Dead Memories: An addictive and gripping crime thriller

by Angela Marsons

  ‘Bryant, what the?…’

  ‘Don’t go in there, guv,’ he said, quietly.

  Kim tried to understand what was going on here.

  Together they had witnessed the worst that mankind could do to each other. They’d viewed bodies where the stench of blood clung to the air. They’d seen corpses in the worst state of decay, alive with maggots and flies. Together they had unearthed the bodies of innocent teenage girls. He knew her stomach could handle just about anything, so why was he trying to stand in her way now?

  He ushered her to the side. ‘Kim, I’m asking as a friend. Don’t go in there.’

  Never before had he used her first name on the job. Not once.

  What the hell had he just seen?

  She took a deep breath and fixed him with a stare.

  ‘Bryant, get out of my way. Now.’

  Three

  Kim weaved her way through the personnel that were providing a guiding tunnel towards the crime scene. No one gave her a second glance. She was expected so what the hell was Bryant’s problem? she wondered, feeling his presence behind.

  Bloody drama queen.

  A wall of uniforms parted, and she froze.

  For just a few seconds every sound around her was muted, every movement not seen, as her eyes registered the scene before her.

  The saliva dried in her mouth as she wondered if she was going to pass out. She felt Bryant’s hand on her elbow, steadying her.

  She turned to look at him. His expression was fearful, concerned. And she got it. She knew why he’d tried to protect her.

  She swallowed down the nausea and turned back, trying to shake off the slow-motion feel to her actions.

  An emaciated black-haired male in his late teens sat with his back against the radiator. His dead, glossy eyes stared straight ahead, his head lolled to the left. His bony legs were lost inside the jeans that covered them. Milky white arms, little wider than a snooker cue, hung out of the short-sleeved tee shirt.

  Undeniably dead, his body began to move, to shudder rhythmically. Kim followed the line of his right arm, slightly extended from his body, to his wrist and the handcuff that was still attached to the radiator and the wrist of the girl on whom the paramedics were still working, causing the awkward, jerky movements that rippled across.

  Events around her began to filter back in as though someone was gradually removing headphones from her ears.

  ‘I think we gotta move her, Geoff,’ said one of the paramedics. ‘We got her back twice, next time…’

  His words trailed away, no need for a full explanation.

  She moved aside as they lifted her effortlessly onto the stretcher. The preservation of life over the preservation of evidence.

  No one got to investigate anything while paramedics were working.

  There were no grunts of effort as they lay her down.

  The girl was even thinner than the dead boy beside her. Her bones appeared to be barely covered by the thin layer of skin that hung loosely in places. Her young face was gaunt, cheekbones and chin sharp against her skin. Dark rings circled her eyes and sores littered her skin.

  A low moan sounded from her mouth as they headed towards the door.

  The second paramedic kicked something as he passed by. It landed at her feet.

  She heard Bryant’s sharp intake of breath as he looked down at the empty Coca Cola bottle.

  Kim tried to maintain her composure as she looked around. She expected all eyes to be on her. Waiting for some kind of reaction. A reaction that every cell of her being wanted to scream.

  No one was looking her way. Of course, they weren’t. They didn’t know.

  A boy and a girl chained to a radiator. A Coke bottle. This same flat a few floors up.

  The sweltering heat outside. The boy dead, the girl alive.

  They didn’t know this was a recreation of the most traumatic event of her life.

  Bryant did and yet there was something even he wasn’t aware of.

  Today marked the thirty-year anniversary.

  Four

  It was almost eleven when Kim parked the Ninja outside Halesowen Police Station.

  And whether or not the weariness that had taken over her body had wanted to propel her straight home, she hadn’t been surprised to see the message from Woody on her phone instructing her to return to the station upon leaving the scene, whatever the time.

  And she had been only too pleased to get away from Bryant who had asked her a hundred times if she was okay while his eyes had searched hers to see how she was feeling.

  She had convinced him that she was fine and now it was time to convince Woody.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, putting her head around the door. She entered and left the door open. Subtle, she thought.

  ‘Close it,’ he said.

  Not subtle enough.

  She stood behind the chair opposite his desk.

  Still here at this time of night and his only concession to the hour was a loosening of the tie and a few crumples in his brilliant white shirt.

  ‘Saw the report, so tell me more about the crime scene.’

  ‘Not sure there is a crime yet,’ she answered. ‘Two teenagers, drugs, one overdosed and one pretty close. I’ll attend the post-mortem of the male tomorrow but I think it’ll turn up as accidental overdose.’

  ‘That’s it?’ he asked, his face hardening.

  She opened her arms expressively, unsure what he wanted to hear. ‘Err… Bryant got there before—’

  ‘And appeared to remain alone judging by the level of detail you’ve just given me.’

  ‘I’m not sure what?…’

  His gaze intensified in line with his irritation. ‘Were the needles used for the hit present? Was the tourniquet on the male’s arm and were you even there?’

  Kim thought for a moment, before speaking.

