She’d been looking for the wrong man.
Seventy-Four
‘Look, guv, there’s just nothing else we can do right now,’ Bryant said as they pulled back into the station. ‘We’ve put out a description of Duggar. If he turns up anywhere we’ll be the first to know. It’s almost eight so…’
His words trailed away as her phone began to ring.
‘Working late, Keats,’ she answered.
‘Only for my favourite detective,’ he answered.
‘Yeah, he’s right beside me,’ she said, putting the phone on loudspeaker.
‘Hey, Keats,’ Bryant said.
‘Sorry for the late call but had to get some results checked and thought you’d want to know the results—’
‘Yep,’ she interrupted.
‘Toxicology came back on Amy Wilde and Mark Johnson. As expected there were substantial amounts of heroin in their system and most certainly enough to cause an overdose. But there’s something else. Also present were high levels of a drug called Baclofen, a muscle relaxant used to treat spasticity and musculoskeletal conditions.’
‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘So, you’re saying our killer most likely relaxed them enough to be able to shoot them full of heroin?’
‘I’d say so,’ Keats replied.
‘Thanks for—’
‘That’s not all, Inspector,’ Keats said, stopping her from ending the call.
‘Same drug was found in the soft tissue of Mr and Mrs Phelps.’
Silence fell for just a few seconds but it was long enough.
‘So, they were paralysed?’ she asked, quietly.
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Most likely semi-conscious but unable to move.’
‘Shit,’ Bryant said, shaking his head.
She was guessing they were all imagining the couple forced to sit still as the flames engulfed them and licked at their flesh, searing it away from the bone. She just hoped the smoke inhalation had got them quick.
Kim swallowed and shook the image away.
‘Thanks, Keats,’ she said, ending the call.
Kim got out of the car shaking her head. Was there any worse way to die?
Bryant rested his arms on the roof of the car. ‘Guv, we’re gonna catch this bastard,’ he said as the doors to the station were thrown open.
Three officers headed for the squad car beside them. The driver accidentally barged into her side.
‘Hey, watch…’
‘Sorry, Marm, didn’t mean…’
The others were already in the car.
‘What’s the bloody rush?’
‘Rape at Linley Park, Marm… gotta…’
‘Wh-what?’ Kim asked, as her blood turned to ice.
He repeated the words and slid into the car.
Kim all but fell back into the passenger seat of Bryant’s car.
‘Guv, what’s up?’ her partner asked, getting back into the car.
‘I-I’m not… I mean…’
‘Guv, talk to me,’ Bryant ordered.
She nodded and pulled herself together.
‘Bryant, follow those officers. Now.’
Seventy-Five
Linley Park was a much grander name than the place deserved.
It was a patch of land with a swing set, a see-saw and a space where a spider’s web roundabout once stood. Beyond the park was a playing field and at the far end was a clutch of trees about thirty metres square.
The entire space was nestled between two small housing estates of private terraced dwellings.
And one of those houses had belonged to foster family number five.
‘Why are we here, guv?’ Bryant asked quietly as he parked behind the squad car that was behind the ambulance.
Kim said nothing as she got out of the car.
‘Where is?…’
‘In the trees,’ Kim said, unable to look his way.
Her gaze was fixed on the direction of the officers running across the field. As they reached the treeline the two males slowed and allowed the WPC to enter first.
‘Guv…’
‘Bryant, please stop talking to me,’ she said, quietly.
Right now, she had nothing to give.
Her brain was a kaleidoscope of images. She saw herself sitting on the see-saw as dusk fell and the kids disappeared back into their homes, parents at the top of the park just shouting out their child’s name. Some shouting a five-minute warning as the light began to disappear.
Kim waited and waited hoping that it would be Mrs Lampitt that called her tonight. And not him.
She walked across the field focussing on putting one foot in front of the other. It was as though her brain had forgotten how to do it automatically.
She tried not to look around, at the two goalposts at either end of the field. Even the grass around her feet felt familiar. Only her feet had been smaller, encased in plain black plimsolls and he had been holding her hand.
She shuddered and tried to push the memories away. She couldn’t remember this right now. She couldn’t be back in that place. She couldn’t revisit the events that happened in the family she never spoke of. The family right after Keith and Erica.
She stepped past the PCs and into the woods. The aroma of lilac overwhelmed her. The smell travelled right to her memory bank, and she stumbled. Bryant was right beside her and put a steadying hand in the small of her back.
She moved forward to where the WPC was kneeling on the ground. A paramedic knelt either side.
‘It’s okay, sweetie, we’ve got you,’ said the WPC gently.
Kim couldn’t see the girl, and the WPC waved them back.
Kim understood and respected her call. No one knew exactly what she’d been through and the police officer was trying to establish trust. Too many faces and the girl wouldn’t know who to listen to.
Kim took a few steps to the right and saw a mound of blood-soaked tissue beside one of the paramedics. They were both focussed heavily on her mid area. Both were sweating profusely, and one was shaking his head.
