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Hi Friend
Firstly, let me apologise if my email subject line made you feel uneasy. Its a direct question I know, but there is a point to it.
If you've got a few minutes, I'd love to share with you how a chilling experience in a derelict Bone Mill inspired me to write my latest gripping detective novel.
Bearing this in mind lets go back to my original question...
What would you do if someone had been following YOU?
This is a horrible dilemma many women have had to face, and crime statistics say 9/10 victims whoâve been sexually assaulted, know their attacker.
But there is a more sinister side to the statistics; like in the case of the Yorkshire Ripper or the notorious John Wayne Gacy, whereby some of the worst offenders are those unknown to the victim.
What if you cried out for help and no one came! Itâs every womanâs worst nightmare!
It was a bitterly cold winterâs day, and I was walking along the towpath of the Trent and Mersey Canal: the very canal, James Brindley and world-famous potter, Josiah Wedgwood carved out, to link my hometown of Stoke-on-Trent, to all the major rivers and port cities of the UK.
The canal enabling them to transport pottery from many of the famous, smoke billowing pottery factories to the colonial Americaâs.
Anyway, I digress.
It was then I looked across the murky water and saw the decaying windows, of an old Bone Mill. They were called Bone Mills because they crushed animal bones to a fine powder and then it was added to the clay to make bone china.
A creepy thought for those of us who own vintage pottery as drinking vessels!
Glancing across I thought I saw movement through one of the rusting iron windows. Curiosity got the better of me, so I headed back over the bridge crossing the canal, and made my way towards the sinister building, just as an eerie narrow boat painted completely black was passing under it.
The Mill looked impenetrable, the entrance gates were padlocked and barbed wire snaked across the top of them.
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| | I stood there for a moment, considering my options, then I heard it again; movement inside. I moved around the side and found a gap in the old brick perimeter wall, just big enough to squeeze through.
I looked around the litter-strewn yard nervously, concerned I could be arrested for urban exploring, but seeing no one was around I entered the bone mill through an open doorway.
Inside the dark cavernous space, the stench of musty air assaulted my nostrils. Broken pottery from a bygone age was strewn across the floor, the faint shapes of the "Blue Willow pattern" on each.
But my attention was drawn to an old wooden chair in the centre of the room, with pieces of rope tied to each arm like restraints.
Had someone been held against their will?
Cautiously I moved towards it. A sudden scratching sound startled me. Adrenalin now surging, I retrieved my mobile and scanned the torch around. A large ratâs eyes glinted back at me before scurrying back into the hole it had come from.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I continued to stealthily look around the place, avoiding obstacles on the floor.
I entered into the next room, and stopped dead in my tracks!
In the corner, an army camp bed sat with a fifthly sleeping bag on it. A battered, red, ladies handbag lay ominously on the rotting floorboards; hypodermic needles were tossed around it.
Did someone occupy the place?
In a heightened state of alert, I hastily made my retreat out of the Bone Mill. There was no sign of what or who had made the noise, and I wasnât going to hang around to find out!
That night I woke up several times feeling that something was wrong⌠Like always, when uneasy thoughts and visions disturb my sleep; I grabbed my notebook and, headed downstairs through the darkness into the dining room of our house.
With the lights on, I sat at the table furiously writing a Detective Inspector Tom Blake story idea.
And that one moment I entered the creepy old Bone Mill â on a grey winterâs day over a year agoâ left me wondering: âWhat if Iâd discovered someone being held captive, or even worse stumbled upon a body?â Even now; it still makes me shudder.
That âWhat ifâ became the framework for my new DI Tom Blake crime thriller â A Place of Reckoning
One week after, a troubled Irish lad is killed in a tragic accident; at her husbandâs famous Pottery factory; Annabelle Lancaster, is violently kidnapped whilst walking her dogs along the Trent and Mersey canal.
Only one trace of her remains â two dead spaniels lying at the bottom on the murky canal in a refuse sack.
No one saw it happen, no one knows why it happened; apart from the fifty-foot narrowboat painted completely Black; that cut through the two-hundred-year-old canal moments before she was taken!
If you ever get the feeling youâre being followed, or someone might be watching, if youâve ever wondered how much evil there is in the world, then you already know how this endsâŚ
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Over the next 27 days...
Iâll reveal more of Annabelle Lancasters story, share chapter one, inform you of the books launch date, and reveal launch-day bonuses and competitions.
So... keep an eye out for my emails?
Until then, stay safe?
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