Eleven years. Considerably longer than the time since their victim had been murdered.
‘You remember so clearly?’ Kim asked.
‘Yes, Inspector, I do. Now what can I do for you?’
‘Could you please confirm that your daughter Louise gave birth to a child when she was in her mid-teens?’
Mrs Hickman nodded. ‘Three days before her sixteenth birthday,’ she said and folded her arms. ‘Now will you please tell me why you are here?’
She appeared eager to learn what she had already ascertained was going to be bad news. Kim got the impression she had been waiting for news for years.
‘Please sit down, Mrs Hickman,’ Bryant advised.
‘I’m perfectly fine, thank you.’
Kim took a step forwards. ‘We have uncovered the body of a female, and we have reason to believe it is Louise.’
A small cry escaped from her lips. It may have been the news she was expecting, but it had impacted her all the same.
She stepped around to the dining table and pulled out a chair. Bryant held out a hand to steady her but she waved it away.
Bryant stepped back as Kim took a seat opposite the woman, whose head had fallen into her hands.
It was a long moment before she quietly shook her head and raised it. Although her eyes were red, Kim was surprised to see there were no actual tears.
‘It was only a matter of time,’ she whispered, staring down at the table.
‘Why do you say that?’ Kim asked.
‘How did it happen?’ Mrs Hickman asked, finally meeting her gaze. Kim saw a deep sadness in her eyes, but she couldn’t help feeling that this woman had already grieved for the loss of her child.
‘There is no gentle way to tell you that your daughter was murdered, Mrs Hickman,’ Kim said, trying to feel her way through this situation.
‘Was it drugs related?’ the woman asked.
Kim shook her head. Mrs Hickman obviously thought it was a recent death and yet eleven years of absence had stood between them.
Kim wanted a better understanding of this situation before she revealed the fact that Louise had been dead for years.
‘You haven’t seen Louise for some years, Mrs Hickman. Would you mind sharing the reason for that?’
She nodded and stared over her head. ‘I’m not going to go into too much detail, but, much as it pains me to admit it, my daughter was not a pleasant child. My late husband and I probably spoiled her as she was our only one, but by the time we realised that her behaviour was beyond precocious it was already too late.
‘Every different phase we assumed she would outgrow. We tried to rein her in but she had no fear of any consequences. We tried everything, but nothing stopped the bad behaviour. It’s difficult to discipline a child who simply doesn’t care.
‘Anyway, when she came home and told us she was pregnant and she intended to keep the child we actually hoped it would be the making of her. But she enjoyed the pregnancy more than the child.’
Kim frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She was the centre of attention, Inspector. The only girl taking a growing bump to school. She enjoyed the attention of being unique. Until the baby was born. Of course we supported her. She lived here with Marcus and we did everything we could but once her friends stopped coming round she lost complete interest in her son.
‘One day she left the house without telling me. I had no idea until I heard the baby’s cries from upstairs. He was wet and hungry, and she had just left him. We argued constantly about her refusal to take care of her child, but as usual she cared nothing for the consequences of her actions.’
Kim hadn’t noticed Bryant sit down at the table.
‘So you took care of her child?’ Kim asked.
‘Of course. The time spent away got longer and longer. First a few days, then a few weeks and then months. This continued until Christmas Day eleven years ago when Marcus was five.’
She took a breath and continued. ‘She stormed in on Christmas morning after being gone for almost four months. She was drunk and tried to take Marcus. He was terrified. He barely knew her. She only wanted him because she’d been told she had a good chance of getting a council flat if she had a child. Her father physically threw her out and told her not to come back until she’d cleaned up her act. We never saw her again, but we took precautions in case it happened again.’
Kim assumed they had applied for guardianship of Marcus to ensure his safety.
Mrs Hickman looked around at the baking ingredients and smiled. ‘He insisted on a home-made cake like normal except this time it came with the proviso that I don’t tell his friends. Her son is healthy and happy, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t think of Louise every day,’ she said as the first tear fell from her eye. ‘I always had hope that she could turn her life around but…’
Kim understood. The hope ended now.
Quietly she pushed back the chair. There were few questions to ask. This woman did not even know her daughter, had not seen her for many years before her murder.
‘Thank you for being so open and honest, Mrs Hickman,’ Kim said, holding out her hand.
Mrs Hickman shook it in return and made to stand.
Kim ushered her back down. ‘We’ll see ourselves out,’ she said.
A formal identification would follow but Kim knew they had their girl.
She paused at the door that led into the porch.
A little girl with mousy brown hair and a red chequered dress frowned from an enlarged school photo.
‘I’ve got one of mine at home looking just like that,’ Bryant observed with a sad smile. ‘Photographer’s nightmare but a pretty little girl.’
Kim stared for a moment at the photograph and saw something that took her by surprise.
‘What else do you see there, Bryant?’ she asked.
‘Awww… shit,’ he whispered as his eyes found the same thing hers had.
A kirby grip fashioned with half a heart.
Fifty-Five
Tracy Frost finished reading the article and placed it on the passenger seat.
