All Out of Leeds – Chapter One

Lovely people, guard your coffee. Stock up on chocolate bars (Yorkies, preferably, although other brands are available and may work just as well, but are we sure we want to risk that?). And, most importantly, grab your duck and a very big stick …

DI Adams’ first Yorkshire mystery is almost with us! With my usual level of organisation, I have only just this week decided on a title (suggested by one of the lovely members over on the Ko-fi site), and therefore the wonderful Monika, who creates such fantastic covers, hasn’t had time to work her magic just yet.

However! Adams is not the sort to hang around waiting for such things. She has her duck. She has her mostly invisible, caffeine-addicted, and periodically helpful Dandy. And she has trouble brewing in Leeds …

Read on for the first chapter below, and pop back next Wednesday for chapter two!

Ebook pre-orders are also disinclined to wait around, so you can grab yours now at all your usual eobok retailers. Paperbacks will be coming soon, as will the audiobook, read once more by the wonderful and talented Jane Ajia.

Pre-order All Out of Leeds on Amazon

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Lovely ARC readers, you’ll be receiving your copies in a couple of days. For everyone else, launch day is Friday 3rd of May. But, should you want to get in a little ahead of time, All Out of Leeds will be available to buy on Ko-Fi from the 26th of April, or to download as part of the Hello Ducky or KEITH Ko-fi membership.

Books everywhere! So many ways to get books! See, this is why I’m disorganised. Too many options 😉

And of course, if you’re wondering what the ducks and chocolate bars are all about, well. You evidently haven’t read What Happened in London yet. But I can help with that! From now through launch day, the DI Adams prequel is only 99c/99p at all your favourite ebook retailers. So grab yourself a copy now!

What Happened in London on Amazon

What Happened in London at other retailers

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Chapter One

An Unpromising Case

DI Adams went up and over the high wooden fence with rather less grace than she would have liked, following a shout of alarm on the other side. She snagged a trouser leg on the top and stumbled as she landed, dropping into a crouch and catching herself on her hands. The yard was empty, the ground a slick expanse of mud interspersed with weedy, dandelion-strewn patches, and there was a network of puddles in the centre reflecting the sky serenely, even though it hadn’t rained in at least two weeks. Yorkshire was putting on an uncharacteristically dry start to the summer, but going by the wetness on her knee where it had hit the ground, the drought hadn’t hit here yet.

Adams launched herself up again, ready to sprint to the fence on the opposite side, where muddy footprints on the wood indicated her quarry had already made their escape. As she did so, three large dogs that were evidently the cause of the alarmed shout spun toward her, and she stopped short. They were making the sort of furious noise her head immediately classed as baying rather than barking, and showing an alarming array of teeth. They shot toward her, chains rattling after them, and while Adams assumed they were attached somewhere, she wasn’t waiting around to make sure. She spun back to the fence, jumping to grab the top, already kicking her boots into the slats to help herself up, and a grey, dog-like form appeared at the top. It launched itself easily into the yard, dreadlocks flying gracefully and allowing a mercifully brief glimpse of red eyes, luminous as LEDs. The dogs in the yard stopped so hard one of them somersaulted twice, wrapping itself up in its chain and howling piteously, while the other two beat a tail-tucked retreat toward the house, yelping in terror. The dreadlocked creature stopped at the edge of a puddle and watched them go curiously.

“Good boy,” Adams hissed, dropping back to the ground, then sprinted across the yard, slipping in the mud but not slowing.

Up and over a fence that swayed alarmingly, not used to such rough treatment, and she was into another scruffy backyard, this one a bit less muddy, made up of bare dirt with thin grass patches growing here and there, everything worn thin by neglect and indifference, and full of the ubiquitous discarded buckets and fallen bricks that seem to breed in unattended yards everywhere. Ahead of her, a slight form in an oversized red hoody was just vanishing over a brick wall that marked the end of the row of houses, and she shouted, “West Yorkshire Police! Stop!”

Of course they didn’t stop, but as the kid vanished she heard a yelp from beyond the wall. She looked down at her mud-encrusted boots, sighed quietly, and jogged across the yard to heft herself up just enough to hook her elbows over the top of the wall. She peered down at DC James Hamilton, who was pinning Hoody to the ground almost casually, not looking even slightly out of breath.

“Nice one, James,” she said.

“Yep,” he replied, and, to his credit, he didn’t look too smug. A little, maybe, but she supposed that was fair. Her trousers were only marginally less muddy than her boots, sweat was sticking her shirt to her shoulders, and she’d scraped her hand at some point, blood beading the graze. He, on the other hand, looked barely more pink-cheeked than normal, and his well-groomed blond hair was behaving with the sort of obedience Adams found mystifying. He hauled Hoody to his feet, not ungently. He really was just a kid, probably still in his teens, with a spattering of facial hair trying to establish a little bit of authority somewhere on his chin.

