled, his face creasing as he decided whether or not to take the bait: he eventually settled on ignoring the jibe.

‘Hendon House, know it?’ he asked.

Marr shook his head, but Sam nodded.

‘My friend Tara got married there last year,’ she said. ‘Nice scenery, looks like something out of a Jane Austen novel. All lakes and stately buildings.’

‘Sounds delightful,’ said Brooke, his face positively un-delighted. ‘Unfortunately, a body turned up in one of those lakes this morning. Well, on the bank anyway.’

‘Drunken wedding fight?’ Marr asked.

The DCI shook his head.

‘No, there was no event on last night. Not according to Brian, the bar manager, at any rate. He was walking his dog around the grounds this morning when he found the body, identified her himself. The name of our no-longer-blushing-bride-to-be is Anna Markham.’

Sam raised an eyebrow.

‘Bride?’

Brooke smiled; a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

‘She was due to get married this afternoon, and I’ll give you precisely no guesses where.’

Chapter 3

There was next to no traffic heading towards Cambridge, with even the worst of the commuters now settled behind their desks. Reaching the edge of the Hendon House estate took even less time than they’d been expecting.

Sam turned off the main road, the gravel crunching beneath the car tyres as it rolled up the path leading to the venue. She’d definitely been right, Marr thought: Hendon House was a beautiful place. The main house was Georgian: four storeys leading onto a stone courtyard surrounded by three barns. A combination of lakes and fields surrounded the main buildings. Marr could well see why someone might want to get married there.

It was a shame the scenery was scarred by the white forensics tent.

Marr was thankful that the location was far enough out of town to keep the murder out of the news, for the moment at least. These days, the press were more easy to deal with than the public: what remaining newspapers there were at least had regulations to abide by. The public, though, were armed with camera phones, Facebook and Twitter: keeping anything under wraps had gone from tough to virtually impossible.

It wasn’t always a bad thing. At least three burglars in the last year had been caught as a result of savvy mobile-users taking photos of vans parked outside crime scenes.

There were only two other cars in the car park when they arrived, both of which Marr knew. A black Ford Focus belonging to the attending officer, and a silver Mercedes. As they pulled up, Marr saw that the Merc’s body was shot with dirt from the drive up the trail. He smiled.

The Merc belonged to Dr Eric Yovanovitch, the pathologist known for his love of cars. A love that often seemed to outrank that of his house, his wife and even occasionally, his two daughters.

‘His poor beautiful baby, all stuck in the mud,’ said Sam, spinning her wheels and adding more brown to the tapestry of dirt.

Marr grinned.

‘You’re brave,’ he said.

They left the car and quickly put on their forensic gear.

‘Morning,’ said a cheerful voice behind them. DS Rebecca Alexander was walking across the courtyard from the house. Becky’s disposition never got much below ‘sunny’. It might have been annoying in some jobs but in theirs, a bit of chirpiness made a welcome change.

‘Morning, Becky,’ Marr replied.

‘Nasty business,’ Becky said, nodding towards the tent.

‘What time was she found?’ asked Sam.

‘About seven o’clock this morning. Brian, the bar manager, was out walking his border collie. Gorgeous thing.’

‘Brian?’ asked Marr, knowing that Becky had two German shepherds and a Labrador at home. Becky rolled her eyes at the joke, which was probably a fair response.

‘Poor guy’s currently working his way through his own bar’s finest stock,’ she replied. ‘I’ve left him for you to interview; he said he’d wait.’

As they made their way towards the white tent, Marr found himself wondering why Becky was here in Essex when she could be earning six figures in the City. She was far too efficient.

Anna Markham was lying face down on the mud of the bank, her eyes facing sightlessly towards the house. The doctor was kneeling by the head, checking the neck area.

‘Your Merc’s looking dirty,’ Marr said. The doctor turned around, smiled, and cheerfully raised a middle finger.

‘The CSIs are outside,’ Sam added.

CSI stood for Crime Scene Investigation. Up until ten years or so ago, the men and women responsible for forensically examining crime scenes in the UK had been called Scene of Crime Officers, or SOCOs. In a bid to improve relations with the public, top brass had tried to increase the use of the American term, something Yovanovitch had fought tooth and nail.

‘I’m assuming someone’s told Anna’s family?’ Sam asked, receiving a nod from Becky.

‘Rob…sorry, DC Alexander has gone to notify the parents. And the groom, of course.’

DC Robert Alexander was the newest member of their team, having transferred over from uniform two weeks ago. He was also Becky’s husband of three years. DCS Hume had voiced her concerns, and Brooke had handled the matter with typical delicacy, calling the Alexanders into his office.

‘You fuck up, one of you’s out on your arse,’ he’d said.

For the moment, that had been sufficient.

Yovanovitch was still inspecting Anna Markham’s neck: Marr thought he could see some dark colouring on the skin, and there was some dried blood on her lips.

‘Strangled?’ he asked.

The doctor nodded.

‘Almost definitely. Judging by the darkest points

Reviews for 'Til Death

[Vico Louise Evans · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

A very poorly written book, full of inaccuracies, and very weak Maine characters. Police who are barely able to control themselves, let alone do their jobs, whilst carrying on with co workers. Should sick to reading instead of writing.