THE DEAD PLACE by Stephen Booth
Soon there will be a killing. Close your eyes and breathe in the aroma. I can smell it right now, can’t you? So powerful, so sweet. So irresistible. It’s the scent of death. The anonymous caller who taunts the Derbyshire Police with talk of an imminent killing could be just another hoaxer. The macabre descriptions of death and decomposition could be someone’s sick fantasy. But after listening to the voice, so eerily calm and controlled as it invites the police to meet the ‘flesh eater’, Detective Diane Fry is certain she’s dealing with a killer ! And it may already be too late to save the next victim. DC Ben Cooper, meanwhile, is looking into Derbyshire’s first case of body snatching. It is an investigation that will take him into the world of those whose lives revolve around the dead and their disposal, from funeral directors to crematorium staff and a professor whose speciality is the study of death.
By the same author
Black Dog
Dancing with the Virgins
Blood on the Tongue
Blind to the Bones
One Last Breath
STEPHEN BOOTH
The Dead Place
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters
and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or
localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, London W6 8JB
harpercollins.co.uk Published by HarperCollinsPwWw^rs 2005
1
Copyright S Stephen Booth 2005
Stephen Booth asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 00 717205 2 (hardback) ISBN 0 00 717206 0 (trade paperback)
Set in Sabon by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Polmont, Stirlingshire
Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
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, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or
otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it
is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
‘For what is it to die,
But to stand in the sun and melt into the wind? And when the Earth has claimed our limbs, Then we shall truly dance.’
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), ‘The Prophet’
For everyone who has ever had to deal with death.
The Death Clock really exists,
but try it at your own risk! You can find it at: http://www.deathclock.com
Soon there will be a killing. It might happen in the next few hours. We could synchronize our watches and count down the minutes. What a chance to record the ticking away of a life, to follow it through to that last, perfect moment, when existence becomes nothing, when the spirit parts with the physical.
The end is always so close, isn’t it? Fate lurks beneath our feet like a rat in a sewer. It hangs in a corner of the room like a spider in its web, awaiting its moment. And the moment of our dying already exists inside us, deep inside. It’s a dark ghost on the edge of our dreams, a weight that drags at our feet, a whisper in the ear at the darkest hour of the night. We can’t touch it or see it. But we know it’s there, all the same.
But then again … perhaps I’ll wait, and enjoy the anticipation. They say that’s half the pleasure, don’t they? The waiting and planning, the unspoiled thrill of expectation. We can let the imagination scurry ahead, like a dog on a trail, its nostrils twitching, its tongue dribbling with joy. Our minds can sense the blood and savour it. We can close our eyes and breathe in the aroma.
I can smell it right now, can’t you? It’s so powerful, so sweet. So irresistible. It’s the scent of death.
Footsteps approached in the corridor. Heavy boots, someone pacing slowly on the vinyl flooring. Here was a man in no hurry, his mind elsewhere, thinking about his lunch or the end of his shift, worrying about the twinge of pain in his back, a waistband grown too tight. An ordinary man, who rarely thought about dying.
The footsteps paused near the door, and there was a rustle of papers, followed by a moment’s silence. An aroma of coffee drifted on the air, warm and metallic, like the distant scent of blood.
