Evil Games

by Angela Marsons

  Bryant stepped forward. ‘Ruth Willis, I’m arresting you …’

  ‘I wasn’t frightened,’ Ruth said quietly as Kim moved to stand. She sat back down.

  ‘Miss Willis, I have to warn you …’

  ‘I was nervous but I wasn’t frightened,’ she repeated.

  ‘Miss Willis, anything you say will be …’ Bryant started to say.

  ‘Leave it,’ Kim said, shaking her head. ‘This is for her, not us.’

  ‘I watched him exit the park. I was standing at the crossing. I felt powerful, righteous. I stood in the shop doorway, in the shadows. He bent down to tie his shoe lace. The dog looked right at me. He didn’t bark.’

  She raised her head, her face wet with tears. ‘Why didn’t he bark?’

  Kim shook her head.

  ‘I was tempted to drive the knife into his back right then but it wouldn’t have been right. I wanted my light.’

  Kim looked at Bryant who shrugged.

  ‘I was confident and in control. I followed him and asked him the time.’

  ‘Ruth, we need …’

  ‘I plunged the knife into his stomach. His flesh was against mine, but this time it was on my terms. His legs wobbled as his right hand clutched the wound. Blood ran over his fingers. He looked down and then back at me. And I waited.’

  ‘Waited?’ Kim asked.

  ‘I withdrew the knife and stabbed him again. And I waited.’

  Kim wanted to ask what she’d been waiting for but dared not break the spell.

  ‘And again, and again. I heard his skull land on the concrete. His eyes began to close so I kicked him, but he wouldn’t give it back to me.’

  ‘Give what back to you, Ruth?’ Kim asked, gently.

  ‘I wanted to do it again. Something had gone wrong. He still had it. I shouted at him to give it me back but he wouldn’t move.’

  ‘What did he have that belonged to you, Ruth?’

  Ruth looked at her as though it were perfectly obvious. ‘My light. I didn’t get my light.’

  Instantly her body folded and the sobs were being ripped from her throat.

  Kim once again looked towards Bryant, who shrugged in response. She sat silently for a full minute before nodding her head towards her colleague.

  He took a step towards the woman who had just confessed to murder. ‘Ruth Willis, I’m arresting you for the murder of Allan Harris. You do not have to say anything but anything you do say …’

  Kim left the house before Bryant had finished. She didn’t feel triumphant or victorious, only satisfied that she’d caught the person who had committed a crime and that her job here was done.

  A victim plus a perpetrator equalled case closed.

  SIXTEEN

  It was just after midnight when Kim entered the garage. The quiet family street had closed down ready for the week ahead; truly her favourite part of the day.

  She switched on her iPod and chose Chopin’s Nocturnes. The solo piano pieces would ease her through the early morning hours until her body demanded sleep.

  Woody hadn’t helped her state of mind either. After she’d sent the others home Woody had stopped by her desk bearing gifts: a sandwich and coffee.

  ‘What am I not going to like, Sir?’ she’d asked.

  ‘CPS wants to tread carefully with this one. They’re not keen on a murder charge yet. They want some background. They don’t want some clever defence trying for a diminished responsibility plea.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘It needs to be tight.’

  ‘I’ll get Wood and Dawson on it tomorrow morning.’

  Woody shook his head. ‘No, I want you tidying this one up, Stone.’

  ‘Oh come on, Sir.’

  ‘There’s no debate. Just get it done.’

  Kim let out a huge sigh, putting every ounce of dismay she could muster into that one exhalation. It changed nothing but she felt it got her point across.

  Woody smiled. ‘Now for goodness’ sake, go home and … do whatever it is you do when you’re not here.’

  So she had.

  As she lowered herself to the ground beside the motorcycle parts, she growled in disgust.

  She hated mopping up. The case was over. She’d caught the bad guy, or girl in this instance, within forty-eight hours. A full confession had been recorded and now the CPS wanted their arses wiped as well.

  She crossed her legs and began to assess the pieces around her. Every part of the bike was here and would fit together to produce a classic, beautiful British machine. Now all she had to do was figure out how.

  An hour later, every part of the puzzle was still in the same place. There was something in her stomach that refused to play dead.

  A sudden thought occurred to her. She stood and reached for her boots.

  Maybe her insomnia wasn’t being caused by this case, after all.

  SEVENTEEN

  Kim dismounted the Ninja and unlatched the waist-high gate. The stubby drive and snatch of lawn appeared to be contagious throughout the street. Many residents of the small clutch of council properties on the Dudley border with Netherton had taken advantage of the right-to-buy scheme and secured themselves a spacious property for a fraction of the cost. The Dunn family had been one such household.

  This time there was no rush of activity, thundering of boots or loud access to the property with the enforcer. Just her and a set of keys.

  She wandered through the house more slowly than the first time. The urgency had been spent. The house had been prodded, probed and stripped of anything that might help the case.

  There was a sense of abandonment in the air. As though the occupants had been painted out of the picture. Reading books and toys were stored in various corners. A cereal box and bowls stood ready in the kitchen. In addition to the abuse, normal life had taken place in this house. At times they’d just been two little girls.

