Dead Memories: An addictive and gripping crime thriller

by Angela Marsons

  ‘Is this legal?’

  ‘No, Alison, as a police officer I feel that I can commit any kind of crime,’ Stacey answered. ‘Of course it’s legal. This is private CCTV footage, which is their prerogative to share especially with the police and we got a helpful security officer.’

  ‘Stacey, I think I might have a girl crush on you right now.’

  ‘I’m taken, but thanks anyway. Now let’s have a look.’

  Stacey loaded up the first of the two disc icons.

  ‘What was she wearing?’

  ‘Yellow jeans and trainers.’

  ‘Not usual attire for a night worker,’ Stacey observed.

  ‘She wasn’t working,’ Alison explained. ‘Just went to the club for a drink and some music.’

  ‘The footage is on time-lapse but we should spot her if she goes by,’ Stacey said as Alison pulled up a chair.

  The half-hour window Stacey had given passed by in silence as they both stared at the screen.

  ‘Nothing,’ Alison said as the screen went blank.

  ‘Let’s try the other one.’

  ‘Oh,’ Alison said, seeing that the view was a downward view of the pavement, trained on a small hole in the fencing.

  ‘Yeah, that’s not great,’ Stacey said. ‘All we’re going to get is a look at some lower legs as they—’

  ‘Stop,’ Alison cried out.

  ‘Bloody hell, woman, I’m only here,’ Stacey said.

  ‘That’s her,’ Alison said, barely able to get the words out. ‘That’s Beverly, look, yellow jeans and trainers.’

  Stacey rewound and played it again. They watched silently as the legs entered the shot and left it again.

  Alison had the urge to scream at the camera to turn, to follow her, to protect her from the horror that was to come.

  Stacey sighed heavily. ‘Sorry, Alison, but she was definitely on her own.’

  Alison felt the deflation as she continued to watch the screen. For a while there she’d had real hope of proving herself right and showing that Curtis had been innocent all along.

  As Stacey’s arrow headed towards the red cross, Alison grabbed at her arm.

  ‘Wait,’ she whispered, as her mouth dried up. ‘Play those last few seconds again.’

  One Hundred One

  ‘Thank you for taking the time to speak to us this afternoon, Mr Gennard,’ Kim said as they crammed into the tiny office reserved for the shift manager. In the absence of a proper noticeboard rosters and memos had been taped to the white painted breeze block wall.

  ‘We understand you keep intelligence on most of the inmates, like who is speaking to who and that kind of thing. We’d like to know more about Symes, Dale Preece, John Duggar and Joel Greene.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you that Joel Greene is not in the same league as the others. He comes in, does his time, keeps his nose clean, doesn’t get into the factions and there’s nothing linking him to the other three.’

  Kim was strangely relieved to hear that.

  ‘The others are all part of your fan club and—’

  ‘You know about that?’

  He frowned. ‘Our intel would be pretty shit if we didn’t.’

  ‘And you allow it?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘Hang on, it ain’t like we give ’em a room and supplies to make a voodoo doll. We control every aspect of their day: when they wake, sleep, eat, piss, see family. We can’t control what they think or talk about.’

  ‘So, how do you stop something like this getting out of control?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘We have methods and that’s all I’m going to say.’

  ‘You have someone in the group, don’t you?’ Kim asked. Her immediate thoughts went to Duggar, the man who had pretended to have a beef with her.

  ‘I’m really not going to say more.’

  What better way of monitoring the group than having someone inside it that would flag up if things were getting out of hand?

  ‘How would we find out if any of these three had had a book sent here?’

  ‘Post records, we log everything that comes in or out of the prison.’

  He tapped into the computer in the corner after removing a couple of Post-it notes stuck to the screen.

  He accessed the system and they waited while he tapped and scrolled. He moved along the columns and scrolled again.

  ‘Okay, fan mail for Symes. Seventeen letters since he’s been here all from different women.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No accounting for taste, is there?’ Gennard asked.

