See Them Die (Haunted From Within Book One) A Gripping Psychological Thriller

By Ian C.P. Irvine

A psychological thriller like no other you have read before!

Get inside the head of a serial killer, follow in his footsteps, and then help stop him before he kills again! Fast paced, exciting, and forcing you to turn the pages into the small hours of the night. You won’t be able to put this one down!

When Peter Nicolson, an investigative reporter with a leading Scottish newspaper, starts to see visions of unsolved killings committed by a murderer that no one has ever caught, he sets out to solve the murders, to track down the killer, and find out the truth behind his visions.

In Peter's vision, there are seven knives. So far, there have only been six murders. Can he solve the case before a seventh life is taken? If he can't, who will be last to die?

But as he uncovers a trail of death that stretches across the United Kingdom and Europe, the eyes of a powerful global company watch his actions from afar, anxious that he will uncover the incredible truth behind their new drug treatment, and they conspire to make sure he does not succeed in revealing it to the world.

The Haunted From Within Series culminates in a surprise ending that few will predict.

Once you have finished the book, the author encourages you to go online, and find out the truth for yourself. And when you discover the truth, it will make you question the meaning of life itself...and want to tell all your friends!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian C.P. Irvine
• Release date: Jan 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9780463241899

Ian C.P. Irvine

Ian Irvine was brought up in Scotland, and studied Physics for far too many years, before travelling the world working for high-technology companies. Ian has spent a career helping build the internet and delivering its benefits to users throughout the world,...as well as helping to bring up a family. Ian enjoys writing, painting and composing in his spare time. His particular joy is found in taking scientific fact and creating a thrilling story around it in such a way that readers learn science whilst enjoying the thrill of the ride. It is Ian's hope that everyone who reads an Ian.C.P.Irvine novel will come away learning something interesting that they would never otherwise have found an interest in. Never Science fiction. Always science fact. With a twist.The first of Ian's novels is a Genetic Conspiracy Thriller which explores the world of Stem Cell Research and encourages us all to ask some very searching questions about the advances that science is making, and how much we, or others, should let it affect society. A contemporary adventure, "The Orlando File" takes the reader around the world and back, and creates a unique moral dilemma that the reader cannot help get embroiled in: at the end, the reader must ask themself, what they would do in that situation?"The Orlando File" asks many questions, one in particular being, will advances in technology that extend our lifespans be limited to the rich and only those who can afford it? This is one of the main questions that is asked in the new Justin Timberlake film "In Time". "The Orlando File" does not give an answer to these questions, but encourages the reader to debate the question and provide their own response.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Part One

Prologue

Maciek’s Story: Preparation.

England.

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A knife is a beautiful thing. Precise. Gleaming. Bewitching. An object of desire. Maciek had seven knives. Five had already been used. Once each. Proving their worth and earning their place in his collection. And tonight another one would lose its virginity and join its brothers in the display case above his bed.

He had bought it in Kraków on his last visit to his mother's grave in Poland. The moment he had seen it, he had fallen in love with it and he knew, instinctively, that this would be the one. Its blade was larger than the others, the hilt more ornate, the edges thinner and sharper. When he had held it for the first time, it balanced so perfectly in his hand that somehow he felt as if he had bonded with it. He had since wondered if he had chosen the knife, or the knife had chosen him.

When he had paid the ex-army officer the bargain price of 100 zloty...twenty pounds in his new money...he knew he had got a bargain. This was not a knife you could buy anywhere today. It was better quality. Heavier. Sexier. Maciek hated the Nazis, all Poles did, but he had to admit that the SS knives were some of the best. Wonderful killing machines. Pure. Perfect.

The owner had promised him that it had never been used, insisting that it had been taken from a prisoner seventy years ago only moments before they shot him, still gleaming from the factory. The history of the knife helped add to the sexual arousal that Maciek felt whenever he held it in his hands, polishing the blade, sharpening the edge. Preparing it. Imagining the moment.

.

Maciek had never killed a man before. Until now, he had only ever killed women. Tonight would be his first time. It would be special. A moment that he would never forget as long as he lived.

