Obsession: An unmissable psychological thriller

By Rob Sinclair

Fixated on her estranged sister’s death, a woman heads to the Spanish coast to conduct her own investigation—but will the truth bring her peace?

Ever since her sister, Anya, was murdered in Sotogrande, a playground for the rich, Natasha’s life has gone off the rails. After three months of poring over the details of what happened, Natasha travels to the scene of the crime where she hopes to unravel the truth—about her sister’s death and life. With no job, how did Anya end up in a multimillion-Euro apartment in one of the most exclusive areas on the continent?

The police have no suspect. Publicly, they claim the killing was likely gang-related. But their key person of interest, a local with links to organised crime, is also now dead. His fingerprints were found in Anya’s luxury apartment—but so too were the fingerprints of several others, all of whom could be suspects.

But how were these people linked to Anya? And which of them is responsible for her murder?

Praise for the novels of Rob Sinclair

“Impossible to put down.” —Publishers Weekly on Sleeper 13

“Dramatic and enjoyable.” —Between the Lines on Dance with the Enemy

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781504085847

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

NATASHA

I know I have a good memory. I’ve known since I was a young kid. I was so good at recalling facts, for example. And I could remember detailed directions to places I’d been to only once, like when we travelled by car for our family holidays. Adam used to tell me I had a photographic memory. I don’t think that’s true; I don’t know if it’s even possible, or if it is, exactly what that means. I just know that I’m really good at remembering things. Well, no, not things, but images. That’s what memories mostly are, aren’t they? People talk about remembering noises, smells, tastes, feelings even, and I get that. But my memories are more like a never-ending slide show.

When we were young kids, at Christmas, my Grandma played this game with the whole family. King’s game, she called it, though I think it was supposed to be Kim’s. She’d get one of her big serving trays – she loved serving trays – and fill it with all manner of little items from coins to corkscrews to matchsticks, and cover it all with a tea towel. We’d gather around and she’d pull back the towel and we had thirty seconds to look over the tray and remember as many of the items as we could. After that she covered it again and we’d furiously write down what we could on a piece of scrap paper.

Or the others would write furiously, at least, as though the speed helped them to remember. I wrote more calmly. More methodically. Working over the image in my head. Top to bottom, left to right. Basically copying, I guess. From the very first time we played that game, when I was five, everyone was amazed by me. I got them all right. Every single item, even if I didn’t know what they all were. Small bumpy metal thing, for my Grandma’s thimble, things like that.

Anya, two years older than me, was jealous, I could tell. My parents and aunts and uncles beamed smiles at me. As the years passed we always played that game, but the congratulations and adulations became a little more muted – everyone knew I’d remember every item on the tray. We last played when I was fourteen. Anya didn’t even take part that year. By that point she hated that her little sister was better than her at something. A lot of things.

Grandma died a few months later. I’ve never played that game since, but I still have that same knack for remembering things. For storing images in my mind.

For example, I remember everything – and I mean absolutely everything – about the moment I heard my sister, Anya, had been found murdered.

CHAPTER TWO

I was still with Adam then. We’d been together six years. We met at university in Durham, in our third year, and we both stayed in the area after graduation. Adam got a job at a tech firm in Team Valley, and I got a graduate job at an actuary firm in Newcastle. Quite a jump from chemistry, but the job fit my analytical mindset well.

We moved in together a few months after graduation, but I don’t think either of us was really ready for it. He still had his big group of laddish friends who wanted to party every weekend, and go on crude drunken holidays whenever they got the chance.

I always thought I could trust Adam, but his friends were bad influences, in my eyes at least. And I increasingly had my own issues to deal with. My parents divorced, then my mum died, which took such a toll on both me and my sister, and changed us both in ways I couldn’t possibly have foreseen – and not for the better.

Then Anya went off the grid. I’d not seen her for years. None of us had. She’d gone to Greece on a girls’ holiday not long after her twenty-fourth birthday and never returned. At the time we knew why. The problems at home had taken a toll, and to top it off she had a bad break-up with her long-time loser boyfriend, Joel. A whirlwind romance in Greece kept her out there, and although it didn’t last long, the experience set Anya on a new course in life. She was done with England, done with her life here.