Oh Jesus, what had the bastard done to her? she wondered, as her heart began to race.
Kim could see past one of them to bare feet with painted toenails. The slim legs were bare and as her gaze travelled up Kim could see lines of dried blood travelling down her thighs.
A second paramedic team rushed past her with a stretcher.
‘Thank God,’ said one of the guys on the ground. ‘Not sure how long she’s gonna last with this level of blood loss.’ He turned to the uniformed officer. ‘We gotta move her now. We can’t stop the bleeding.’
The WPC nodded. ‘I’m going in the ambulance with her.’
Even more bodies suddenly crowded around the girl, who, to Kim’s recollection, had not yet made a sound.
She wanted to step forward hold her hand, reassure her that everything was going to be okay, but she couldn’t, because somehow this was all her fault.
On the count of three the girl was hauled on to the stretcher, and Kim would swear she heard a groan. The WPC continued to whisper while holding her hand.
The team began moving towards the clearing to get out, and still Kim couldn’t see the girl.
‘Nature of the injury?’ Kim asked, as the paramedics passed her.
‘Pop bottle wedged right up inside her.’
Kim swallowed down the nausea, stepped aside and let them go. Any doubt she’d had about this assault being linked to their current case had been extinguished.
She followed the stretcher out although the sickly lilac smell seemed to have attached itself to her skin. Just as it had back then and no amount of showering had managed to remove it from her nostrils.
She walked between the two male police officers as one called out over her head.
‘Gives new meaning to being on the bottle, eh?’
Kim stopped moving, falling completely level with the constable. She turned her head. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
His face was bewildered. ‘Crime scene hu
mour, Marm, we—’
His words were cut off as she grabbed the front of his stab vest and pulled him towards her. She raised her clenched fist into the air.
‘Okey dokey,’ Bryant said, grabbing her arm and pushing her towards the open field.
‘Bad taste, mate. Real, bad taste,’ Bryant said with disgust. ‘Just be glad it isn’t your fucking sister.’
The rage burning through her body begged her to break free of her colleague and head right back to the heartless bastard behind.
‘Let me go,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll wring his…’
‘Oh no you don’t,’ Bryant said, keeping a hand on her elbow.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ she growled.
‘Yeah, scream, shout and swear at me all you like. Hit me if it’ll make you feel better. I won’t report you for it. Probably,’ he said.
‘You think he should get away with saying that about a young, innocent kid who…’
‘Punching him and losing your job is not gonna put the words back on the other side of his lips and help us catch the bastard that did this.’
Bryant only let her arm go once they’d reached the car.
For the second time that day he looked at her over the roof of the Astra.
‘Am I allowed to ask the significance of what we just saw in the woods back there?’
Kim shook her head and forced down the emotion building in her throat. Her reply was little more than a whisper.
‘No, Bryant, you are not.’
Seventy-Six
Bryant did her the favour of staying quiet as they followed the ambulance at speed through the evening traffic.
It was what she’d asked him to do, but was it really what she wanted: more time to think?
She stared at the rear ambulance doors, picturing the girl within. Violated, hurting, scared, confused, angry. She had a police officer holding her hand.
She wanted to be beside her, to apologise, to explain that this was all her fault; that these things were happening because of her, that she herself had done nothing wrong. But most of all she wanted to tell her that she was going to catch the bastard who had done this and they were going to make him pay.
‘Guv, I’m not sure how this links…’
‘It was foster family number five, and Mr Lampitt worked at the pop bottling plant, and if you ask me any more questions I’m gonna jump out of this moving car, got it?’
‘Well, the kiddie locks are on but you’re welcome to try the sunroof,’ he said, deadpan.
Kim felt a smile touch her lips despite the emotion churning around her veins.
‘Bryant, sometimes you—’
‘Yeah, yeah. So, you going to try and talk to this girl at the hospital?’
‘Hope to,’ she answered. ‘Not sure she’s in any fit state to offer us anything at the minute but I’m happy to wait. Maybe I can speak to the WPC in the meantime, get a name or something.’
‘Could be quite a wait,’ he observed, pushing on the brakes as an idiot in an MR2 pulled in between them and the ambulance. ‘I wish she’d been noisier,’ he said, echoing her thoughts at the scene.
Her phone began to ring. She took it out to see Woody’s name at the top of the screen.
She considered not answering it until she’d received some kind of update from inside the hospital.
‘Evening, sir,’ she answered, realising she hadn’t updated him in a while.
‘Stone, where are you and what are you doing?’
There was an edge to his voice that she assumed was due to the time of night.
‘We’re following a sexual assault victim in an ambulance to the hospital to try and speak with her about—’
‘Put me on loudspeaker right now,’ he bellowed.
She glanced at Bryant as she did so, but his focus was on keeping pace with the ambulance as they headed down the Pedmore Road.
‘You’re on, sir,’ she said.
‘Do not go to the hospital. Do not attempt to question that victim and get back to the station right now. And Bryant, unless you want to risk both of you losing your jobs you’ll do exactly what I say.’
