M J Lee

The Chester series featuring DI Emma Christie is my latest series of crime thrillers, set in the historic city of Chester. The first in the series, The Coffin in the Wall, will be released on March 26. Here is the cover and the first chapter. Enjoy…

In the historic city of Chester, a chilling presence lurks amidst the picturesque surroundings. Teenage drug dealers are turning up dead, the bodies twisted and mangled by a ruthless killer. Detective Inspector Emma Christie finds herself thrust into a harrowing investigation, tasked with unraveling the tangled web of violence and deception gripping the city's underbelly.

As the body count climbs, Emma Christie navigates a treacherous landscape where loyalties are tested and secrets lurk in every shadow.

With each new victim, the pressure mounts, and she races against time to stop the killer before more lives are lost. As the stakes escalate and the danger looms ever closer, she realises that in a beautiful city, trust may be the most elusive commodity of all.

Chapter One.

‘Shhhh…’ Kevin placed his finger across his lips. ‘Did you hear something?’

All three of them crouched silently behind the hedgerow, listening to the noises on the wind.

A dog barking in the distance. The low hum of traffic. Another noise, a strange scratching noise like something being dragged along the ground, followed by muffled hammering.

‘What’s that?’ Kev popped his head over the wall, taking a quick look at the ruins of the south-eastern chapel of St John’s Church just one hundred yards away. Even in the dim lights mounted on the walls, the ancient ruins looked frightening, as if a thousand secrets were hidden in the shadows.

He slumped down and whispered to Dan, the smaller of the two boys who were with him. ‘It’s nothing, probably just the caretaker wrapping up for the night.’

‘You had me scared for a moment,’ laughed the largest and toughest of the three, known universally in school as Big Dave.

‘Look,’ said Kev speaking to the smaller boy. ‘This is what you have to do. The lights are on a timer and they will go off in a moment. When they do, you need to move as fast as you can. You have to go to the ruins and write your initials beneath the coffin. It’s as easy as apple pie. Don’t try and trick us because Big Dave will check it out tomorrow to see if they are there. And he won’t be a happy camper if you lie to us, will you, Dave?’

‘The unhappiest camper you’ve ever seen,’ said Dave, shaking his head menacingly.

Kev paused for a moment to let the threat sink in, before handing Dan a small lump of blue chalk he had nicked from school that morning.

‘I don’t know…’ Dan stammered, ‘it looks pretty scary to me.’

Kev punched the smaller boy’s arm. ‘That’s the whole point, dummy.’ He rolled his eyes extravagantly. In the dark, they seemed like white ping pong balls in the middle of his face.

‘Yeah, interrupted Big Dave,’ what would be the point of an initiation that wasn’t scary?’

‘But it could be haunted…’

‘Of course, it’s haunted, stupid, it’s an old, abandoned church. Everybody knows these old places are always haunted by the ghosts of the past.’ Kev nudged Big Dave. ‘It’s said an old monk dressed all in white wanders the ruins at night, rattling his chains.’

‘My mate said he saw him once,’ said Big Dave.

‘And what happened?,’ whispered Dan.

‘Dunno, never saw him again. Wonder what happened to him?’

Dan peered around the edge of the wall. The lights illuminating the ruins cast dark shadows in the corners where the walls met. Anything could be hiding there; boogeymen, the white monk, a zombie ready to infect him with a single bite, or worse – a Medusa ready to turn him into a stone gargoyle.

A violent shudder ran down his backbone looking for a way out.

He slumped back against the wall. ‘Couldn’t I do something else, like nick a car?’

‘Listen, if you want to be part of our gang at school, this is the initiation ceremony. Me, Little Hoss, Stevie G, Charlie, even Big Dave, we’ve all done it before.’

‘I didn’t. I nicked a car,’ piped up Big Dave.

‘Well, everybody else has. And so will you.’

‘Stevie G did it?’

‘Even better, he wrote “Kilroy was here” on the wall and signed “Stevie G” underneath.’

‘He didn’t sign it as Kilroy?’

Kev frowned. ‘Why would he sign it as Kilroy? His name’s Steve Godfrey.’

‘Cos he wrote Kilroy was here.’

‘Never mind,’ said Kev slowly, shaking his head.

‘What if I…’

Before he could finish his sentence, the lights went off.

‘Time for you to go.’

Dan popped his head around the side of the wall once more. Without the lights, the ruins looked even more frightening, the walls bible black against the orange glow of Chester. Even the shadows had shadows.

‘One last thing. Don’t look at the Coffin.’

‘Why?’

‘If you do, you’ll be turned to stone. At least, that’s what the legend says.’