He wanted it to be perfect. He needed it to be perfect.

Not only because men were stronger, and because potentially there was more risk, but simply because it wasn’t often in your life that you got the opportunity to do something like this for the first time. And once it was over, there would be no opportunity to repeat it. The ‘first time’ only happened 'once'. It had to be worthy of the occasion and worth savouring.

.

There was one little thing that worried Maciek. It had caused him to ponder and question what he was about to do and made him question the use of the knife, –not the act of killing-, but rather the choice of weapon.

He enjoyed killing. It aroused him. Knives aroused him. The combination was perfect.

What worried Maciek was whether or not he would get aroused when killing a man.

On reflection he had realised that whilst he did enjoy killing, perhaps it was not purely the killing he enjoyed, but rather the act of killing ‘women’. Each time he had done it, the sense of power, of dominance, the smell of fear from his victims,...the musk of death...he found it all intoxicating.

But when killing a man, he was not sure whether or not that was what he wanted. Maciek was not a homosexual. And it concerned him perhaps that holding and killing with the knife might arouse him.

He shook his head, blinked and focussed on the blade again. He ran the millstone along its edge one more time and listened to the whirl the action made...that slight, almost imperceptible sound that told him the blade was honed to perfection. Sharp as could be. Ready to take a life.

.

Maciek breathed in deeply, and he felt his pulse quicken. He felt the first signs of arousal developing within his groin.

Then he smiled.

Perhaps it may not be so bad after all. He knew he was going to enjoy it.

Peter’s Story

ASBO Land

Edinburgh, Scotland

.

Six Months Before

Tuesday, 7 p.m.

March

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.

In comparison to how it was ten years before, the housing estate on the edge of the city was now almost unrecognisable. The council had done a wonderful job of transforming the run down and derelict council houses into homes that the residents could be proud of.

Every time Peter drove around the Craigmillar Housing estate just on the edge of Edinburgh, he had flashbacks to his youth, and how it used to look. There was simply no comparison. Outwardly the council appeared to have done a wonderful job.

But appearances were deceiving.

Unfortunately, where as fresh paint and new roof tiles had transformed buildings, social funding from the Eurozone had done little to transform the hearts and minds of some of the inhabitants. Outwardly they may appear different, but inwardly, a small group of undesirables remained rotten to the core.

Peter turned a corner, drove ten metres down the road and parked outside the bright green door. Mr Wallace, the seventy year old pensioner who lived inside was a good man. Not like his young neighbours. Mr Wallace had dedicated his life to the army, had fought for his country in Korea, and served his fellow man. Now old and infirm, the youths that lived in the street and terrorised his life had no idea who he was or how brave a life he had lived. To them he was just 'an old wee gadgy' and they took great pleasure in making the remainder of his days hell.

Scum, Mr Wallace described them over coffee. Pure bloody scum! It duzzny matter how many times I call the coonsel, naebidy cares.

And sadly, Mr Wallace was probably right. For some, joy riding stolen cars around the estate on Friday and Saturday nights had once again become the ‘coolest thing’ to do on the planet, and the local police never did anything about it.

To be fair, it wasn’t that the police didn’t care. They did. But resources were finite, and other parts of the city which were more visible to Edinburgh’s billion pound tourist industry simply demanded more attention.

Until recently the police even had a fully manned police station on the outskirts of the estate, but government cutbacks recently forced the station to close.

So the decent folk of Craigmillar were left to fend for themselves, and fight a losing battle with the new generation of unemployed youths and designer drugs.

A story being told in almost every city in Scotland and England.

A war which few had the resources to fight, but a plight which the Evening News and Peter, a local reporter, had chosen to highlight. Which is why, over the past few months, Peter had been getting to know the local inhabitants and writing a series of articles which focused on their lives, the struggles they faced, and the potential that existed for and within their community, if only the council and the police would finally sort the problem out.

Bastards!...Every fucking night...ye cannie get a wink o’sleep ‘cos of them wee shites! Mr Wallace said, starting to describe the latest mayhem that the ‘wee bastards’ had been wreaking on the estate.

