Twice Bad: Liberty Rock Novels, #2

By Stephen Harding

Another action-packed thriller featuring DCI Liberty Rock combining a cunning mix of passion and violence with a subtle touch of humour.

A horrific incident on a rundown council estate leads to a loner becoming a serial killer. His ever-darkening soul calls out for more, so when Liberty Rock sets out to investigate the case, she has no idea about how much this will change her life, and at what cost

Liberty also has her own scars to bear with an injury that tends to play up, as well as having to work in an environment steeped in old traditions and police corruption.

As she and her trusted team dig deeper, events quickly move from bad to worse before the nightmares really kick in with a cat and mouse game that becomes twice as bad. The simple question is… Why? 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Harding
• Release date: Mar 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393719724

Stephen Harding

Bestselling, prize-winning author Stephen Harding has written some of the most exciting books you will ever read. Unique, stimulating, ingenious, dark, mind-blowing, spine-tingling, and twisted are words that would best be linked to his creations. In 2008 his short play 'My Bench' won third prize in the Kingston Readers Festival before being published. Inspired by Stephen King's 'On Writing', he decided to publish his first novel 'Janus the Arrival' in 2013, having cut out the filler that bores so many readers. The sequel 'Janus the Offspring' followed in 2014 with the third part of the trilogy 'Janus the Sandlings' coming later that same year. 'Driven to Revenge' a horror/fantasy was released in 2016 with a crime thriller 'Twice Bad' featuring Detective Liberty Rock in 2017 with the sequel 'ISO Killer' released in March 2019. 2020 included 'Driven to Revenge' becoming a fantasy trilogy with a message about saving our planet, with work on a prequel to the two Liberty Rock Thrillers now underway. A comedy about UK Telephone Engineers will eventually arrive, but this will need to be reviewed with past colleagues in an English pub, prior to release in 2021. Stephen dislikes stories where you can always guess what happens next, so he tends to twist the plot in order to shake up the reader by calling on his love of books, films to gain new ideas. Stephen currently lives in London with his wife and has drawn on good and bad encounters in the business world and life in general. He remains very passionate about encouraging others to read and write and hopes you enjoy his works as well as he enjoys creating them. For further information, please visit: Facebook: Novels by Stephen Harding https://twitter.com/LexxyJanus

Book preview

TWICE BAD

Stephen Harding

TWICE BAD

Copyright: Stephen Harding

Published: November 2017

Publisher: Stephen Harding

The right of Stephen Harding to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher.

You must not circulate this book in any format.

Once again, I would like to dedicate this to all those people who’ve supported me on my ventures so far.... You should still know who you are.

I’d also like to give a special thanks to all those who have provided me with excellent feedback on my writing and continuously ask for more.... I suggest you seriously look at getting some professional help.....

Thanks to Paul R Adams, who I was a school with so many moons ago. I visited him in Macedonia at the beginning of 2016, and he totally believed in me, loved my books and redesigned all of the covers as design is what he does for a living. Bless you Paul, and all the new friends I made out in Skopje.

Thanks to all of those in ‘Jean’s Café in Berrylands for being there, for the wonderful coffee and being such nice people.

Another thanks to Donna and Melissa at Wandgas who helped me with the decision to change the gender of the main character, as I’d heard how male domination in films needs to change when listening to a discussion on the radio.

My exceptional proof readers: Jason, Sarah, Peter and Michelle whose time and efforts are appreciated more than they can ever imagine.

Finally, thanks to the real Liberty Rock whose name I fell in love with on the first day I met her. She will go on to bigger and better things in the business world or whatever she decides to do with her life as she has just about everything going on for her – Go for its Lib’s.....