It was good copy. Her editor had loved it.
She had chosen not to reveal to him that she had known she was being used. A fact that was still gnawing at her insides like a hungry ferret.
Her natural instinct was to go digging into the exact thing Inspector Stone wanted to keep hidden, and she hadn’t been able to help herself completely. She had managed to find out the name of the woman who worked there as an entomologist, which had made her even more curious about what it was about Catherine Evans that Kim Stone wanted to hide.
Her fingers had been poised to start searching when she’d realised what she was doing. She had given her word and there came a time when that had to mean something. They had agreed to scratch each other’s backs and Tracy knew she couldn’t stop scratching just because she’d found a juicier itch. That’s what had kept Bob anonymous for this long. And so she had removed her fingers from the keyboard and ripped out the page with the name so no one else could find it. A deal was a deal.
Now that she had parked, Tracy knew she eventually had to try to leave the car, but it would take another couple of deep breaths before she could even think about it.
She glanced up to the bay window. He would know she was here. His seat was to the left of the first glass pane. A spot he’d claimed as his own when he’d married her mother twenty-one years ago.
Tracy felt the rage course through her as she turned the ignition and started the car.
She still couldn’t force herself to go in there.
Fifty-Six
‘You wanted to see me?’ Kim said, closing the door behind her.
She was not surprised to see a copy of the Dudley Star on Woody’s desk.
‘Stone, you have a leak.’
She moved closer to the desk. ‘May I?’
‘Carry on,’ he said, pushing it towards her.
She turned the paper around. The headline screamed
‘Body Farm Shocker’, which caused her an internal groan. Tracy had had plenty of time to come up with a decent headline.
The front page began the story, which then took up the majority of pages two and three.
She scanned it and found that Tracy hadn’t done a bad job, despite the appalling headline.
‘It’s got everything, Stone. I distinctly remember instructing you to keep this low profile. Did you not think to pass that instruction to your team?’
‘I did, sir,’ she said, pushing the paper back towards him.
‘Do you realise what this is going to cause? Do you have any idea of the letters, complaints and petitions that are going to flood in?’
Luckily they wouldn’t be coming to her.
‘I am not happy about this at all, Stone. The location of the facility has been compromised because you have a leak in your team, someone who cannot be trusted to follow a simple instruction or keep their mouth shut.’
Woody slapped the newspaper. ‘It’s clear that she has spoken to someone involved in the investigation and I want the name of that person…’
‘It was me, sir,’ she said calmly. ‘I spoke to Tracy Frost.’
It was not often Kim was afforded the luxury of seeing her boss speechless, but it didn’t last for long.
His disbelief turned into a knowing frown. ‘No, Stone, you’re covering for one of your team members, and I won’t stand for it. I want to know who it was.’
‘It really was me. I spoke directly with Tracy Frost and gave her most of the information. Some she dug up herself but not much. It came from me. I am the unnamed source.’
Woody sat back in his chair, shaking his head. He regarded her with an expression that demanded answers.
Even in the face of his anger, she wasn’t sorry she’d done it. She’d defied a direct order, and she had no regrets.
Very few other publications would want to run the story if all they were doing was repeating the same old facts, and Tracy had included them all. Tracy was the only person who had spoken to Catherine and the entomologist wouldn’t be taking any more calls from the press.
‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’
She took a deep breath. ‘Sir, my job is to serve and protect, and sometimes you just have to trust that I’m doing my job.’
‘Is that it, Stone? Is that all I’m going to get?’
She said nothing.
‘You expect me to take that explanation to Lloyd House – because that’s where I’m now going first thing in the morning.’
Kim knew she had placed her boss in an untenable position. Then she remembered Catherine hiding in the lawnmower box.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ve a good mind to take you with…’
His words trailed away as her phone began to ring.
His expression dared her to answer.
‘So tomorrow morning you can…’
This sentence was not destined for completion as his own phone began to ring just as hers dinged the arrival of a voicemail.
He snatched up the receiver without taking his eyes from her face.
‘Yes,’ he snapped. He didn’t offer his name. The detective chief inspector’s phone didn’t ring by accident.
His gaze moved from her face to a point above her head, signalling the shift in his focus.
He listened for five seconds before replacing the receiver.
‘This isn’t over, Stone, but right now you have an urgent message to ring Keats. This may be about your latest victim.’
Kim took out her phone. Her own voicemail was from the pathologist. The message was short and instructed her to ring him back.
‘Sir, I’m going to—’
‘Get out, Stone,’ he said, waving her away. ‘But believe me that this isn’t over.’
She closed the door behind her and pressed the button to return Keats’s call.
‘About time, Inspector,’ he said as a greeting. He sounded in a hurry.
Jesus, it had been less than thirty seconds.
‘I’m on my way to Netherton Reservoir, and I suggest you might like to join me.’
Did he really think she didn’t have enough work to do?
‘Keats, I’m a bit pushed—’
‘Well, get unpushed. I’m going to collect another customer and I’m reliably informed that this one has got no hands.’