The line went dead in her hand.
Bryant slowed the car as the ambulance sped away from them.
And then he took a left.
Seventy-Seven
‘Sit down, Stone,’ Woody said as she knocked and entered.
Silently she did as he asked. His brusque phone call had been followed up with a brief text message that had read.
‘Just you.’
She’d told Bryant to head off home to his wife and pasta bake but she knew he was sitting downstairs in the squad room.
‘The incident this evening?’ he said, giving her a hard stare.
Kim really had no clue why he was bordering on hostile but she’d learned that when he was like this it was best she just did what he said.
‘We’d just arrived back at the station, sir. I was on my way to give you a briefing,’ she said, hoping to appease him. Perhaps she wasn’t keeping him in the loop enough. ‘And we became aware of a situation at Linley Park. We followed the officers to the scene and—’
‘Stone, it may surprise you to know that I keep a radio on my desk and am well aware of the incident at Linley Park and your reasons for attending. But what I didn’t hear over the radio, and what reached me via a phone call from Sergeant Wilkins, is that you assaulted a police constable at the scene.’
Oh shit, she’d forgotten about that.
‘May I have a chance to explain?’
‘Did you grab the man by the vest and raise your fist?’ he asked, nostrils flaring.
‘Yes, I did, but…’
‘There is no but, Stone. You know full well that is unacceptable behaviour.’
‘I absolutely do, sir, but I was provoked,’ she protested.
He sat back in his chair and listened as she relayed in detail what she had seen and the constable’s comment.
He appeared unmoved.
‘Is this your first crime scene?’
She shook her head.
‘Is this the first crime scene you’ve attended where something was said in poor taste by either yourself, your team or another person present?’
‘No, but—’
‘Don’t say anything, Stone. I’m no longer confident about your involvement on this case despite Alison’s favourable reports.’
‘Really?’ she asked, surprised.
‘She assured me that you were handling it well, up until now. This is behaviour I can’t condone regardless of the opinions of anyone else.’
Real fear settled in her stomach. Fear that this bastard would never be caught and that more innocent people would suffer.
‘Sir, let me speak to the constable concerned. I’ll apologise and smooth—’
‘You’ll do no such thing, Stone.’
‘But if you just let me—’
‘You’ll keep well away for the time being. As of this minute you are no longer assigned to this case until I say otherwise. So, I suggest you take a couple of days leave to cool down and put some distance—’
‘Sir, you can’t do—’
‘I can and I have, now with all due respect, Inspector, get yourself out of my sight.’
Seventy-Eight
Bryant headed up the stairs to the third floor, which wasn’t a trip he made often.
He had no idea what had been said to the boss but her face had been filled with rage as she’d stormed past the squad room door and barked that it was his turn.
He knocked and waited for the instruction to enter. That was normally the guv’s job and he was happy for her to do it.
Not that he didn’t respect the man sitting behind the desk before him. Over the years DCI Woodward had straddled the position perfectly. He had managed to maintain the respect of his team and the trust of his superiors. It had not always been easy. He knew that but Woody had always found a way to do what was right.
‘Inspector Stone is off the case,
’ he stated.
Until now, Bryant thought.
‘May I ask why, sir?’
‘Because she’s not handling it,’ Woody snapped. ‘You saw how she acted with that constable. Was that not out of character?’
He nodded. ‘Extremely out of character but it was an exceptionally horrific crime scene.’
‘Which does not excuse that she would have struck that officer had you not intervened.’
‘Sir, I don’t think she—’
‘You grabbed her arm in mid-air, Bryant, so I beg to differ on that. Luckily, you were there to save her bacon and her job again; however, she is not out of the woods and I have no choice but to remove her from this case. I have one very pissed off sergeant who already hates CID biting at my heels.’
‘What about the officer?’ Bryant asked.
‘Makes no difference. It’s the sergeant making all the noise about how CID think they can treat his constables any way they like.’
‘To be honest, sir, I wanted to punch him myself. What he said—’
‘Was crude, unfeeling, foul, and repulsive. I have no argument. Believe me when I say that I sit in meetings with suits bartering budgets for public safety and I could quite happily get an Uzi and take them all out. But it’s about control and your boss showed none when dealing with that constable, so I can no longer trust her to run this case.’
Bryant thought for a moment before speaking.
‘Sir, you’re making a mistake,’ he said, politely but definitely.
‘DS Bryant, do you know how many complaints land on my desk each week because —’
‘And do you know how many people don’t die because of those complaints?’ he asked, sombrely. ‘Don’t get me wrong, there are many days I question her methods, her directness but I never question her passion or her drive to catch the bad guy.’
‘Agreed but this case isn’t good for her. She’s losing perspective, control. Her emotions are either too close to the surface or being buried too far down that they’re fighting to be let out, but either way it’s not good for her and it’s not good for the case.’
Dead Memories: An addictive and gripping crime thriller Page 18