‘We ain’t used ’em for years, five or more,’ he said.
Good news and bad news in one short sentence.
‘What did you use them for?’ Kim asked.
‘Prizes. There was a weekly raffle, but we stopped it when business dropped off.’
Kim nodded and began to back out of the claustrophobic space.
‘Appreciate your time…’
‘You might want to try the one over at Merry Hill. I think they still use ’em today.’
She offered him a warm smile and peered closer at his name badge.
‘Melvyn, you’ve been a great help, thank you,’ she said, before heading towards the door.
‘You’re smiling,’ Bryant observed as she got back into the car.
‘Down to Merry Hill,’ she instructed, securing her seatbelt. It was still a long shot but for the first time she felt like she at least had a field to play on.
It was a short drive from Brierley Hill down Level Street and onto the complex.
Bryant drove into a space that luckily opened up right in front of him. He parked and they cut through the bus station into the amusement arcade.
The dark space was lit by the fast, racing lights of the machines as they tempted with their promises of jackpots and prizes.
Two elderly women looked around sharply as the sound of pound coins falling was heard from the next aisle along. Kim could hear bingo numbers being called towards the back of the property.
‘Excuse me,’ Kim said, approaching a woman dressed in a light blue overall. A leather bag containing change was strapped around her waist.
Her hands automatically reached towards the bag and Kim couldn’t help but think the lady might need a short course in recognising your customer. There was no such thing as a ‘typical gambler’ look but neither she nor Bryant were dressed for anything of a leisurely nature.
Kim took out her badge. The woman squinted in the light and the wrinkles around her eyes deepened. She accepted the identification and immediately looked concerned.
‘How long have you worked here, Jean?’ Kim asked, reading the name badge.
‘Eight years,’ she said, as though she couldn’t quite believe it herself. But a job was a job as far as Kim was concerned, and anyone who had the gumption to stick at one instead of looking for easier options had her vote.
‘You use raffle tickets?’ Kim clarified.
The woman nodded slowly as though she was making some kind of guilty admission.
‘May I ask what for?’ Kim asked, praying there would be some kind of clue.
She shrugged. ‘Many things. Grocery hampers, meat joints, shopping vouchers, free bingo games.’
Each item punched a bit of excitement out of her stomach.
Bryant stepped forwards. ‘All these items every week?’ he asked.
Jean nodded.
‘How do you keep track of which raffle ticket is for which item?’
‘The colour,’ she said simply.
Kim shot Bryant a grateful look.
‘What’s blue for?’
Jean smiled. ‘Blue is for a bottle of Bell’s whisky.’
The hope was being rebuilt in her gut. ‘Always?’
‘For as long as I can remember,’ she said. And Kim already knew that was over eight years. It was a very simple system but one that had worked.
‘Do you keep records?’ Kim asked hopefully. The normal form of identification for a raffle ticket was an address or phone number. Yes, there’d be one a week for the last three years but that totalled less than two hundred and worth the work to give Bob a name.
Jean shook her head. ‘Only for a few months and then we give the unclaimed prizes to Mary Stevens Hospice. We tell people that when they buy the tickets,’ she added defensively.
‘We want to ask you about a man who may have been a customer here a few years ago. I think he had one of your whisky raffle tickets.’
Just the words leaving her mouth was enough to convince Kim of the futility of this exercise. The woman’s expression only confirmed her thoughts. Jean must see hundreds of faces every day. Multiply that by two or three years and Kim was looking for one face out of more than a hundred thousand. But the pound coins had to mean something.
‘Love, I’m not being funny but—’
Kim let the endearment pass and continued anyway. ‘He would have been in his mid-fifties, dark hair, a bit on the heavy side.’
Jean began to shake her head and handed a clutch of pound coins without speaking to a gangly lad who appeared to her right. She placed the note in a separate zip pocket on her pouch.
Bryant stepped forwards. ‘May have been named Alan, Charlie, Edward, Geoffrey, Ivor, Jack, Lester … ’
Kim stole a glance at her colleague as Jean frowned. ‘Hang on a minute,’ she said. ‘Did you say Ivor?’
Bryant nodded. It wasn’t a common name around these parts.
‘We used to have a bloke named Ivor come in here a lot. Used to sit and play the OXO machines for hours. Anything he won he put straight back in.’ Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘He bought a raffle ticket for whisky every week. Not for the other stuff but always for the bottle of Bell’s. Won it a fair few times as well,’ she said, nodding. ‘He hasn’t been in for years though. We assumed he got banged up for something.’
‘Why would you think that?’ Kim asked, frowning. She wasn’t sure that was the immediate conclusion with the loss of every customer.
‘Oh, no reason,’ she said, colouring, but Kim didn’t believe her.
‘That’s not true,’ Kim said. ‘Please, Jean, anything you can tell us would be greatly appreciated. We really need to find out more about this man.’
She hesitated and then sighed. ‘Hang on, I’ll be back in a minute,’ she said before walking away.
‘Jesus, guv, Woody was right when he said you can make something out of nothing,’ Bryant said, once Jean was out of earshot.
‘You weren’t too bad yourself,’ she observed. ‘I can’t believe you managed to memorise all those names.’