Also, by the same author:

THE JANUS TRILOGY

Comprising of

JANUS - The Arrival

JANUS - The Offspring

JANUS - The Sandlings

Other books

THE DRIVEN to REVENGE TRILOGY

Comprising of

DRIVEN to REVENGE

FEAR & VENGEANCE

AFTERMATH

Thrillers featuring Liberty Rock

––––––––

LIBERTY ROCK

TWICE BAD

ISO KILLER

––––––––

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Facebook: Novels by Stephen Harding

https://twitter.com/LexxyJanus

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

PROLOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

It didn’t exactly help a great deal that I was completely restricted and unable to move. Whether that was due to the endless number of drugs that had been pumped into my body as I lay on the stretcher when they first came to my aid, or whether it was something more serious, I was yet to be informed. I can certainly say that I was well and truly suffering, that was for sure. The pain was incredibly intense and it hurt like merry hell. Well at least until the next lot of drugs decided to do what it was they needed to do then finally start to kick in with a vengeance. This must have looked quite obvious on my face as the handsome, young male paramedic who stood in his blue overalls right beside my hospital bed, took a quick look down then gave me one of those knowing smiles before walking over to say something to his female colleague. She also looked to be quite attractive from what I could make out, and I wondered if she was maybe a trainee or something along those lines.

It was weird watching them just standing there and seeing their mouths moving around. They formed different shapes with each word as they spoke to each other, yet nothing seemed to make any sense to me at all. Not long after, the male paramedic finally came back to ask me something. Yet rather bizarrely it all remained totally silent as I couldn’t hear a bloody word he was saying. I just lay there looking up and feeling extremely frustrated as I tried to read his lips but still couldn’t make out a single thing. I may as well have been on another planet for all I cared.

I did recall later that day, that I’d been shot in a street outside a restaurant in some place or another. Yet with all that was going on around me right there and then, I somehow suspected I wasn’t quite dead just yet, especially as I didn’t remember seeing my life start to flash before my eyes, any bright lights, tunnels or angels of any description. From what I understood about such things, they were the usual protocols you’d go through before you eventually snuffed it. In all honesty, I’d always suspected that I’d be going downstairs where the temperature would be much hotter due to the life I’d led, especially during the latter part. I would most likely be one of those failures who’d probably have to see out the rest of my days shovelling coal with Old Nick looking over my shoulder all the time, although from what I’d read about hell and damnation, I would have expected my innings to be slightly longer than most peoples. Oh Well! Someone would have to keep the fires burning down there and I suddenly wondered what the wages would be like? Cue the pun for something about the wages of sin.

I guess I must have dozed off for a while because time had moved on without me having any sort of say in the matter, plus it looked quite dark outside when I eventually managed to wake up. There was a window just over on the opposite side of the room that gave me a decent view of some swaying treetops lit up by what I classed as a concentrated beam of moonlight. That was when I realised that I’d happened to lift my head a little in order to take a look, and therefore my worst fears about having been totally paralysed from being shot now appeared to be rather worthless. The other good news was that I could hear again, although clapping my hands together to check it out had certainly pissed off the woman in the bed next to mine.

It was only much later that afternoon when the doctor who was in charge appeared in person beside my bed. He certainly maintained a good handshake which nearly took my flipping hand off in the process. The man did apologise however, and I estimated that he was probably in about the same sort of age bracket as me. That placed him in his mid-fifties, although he looked at least ten years younger, due to the fact that he more than likely worked out in a gym on a regular basis from what I could make out. He was I guess what some people would have described as ruggedly handsome in one way or another. He also had deep set eyes that were full of mystery and maintained a firm jaw line that was filled with greyish stubble in places.  He was dressed in his white doctor’s coat with a blue shirt showing underneath along with a pair of black chino’s worn with black suede shoes that added a definite touch of class to the man who stood over me looking very much in charge.

