Silent Scream
Angela Marsons
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
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
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Letter from Angela
Acknowledegments
Published by Bookouture
An imprint of StoryFire Ltd. 23 Sussex Road, Ickenham, UB10 8PN, United Kingdom
www.bookouture.com
Copyright © Angela Marsons 2015
Angela Marsons has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-909490-91-8
This book is dedicated to my partner, Julie Forrest, who never stopped believing and never allowed me to forget my dream.
Prologue
Rowley Regis, Black Country, 2004
Five figures formed a pentagram around a freshly dug mound. Only they knew it was a grave.
Digging the frozen earth beneath the layers of ice and snow had been like trying to carve stone but they’d taken turns. All of them.
An adult-sized hole would have taken longer.
The shovel had passed from grip to grip. Some were hesitant, tentative. Others more assured. No one resisted and no one spoke.
The innocence of the life taken was known to them all but the pact had been made. Their secrets would be buried.
Five heads bowed towards the dirt, visualising the body beneath soil that already glistened with fresh ice.
As the first flakes dusted the top of the grave, a shudder threaded through the group.
The five figures dispersed, their footprints treading the trail of a star into the fresh, crisp snow.
It was done.
One
Black Country, Present Day
Teresa Wyatt had the inexplicable feeling that this night would be her last.
She switched off the television and the house fell quiet. It wasn’t the normal silence that descended each evening as she and her home gently closed down and unwound towards bedtime.
She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting on the late night news. The announcement had already been made on the local evening news programme. Perhaps she was hoping for a miracle, some last-minute reprieve.
Ever since the first application two years ago she had felt like a prisoner on death row. Intermittently the guards had come, taken her to the chair and then fate had returned her to the safety of the cell. But this time was final. Teresa knew there would be no further objections, no more delays.
She wondered if the others had seen the news. Did they feel the same way she did? Would they admit to themselves that their primary feelings were not remorse but self-preservation?
Had she been a nicer person there might have been a smattering of conscience buried beneath her concern for herself; but there was not.
Had she not gone along with the plan, she would have been ruined, she told herself. The name Teresa Wyatt would have been mentioned with distaste, instead of the respect she now enjoyed.
Teresa had no doubt that the complaint would have been taken seriously. The source had been devious, but believable. But it had been silenced forever – and that was something she would never regret.
But now and again in the years since Crestwood her stomach had lurched at the sight of a similar gait or a hair colour or a tilt of the head.
Teresa stood and tried to throw off the melancholy that shadowed her. She strode to the kitchen and put the single plate and wine glass into the dishwasher.
There was no dog to let out or cat to let in. Just the final night time security check of the deadbolts.
Again, she was struck by a feeling that the safety check was pointless; that nothing could hold back the past. She pushed the thought away. There was nothing to fear. They had all made a pact and it had held strong for ten years. Only the five of them knew the truth.
She knew she was too tense to drift off to sleep immediately but she had called a seven a.m. staff meeting for which she could not be late.
She stepped into the bathroom and began to run the water, adding a generous measure of lavender-infused bubble bath. The scent instantly filled the room. A long soak on top of the earlier glass of wine should induce sleep.
The dressing gown and satin pyjamas were folded neatly on top of the laundry basket as she stepped into the tub.
She closed her eyes and surrendered to the water as it enveloped her. She smiled to herself as the anxiety began to recede. She was just being hypersensitive.
Teresa felt that her life had been divided into two segments. There were thirty-seven years B.C., as she called her life Before Crestwood. Those years had been charmed. Single and ambitious, every decision had been her own. She had answered to no one.
But the years since had been different. A shadow of fear had followed her every move; dictated her actions, influenced her decisions.
She remembered reading somewhere that conscience was no more than the fear of being caught. Teresa was honest enough to admit that, for her, the statement was true.