Summer Reads, Sneaky Peeks: Heleyne Hammersley's Merciless

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Blurb
Two murders. One missing girl.
DI Kate Fletcher is called out to a freezing canal where a woman’s body is found floating in a lock. With no identification, the police struggle to piece together the details of the woman’s life.
In Thorpe a daughter confesses to the murder of her father. She says she helped him escape a painful death from liver cancer, but was her role more active than she claims?
As Kate and her team investigate, the links between the two cases are inescapable and everything seems to lead back to the disappearance of a teenager years earlier.
Then the main suspect vanishes….

Can Kate connect the events of past and present to bring the culprit to justice?




Author Bio

Heleyne Hammersley, a Cumbria-based writer, is the author of psychological suspense novels ‘Forgotten’ and ‘Fracture’.  Her latest novel, ‘Closer to Home’, is the first in a new crime series.  The second, ‘Merciless’, is due to be/was published on June 1^st 2018.

When she's not writing, Heleyne can often be found wandering on the fells or in the local park with her partner and her dog, Jess.

Sneaky Peek

She jogged on, trying to focus on her breathing and the steady crunch of gravel under her trainers.  She didn’t use her MP3 player when she ran.  She’d have enjoyed the rhythm of music chosen to suit her mood or her pace but, as a detective with South Yorkshire Police, she knew the perils of not being aware of your surroundings, especially in lonely places in poor light.  She always ran with her phone in her hand; just in case.

The white-topped lock gates were up ahead and Sam slowed down, about to head home for a shower.  She normally ran right up to the second gate before turning back but, this morning, she was tempted to stop short and go back.  It might allow her a few more minutes to try to smooth things over with Abbie.

‘Fuck it,’ Sam murmured and picked up her pace, trying to outrun her frustration.

The lock was full; the bottom gate closed allowing the water to build up against it.  In the half-light it was like obsidian, its smooth surface broken by an unexpected shape.  Sam slowed down and walked to the edge of the lock, trying to work out if it was a trick of the light or if somebody had thrown something into the water.

It looked like a black bin bag, bobbing gently, half-submerged but, as her eyes adjusted to the gloomy darkness of the enclosed water, she could make out more detail.  The surface of the object was ribbed or rippled and it appeared to have a lot of air trapped inside.  There was something floating next to it.  A pale shape against the dark water.

‘Shit,’ Sam hissed as she recognised a hand.  It wasn’t a bin bag, it was a down jacket.  And it was still being worn. 

Two seconds later, she was giving her location to the emergency services.