He introduced himself as Dr Jason and explained that I’d been very lucky indeed. As he went into more and more detail, it appeared that if the bullet had entered one millimetre more to the right, then I’d definitely be lying somewhere in a morgue right now. According to him, I must have had an angel looking over me at the time. Apparently, and of course this made a lot of sense in the way that he then went on to explain it; a bullet fired from a gun at such close range tends to be fairly hot when passing through a person’s body. Thus, it has the ability to cauterise the bleeding as it travels on the way through, which is exactly what had happened in my case. What he’d actually said word for word was ‘As the bullet entered your chest and travelled from the front to the back; by rights it should have generated a deadly shockwave that would have obliterated all the tissue within a radius of several inches from its original trajectory and thereby caused your heart to rupture. The bullet should have then travelled on a bit further and struck your backbone at an angle before making a clean exit from your back following the ricochet. However, in your case, this angel I mentioned must have carried on acting as it then impacted with a button on your coat which deflected it slightly downwards and over to the left. It appears this then travelled in a pathway between your ribs, just missing the intercostal muscles and the main nerve that runs between them before ending up incredibly close to your spinal column.’ He stopped at that point and checked to see if I had anything I needed to ask before continuing on. ‘I might add that there have also been a few studies on the subject in recent years which suggests that patients who sustain a gunshot wound to their spine do not need to undergo bullet removal as it’s not routinely necessary any longer.’ Following that explanation, he’d made it quite clear that it would have been far too risky to have removed the projectile from where it had lodged in his professional opinion, and that’s what he’d decided at the time. Apparently, it had become embedded fairly deep in the surrounding tissue within my body and could possibly have ended up causing quite a bit of unwanted damage to my spinal cord or possibly some of the neighbouring blood vessels if he’d gone any further. The other possibility was that it could have splintered or broken up during what had always been classed as a rather risky operation. On the other hand, there was always the chance that given time, the bullet may well decide to work its way quite safely out of my body which could prove to be either months or many years later. That didn’t sound the most promising thing I wanted to hear, but he did go into much further detail about having cleaned it all up as he’d removed a few fibres from my clothing that would have caused big issues if they’d been left to become infected over time. When I asked him if I should be worried about lead poisoning in any way, he assured me that this was very rare nowadays. Apparently, there was always the prospect of removing the bullet at a later date if it became too troublesome for me in any way. For now, the course of treatment would basically consist of me being treated with parenteral antibiotics with the first five days having already involved a course of broad-spectrum antibiotics in order to minimise the chances of any infectious complications. 

The guy came across as really caring, and it didn’t seem to be anything to do with me being in the police force at all. Naturally, he wouldn’t be doing what he was doing if he wasn’t any good at it and I guessed that a hospital with the reputation that this one was reputed to have they would only be employing the crème de la crème, and why not? It made perfect sense.

Dr Jason truly seemed to care and spent quite a bit of time talking about what had gone on from the time I’d first been admitted. Evidently, the PC who’d chased the culprit but unfortunately lost him had returned to where I lay then given me CPR until the paramedics had arrived on the scene. It was fortunate that he’d used a defibrillator, which luckily for me just happened to be close by. You could typically guarantee that these were nowhere in sight when you usually wanted one, although luckily the ambulance was fully equipped and held everything that was needed at the time. The angels were definitely by my side on that day; that was for certain.

It later transpired, following some sort of test results that had been carried out on me later in the hospital, that there was full confirmation that my heart had stopped for a very short time before the officer had finally managed to get back to me and manage to save my life. That breaking news certainly made me realise how much of our standard police training was so important to all of us. It also forced me to understand what idiots some of us could be, especially when we scoffed at the courses on offer, suggesting that some of them were a complete waste of time as we’d much rather be out chasing criminals as part of our regular day job.

