Broken Silence by Liz Mistry
When
DS Felicity Springer is reported missing after a police training
conference, the countdown to find her begins…
On
her way home after an exhausting weekend, with colleagues she can’t
wait to escape, Felicity notices something odd about the white van in
front of her. A hand has punched through the car’s rear light and
is frantically waving, trying to catch her attention.
Desperate
to help, Felicity dials 999 and calls it in. But whilst on the phone,
she loses control of the car on the icy road, crashing straight into
the vehicle ahead.
Pinned
in the seat and unable to move, Felicity feels a sudden whoosh of
cold air across her face. Someone has opened the passenger door…
and they have a gun.
With
Felicity missing and no knowledge of whether she is dead or alive, DS
Nikki Parekh and DC Sajid Malik race to find their friend and
colleague.
But
Felicity was harbouring a terrible secret, and with her life now
hanging in the balance, Nikki can only hope that someone will come
forward and break the silence…
Let
me introduce the brave … the bold … the ferocious …DS Nikita
Parekh. A working class, single parent, detective of dual heritage
who lives in the working class estate of Listerhills in Bradford.
Chapter
10
Nikki
needed to unwind. She forced her shoulders to relax as she drove
round the Listerhills Estate streets. This was something she often
did before heading home for the evening. Keeping an eye on her patch
as she drove had two benefits. One, she kept her finger on the pulse
and two, she didn’t take as much of her work home with her as
usual.
Fliss!
For God’s sake, Fliss?
Who’d have thought jagged, cold Springer would be called Fliss?
She frowned. Who’d have thought jagged, cold Springer would have a
pregnant wife? Shit, Nikki had suspected she ate children for
breakfast but that whole scenario was turned on its head. Now that
she’d met Springer’s pregnant partner and liked her, it was even
more imperative to get Springer home. She was invested in this now.
Her
headlights picked up figures scurrying into the darkness of the
ginnels. Deliberately, she turned off the side street and into the
cobbled back alley that separated two lines of terraces, and trawled
down it in second gear. It was three streets over from her own home
yet this one was always one she kept an eye on. It backed onto one
edge of the Rec and was prime land for drug deals, besides, there had
been a worrying increase in machete attacks nearby in the last two
weeks. Where there were machete attacks, Nikki’s experience told
her there were also Class As, other weapons and gullible kids to get
caught up in the bravado and cheap sell of a Lamborghini, a snazzy
wristwatch and posh mobile. There was an air of expectancy, like a
toxic cloud hovering over her estate and Nikki wasn’t going to
stand for that. She reached the bottom of the ginnel, hoping her
exhaust wouldn’t fall off – she’d no spare cash to replace
that, not if she was going to replace the battery – and waited.
A
figure dodged out from a back yard further down, didn’t even look
in Nikki’s direction and loped off, dodging the puddles, shoulders
hunched and hood up. As he dipped under one of the few still working
streetlamps she cursed. ‘Fuck’s sake Haqib. Do you never learn?’
and she was out of her car, leaving the engine running and her door
open as she darted after him. ‘Haqib?’
He
hesitated, seemed to consider whether to speed up or turn and face
the music. Thankfully, for him, the latter instinct won.
‘Whassup,
Aunt Nikki?’ He splayed his hands in front of him, sulky mouth
drooping, attitude in the way he hunched his shoulders.
‘What
you doing out at this time? It’s after ten and you, I believe, are
still grounded after Fingergate.’ She was well aware that she was
being harsh. The lad’s finger had been amputated and reattached
nearly a year ago. Sometimes though, it paid to remind him of what
his last brush with drugs had resulted in.
Haqib
winced and flexed his little finger. ‘That’s a bit tight, innit?
That were last year.’
Hands
on hips, Nikki inhaled slowly. ‘I’ll tell you what’s tight,
Haqib Parekh. Skipping out of the house behind your mum’s back –
that’s what’s tight. Breaking your word – that’s tight too,
hanging out here—’
‘Yeah,
yeah, I get it. That’s tight too.’ Haqib mimicked his auntie’s
tone.
Nikki
reached over and gently cuffed the back of his head, ‘No, that’s
not bloody tight… that’s stupid. S.T.U.P.I.D. Stupid – got it?’
