The Butcher's Daughter

Copyright © Sarah GoodwinAll Rights Reserved Author’s Noteand Content Warnings Thank you for reading ‘The Butcher’s Daughter’. This novel was conceived and written between my debut, ‘Stranded’ and my second traditionally published novel ‘The 13th Girl’. Sadly it was not picked up for traditional publication but I have chosen to make it available as I still love the story and hope you will too. All efforts have been made to ensure a smooth reading experience, but there may be the odd error that has been missed, for which I apologise. Hopefully you will enjoy the novel regardless. Reader discretion is advised. Spoilers follow:I’d like to warn readers of sensitive content including – Sexual assault, murder, gas-lighting, graphic violence/descriptions of crime scenes, child neglect, grooming and gore. TABLE OF CONTENTSPrologueChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty-OneChapter Twenty-TwoChapter Twenty-ThreeChapter Twenty-FourChapter Twenty-FiveChapter Twenty-SixChapter Twenty-SevenChapter Twenty-EightChapter Twenty-NineChapter ThirtyChapter Thirty-OneOther books by Sarah GoodwinAcknowledgements PROLOGUE The lights in the tube carriage fizzed on and off. I felt the swaying of the whole train as it trailed sluggishly around another corner. It was a struggle to keep my eyes open; I hadn’t slept properly in days and had to fight to stay awake. The train was warm and quiet, mostly empty at that time of night. Too late for the commuters and those heading out for the evening, too early for chucking-out time at pubs and clubs. The cardboard box in my lap held the last of my Mum’s things. After yet another snippy phone call from her landlord, I’d spent the day finally clearing the rest of the flat. Her clothes, a few books, CDs and domestic clutter were all in a bin behind the Indian takeaway under the flat. The box contained documents, her few valuables and a collection of notebooks turned yellow with age. My mother’s diaries dating back to the late eighties. It wasn’t much of a legacy, that half-filled box. But it was heavy, weighted with decades of silence and secrets.When I arrived home to our pokey, rented flat, the diaries were the first thing I dealt with. After a fashion. They went straight into the wardrobe, buried at the bottom of a box of magazines. Adam wouldn’t find them there. He was as likely to dig through my true crime mags as he was to borrow my tights. I didn’t even look at those magazines anymore. They were just a hangover from my old obsession. A morbid fascination with murder, with psychopaths and monsters. Just more junk I’d be better off throwing away. Only I couldn’t. It was like picking a scab, worrying a sore tooth. That old impulse to take out the magazines and force myself to look. To see the pictures of broken china and bloodstained walls. The tightly packed text detailing the lives and crimes of a thousand murderers. It was a kind of punishment, but also a poisonous release. Like smoking, or downing a few glasses of vodka. A habit that promised to release some of the awful tension in my body by causing a tiny amount of harm. But the anxiety, the creeping dread, always came back, stronger and worse than before. Perhaps the diaries would change that. I had no idea what my mother had written in them, certainly nothing I’d ever want Adam to see. If he knew where I came from he’d never be able to look at me again. But, if I read the diaries, perhaps I’d finally fully unearth my rotten roots. The secret that had hung over me all my life but gone unmentioned by my mother. She had only ever assured me of my ‘father’s’ innocence. Of her love for him. I wanted the truth she could admit only to herself, within her diaries. If she’d even been able to face it there.I would read them, but not today. I was too exhausted to start digging up the past. I shut the bedroom door firmly and went to the kitchen.I was so lost in my thoughts on the diaries that I barely noticed the new addition to the sign outside. It wasn’t until I looked out the window while filling the kettle that I saw it. The sign had been there for a few months, ‘1st Floor Flat For Sale’ reminding us every day that we had to find another place to live. Not easy, with my recent redundancy. No one wanted to rent to a couple where only one person was bringing in a wage. My redundancy pay-out was so low, as a fairly new hire, that it’d barely cover a deposit. Only, in the orange light of the streetlamp. The sign no longer said, ‘1st Floor Flat For Sale’. Across it, on a bright new sticker, it said ‘Sold’. I stood there, kettle forgotten. Sold. Just like that. No more time. We’d had the viewings of course. Known that there was interest. But we’d never seen the same people twice. Hadn’t thought it would be so soon. Adam wouldn’t be home until early morning. They must have slapped the sticker on after he’d gone in for his shift. That or he hadn’t noticed it. He would have texted me otherwise. To warn me. I took out my phone and sent him a single line, ‘Flat sold’, that was all I could manage before tears started to blur my vision.I sat down on the sofa, hard, sending up a waft of stale cigarette smoke. Although the landlord had ruled the flat a pet-free and no-smoking zone, the provided furniture all stank of fags and cat piss. Or what we hoped was cat piss. No amount of air freshener or airing could get rid of the smell, which was only ever covered when the drains backed up or when the full summer sun hit the oily river. I hated it. The stink of the city, the cramped flat with its patches of mould