The kid glared at them both. “Police brutality,” he spat. “Just bloody racial profiling, this.”

Adams cleared her throat, raising her eyebrows at him.

“You’re the worst sort,” Hoody said. “Acting like some bloody white oppressor. Traitor. I’ll have you both for harassment.”

James looked at Adams. “You are pretty oppressive,” he said. “I think it’s the coffee habit.”

“I think it’s my superior rank and experience,” Adams said. “I’ll be around in a minute.” She dropped back to the ground and went to find a gate, heading down a narrow passageway between the old red brick of the house and the wall, smelling damp and disrepair, and feeling eyes on her. It was the sort of place where everything was observed, but no one saw anything. Not officially, anyway. The dreadlocked dog was investigating the corners of the yard still, but she didn’t worry about him too much. He seemed to have his own way of navigating walls, doors, gates, and everything else for that matter.

She dragged the gate closed behind her, the wood scraping on the broken concrete of the path, then headed around the corner to where James was cuffing the boy, ignoring him demanding a lawyer, a civil rights activist, and his mum.

The kid glared at Adams as she joined them. “Fascists,” he said, and then added after a moment’s thought, “Down with the system.”

Adams picked his backpack up and checked the side pockets, then unzipped it to peer inside. “Where were you off to in such a hurry, then?” she asked.

“Visiting my grandmother,” he replied and grinned at her.

She raised her eyebrows at his red hoodie, then went back to the bag. “That so?” she asked, and pulled a pouch out of the main compartment. It looked like a slightly oversized pencil case, but it didn’t feel like pens inside. She showed it to James, then unzipped it, revealing a nest of small Ziploc bags. She tweezed one out between her fingers, holding it up in front of them so the four pills inside were visible. “How big do your grandma’s eyes get on this, then?”

The kid barely looked at the pouch, just lifted his chin and glared at her. “That’s not mine. You planted it. Bloody pigs.”

Adams looked from the bag to the detective constable, and said, “What do you think, James? Do you reckon we planted this?”

“I’d say it’s two against one. Don’t think he’s going to get too far with that.”

The kid scowled at them both. “Pigs. All as corrupt as each other.”

“He’s got the patter down, at least,” James said, and started propelling the kid toward the car. “May as well take him in. It’s something, isn’t it?”

Adams made a non-committal sound. It might be something, but only in the sense of it being an arrest on the books. The kid was nothing but a courier. The likelihood of him knowing anything beyond the next very small fish in the chain was minimal – he’d be at least a couple of contacts removed from anyone who mattered, and no one was going to be stepping in to help him. Odds were, all an arrest record would do was take away another option in a life already pretty short on them. She’d much rather have just channelled her mum to put the frights on him, then let him go. But on the other hand, it was an arrest, and they’d been pulled onto this case to get a few people off the streets and make it look good in the local news, nothing else. No one was expecting them to make any breakthroughs. So she supposed James was right, it was something. There was even the possibility that they might get him to talk, but she doubted it. It wouldn’t be worth the kid’s while.

#

They got him into Adams’ car and headed back to the station, while the dreadlocked almost-dog panted over James’s seat, making him jerk his head away a few times then twist around to glare at the kid.

“Stop it,” he said.

“What?” Hoody asked.

“Blowing on my ear.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, mate,” the kid said, leaning back in the seat with a look of absolute disgust on his face. “I’m adding sexual harassment to the list, like.”

Adams looked in the rear-view mirror at the dreadlocked creature, his tongue lolling out of his mouth in something that was far too like a grin to be accidental. She was sure the kid would be including menacing with a hairy animal to his complaints if he could see Dandy, but he couldn’t. As far as Adams could tell, only she could. Or her and some other … individuals. Non-human individuals, which she didn’t like thinking about too much. Plus one journalist, which was even worse than the non-humans. She directed a very small shake of her head at the rear-view mirror, but Dandy just leaned forward so his jaw was almost touching James’s shoulder, making the detective constable growl and look at the kid again.

“Stop it.”

“I’m not doing anything!”

Adams decided to ignore them, navigating the snarl of afternoon traffic that curled around Leeds, glittering in the flood of sunlight and turning the green spaces luminous and unfamiliar, full of a strange and half-seen magic.

At the station, she found herself back at her desk while James got the kid processed and shut in a cell to percolate a while. With nothing else requiring her attention she poked at her computer, knowing she had reports to write and really wishing there was something much more interesting to do, although preferably not involving fences or dogs other than Dandy. He’d given up on harassing James and was drifting around the room like a heavily matted, Labrador-sized shadow, investigating everyone’s empty coffee cups. She tried to click her fingers at him unobtrusively, but he ignored her. He seemed mainly motivated by caffeine, which she related to strongly, and seemed far too fitting for comfort.