  ‘I arrived at the scene and entered the larger of the two bedrooms, which was approximately ten feet by ten. On my right were two police constables and a female sergeant. One of the officers was blonde and two were brunette; one had an eagle tattoo on his left forearm; and the blonde guy had a beard.’

  ‘Stone, I think…’

  ‘On my left was a third constable standing over two paramedics who were on the ground trying to keep the female alive, who had died twice, incidentally, before I got there. One of the paramedics was wearing—’

  ‘Stone, shut up,’ he snapped.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

  ‘What about the handcuffs, chained to the radiator?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she answered, pushing the vision from her mind.

  ‘You didn’t think to mention this to…’

  ‘Coincidence,’ she finished for him, totally convinced that’s what it was.

  ‘You don’t believe in coincidence,’ he responded, shrewdly.

  ‘In all honesty, I’m thinking it’s some kind of sex game gone wrong. Perhaps some type of I’ll inject you and you inject me thing that got out of hand. I’m sure the drug paraphernalia is there somewhere and Forensics will have it bagged and analysed.’

  ‘So, you don’t draw any comparisons at all?’ he asked.

  ‘To what?’ she replied, being deliberately vague as though the thought had never occurred to her.

  If she was honest, the second she’d walked into that room a few floors below her own home for six years, she had immediately been transported back thirty years and saw her dead brother lying against the radiator, but as her working brain had kicked in she’d realised that it was purely coincidental and had no link to her own childhood. Sad as it was, these kids were drug addicts and had died by the sword.

  The loss of the young man’s life, although tragic, had no link to her or Mikey.

  She should have guessed that Woody would remember the salient facts from her personnel file and, although they’d never spoken about it, she was well aware that he knew things she had shared with very few people. Even Bryant only knew the barest of bones.

&
nbsp; ‘So, Stone, I repeat my question: you’re convinced there is absolutely no tie to you at all?’

  She didn’t hesitate. ‘Completely, sir,’ she said, and meant it.

  Almost.

  Five

  By 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning Kim had drunk a pot of coffee back home, walked and fed Barney, her unsociable, spirited Border Collie, got into work and prepared herself for Bryant’s early entrance.

  ‘Morning, guv. You—’

  ‘I’m fine and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be. Got it?’

  ‘So, how’d you sleep?’ he said, asking her the exact same question but with different words.

  ‘I slept fine,’ she answered, pouring her fourth coffee of the day.

  And that was a blatant lie.

  After her late-night walk with Barney she had crawled into bed and instantly felt wide awake. She’d stared into the darkness, playing back the scene in her mind, and pushing away the memories that were trying to force open the lid of the box within which they were stored.

  She’d employed all her old habits to trick her mind into shutting out the intrusive thoughts. She picked one of her favourite biking routes: up through Stourton to the Bridgnorth Road, past Six Ashes and through villages like Enville and Morville.

  She tried to imagine herself handling the Ninja, dipping and leaning into the bends, opening up the engine, working hard to control the bike on the route she knew all too well. Normally she’d feel her mind react to the need for concentration, her body tensing and adjusting until she fell asleep, her mind distracted for just long enough to escape the thoughts.

  But not last night. In her mind, she’d crashed the bike four times as her brain had refused to join in the exercise that was her version of counting sheep.

  All she could picture was that young man’s body slumped lifelessly against the radiator and lying in the dark silence of her bedroom had not helped rid her of that vision.

  And so she’d risen, made coffee, and worked on the bike for a couple of hours before commencing her morning routine, which had been dangerously close to her night-time routine.

  ‘Ooh, is that a caffeine twitch or are you just pleased to see me?’ he joked.

  ‘Yeah, splitting my sides at that.’

  He glanced sideways at her. ‘You trying to be funny?’ he asked, glancing down at his own left-hand side which had been split with a five-inch blade a month earlier.

  ‘Jeez, Bryant, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Morning,’ Penn said, saving her from continuing.

  He placed the Tupperware box on the spare desk before removing his man-bag and throwing it beneath his desk.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, boss,’ Stacey said, rushing in and throwing herself into the seat that had once belonged to Kevin Dawson.

  Kim knew they all missed him every day, sometimes still expected him to breeze in with some kind of smart-arse comment. But not as often as the early days. Their acceptance was coming with time.

  ‘Okey dokey, folks,’ Kim said. ‘Update on cases from yesterday?’

  ‘Didn’t you get called out last night, boss?’ Stacey asked, frowning.

  Normally a call-out late at night was a precursor to their next big case meaning other cases had to be resolved quickly, where possible, or handed over to another team.

  Normally one of them would be at the board, writing the name of the victim, underlining it, stating the priority of uncovering the reason for the person’s demise.

  Normally, there would be an air of anticipation, a crackle, invisible but electric, an energy that only came at the beginning. Bryant would compare it to the beginning of a four-course meal at his favourite restaurant. She would liken it to starting a new build of a classic motorcycle in her garage, bits and pieces strewn all over the concrete floor. Each with their own purpose waiting to be put together, attached to the next component which eventually formed the whole.

  Except this case had no mysteries to unravel and, as tragic as the scene had been, it had not been murder and it had no link to her.

