Chapter One
My name is Kiera Hudson. I’m twenty-years-old and employed by Havenshire Police as a police constable in the south west of England. I have been a police officer for eighteen months. On completion of my initial training, I was posted to the coastal town of The Ragged Cove. I’d heard rumours that the post was a difficult one to fill. Although this posting wasn’t forced upon me by my superiors, they did make me an attractive offer that I found difficult to refuse. The terms of my posting to the town The Ragged Cove included free accommodation and an unsociable shift allowance of £5,000, paid in a lump sum annually.
When I told my fellow recruits that I had accepted the offer, some of them had laughed nervously, stating that the force paid the shift allowance annually as no one had lasted long enough in the post to collect it. My shift pattern was a constant series of nightshifts that started every night at 1900 hours and finished at 0700 hours the following morning. Looking back now, I can understand the raised eyebrows of my friends, but at the time, I didn’t want to refuse the post. I thought that if I did, I would be viewed as inflexible by my superiors and I had ambitions way past the rank of constable. Like me, most of the other recruits were young, and knowing that The Ragged Cove was pretty remote and miles from the nearest railway station or motorway, I suspected that they were more concerned about their social lives than their future careers.
So packing a suitcase, which consisted mainly of my smart new uniform, I set off in my tired old Mini and headed from my rented rooms in Havensfield to the desolate town, The Ragged Cove. I remember that day clearly as I made my way by a series of deserted country lanes towards the town. A few miles out, the sky clouded over and it started to rain. The day almost seemed to turn to night, as the rain lashed against the windscreen of my car and the wipers had trouble keeping the screen clear. With my headlights on full beam, I cautiously navigated my way towards the town. Several times I had to pull over off the narrow roads, and park up by the entrance to some field and check the map I’d been given by Sergeant Phillips at training school.
I knew that the town was remote, but it was only as I tried to reach it, that I realised how isolated from the outside world it really was. It seemed to me that The Ragged Cove didn’t want to be found. Realising that I was just spooking myself, I shook off any regrets that I might have already been having, and carried on through the rain and gloom towards The Ragged Cove.
In an attempt to lighten my spirits, I turned on the car radio, hoping to find something I could sing along to. I settled for On the floor by Jennifer Lopez. The roads seemed to get narrower as I headed down towards the cove, which spread out below me like a giant horseshoe. Wiping the mist from the windscreen with the back of my hand, I could see the sea in the distance and it looked black and angry as it crashed against the cliffs. As I neared the town, the radio began to hiss and spit with static until I lost the signal completely and made the rest of my journey in silence.
I reached the town just before five, but the sky was so dark that it seemed a lot later. Driving my car through the cobbled streets, I peered up at the tired-looking buildings that lined each side of the road. There was a row of shops which had been shut for the day, and the streets were so deserted, I wondered how they managed to stay in business. Sergeant Phillips had said that a room had been rented for me above an Inn named “The Crescent Moon”, but I couldn’t seem to find it. Over and over again, I drove up and down the same streets, the wind and the rain hammering my little car.
It was just before six when I noticed a small side street that I hadn’t seen before. Turning into it, my car bounced and lurched over the cobbled road, until in the distance, I could just make out the glow of a blue lamp attached to the front