‘I
ain’t doing drugs, you know. I’m not that mental.’
Nikki
raised an eyebrow, not caring how harsh she was being. Haqib worried
her. A young Asian lad trying to be cocky, trying to be a big man,
was a worry for her. Her sister Anika, Haqib’s mum, seemed content
to leave it up to Nikki to sort her son out. She studied the bloom of
red that spread across his cheeks. That was guilt alright, but not
the sort of blasé, fast-talking guilt she was used to from her
nephew. ‘So, spill!’
A
voice from behind her had Nikki spinning on her heel.
‘It’s
me he came to see, Mrs Parekh.’
The
girl was tall – taller than Haqib, skinnier than was healthy,
blonde with blue eyes and a dimple in the middle of her chin. At
present her eyes looked worried as she darted glances towards Haqib
and each hand worried at the sleeve of her jacket. The girl looked
familiar, but it took a minute for Nikki to place her and when she
did, she groaned inwardly. Fuck’s sake Haqib, if it’s not drugs,
it’s inappropriate relationships. ‘You’re Glass’s sister,
aren’t you?’
The
girl nodded. ‘Michelle – Chelle-to-my-mates.’
The
words ran together and for a second Parekh thought she was telling
her she had a different surname to her brother. Chelle-to-her-mates
indeed. Who did she think she was – bloody royalty?
‘Haq
isn’t doing drugs. He knows it’s for idiots, don’t you, Haq?’
Haqib,
mouth hanging open, looking exactly like an idiot himself at that
precise moment, nodded. Lovestruck, that’s what he is. But did he
have to be lovestruck over Adam Glass’s sister? Of all the girls on
the estate, he had to go for the one most likely to have him losing
another digit – if not something worse.
‘So…’
Nikki chewed her lip, trying to come up with something auntie-ish to
say, but could only manage, ‘You’re both bloody stupid. Do you
really think your white-supremacist brother, office holder in Albion
First, Yorkshire’s answer to the EDL, is going to sit back and let
you date an Asian boy… a Muslim boy?’
Michelle’s
eyes darted to the ground and then straight back up again. She met
Nikki’s gaze. ‘We love each other, me and Haq. We’re like Romeo
and Juliet, aren’t we, Haq?’ Her face flushed, her lips turned
up, her eyes full of love as she looked at her boyfriend.
Born in Scotland,
Made in Bradford sums up Liz Mistry’s life. Over thirty years ago
she moved from a small village in West Lothian to Yorkshire to get
her teaching degree. Once here, Liz fell in love with three things;
curries, the rich cultural diversity of the city … and her Indian
husband (not necessarily in this order). Now thirty years, three
children, two cats (Winky and Scumpy) and a huge extended family
later, Liz uses her experiences of living and working in the inner
city to flavour her writing. Her gritty crime fiction police
procedural novels set in Bradford embrace the city she describes as
‘Warm, Rich and Fearless’ whilst exploring the darkness that
lurks beneath.
Struggling with
severe clinical depression and anxiety for a large number of years,
Liz often includes mental health themes in her writing. She credits
the MA in Creative Writing she took at Leeds Trinity University with
helping her find a way of using her writing to navigate her ongoing
mental health struggles. Being a debut novelist in her fifties was
something Liz had only dreamed of and she counts herself lucky,
whilst pinching herself regularly to make sure it’s all real. One
of the nicest things about being a published author is chatting with
and responding to readers’ feedback and Liz regularly does events
at local libraries, universities, literature festivals and open mics.
She also teaches creative writing too. Now, having nearly completed a
PhD in Creative Writing focussing on ‘the absence of the teen voice
in adult crime fiction’ and ‘why expansive narratives matter’,
Liz is chock full of ideas to continue writing.
In her spare
time, Liz loves pub quizzes (although she admits to being rubbish at
them), dancing (she does a mean jig to Proud Mary – her
opinion, not ratified by her family), visiting the varied Yorkshire
landscape, with Robin Hoods Bay being one of her favourite coastal
destinations, listening to music, reading and blogging about all
things crime fiction on her blog, The Crime Warp.
