First to Die Read online

  Praise for

  ‘Left me positively breathless’

  ANGELA MARSONS

  ‘A chillingly authenic, bang-on-trend thriller’

  LISA HALL

  ‘A murder mystery story with a modern twist. Enjoyable read’

  THE TIMES+

  ‘Blisteringly fabulous dark crime’

  NORTHERN CRIME REVIEW BOOK BLOG

  ‘Intensely creepy . . . truly addictive’

  LIZLOVESBOOKS.COM

  ‘Outstanding . . . Perfect for readers who like their police procedurals fast paced, twisty-turny, and served with a side order of grit. I loved it’

  CRIME THRILLER GIRL

  ‘A great read’

  SWIRL AND THREAD

  ‘A contemporary thriller that keeps you on your toes’

  RACHEL’S RANDOM READS

  ‘Fast-paced and exhilarating plot . . . I can’t recommend it enough’

  BECCA’S BOOKS

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Readers First

  Copyright

  Omeed and Zahida, for Mum

  MKAZORHZZI, always follow your dreams

  Prologue

  She couldn’t watch him die. Not actually see the life escape from his eyes. She thought she would be immune to it by now. What was left to make her care? Not much. Not the blood, the screams, the pleading. Yet she couldn’t look into his eyes and watch them mist over with the fog of death.

  He was so unaware of what was going to happen. She stood at the foot of the bed, his chest rising and falling, his face creased in some nightmare. Not the one she had embroiled him in. Something else, something more personal. She felt a twinge of envy then, that she couldn’t be part of that intimacy. The thoughts inside him, shut off from her. She wondered if his brain was pricking at his subconscious, trying to rouse him. Danger is staring at you. Wake up.

  He didn’t. He just carried on sleeping. She edged closer to the bed, barefoot, silent. Her fingers reached out, lightly felt his skin. Warm. A memory of someone else. A missed heartbeat. She became reckless then. She decided to give him a chance. A chance she never had.

  She sat down, and the bed moved with her. She shook him gently. If he woke up, she would let him live. But he didn’t, his breathing became shallow, and then deep again. It was a sign. It was meant to happen. This was all part of the plan.

  She tilted his head back slightly, and ran her finger over his throat. It felt so solid, like cord, or steel. Would she have the strength? She closed her eyes. And remembered. She remembered the beginning. She remembered a time when she wasn’t like this. And she remembered the moment she had changed. When they had changed her.

  And that filled her with anger, an energy that coursed through her every cell, a hatred that needed to be sated. She took the hand saw from inside her jacket. Reckless again. She was leaving so many clues, but she no longer cared. She looked at the serrated edge, and she looked at the hardness of his throat.

  Then the memories came again. And they brought with them the strength. She placed the cool metal against his soft skin, and began to move it. Side to side, each stroke filled with more vigour, as her purpose grew and she knew that what she was doing was the right thing. The blood first poured, then spurted, as she cut, struggling against the gristle, the veins. A mess of flesh and red liquid, her fingers drenched, her face splattered, the white bed sheets covered.

  As she hacked away, she didn’t stop, and she didn’t look into his eyes.

  When she was satisfied that he was gone, she looked up.

  His eyes were open.

  He had woken up, he had felt the pain! That wasn’t meant to happen. The empty glass caught her eye. There should have been enough in there to keep him asleep, to keep him from feeling what she was doing. It hadn’t been enough.

  She started to sob.

  She had killed him. Horribly and with no mercy. And he had felt it. She had become one of them. A monster.

  Chapter One

  The group all wore masks, the mouths turned up with threatening grins, the skin pure white. Their bodies cloaked in black, only the trainers and boots differentiating them. Detective Sergeant Zain Harris couldn’t even tell their gender, let alone race or age. Their menace was broken as they walked past him, and asked him for some weed.

  ‘Go fuck yourselves,’ he told them.

  ‘Chill bro,’ one of them said, the mask unmoving.

  ‘I’m not your bro.’

  The group burst into hysterics at a comment Zain didn’t hear, and they wandered off. He felt like chasing them and smacking them into next week. Instead he tried some grounding shit he had learnt during his mandatory ‘if you want your job back’ therapy nonsense. Engage all five senses and you’ll be anchored.

  Great. So what could he see? The group were disappearing into the night, joining the thousands of others dressed in similar gear. He could make
out the silhouettes of the hordes against the street lamps, against the police strobe lights on every car they could get into St James’s Park. Fireworks were being let off randomly, like flares or warning shots into the purplish night sky. He heard clashing voices, as protestors screamed at police, who remained silent, letting the sirens do their talking.

