Killing Mind: An addictive and nail-biting crime thriller (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Book 12)

by Angela Marsons

After all, gentle was her middle name.

  Eight

  Bryant pulled onto the car park ten minutes early. He noted immediately that he was first to arrive.

  HMP Hewell was located in Tardebigge in Worcestershire. Holding approximately fourteen hundred mixed category prisoners it served the areas of Worcestershire, Warwickshire and West Midlands. The prison had its fair share of overcrowding, and drug problems, which had been highlighted when a chance wildlife documentary being filmed in adjacent fields caught the smuggling process in action.

  It had also been home to Peter Drake for the last twenty-six years.

  Bryant turned off the engine and sat back. Had he still been a smoker, a lit cigarette would already have been in his hand. Ten minutes to spare, anxiety clutching at his stomach, hell, he’d probably have chain-smoked a couple by now.

  His palm began tapping on the steering wheel for want of something better to do as he glanced around the car park waiting for the vehicle he was expecting.

  He’d first met Richard Harrison when he’d attended Wendy’s funeral, standing unnoticed at the back. Only he hadn’t been unnoticed. Richard had approached him as he’d been getting back into his car and asked why he was attending his daughter’s funeral.

  Bryant had explained his role to the broken man who had just buried his child. At the trial, he had read out his statement and had watched the man fight back the tears. Once he’d done as much as he could, he’d had to let it go. The murderer was safely behind bars serving a forty-five-year sentence. He’d gone on with his life, hoping Wendy could now rest in peace.

  Until ten years ago when Richard Harrison had been waiting for him outside Sedgley police station at the end of his shift.

  Bryant had not recognised him immediately. He appeared to be half the man he’d been before in both stature and girth. His hair much greyer than he recalled.

  Over coffee Richard had explained that Wendy’s killer, Peter Drake, had applied for parole having served fifteen years of his sentence. He had also confided that his marriage had broken down and ended in divorce. Throughout their conversation Bryant had gathered that the main cause of the breakdown had been due to Richard being unable to move on and function after the death of his only child. He had lost contact with friends and eventually lost his job due to poor performance. His house and wife hadn’t been too far behind.

  Bryant had understood the man. He knew that people had to allow themselves to heal at their own pace, find a new way to move on, but had his own daughter been subjected to the same ordeal as Wendy, he wasn’t sure he would ever have been able to recover either; both of them, Richard and Bryant, father to only one child. One daughter.

  ‘She was a Daddy’s girl,’ Richard had explained. Whatever happened she had run to Daddy. Needed a plaster, a bedtime story, Daddy made everything better.

  ‘But Daddy couldn’t do it this time,’ Richard had whispered into his drink, which had all but broke Bryant’s heart.

  He knew that other parents had opportunities to make good mistakes they felt they’d made. People with more than one child had the chance to make it up somehow to a sibling; do things differently second time around. Richard would never be able to make it up to Wendy. He felt he had failed her and he would never forgive himself.

  To help the man out Bryant had made a couple of calls to the prison and a friend he had on the parole board and established that Peter Drake wasn’t going anywhere. Poor behaviour and violent episodes towards prison officers had ruled out such an early release.

  That had changed five years ago when the man had supposedly found God. In the years since he’d kept his nose clean and firmly out of trouble.

  And now every parole hearing carried more risk than Bryant was comfortable with.

  Two years ago, Richard had asked him to attend the parole hearing with him. As Wendy’s next of kin, he was allowed to attend and take one support person.

  In the past Bryant had always trusted the parole board. As an independent body, it was made up of 246 members and 120 support staff who carried out risk assessments on each individual to determine whether they could be safely released back into the community.

  He knew that public safety was the number one priority and that they heard around twenty-five thousand cases a year referred by the Ministry of Justice. The risk assessments were based on detailed evidence contained in a dossier together with evidence provided at an oral hearing. Members were drawn from a wide circle of professions and appointed by the Secretary of State for Justice.

  Statistics told him that in the years 2018 to 2019 only 1.1 per cent of offenders released had gone on to commit further serious offences. A small percentage but a percentage nonetheless, which showed Bryant one thing: the parole board made mistakes.

  As Richard Harrison’s car pulled onto the car park. Bryant prayed that Peter Drake wasn’t going to be one of them.

  Nine

  Myles helped his wife back into the car and had no clue how they’d made it back to the car park.

  The moment she had seen their daughter lying on that bed in the mortuary viewing room, something in her face had closed down. She hadn’t cried, she hadn’t sobbed. In fact, she had not made a single sound since.

  At one point his hand had itched to yank away the white sheet that was pulled right up to his daughter’s chin to stop it stifling her. Sammy had always hated anything tight around her neck. He had to remind himself that she could no longer feel anything, and he now knew what they were trying to hide. He had no wish to see the wound his daughter had inflicted on herself.

  ‘Sweetheart, I just need the toilet,’ he said, leaning down and speaking into the car.

  His wife offered just a slight nod of acknowledgment but continued to stare forward.

