Read Dead Pretty: The 5th DS McAvoy Novel (DS Aector McAvoy) for Free Online

spelt instructions that she pass on his best regards to half a dozen of the good old boys, and to tell Pharaoh and McAvoy to go fuck themselves. Her unit is doing its job well. She can’t beat organised crime but since the apparent demise of the Headhunters organisation and its boss, she has at least managed to contain it. She can’t think of the crime outfit without wrinkling her nose. They were utterly merciless; a group of professionals who moved in on existing crime families and demanded payment in exchange for access to their skills. They left bodies everywhere. Turned her stomach with their creativity. But Pharaoh and her team brought them down. There have been no nailgun attacks in nearly two years and the drugs trade seems to be back in the hands of morons and muscle. Does the Reuben Hollow case matter? Is it worth getting in a state over? She needs to drink less. Smoke less. To start taking care of herself and her girls . . .
    There is a shout from inside the house and the thud of a slamming door. Pharaoh realises that Sophia has taken her frustrations out on one of her younger sisters. Olivia, probably. Her youngest is a tenacious little sod who isn’t remotely scared of her big sister’s hormones and temper tantrums. They spend half their lives pulling one another’s hair out while the middle two eat crisps and drink pop and place bets on the outcome. She knows she should go in and break it up. Wonders if the riot squad owe her any favours.
    It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when she and the four girls lived in a big house on the outskirts of Grimsby. Her husband made good money and he doted on his daughters. He was a charmer. The love of her life. Handy with his fists but a decent dad and damn good at giving her goosepimples whenever he sniffed her neck or slapped her rump as she bent to load the dishwasher. He liked that she was a strong woman, and that she hit him back. He took her to balls and posh restaurants, gallery openings and his private box at the dog track. She didn’t know he was financing his business with dodgy loans and that he owed the taxman more money than their house was worth. Didn’t find out until he suffered a colossal aneurysm that left him unable to speak or move much below the waist. Trish had got them this place. Trish took care of the court cases and the bankruptcy action and managed to drag herself and the girls through all the unpleasantness without it taking their spirit away. Trish got the garage converted into a bedroom for her husband, where he spends most of his time lying on his crisp sheets, staring at the flickering TV screen and looking like a giant sausage roll. He doesn’t even try to speak now. Just turns his head away when the girls come in. Only seems to get excited when his nurse visits. Silly bastard probably still thinks he’s a catch, probably has fantasies about them running off together, though his motorised wheelchair only has a top speed of 12 mph and he would need to recharge the batteries before they got anywhere near their love nest.
    Pharaoh used to chide herself for thinking harshly of her husband. She knew what he was when she married him and he ran up his debts while trying to give her the life he thought she wanted. It wasn’t his fault his brain burst under the pressure. She just wishes the bastard would either get better or die. It’s a horrible thought but it’s one that she and the girls have almost constantly. She’s not a widow. The girls aren’t orphans. But she doesn’t have a husband and they don’t have a father. They have a salami, hooked up to drips and colostomy bags, dribbling into his pyjamas and grunting chat-up lines to the woman who changes the dressings on his bed sores. Each of the epileptic fits that he has suffered since the aneurysm could be his last. But the bastard’s hanging on. And he can’t do a damn thing to help Trish pay off the one creditor who really isn’t troubled by the fact that the