Dan took three deep breaths, desperately trying to quieten the heart beating wildly in his chest.

‘Of course, we could go home now and I’ll tell the whole school how you chickened out…’

Dan turned back quickly. ‘No, don’t do that. I’ll go, just give me a second.’

He pulled up his socks and retied his trainers, taking three more deep breaths like his mum had taught him to do when he was feeling stressed.

‘Are you going to do it or not?’

He stood up, glanced quickly on either side – not seeing anything in the dark – and took a few steps forward before stopping and listening.

‘Hey, dopey, you forgot this.’

Kev was holding up the blue chalk.

He retraced his steps, looking over his shoulder back at the ruins.

‘Good luck,’ said Kev. ‘You’re gonna need it.’

Big Dave chuckled.

Kev shut his eyes and took three more breaths before turning to face the ruins and walking forward. Behind him, he could hear more laughter.

Idiots. He would show them.

He moved more quickly now, his feet brushing through piles of leaves collected by the autumn winds, rustling with every step. His eyes had adjusted to the lack of light and he could see the angular shapes of the ruins rising above him, dark as hell.

A shudder went down his spine.

‘Got to keep going, I’m not afraid,’ he said aloud, to soothe his nerves. He was sick of being bullied. At least in Kev’s gang he was safe. Nobody would touch him if they knew he was part of the gang.

He’d googled the ruins as soon as Kev had told him what the challenge was. It was old, very old, founded in 767 by the Saxons, according to Wikipedia. He studied the period at school. King Alfred and his cakes, the Venerable Bede, and the Vikings, all about the same time. He liked the Vikings but his mum wouldn’t let him watch the TV series. ‘Too violent,’ according to her.

‘But that’s the whole point, Mum. The Vikings were killers.’

She didn’t listen, she never did. Not since Dad left, anyway.

A loud noise on his right. A car door shutting? Who was here too?

He stood still and listened to a strange sound, like an electric motor with a weird rumbling in the background. The sound seemed to curve right past going into the park and carrying on behind him. A slow, monotonous sound.

He didn’t move for a while. Off to his left another sound. A slight hissing and bubbling. He tilted his head. What was it?

The river.

The River Dee speaking to him, telling him not to be afraid.

He walked on, stepping over some branches lying on the ground, reaching the metal fence. Kev said there was a gap he could squeeze through along here, somewhere.

He moved along the fence, searching for the slight bowing of the metal rods where he could slip through and down into the sunken lane.

Here it is. He turned sideways, just managing to shimmy thought the small gap. Two steps across the lane and up onto the embankment. The ruins closer now, looming over him.

He stopped for a moment, listening again, It was amazing how acute his hearing had become in the last few minutes. It was as if he could hear everything happening in the world. Of course, the loudest noise was the sound of his own breathing.

He took three deep breaths again, trying to calm himself.

‘Right, here goes.’ He scrambled over the low fence and rushed towards the old ruins, pressing his back against the walls, feeling the hard coldness of the sandstone. How long since anybody had felt the touch of these walls? What secrets had they seen, or heard, or witnessed in the time they had stood beside the river?

He edged to his right, feeling his way along the wall to a place where it had collapsed and the stone had been removed to leave a jagged edge. He rounded the corner and knew he was in the main body of the ruined church now. Three walls rose high above his head, etched black against the orange glow of the city lights.

For the first time, the wind rustled the leaves on the paving stones. The wall with the coffin embedded in it lay in front of him. In olden days, this was where the altar would have been. A priest saying mass, holding the host above his head as the congregation looked on in wonder.

He used to go to church with his family on Sundays, but they didn’t bother any more. Not since Dad had gone away.

The coffin was on the right-hand side, high up in the wall. He edged toward it, blue chalk in hand.

He decided he wasn’t going to write his initials, he was going to leave a message: Daniel Sangster was here and wrote this.

Let Big Dave see it when he came tomorrow. He was going to show them how brave he was.

He moved towards the wall. His heart was pounding, his hands sweating. The coffin in the wall was above his head now, but he wasn’t going to look at it. He didn’t want to turn into stone.

He began writing in large block capitals: D-A-N-I-E-L

The chalk slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. As he bent down to search for it, he accidentally looked up at the coffin.

Then he heard a sound like a car alarm, loud and screeching, cutting through the still air of the Autumn night and rebounding off the old stone walls of the church.

The sound was coming from him, Daniel Sangster.

He was screaming.

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When the Evil Waits, the latest DI Ridpath crime thriller is out now. Enjoy!!

The latest DI Ridpath Crime Thriller is out now, delivered as an ebook or a paperback on September 24.

Enjoy the read.