As a reporter Peter felt that it was his job to report the facts. Unlike some other reporters that quite consciously put a spin on their copy so that it biased the reader into a suggested opinion, over the past twelve years Peter had until now managed to maintain his journalistic integrity and impartiality. But events on the Craigmillar estate in recent months were testing him to the limit. Joy riding, especially when done by a ‘wee shite withoot a driver’s licence or any insurance’ had always made Peter mad. Peter simply could not understand the lenient sentences that magistrates repeatedly handed down to first and second offenders who were caught red-handed behind the wheel of a stolen car. Some even driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. To Peter the case was clear cut: a car is a potential killing machine, and when not operated correctly, ...it kills. Any person caught driving a car illegally, without insurance, or found in a state not fit to drive, should automatically receive the toughest sentence available. Which, to Peter, meant that when a joyrider hits someone else or another car, that the charge should automatically escalate to ‘attempted murder, manslaughter, or murder’. Why could no one else see that?

Two weeks ago a joyrider had stolen a car from just outside the estate, driven down to Portobello, gone through the barrier and driven it along the promenade beside the beach.

A boy cycling in the opposite direction was hit, propelled from his bike into a wall, and had broken his back. He died thirty minutes later in an ambulance.

The joyrider, or joyriders, hadn’t stopped, and had driven back to Craigmillar where the car was found burning an hour later.

No one had yet been charged.

Since then Peter’s interest in the social problems of Craigmillar had intensified. Events had made it personal. And now, more than ever, he wanted to weave his way into the world within the estate and learn about its problems and issues, and uncover everything he could about the gangs or ‘teams’ or ‘crews’ who were destroying the lives of the other decent residents. He was going to do his best to help get the correct level of political focus on the estate and its issues from the Scottish parliament. What had started out just as a story had grow in personal importance, and he was determined to help make a difference.

All he needed was to find a local who was willing and brave enough to talk. To tell him what he knew. To expose and name the ringleaders and help justice take its course.

Perhaps Mr Wallace, an ex-army infantry man, would be just that man.

Chapter 2

Big Wee Rab's (stolen) car

Craigmillar, Edinburgh

Six Months Before

March

7.15 p.m.

.

.

Big Wee Rab sat outside in the stolen Saab, watching the green door further down the street. There were four others from his crew sitting in the car with him, all shouting their suggestions of what they should do with the reporter from the News when they caught him.

Stick him, suggested Tam for the hundredth time tonight. It wasn't the most original idea, but one which Tam seemed to be quite sure would be the solution to the problem. Fucking bastard deserves it....I say we fucking knife the bastard. Tonight. Right here...We'll fair show the rest of the eggits frae the News that naebady, an' I mean naebady, should fuckin shaw their faces roond here again!

Big Wee Rab was inclined to agree with him...not about the knifing part, but about making an example.

It's nae a bad idea, Tam. Ne'er mind 'boot the knifing though. I mind there's a better way...C'mon boys, what's our 'Team' called? Think, you morons. Think!

Big Wee Rab turned in his car seat, puffing deeply on the spliff and blowing the smoke into Tam's face. He looked at the others sitting in the back seat, watching how they automatically leaned towards him in expectation of his next words and a show of leadership. Most of the ‘Craigmillar Motorised E. Crew’ could not easily be described as the brightest of the bunch. A better description would probably be 'as thick as pig-shites', but fate and poverty had drawn them all together, and Rab was doing his best to turn them into something half decent and make their Team the most feared in South-West Edinburgh.

"You know what we're called Rab. You gave us the name! Why are you asking?"

"Cos. Think about it ya we twally. We're the ‘C.M.E Team’! ... And what's the 'M' stand for?" Rab prompted them again. Slow at the best of times, it didn't help now that they were all stoned.

Motorised? Tam suggested, " 'M' is fir 'Motorised', on account o' the fact that 'We're the Team wi' the driving machines!' "

Smart fart, Rab praised Tam. Exactly... so why would we knife the cretan when we can get him wi wan o' oor motors?

Ye mean, like drive o'er the bastard? asked Jamsie enthusiastically.

"Bingo! We'll kill him wi wan o' oor motors. Squash the bastard, or something."