Done with me.

After all those troubles, Adam became my backbone, for a while at least. Even if we had our own problems, he was the one person I depended on. Perhaps I pushed too hard with him. Put too much pressure on. I don’t think I’m a needy person, but maybe I didn’t give him enough space.

He kept telling me I was becoming stupidly jealous. Obsessively so. But I just needed someone I could rely on. Just one person in my life who’d be there for me, no matter what, and not let me down.

Was I obsessive? I didn’t think so. After all, as the saying goes, there’s no smoke without fire, right?

He’d been out that Friday night and had got home a little after 4am. He didn’t come to bed. He passed out on the sofa in the living room of our cramped apartment. I found him there at eight in the morning, snoring like a wildebeest.

I put on my gym gear and left him there. When I got home nearly two hours later, he still hadn’t moved. I tried to rouse him and all he did was grumble and turn over and mouth something unintelligible. I was pissed off by that point. I didn’t want another Saturday ruined because he found more pleasure in getting annihilated with his mates than he did in spending quality time with me. I thought about getting a bowl of water and tipping it over him. I thought about kicking him in the balls and punching that increasing paunch around his gut.

What I actually did was pick up his phone. He’d changed his PIN a few weeks before because he knew I’d been snooping – though he never told me that explicitly. Just told me to stop hassling him, to trust him; that I was paranoid.

I hadn’t yet figured out his new PIN. So instead I used his limp thumb to unlock the device, and delved into his private world.

Within seconds I wished I hadn’t.

‘Hey, arsehole!’ I shouted at him.

He didn’t even stir.

‘Are you kidding me, you piece of shit!’

He did stir. Apparently even in his hungover state my angry voice was enough to rouse him.

He groaned and propped himself on the sofa. ‘Natasha? What the hell?’ His bleary eyes looked from me to the phone in my hands. Suddenly he was alert. ‘What the fuck?’ he said.

‘Exactly.’ I tossed the phone at him. It smacked off his shoulder and bounced across the laminate floor. He went after it. As though saving his damn iPhone was the most important consideration right then. Or was it simply so he could confirm exactly what I’d seen so he could begin formulating whatever bullshit he needed to say? Most likely the latter because he spent a few seconds flicking the screen with a finger.

‘So?’ I said.

‘It’s nothing,’ he said, finding my glare. ‘Just…’

He couldn’t even think of a lame excuse.

‘Get out,’ I said.

‘Jesus, Natasha, come on.’

‘Adam, get out. Now. I don’t want to look at you.’

He grumbled and shook his head and stood from the sofa and stomped to the door. I flinched when it banged shut a few seconds later.

Then I sat down on the sofa, the spot still warm from Adam’s body, me still in my sweaty gym gear and… did nothing. I just sat. Looking at the room. Our furniture. Our knick-knacks. Our pictures on the wall. Our dirty cups on the coffee table. Our plates in the kitchen. Did any of it mean anything at all? As I sat there the images from his phone burned in my mind. I couldn’t get rid of them. Of her. Whoever the hell she was.

Like I said, I remember everything about that damn morning. I really wish I didn’t.

And then came the phone call from Dad.

CHAPTER THREE

Autumn

Nearly three months after the day that devastated my life, I stepped off a plane at Malaga airport, all alone, despite the 200 people crowding around, trying to shove their way onto the buses waiting to take us to the terminal. In the middle of the school term, the only kids were babies and toddlers, the vast majority of the other travellers older couples in their fifties, sixties, seventies. A few younger ones too, but not many. I didn’t spot anyone else at all on their own.

I didn’t have to wait for any luggage. I’d only brought a carry-on bag. I had no idea how long I was staying. If I needed more things, I’d buy them here.

