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  KEEP HER SILENT

  Theresa Talbot

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.ariafiction.com

  About Keep Her Silent

  ‘Do that which is good and no evil shall touch you’

  That was the note the so-called Raphael killer left on each of his victims. Everyone in Glasgow – investigative journalist Oonagh O'Neil included – remember the murder of three women in Glasgow which sent a wave of terror through the city. They also remember that he is still at large…

  When the police investigation into the Raphael killings reopens, Oonagh is given a tip off that leads her straight to the heart of a complex and deadly cover-up. When history starts to repeat itself, it seems the killer is closer than she thinks. Could Oonagh be the next target…?

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About Keep Her Silent

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Authors Notes

  About Theresa Talbot

  The Oonagh O’Neil Series

  Become an Aria Addict

  Copyright

  For Bruce Norval, and all those fighting for justice

  Prologue

  Cartland 1975

  There was no colour in this place. The white walls bled into themselves and the ceiling met the floor, suffocating Dorothy trapped in between. She ran her finger along the side of the bed, picking off the white paint from the metal frame, letting the sharp flecks embed themselves under her fingernails, enjoying seeing the blood-red bruise spider outwards.

  At first she’d tried to keep the date in her head by the numbers of days that had passed, counting them out by the daylight shining through the tiny opaque window behind the metal grid. But she had no way of knowing how long she’d been awake – or how long she had slept – and like the white walls the days and nights bled into themselves and became just one long stretch in purgatory.

  The small metal shutter on the door slid open, and Dorothy felt the now familiar sickness rise in her stomach. A fat face filled the hole.

  See that mad cow that chopped up her husband? That crazy bitch that drowned her own wean. That was what they said outside her door when they thought she couldn’t hear. Or maybe they knew she could hear and that was why they said it.

  ‘Oi, you awake?’

  Dorothy lifted her eyes to the door but didn’t answer. ‘Oi. Are you fucking deef or what? I asked if you were awake.’ She still didn’t answer and Fat-face opened the door.

  ‘Watch her – she’s bloody mental.’

  A woman shot Fat-face a look. ‘Please close the door and leave us alone, will you?’ She walked over to Dorothy. ‘May I?’ She gestured to the empty stool. It seemed like a long time since anyone had been nice to her. Offered her the common courtesies afforded to decent folk.

  ‘I’m Dr Skelton. Can I speak with you for a few moments?’

  Dorothy nodded her head and Dr Skelton sat down. Dorothy took in her good leather shoes and dark tan nylons. She wasn’t wearing any jewellery, but her nails were perfect little pink shells. Underneath her white coat she wore a dark camel skirt and cream sweater. Dorothy longed for her own things. Her own jewellery. Her wardrobe full of expensive clothes.

  ‘Dorothy, do you know why I’m here?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Dorothy—’ she used her name at the beginning of each sentence as though Dorothy would forget who she was otherwise ‘—we’re trying to work out why you did what you did.’ Dorothy shot her a blank look. ‘You know your husband and son are dead, Dorothy, don’t you?’

  Dorothy didn’t answer. Instead she glanced at the hemline of Dr Skelton’s skirt. ‘Is that Italian?’

  A hint of confusion worried her forehead before she answered, ‘Oh, the skirt? Well, yes, it is, but that’s not what I’m here to discuss.’ She smoothed her skirt over her knees and continued. ‘Dorothy, why did you try to cut out Andrew’s heart and wrap it in the pages of the bible?’

  The sickness rose in Dorothy’s chest and spasms tugged the back of her throat as she began to throw up.

  ‘Dorothy, if you won’t talk to me I can’t help you. Please, just let me help you. Did Andrew beat you, Dorothy?’

  ‘No.’ Her voice was little more than a whisper.

  ‘What about Robbie? Did he harm your son?’

  Her throat ached at the memory of her family and the pain seared through her body as she tried to claw back what had happened.

  ‘Did he ever abuse Robbie?’ Dr Skelton caught her eye and Dorothy couldn’t fathom the meaning behind the look. ‘Did Andrew interfere with Robbie…’ a beat ‘… sexually?’

  The words swam in Dorothy’s head, and she gagged at the very thought of it. ‘No!’

  ‘It’s more common than you think.’

  Dorothy was glad she lived in a world where she was blind to such horrors.

  ‘Why did you drown Robbie?’

  The sound of Robbie’s heels banging against the bottom of the bath pounded her head. The image of his bulging eyes as his lungs filled with water. His tiny limp body. ‘I loved my boy; I loved Robbie.’ Dorothy repeated the words over and over until they lost meaning and became a jumble of random noise.

  Dr Skelton stayed for a bit longer. She went on to explain to Dorothy that she wouldn’t be going on trial for killing Andrew and Robbie. She’d been declared insane and therefore not fit to plead.

  ‘But I want to stand trial.’ Dorothy forced the sharp flecks of paint under her nails. ‘I want to go to court.’