  ‘Double overdose, Stace,’ Kim explained. ‘Just waiting on a call from Mitch to confirm scene findings and it’ll all be closed.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ she said, trying not to let the disappointment show.

  People outside the profession might think the response cold to the death of one young person and the near-death of another but Kim understood it. Every detective she knew had signed up to stop bad people getting away with bad acts. Stacey was not unfeeling towards the person who had died. She was only disappointed at not being able to track and find the person responsible. And normally Kim would agree with her. Only this time she wanted to get as far away from this scene as she could so the vision and the memory could fade from her mind.

  The sooner the better.

  ‘So, Penn, where are you at?’

  ‘Three witnesses left to interview, boss, but not enthusiastically confident about the outcome.’

  She nodded. Two thirteen-year-old kids passing the entrance to Hollytree had been beaten up by three older kids, and despite decent descriptions no one on the estate was talking.

  ‘Keep at it,’ she said, feeling a ‘we did everything we could do’ chat coming on with the parents. It happened rarely but sometimes there was just nowhere left to go.

  But when she did have that conversation she wanted to be sure that they actually had done everything they could.

  ‘Stace?’ Kim asked.

  ‘Final interview with Lisa Stiles today and should be ready to present tonight.’

  ‘Good work,’ Kim said.

  Lisa Stiles was a woman in her early thirties with two young boys. She’d been the victim of spousal abuse for a decade and had said nothing. She’d accepted the behaviour from her husband thinking she’d been protecting her children from the truth. Until a month earlier when her youngest child had punched her in the mouth ‘Like Daddy did’.

  The realisation that she could be raising two small boys to believe this was normal behaviour had terrified the life out of her.

  It was Stacey who had taken the initial report and continued to guide her through the process gently, efficiently and with sensitivity.

  She had built a strong, solid case that would be presented to the CPS.

  ‘Penn, you know what’s coming,’ Kim said, nodding towards his desk.

  He pulled a face. ‘Really?’

  Kim nodded.

  ‘So, when you said Betty was my “welcome to the team present”…’

  ‘Yeah, it was loose, so hand it over. Stacey gets the plant.’

  Stacey offered him a triumphant look as she stroked the green leaves.

  ‘Work harder, Penn and you’ll get her—’

  She stopped speaking as her phone rang. ‘Just gonna take this call from Mitch,’ she said, walking towards her office, signalling they could continue with their own work.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, throwing herself into her seat.

  Bryant appeared and propped up her door frame.

  ‘Morning, Inspector. Trust you’re well after your late-night outing,’ he offered.

  She’d missed him at the scene but there’d been no reason to stay.

  ‘I’ll send over a full inventory by lunchtime but thought you’d want a summary of our initial findings.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ she said, twirling a pen between her fingers.

  ‘Loose change fallen from male’s jeans pocket totalling £1.72. A tissue in his front pocket, an empty wallet, a faded receipt from B&M and very little else.’

  By the time he’d finished speaking she’d worked out there were seventeen blue stripes on Bryant’s tie.

  ‘And…’ she said, waiting for the most important thing. The thing that would rule this some kind of suicide pact or accidental death.

  ‘Err… and isn’t it a beautiful morning?’

  ‘Needles,’ she said, shaking her head at Bryant. Sometimes Mitch was excellent at his job and other times not so much.

  ‘Sor
ry, no needles,’ he said, definitely.

  ‘But, the paramedics… the officers…’

  ‘Definitely no needles,’ he said, with finality.

  Make them up, she wanted to scream. Lie to me.

  ‘So, the full report—’

  ‘Thanks, Mitch,’ she said, ending the call.

  Bryant viewed her questioningly.

  ‘No needles at the scene,’ she said quietly.

  His expression reflected the horror she was feeling at the realisation.

  Those kids hadn’t injected themselves.

  Six

  ‘Post-mortem starts in about five minutes,’ Bryant said, as she strode into Russells Hall Hospital and headed in the opposite direction of the morgue. Kim was still unable to walk these halls without remembering the stab wound her partner had sustained during their last major case.

  ‘On the dead victim,’ she retorted. ‘And last I heard we still had a live one.’

  ‘Fair point,’ he said, following her to the main reception, which was in the process of opening.

  Kim smiled in what she hoped was an apologetic manner as she passed the two people already waiting in line.

  Bryant’s whispers of ‘Sorry’ behind her told her she hadn’t been all that successful.

  ‘Detective Inspector Stone,’ she said, showing her ID to the woman who was about to explain to her the queuing system.

  ‘A girl was brought in last night: late teens, suspected drug overdose.’

  The woman turned to her computer. ‘Name?’

  Kim was tempted to say that had she known that it would have been the first thing she’d said, but stopped herself. Co-operation from this woman could prevent her trawling around countless wards searching for the girl.

  ‘Unidentified,’ she answered.

  The woman’s lips pursed slightly as she tapped a few more keys.

  She paused to reach to her right and switch on a small desk fan.

  ‘High Dependency Unit,’ she said, finally granting a half smile. ‘Do you need…’