The Painted Altar

By bigimp

90.4K 7.8K 845

WATTYS WINNER 2020 Two interconnected murders, 64 years apart. One woman's search for truth and identity. Rea... More

Author's Preface
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thity-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Epilogue
Taster: The Third Shadow
Taster: Kill Who You Want

Taster: The Scent of Death

679 50 3
By bigimp

Dudley, a milk-and-honey Labrador, is a cadaver dog specifically trained to sniff out humand remains. His handler, Jennifer, suffers from an unusual phobia which has isolated her socially.
When together they uncover the corpse of a missing child, Jennifer begins to fell a deep, personal connection to the case. Dissatisfied by the direction of the official police investigation, she resolves to unravel the mystery herself. In doing so, she must first unravel herself...

Genre: mystery/suspense
Target readership: adults
Posting schedule: twice-weekly (Sundays and Thursdays) from Spetember to December 2020
Length: 70,000 words (approximately 275 standard novel pages)

Extract:

"Dudley!" I called into the darkness. "Time to turn back around boy. We're done for today."

We'd almost reached the end of the woods by this point, another rectangle which could be crossed off from Kelso's map. Nothing, nulla, zilch.

I swayed the flashlight in a jerky arch, waited for Dudley's tongue-dangling form to come bounding into vision. There was sign of him however.

"Dudley!" I called again. "Here boy!"

It was then that the barking came, somewhere a hundred or so metres off to my right. Not his usual playful response, but instead a focused, constant noise - a quick-fire volley of woofs like rounds from a machine gun. His 'found something' bark.

My heart quickened along with my step, the flashlight boring through the darkness. My free hand deflected off the moist barks of the trees, pushed branches from my path.

"Stay there boy! You just stay right there."

The barking was incessant, grew louder with each step. At last the thick maze of tree trunks relented and there he was, framed in the soft-edged beam of the torchlight in the centre of a small clearing. His tail swooshed manically, snout directed at the ground.

Stooping myself down beside him, I slanted the flashlight to the earth, squinted in close examination. Nothing - just dirt, twigs and damp leaves.

A shallow grave.

The lifeless body of Meghan Shaw had been tossed into a shallow grave.

"Well done Dudley! Good work boy!"

Lifting myself back to my feet, I extracted his favourite pull toy from my coat pocket, invited him to rear up on his hind legs in play. To the dogs themselves it was all little more than a game: victory merited a prize. It was only after our strange celebratory dance was over that I finally pressed the call button on the shoulder radio, informed Kelso of the tragic news

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