Adams wasn’t entirely sure that he might not be a figment of her own imagination, except for the fact that he was surprisingly effective at destroying her coffee mugs. Well, not destroying them, but emptying them and also getting into the bin after the coffee grounds. Which weren’t the worst things in the world, really. If one was going to have a dog, an invisible, possibly not quite real dog was a pretty convenient option. Her landlord could hardly complain about him, and he didn’t seem to need an awful lot of care. She’d tried buying him dog food and worming tablets, figuring they were sort of universally required pet things, but he’d gagged at the first and vanished for three days at the sight of the second.

She’d decided the easiest way to deal with him was to guard her coffee and not ask too many questions. He came and went as he pleased, fended for himself, and mostly seemed interested in just following her around. She had yet to decide whether it was simply for her coffee or if he was actually going to make himself useful at some point, but the company was surprisingly nice. She’d never needed a lot of companionship, but Leeds was a long way from London. A long way from Sunday lunch at her mum’s, and the annoying, permanent presence of her brothers, and her father’s gentle inquisitiveness, and simply the feel of a city that had been part of her all her life. It hadn’t left a gap, exactly, but maybe there was an absence, and the silent, ghostly presence of the sort-of dog filled it in a way she couldn’t quite explain.

Adams opened one of the lingering reports in which she’d put carjacker arrested, no injuries, which apparently was not sufficiently detailed for government working. She looked at the flashing cursor for a bit, thinking that it really did cover everything, and that she wasn’t a novelist, and maybe if she just added rude carjacker promptly arrested, no injuries sustained it might do the trick, and also that another coffee might not help, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. She’d reached the conclusion that coffee was certainly an answer of sorts when someone loomed over the desk, and she looked up at DCI Temple, also known as the Temper, who looked to be living up to his name at the moment.

“Busy enough, Adams?” he asked.

“Just catching up on some paperwork,” she said. “We brought in a kid, one of the runners. Never know, we might get something out of him after he’s been sitting for a bit.”

Temple grunted, giving the impression that he had about as much hope of that as she did. He tapped his mobile phone on the desk lightly. “Just sent you a new case,” he said.

“Okay,” Adams said. “I thought we were all-in on this whole drug thing.” There had been a distinctly castigating write up in the national papers regarding Leeds being a complete den of iniquity – the birthplace of all crime in the north, rife with countywide drug runners, fraudsters, and thieves, and probably not wiping its feet before it came indoors, either. Adams didn’t think it was any worse than most places, but the mayor was not happy, and was making his opinion felt.

Temper made a noise that was alarmingly close to a growl. “Bloody PR campaign, more like. We can’t all be on it just because some sodding politician’s got his knickers in a knot, like he’s not sneaking to the bathroom every five minutes himself. We do have other cases, you know.” He gave Adams a glare that suggested he thought she was disagreeing with him.

“Sure,” she said. “What is it?”

He tapped the phone on the desk again. “Check your inbox. I think this one fits your skill set.”

Adams tried not to look sceptical as she clicked over to her inbox and pulled the case up. “Harassment?” she said. “Really? That hardly seems like our department.”

Temple raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know about London, Adams, but up here the DCI decides what cases are ours, and the DIs get on with their bloody job.”

“Of course, boss. Just … harassment?”

“The complainant, Scott Samuels, is the proprietor of a jewellery shop. Apparently one Gladys Hudson dropped some family heirloom necklace off to get repaired, and now keeps going back asking them where it is, even though they’ve already returned it to her. They’re worried she’s going to turn it into some big thing, ruin their reputation.”

“Right,” Adams said. “Surely there’s CCTV or …”

Temper waved impatiently. “You can sort all that out. Just get yourself on this. Take James with you. The old dears always love him.”

Adams grimaced, trying not to let it show too much, and Temper scowled at her.

“Problem, Adams?”

She hesitated, then said, “I get that we don’t need to all be on the drugs thing, but this seems really straightforward. Does it really need two of us?”

“Well, it’s still a potential jewellery theft, and around here you take the cases you’re given. Plus you’ve been hanging out with all those oldies in Toot Hansell. You seem pretty good with that demographic, so it makes sense for you to keep working with them.”