  1

  Glasgow 2002

  Oonagh O’Neil removed the dust mask from her face as she opened the front door. ‘Welcome to paradise.’

  Would it not be easier just to move?’ Alec Davies picked his way through the rubble and followed Oonagh into the kitchen.

  ‘No. I like it here. I just need to make a few minor adjustments, that’s all.’ Oonagh picked up the sledgehammer and swung it full force into the wall. It hardly made a dent, but bounced back and sent a shudder up her arm, which quivered
through her entire body, jerking her head back. She swung it above her head again but Alec leapt across and grabbed it before she made the second blow.

  ‘Are you mental?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s a supporting wall, Oonagh.’ He eased the hammer out of her hand.

  ‘Is that like… important?’ She bit her lip and pretended to laugh, but was mortified. She looked around. Her home was a war zone. Dust lingered in the air and metal props were in place where solid walls had been only a few days before. Tools lay abandoned against the back door and there was a cement mixer slap bang in the middle of her kitchen.

  ‘When are the builders coming back?’

  She sat down on the floor and looked at the clock, forgetting it was no longer there, just cracked plaster. ‘Dunno, an hour or something.’ Without her mask the thick air caught the back of her throat, making her breathless. ‘They’re away for materials.’

  ‘Well, d’you want to leave the demolition work to the experts?’ Alec reached out his hand and pulled her back onto her feet. ‘Come on, why don’t we go out? Where are you staying?’

  She looked at him, didn’t quite understand the question. ‘Well, here.’

  ‘Are you ment…?’ He stopped himself mid-sentence. ‘I thought maybe you were staying at your mum’s… or had checked into a hotel.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s fine. Upstairs won’t get started until next month.’

  ‘Oonagh, behave yourself. This place is like Beirut.’

  She shook the dust from her jeans and sweatshirt. After the attack she’d considered moving; wanted to sell the house, which no longer felt like home. But that would be admitting defeat. So instead she’d had the hall floor sanded and stained to ensure every last trace of blood from the bottom of the stairs was gone, but it wasn’t enough. She’d almost been able to smell the attack. Had felt the danger brush her flesh as she’d walked from room to room. Next she’d set about a few minor renovations in an attempt to change the look and the feel of the place, but within a few weeks her home had resembled a builder’s yard.

  Oonagh looked around at the mess as though she was taking it in for the first time and stroked the small scar on her neck with her thumb. The mark from the heel of his shoe was still faintly visible on her shoulder, but the doctors assured her that would disappear – in time. The small scar from the blade would always be there, along with, she guessed, the dull ache of fear in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Come on.’ Alec draped his arm over her shoulder. ‘Pack a few things and I’ll take you round to your mum’s.’ He glanced at the cement mixer. ‘You can’t stay here, Oonagh.’

  The dust caught the back of her throat once more and made her cough.

  ‘I mean, this must be playing havoc with your asthma.’

  ‘Right, OK!’ She ran her fingers through her hair. It was coarse and gritty. She knew he was right. ‘Can we go for a drink first?’ She knew it wasn’t yet lunchtime and was glad he didn’t give her a lecture.

  ‘D’you want to get changed or anything?’

  She looked at him and shrugged. Desperate to get that first drink of the day to take the edge off.

  ‘I mean, you look great,’ he added. ‘You always look great. But…’

  All the mirrors downstairs had been put in storage along with the rest of her furniture. She took her mobile from her back pocket and looked at the camera. ‘Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ Her chestnut bob was grey and coarse. The same dust had also left a deathly pallor on her skin.

  ‘How much did that set you back?’ Davies nodded his head towards her new mobile. Oonagh mumbled something under her breath. Truth was, she wasn’t sure.

  ‘May I?’ He reached out and she handed it over.

  ‘I know it seems a bit gimmicky having a camera,’ she said, ‘but…’ She wasn’t sure quite how to justify her latest toy and made her way to the stairs by way of changing the subject. ‘Give me five minutes and I’ll make myself presentable.’ She looked back at Alec, but he clearly wasn’t listening and instead was engrossed by the new gadget. ‘Actually, make that six,’ she said, picking a piece of dried cement from her hair.

  *

  It was mid-afternoon but the bar was dark and cosy. Alec sat across from her. She’d begun to depend on him more and more since the attack. He was the nearest thing she had to a big brother and she always wondered what her life would have been like had she not been an only child.

  ‘Can I tell you a secret?’

  Oonagh felt a slight tingle of excitement prick her skin. DI Alec Davies didn’t do secrets. ‘Yes, please.’ She took a large gulp of red wine and settled back in her chair.

  ‘This is strictly off the record.’

  She held up two fingers, the opposite of her Girl-Guide promise, and gave him the V sign. ‘You have my word as a tabloid journalist.’

  ‘I’m serious, Oon.’

  ‘C’mon, you wouldn’t even bring it up if you thought I’d blab.’