  Around the protestors were lines of his colleagues, dressed in uniform, unlike him. Solid yellow blocks of high-vis jackets, broken by armoured vehicles, cars and horses.

  The acrid stench of horse shit, smoke and gunpowder from the fireworks filled his nose, lining the back of his throat. His stomach, devoid of food and water, retched against the staleness.

  Zain bit back the thought that he didn’t know exactly which side he was on. Anonymous or the State. He didn’t like to dwell; the answer was too complicated, even more than it had been before. Zain could be loyal, he could be devoted and believe in something. The State technically employed him. Anonymous though, they crossed the lines and asked the questions he wasn’t allowed to sometimes. He felt an affinity with them, with their bravery and their disregard for rules when they caught the scum that the law failed to convict.

  Except, who made the decision about who was scum in the first place? There had to be some mechanism to discern that, right?

  ‘Yo, bro,’ said another voice.

  Zain got ready for another giveussomeweed or gofuckyourselves exchange. The masked figure stopped in front of him.

  ‘What?’ said Zain, baring his teeth.

  ‘Zain, man? Didn’t realise you were coming these ends. Been long time bro. How you been?’

  The mask was pulled off. It was a cousin, Rakim or Kasim, he couldn’t remember. From his mother’s half of the family. She was the daughter of a Turkish diplomat and an Indian journalist. Rakim or Kasim had the olive-skinned, dark-haired look that could belong to either side. Zain had the same complexion, but with his Turkish grandfather’s bright blue eyes, and his English-military father’s features.

  ‘Yeah, well . . .’

  ‘I mean, I knew you were always a bit off-centre like, but you a proper hacker?’

  ‘I do my bit,’ Zain said, looking away. He had done more than that when he was younger. He had even been part of the Anonymous movement for a few months, before being recruited by extremists. Zain didn’t look like anyone else in his family and had grown up feeling a sense of alienation every time he faced the mirror. And that’s what had started his demise, his willingness to try and belong to something, anything, that could give him a clear identity. Bastardised forms of religion and anarchists were his favourites. But his hacking skills just weren’t up to the level of Anonymous, so he had never got very far.

  Zain had never truly fit in growing up. His parents were the definition of opposites attract – from very different backgrounds, they had met in a war zone, fallen passionately for each other, and then spent the rest of their lives pushing against each other. Loneliness was a frequent part of Zain’s life, and despite excelling at academia, he found himself vulnerable to voices that could speak to his emptiness. One of the generation first to be radicalised online, Zain had fallen easily into the hands of predators who wanted to use him to carry out their warped agenda. Brainwashed, but not brain dead – as he became further embroiled in a terrorist cell, making physical contact with his online groomers, Zain’s moral compass kicked in. He was trapped and he wanted a way out. And that’s when counter-terrorism and MI5 offered him a lifeline. Detective Chief Inspector Raymond Cross from SO15 had come to his rescue. Zain turned double agent for him, and from then on the teenage Zain was marked, the secret services taking an interest in him and what he could do for them. Through university, Cross had been a mentor to Zain, and afterwards Zain had done stints with GCHQ before turning to SO15 and covert operations. Until that had gone horribly wrong, leaving him almost dead.

  ‘Nice one, bro. It’s why I’m here, need one of these guys to help me run some business shit.’ Rakim or Kasim’s voice cut into his thoughts.

  ‘I don’t think that’s what they do. They’re not guns for hire.’

  ‘There must be some, innit, willing to turn to the dark side. You sure you won’t bro? Do a favour for me innit? Family rates?’

  Rakim or Kasim grinned at him. Zain shook his head, said he’d be in touch, maybe.

  ‘Nice one, bro.’

  Zain put his hands tightly into his jacket pockets, pulled his hood up, and headed away from the park. He wasn’t feeling this; he didn’t know why Unit 3 had been dragged in. They were special ops, under the command of the Westminster Police Crime Commissioner Justin Hope. They weren’t here to patrol a riot, that wasn’t their remit. Detective Chief Inspector Kate Riley, his boss, had asked them to blend in. To try to stay one step ahead of the crowds, by infiltrating and manipulating them if need be. They weren’t the only ones. S019, the armed response unit, were on standby in ARU vans. MI5, the security services, and SO15, the counter-terrorism command unit who worked with them, were also dotted around and running their own covert surveillance.

  He had been part of that set-up once, knew how that joint-operation stuff worked, and how when things went bad, they went bad really quickly.