  He closed the car door gently and headed back towards the main building.

  There was something in him that felt he could walk out the deadened feeling in his stomach, though he knew it would be with him for a very long time.

  He was not as shocked as his wife at Samantha’s decision to take her own life. She’d been through a lot and yes, he had felt she was strong enough to try living on her own. He would carry that mistake for the rest of his days, but at the same time a small voice spoke inside him. If she was so determined to end her life, would location have made any difference? When they’d had her at home she had not been under house arrest or 24-hour guard. She would have been able to find a way.

  He was acutely aware that his wife had barely looked at him since that detective had told them the news. Something in him wanted to release all the pent-up emotion, the grief, the anger, the injustice, even the hurt, but he wouldn’t, couldn’t. He knew his wife was no more entitled to her feelings than he was but he would accept her accusatory silence. He would prepare himself for the rage when it came. He would ready himself for the uncontrollable tears once her brain allowed the truth to seep in, but what he couldn’t do was allow himself to fall apart. He couldn’t allow the grief to swallow him whole. There was still much to be done. And their actions going forward now were even more important than ever.

  He entered the main reception of the hospital, strode past the desk and out of sight of the car, even though he knew she wouldn’t be watching.

  He looked for a semi-private spot along the corridor as he had a sudden thought.

  Samantha had been at the core of pretty much every conversation the two of them had had over the last three years. She was gone leaving a void that could never be filled.

  He took a deep breath and took out his phone; his real reason for leaving his wife in the car.

  He scrolled to the contact he wanted in his list, turning into the wall. As expected the voicemail kicked in. He waited, took another breath.

  ‘Sammy’s dead,’ he said, and then ended the call.

  Ten

  ‘Samantha Brown,’ Stacey said, looking at her screen. ‘Twenty-one years old, born to Myles and Kate Brown in July of ’ninety-nine Made the school gymn
astics team and then later netball, left school five years ago and attended Dudley College, studying graphic design. Appears to have had a great social life, lots of friends but no serious boyfriend, so pretty much studying and partying at the same time.’

  ‘Normal college life, then?’ Penn acknowledged.

  Kim half listened as she pressed refresh on her emails. Keats had questioned her request for the photographs taken at the scene and after, and she’d assured him she just wanted them for her report. He had agreed to send them. She had ended the call as quickly as she could to avoid further questioning from the astute pathologist. And if she knew him as well as she thought, he’d be poring over those same photos himself right now wondering if they’d made a mistake.

  ‘Samantha was active on just about every social platform I can find but seemed to especially favour Instagram right up until…’

  ‘Hang on, Stace,’ Kim interrupted, as the email from Keats came through.

  She began scrolling through the ten pictures she’d been sent, looking for anything that appeared to be out of place or suspicious. Something she could take to the boss.

  Right now, she had nothing more than what looked like a gifted candle, lack of ceremony or planning, the possibility that someone else could have been in the flat and her own suspicious nature, and the boss had already shut her down based on these things. She needed something to convince him to let her investigate Samantha’s death properly.

  She swiped along the photos:

  The position.

  The knife.

  The blood.

  The hand.

  Damn it, there was nothing there that wasn’t still present in her memory.

  She began to scroll again. ‘Sorry, Stace, carry on.’

  ‘I was only going to say that everything about Samantha’s online presence is exactly what you’d expect to see. All pretty normal, as Penn said, except for one thing.’

  ‘Which is?’ Kim asked, as her phone pulled up the last picture of the collection: the hand.

  ‘It’s all there, but it all ended three years ago and she hasn’t posted another thing since.’

  Kim looked up. ‘Three years?’

  Stacey nodded.

  Unusual but it wasn’t going to get Woody to change his mind.

  ‘Okay, Stace, good work but I’m gonna need…’ She stopped speaking as her gaze returned back to the photo of the hand. Something struck her and it was like she was seeing it for the first time.

  She turned the phone and looked at the photo from every angle.

  ‘Stace, keep digging and Penn, get me a red pen and a ruler. Now.’

  Eleven

  Britney reached into her backpack and took out the last few flyers. Once she’d handed these out she could go home.

  She smiled to herself as she remembered when she’d first started doing this job. On her third day she’d left the college early when the storm clouds that had threatened all day had unleashed thunder, lightning and torrential rain. With a backpack half full of flyers she had returned home, her clothes soaked to the skin like melted plastic and rain dripping from her hair. It had been explained to her that people couldn’t just abandon their jobs due to a spot of bad weather. She had considered mentioning that the storm had lasted for almost three hours, but really, she could understand the point being made. Her work was too important to just abandon it at the first hurdle. Her family depended on her and she swore she would not let them down again.

  The following day her backpack had contained the usual three hundred leaflets as well as the ones from the day before. She had never gone home early since.

  As ever she was dismayed to see so many of the leaflets littering the ground; screwed up, walked over, having been thrown away once out of her sight.

