Cut to the Bone Read online

  Praise for Cut to the Bone

  ‘A series that gets stronger with every book. Roz Watkins is up there with the best.’ Cass Green, author of The Killer Inside

  ‘I love the acerbic wit of Meg Dalton, and this is a brilliant read. Compelling, beautifully crafted, with murder and twists aplenty.’ Amanda Jennings, author of The Storm

  ‘Intelligent, propulsive and incredibly atmospheric, Cut to the Bone is not only a riveting thriller but a thoughtful portrait of modern society.’ Kia Abdullah, author of Take It Back

  ‘Roz Watkins ups the ante and gives us a rollicking crime adventure laced with plenty of dead bodies, a touch of gothic mystery, dark humour and Meg’s trademark acerbic wit. I loved it. A real page-turner that also gets you thinking.’ Sophie Draper, author of Cuckoo

  ‘A taut, richly atmospheric and original thriller that will keep you glued to your seat. I loved it!’ Jane Isaac, author of For Better, For Worse

  ‘Another ripper from Roz! It’s just gone 7 a.m. and I have had a brief pause for sleep to race through her latest detective thriller. BRILLIANT!’ Suzy K Quinn, author of Not My Daughter

  ‘A heart-in-your-mouth read which made me gasp out loud on more than one occasion! Roz’s best yet.’ Jo Jakeman, author of Safe House

  ‘True to its name, Cut to the Bone has the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. Each razor-sharp chapter slices deeper. I barely came up for air!’ Jo Furniss, author of All the Little Children

  ‘What a protagonist! A chillingly compelling and utterly twisted plot. Loved it!’ Danielle Ramsay, author of The Last Cut

  ROZ WATKINS is the author of the DI Meg Dalton crime series, which is set in the Peak District where Roz lives with her partner and a menagerie of demanding animals.

  Her first book, The Devil’s Dice, was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger Award, and has been optioned for TV.

  Roz studied engineering at Cambridge University before training in patent law. She was a partner in a firm of patent attorneys in Derby, but this has absolutely nothing to do with there being a dead one in her first novel.

  In her spare time, Roz likes to walk in the Peak District, scouting out murder locations.

  Also by Roz Watkins

  The Devil’s Dice

  Dead Man’s Daughter

  Cut to the Bone

  Roz Watkins

  ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

  Copyright

  An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

  Copyright © Roz Watkins 2020

  Roz Watkins 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.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © June 2020 ISBN: 9780008214722

  Version 2020-06-06

  Note to Readers

  This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

  Change of font size and line height

  Change of background and font colours

  Change of font

  Change justification

  Text to speech

  Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008214708

  For Starsky the dog, whose foul woodland scavenging started all this.

  And to the animals in intensive farms who don’t get that freedom.

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise

  About the Author

  Booklist

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to Readers

  Dedication

  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

  Extract

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Publisher

  1

  Meg – Present day

  Monday

  The road swooped into the valley, its sun-beaten tarmac melting into the hillside. The car smelled of petrol and hot plastic, and the steering wheel stuck to my hands. DS Jai Sanghera was sprawling in the passenger seat beside me, legs thrown apart, head back, and we were embroiled in a pointless argument in which I’d found myself defending his girlfriend for a reason I could no longer remember.

  Jai’s manspreading was reaching such critical levels it was impeding my access to the gearstick. ‘I know you’re hot,’ I said. ‘No need to turn it into performance art.’

  Jai dragged himself forward to fiddle with his air vent. ‘Let’s just agree to disagree, shall we? I think if Suki’s serious about me, she should try harder with the kids; you clearly don’t. We’ve got a missing person to focus on.’

  ‘Fine.’

  I eased my foot off the brake and let the car accelerate through the treacly air. The wind curled round my damp face, and my shirt flapped against my stomach. I fanned myself, trying to let the tension dissipate.

  In the distance I could see the dazzling surface of Ladybower Reservoir. We were heading for a valley to its east that looked like a huge meteorite crater, but had probably been caused by some dramatic event in the last ice age. The hot summer had turned the grass yellow, and the bowl of the valley was surrounded by rocks. They jutted up like teeth, as if we were driving into a gaping mouth. In the centre, where the tonsils would have been, was an ugly industrial building. Gritton Abattoir.

  I forced my tone to be friendly. ‘What do we know about her?’

  Jai took a long breath and when his voice came out, it was normal, not pissed off. ‘Eighteen-year-old girl. She was working at the abattoir overnight and when they got in this morning, her ca
r was still there but no sign of her. You know who she is though?’

  ‘No. Who is she?’

  ‘Violet Armstrong.’