Or push him and his car in tae the birn or the loch. Let the bastard droon in his car.

Nae bad. Good thinking, Tam. I like that.

Sae lang as we dinnie end up in there too. I canna swim, Wee Eck added. Undoubtedly the thickest pig-shite of them all.

Davie, the quietest member of the CME Team said nothing. He never did. Mainly on account of the fact that he was always the most stoned of all of them.

.

Big Wee Rab turned back to concentrate on the green door. The reporter had been inside now for over an hour. Long enough for the old man to spill the beans and grass them all up. Rab knew it was only a matter of time before someone broke the code on the estate and gave their names to the police or the press. He also knew that if he was to make any headway in gaining some ground on the 'Boys frae Porty" gang, he would have to make a big example of someone, and soon. The Boys crew had recently been accredited with the smash-and-grab in the jewellers in Princes Street, which according to the Evening News must have netted them more than £200,000. The Big Time. An escalation in the war rankings. And Rab also knew that if he was to truly make his mark on the estate he would have to increase the level of threats and violence within Craigmillar. In spite of all the fights and the assaults, miraculously no one had yet been deliberately killed by either the Boys frae Porty...or the BFP as they liked to be called...or any of the new gangs from Meadowbank, Pilton or Seafield. The egit that had stolen a car and killed a boy while joyriding was not in his gang, even though people probably assumed he was. Strategically it was time to up the game, to make a serious impression and do some serious damage to one of the local inhabitants, and make sure that everyone knew it was done by the CME-Team.

It looked like the opportunity was about to be presented to them. If the old man grassed them up, they would kill him first, and then get rid of the reporter.

Chapter 3

A Soldier's Story

Edinburgh.

Six Months Before

March

7.25 PM

.

.

Neil Wallace pulled the curtains tightly closed, before switching on the overhead light. He didn't want anyone outside to see into his sitting room. He felt a little nervous now about what he was about to do, but the anger within him was urging him on. Someone had to do something about the bastards terrorising the estate, and if nobody else was man enough, he would do it himself. Even if it was the last battle he fought.

Neil had been in several wars, had seen his fair share of misery and despair, and over the past year life on the estate had become like living in one of the war zones he used to frequent professionally. But this was peace time. This was Scotland. And this was his home.

The old man sat down and relaxed back in his favourite brown armchair.

Thanks for letting me speak to you, Mr Wallace, the reporter began. I think you know that I'm on your side. I just want to help everyone who lives here to get back some quality of life. I've talked to quite a few people on the estate...I know what's going on, but no one is willing to tell me who is behind it all. I was hoping that maybe, if you felt comfortable...

Dinnie worry son, Mr Wallace interrupted. I know what you want. A story. Something sensational that will help you sell the News. I winnie disappoint you...

No, actually, you are wrong. That’s not what this is all about, the reporter from the News immediately replied. It was important that the Craigmillar Community all understood that he really was doing this to try and help. Making news was secondary to his desire to raising awareness of Craigmillar’s social problems and exposing the villains who were making victims of the innocent people of the community. This is personal. Two weeks ago a young cyclist in Portobello was killed by a joyrider from this estate. The Police have not been able to find out who did it, but I know that someone here knows who did. And whereas they might not want to talk to the police, perhaps I can get them to talk to me.

And why do you care sae much, Mr...sorry son, what did you say yir name wis? Mr Wallace asked, leaning forward in his chair, scrutinising the reporter's face.

Peter, ...it's Peter Nicolson.

And why do you care sae much... Mr Wallace asked again. Because if you are asking me to tell you wit this is all aboot and risk my neck in dain so, I certainly want to understand yir motivation!

It was a fair question. And one that went right to the core of Peter's crusade against the street gangs and the scum who destroyed the lives of the other decent people in their community.

Peter cast his mind back a few years. The smell of flowers that filled the crematorium; the sound of tears, mostly his mothers and his own, and a coffin at the front of the church with his favourite photograph of his twenty two year old brother placed on top of the brown coffin lid.

