‘Okay, we need you to go undercover, which sounds a lot more exciting than it is.’
Tiff clapped her hands together. ‘Cool.’
Kim almost said it did not include going to Disneyland but held her tongue. It was that youthful innocence they were counting on.
When she’d shot upstairs to see Woody straight from the cafeteria, she had known immediately what his response would be.
Organising an official undercover operation took weeks, even months, of planning. Officers were vetted and analysed. Operational Orders and Risk Assessments were formulated by experts, checked and double-checked to cover everyone’s behind. It was a process they didn’t have time for. With two bodies in two days they had to be creative.
‘Okay, Tink, here’s the issue. There’s a place called Unity Farm that’s linked to two murders. Bryant and I have visited briefly and got the shortest of tours; the tourist view if you like. We need to get someone who is not a police officer in there for a few hours. Get a better look around, a feel for what’s really going on and if it’s as innocent as it seems. So far?’
She nodded, eyes wide.
‘They seem to favour young, vulnerable kids who are in a state of emotional turmoil, upset about something.’ Kim frowned. ‘I mean, you do get upset, don’t you?’ she asked, to be sure.
‘Well, not often but I’m sure I can if I try.’
‘Go on then,’ Kim said, folding her arms and praying Tiffany had been chosen as a kid for the school play.
Tiffany threw her head back and began wailing. Her eyes were tightly closed and her face scrunched into some kind of constipated grimace.
Kim’s jaw dropped to the ground. Bryant looked away. Penn covered his eyes and shook his head while Stacey groaned out loud.
Kim’s bewilderment was interrupted by the ringing of her phone. Mitch at the lake.
She watched as Tiffany’s performance reached the climax and realised they were in all kinds of trouble.
Fifty-Five
Kim checked her watch again as Bryant pulled up behind the college building.
‘You ready, Tink?’ she asked, turning around in her seat.
Tiff nodded.
She’d been fully briefed on the murders, the names, the layout of the site and had been given strict instructions about leaving.
‘So, there’ll be a car waiting on the main road at ten o’clock tonight. You call me the second you’re out, got it?’
‘Yep, got it, boss,’ Tiff said, getting out of the car.
Kim felt there was something more she needed to say, but didn’t know what it was.
‘Speak later,’ Tiff said, heading across the road.
Kim watched silently as she fell into step behind a group of four boys. Changed into jeans and trainers and with a backpack borrowed from a colleague, she really didn’t look out of place.
‘You okay, guv?’ Bryant asked, following her gaze.
‘Yeah, yeah, she fits right in,’ Kim said, as she went out of view.
Ever since she’d witnessed Tiff’s attempt at crying a feeling of unease had started to build in her stomach. What had seemed like a good idea at the time was rapidly losing its appeal. It had seemed so simple, get her in there, do a little digging and leave, but as they’d briefed her Kim had begun to realise they had no idea what kind of people they were dealing with. Tiffany had never been undercover before. Officers undertook extensive training before embarking on this level of deceit.
‘She’ll be fine,’ Bryant said, starting the car. ‘It’s just a few hours.’
‘I’d forgotten how bloody young and naïve she…’
‘Guv, she’s many things. She’s also a fully trained police officer.’
Kim nodded. Easy to forget sometimes.
‘It’s only a few hours. She’ll be back later and we really need to get to the lake.’
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Kim said, as he pulled away from the kerb.
Kim glanced back once more to the spot where Tiffany had disappeared into the crowd and realised what had been on the tip of her tongue.
She had wanted to tell the girl to stay safe.
Fifty-Six
Tiffany spotted the girl Britney as soon as she turned the corner. She was speaking animatedly to three girls having a smoke, looking bored and trying to edge away.
Tiff looked around and saw a great spot on a wall not too far away from the red-haired girl.
The boss had told her not to cry but to look upset instead. She didn’t have much experience with crying because it wasn’t something she chose to do. She never had.
The boss had also given her a cover story of a bad boyfriend break-up, but Tiff had chosen her own. She knew she wasn’t good at outright lying. Her brain just didn’t work that way. Her plan was to stay as close to the truth as she could.
She lowered her head and remembered the conversation she’d had with her mother before she’d left for work.
Tiff knew that still living at home at her age was uncommon. She was a police officer and could easily afford a small place of her own. She didn’t stay for financial reasons.
As the youngest of five children, Tiff had been born when all four of her brothers had needed their parents’ attention more than her. Three weeks after her fourth birthday her father had been killed in a motorway accident leaving even less attention to go around.
Largely ignored by her brothers she had invented her own world where everyone was happy and she convinced herself that her day would come. One by one her brothers had left home to start their own lives and the day had finally come that she had her mum all to herself.
It was not the picture she’d dreamed of. Her mum still spent the majority of her time running around after ‘her boys’; going to their houses to clean, to accept deliveries, pick up shopping, tend their gardens, anything to make their lives easier. A year ago, her mum had downsized to a three bed end terrace. Perfect for the two of them, or so she’d thought until this morning.
‘Ryan’s coming home,’ her mother said.
