Detective in a Coma

Jennifer Lee Thomson

Description

DI Duncan Waddell is on the brink of a nervous breakdown - he thinks his best pal DC Stevie Campbell, who's been in a coma since he was attacked by a suspect, is talking to him. When office worker Shelley rushes to her boyfriend's aid after he is attacked, she is abducted. She wakes up in a strange room with no memory of how she got there. On the case, Waddell finds himself in a desperate race against time to uncover the truth behind the abduction. To do this, he and his team must delve into the seedy underbelly of Scotland's swingers' scene and a world where women are tricked into the sex business and traded like cattle.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Diamond Crime Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 17 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781915649096
• Langue: English

Extrait

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 
Jennifer Lee Thomson almost lost a hand when she found a stray scalpel in a doctor’s coat whilst working in a hospital laundry. She’s had various other jobs, including working as a film extra and board game inventor.
 
As well as being a football and human-interest writer, she’s also written several self-help books.
 
Obsessed with unsolved crimes like the identity of Glasgow serial killer Bible John, she naturally gravitated towards writing crime fiction. Her current muse is huge rescue dog Harley.
 
Vile City is the first book in the Detective in Coma books featuring DI Waddell who’s worried he’s losing his mind when his partner Stevie who’s in a coma starts talking to him, but no one else can hear him.
 
Vile City won the Scottish Association of Writers’ Pitlochry Quaich award for a first crime novel.
First Published in Great Britain in 2017
 
New and Revised Edition published in 2021
by
Diamond Crime
 
ISBN 978-1-915649-09-6
 
Copyright © 2021 Jennifer Lee Thomson
 
The right of Jennifer Lee Thomson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
 
All rights reserved.
 
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
 
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
 
Diamond Crime is an imprint of Diamond Books Ltd.
 
 
Thanks to…
The guys at Diamond Books for being such a delight to work with. I needed insight and they’ve got it in spades.
 
To Darren Laws of Caffeine Nights who was the first to see Vile City ’s potential.
 
To everyone who helped get this book out, including William Lothian and JacksonBone for the wonderful cover.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Cover photo: William Lothian
www.glasgownightphotography.com
 
Book cover design:
jacksonbone.co.uk
 
And coming soon to Diamond Books:
Detective in a Coma
Volume Two
Cannibal City
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
For information about Diamond Crime authors and their books, visit:
www.diamondbooks.co.uk
 
Dedicated to
To my late dad for always believing in me. Some lights shine brightly no matter where they are.
My mum Rosemary for kicking off my love of books when I joined the library aged three.
To John for putting up with me and all of the idiosyncrasies that come with living with a writer, like standing outside in the freezing cold, in the snow as I finished writing that last chapter.
To huge rescue hound Harley for always being happy to see me.
To the late Barbara Hammond from Writers’ Umbrella for giving me the best news possible when she told me Vile City had won an award. She was as excited as I was.
 
 
 
 
 
 
DETECTIVE
IN A COMA
Volume One: Vile City
 
 
 
 
 
Jennifer Lee Thomson
 
Seven months earlier...
 
Glass glinting in the sun, coming towards him. At first, it holds him in a trance. Then he reacts, aims a kick at the guy’s balls but misses. “Shit!”
Suspect’s on him now. Jab, jab, jab. Every cut burns. Broken bottle neck, ripping into flesh. And, he thinks, this is how I die. Bleeding like a pig, in a filthy alleyway, blood mingling with dirt, cigarette butts and takeaway cartons. I used to want to be an astronaut.
“OFFICER DOWN, OFFICER DOWN,” someone barks into a radio.
Static. Voice a long way off. It doesn’t matter anymore.
Footsteps. Panting. Another voice. “Fuck, fuck. What have you done? On the ground. NOW! Or you’re fucked.”
A face above him. Almost familiar. “You’ll be okay, mate. I’ll get help. An ambulance. Try not to move.”
If he’s going to be okay, why does it feel like dozens of blazing knives have been driven into his body?
Eyelids heavy. So tired. Close them... just for a minute…
 
 
 