Like I said. It's personal. Very personal. My brother was killed by a gang on the streets of Glasgow. Accidentally knifed one Friday night when two street gangs went head-to-head against each other in the city centre. An innocent man, whose life was ruined by the same type of scum who are now beginning to take a foothold in Craigmillar again. Last week someone died because of them. If we don't do something, someone else will die again...and I want to help stop that from happening...

A loud crash suddenly deafened them, and the window behind Peter's head smashed inwards, the glass and a large rock being caught in mid-air by the curtain and then dropping noisily to the floor.

Both Peter and Mr Wallace jumped to their feet, and moved away from the window, Peter automatically stepping in front of the old man.

The bastards! Mr Wallace shouted. The wee shites!...

Recovering his senses, Peter stepped quickly through the door into the hallway, opened up the front door and rushed outside into the street.

A tall hooded youth stood on the other side of the road a hundred yards away. He looked at Peter. Looked directly at him. Then slowly but deliberately bent down and climbed into the car parked beside him.

It drove off into the dark, before Peter could decide what to do.

.

--------------------

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It was a warning. Mr Wallace said from his armchair, as Peter walked back into the room. They're warning me off. Telling me no to tell ye onything. But I'll be buggered if them wee shites are gonnie scare me. The wee toads.

And who are they, Mr Wallace, Peter asked, as he walked to the window, and peered behind the curtain to look at the broken window and the glass on the carpet beneath. And who was the big hooded youth that I saw standing on the other side of the road when I ran outside?

Tall lanky lad, o'er six foot? Mr Wallace asked.

Yes.

That'll be Big Wee Rab then, Mr Wallace said with conviction. He's the wan ye want. He's the biggest bastard o' them all. Big Wee Rab. Big on account o' the fact that he ain't so wee anymore. Not like he was four years ago when 'Wee' Rab was the smallest shite o' them all.

Chapter 4

Big Wee Rab's Car

Craigmillar, Edinburgh

Six Months Before

March

.

.

The anger surged within Big Wee Rab, and Rab nurtured it, allowing it to grow and consume him. It made him mad to think that as they sat outside waiting, the old man Mr Wallace was sitting inside his house giving the reporter from the Evening News all the information he needed: grassing them all up, and dishing the dirt on himself and his gang.

And if Mr Wallace then also agreed to help the Police, Rab could be in for some real trouble.

Rab knew that if he wanted to turn the CME Team into something far more than it already was, an example had to be made. And he knew that this was something he had to do himself, and soon. At the same time, he knew that what he was about to do had to be visible, both to all the members of his gang, and to the residents of the Craigmillar Estate. They had to know that it was him that had done this.

The anger would be his friend, and would accompany him in the car as he did the deed. It would help him overcome the nerves that he felt, and guide him along the path of his destiny.

If things worked out, and his Team grew, maybe they would soon be able to challenge the idiots from Portobello, and then take them over.

‘Perfect!’ The death of the Evening News reporter would be a stepping stone to far greater things.

But to make sure that the others didn't back out and grass him up, Rab knew that in some way they had to be made accomplices to the crime. It would also allow them to share the euphoria afterwards, when the word got out. They would feel part of it, as if Rab's victory was somehow also theirs. That was it...they had to look at this as some sort of team bonding exercise.

Deciding to share out the tasks, Rab instructed the others in the car that when he went after the reporter, two of them would have to go after old Mr Wallace.

Dinnie kill him, like...just scare the fucking shit oot of him. Push him aboot a little, ken, then brake a few windies or something... Rab told them. As soon as the gobshite frae the News comes oot, I'll follow him and then ram him in his car and push him in tae the loch as we go roond the corner tae Duddingston. Hopefully he'll droon in the car when he goes in tae the loch!

It seemed like quite a good plan.

Rab would wait a hundred metres up the road from the house, pointing his car in the direction that the reporter would take in order to leave the estate. He would follow him out as he left, making sure that he was just behind the reporter's car as he turned the corner towards Duddingston.

Ahead of them the road would then lead downward towards a hairpin bend that skirted around the edges of the deep end of Duddingston Loch. The only thing separating any cars on the road and the cold grip of the deep