Read Online Scream: A DCI Mark Lapslie Investigation by Nigel McCrery - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Nigel McCrery
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cognitive behavioural therapy, neuro-linguistic programming or good old-fashioned meditation. That’s what this group is here to do – learn some of these techniques so that you can at least live with your synaesthesia, if not actually beat it.’
He paused again, and smiled beneath his huge moustache. ‘And today we’ll be learning about cognitive behavioural therapy.’
‘Brilliant,’ Steve Stottart murmured to Lapslie. ‘We’re going to have a buzz!’
CHAPTER FOUR
On her way back from lunch with Jane Catherall to set up her incident room in Canvey Island, Emma Bradbury took the opportunity to drive around the various streets, roads and avenues of the area, familiarising herself with the locality. After all, she might be there a while, depending on how the investigation went.
If she was being honest with herself – which frankly didn’t happen very often – then Emma was nervous. She’d never really handled a big murder investigation before. Stabbings outside nightclubs, yes; bottles suddenly smashed over the heads of wives or girlfriends in the kitchen after a domestic row, yes; but premeditated and sadistic murder – not with her in charge. She’d worked on that scale of investigation before, of course, but playing second fiddle to a more senior officer. In the past year or so that officer had been Mark Lapslie, and she’d learned a lot from him about how to project authority without making it look like you were doing so. Now she had to put those lessons into practice.
Canvey Island, she thought as she drove around, was one of those places that you had to be deliberately going to in order to find it – you couldn’t just drive through on your way somewhere else – and for that reason Emma had managed to inadvertently avoid it for her entire time in Essex. She realised, asshe cruised around, that she had actually missed something rather special. It was charming, in its own 1950s way. Isolated, but thriving and full of energy. Something about it reminded her of the early
Carry On
films, although she couldn’t quite place what it was.
Part of her brain was flagging street names as she drove – a habit she’d got into years ago, before satnavs, so that she always knew roughly where she was if she had to check a street map. After five or six strange names her conscious mind picked up on the anomaly, and she found herself reviewing the names without quite knowing why. Paahl Road, Waarem Road, Vaagen Road, Delfzul Road … she decided that there must have been some kind of Dutch influence in Canvey Island, years ago. Passing Cornelius Vermuyden School a few minutes later she was pretty much convinced about it.
She passed a church as she was driving: a squat, white tower with an oddly styled roof, set behind a black ranch-style fence. The church was attached to what looked like a hall and a house – perhaps the vicarage – both of them white-plastered as if they had all come as part of a job lot. The tower had a massive cross set into it, large enough to crucify a giant. Emma’s hand crept up to cross herself, shoulder to shoulder and forehead to chest and she had to repress a twist of guilt within her heart.
The board outside the church named it as ‘Our Lady of Canvey and the English Martyrs’. There had to be a story behind that, she thought, and made a note to look into it. Who could possibly have been martyred at Canvey Island, and for what?
A little further on, she passed a pub with the appealing name of the Lobster Smack. It was freshly painted a gleaming white, but beneath the paint it looked old, as if it dated back hundreds of years. It sat in the shadow of one of the concrete sea walls that appeared to line the island, protecting it against high tidalfloods. A row of wooden cottages sat beside it, looking equally venerable. She wondered briefly if the pub had rooms. This case might require her to stay around for a while, and it wasn’t as if she’d passed a Travelodge or a
He paused again, and smiled beneath his huge moustache. ‘And today we’ll be learning about cognitive behavioural therapy.’
‘Brilliant,’ Steve Stottart murmured to Lapslie. ‘We’re going to have a buzz!’
CHAPTER FOUR
On her way back from lunch with Jane Catherall to set up her incident room in Canvey Island, Emma Bradbury took the opportunity to drive around the various streets, roads and avenues of the area, familiarising herself with the locality. After all, she might be there a while, depending on how the investigation went.
If she was being honest with herself – which frankly didn’t happen very often – then Emma was nervous. She’d never really handled a big murder investigation before. Stabbings outside nightclubs, yes; bottles suddenly smashed over the heads of wives or girlfriends in the kitchen after a domestic row, yes; but premeditated and sadistic murder – not with her in charge. She’d worked on that scale of investigation before, of course, but playing second fiddle to a more senior officer. In the past year or so that officer had been Mark Lapslie, and she’d learned a lot from him about how to project authority without making it look like you were doing so. Now she had to put those lessons into practice.
Canvey Island, she thought as she drove around, was one of those places that you had to be deliberately going to in order to find it – you couldn’t just drive through on your way somewhere else – and for that reason Emma had managed to inadvertently avoid it for her entire time in Essex. She realised, asshe cruised around, that she had actually missed something rather special. It was charming, in its own 1950s way. Isolated, but thriving and full of energy. Something about it reminded her of the early
Carry On
films, although she couldn’t quite place what it was.
Part of her brain was flagging street names as she drove – a habit she’d got into years ago, before satnavs, so that she always knew roughly where she was if she had to check a street map. After five or six strange names her conscious mind picked up on the anomaly, and she found herself reviewing the names without quite knowing why. Paahl Road, Waarem Road, Vaagen Road, Delfzul Road … she decided that there must have been some kind of Dutch influence in Canvey Island, years ago. Passing Cornelius Vermuyden School a few minutes later she was pretty much convinced about it.
She passed a church as she was driving: a squat, white tower with an oddly styled roof, set behind a black ranch-style fence. The church was attached to what looked like a hall and a house – perhaps the vicarage – both of them white-plastered as if they had all come as part of a job lot. The tower had a massive cross set into it, large enough to crucify a giant. Emma’s hand crept up to cross herself, shoulder to shoulder and forehead to chest and she had to repress a twist of guilt within her heart.
The board outside the church named it as ‘Our Lady of Canvey and the English Martyrs’. There had to be a story behind that, she thought, and made a note to look into it. Who could possibly have been martyred at Canvey Island, and for what?
A little further on, she passed a pub with the appealing name of the Lobster Smack. It was freshly painted a gleaming white, but beneath the paint it looked old, as if it dated back hundreds of years. It sat in the shadow of one of the concrete sea walls that appeared to line the island, protecting it against high tidalfloods. A row of wooden cottages sat beside it, looking equally venerable. She wondered briefly if the pub had rooms. This case might require her to stay around for a while, and it wasn’t as if she’d passed a Travelodge or a
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