Dead Memories: An addictive and gripping crime thriller

by Angela Marsons

  The other was Tom Drury, the owner of Elite bar in Kidderminster, where Curtis played and Jennifer worked.

  And then Beverly had been attacked on a night she’d been at Elite and Curtis had been playing, and Tom had been behind the bar.

  Tom had an alibi and Curtis couldn’t even remember where he’d gone once he’d finished his set.

  Within two days of Beverly’s attack Curtis had been arrested and charged and she’d been shown the door.

  To add insult to injury the chief super, during a press conference, had made a public, damning statement about the use of ‘hocus-pocus’ methods of detection instead of solid police work.

  She had hidden in her house for two days, surrounded by tissues and fast-food containers.

  She’d watched every news report on the murders, streaming Sky News continually for any further update. She had watched as Beverly Wright had been identified as a prostitute and her name had slowly faded from the news.

  And Beverly was the one she was interested in, whatever her profession. Jennifer had been dead when she’d been seconded to the case but the attack on Beverly was the one she could have, should have, been able to prevent.

  She’d eventually plucked up the courage to call the hospital and had been mortified to learn that hers had been the only call.

  And she’d visited the girl every night ever since.

  For the last five days she’d pored over every detail of the two cases and tried to marry either one of them to Curtis and she just couldn’t do it. Not without going against everything she’d ever learned.

  Since being removed from the case she’d also been frozen out by everyone she’d worked with, her reputation and career in tatters, which bothered her but not nearly as much as the sickness in her stomach that refused to go away every time she sat beside the figure of Beverly Wright.

  She looked over the names of the men who had been questioned in connection with Jennifer’s murder.

  Her eyes continually returned to two names on the list. And one in particular.

  She sighed heavily. Only one question really mattered.

  What was she going to do about it?

  Forty-Two

  Kim wouldn’t have minded a nice hot shower after leaving Symes in the holding cell.

  ‘Phew, that was a bit intense,’ Gennard said, waving away the other two officers. ‘Won’t be needed for your next guy but I’d rather you left your belongings in here for now.’

  Kim nodded her understanding as Bryant joined them.

  ‘Rules are rules,’ he elaborated, unnecessarily.

  ‘So, where will we find Dale Preece?’ she asked.

  He nodded towards the visitor centre across the road. ‘Halfway through afternoon visiting. His mum’s normally here.’

  She didn’t relish the idea of seeing either of them again.

  She took a breath and headed across the street.

  * * *

  The room was about half-full of prisoners and visitors sitting on plastic seats at fixed wooden tables holding cardboard coffee cups and sandwich wrappers.

  Dale Preece had changed very little, she thought, as she got a second to appraise him.

  His black hair was short and looked smart. He appeared to have dropped a few pounds making his cheekbones more pronounced.

  She wasn’t surprised to see him holding his mother’s hand across the table. There were only the two of them left.

  She took a step forward, and Dale looked her way.

  For the briefest of seconds, they were back in that farmhouse and Dale was pointing a rifle straight at her.

  His face hardened as he appeared to travel through the same memories of the horror that took place that night.

  Sensing his distraction Mallory Preece turned her head too.

  There was no joy contained in her expression of surprise. But Kim wasn’t interested in Mallory Preece who had shown herself to be a limp, ineffectual woman dominated by her racist father who had destroyed the lives and relationship of both his grandsons. And she didn’t believe that Mallory had known nothing.

  ‘What do you want?’ they said together.

  ‘Just a word,’ she said, looking only at Dale. His dark eyes were unreadable but the set jaw gave away his displeasure at her presence.

  Mallory Preece glanced at her watch. ‘I’ll go, sweetheart,’ she said quietly to her son. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  He nodded and squeezed her hand before she stood.

  Mallory offered her a filthy look as she clutched her handbag and left the room.

  ‘She visit every day?’ Kim asked, taking a seat.

  He nodded. ‘Pretty much.’

  Kim suspected she’d got little else to do without her despicable father to take care of.

  ‘She’s on her own now,’ he said, and although there was no accusation in his tone, she could hear the control he exercised to keep it that way. Dale Preece had always managed to keep control. ‘She’s had to learn to take care of herself.’

  Kim almost said she was lucky to be free of the ruthless, evil bastard but just remembered that Dale and his grandfather had been very close.

  ‘So, how is it in here?’ she asked.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked again , coolly, meeting her gaze. Not surprisingly he had no interest in exchanging pleasantries with her.

  Her aim had been to gauge emotional responses and levels of hatred. With Symes it had been a piece of cake, but Dale was not going to be as easy. He was a man who kept his emotions hidden well behind the dark, handsome exterior.

  That night in the farmhouse he had chosen to save her life and had probably regretted it ever since. Instead he had lost both his grandfather and his brother, which was not something she could find herself sorry about.

  ‘Welfare check to see…’ her words trailed away. No, this wasn’t going to work. ‘Dale, someone may be out to get me and I’m here to see if it’s you.’

  A shot of surprise did register in his emotionless eyes. It was quickly hidden and his face reverted to neutral.