  Eventually she reached the wooden door at the top of the stairs. Kim was struck by the fact they all described the space as a cellar. It was not. Kim had seen poky cellars in a few of her foster homes around the Midlands. The houses had been called back-to-backs and came in rows of twenty. Homes built by factory and mine owners during the industrial revolution that would house as many as six families. The cellars were tiny spaces, barely the width of a person, situated down a couple of stone steps and created for the storage of coal.

  But not this one. This house had been especially remodelled to create this space buried down in the ground.

  Many men hungered for a man cave; a place to call their own. A garden shed, a spare room to build models, play computer games, but Leonard Dunn had wanted a space to abuse his children. That he had spent many hours adding a basement especially for that pleasure added a sickness to his depravity that Kim could barely stomach.

  The physical space was now almost empty, inoffensive since the removal of the evidence. But Kim still saw it as it was on the morning of the raid. The gym mat, the lamp, the digital camera. But more than that, the foul acts that had taken place were embedded in the fabric of the room and would never disappear.

  The far corner now held only the desk. The computer and discs were at the station. The area could have belonged to an architect, an accountant, anyone wishing for a little privacy to think, concentrate or create.

  She crossed the room to the wardrobe, now emptied of the costumes used for Dunn’s sickening games.

  The lamp had been pushed to the far wall during the evidence collection. But she needed no reminder of where it had stood. It had been positioned behind the camera, casting a spotlight on the gym mat.

  Kim’s mind automatically flashed back to the vision of Daisy standing in the centre of that mat, her small voice trembling as she asked her daddy what she should do next.

  She shook her head to remove the picture from her mind. She often wished there were things that could be unseen and unheard, but there was no simple erase button on the side of her head.

  Kim headed for the stairs, still u
nsure why she had been drawn back to this room.

  She took a deep breath. ‘I wish I could have stopped it sooner, Daisy,’ she said, as her hand cast a shadow over the light switch.

  Her fingers stopped dead and trembled.

  Her head turned and looked at the lamp. Something wasn’t making sense.

  Kim took a step back and concentrated hard as the suspicion that had gnawed finally bit.

  ‘Hell, no,’ she said, launching herself up the stairs.

  EIGHTEEN

  Kim travelled through her workplace, matching the momentum of the bike that now cooled outside.

  The viewing suite was located on the third floor of the station.

  There was no simple entry to this part of the building. She buzzed the access button and allowed her fingers to rest against the wall, looking up into the camera that was now searching the features of her face.

  Her finger lifted to buzz again but the familiar click sounded. She pulled the door open and entered the airlock. The first door closed behind her, allowing her to keycode herself into the suite.

  Four sets of two desks filled the windowless space. One noticeable difference between this and the other offices in the building was the lack of paper.

  This was the room that held the people that pored over every second of CCTV evidence seized, and on a case like the Dunn investigation, Kim would not have done that job for every motorbike in Japan.

  ‘Hey Eddie, working late?’ she asked, approaching the only occupied desk.

  He straightened and stretched a torso that had spent far too many hours hunched at the keyboard. Kim was sure she heard something crack.

  ‘You too, Marm?’

  Kim had seen Eddie at work on numerous occasions. And everything about him was average: height, weight, complexion and photo on his desk. He was not a man that stood out.

  But once his left hand commanded the keyboard and his right steered the mouse there was a meeting, a connection that was a pleasure to watch.

  ‘Ed, I need you to look at some of the footage from the Dunn …’

  Kim was interrupted by the sound of the buzzer.

  ‘It’s like New Street Station in here tonight,’ Eddie said, turning to the camera.

  ‘It’s Bryant,’ Kim said.

  Eddie glanced sideways. ‘What – you psychic now as well?’

  ‘Err … no, I called him on the phone.’

  Eddie groaned as he pressed the access button.

  Bryant was already removing his jacket. ‘Look, Guv, I know you can’t stand to be without me, but …’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself. You just live nearest.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said, dropping the jacket onto one of the desks.

  Eddie pushed himself away from the desk and turned his chair. He took a moment to flex the fingers on his right hand. ‘Well, lovely as it is to have a bit of company on the night shift, there’s no beer and pizza so I’m guessing this ain’t a party.’

  Kim turned to Bryant. ‘See how quick he worked that out. You could learn …’

  ‘Cheers, Guv, now would you mind telling me why my cheese and pickle supper is back in the fridge.’

  ‘Eddie, can you show me the footage marked Daisy Goes Swimming?’

  Eddie pulled himself back into the desk and within seconds the screen had filled with folders marked with names, dates and reference numbers.

  Kim was instantly saddened by just how many folders there were.

  He clicked quicker than she could keep up but suddenly the screen filled with the eight-year-old girl trembling.

  ‘Mute the sound,’ Kim said quickly.

  Bryant looked around the office, at anything but the screen.

  Her eyes travelled away from the little girl as the camera zoomed out and displayed more of the room. The video was exactly as she’d remembered it.

  Her stomach churned in response.

  ‘Eddie, show me the photos we took on the dawn raid.’