  The man had neither looks, charm or personality. He was cruel, mean and lived only to inflict violence. What type of woman would be attracted to that?

  ‘Dale Preece has had a couple of fan letters. Not on the level of Symes.’

  She could at least understand that. There was no denying the man was handsome.

  ‘And the rest are care packages from his mum. So, no record of any books coming in to either of them.’

  ‘You only checked two,’ she said. ‘What about John Duggar?’

  ‘No need to check on him. Duggar wouldn’t have ordered a book. That guy couldn’t read or write.’

  One Hundred Two

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Bryant asked, as they exited the building.

  ‘Not being able to read or write doesn’t stop the man ordering a book but at least Gennard still checked.’

  ‘He didn’t react too kindly to your suggestion that one of the guards ordered it and passed it along,’ Bryant observed.

  ‘Yeah and despite his bluster he couldn’t completely rule it out. I mean, come on, we know guards have been persuaded, cajoled and threatened into bringing in mobile phones, smokes, drugs, weapons. If someone got forced to bring in a book, I’d imagine they’d not lose too much sleep.’

  ‘My guards are trustworthy and have integrity…’ Bryant said, lowering his voice and impersonating Gennard.

  Kim laughed, allowing some of the tension to seep out of her body.

  For someone officially not working it had turned into a very long day, and they still had evening rush hour to contend with.

  ‘Okay, Bryant, let’s head back and…’ her words trailed away as a silver BMW pulled onto the car park two rows behind.

  She watched as Mallory Preece stepped out with a carrier bag.

  ‘Give me one sec, Bryant,’ Kim said, getting out of the car.

  Mallory shook her head as Kim headed towards her. ‘Leave me alone, Inspector, I have nothing to say to you and neither does my son.’

  ‘I wasn’t here to see Dale,’ Kim said, falling into step with the woman who hadn’t even paused. ‘But out of interest, do you know if your son ordered a book?’

  ‘How would I know what my?—’

  ‘The book is about me.’

  Mallory stopped walking and looked at her. ‘You’re not all that, Stone. Why the hell would there be a book about you?’

  ‘I’m not going into that but you must be aware of how much he hates me,’ Kim said.

  ‘Do you blame him?’ Mallory asked. ‘Because of you he lost his grandfather and his brother and now he’s locked up in here. He was very close to both of them but especially his grandfather who—’

  ‘Mallory, your father was a cold-hearted despicable bastard who—’

  ‘I’m not going to listen to—’

  ‘Okay, but Mallory, I need to know if he ordered that book. There’s a hate club for me in there and your son seems to be a huge part of it. If you find out about the book would you let me know?’

  ‘Of course, Inspector. Right after I burn in hell.’

  Kim sighed heavily. ‘Jesus, you do know that innocent people are losing—’

  ‘I couldn’t care less about anyone else,’ Mallory said, coldly. ‘I care only about my son and if you want the truth if there’s a book about you he probably did get it. You seem to occupy his thoughts more than you should do,’ she said, bitterly. ‘And much as I love him, I’ll never be at peace with what
he did.’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘He had a choice, Inspector, to save his own brother or you. And I’ll never understand why he chose you.’

  One Hundred Three

  ‘Guys, I hope you’ve got something good,’ Kim said, as she and Bryant entered her home.

  ‘Getting there, boss,’ Stacey said, rolling her head to release the tension in her neck.

  ‘No fix on Duggar’s location,’ Penn said, eating the last finger of a KitKat. ‘Last sighting I’ve got for definite is a meeting with his probation officer yesterday morning and…’

  ‘Stace, we need to meet this—’

  ‘You have an appointment with her first thing in the morning.’

  Kim smiled and removed her jacket and headed for the percolator in the kitchen. The overindulgence of caffeine first thing had long since been absorbed into her system. Her nerves needed a swift top up.

  She updated them on their afternoon at the prison as she prepared the coffee machine.

  ‘So, pretty sure Joel Greene isn’t involved in any of this, but his parents could have come into contact with John Duggar.’