  I looked at him for a beat longer than the driver should, our disagreement forgotten. ‘The Violet Armstrong?’

  ‘Yep. Bikini-barbecue-babe Violet Armstrong. Poster girl for carnivores everywhere. Missing from an abattoir.’

  ‘Jesus. What was she doing at an abattoir?’

  ‘I think she works there. Bit weird, I know. Especially with someone as controversial as her. It’s when “turning up in one piece” is way too literal.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Jai. No doubt there’ll be some banal explanation involving a dodgy boyfriend or a runaway pig.’

  Jai laughed and I felt the atmosphere loosen. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘If I was a pig I’d run away from her and her barbecue tongs.’

  On the horizon, tendrils of smoke drifted upwards, reminding me we were near the wildfire. ‘This weather’s got to break soon,’ I said. ‘We’ll get monsoon rains.’

  ‘Most of which will no doubt end up in my basement.’

  I hadn’t yet been inside Jai’s new house, even though it was round the corner from mine, but he seemed obsessed with his damp basement. Maybe he’d been droning on to Suki about pumps and that was part of her problem.

  We followed a narrow lane through gates into a concrete yard. A slab-sided grey building sat in front of us, sanitised and anonymous, giving away nothing about what went on inside.

  ‘Are you going to be okay with this?’ Jai said.

  My head filled with images from abattoir videos posted by animal rights groups and shared by my friends on Facebook, just to improve my mental well-being and sleeping patterns. I didn’t need to see the real thing, especially in my current state of mind. Or hear it. This abattoir did pigs. Pigs squealed.

  ‘I’ll be okay,’ I said. ‘I’m more worried about the missing girl.’ But it struck me like an electric shock that I wasn’t that worried about the girl – at least not to my usual PhD-level. Was I so worn down from watching Gran die that I’d lost some vital part of myself? It scared the hell out of me. If I didn’t care about my job to the point of virtual mania, who even was I?

  ‘You do know she’s famous because she barbecues burgers in a bikini?’ Jai said. ‘A phrase I wouldn’t advise saying when drunk.’

  ‘Yeah. She simultaneously dumps on feminism and animal rights in an impressive double whammy.’ I could keep the banter going while I had my mini existential crisis, but our camaraderie felt forced. I’d thought I was doing the right thing by being super-nice about his girlfriend, thus removing any question of whether I liked him a little too much for a colleague, but I’d obviously got it all wrong.

  We pulled up in the yard and heaved ourselves out of the car. The sun sliced through the hot air, making the car windows so shiny it hurt to look at them. A few uniforms were buzzing around. We had a lot of missing person calls, but this one had triggered a red-button-push.

  The door to the abattoir building swung open and a skinny blonde woman came out at a gallop. ‘Goodness, it’s warm. I hope we’re not wasting your time. I’m not wanting to make a fuss, but I thought we should call just in case …’

  ‘Shall we pop inside a minute?’ I said. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Meg Dalton and this is Detective Sergeant Jai Sanghera. What’s your name?’

  ‘Anna Finchley. I own the abattoir.’

  I wasn’t sure if it was subconscious sexism or ageism, but I was surprised at that revelation. There was a touch of the gangly teenager or new-born foal about her, although she must have been in her thirties. She didn’t look like an abattoir-owner.

  ‘Not being melodramatic, but do you think it’s the animal rights people?’ she said.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘We’ve had threats. And someone’s smashed the CCTV.’ Anna shook her head. ‘But surely, they wouldn’t … Maybe she went for a walk or …’

  I looked at the sun-scorched hills in the distance. A faint smell of smoke hung in the air. It wasn’t an ideal spot for a hike.

  ‘How far are we from the reservoir?’ Jai said.

  The beauty of Ladybower Reservoir seemed to act as a magnet for death. It was well known, to us at least. If some poor soul was planning to slit an artery and bleed to death in north Derbyshire, there was a fair chance Ladybower would be the destination of choice.

  Anna said, ‘It’s just over the hill.’

  ‘Let’s take a few details inside,’ I said. ‘Can we see the smashed CCTV?’

  Anna led us through a door into a grey corridor and on into a small room. The building was functional rather than swish, but had been recently renovated. So far, it was mercifully free of butchered animals.

  I leaned to peer at the CCTV box, which looked like it had been set about with a baseball bat. I stepped back to let Jai see. ‘They’ve taken the hard drive,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s get this area sealed off and processed,’ I said.

  We shuffled out of the room. A man was walking towards us down the corridor. He was lean, toned, and good-looking in a rough, footballer kind of way, and he moved like a man with something to prove.