  A couple of seconds later a directory appeared. He clicked on the first photo and began to scroll through.

  ‘Stop,’ she said, on photograph number nine.

  The photo was taken at the same angle as the video camera.

  ‘Can you put them side by side?’

  Eddie filled the screen with two separate images: the photograph and a freeze-frame of the video.

  ‘What lighting did we use that morning, Bryant?’

  He still hadn’t looked at the screen.

  ‘The spotlamp, ’cos Dawson couldn’t find the light switch.’

  She nodded. ‘So it was the exact same conditions. No natural light, no movement of the lamp?’

  ‘Suppose so.’

  ‘Okay, look at this,’ she said, motioning him closer. ‘See that black mass creeping up the wardrobe?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Where is it on the photo?’

  He looked closer and glanced from one to the other.

  Bryant stood back and looked at her.

  ‘Guv, are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

  She took a deep breath before speaking.

  ‘Yes. Bryant, there was someone else in the room.’

  NINETEEN

  ‘Am yer serious, boss?’ Stacey asked, quietly.

  Kim nodded her head. ‘Checked the footage last night. Definitely the shadow of a figure.’ She nodded backwards towards Bryant. ‘Me and Columbo went back to the property to recreate it with the lamp placement and a video camera. It’s definitely a person.’

  Dawson pushed a folder roughly across his desk.

  ‘Mature, Kev,’ Kim snapped.

  He coloured and looked away. ‘Sorry, Guv.’

  She turned back to Stacey, who was still glaring at Dawson.

  ‘Find out everything about Leonard Dunn’s neighbours, family members, everybody he’s ever worked with, spoken to or brushed past on the bus. I want to know if any of them are on The List.’

  It was what they all called the register of sex offenders.

  The initial clue to the abuse had come to them from a perceptive and attentive school teacher. But the focus of the investigation had been on Leonard alone. And when they’d got him, they’d thought the case was closed. Damn it, they were hunting for another sicko who had been involved.

  ‘Kev, I want you to interview everyone again, especially the neighbours. If this person was a regular visitor, then someone must have seen them. Okay?’

  ‘What about Wendy Dunn?’ Bryant asked.

  She shook her head. Not yet but that time would come.

  ‘Got any suspicions, boss?’ Stacey asked.

  She certainly did, but she wasn’t going to share them yet.

  Kim looked to Bryant.

  ‘Come on, partner. We’re clearing up.’

  TWENTY

  Alex hit the refresh button on each of the online news outlets she’d put into her favourites. What she should have been doing right now was meeting Ruth and collecting the data that was vital to her experiment; but the stupid bitch had got herself caught within forty-eight hours.

  Alex had known that the incompetent police would eventually stumble over Ruth as a suspect, but she’d miscalculated. Either a police officer with a smattering of intelligence had landed the case or Ruth had left her name and address at the crime scene with a sign saying, ‘It was me’.

  What she had expected was a few days, time enough to extract the information she required. Jesus, had she needed to draw the imbecile a picture? She’d been given the motivation, method and opportunity in the visualisation. Alex had hoped that Ruth’s one contribution to the process would have been a modicum of self-preservation.

  Alex hit refresh again. No change. She turned her attention to her usual morning checks. She signed into Facebook and typed in the name, ‘Sarah Lewis’. Twenty minutes later, after logging in and out of every social networking site on her list, she sighed. Sarah was still in virtual hiding, but no matter.

  Having Sarah back in the cr
oss hairs made Alex’s life complete. Oh, to have seen the reaction on her face would have been priceless. She wondered if the poky little cottage in the middle of Hicksville was on the market yet. She clicked into Rightmove.com and added it to her favourites. It wouldn’t be long.

  She thanked God for this age of electronic access that prevented total anonymity. People could always be found, if one knew where to look. Dark corners didn’t exist in cyberspace.

  The doorbell sounded, prompting Alex to check her watch. She’d booked no other patients. Ruth would have been her only appointment of the day.

  She opened the door to a male and female standing before her. The male smiled. Alex didn’t smile back. Damn it, this was exactly what she’d hoped to avoid.

  ‘Doctor Thorne, my name is DS Bryant and this is DI Stone. May we come in?’

  Alex’s hand tightened on the doorknob as she checked his identification card. She looked from one to the other. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘We won’t take much of your time. We’d just like a word about one of your patients.’

  ‘Of course, come this way.’

  Alex led them into her consultation room. Once inside, she appraised them both quickly. The male she guessed to be mid- to late-forties, who clearly liked to keep fit but was fighting the inevitable paunch of middle age. His chestnut hair was greying at the temples but the haircut was efficient and professional. His face was open and friendly.

  The woman’s expression was moody and dark. Her hair was a short shock, the colour just this side of black. It was the eyes that almost took Alex’s breath away. A dark intensity brooded within the unsmiling face and tight demeanour. From a distance it was only just possible to see the separation between the irises and the pupils.

  She forced herself to look away and focus on the male whose body language was like an open book.

  ‘So, Detective Bryant, how can I help you?’

  ‘We believe that Ruth Willis is one of your patients?’