  ‘You seem shocked?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not that someone may be out to get you but that you chose to come and see me. What could I do from in here?’

  No denial she noted.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ she answered honestly.

  ‘But why me? Surely, there are people who hate you more than I do.’

  Kim could only marvel at the lack of emotion attached to such a line. A sentence where he’d admitted he hated her. Somehow that chilled her even more than the man with one eye.

  ‘Like Symes,’ he added.

  ‘You know Symes?’ she asked, her turn to be surprised. Yes, they were in the same prison but the men couldn’t be more different. They wouldn’t have met at knitting club.

  Dale nodded. ‘He sought me out when I first got here.’ He paused. ‘To be honest he approaches anyone who is in here because of you. It’s his own personal Hate Club.’

  Kim frowned. This really was something that prison intel should have picked up on.

  ‘Okay, thanks, Dale,’ she said, standing.

  ‘And for what it’s worth, his cellmate, another member of the club, recently got out.’

  Forty-Three

  Kim was ready to get updates from her team at the station by six o’clock.

  ‘Stace, what you got on Jenks?’

  Stacey shook her head. ‘Nothing yet, boss.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Kim asked. She and Bryant had been gone the whole day and Stacey had nothing to show for her time.

  ‘Trying all the normal channels. No red flags. He’s qualified for the job and—’

  ‘I could tell that from the wall behind him, Stace. He wears it like a badge.’

  ‘Sorry, boss, but—’

  ‘Office, Stace,’ Kim said, heading for The Bowl.

  Stacey closed the door behind her.

  ‘Look, boss, I’ve—’

  ‘Not interested, Stace,’ Kim said, taking out her
phone. She dialled a number and put it on hands-free.

  The call was answered on the second ring.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey, Gem, know anything about that community centre in Stourbridge, behind the bus station?’

  Gemma blew a raspberry.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Place is okay, got loads of stuff in there but head honcho is a bit of a sleaze, by all accounts.’

  ‘Go on,’ Kim said, glaring at her colleague.

  ‘Most girls I know won’t go there, cos that guy, Jenkins—’

  ‘Jenks,’ Kim corrected.

  ‘Yeah, him. Apparently, he offers the girls money and help with stuff for a blow job. Never experienced it but it’s what I heard.’

  ‘Got it, thanks,’ she said, ending the call.

  Kim waited.

  Stacey nodded to the phone. ‘I don’t know—’

  ‘I’m aware you don’t know Gemma but you have your own sources, your own contacts, people you’ve met over the years. You tried official channels and got nothing, so you try them again and see if they change their mind or look elsewhere. Bloody hell, Stace. A whole day?’

  Stacey had the good grace to look mortified but her own anger was not dissipating quite so easily.

  ‘Whatever’s niggling you, park it,’ she said, striding over to the door and opening it.

  She knew what Stacey’s problem was and she wasn’t dealing with it now.

  Stacey followed her out of the office back into the squad room. All eyes looked away, even Alison.

  ‘Stace?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Start looking at the name John Duggar, recent inmate of Winson Green.’

  ‘On it,’ she shot back.

  ‘Alison?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘The lead I was following came to nothing. I think you might be right about Alexandra Thorne.’

  Kim didn’t hide her smile of triumph.

  Alex didn’t play the same game twice. She bored too easily and Kim had known she wasn’t involved, but sometimes you just had to give people a little bit of rope.

  From Alison’s set expression Kim guessed Alison didn’t enjoy being proven wrong.

  ‘Penn?’ she asked, praying he’d got something.

  He took out a piece of paper and passed it to her. It was a full timeline for the period Amy and Mark had been in the supermarket.

  ‘After the phone call Amy slips something into her pocket. It was in the toiletry aisle, so I’m guessing a roll-on deodorant or something like that.’

  Kim nodded her agreement.

  ‘But that’s not the interesting bit,’ Penn said, turning his screen towards her.

  Kim watched the montage of footage taken from different cameras and pieced together by Penn.

  She saw Amy and Mark exit the toilets, pass the cigarette kiosk, the newspaper stand, the security kiosk and then stop.

  Kim frowned as she continued to watch. The footage ended.

  ‘Play it again,’ Kim said, scratching her chin.

  She watched once more.

  ‘So, a couple of homeless drug addicts go into the supermarket, stare longingly at the food, get a phone call, steal deodorant but spend what little money they have on flowers?’

  Penn nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So, who the hell was on the phone and what did they promise these kids?’

  Forty-Four

  ‘Saved herself a bit with that one, eh?’ Bryant said, as they reached the car.

  Stacey had pulled out all the stops to get a current address for John Duggar, Symes’s recently released cellmate. She still didn’t recall his name from any major investigation but she’d worry about that when she met him.

  ‘Yeah well, she needed to,’ Kim said.

  ‘If you’d just—’

  ‘Shut up and drive,’ Kim said, looking out of the window. There was still no definitive proof that the murders of Amy and Mark were anything to do with her. The call she’d made to Gemma had also highlighted Harry Jenks. She suspected he had offered Amy money for sex and Mark had found out, leading to the altercation. Which also explained Jenks’s failure to reveal the incident at all or report it.