‘I assume you don’t keep me around for my good looks, although—’
‘This is Rita,’ Jean said, presenting a woman of similar size to herself but with a shock of deep red hair. She too wore a blue overall and a money belt.
‘Do you remember that bloke you had a bit of trouble with, Ivor the whisky bloke?’
Rita nodded and looked suspiciously at her and Bryant.
‘It’s all right, tell ’em, they’re police,’ Jean urged.
Rita looked doubtful but Jean nudged her. ‘Go on, it might be connected.’
Kim’s interest was piqued.
‘He was a big guy – overweight I mean. Not tall. A bit creepy, but you just get used to that in here. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some lovely folks that come in here and—’
‘But Ivor…’ Kim said, steering her back.
‘Well, we get kids in here now and again,’ she said, looking at Jean. ‘We do everything to stop ’em, but they ignore the signs on the door, and we get ’em out as quick as we see ’em, eh, Jean?’
Kim wasn’t interested in a bit of underage gambling on fruit machines.
‘I understand, it must be difficult,’ Kim said. ‘Now about Ivor?’
‘A while back, must be a couple of years now, I had a group of girls in and I hadn’t spotted ’em until one of ’em came over and said that Ivor had touched her mate.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Well, I couldn’t call the police… she didn’t want to make a complaint and, well, she shouldn’t have been here in the first place.’
So neither the girl or this woman had wanted to get into any trouble.
‘What about Ivor?’
‘I told him to get out and not to come back,’ she said, nodding, convinced that she’d taken the correct course of action.
‘And did he come back?’ Kim asked.
She shook her head. ‘Nah, and I never saw his mate again either.’
<
br /> Kim’s heartbeat quickened. If Ivor was their man Bob, then his friend could be their first lead.
Forty-Eight
‘Okay, Stace, get me everything you can for the guy on the list named Ivor. It’s a bit thin, but there’s a chance this could be our guy.’
‘On it, boss,’ Stacey replied.
‘And while you’re at it, he had a mate named Larry something. Don’t know if he might also be listed with any of the clinics. They may have met there, and if we can find him he may be able to help.’
‘Got it,’ Stacey said before Kim ended the call.
‘What do you make of Rita’s story?’ Bryant asked as he drove towards Stourbridge. On the other side lay Stourton and the home of Jemima Lowe’s ex head teacher.
Kim shrugged in response. ‘Could have been a harmless misunderstanding and I’ve got Stacey barking up the completely wrong tree… but right now it’s the only tree we’ve got and for a guy with no form of identity I think every move forwards is going to be a leap of faith.’
‘I still don’t see why that particular tree has ended up in our forest to be honest,’ Bryant said.
Kim was saved from answering by the ringing of her phone. There was no need for him to know it had come from Tracy.
‘Stone,’ she said.
‘Inspector, it’s Doctor Singh, from Russell’s Hall. We spoke—’
‘Of course, Doctor Singh,’ she acknowledged.
‘I’m calling about Isobel…’
Kim braced herself for the news that she’d been dreading.
‘I’m ringing to tell you that Isobel has woken up.’
Kim ended the call and told Bryant to turn the car around.
Finally they had a witness.
Forty-Nine
Dawson didn’t bother to remove his jacket from the car. Both the mid-morning heat and the absence of his boss dictated it would not grace his back today.
He parked on the gravel patch between the crime-scene Transit van and Harry’s low loader, which was used for transporting the ground-penetrating radar equipment. He suspected that Harry would be finished today providing he found no more nasty surprises, but the techies would be around for a few more days at least.
He tapped on the door before entering, even though they had opened the gate.
He walked into the back of Jameel, who turned and nodded in his direction. Dawson could hear The Shadows playing softly in the background.
This was one strange kid.
‘Yo, man,’ he said and turned back to his computer.
Dawson walked behind him and paused when he saw Catherine at the meeting table with a collection of graphs and charts spread out before her.
‘You’re here,’ he said stupidly.
She almost smiled. ‘Yes, I appear to be.’
‘But how did you get in?’ he asked.
He had been forced to wait a good few minutes while the officers at the cordon had cleared the press to let him through. The arrival of forensics tended to do that. As soon as the techies turned up, the press knew there was something to find and they had been steadily growing in number since the previous evening.
The boss had filled them in on Catherine’s history, and he hadn’t expected to see her back at work.
This time she did smile. ‘Under a picnic blanket in the back of the professor’s car.’
‘You told him?’ Dawson asked. The boss had also been clear that they were not to say a word.
She nodded. ‘A lot of what DI Stone said made sense. It’s better if I work,’ she said.
Dawson could understand that. Recently he’d been badly beaten while carrying out an investigation into the death of a gang member, but the following day he’d been right back at his desk.
‘She’s a strange one, isn’t she, your boss?’ Catherine asked, surprising him. It was the first time she’d spoken to him unless answering a direct question.
He felt himself bristle. ‘How so?’
‘There’s a bit more to her than meets the eye. She’s not the most likeable—’
‘Yeah, you don’t know her,’ Dawson said, crossing his arms.