Chapter ONE
 
 
Stuart was hiding something. Shelley could tell. She was always the one who’d had to wake him because he could block out the shrill of the alarm clock. Nowadays, he was up before her, grabbing the mail whilst she slept. And he’d started making breakfast – nothing much, just tea and toast, more than he’d ever made her in their near three years together.
When she’d ask him if anything was wrong, he’d shrug his shoulders, give her a wee smile and say everything was fine. She knew he was lying because his face went even paler, making his freckles stand out as if they’d been drawn in by a kid with a coloured pencil. She never pushed it, maybe because deep down she was worried that he’d tell her he’d met someone else.
The No.76 bus was empty when they clambered on board – one of the benefits of working until eleven at night in a call centre, was that there was no need to scoot past a sea of legs and become a contortionist to get on and off a bus.
Their cold breath filled the air with ghosts as they walked towards Waterstones, Shelley pausing to peek at the new crime fiction releases showcased in the illuminated windows, whilst Stuart fidgeted with his watch. He was always footering about with something since he’d given up cigarettes and it drove her mad, but at least it didn’t fill his lungs with tar and make the house smell like an overflowing ashtray.
“I need to have a pee,” he announced, as they came to the dimly lit lane off Mitchell Street that reeked of eau de Glasgow: decomposing takeaway, urine and other bodily fluids.
She groaned. “Can’t you wait until we get home, Stuart?” She knew she’d pronounced his name “Stew-art” as she always did when she was annoyed with him. She couldn’t help it.
What made men think it was okay to urinate in public?
Stuart looked pained. “Sorry, I can’t. Too much coffee tonight.”
She let him walk on ahead of her and whilst he scooted down the alley, she stood outside the amusement arcade, pretending to look in so she wouldn’t be mistaken for a prostitute. It’d happened to her once when she’d got off the bus alone. Stuart hadn’t been working that night.
Five minutes later, she was so cold she couldn’t feel her nose and Stuart still wasn’t back.
She turned the corner to look for him, fully expecting to see him ambling back towards her with that jaunty walk that always made her smile. He wasn’t there.
Where was he?
Anger welled up in her chest. Had he started smoking again? He swore he wouldn’t.
There was one way to find out.
She headed down the alley. The sole light was provided from some nearby buildings, so visibility was poor.
She’d walked a few steps when she spotted a bundle of rags on the ground. Was someone sleeping there?
She moved closer, squinting into the dim light. Stuart was lying motionless on the ground. He must have tripped and knocked himself out as he hit the concrete.
She ran to him, calling out his name, the squeezing in her chest waning slightly when she knelt and heard him groan.
She pulled her mobile phone from her bag to call for an ambulance.
She didn’t make it to the third digit. A gloved hand clamped across her mouth and nose, cutting off her airways. The phone fell from her grasp, clattering onto the cobbles. Terror gripped her and she couldn’t breathe.
As she struggled, her assailant pressed his mouth to her ear. He was so close that it occurred to her that if anyone saw them, they would think he was her boyfriend whispering sweet nothings in her ear.
“Your man’s been given a strong sedative. He’ll wake up with a sore head and nothing more. If you scream, I’ll kick him several times in the head and he’ll never get up again. Do you understand?”
The voice was cold and emotionless She didn’t recognise it and there was an accent. Not from around here.
She nodded under his hand. Then did something he didn’t expect. Backheeled him in the groin.
There was a satisfying yelp as he released her.
She ran, arms pumping away like Usain Bolt, down towards the café at the end of the alley and safety.
She’d almost made it when he grabbed her arm and hauled her back. An electric shock shot from her elbow to her shoulder as she tried to pull herself free. He was too strong.
He dragged her towards him.
Before she could scream, he punched her in the face and she went down with a thud, jarring every bone in her body, momentarily stunning her.
As she fought to get up, he punched her in the back, and she fell again.
The last thing she saw was the pavement rushing towards her before she blacked out...
 
 
Chapter Two
 
 
Detective Inspector Duncan Waddell puffed out his cheeks as far as they would go, then resisted the urge to slap them like kids do with bubble gum. The paperwork was piling up on his desk faster than the knickers at a porn shoot and it was doing his head in. To top it off, one of Glasgow CIDs not so finest had informed him that they had another missing woman on the board.
Waddell was knackered, as anyone would be when they were still at their desk long after everyone else had gone to their second home: the pub for lunch. There had been a spate of particularly vicious robberies on the elderly in Glasgow’s upmarket West End and the public were screaming for their pound of flesh. He couldn’t blame them. Crimes against pensioners repulsed him. If that wasn’t bad enough, two young women had gone missing in the city. Not the usual types to go missing either. They were professional women and not the prostitutes they euphemistically referred to as “sex workers”, making them sound as though they had gravitated towards prostitution as a career through choice and not through drugs or circumstance.
Policing now was as much about being PC as getting the job done. That fact was always being drummed into him by th