I could have shaken my head in disbelief, but I knew that that would hurt and be a really silly thing to do right then. That was when certain elements of the shooting suddenly came back to me in a vague attempt to try and piece things together. I could picture certain parts of it quite clearly, but others remained a little patchier in places. My brain was obviously working okay from what I could establish, which was certainly a bonus from where I was laying and staring up at the ceiling. What ruined my train of thought then, for some completely unknown and bizarre reason best known to itself, was that I was thinking about all the crappy paperwork that would be sitting there waiting for me once I was finally up and running again. There was no doubt whatsoever that there would be an entire stream of endless reports flying this way and that, with some of them having to go through the whole rigmarole of moving back and forth on a regular basis for approval. On the whole, this meant they’d have to be reviewed by someone further up the chain of command before full authorisation would eventually be given and any further follow-up actions allowed to go ahead, if and when required. It was basic police protocol that, no matter where you sat in the food chain, you always had to abide by the rules according to where you sat in the pecking order, unless of course, you happened to be called Dirty Harry; or I guess, Dirty Harriet my case. The force was so damned large that whatever rank you happened to be at or had made it to, one way or another, there’d always be someone more senior than you. I certainly hadn’t done too badly over the years, having left school and done my time on the beat whilst treading the streets around the Putney and Fulham areas of London. Fortunately, I’d been very good at what I did and had a natural gift for spotting clues that others seemed to miss completely. Eventually, I finally made it to the homicide squad and became Detective Inspector Liberty Rock before progressing to the post of Detective Chief Inspector, or DCI for short.

To cap it all, I’d like to report that I had a pretty impressive success rate to my name at the time, so where the hell had it all gone so badly wrong?

CHAPTER 1

Even as he grew older, Colin Glover still remained a loner. He never looked or thought about any other people, but the one girl who’d caught his eye happened to have quite a few painstaking issues of her own. Her name was Denise Caitlin and she lived on the estate that was across the other side of the road from the one that he currently lived on. She had the most amazing long, blonde hair, and in his eyes she was incredibly beautiful. Her figure was more on the slim side but fairly well-proportioned in all of the right places, which was partly her downfall as well. She wasn't exactly the brightest spark on the block, and that was why the boys in the local gang had started to use and abuse her whenever they wanted. It was common knowledge that one of the abandoned garages over at the back of the estate had a mattress set up in it, in order for it to become some sort of knocking shop. This was where they tended to share her and take it in turns to have their way with her, as and when they pleased. He'd even heard the goings on inside for himself a few times when passing by on a couple of occasions. The moaning and the screams had been quite loud, and he’d even taken a slight beating for being what the gang classed as having gotten a little bit too close for comfort in one instance. 

As expected, Colin wasn’t exactly best pleased, and swore that he’d get even with them one day, especially when he saw her walking along one evening with a nasty black eye that was accompanied by a nasty looking cut just above her left eyebrow. She also looked very pale and almost zombie-like to the point that she didn’t seem to have a clue as to what day it was. Maybe they’d drugged her up, and he certainly wouldn’t have put that past them. As a group, they were more than capable of doing such spiteful things, especially if it made life easier for all of them. He’d even followed her a few times and tried to make conversation, but that had never led anywhere, and he wasn’t even sure if she knew who he was, despite having introduced himself to her each time.

It was just simply a matter of time he supposed, and he needed to plan the whole thing a little bit like a military operation if he was aiming to get anywhere with her. As it was, Colin kept his ear very close to the ground by listening out for any news that he could gather as he lurked about trying not to stand out like a sore thumb on the Danson Estate. Fortunately, this paid off really well one day, as he soon discovered there was to be a party at one of the gang member’s houses just a week later. This was expected to be taking place on the following Saturday night, as apparently his parents were off to Spain for a few weeks without him, thereby leaving him with the whole place all to himself. Colin also managed to find out that the guy had already started inviting most of his mates, but there was no way that he’d be likely to receive a formal invite, especially as hell was more likely to freeze over before that ever happened. Therefore, as part of his preparation for what he already had planned at the back of his mind, Colin started to spy on the comings and goings of Gary Ferguson, the main gang leader, who was more commonly known as Fergie by his mates. During this time, Colin also uncovered that he was the one who seemed to have the most influence over Denise, and she seemed to do just about anything he asked, or ordered, as the case may be. The more he found out about him, the more he started to resent the guy, and therefore the urge to kill him just grew deeper and deeper as the days passed by.