  She was looking forward to her next conversation with him and doubted she’d be quite so polite.

  ‘So, you know where this guy lives?’ she asked Bryant as he negotiated the Shenstone traffic island.

  ‘Yeah, just behind The Civic in Old Hill.’

  ‘Jeez, Bryant, where’s that?’

  ‘You don’t know The Civic?’ he asked, aghast.

  ‘No, and now you’re making me feel as though I’m really missing out.’

  ‘Called The Civic for decades even after being renamed The Regis. Built early Fifties and hosted everything: weddings, works parties, the lot. Six hundred capacity ballroom. Supposed to be posh and if you’d been invited to a—’

  ‘Bryant, shut up,’ Kim snapped.

  ‘Well, you asked…’

  ‘Shush,’ she repeated.

  She turned up Bryant’s handheld station radio that accompanied them everywhere.

  ‘Shit, sounds serious,’ Bryant said as voices filled the car.

  ‘Fire at Dudley Wood,’ Kim said, trying to piece together the details through the crackling and disjointed voices.

  Bryant slowed down as he approached a line of traffic through the centre of Old Hill.

  ‘Did he say car fire?’ he asked.

  ‘I heard the word occupied,’ she answered, turning up the radio.

  ‘I just heard speedway,’ Bryant said.

  Kim swallowed deeply as that cool finger was back on her spine.

  ‘Bryant, take us there. Now.’

  Forty-Five

  Bryant got them as close as he could before they had to abandon the car outside the Kawasaki bike shop and run.

  The scene was mayhem. A build-up of traffic, sirens, police cars trying to get through and the unmistakable sound of water gushing from the fire hoses.

  As they turned the corner Kim saw the plume of smoke reaching into the sky, the acrid smell wafting straight into her lungs.

  Four police cars and two fire engines were right in front of what used to be the entrance to the speedway, which was now a housing estate.

  A third fire engine was trying to get through the traffic that was clogging Dudley Wood Road.

  A cordon had already been established and uniformed officers were assembling in high-vis vests to redirect traffic away from the scene.

  Both Kim and Bryant showed their ID before ducking under the cordon tape.

  Kim could now see that the chaos was organised and although frenetic every person there was engaged in either tackling the fire or protecting the people that were.

  ‘Hey,’ Kim said to the first officer she recognised. Sergeant Bowyer operated out of Brierley Hill.

  He frowned. ‘I was expecting an Inspector but not CID,’ he said.

  ‘We were close,’ she explained, trying to get a look around the sergeant.

  ‘Forget it, they won’t let us any closer than this. Trust me, I’ve got one hero that tried,’ he said nodding towards an officer on the cordon with an angry red graze on his left elbow.

  ‘Guys’ll throw you out the way if they need to.’

  ‘So, what did hero do?’

  ‘Tried to get to the folks inside.’

  ‘Definitely occupied?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t see anything through the flames but the fucking heat…’

  ‘And your officer tried to get close?’

  ‘Yeah, he didn’t think. Fire guy tackled him to the ground and said even if they were still alive they probably wouldn’t thank him.’

  Although horrific Kim could understand the statement.

  A fireman’s first priority upon arrival at a scene was the likelihood of preserving life but they could only do so much and risking the life of other people in the process was never a good idea.

  Even if the occupan
t had been alive he or she may well have suffered such extensive burns that rescuing them would only have fated them to a much longer and more torturous death.

  ‘Anything we can do?’ Bryant asked.

  The sergeant shook his head as a constable approached.

  ‘Got it, Sarge,’ he said, handing over a piece of paper.

  ‘Thanks, Ash,’ he said, reading the note.

  ‘Victim?’ Kim asked.

  The sergeant nodded. ‘Car is registered to Bill Phelps. Aged fifty-four and lives in Hagley with fifty-two-year-old wife, Helen.’

  He took out his phone and called a number. He waited and waited and then ended the call.

  ‘And no one appears to be home.’

  ‘You think they’re both in that car?’ she asked.

  ‘Looking likely.’

  Kim took a step away to regulate her breathing.

  ‘You used to come here with Keith and Erica?’ Bryant asked, standing so that she could not be seen.

  ‘Here and Dudley Castle were our favourite places,’ she whispered.

  Bryant leaned in to hear her above the noise.

  She sighed heavily as she processed all she’d learned in a few short minutes.

  A middle-aged couple in a car fire outside what used to be the speedway.

  The nausea bubbled in her stomach.

  She turned to her colleague.

  ‘Okay, Bryant, it’s time to talk to the team.’

  Forty-Six

  Stacey had barely finished the last bite of the lasagne when the text message dinged to her phone.

  And she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

  If this was the boss wanting to tear another strip off her she was sure it could wait until the morning.

  Yeah, she accepted that she’d been bollocked in private but it wasn’t like the rest of the team didn’t know why she’d been hauled into The Bowl anyway.

  ‘Was she right though, babe?’ Devon asked, removing her empty plate.

  She had already recounted the story to her partner.