I’d been to southern Spain before. Holidays with Adam. We spent three summers in a row in Andalusia. We both loved it. The coastline, the mountains, the historical cities. The strangest thing was that I hadn’t even known Anya was here too, so close to where we’d been. I’d wondered over the last three months, but particularly on the plane journey this time, whether we’d even crossed paths somehow without me realising. Was that possible? Would Anya have said anything if she’d seen me? Or would she have looked the other way?

I texted Cath, my best friend, as I waited in the queue for the hire car. Simply to tell her I’d landed, as I’d spotted a couple of missed calls from her. Five seconds later my phone was ringing and vibrating. A few heads turned my way. My cheeks flushed a little though I’m not sure why.

‘Oh, Natasha, what are you doing?’ Cath said before I’d even got a word in.

‘I told you I was coming here.’

‘I know but…’

‘What? You thought I’d back out?

‘I thought you’d see sense.’

‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘Babe, why are you beating yourself up–’

She’d said the same thing so many times to me over the last three months. She’d even suggested that my refusal to move on from Anya’s death was because of my break-up from Adam – as though I wanted or needed something to occupy my ever-busy mind.

‘I’m not beating myself up. I need to find out what happened to my sister.’

She didn’t say anything for a while. Then, ‘Does your dad know?’

I rolled my eyes. My dad. I wasn’t exactly on the best terms with him. I’d only seen him twice since we were last in Spain. The days after Anya’s murder had been without doubt the worst of my life. I’d flown out to Malaga as soon as I could. So too had Dad, on a different flight, and with his girlfriend Linda, though she’d kept well away from me. Sensible. Perhaps she saw the whole trip as an unexpected bonus holiday in the sun.

Bitch.

Dad could do what he wanted with his life, but that didn’t mean I had to agree with his choices. The biggest reason I hated Linda? Dad had an affair with her. She was the reason my parents split up. Two years later Mum died of cancer. I only found out after that she’d already been diagnosed when Dad started boning Linda.

How could I ever forgive either of them for that?

Anyway, we’d spent only two days in Spain that time. We’d been to Anya’s apartment. We’d sat in hotels and the police station and talked and talked and… achieved absolutely nothing.

We had so many questions, about both Anya’s life, and death, but the police had the exact same questions, and no one had any answers. On the advice of a lawyer my dad had hired – why, I’m not really sure – we were all soon flying back to England, Anya’s body not far behind us. I hadn’t been back to Spain since, I don’t think Dad had either, and the police investigation quickly stalled.

Drugs related. That was the official line the police had taken in relation to Anya’s murder. They had no suspect – at least they’d never announced so, either publicly or privately to us – but they believed Anya was mixed up with local gangs who were involved in drugs. A common problem in the area, apparently, given the proximity to north Africa, which made the Costa del Sol one of the primary routes for smuggling illicit drugs into Europe.

The saddest thing was, I knew so little of Anya and what she’d been doing in Spain that I really couldn’t dispute any of the police’s claims about her apparently shady life.

But three months later, with the rest of my life still in pieces, what did I have to lose in trying to find some answers?

‘I thought you couldn’t take any more time off work?’ Cath said, snapping me from my thoughts.

Work? Sod work. Everything else in my life was crap, and even if my job had good prospects – apparently – I’d had just about enough of it and the old boys’ club who ran the show.

The man in front of me wheeled his suitcase-laden trolley away. A smartly dressed woman with bright red lips smiled at me from behind the counter. ‘Hola.’

‘Sorry, Cath, I’ve got to go.’

The tiny Nissan Micra struggled to pick up speed on the motorway that rose and fell with the mountains that hugged the coast of the Costa del Sol. Still, even if progress was slow, the car would get me where I needed to be: Sotogrande. A large, privately owned residential development midway between Estepona and Gibraltar. Originally conceived as a playboy’s gated community, Sotogrande had grown to become pretty much a town in its own right. The area was home to some of the most expensive properties in the entire world, its port a regular stopping place for some of the largest and most expensive super yachts.