Fifty-Seven
Kim pulled up close to the clubhouse on the edge of Netherton Reservoir. It was more commonly known as Lodge Farm Reservoir and was used for watersports and supplying water to the canal system.
‘Bloody hell, quiet day for Brierley Hill, eh?’ Bryant asked as they headed around the building. She counted six squad cars and two civilian vehicles.
She could see fluorescent jackets scattered around the perimeter of the lake as the officers cleared the area. A clutch of personnel stood 150 feet to her right. She headed in that direction.
‘Hey, Stone, are you lost?’
Kim recognised the bellow as the deep grumble of Detective Inspector Dunn. For this man she readily held out her hand. He took it and smiled warmly.
She had worked with Dunn when he’d been a sergeant and she a constable. His work ethic was not unlike her own.
She remembered one case where he had persuaded a woman with two children to press charges against her husband after suffering a broken arm, dislocated jaw and more bruises than the medical staff could count.
The man had been removed and charged and then bailed with a restraining order to stay away from his wife. There was no space at the shelter for the woman and her three children, and no family members would take her owing to fear of the repercussions from her husband.
Unable to get police resources authorised for protection, Dunn had finished his shift each night and parked up outside the woman’s house.
On the third night, a drunk and angry Roy Bradley stumbled blindly into his front garden and had barely reached the front door before Dunn had wrestled him to the ground. The man had been back in cuffs and safely behind bars before Laura Bradley had a clue what had happened.
During her time with Dunn, Kim had learned a lot.
He was about eighteen months away from retirement and a small property in Spain. And he’d earned it.
She mirrored his smile. ‘Oh you know, got a bit bored. Thought I’d come and see what you boys were up to over here.’
‘Yeah, right,’ he said knowingly. ‘Nothing to do with you snaffling a file on one of our cold cases then?’
She shrugged. ‘Thought it might be connected to something I’m working,’ she said honestly. She motioned towards Bryant. ‘My colleague, Detective Sergeant Bryant.’
Dunn held out his hand. ‘My sympathies, Sergeant,’ he said, raising one eyebrow.
Even Kim broke out a smile.
‘Yeah, good job on the Ashraf Nadir case. How’s the kid?’
‘He’s doing okay,’ Kim said. She had spoken to Negib’s father twice since the raid. Only the night before he had told her that Negib’s older sisters were not letting him out of their sight. Normality would not return easily to the close-knit family, but the boy had a lot of love and support to help him through.
‘Did your boss ever tell you she didn’t make sergeant first time of asking?’ Dunn said, looking at Bryant.
Kim groaned. ‘Let’s not rehash—’
Bryant stepped forwards. ‘No, actually she didn’t.’
Dunn nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah, she was in line for it, a dead cert, really but…’
‘What happened?’ Bryant asked as Kim shoved her hands into her pockets.
‘There was this raid on a flat in Hollytree. The gangs weren’t prolific back then, and it was every man for himself. A car chase led to a run up three flights of stairs at Holden Court.’
‘One of the maisonette blocks?’ Bryant asked.
Dunn nodded. ‘By the time the two chasing officers, that’s your boss here and a kid named Lampitt, got to the scene, we’d had
intelligence the youth was high on heroin and carrying a knife. The order was issued not to enter until backup arrived.’
‘And?’ Bryant asked.
‘They forced entry, and the kid jumped out the window. The little shit didn’t die, but he wasn’t very well for a bit, and your boss here was the one that made the call to enter, said her statement. Promotion gone,’ he said, opening his hands as though setting something free.
‘Okay, that’s enough reminiscing about the good old days,’ Kim said, moving to stand between Bryant and Dunn.
Dunn looked around her. ‘Poor old Officer Lampitt was first day back on shift after his missus had suffered a miscarriage and it’s ever so strange that he was the one with the bruised shoulder, not your boss here.’
‘I don’t mark easily,’ Kim said, narrowing her eyes at Dunn.
‘Yeah, so you said.’ He looked back to Bryant. ‘Cost her a good nine months until she eventually got what she deserved.’
‘Mike…’ she warned.
He shrugged. ‘Just thought the guy could do with knowing what kind of boss he was working with.’
Bryant nodded his head. ‘Thanks for that, but I’ve got a pretty good idea.’
‘Hey, Inspector, glad you could make it,’ Keats called, looking up at her from the ground.
Kim ignored him as her eyes focussed on the thing she’d come to see. The body. This male had been dumped closer to the treeline approximately twenty feet from the water. An old condom sat three inches away from his head, leaving Kim in little doubt about some of the woodland activity.
This victim was the complete opposite of the man found at Fens Pool. She could see by the greying of the hair that they were similar in age, but this man was tall and gangly. His frame was slight and appeared undernourished.
His feet were clad in trainers that had not accumulated their filthy colour over a few days. His jeans were supermarket brand and ingrained with oil stains that would never come out. She knew all about that.
His T-shirt was plain and had once been white. She wondered if it had been washed alongside the oil-stained jeans.
Play Dead: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller Book 4 Page 19