‘What exactly were you doing there, Henryk?’ Dawson asked, finally favouring the direct approach.
Bryant knew they were thinking the same thing. Drugs.
‘Job,’ he said, simply.
Dawson looked up, and his confusion was clear.
‘Henryk, the Job Centre doesn’t normally open at ten o clock at night.’
He shook his head and winced again. ‘Not… that… kind,’ he said quietly.
His good thumb and forefinger rubbed together.
‘Cash… pay.’
Ah, thought Bryant. That made much more sense.
Immigrants, both legal and illegal, used the underground work channels to make money. It was estimated that as many as half a million migrants were being used by rogue gangmasters to supply cheap labour to the hospitality, construction and farming industries. Men and women were being placed in dangerous conditions with no training and low pay because they had families to support.
‘No… choice,’ he said with despair. ‘Wife… children… hungry…’
Bryant put aside his feelings of outrage. As a man, a taxpayer and a police officer he hated the underground cash working trade. But he’d also been the primary breadwinner for his wife and daughter for twenty years and could not be sure he wouldn’t have done the same thing to feed his family if he’d needed to.
Perhaps they were looking for people who knew where these workers were collected.
‘Did they say anything else at all?’ Bryant pushed.
He shook his head. ‘If that… lady… had not…’
‘Don’t think about that now, Henryk. You got a damn good beating but you’re going to be—’
‘But… I saw… the knife,’ he said, as a tear fell from his eye.
‘Your attackers had a knife?’
He nodded.
‘Henryk, how did you know to be there at that time?’ Dawson asked.
‘Text… message,’ he said. ‘I receive… text message.’
The ward sister signalled to them from the end of the bay just as Henryk’s eyes began to droop.
Boy, she had called that good. It was five minutes to the second.
‘Do you have the phone?’ Bryant asked, moving the chair back. Stacey might be able to track the sender.
Henryk shook his head, wearily. ‘Lost… stolen…’
Dawson nodded his understanding. He would check with the attending officers if a phone had been found.
They said their goodbyes and headed out of the ward.
Bryant paused as the door closed behind them.
‘A knife and a text message to lure him to the location,’ Dawson said.
‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ Bryant asked.
‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’
Bryant sighed. ‘This is no ordinary assault. What we have here is attempted murder.’
TWELVE
Kim felt herself calming down once they were back in the car. Her car.
Now she felt like she was back in control. Driving the case forward at her own speed.
Travis made notes beside her.
The personable, pleasant man she’d seen in the squad room had been left there. The greyed out substitution had followed her to the car.
She couldn’t help wishing it was Bryant beside her. They would have been tossing ideas about, spouting theories, discussing, debating. Moving the case along.
Kim took the left turn towards the dirt road, sharply. His pen slipped, and he shot her an irritable glance.
He should already know that she ought not be left alone to make her own fun.
He slid the pen into the spine of the folder and closed it as she passed the pub car park that was holding the press. Tracy Frost was positioned at the front, talking to a kid in a colourful shirt beneath his Firetrap jacket. Tracy paused and offered Kim a slight nod as she passed by.
‘I certainly don’t miss that poor excuse for a human being,’ Travis said.
Kim bristled. Three months ago it might have been the one single thing they could have agreed on.
‘She’s not that bad,’ she said, remembering everything she’d found out about Tracy Frost.
‘The woman has no redeeming qualities at all,’ he insisted.
She knew his game. He could tell he had touched a nerve and now he wanted to prod it with a metal fork until she bit. He would happily lure her into an argument and then go running to his boss claiming she was being difficult. His boss would believe him. Hell, even her boss would believe him. She hated the joint investigation as much as he did but it wouldn’t fail because of her. Not on the first day.
‘And setting the precedent for the majority of this investigation, Tom, we shall agree to disagree.’
She saw the flash of disappointment as she parked the car.
She got out and headed towards the site, not caring if he caught up with her. When he did he was clutching the leather document holder like a safety blanket.
‘No one here needs insurance,’ she said, looking at his wallet.
‘You do it your way and I’ll do it—’
‘As awkwardly as you can,’ she interrupted.
Kim observed that there were at least twenty people milling around the small area, and yet, the voices were hushed, reverent, respectful. Ultimately they were dealing with a grave.
A white tent had been erected around the pit. This was for the purpose of preservation and privacy. The techs would be able to investigate the immediate area without the added complication of the elements. And although the press had been cordoned half a mile away, it was not unknown for a news helicopter to suddenly appear in the sky.
Black clad officers appeared to be searching the outer perimeter of the field, while the white suited techs had claimed the immediate area around the pit. She knew they would be looking for footprints, tyre tracks, even cigarette ends. Anything that might offer them a clue. It was procedure but she had to wonder at how much value this held when they had no clue how long the skull had been buried.
Kim would have liked to see the GPR team on site. They needed to know if there were more bones, but she understood the ground could not be further contaminated until the surface of the field had been thoroughly combed for clues.
