A Mark Of Imperfection

A MARK OF IMPERFECTION A DCI EVAN WARLOW THRILLERRHYS DYLAN CONTENTSCopyrightExclusive OfferChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38Chapter 39Chapter 40Chapter 41Chapter 42Chapter 43AcknowledgmentsFREE BOOK FOR YOUAuthor’s note COPYRIGHTCopyright © 2023 by Rhys Dylan. All rights reserved.The right of Rhys Dylan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a purely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.ISBN 978-1-915185-11-2eBook ISBN 978-1-915185-10-5Published by Wyrmwood Books.An imprint of Wyrmwood Media. EXCLUSIVE OFFERPlease look out for the link near the end of the book for your chance to sign up to the no-spam guaranteed VIP Reader’s Club and receive a FREE DCI Warlow novella as well as news of upcoming releases.Or you can go direct to my website: https://rhysdylan.com and sign up now.Remember, you can unsubscribe at any time and I promise won’t send you any spam. Ever.ALSO BY RHYS DYLANTHE ENGINE HOUSE - DCI WARLOW BOOK 1CAUTION DEATH AT WORK —DCI WARLOW BOOK 2ICE COLD MALICE - DCI WARLOW BOOK 3SUFFER THE DEAD - DCI WARLOW BOOK 4GRAVELY CONCERNED - DCI WARLOW BOOK 5 CHAPTER ONE THE WOODLAND SAT in a sea of open moor. A dark-green island brooding against the gunmetal sky. The coniferous trees were not native to this unforgiving landscape, planted as commercial crops in the wake of the First World War to establish a timber reserve. These days, conservationists moaned at the loss of delicate heath and bog, while waxing lyrical about how red squirrels had moved in to populate these artificial habitats.And though sheep grazed the bare hillsides around the plantations, fences, cattle grids, and closed steel gates kept them out of the forest. These islands were places of silent solitude, rarely visited unless by contractors and the odd determined walker. Those that passed through them did so quickly, as a means to an end. Dense and dark, these clumps of forest offered little in the way of invitation or appeal.The old roads and paths in this southern corner of Powys led only to reservoirs and holes in the ground where intrepid cavers fed their addictions. All in all, this bleak expanse of the southern Brecon Beacons National Park provided an ideal area to get lost in. Or to hide things in.If you were so inclined.Of course, hiding could be a good thing, because being caught out on the moors when the weather changed was never the best of ideas. And there were groups of volunteers who gave of their time to rescue those unfortunates who lost their way. An all too easy occurrence in the mist when it descended without warning. A mountain brume that brought with it an insidious threat in the way of two deadly companions: the damp and the cold. If you were not prepared, such a combination could, like an ethereal quicksand, drag you down into that slow and lingering precursor of death: exposure.Spring came late at this elevation. And on this bitter April day, the two people sitting in a small clearing in one particular patch of forest had no thoughts of cavers or grazing sheep. They had long given up hope of rescue. Their minds – what was left of them after days of starvation and torture – were preoccupied by harrowing thoughts of what would happen next out here in the wilderness, exposed as they were to the elements: the biting wind and the driving rain. And, when the mist lifted and night fell, the cold, uncaring stars would follow.They’d pleaded, of course they had. The man, especially. Using his illness as a lever in attempting to prise an ounce of sympathy from their captor. But his pathetic words fell on deaf ears. As did those of his wife’s. Not a small woman, she’d struggled with the half-mile of dirt road their captor had made them walk up. He hadn’t made them climb the locked steel gate. He’d cut through the fencing instead. Herding them like animals on a miserable, wet day until he’d found the spot. Somewhere he’d been before, judging by what had already been placed in the clearing.And now they sat, this miserable couple, naked, bound and gagged, secured to a couple of rickety wooden chairs, watching as the man who had abducted them from their home and brought them here fulfilled the ritual he’d made them a part of.They were not young, these victims. Unlikely candidates, one might have thought for the tableau they were now enshrined in. But neither were they hapless. Both had, in turn, displayed their own brands of cruelty. And so, they watched, shivering, desperately thirsty and hungry, aching from their wounds and bruises, pinioned by duct tape and their own weakness to chairs in a glade.They watched and moaned as their captor dragged in the carcasses: a dead sheep, a dead crow, a maggot-riddled badger. Each placed on their own seat, facing inwards towards an upturned log at the centre. Like a family meeting for a tea-time meal.But it was as their captor stood back to admire his handiwork, hands on hips, that a wail escaped the throat of the sick old man tied to the chair. As if he realised then and only then what was in store for them.People said that the worst thing about exposure, at the beginning anyway, was the awareness of the cold. What soon followed, the uncontrollable shivering, losing coordination, the