Hardly a shocker, Tiff thought. She’d heard the conversations. He’d been caught cheating and his wife had thrown him out.
‘So, you’ll have to move into the box room,’ she’d continued.
‘Why do I have to move?’ Tiff asked, surely as the incumbent child she should be able to stay where she was. Ryan had spent a couple of nights in a hotel hoping Sasha would relent. She hadn’t and he was clearly missing his home comforts.
‘Because boys need more room,’ was the answer that explained everything.
The reasoning had taken her back to her whole childhood. Move over so the boys can sit down. What are you upset for, it’s only a doll? Put that down, it’s for the boys.
‘Hey, are you okay?’ asked a voice from above. Tiffany had been so lost in the memories she’d almost forgotten why she was here. And the reason was now right in front of her. Close up Tiff noticed a smattering of freckles that crossed the bridge of her nose beneath friendly green eyes filled with concern. She wore no make-up or jewellery except for a necklace with a butterfly resting in the hollow of her throat.
‘Yeah, I’m fine, thanks,’ she answered. ‘Just had a huge row with my mum this morning.’
Not strictly true. She had accepted the news as she always did, with silence.
‘Oh no,’ Britney said, sitting beside her. ‘Families can be so difficult, can’t they?’
Tiff nodded. ‘We both said some pretty nasty things.’
Britney nodded. ‘We all do when we’re angry.’
Tiff nodded and wiped at her dry eye.
‘I’m Britney, by the way,’ the girl said, offering her hand and a friendly smile.
‘Tiffany, Tiff,’ she responded as she always did.
‘So, what was it about, the argument?’
‘My brother,’ she answered, and gave a very brief summary.
‘Oh, that doesn’t seem very fair,’ Britney offered.
‘I’m sure it’ll
all be fine. We just need a bit of cooling off time. I just don’t want to see her quite yet but I’ve got no money and no place to go,’ she said, shrugging.
Britney tapped her arm reassuringly.
‘Don’t worry. I know a place you can go.’
Fifty-Seven
It was almost four by the time Bryant pulled up at the Himley Park lake.
‘Shit,’ Kim said, as Bryant parked next to Keats’s van. He would have been Mitch’s second call.
She wasted no time in hurrying to the nucleus of the action.
She arrived and looked around.
‘Where is it, then?’ she asked, in the absence of a body.
‘Stuck,’ Keats said, as a head bobbed up out of the water, and he called out an instruction to his colleagues in the boat.
‘What do we know?’ Kim asked, turning to Mitch.
He shrugged. ‘That there’s an unidentified mass attached to some foliage in the water.’
‘But they’re sure it’s a body?’
Mitch raised an eyebrow. ‘Pretty sure they wouldn’t have told us to summon everyone if it was a discarded shopping trolley.’
‘Mitch, you have been spending way too much time with Keats,’ she said, as Inspector Plant approached.
‘Stone, the manager here is gonna pop a blood vessel if she doesn’t get some information soon. She’s seeing all kinds of vehicles arrive and her anxiety is going through the roof. She’s desperate to know when she’s going to get her site back.’
Kim opened her mouth to answer. She felt sorry for Plant having to try and keep the staff calm and, more importantly, out of the way.
She was prevented from answering by a shout from the boat on the lake.
The guy in the water was giving the thumbs up to the crew in the boat as she saw the bottom end of a body bag break the surface of the water.
She turned to Plant. ‘Tell her it’s gonna be a little while yet.’
She didn’t wait for an answer as she headed closer to the lake to get a better look.
‘Looks like Penn might have had something after all,’ Bryant said, standing beside her.
Perhaps, Kim thought, keeping her gaze on the boat.
She approached the bank as the dinghy pulled in.
‘Let me help,’ Keats said, taking two steps down. The divers said nothing as the pathologist helped lift the body bag out of the boat.
Kim craned her neck to get a better look as they carried it gently up the bank and onto Keats’s waiting trolley.
‘We’re going back down,’ Guy said, as he passed her.
‘For what?’ Kim asked.
‘One hand and one foot missing.’
She looked to Mitch.
‘Perfectly normal.’
Keats brought the trolley to rest beside her. ‘You ready?’
She nodded as he slowly began to unzip the bag.
‘Bloody hell,’ she said, covering her nose as the stench of death mixed with dirty water filled her nostrils.
What she saw could only be described as a skeleton wrapped in wet brown paper bags.
‘This one doesn’t look bloated and waxy,’ she observed to Mitch, remembering how Tyler had looked.
‘Temperature of the water,’ Mitch answered. ‘If the water was warmer when the body went in, adipocere wouldn’t have started forming.’
‘You think this one has been in there longer than Tyler Short?’
Both Keats and Mitch nodded, but it was Keats who spoke. ‘How much longer is difficult to say right now.’
Keats continued to pull down the zipper.
Kim followed the motion while continuing to assess the body, unsure whether or not it was Sheila until her gaze reached the foot that had remained attached.
Bryant’s sharp intake of breath told her he’d clocked the same thing as she had.