‘… I was going to say on first impressions, but there’s a lot going on underneath. I wasn’t insulting her. She was very helpful to me yesterday,’ Catherine said, gathering up her papers. ‘Jameel, I’m going down to check on Elvis,’ she said abruptly before brushing past Dawson and heading out the door.
The young man didn’t turn or acknowledge her words in any way but mumbled something once the door closed behind her.
‘Sorry?’ Dawson said, taking a step back towards the office area of the Portakabin.
‘Something in my throat,’ Jameel said and then coughed for effect.
Dawson wasn’t fooled.
‘You two don’t get on?’ he asked. After the way Catherine had just spoken to him he wasn’t surprised.
‘Can’t be doing with changeable women, man. The species is hard enough to understand as it is, d’ya get me?’
Dawson smiled. Oh yeah, he got that.
‘Changeable?’ he asked, pouring himself a glass of water.
‘When she wants something she’s all over you, giving you compliments and stuff, but when she’s got what she wants she’s cool as a penguin’s belly.’
Dawson gave a small laugh. ‘Mate, you’ll find that’s the case with all women, not just that one.’ He made a show of looking around. ‘Curtis Grant not with you today?’
‘Nah. Good job. His aftershave was starting to get in my throat.’
Dawson smiled. Yeah, he’d noticed.
‘He’s been here quite a bit. Is there a lot to do to the system?’
Jameel shook his head. ‘I didn’t think so, but he wanted to check there were no bugs in the software upgrade.’
‘Seems to know his stuff though,’ Dawson observed.
‘To be fair he does. His company is his life. Talks about it like it’s a child.’
Dawson acknowledged his words. ‘Did he do all the planning for the security provision? Siting the cameras and everything?’
‘I think so. It was before I started, but Professor Wright brought him in and seems to trust him.’
Dawson finished the water and headed towards the door.
Suddenly Jameel turned. ‘You got a minute? There’s something I want to ask you.’
Dawson was momentarily surprised. Jameel had been totally disinterested in the activities at the site. He had asked nothing and had just kept his head down and got on with his job.
‘Go on then,’ he said.
Jameel put his hands on his thighs and his eyes opened wide. A quick tongue flick across the lips before he asked his question.
‘I’m dying to know, Sergeant. Have you ever killed anybody?’
‘What?’ Dawson asked incredulously. ‘You realise this is the Black Country not South Central LA?
Jameel leaned forwards. ‘Yeah but have you?’
Dawson tried not to roll his eyes as the day stretched out in front of him.
Fifty
Bryant pulled into the hospital car park and stealthily followed a patron to their car to nab their space.
Kim jumped out of the car and semi-sprinted to the hospital. She headed for the High Dependency Unit on autopilot.
She buzzed the intercom and pushed against the familiar click.
Doctor Singh stood at the nurses’ station, completing a chart. The same ward sister from the previous day smiled in her direction before stepping away from the area with a cardboard bedpan.
Doctor Singh completed what he was writing before turning in her direction. ‘That was very fast, Inspector,’ he observed.
They had postponed the visit to the head teacher in favour of interviewing the live witness who had actually spent time with their killer.
‘She’s awake, you said,’ she said, stepping past him.
He placed a gentle hand on her arm. She moved away from his touch and offered him a frown.
‘Docto
r, I need to speak with her immediately. She is imperative to our—’
‘I understand that. It’s why I called you the moment she regained consciousness.’
‘So?’
‘There have been, er… developments since we spoke. It’s become complicated.’
Kim felt her irritation growing in spite of the doctor’s gentle manner. Twenty feet away was a woman with answers she needed. Isobel could hold the key to solving this case before anyone else got hurt.
‘Look, if there’s a form you need me to sign—’
‘A form isn’t going to help you, Inspector. Isobel may be awake, but she has no memories whatsoever of recent events. In fact, she doesn’t even know who she is.’
Fifty-One
Kim stepped back and leaned against the ledge of the nurses’ station.
‘That’s why I wanted to speak to you before you see her. Isobel is suffering from retrograde amnesia. Sometimes the lost memories before an event are only seconds or minutes, occasionally a few years and, less often, everything.’
Kim allowed the breath she’d been holding to escape. ‘Will it come back?’
He moved his shoulders in an up-and-down motion. ‘I can’t say yet, Inspector. In many of the cases I’ve worked on, the memories return like a jigsaw, randomly. She could recall something from last week and then minutes later remember something from when she was seven years old. We have many more questions to consider in the coming days. We need to assess the true extent of the damage.’
Kim was confused. ‘Isn’t that clear already?’ The woman had no memory. What more was there to learn?
‘Ah, there is a difference between memory making and memory storage,’ he said and paused. ‘Imagine there is a fire in a pottery and all the pots are destroyed. Your stock is gone, what has already been made is no more. But what of the potter’s wheel? Does the equipment still work or is that gone too?’
Kim got it. ‘She hasn’t been conscious long enough for you to find out?’
Doctor Singh smiled. ‘Exactly. Short-term memory can be checked after about thirty minutes. Long-term memory demands recall after a day, two days, a week or more.’
Play Dead: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller Book 4 Page 17