Kim headed for the pit that had deepened by more than a foot since she’d last seen it, but little progress seemed to have been made with the excavation itself. The bones were not coming out of the ground, and without them she had no hope of moving this case forward.
Currently her victim had no name, no identity. A cause of frustration for her on any case.
She found the scientist kneeling in the middle of the hole, talking earnestly to a white-suited female beside her. The upper part of the white protective suit was tied around her waist by the arms.
A forensic photographer was taking pictures from every angle.
Kim cleared her throat.
Doctor A turned and narrowed her eyes.
‘I do not understand this English habit of throat cleaning to announce one’s arrival. Why not a hello?’
‘Hello, Doctor A,’ Kim said.
‘So, finalling you are here,’ she said, looking beyond Kim. ‘And I see you brought your friend.’
‘Doctor A,’ Kim warned.
The scientist had witnessed their exchange the day before and knew they were not friends.
Travis offered no response. His attention had been caught by something to their far left.
Doctor A gave her a devilish smile before guiding her towards the hole.
‘Please, come take a look at Lesley, our victim.’
The scientist had a habit of giving victims ambiguously sexed names until she had a true identity.
Kim peered down into the pit as Travis appeared beside her. She heard the slow scratch of the zip as he opened his leather wallet. She had a premonition that sound would be really annoying to her by the end of the case.
Kim took a closer look and frowned. She had expected more progress.
It was almost ten thirty, and the temperature had now reached a balmy six degrees.
Kim nodded her understanding but her frown remained. The team had exposed more bones but the placement was unlike anything she had seen before.
‘That’s a metacarpal bone, protruding from the eye,’ Doctor A said, taking her hand. She pressed on the bone between her knuckle and first joint. ‘This one. And I think the proximal phalanx is still attached,’ she said, pressing further down Kim’s hand.
‘You’re telling me our victim has a finger in the eye?’ Kim asked.
Doctor A nodded.
Kim tried to imagine any scenario where that made sense.
There was none.
‘Any idea how long he’s been in there?’ Kim asked. For now she would presume a male identity.
Doctor A shook her head. ‘Not yet but there is something you should know before we go any further.’
‘Go on,’ Kim said, following Doctor A to the edge of the pit.
‘Do you see that bone sticking out of the ground over there?’
Kim nodded, as Travis stepped to the edge of the tent and looked outside. Fair enough that he didn’t like Doctor A all that much but he could damn well respect her expertise.
‘That appears to be a radius,’ Doctor A said, now taking her arm and tracing a line from her elbow to her wrist.
Kim was unsure when she’d turned into a presentation aide but she allowed it to pass.
‘It seems to be a long way from the rest of the body,’ Kim said. The physiology of this skeleton was not making sense to her.
‘Initial analysis of the soil is throwing up anomalies. There are elements that do not belong here. Samples have been sent to the lab.’
Kim was puzzled.
‘Doctor A, what are you trying to say?’
‘I’m saying I don’t think this is the first place our victim was buried.’
Kim was confused. ‘But, why?—’
‘Excuse me, Doctor, but is that man one of yours?’ Travis asked from the tent doorway.
Kim followed Doctor A to where he was standing and looked out.
In the middle of the field stood a solitary male dressed from head to toe in dark clothing.
Doctor A began to shake her head. ‘He is not one of mine,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’ Travis asked. ‘He was here when we arrived.’
‘If he was one of mine he would not be standing still,’ she said, simply.
Kim looked at Travis and they exited the tent together.
She primed herself to start running as the gap began to close between them and the trespasser. As he was not supposed to be there she expected him to start moving away at the sight of them.
He remained still, staring in their direction, his hands wedged into the pockets of the long coat he was wearing.
‘Not exactly field attire,’ she observed from a distance of thirty feet.
‘Cashmere overcoat, looks like Dunhill, and I could probably just about buy you lunch with the change from two grand,’ Travis replied.
‘You’d buy me lunch?’ she asked, sarcastically.
‘Well, no, but…’
‘Excuse me, sir,’ Kim called from fifteen feet. ‘You have no business being here right now.’
The man offered no reaction as she came to rest directly in front of him.
She guessed him to be mid-thirties. His hair was black with just a touch of grey at the temples. Thick, dark lashes framed piercing blue eyes that were serious and cold.
‘I have every reason to be here, officer. You are standing on my land.’
‘Mr Preece?’ she asked.
‘Dale Preece,’ he confirmed, making no effort to remove his hand from his coat pocket for a handshake.
‘How did you get here, Mr Preece?’ she asked, looking around.
He remained silent and looked beyond her to the white tent.
‘I must ask you to leave the area,’ she said, reasonably. ‘This is a police investigation, and you could be contaminating a crime scene.’
‘I would like to know what exactly has been found,’ he said.
‘You will know in due course, sir. We will be along to speak to you during our investigation.’
‘Have you spoken to the Cowley family yet?’
Kim opened her mouth to answer when Travis stepped forward. ‘Mr Preece, you really need to leave the area. Now.’