Eventually, the night of the party became a reality, and Colin had deliberately dressed himself from head to toe in black clothing before making his way to the house and climbing a tree at the rear of where it stood. As planned, this overlooked the back garden and gave him an excellent view of what was going on. He’d already tested it out a few days earlier and was pretty confident that he could pull his idea off without too much fuss. He carried a small pair of binoculars with him that he’d nicked from a theatre during a school trip when he was much younger, and he was extremely pleased with the magnification it provided as the close-ups were really excellent. The binoculars also happened to fit very snugly into his trouser pocket, so were dead easy to carry around, having been very handy on quite a few occasions in the past. At first there wasn’t too much going on, as more and more people arrived and sorted out what they wanted to drink in the kitchen where all the booze was stored. A selection of pre-recorded music blasted out from the living room speakers and small groups gathered about the place and looked to be chatting quite happily. Colin stayed where he was and bided his time, knowing that it would take quite a while for the drinks to take effect. Sure enough, about an hour and a half later, there were signs of people dancing with their voices getting louder and louder as the back door was finally opened up to let some fresh air in. It was probably getting extremely hot inside the place, and Colin didn’t really envy them at all. A few party goers stepped out onto the paved patio in the back garden to have a smoke, and one couple even had a bit of an argument which ended with the girl getting really loud mouthed and swearing like a trooper at a guy who eventually turned around and stormed back inside to a hail of jeers. Not long after, she followed him back in, then Colin caught site of two familiar figures stepping outside, crossing the garden and disappearing out of the back gate before heading over in his direction. At first, he wondered if they’d seen him, but Gary and Denise were deep in conversation and soon passed by totally unaware of his presence as they headed down to the river by the woods behind the last house at the far end of the estate.

Colin gave them a decent amount of time before climbing down from the tree, stretching his legs at the bottom in order to get the blood flowing again then following the route they’d just taken. He was used to keeping quiet and sticking strictly to the shadows, having stalked quite a few people over the years. As he grew closer to the river, he was particularly careful where he trod and moved stealthily towards the noise that he could hear being made just ahead of him. It was no great surprise to find Gary with his trousers around his ankles with Denise being held up against a tree while he pumped away at her and sucked noisily on her bared left breast. He watched for a short while, knowing that he had to act fairly quickly as he felt one of his jealous rages start to descend. Colin leant down and picked up a heavy looking branch that he’d noticed nearby. This looked like it could possibly do some damage, and so sneaking up behind Gary, who sounded like he was close to shooting his load, Colin watched as Denise suddenly spotted him and went all wide eyed yet didn’t utter a single word. Mustering up all his inner strength, Colin took a big swing and hit the boy with full force. Gary collapsed almost immediately with a huge gash showing at the side of his head. The sound of the wood connecting with the side of his skull had reverberated really loudly, and Colin was pretty sure he'd killed him right there and then. Denise just stood there shaking at first. She had a load of blood dripping down from a gap were her left nipple had just been, while Colin’s eyes unsurprisingly moved down and focused on her fully exposed pubic area. He hadn’t allowed for her to become injured or for the girl to attack him at that moment. Her nails caught him and then started digging deep into his arm, while she flailed around in panic with her eyes all wild and staring like some crazed monster. That was really not what was supposed to have happened and he’d half expected her to have seen him as her saviour and been all over him, while thanking him and seeming ever so grateful at his actions. In an instant that he later looked back at and regretted, he suddenly started to get very angry with her. Colin reached out and grabbed at her with force as they were both sent off balance, before hitting the ground together and rolling forward towards the water’s edge. Before he’d even realised what he was doing, Colin found that he was holding her head under the surface of the water and swearing that he hadn’t meant to hurt her. Denise fought back hard at first and even managed to raise her head a little. She then opened her mouth and tried her best to suck in a little bit of air, but unfortunately she only managed to find more water. The woman totally panicked and started to kick out randomly. Sadly, this was to no avail as she felt her brain start to fog up as it slowly became deprived of oxygen. Her efforts eventually grew weaker and weaker as a terrifying darkness began to descend, while Colin seemed to be out of it altogether and just held her under until she was no longer breathing any longer. Admittedly, she’d put up quite a fight for a good while, but he was easily the stronger of the two and had certainly used that to his full advantage. Once the red mist had eventually settled, and he came back to full reality, the fresh, young murderer realised he desperately needed to cover his tracks as soon as possible. Taking a moment to ensure he’d washed his prints off the branch, Colin then grabbed up the dead woman’s limp hand and placed it quite firmly in the place where his had been just a few moments before. He then set about lining the pair of them up together and setting them to float by pushing both bodies further out into the main flow of the water before attempting to leave the crime scene. Looking back, it really annoyed him that both bodies had managed to somehow drift together and look a little bit like they were holding hands. Next, he deliberately scuffed his feet carefully around the exact area where it had all taken place, just to ensure he left no distinct footmarks behind that may become traceable at a later date. He then took one final glance back at his handiwork, just to double check as he began to move away and carefully make his way back out through the dense undergrowth that rarely got cut back and attended to by the council. He definitely felt no guilt, although there was a certain hint of sadness about the girl, the stupid girl who could have been his friend if she’d chosen to be. Yet rather surprisingly, he did begin to feel some sort of emotion inside. What could it possibly be? He wondered. Then it hit him straight away. The sentiment appeared to be one of joy. He'd actually enjoyed what he'd just done and now he suddenly wanted to do it all over again. He thought he’d loved her initially, he’d been captivated by her beauty, or so he thought, but in the end she was just like all the rest. She was a stranger, a complete fuck up. She was someone who never would have understood him or even come anywhere close for that matter. He’d simply been fooling himself into a false sense of expectation, and it was obviously never meant to be, at least that was how it appeared to be now.