I’d never heard of the place before Anya’s death, and hadn’t much liked what I’d seen of it when I’d last been – lavishness and overt show of extreme wealth really wasn’t my thing – and I still had no clue how my sister had ended up there. How she’d found herself living alone in an apartment worth north of seven figures, overlooking a marina crammed with multi-million-euro yachts.

According to the police she’d had no job, which only added weight to their claims of influences from the underworld. But how and why had Anya got mixed up in a world like that? It didn’t make sense to me and I still hoped for a simpler and more likely explanation.

The end of the working day was drawing to a close as I approached my destination. Of course I hadn’t needed a satnav, and I pulled up outside the Guardia Civil station a little after 5pm. In this part of the town, or complex, or whatever Sotogrande was, there was no real hint as to the wealth that made the area tick. The buildings were all the low-rise, whitewashed, quite traditional Andalusian-style buildings that can be found in any large or small town in the region.

I stepped out of the car and crossed the street.

I didn’t understand the full details of the different police forces in Spain. My basic knowledge was that the Guardia Civil were a military-esque policing unit mainly responsible for rural areas, while the Policía Nacional took control of larger towns and cities. The main contact I had worked for the former, but the latter were also involved in Anya’s murder investigation and I didn’t have a firm understanding of who was really in charge and why two separate entities both had a hand. Did they work side by side, tactfully and efficiently, or was it more like I’d seen on countless US movies and TV series where the local police and the FBI battled over jurisdiction, often to the detriment of the job at hand?

The outer doors to the small station were security locked and I pressed the buzzer and looked to the small camera. A few moments later the lock released and I pulled the door open and stepped inside. In mid-autumn the outside temperature was pleasantly warm – certainly compared to England – and the interior felt a little cool and damp.

A sole uniformed man sat behind a desk looking bored.

‘Hola,’ I said to him. My Spanish was useless, and I knew from experience that a large proportion of residents in Sotogrande weren’t native Spanish speakers so I went straight for English after that. ‘I’m here to see Sargento Garcia.’

The man behind the desk glared at me as though I’d said something wrong. Or he hadn’t understood me. Or he just didn’t like me. Without saying a word to me he picked up his desk phone and rattled away in Spanish. After a few seconds he covered the microphone and looked to me. ‘Your name?’

‘Natasha Simonsen.’

I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes – most likely at my surname, which was the only word he spoke as he removed his hand from the receiver to carry on the conversation with whoever was on the other end.

A few moments’ pause.

‘He’ll come and see you soon. Please sit.’ He indicated to the two crappy little chairs under a pamphlet-filled corkboard.

‘Certainly. Thanks so much for your help,’ I said with overt niceness. His face didn’t even twitch.

I took my seat and waited. Ten minutes. Twenty. I resisted the urge to check my phone. For what?

Finally a door opened off to the right of the reception desk and the short, stocky man I knew as Sargento Garcia stepped out in his green uniform.

‘Miss Simonsen. This way please.’ He strode across the other side of the desk and to another door that led down a bland corridor and a minute later we were inside a worn, blue-painted interview room. I’d been in this room the last time. Perhaps they only had one. I remembered it. Remembered the shape and pattern of the myriad scratches on the walls. I’d sat staring at them last time for an age, imagining the story behind each one.

‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ Garcia said, his English good but accented, his tone formal but not unfriendly. Far more amenable than the desk guy.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I came at short notice.’

‘You’re in Spain for a holiday?’

I didn’t respond and he looked over as he took hold of the back of his chair and his face fell a little. ‘Sorry. Of course. Not a holiday. You’re here about your sister. Only… you came all this way?’

‘I thought it would be better face to face.’

He sat down and turned out his hands as though he didn’t agree. ‘How exactly can I help you?’

I took a seat across the small table and thought for a moment. ‘I want to know what you’ve found,’ I said. ‘And I want to help. That’s why I’m here.’

He looked really dubious. ‘Miss Simonsen–’

‘Natasha. Please.’

‘Okay. But, there’s really not much I can tell you that I haven’t said before.’

‘Because you don’t know anything new, or you’re not allowed to tell me?’