Kim bit her tongue as Dale Preece appraised them once more before turning and heading to the far side of the field.
Kim was under no illusion that he had left because it suited him to do so.
‘Don’t you ever do that to me again,’ she rasped. ‘It was in hand,’ she said, turning back towards the tent.
He made no effort to catch her up or respond to her instruction.
‘Inspector, a moment,’ Doctor A said, as she passed by the tent.
She took two steps back and entered.
The scientist reached for a long bone lying at the far edge of the pit.
‘This is a femur,’ she said, quietly, as Travis entered the tent. She took a pencil from behind her ear, and pointed at the rounded ball shape at one end.
‘This is the fovea capitis, and down here is the medial condyle and…’
‘Doctor A, I know what a femur is, and I would expect to find two here so why the fascination?’ Kim asked, impatiently.
‘Because, Inspector, this is femur number three.’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor, but what exactly are you saying?’ Travis asked, unnecessarily.
The doctor didn’t hide her irritation as she spelled it out.
‘What I’m saying, Inspector, is that unless Lesley had more than two legs, we are dealing with a second victim.’
THIRTEEN
Bryant stopped the car outside a tiny terraced house in Coombs Wood. The property overlooked the valley that had once been home to the Stewarts & Lloyds tube works. Back in the 1950s the site had supplied more than 3,000 local jobs and had been known for looking after their workforce. The 56 acre site had been swallowed up by the British Steel Corporation in 1967 when the steel industry was nationalised for the second time. The works had eventually closed in 1990.
A twelve-year-old white Mini parked along the street confirmed their witness was at home.
‘Anything?’ Bryant asked as Dawson ended his calls.
‘Nothing,’ Dawson confirmed. ‘Definitely no phone collected at the scene.’
‘Damn it,’ Bryant said. He still wasn’t convinced that Henryk’s story was true, but if it was, the phone message could have offered them a clue as to who had arranged to meet him at the car park.
‘And let me do the talking on this one,’ Dawson said, as Bryant locked the car.
‘Why?’ he asked.
He shrugged. ‘A young girl…’ he said, as though that explained everything.
Bryant knew his colleague was young and good-looking. How that helped with interviewing a witness he wasn’t sure.
The door was opened by an attractive woman who appeared to be early thirties. Long blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail, and grey jeans hugged a shapely figure.
‘Marie West?’ Dawson asked, holding up his identification.
‘My daughter,’ she said, standing back for them to enter. ‘I’m Christie West.’
Bryant hid his surprise. How old had she been when she’d given birth, twelve?
As he stepped inside, his nostrils were assaulted by a smell he knew well. Dogs. No matter how well you tried to eradicate the aroma they insisted on leaving something behind.
Two Jack Russells hurtled down the hallway towards him, yapping excitedly.
The woman leaned down and expertly caught one in each arm.
’Marie, police are here,’ she called up the stairs.
A quick look around told Bryant it was just the two of them. Ladies’ trainers were parked beside the mat. A collec
tion of hats, scarves and gloves erupted from two hangers behind the door.
‘She’s not going back to that shop,’ the woman said, as Marie appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘Having one staff member on for late-night opening,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Not happening.’
‘Mum, I have to go back.’
‘Try it, love,’ Christie said, putting the dogs down and scooting them in the direction of the kitchen. ‘If I have to lock that door and physically restrain you, I will.’
One look at her face and Bryant believed her.
‘I wasn’t hurt,’ Marie said, rolling her eyes.
Christie looked his way, sensing a fellow parent in him.
His own daughter was the exact same age as Marie, and he allowed the smile to rest briefly on his lips.
Marie would never understand that her mother was now consumed with nightmarish visions of what might have been. Men, darkness, violence – and her daughter, all alone. He got it.
‘I’ve disagreed with members of staff being alone late at night. Kids given the responsibility of locking the premises. She wouldn’t let me fetch her just to be safe and—’
‘Mum, please, I’m fine,’ Marie said, reaching the bottom of the stairs. She looked at her mother and smiled tolerantly. Side by side, they looked more like sisters.
A look passed between them. These two were a team.
‘Okay, okay, I’ll make coffee,’ Christie said.
Marie guided them into a front room that was small but furnished tastefully and to scale.
A two-seater sofa and a single chair huddled around a fireplace. Two occasional glass tables were placed either side. A matching glass unit supported a flat-screen television and DVD player. The laminate flooring helped to add to the illusion of more space.
Bryant remained standing behind the sofa while Dawson took the single chair.
‘I know that last night must have been quite a shock for you,’ Dawson said, surprising Bryant. The kid’s interviewing skills were not as coarse as he’d expected.
Marie placed a bright smile onto her face.
‘It’s okay. I’m okay,’ she said, nodding vigorously.
A deep swallow gave her away.
‘Did you sleep much?’ Dawson asked, perceptively.
Very few people could witness what she had and bounce back immediately.
Dead Souls: A gripping serial killer thriller with a shocking twist (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Series Book 6) Page 5