The Girl Under the Floor

THE GIRL UNDER THE FLOOR An absolutely gripping crime thriller with a massive twist CHARLIE GALLAGHER Detective Maddie Ives Series Book 8 Joffe Books, London www.joffebooks.com First published in Great Britain in 2023 © Charlie Gallagher This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events 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. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Charlie Gallagher to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. We love to hear from our readers! Please email any feedback you have to: [email protected] Cover art by Nick Castle ISBN: 978-1-80405-653-0 CONTENTS Love Free Bestselling Fiction? Part One Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Part Two 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 Part Three 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 Love Free Bestselling Fiction? The Joffe Books Story Also by Charlie Gallagher A Selection of Books You May Enjoy Glossary of English Usage for US Readers Love Free Bestselling Fiction? Join our mailing list and get a FREE Kindle book from a bestselling author every week! Click here to join our mailing list and also get a free box set of short stories! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @joffebooks Coppers scare the best, because the ghost stories you hear, those myths and monsters that sound so ridiculous, we get to see that they’re real. Part One Chapter 1 Thank you for choosing this book. Join our mailing list and get FREE Kindle books from our bestselling authors every week! CLICK HERE TO GET MORE LOVELY BOOK DEALS Tuesday Lynn Hathaway knew fear. Even when it was just a breath pushed out hard enough to cause distortion down a phoneline. Real fear can freeze a hardened call-taker in their chair, it can stop the world for just a moment, sucking all the noise, movement and air out of a busy room of blinking call boards and banks of chatting emergency call-takers. This was one of those calls. 999 police, what’s your emergency? A line Lynn had delivered a million times to a million responses. This time the reaction was another breath that tailed off into a whimper. It was enough. Lynn Hathaway knew voices too and this was young, a child for sure, the desperation thick enough to clot in her ear. Lynn ducked her head to focus, her right hand lifting to push the headset more firmly against her ear so she wouldn’t miss a thing. ‘Everything’s OK, my name is Lynn and I’m here to help you.’ She was off script now, there were other things she needed to be saying but fear needs one thing: reassurance. Lynn fixed on her two monitors, they were close enough for the green text standing out from the black background to hurt, she held her breath for the next words as if they were all she had been waiting for her whole life. There was just breathing at first, then a muted knocking sound: knuckles on wood perhaps, but distant. The bright green font glowed with a mobile phone number; it wasn’t a number that had called before or her screen would be populated with linked information, something that might help. ‘Can you tell me if you’re OK?’ Lynn’s cursor flew across the screen, a trail left behind it where she had turned the function on in a moment of boredom. She was regretting it now. She clicked to send the phone number for fast-track subscriber checks. Someone in admin support would receive it as a request and start making enquiries with the phone company that had issued the phone. If it was on a contract, they would have the details in around twenty minutes or so, which, in the world of emergency assistance, was an eternity. A muffled cry. This was distant too, then another knocking sound, finishing with a scuff and another cry that faded back to loud breathing. ‘If you cannot speak to me and you require emergency assistance, press five-five on your keypad and we will respond.’ Lynn was back on script, her words very deliberate, her eyes shut briefly, silently begging for those tones — anything. There were more gasping sounds, then scraping like the phone itself was being dragged against something. Two tones. The screen also confirmed the keys had been pressed. The BT Operator who had passed the call to the police had made the same request but not got a response. As per his own procedures, he had stayed connected and now recognised his cue to speak. ‘Provider is Vodafone, Eastings are 603228, Northings 170385, confidence approximately 80 per cent, operator to clear the line.’ The man’s voice was nasal, he allowed a moment’s delay for Lynn to come back in with any questions. There was nothing more to ask and a click confirmed he was gone. She typed in the coordinates given; they related to the nearest phone mast to the caller rather than the caller themselves and gave a rough area. It came up with the entire Isle of Sheppey. Thirty-six square