  He took a long sip of his pint, not taking his eyes off her. They went back a long way; she trusted him implicitly. She guessed it wasn’t quite a two-way street.

  ‘We’re resurrecting a cold case from 1975.’

  Oonagh slid forward on her seat. Alec dropped his voice.

  ‘D’you remember the Raphael killings? You’d maybe be too young to remember.’

  Oonagh settled her empty glass on the table and nodded; didn’t want to break the flow of the conversation. She remembered Raphael; he’d killed three women in Glasgow, which had sent a wave of terror through the city. He’d never been caught and people still talked about him to this day. She’d only been a kid when he’d carried out his crimes but he’d become so much part of Glasgow folklore that she was sure she remembered. He’d earned his nickname because of the biblical quote he left on each victim: ‘Do that which is good and no evil shall touch you,’ a quote attributed to the Archangel Raphael. The women had been killed with one clean wound to the throat, sliced with a scalpel. The killings had stopped as abruptly as they’d started and as far as anyone knew Raphael was still at large.

  The waitress put two fresh drinks on the table, causing Oonagh to jump. ‘Couple in the corner sent them over.’ She tipped her head to the seat at the window where two middle-aged men raised their glasses and nodded. ‘It’s OK, they’re regulars. Not nutters.’

  Oonagh smiled and mouthed an exaggerated thank you.

  ‘Does that happen a lot?’ Alec pulled the fresh pint towards him, giving a brief nod in the direction of the window without turning his head.

  ‘From time to time. More so recently, since…’

  ‘Quite the people’s champion, eh?’

  ‘Yes, quite, anyway, enough of this boring guff, can we get back to the conversation in hand?’

  ‘We think we may have a new lead.’

  ‘In the Raphael killings? Bloody hell. What?’

  ‘I can’t go into details at the moment, but there’s enough evidence to suggest that we may have DNA from the killer.’ Oonagh took in the enormity of what Alec was saying. She reached out to touch his hand. ‘And we think we can match it with a known suspect.’ He responded by giving hers a little squeeze.

  The news made Oonagh’s heart beat faster and she drew her hand away. She’d been looking for a decent story to get her teeth into for eighteen months now. ‘So who is he? Or can’t you give names at the moment?’

  ‘No names, no pack drill, all I can say is that our prime suspect has been dead for the past ten years.’

  Oonagh sat back on her seat, obviously deflated. ‘Oh, shite.’

  ‘And I’ve got an exhumation order from the Scottish Office.’

  2

  Glasgow 2002

  Oonagh stared at the screen, which was threatening to give her snow blindness.

  Three months into her six-months deadline and her book still hadn’t materialised. She’d written every day of her professional life for the past twenty years, yet she was struggling w
hen it came to this.

  The building work would be finished shortly and then there would be really nothing else to occupy her. She wandered from room to room and wondered if this place would ever feel like home again.

  Writing a crime novel had seemed like the natural thing to do. Of course, she’d got an agent and a publishing deal within days. She wasn’t vain enough to believe it was her writing prowess that clinched the deal. Oonagh knew she was a marketable commodity. Her name would guarantee free publicity with press interviews and put bums on seats at book festivals. Even if her book was shite, it would sell enough copies in the first run to make it worthwhile for the publishers. But her book wasn’t shite. It just wasn’t there at all.

  She opened up her emails. Upsetting as they were, they provided an almost welcome relief from her deadline. Just a few had trickled in at first, then they’d gained momentum until there were a dozen or so each week. People from all over the world contacted her detailing the abuse they’d suffered, some as kids, but not all. Some at the hands of the church, but again not all.

  I was given up for adoption when I was just three days old. Your programme brought home the horrors of thousands of families torn apart by the Magdalene institutes…

  My mother was born in a Magdalene laundry. She never spoke of her past, or her experience, but I now feel I have a better understanding of the pain she felt…

  I was fourteen when my scout leader first abused me… I’m a grandfather now and have never told a living soul what happened. But I’m slowly realising that it wasn’t all my fault…

  She slammed the lid closed. ‘Damn.’ Of all the stories she’d covered in her career, the abuse that went on behind the doors of Glasgow’s Magdalene Laundry had opened up the floodgates and provoked a bigger response than she could ever have imagined. Normally Oonagh would have been chuffed to bits, but there was just too much shit in the world, too much unhappiness to deal with.

  She sat on the top step, hugging her knees to her chest.

  Outside was threatening rain, so fairly decent weather for Glasgow. Cat head-butted her leg. She’d considered getting rid of him after her attack. But found that, despite the fact he’d tried to eat her face to finish her off, she’d grown quite fond of him. She had little memory of the attack itself, just a vague fuzzy recollection of lying at the bottom of the stairs and Cat lapping the blood that had gathered in a pool by her head. That memory gap should have been a good thing, blotted everything out, but instead she filled the gaps herself, each image more gruesome and horrific than the last.