Hell to Pay - PAPERBACK - Detective Loxley Crime Thriller Book 2

You will be notified by email when your paperback has been dispatched. It's usually within a couple of working days.

1

“Oi!” she bellowed from the roadside as the man threw the car into gear. Its front wheels spun, kicking up dirt that hit her legs. “Don’t you bloody…” But it was too late. The car sped up the short side road, the rear door closing as it went, before it turned left, onto Mansfield Road and back toward Clipstone.
“Shit.” Penny watched it go for a moment as it merged into the flow of traffic in the darkness, its rear lights mixing with others until she couldn’t tell which was the car she’d been in, and which wasn’t. She couldn’t believe the shithead had left her here, out on a sideroad towards the edge of the village, in the darkness of the night. She knew where she was and she knew it was only a short walk back to where she’d left her friend, but the nerve of that guy!
They really were shitheads, sometimes.
Having picked up all the crap that he’d thrown onto the side of the road to get her out of the car, she stuffed it in her bag with a grunt. Then, with a frown, she pulled her money out and counted it.
With a sigh that seemed to affect her whole body, she realised she was short. He’d taken some of her money.
“Fuck!”
She shouted into the night, voicing her frustrations and the headache that the missing money would bring down on her. It was the last thing she needed, and just one more annoyance to add to the mountain that was already weighing her down. She needed to get back and find Izabela. Abel had asked her to keep an eye on Izabela, and she couldn’t well do that here, half a village away, could she?
Feeling a sudden rush of anger, she kicked a small twig and shouted.
“Fuck!”
Frustrated, tired and alone, with a ten-minute walk ahead of her, Penny sighed and tried to let her worries and stresses drain from her body, but it wasn’t easy. She had to somehow think of a way to hide the missing money from Abel, which would be a headache in itself. Although, she guessed she could see how Izabela was doing. Maybe she’d be able to liberate some cash from Izabela by offering to hold her bag or something.
There’d be a way for her to make it right, there had to be.
She’d sort it.
To her right, something moved in the corner of her vision; she caught sight of a figure walking along the main road, looking her way. Half a second later, they were gone, stepping out of sight before she could get a good look at them.
For a moment, she felt very alone and vulnerable, at least partially because she’d just been taken advantage of by that idiot. He was long gone by now, though, and there’d be no tracking him down.
Men were just fucking shitheads.
With another laboured sigh, she turned to her left and gazed out over the huge stretch of open grassland between the sideroad she was standing on and the industrial and residential estates beyond. Standing tall, about a hundred metres away, was the last surviving derelict building of the Clipstone Colliery, marked by its distinctive Headstocks—a pair of huge metal towers made from massive steel girders, topped with humungous wheels that… Well, she didn’t really know what the wheels did, but she guessed they either lowered a lift down into the mine or carried the coal back out. Maybe both? She didn’t know, but what she did know was that the structure made a great navigation point that you could see from all over the village.
But, standing in the darkness, surrounded by empty grassland, the towers and the smashed up, abandoned buildings they rose out of, took on a more menacing feel, as if they were towering dead monoliths, silently watching her from their lofty position. Her gaze slipped further left, out beyond the village to the rolling hills beyond and the slowly gathering mist in the valley. A shiver rippled up her spine as she looked upon the nearby gates that led into the fenced-off former Colliery. They seemed almost skeletal and black in the darkness.
The dead, useless husk of a building reminded her of the finality of things. They were nothing but a reminder of a time long past.
According to what she’d heard, however, they were going to be redeveloped, and the construction machinery parked up just inside the gates seemed to confirm that.
A rustle in the nearby bushes caught her attention, snapping her out of the daydream she’d slipped into. She turned, putting her back to the remains of the Colliery, and peered into the bushes that separated her from the houses beyond. This side road wasn’t long, but it was quiet, unlit, and she decided she didn’t really like it here.
Stuffing her hands into her pockets, she set off up the road towards the main thoroughfare and the streetlights that lined it. She cursed the mud that had caught around the heels of her shoes when she’d been thrown out of the car. They looked a right state now.
She paused for a moment and went to try and knock off some of the mud onto the kerb, only to stop and peer into the undergrowth beside the road.
She had a funny feeling she was being watched.
Squinting in the dark, she tried to get her eyes to adjust while hoping she was wrong. Had some pervert seen the car and stopped to have a good old look, hoping to get an eyeful? She had visions of some scruffy guy leering at her with his hand down his pants. The image sent a shiver up her spine in disgust.
“Is someone in there? Getting your rocks off, are yeh? Yeh dirty bastard.” Feeling revulsion at the thought of the voyeur, she raised her hand, flipping him off before turning away and striking out again.
A rush of footsteps on muddy grass thundered towards her like an ominous drumroll.
Catching one foot behind the other, Penny stumbled as she turned. The shadow rushed in, swinging something.
Pain exploded across her skull, and her legs lost all their strength. Gripping her head, she crumpled to the floor, feeling something warm and wet oozing through her hair.
The world swam. Nothing made sense. She lay on the cold floor, feeling the damp concrete seeping into her clothing while a similar but warm wetness covered her head and fingers.
She felt the ground shifting beneath her, or was she being dragged? It hurt, but not as much as the incredible, indescribable pain at the top of her head. Something wasn’t right up there. She could feel the top of her head, and it felt different. There was a soft bit, a bit that should have been hard, but wasn’t. She probed with her fingers, wincing in pain, her stomach twisted in knots. It felt… broken. She felt sick, and retched, bringing up disgusting bile that burnt her throat. This stranger had smashed her skull in.
She needed help. Someone had to help her and stop whatever was happening.
“Plee… ples… Help meh…” She couldn’t form her words properly, and her vision was blurred. Everything was pain and terror. “Help, I nee… help.”
Bushes closed in around her, obscuring the stars and the clouds scudding across them.
What was this person doing? Why were they doing this? What did they want? She had a thousand questions but no answers, and every time she latched onto a thought, it seemed to slip away.
Something metallic caught the light and flashed. It looked long and pointed. It looked dangerous.
Penny tried to fight, but all her strength had gone as the figure knelt above her and lowered the blade to her neck. The cool metal pressed against her skin, against her throat.
“No, no, no, please, no.” Was she saying this out loud or not? She couldn’t tell.
The figure gripped the blade, put all their weight behind it, and cut.