  Anna said, ‘What is it, Gary?’ I sensed tension between them. A slight narrowing of his eyes; a fractional curling of her upper lip. ‘This is my brother,’ Anna said. ‘He works here too.’

  The man held up an expensive-looking, glittery, and clearly now evidentially compromised object. We needed to get the scene under control. ‘I found a watch,’ he said. ‘It—’

  ‘That’s Violet’s,’ Anna said. ‘Why on earth would she take off her watch? Where did you find it?’

  ‘If you’d let me finish, I’d tell you. I don’t know why she’d have gone there – it wasn’t in the area she cleans. It’s bloody weird, if you ask me.’

  ‘Just tell us where it was, Gary!’

  ‘It was beside the pig pens.’ He shot Anna a look that was almost accusing. ‘And there’s blood on it.’

  2

  Anna Finchley led us into an office containing a desk and four chairs. White-painted walls were covered with a surprising collection of abstract art – the kind with blobs of colour that my dad would say a three-year-old could do – and a prominent TV screen. Anna sank down on one of the chairs, crossing her legs and arms as if protecting herself.

  ‘Sit on that side if you want the window-view and the art,’ she said. ‘I sit here so I can monitor the CCTV. When it’s working. And I hate to be negative, but Violet’s not careless with her stuff. Why would she have dropped her watch? She shouldn’t even have been by the pig pens. And why would it have blood on it?’

  Jai and I sat opposite her and didn’t answer her questions. She could run the scenarios on her own. I watched her face as she did so. Not giving much away.

  ‘When did you last see Violet?’ I asked.

  Anna blinked a couple of times and looked to the ceiling. ‘The day before yesterday,’ she said. ‘I stayed late and I saw her at the start of her shift.’

  ‘And how was she?’

  Anna shook her head and frowned. ‘Not that I’d necessarily notice, because I didn’t spend long talking to her, but she seemed fine.’

  ‘Could you talk us through this morning? Were you the first to arrive?’

  ‘I got here at about eight. Daniel had come in earlier and fed the pigs. Daniel Twigg. I think he’d messed up the amounts though, because they’d left loads. Maybe it was because he wasn’t feeling well – he’s gone home ill. I didn’t realise anything was wrong at first. Violet’s car’s parked round the side so I didn’t see it.’ Anna pushed her hair back behind her ears. ‘I got the pigs killed. Then cleaned up their pen. And the lorry arrived to take the Category 2 waste away – that’s the animals’ innards and other bits we can’t use – to be rendered, and when it went round the side, I noticed Violet’s car. It’s not normally parked that far round, so I hadn’t seen it at first. Anyway, I looked for her every
where I could think, and tried her mobile but there was no answer. I phoned Esther – my partner, who Violet lodges with – and she’s not there. I phoned Violet’s parents in Sheffield but there was no answer. Then I went to check the CCTV, and when I saw it was smashed, I called you.’

  Anna was providing a lot of detail in her descriptions. That could be normal. She might have just been a very helpful person, a kind-of human Lassie dog. Or not. It was too early to tell.

  ‘The Category 2 waste …’ I said. ‘Would that have included any meat waste from yesterday or last night?’ Our assumption was that Violet was alive, but I wanted to know what had happened to those waste products.

  ‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Yes, it would. And from this morning. It’s all been taken away. It goes to be rendered.’

  ‘Do you have details of the company that takes it?’ I asked.

  She froze a moment. ‘Why would … Oh, okay.’ She reached into a drawer, fished out an invoice and passed it over. If she’d worked out what this could mean, she kept it to herself.

  I turned to Jai. ‘Do you mind calling them now? And checking on the searches.’

  Jai took the paper and left the room.

  When I turned back to Anna, her fists were clenched tight in her lap, knuckles shining white.

  ‘Violet was on a night shift?’ I said.

  Anna nodded rapidly. ‘Ten till two thirty. Cleaning. She has a summer job here.’

  ‘Why did she come to work in an abattoir?’

  ‘It’s strange, isn’t it? When I found out who she was, I was baffled. I did ask her and she was rather vague. I can’t say for sure, but I got the impression she wanted to come to Gritton for some other reason, and this job was an excuse.’

  ‘Okay, thank you. And had she worked her shift last night? Could you tell this morning if the cleaning had been done?’

  Anna frowned. ‘I’m not sure … We have such high standards here, it’s not as if she was mopping up blood – it’s more of an extra clean. We have what we call a “clean side” and a “dirty side”. She was on the clean side – meat only, no live animals – which is why it’s so strange that her watch turned up near the pig pen on the dirty side. She’s been given specific instructions not to go on the dirty side when she’s cleaning.’