He didn’t answer. Though I didn’t really give him much time. ‘It’s been three months,’ I said. ‘Are you even still investigating?’

The slight delay – again – told me a lot.

‘It’s an active investigation,’ he said.

‘But?’

‘But?’

‘I think you were about to say but,’ I told him.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘It’s an active investigation? So you’ve been working on it today?’

‘Today? No, but–’

‘Okay, so there’s the but.’

‘Sorry?’

‘But what?’

He frowned. I wasn’t intentionally trying to aggravate him, but apparently I was.

‘But we have more than only your sister’s case to work on here.’

‘More murders? More important investigations?’

Once again he didn’t answer.

‘Please, Sargento Garcia. I… I just need to know what’s happening.’ I sounded emotional. Not entirely intentional, but my distress seemed to have an effect on Garcia and he sighed and made a funny shape with his lips, as though deep in thought.

‘You haven’t arrested anyone,’ I said.

‘No.’

‘Do you have any suspects at all?’

‘I explained this to your father.’

I frowned. ‘Explained what? When?’

Garcia’s defences went back up again. ‘A few weeks ago. When I last spoke to him.’

‘And you told him what?’

Garcia looked at me curiously. As though I was testing him and he wasn’t sure how to respond.

‘Please? Just tell me.’

‘I’m sure I explained this before. We have no active suspects, but we collected a number of different fingerprints and DNA traces from your sister’s apartment and we think they belong to people who are relevant to the investigation.’

‘Who?’ I said.

‘We’ve spoken to a lot of people. But many of the fingerprints and samples we don’t know who they belong to. We can only match to people we have on record.’

‘But you know some of the people?’

‘Yes.’

This was more than he’d ever told me before. Did Dad know this?

‘And?’

‘And… we don’t know exactly how some of these people knew your sister. Some were simply people here in Spain on holiday. People who didn’t even know each other. People with no criminal records. And with alibis.’

‘You’ve spoken to them?’

‘Yes.

‘But they’re not suspects?’

‘No.’

‘Because?’

‘Because we don’t think they had anything to do with Anya’s murder.’

‘Who are they? You’ve never asked me about any of these people. If I knew their names…’

He glared at me. As though not liking what I was saying.

‘You won’t tell me.’

‘I don’t see the relevance.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because as I said, we don’t think these people were involved. And they have a right to their privacy. And I sense if I told you… you’d go off and try to find them. I don’t think that would achieve what you think it would achieve.’

‘You told me before you think her murder was drugs-related.’

‘We still do.’

‘Based on what evidence?’

‘For example, one set of fingerprints belong to a man close to a gang who we know are involved in supplying drugs.’

I winced. What was Anya doing with people like that? ‘Okay. What else?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You said that was an example of why you think her death was drug-related. What else?’

Garcia shook his head, looking a little exasperated. ‘I told you that because I’m trying to be helpful, but I–’

‘But that man isn’t a suspect?’

‘Not officially. But…’ Garcia paused then sighed. ‘Out of all the people we considered, he was top of our list.’

Was?

‘What’s his name?’

Garcia stared at me, as though reluctant to answer my question. But then he did. ‘Wesley Pino.’

I’d never heard the name, and was a little surprised Garcia had told me so easily, given his previous caginess.

‘A drug dealer?’

‘Not exactly. But not a good man.’

‘So he was in my sister’s apartment? Do you know when? Have you spoken to him?’

‘No. With a man like that, it’s not so simple to speak to him.’

‘You can’t find him?’

‘It’s not that.’

‘Not what? He’s a potential suspect but you haven’t arrested him, or even spoken to him?’

‘No. I’m sorry. And we won’t.’

I shook my head. What was this? Some kind of cover-up? ‘Why not?’

Garcia sighed again. ‘Because, I’m afraid, Natasha, Wesley Pino is now dead too.’

CHAPTER FOUR

AMY

Summer

This was exactly what she needed. Sunshine, warmth, relaxation. Yes, she certainly needed those three things. Perhaps she didn’t need everything else here, though. The other guests in particular. Not the other hotel guests as such, but the friends and family who had travelled here with her and David. Being alone as a couple would have been ideal.