This poor soul was wearing a large, man-size trainer and was definitely not Sheila Thorpe.
Fifty-Eight
Tiff found herself already confused. The taxi had dropped them off at the main road. Britney had laughingly helped her climb a gate as she’d explained they were taking the scenic route.
This was not where Stacey had shown her on Google Earth and it wasn’t where the car would be waiting at ten.
She walked alongside Britney as they crossed two fields, circled a small wooded area and climbed a steep hill. It wasn’t a journey she’d care to make in the dark.
‘There it is,’ Britney said, breathlessly, as they reached the top of the mound.
Tiff forced herself to remember that Britney had said very little about where they were going except that she’d love it.
‘That’s your house?’ Tiff asked, as she looked down on Unity Farm.
‘Ha, I wish, but it is my home.’
‘What is it?’ Tiff asked as she looked down into a small valley.
‘It’s a retreat,’ she explained, simply. ‘And you’ll be made very welcome.’
Tiff tried to take in everything from the vantage point.
To the left was a stone farmhouse building that looked out on to a collection of barns that had all been refurbished. Beyond the barn at the end were slabs of concrete that looked like foundations for more buildings. Immediately at the bottom of the hill were polytunnels and fenced-off planting areas.
Tiff took a step forward, but Britney touched her arm lightly.
‘Just one minute.’
Tiffany wondered why they were standing at the top of the hill as the light began to fade.
Britney looked at her watch and held up her hand.
‘Any second…’
Before the word now could leave her mouth, the whole site below suddenly came alive with light as uplighters fitted into the ground illuminated, bathing all the buildings in a warm orange glow showing the beauty of the stone structures.
Delicate warm fairy lights adorned the guttering of each of the barns and in surrounding trees. Waist-high lamps illuminated the paths to all of the buildings. From the corner of her eye a tree branch moved and Tiff thought she saw a light in the wooded area.
‘Never gets old,’ Britney said, taking a step to head down the hill.
Tiffany took another good look as she followed Britney down and she really had to agree.
She’d never seen anything so pretty in her life.
Fifty-Nine
Stacey put down the phone and returned to her fake profile. The boss was on her way back and she hoped to have something to show for her time. She’d been told to focus on Jake Black and Unity Farm. So far she’d had little luck with either.
Her searches on the cult leader had revealed that he had been an only child born into a family of inherited wealth from his paternal great-grandfather, who had made his money buying cheap clutches of land and selling to developers at the right time for both housing and expansion.
Jake’s grandfather had managed to squander most of the family fortune on dubious overseas investments leaving just enough to give Jake a decent private education at the best schools in the country.
When Jake had graduated from Cambridge, unable to sustain their lavish lifestyle further, his parents sold the family estate to pay off debts and emigrated to Australia, leaving Jake Black used to a lifestyle that he now had to fund himself.
So far she’d been unable to find anything more on his activities, and Stacey knew that nothing she’d learned so far was going to ignite any excitement in her boss, but what had been more interesting to her, after speaking to the mother of Helen Deere, was the veil of secrecy that seemed to surround Unity Farm and that was where she had now turned her attention.
Even to her own eyes, the fake profile of Janey Taylor looked a little bit suspect.
She had done all she could to make it seem legit: she’d posted photos stolen, or borrowed, from other profiles and had shared posts about Scientology, Meditation and Yoga. She was hoping that the moderator of the group wouldn’t look too closely before allowing her to join.
It had
taken longer than she’d thought, and Penn had offered to do the digging on the financials of Sheila Thorpe.
‘Okay, here goes,’ Stacey said, pressing the request to join button.
She sat back in her chair. All she could do now was wait.
‘Yeah, doing a fair bit of waiting, myself,’ Penn said. ‘Estate Agents wouldn’t consider giving me any information except for the name of the purchaser’s solicitors. They’ve given me the name of Sheila’s solicitors, who are now debating whether they’ll tell me anything at all. Even given the situation they’re seeking advice.’
‘And you’re sure the money from the house sale didn’t go into Sheila’s account?’
Penn shook his head. Just about the only people who had been helpful were the bank, who had confirmed that no money had been transferred in after Sheila had emptied the account.
Stacey saw his pensive expression.
‘You really want to give Josie Finch something, don’t you?’
He nodded. ‘And yet, I don’t know how anything I have to offer can help. She’s either lost her mother or lost her mother.’
Stacey saw the sadness that crossed his face. She knew the time for his own mother was close but he didn’t mention it, so neither did she.
‘Hey, Penn, if you ever…’
‘Did you just ding?’ he asked, glancing at her phone.
She wasn’t sure but the message she’d got from her colleague was loud and clear.
She picked up her phone and sure enough, a message had popped up in the mail box of her fake profile.
Before pressing on it she noted she’d had no notification to say she’d been allowed into the group.
As soon as she opened the message it was clear the sender was shouting.
It read:
If this is you Eric Leland trying to get in with another fake profile Fuck Off
Stacey read the message again, which had been sent from someone called Penny Hicks.
Killing Mind: An addictive and nail-biting crime thriller (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Book 12) Page 15