A Savage Hunger Read online

  Copyright © 2016 Claire McGowan

  The right of Claire McGowan to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group 2016

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  Ebook conversion by Avon DataSet Ltd, Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire

  eISBN: 978 1 4722 2810 9

  Cover images: chapel © Thinkstock/Blackbeck; figure © plainpicture/Willing-Holtz; all other images © Shutterstock. Cover by craigfraserdesign.com

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

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  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Also by Claire McGowan

  Praise

  Dedication

  Part One

  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

  Part Two

  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

  Part Three

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Claire McGowan grew up in a small village in Northern Ireland. After achieving a degree in English and French from Oxford University, and time spent living in China and France, she moved to London where she works in the charity sector and also teaches creative writing. A SAVAGE HUNGER is her fifth novel and the fourth in the Paula Maguire series.

  About the Book

  Victim: Female. Twenty-two years of age.

  Reason for investigation: Missing person.

  ID: Alice Morgan. Student. Last seen at a remote religious shrine in Ballyterrin.

  Alice Morgan’s disappearance raises imediate questions for forensic psychologist Paula Maguire. Alice, the daughter of a life peer in the Home Office, has vanished along with a holy relic – the bones of a saint – and the only trace is the bloodstains on the altar.

  With no body to confirm death, the pressure in this high-profile case is all-consuming, and Paula knows that she will have to put her own life, including her imminent marriage, on hold, if they are to find the truth.

  A connection to a decade-old murder immeditely indicates that all may not be as it seems; as the summer heat rises and tempers fray, can Alice be found or will they learn that those that are hungry for vengeance may be the most savage of all?

  By Claire McGowan and available from Headline

  The Fall

  The Lost

  The Dead Ground

  The Silent Dead

  A Savage Hunger

  Controlled Explosions (a digital short story)

  Praise

  Praise for The Silent Dead:

  ‘I read The Silent Dead with my heart in my mouth . . . brilliant’ Erin Kelly

  ‘In Dr Paula Maguire, [McGowan] has created a wonderfully complex character’ Irish Independent

  ‘A breathlessly exciting and intelligent thriller with a brooding atmosphere’ Sunday Mirror

  ‘I was gripped by The Silent Dead and was fully immersed in the world created by Claire McGowan’s fine storytelling’ www.forwinternights.wordpress.com

  ‘Deliciously satisfying’ www.louisereviews.com

  Praise for The Dead Ground:

  ‘Fast paced and engaging’ Evening Echo

  ‘Enthralling . . . evoked wonderfully’ Sunday Mirror

  ‘Claire’s novels deal with all sorts of modern moral issues’ Belfast Telegraph (online)

  ‘Claire McGowan is a very good thriller writer . . . It’s a gripping and gory read and shows McGowan to be a thriller writer of exceptional talent’ Irish Independent

  ‘Harrowing’ Image (magazine)

  Praise for The Lost:

  ‘This thriller is fresh and accessible without ever compromising on grit or suspense’ Erin Kelly, author of The Poison Tree

  ‘A brilliant portrait of a fractured society and a mystery full of heart stopping twists. Compelling, clever and entertaining’ Jane Casey, author of The Burning

  ‘A keeps-you-guessing mystery’ Alex Marwood, author of The Missing Girls

  ‘A gripping yarn you will be unable to put down’ Sun

  ‘A clever and pacey thriller’ Sunday Mirror

  ‘McGowan’s style is pacey and direct, and the twists come thick and fast’ Declan Burke, Irish Times

  ‘Engaging and gripping’ Northern Echo

  ‘Taut plotting and assured writing . . . a highly satisfying thriller’ Good Housekeeping

  ‘Claire McGowan is a writer at the top of her game’ www.lisareadsbooks.blogspot.co.uk

  ‘An exciting, enthralling and tense read’ www.thelittlereaderlibrary.blogspot.co.uk

  Praise for The Fall:

  ‘There is nothing not to like . . . a compelling and flawless thriller’ S.J. Bolton

  ‘A cool and twisted debut’ Daily Mirror

  ‘She knows how to tell a cracking story. She will go far’ Daily Mail

  ‘Chills you to the bone’ Daily Telegraph

  ‘The characters are finely drawn, and it’s concern for them, rather than for whodunnit, that provides the page-turning impetus in this promising debut’ Guardian

  ‘A brilliant crime novel . . . worthy of its label – “gripping”’ Company Magazine

  ‘Hugely impressive. The crime will keep you reading, but it’s the characters you’ll remember’ Irish Examiner

  ‘It’s a clever, beautifully detailed exploration of the fragility of daily life . . . The genius of this story is that it could happen to any of us, and that’s why it hits so hard’ Elizabeth Haynes

  ‘A writer of great talent’ Michael Ridpath

  ‘Immediate, engaging and relevant, The Fall hits the ground running and doesn’t stop. I read it in one breathless sitting’ Erin Kelly

  ‘Highly origina
l and compelling’ Mark Edwards

  ‘Sharp, honest and emotionally gripping’ Tom Harper

  ‘Stunning. Beautifully written, totally convincing and full of character. Really, really good’ Steve Mosby

  ‘An amazing first book’ www.promotingcrime.blogspot.co.uk

  ‘Intelligent and absorbing . . . Highly commendable’ www.milorambles.com

  To my sister and brothers

  Part One

  ‘Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.’

  Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

  Prologue

  Belfast, Northern Ireland,

  July 1981

  The corpse on the bed was still breathing.

  Hardly at all, in a harsh, erratic rhythm, so every few seconds you thought it had stopped. One. Two. Three. Four . . . Then it would start again and you’d drop your head in your hands and think: I can’t bear this. It got so bad you were counting the seconds of silence – one, two, three, four – just hoping in a terrible part of you that it would stop for good, just stop with this bloody agony and let it all be over, for God’s sake. Sixty-seven days of it. No one ever thought he’d be here after so long, still clinging on, still somehow not dead, while outside the walls the world marched, waved banners, howled insults. You wondered could he hear the racket, in this room with bars on the windows, or if his ears had gone as well as his eyes.

  He’d gone blind ten days ago, his eyes turning milky, and then a sort of black colour that was terrible to see. He was stretched out on a sheepskin rug, the waterbed under him wobbling obscenely with each snatched breath. His skin would crack and split if he moved, opening in red, sore mouths that quickly turned black. At the foot of the metal bed, like a bad joke, sat a plate of bread; white, with the crusts cut off. Some beef spread; three apples, dried up. Just in case, they said. In case what? He was too far gone now to eat – a bite of that apple would kill him straight off.

  You felt a hand drop on your shoulder. It was Rambo. Or so they called him, anyway; a tiny wee rat of a man. Sort of a bad joke. ‘Seen enough, son?’

  You couldn’t answer, so you just nodded. You’d not expected this. You didn’t know what you’d expected, but not this. The hospital stink of shit and bleach, the skin so pale you could nearly see the blood struggling underneath, the black, gaping gums – Christ. It was all you could do to keep a lid on it, and you knew suddenly that if you tried to speak you would burst out crying like a wean.

  The doctor, who hadn’t said a word or looked at either of you the whole time, took the corpse’s pulse again. Every hour at this point. Checking. Counting. You were waiting, he was waiting, all the crowds outside and watching around the world were waiting for the last moment, where the long, slow slide towards death finally ended, hardened into something permanent. When he finally let out his last breath. You could almost feel the hands on the triggers. The match held to the touch paper.

  ‘’Mon.’ The other man gestured and you got up, numbly, and followed him out to the corridor. It was less like a hospital out there and more like what it really was – a prison. Your DMs echoed on the stone floor and you blew on your hands. When you’d touched him, he’d been cold as ice, and you just couldn’t get the feeling off your skin. The man was dying. He was dying right in front of your eyes and you weren’t doing a thing to stop it. Somehow, you hadn’t understood that until now.

  Rambo lit a roll-up, breathed in. ‘It’ll be soon, they said. Next three days. But it’s not too late – if they get an IV in him—’

  ‘They can help him?’ It didn’t seem credible. The man was so near death you could feel it in the room, see it moving up his body with his slow blood.

  ‘Aye. I know he’s far gone. But there’s still a chance to bring him back. They sometimes ask for it, when they’re near the end. When they don’t know where they are.’

  You’d heard that. About the families who’d had to swear not to feed their sons at the end, as they screamed in broken voices for someone to take the pain away. Swear to just stand by and let them die.

  ‘And if he doesn’t go – well, you know how it’ll be. It’ll all be called off. The whole hunger strike. If he stops, they’ll all stop.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘The demands. They still don’t agree.’

  ‘But I thought we were close.’

  Somewhere across the water, in leather-lined office rooms and under green shaded lights, people were deciding the fate of this man. Mrs T and her top men. Whether they should bring him back. What would happen if they let him die. Suicide, they’d been calling it, but to the people outside the walls, it was murder.

  ‘Aye, they’re close. Not close enough. Yet.’ It had gone so far now – the man drawing in death with every breath, the Army outside, the world watching. The Brits couldn’t be seen to back down, give in to terrorists. Your lot couldn’t accept less than they’d asked for at the start. Not when six men had already starved to death.

  ‘So . . .’