She smiled a little to herself. No, being here on her own, away from everyone, now that would have been perfection.

Okay, so it was only a few friends and family with them, yet, given everything else that was happening, she felt so… mobbed.

‘Morning, Amy.’

She looked up from her Kindle to see Jannette walking over, sarong on, wide-brimmed beach hat, big beach bag.

‘Morning,’ Amy replied with as genuine a smile as she could muster.

‘You’ve had breakfast already?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re keen. I’m skipping it today.’

‘I was up early,’ Amy said. ‘I prefer it down here when it’s quiet.’ She looked across the pool and loungers. Only four other people were out so far.

‘Honey, it’s the most exclusive hotel in Sotogrande. It doesn’t do busy.’

Amy smiled but didn’t say anything.

‘No David yet?’ Jannette asked.

‘I left him in bed. He didn’t get in until after two. Probably a few whiskies too many.’

‘Yeah. Brian was back just before one. He’s the same. Snored like an ox all night. I ended up in the living room. Just as well these suites are so big.’

Just before one? So why was David out so much later?

Jannette sat down on one of the loungers in the next pair along. She unwrapped her sarong. Tasteful white bikini. Killer bod. Well, she got to spend hours a day in the gym, didn’t she? And she was a good fifteen years younger than Amy too. Amy… she was – mostly – happy with how she looked for her age. Considering she still worked four days a week, she felt she did well to get enough exercise in. She watched what she ate, kept an eye on her weight and her figure, but she knew from prior experience that when coming to a resort like this, the vast majority of the women were simply stunning and she naturally shrunk a little, became that little bit more insecure.

Actually, perhaps that was unfair. Not every woman here was a young trophy wife of a rich businessman, though there were definitely plenty of those about. Jannette was one of them. Regardless, Amy was highly self-conscious of stripping down to her swimsuit here, one of the other reasons why she came out early when it was quieter.

‘You’re looking really great, by the way,’ Jannette said as she slapped oil on her already tanned and toned skin. ‘I don’t know how you manage it. Especially after… you know.’

‘Thanks,’ was all Amy said to that.

After… you know? She was intrigued as to exactly what Jannette meant by that, but was way too polite and timid to ask. Was she referring to the fact that – many years ago now – she’d given birth to two kids? That she’d worked her arse off since then, with her job but also bringing up her children, taking little time for herself? Was she referring to the never-ending stress of being married to David? Or to the cancer that she’d battled with for the best part of five years?

Take the compliment, move on, she tried to convince herself.

They shared little other chitchat for an hour or so. The pool area slowly filled. Brian emerged – David’s long-time best friend. Sixty-three, tall, broad with thick hair and beard. He looked like a modern-day Henry VIII. He walked like it too, like he was king. He wore a pair of very short shorts that showed off his crazily hairy legs, and an opened white shirt that showed off the blanket on his chest.

Was he a nice guy? Kind of. If you liked your men to look and act like a bear.

‘Morning, Amy,’ he said as he passed, his voice deep and guttural.

‘Morning.’

He plonked himself on the lounger next to Jannette. The plastic creaked and strained under his weight. ‘No sign of your man yet?’ he asked.

‘Not unless he’s hiding somewhere else.’

Brian laughed. ‘Doesn’t surprise me. He was wasted last night. Trying to keep up with the youngsters.’

By the youngsters, Amy presumed he meant Gus – her son – and his friends.

‘What time’s Hayley coming out?’ Brian asked.

‘She should land later this morning.’

He nodded, then looked away, to the pool, as though he couldn’t think of anything else to say. He never used to be that awkward with her. She’d known Brian nearly twenty years. Back in the day, when he’d been a bit lighter and a bit less hairy, he’d been a real charmer. Outgoing, full of life and banter. He wanted to be everyone’s friend. No, not quite. Everyone wanted to be his friend. Maybe he was still like that with other people, just