Adams didn’t answer straight away. She wasn’t quite sure how to without sounding either difficult or like a soft southerner, which was apparently a thing, as was being a whinger, although she wasn’t sure if that had any geographical basis. There was also being a big city cop with a chip on her shoulder. She wasn’t sure if the north just really didn’t like Londoners, or if it was her specifically. And that was before she even got into the official reason she moved up from London, which was attributed to a traumatic case that had caused her to have a mental health break. That reason was only half-true, although she did wonder about the other half sometimes, especially when she was wrestling stolen deli meats off an invisible dog. Or dealing with the little village of Toot Hansell and its bizarre cast of inhabitants, not all of whom were human. She supposed she should just be happy that she was getting any cases to herself at all and not being constantly supervised.

So she just said, “Right, boss. I’ll grab James and we’ll get on it.”

“Good,” he said. “Try not to upset anyone.”

She nodded slightly and watched him walk away. Dandy trailed after him, his nose twitching hopefully, and Adams looked through the file a bit more carefully, but there was nothing more to it. It was essentially a he said, she said, they said situation, which should get sorted out pretty quickly through the CCTV.

She texted James then got up, grabbing her jacket from the back of the chair, not that she really needed it with the oddly warm weather they had going on at the moment. She headed for the door, almost bumping into a slim, compact woman with sleek blonde hair curled into a ferociously neat bun.

“Adams,” the woman said, smiling at her. “Saw you and James brought a courier in.”

Adams nodded. DI Lindsay Marks was one of those people she felt she should dislike at least a little for being so effortlessly efficient and permanently well-groomed, but she couldn’t seem to. She was immediately aware of her muddy trousers again, though. “Just a runner. Doubt we’ll get anything from him.”

“Hey, it’s something,” Lindsay said, raising a water bottle at her in a salute. “I appreciate you two jumping on this. You heading out again?”

“Temper’s given us something else. Shouldn’t take much to sort out.”

“Oh? Let me know if you need anything. Local knowledge and that. Sooner you’re back helping me, the better.” Lindsay sighed, and added in a lower voice, “Plus it’s such a bloody boys’ club around here. I need you, Adams. Otherwise I’m going to be in spitting contests with the lot of them by the end of the week. And I will not lose.”

Adams snorted. Lindsay both looked like she’d never spat in her life, and also like she absolutely would win if she put her mind to it. “I believe you,” she said. “Catch you soon.”

She headed for the parking garage, Dandy loping ahead of her down the stairs. By the time she got out onto the pavement James was already waiting for her, a tall, skinny lad who looked like he hadn’t really grown into his limbs yet. He was a decent sort, and he’d be a decent detective too, given a bit of time, but she still felt the urge to ask him if he’d remembered his lunch money every time she saw him.

“What’ve we got?” he asked. “Have they given us something more on the drug case?”

“No,” she said, beeping the car open. “Possible jewellery theft.”

“Oh, interesting. Armed?”

“No.”

“Safe-cracking?”

“No.”

“Complicated heist involving misdirection and devious disguises?”

“No. Just sounds like a disagreement, to be honest,” she said, climbing into the car.

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “We’re being fobbed off again, aren’t we?”

“Sorry,” Adams said, “I think that’s what you get for hanging out with the southerner.”

James snorted, folding his long legs into the passenger side of the VW Golf. “Yeah, I don’t think so. I’d’ve probably been on this one anyway.” He didn’t elaborate and she didn’t ask. James had never asked her about her supposed mental health break. He seemed quite happy to trust her, so she returned the favour. Sometimes that was the way the best work relationships functioned. Mutual acceptance without too much personal stuff getting in the way.

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Lovely people, I hope you enjoyed this first snippet from Adams’ Leeds adventure. Chapter two will be with you next week, so don’t forget to check back for that.

Or you can always just wait a teeny bit longer, and grab your pre-order instead:

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And not to forget, that for Ko-fi members and book buyers, you’ll be able to grab yours a whole week before anyone else! (You don’t have to be a member to buy the books, but you do need to be able to load the book onto your ereader yourself (there are instructions, I’m not setting you adrift alone!). Certain tiers of membership include ebooks or paperbacks, though, so you might want to check that out 😉)

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Walk softly, and carry a very big stick …

DI Adams fled London to escape bridge-dwelling monsters and magical toasties – a one-time experience she’s in no hurry to repeat. She’s police, not some cryptid hunter.

Leeds has other plans, though.

Tasked with the seemingly mundane case of a missing necklace, Adams soon realises she’s stumbled into something inexplicable. The trinket is dangerous, and she’s the only one who recognises it for what it is – a weapon that could tear the north apart.

Juggling unhelpful colleagues, amnesiac witnesses, and problematic women of a certain age, Adams plunges into the treacherous, magic-soaked streets of Leeds. She may not have backup, but at least she has the invisible, caffeine-addicted dog by her side.

Plus a duck. And a very big stick.

She’s got this. She has to. 

Because there’s no one else who can …

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