  ‘Word has it they might give in. Brits never thought it’d go so far. And there’s your man down in Ballyterrin calling for an end to it. People listen to him. If word gets out we’re close to an agreement – well, you see what’ll happen. They’ll take all the fellas off the strike. It’ll be over, and we won’t get what we started this for.’

  And the man in there on the bed, the corpse, they could bring him back from the brink. Lazarus, walking out of his tomb.

  You didn’t understand. ‘So what—’

  ‘Son. We need you. Are you ready to do your duty?’

  At first you thought they were asking for this – your life, your body, the slow pain of starving to death over months. But then he spoke again, and you saw it wasn’t that they were asking for at all. It was worse.

  Chapter One

  Ballyterrin, Northern Ireland,

  July 2013

  ‘There now,’ said Pat. ‘Isn’t that lovely?’

  ‘Lovely,’ agreed the salesgirl, whose eyebrows had been so over-plucked she always looked like she was first glimpsing the prices of her own merchandise. ‘Add in some wee shoes and a veil, it’d be gorgeous, so it would.’

  ‘Gorgeous,’ Pat echoed. ‘What do you think, pet?’

  Paula regarded herself in the mirror. She’d lost some weight since Maggie’s birth two years ago, but the lace dress was still cutting into her ribs, with its complicated architecture of hoops and boning and petticoats. Above it was her face, irritated by the overheated shop and confection of fascinators, shrugs, white satin shoes, and general frippery, none of it costing less than two hundred pounds. ‘It’s . . . nice,’ she tried.

  ‘It’s beautiful!’ the girl urged. ‘Handmade lace. French.’

  ‘Hmm. Yeah, it’s nice, but . . .’

  ‘If you’re not sure we can try more. There’s plenty more!’ Pat was giddy, overjoyed that her difficult son was finally marrying his childhood sweetheart, who was also, as of two years ago, her own stepdaughter. Paula herself felt some more complicated things about the situation. She’d have liked Aidan to be there, to examine the handwritten price tags, and give out a low whistle at the cost, and raise his eyebrows at her when the girl gushed about two grand being ‘nothing at all’, not for the ‘most special day of your life’, while telling dire tales of brides who’d ordered their dresses for cheap online and sure wasn’t the wedding ruined when it never turned up? Pat ate all this up, adding in ‘she never’ and ‘God love her, what did she do then?’ at the right moments.

  The dress was lifted off by the woman’s claw-like hands, and Paula stood in the narrow cubicle, looking at herself in her M&S pants and bra, legs unshaven, toenails unpainted. Her red hair was scraped back in a plait, already plastered to her forehead with sweat, because for once the Irish summer was actually a summer. Her body had scars too – a neat one from the Caesarean that had birthed her d
aughter, a puckered white one where she’d once been stabbed. Paula thought of Maggie for a moment – toddling on the beach with Aidan, if he got organised enough to take her, in a little green swimsuit, her red hair in chubby bunches, Aidan lifting her up to splash over the waves. She wished she was there with them, not stuck here in womanland.

  She wriggled back into her jeans and T-shirt, rattled the curtain. ‘That’s me changed so. Better get back to Mags, I’ve been ages.’

  Pat said, ‘Oh, she’ll be grand. Aidan dotes on her, so he does.’

  ‘With her daddy for the day!’ twittered the girl. ‘Ah, isn’t that nice, he’s babysitting.’

  Normally Paula would have retorted that it was hardly babysitting when it was your own child, but Pat’s sudden interest in a cabinet of costume jewellery was a sobering reminder that they could play dress-up weddings and happy families all they liked, but it didn’t change the fact no one knew if Aidan was actually Maggie’s father or not.

  She allowed herself to think of the other, just for a moment – his straight back, the fair hair brushed off his face, his English accent clipping on the edge of words – and then she cut it off. There was no use thinking about Guy, because he was gone.

  She drove up the road, afternoon traffic snarling the town, horns blaring in the unexpected swelter of the warm day. She’d taken off work to try on those dresses. What a waste of time, when she could have been doing something useful.

  Opening her front door, she was greeted with a cloud of dust and a strange man in paint-stained overalls and a face mask. ‘Sorry, love. Be out in a minute.’ The builder was extracting a cigarette from his pocket. She was torn between wanting him gone so she could get into a cool shower, and the need for them to actually finish the work they’d been contracted for. The kitchen had been unusable for weeks now, since the builders had thoughtfully ripped out the cooker and sink then disappeared on other jobs, leaving most of the brown seventies cupboards still attached to the walls. Some of them had missing doors, like gaping teeth in a beaten-up face. Paula’s childhood home would soon look like a different place – somewhere that wasn’t haunted by memories.