Heedless of the branches that thrashed wildly against his face and clothing, Colin plunged ahead as the undergrowth also did its best to snag at him and obstruct his progress as he passed on by. Unperturbed, he moved extremely fast and wove automatically in and out between the thick, sporadic clumps of shrubbery that attempted to make his life as hard as it possibly could. Moving as fast as he could, the boy could really feel the pounding of his heart beating deep inside his chest, yet he was also unconsciously keeping pace with it as he carried on running from the place. With adrenalin coursing through his body, Colin then gathered a last burst of speed as he approached the clearing he so badly sought. Then, just as he was close to leaving the very last section of the woods, his mind began to race and become muddled. He momentarily lost all concentration on where he was heading, then all of a sudden a wild bramble from a nearby hedge flicked up rather unexpectedly and caught him firmly with a hollow thud in the side of his right thigh.

'Fuck!' he shouted, automatically putting his hand down to see if there was any sign of torn clothing or his own blood all. Fortunately, there didn't appear to be, but it certainly hurt quite a bit. Paying much more attention to where he was going from then on, he immediately moved through the overgrown bracken more cautiously before heading on up onto a slight ramp then finally coming across the main pathway with its rather familiar looking road.

It had also helped that there’d been no witnesses anywhere around at the time, as he’d have had no other option than to make sure that they’d also been disposed of if they’d spotted him up to no good. As per his usual way of moving about, Colin stuck to the shadows as best he could. He steadily made his way back home using the most secluded areas of the Danson estate as possible. Yet as he walked away, taking a much more secure route back around to his house, he started to think about all the possible ways he could have got rid of anyone who might have seen him murdering Gary and Denise down by the water. As it was, the place was a complete maze of underground garages and passageways for the most part, and therefore, he felt quite confident that no one had seen him. Sneaking back indoors as quietly as a cat, he immediately got undressed and dumped his clothes directly on the floor at the far end before climbing into the comfort of his bed. Colin Glover, the new killer on the block slept incredibly well with his parents completely unaware that he'd even been outside at all.

In the morning when he’d awoken and made his way straight into the shower in a somewhat zombie like fashion, Colin immediately discovered a slightly raised, bright red mark which on further investigation finally uncovered a long, angry looking thorn embedded deep in his side. Digging this out rather recklessly from under the skin just at the top of his thigh, and not showing any sign of worry about