  Zain could think of better ways of spending Bonfire Night. He was missing a Krav Maga class for this bullshit. And he wasn’t even sure this was proper anti-capitalist Anonymous protesting. So far most people he had seen without their masks were just kids.

  Actually, enough, he thought, he was going. He needed to get home, and get some food inside him. He started heading towards where his car was parked, only to get a frantic message come through to his earpiece.

  ‘Zain, I need you. Something’s going down.’

  Chapter Two

  Zain was standing in a side street by the Albert Arms pub next to Detective Sergeant Stevie Brennan. She was wearing jeans, and a padded bomber jacket like his. Although he wondered if bomber was an appropriate term to use now.

  Part of Unit 3, like him, Stevie had given up her previous Met-liaison role within the team, but she was still responsible for any officers that were loaned to them, or any PCC officers that were part of an investigation. She also coordinated interviews, searches, took witness statements and was training to be part of SO19, regularly attending firing ranges for practice.

  A good person to have your back, Zain had always thought.

  In front of them a group of protestors were baiting a small line of Met officers.

  ‘Like a fucking emaciated blue line,’ said Stevie. ‘Where the hell is their back up?’

  ‘Probably us.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Yeah. What are we doing here anyway? Waste of time.’

  ‘The edict was for all resources on the ground.’

  ‘Edict?’

  ‘Riley’s words. More like Hope’s probably.’

  ‘Still. It’s freezing, and it’s not like anything’s going to happen. There’s more cops in St James’s Park than I care to even think about.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Stevie. ‘Only . . . You know what I thought when I turned up? All these people, look at them. Thousands of them are hidden behind their masks and cloaks. I couldn’t tell one from another.’

  ‘Clues in the name, Stevie. Anonymous?’

  ‘Facetious fuck. You know what I mean. And I thought, shit, imagine if something did happen here. Imagine if the worst happened, where would you even start to look? Every suspect looks pretty much the same.’

  She shivered, and her hand went to her shoulder. Zain didn’t ask about it. He had more than enough injuries lurking like phantoms in his own body to want to call attention to any that Stevie had.

  ‘So let’s hope no one turns up dead then,’ he said. ‘Where’s Rob anyway?’

  Detective Sergeant Robin ‘Rob’ Pelt, also in Unit 3 , was supposed to be infiltrating the riot with them.

  ‘No idea, and honestly don’t want to know. Since he started seeing that anti-fox hunting woman he’s
become a zealot. Does my head in. Glad she dumped him.’

  ‘That’s a bit unfair. I think she woke up some moral fibre in him.’

  Rob had dated Monica for four months. The relationship had ended, but the animal-loving vegan had left Rob with a new outlook on life. He was as bad as an ex-smoker these days, determined to convert everyone else to his viewpoint.

  ‘Woken up some sort of crap, that’s for sure, nothing moral about him. And shame his animal-welfare love doesn’t extend to the female of the species. He’s still a womanising arsehole.’

  ‘Well he’s missing all the fun.’

  The protestors were jeering, making no sense, nothing coherent to Zain anyway. Just noise circling into the air, hurting his ears. It all felt pointless, until one of them lit a rag stuffed into a glass bottle.

  ‘Oh shit,’ said Stevie.

  ‘What is this, the nineties?’

  Zain and Stevie started moving quickly towards the figure holding the lit bottle, its black cloak billowing in the breeze.

  ‘Hope he catches fire,’ said Zain.

  ‘That can be arranged.’

  They were a couple of feet behind the protestor with the flaming weapon, ready to disarm as soon as they got close enough. The Met officers in turn were closing in from the front, trapping the little group. Zain worried about the Molotov cocktail being hurled into the pub at the side, which could cause serious damage and potential casualties.

  He began manoeuvring himself to stand in the path of the armed protestor, acting as a stop gap, hopefully. He should be seen, dressed in his casual attire, and hopefully make whoever was lurking under the Guido Fawkes mask think twice. Think about the people inside the building.

  Stevie stayed where she was, in case the group decided to retreat, so she would at least be able to follow if not thwart their attempts. But they didn’t seem to care; instead they were inching their way towards the officers that were creeping towards them.

  The figure holding the Molotov cocktail turned suddenly, looking at Zain. He felt the same uneasiness he had been feeling all night when staring into the solid white masks with their drawn-on features, their uniform disguise. It was all too familiar: dehumanised opponents. He swallowed hard, staring into the eyeholes, the only discernible features.