  She wasn’t angry, just sad that the recipients hadn’t bothered to read all the important information that could change their lives the way it had changed hers.

  Britney remembered the day she’d been given the leaflet, almost five years ago and two days after she’d turned nineteen, just another birthday she hadn’t bothered to celebrate.

  Birthdays didn’t mean a lot when you were in and out of the care system. They weren’t remembered by the father who had walked out. They weren’t celebrated by the mother who had abandoned you because you interfered with her social life, and the short stay foster homes didn’t take too much notice either.

  Britney shook away the negative thoughts; they were poisonous to her soul. She didn’t need them any more. She didn’t need any link to her past. It had given her nothing, unlike her present which gave her everything she could ever want. For the first time in her life she belonged. She mattered and she knew it was always meant to be.

  She looked around her and smiled. Never mind about the leaflets on the ground. Every single person who walked past her was a potential survivor, someone whose life she could change. Every person was an opportunity. And so what of the leaflets discarded. Maybe someone who needed it would tread on one and read it at a time in their life when they needed something more.

  She looked around her, seeing everything with wide fresh eyes. It was her job, her duty to try and help some of these people understand that there really was another way.

  Her eyes rested on a single female sitting on the wall alone. Her legs dangled and she idly kicked her heels. She looked at something on her phone and then put it away. As she raised her head Britney saw two things: the acne-covered skin and a quiet loneliness in her eyes.

  Britney knew immediately that this girl needed her help.

  Twelve

  ‘Okay, Penn, lie on the floor,’ Kim instructed.

  ‘Excuse me, boss,’ he said, holding up his right hand which was now covered with small red marks.

  She thought for a second. ‘Yeah, scrub that.’

  He looked relieved. ‘Thank goodness for…’

  ‘Lie across the desks instead.’

  He tried to read her face for humour. There was none.

  ‘Lie with your head on Bryant’s desk and your bottom half on the spare desk.’ She pointed to where she wanted him positioned. ‘I need to be on your right.’

  He did as she asked while Stacey sat back in her chair for a better view, chewing on the end of a red pen. She had painstakingly copied every blood spatter mark from the photo onto Penn’s hand.

  ‘Stace, pass me that ruler.’

  The constable slapped the twelve inches of plastic into her palm like a nurse assisting a surgeon.

  ‘Hang on, boss,’ she said. ‘If we’re trying to get this as close as possible, that knife in the photos is only about six inches long.’

  ‘Good point,’ Kim said, hanging the ruler over the side of the desk. She brought down her hand forcefully and snapped the ruler in half.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Penn said, jolting away from her.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, not realising how close she’d been to his ear.

  ‘Okay, lift up your right hand, Penn.’

  He did so and she, without giving it too much thought, placed the ruler inside his fist. Her hand then closed his palm around the ruler; her own fingers splaying as they curved around the knuckles, revealing the blood spatter on the skin. She removed her hand beneath which there were no red marks.

  Without revealing anything she beckoned Stacey over.

  ‘Do what I just did without thinking about it.’

  Stacey took the ruler and placed it into Penn’s hand. The same thing happened. Her fingers splayed to contain the fist.

  Stacey removed her hand to reveal the unmarked skin.

  ‘So?’ Kim asked, folding her arms and asking her team what this experiment had taught them.

  Stacey was first to answer.

  ‘Samantha’s hand wasn’t the only hand holding the knife.’

  Thirteen

  Bryant was tempted to head back to the station but resisted. He’d booked the afternoon off fair and square and it was almost the end of shift.

  The
parole hearing had gone just like the others. Richard had spoken from the heart and had fought back the tears as he’d explained that his own life sentence could not be paroled; that his daughter was not going to reappear, a grown woman with children of her own. He explained how he still saw every single injury inflicted on her body when he closed his eyes at night. Richard had been no less passionate than the first parole hearing they’d attended. They had then left the room, shook hands outside and Richard had left, secure that enough had been done and said to keep the man behind bars.

  Bryant was not so sure.

  As he’d sat beside Richard he’d watched the board members carefully. At other hearings they had listened intently their full attention on Richard as he spoke, empathy and emotion gathering in their eyes, but today he had seen something else. At one point one of the members of the board had checked her watch. The two others had shared a glance or two. He had detected impatience as the still-broken man had pleaded his case.

  He had said nothing of his observations to Richard for fear he was looking so hard at the demeanours of the people in the room he had seen something that wasn’t there.

  And here he was, he realised, as he brought the car to a stop at a pull-in on the west side of the Clent Hills. At the exact spot where he had been the first officer to lay eyes on the ravaged body of Wendy Harrison. He turned off the engine and allowed the horrific images to play in his head. The viciousness of the assault; the knife wounds that had stretched from her inner thigh to her ankle; the broken bones; the blood; the violation. No man who could do that was capable of rehabilitation whether they’d found God or not.

  The sound of his phone in the silence startled him even though he was expecting the call.

  He answered, listened and then ended the call that confirmed what he had felt from the moment he’d opened his eyes that morning.