  ‘Learned a lot about the guy,’ Stacey said, scrolling back through her notes. ‘Born in 1986 to an alcoholic mother who left him and his two sisters when he was three. Grandmother managed for a few years until Duggar was seven and she gave him and one of his sisters to the state. She kept the oldest girl and never saw the other two again.’

  ‘Rough,’ Bryant said.

  Stacey nodded. ‘Didn’t have a good time at school, got targeted for his height and written off as stupid. Spent more time in trouble for skiving and was expelled from three different schools. Eventually at fourteen he just disappeared from the education system.

  ‘His sister fared better and after a long-term fostering stint with a good family left school with some half-decent qualifications. Works in business admin and moved to the Isle of Wight with her husband eight years ago. Trying to make contact to see what she knows but no response yet. And now over to Penn while I just finish off this last check.’

  ‘Good work, Stace,’ Kim said, even though there was little there to help them. It did help to confirm what Gennard had said about the man being illiterate.

  ‘Inevitably,’ Penn continued, ‘he drifted into petty crime and did his first stint in prison aged nineteen. At times tried to reach out to his grandmother, who refused to see him.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Bryant said. ‘Great bloody life he’s had.’

  ‘And yet none of this dictates he’ll become a violent individual,’ Alison interjected. ‘In fact, in many cases such experiences would have instilled in him a need to belong, to be a part of something bigger where he blended. People who stand out physically don’t always want that singular attention. They’ve been isolated for their differences all their lives.’

  ‘You’re saying that’s why he joined the hate club?’ Kim asked.

  Alison shrugged. ‘Could be and could also explain his refusal to go straight. Prison life would have been familiar to him. Along with the punishment there is an element of being taken care of, meals prepared and available, somewhere to sleep, a routine.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Alison, Winson Green is no weekend spa,’ she said.

  ‘Tell that to the guy sleeping in Gregg’s shop doorway when it’s minus two degrees. See if he wants the bed and the meal. What I’m trying to explain is that we have certain needs as children: protection, boundaries, safety, love, encouragement, nurturing and if we don’t get them we continue to look. A kid who got no pats on the back is likely to develop into a people pleaser.’

  Kim couldn’t quite marry the conflicting images of John Duggar.

  Penn cut in. ‘A few years ago, he met Billie Styles on one of his trying to go straight phases. They got together and—’

  ‘Hang on,’ Kim said. ‘The two of them were a couple?’

  ‘Not recently. He didn’t change his ways and she got fed up of visiting him in prison and binned him. Only he didn’t go quietly.’

  ‘He’s been harassing her?’ Bryant asked.

  Penn nodded.

  ‘Guys, this isn’t making any sense,’ Kim said. ‘He has no record for violence and people have died horrific deaths. We agree that the killer has to hate me passionately and yet Duggar has absolutely no—’

  ‘Aww, shit, boss I think I just found something.’

  They all waited as Stacey began to read. That she was licking her lower lip as she did so, gave Kim cause for concern.

  ‘Six years ago, boss,’ Stacey said quietly. ‘House fire on Sutton Road. Two kids were saved by two detectives who heard the radio call.’

  Kim nodded. She remembered the incident well. Travis had grabbed the boy and she had carried the girl.

  ‘By the time we got them out the fire service were there. Wouldn’t let anyone back in.’

  ‘The mother died,’ Stacey said.

  Kim swallowed and nodded. She had crawled under the bed in the master bedroom. They hadn’t known.

  ‘Her name was—’

  ‘Abigail Turner,’ Kim offered, having no trouble recalling the woman’s name.

  ‘But before that she was called Abigail Duggar, so regardless of what John Duggar said, indirectly, I suppose, you really did kill his sister.’

  One Hundred Four

  It was almost seven when Kim realised it was time to throw the team out of her house.

  She likely would have continued working for a while longer but Stacey’s neck stretches and Penn’s not-so-secret glances at his watch told her the working day had already been long enough.

  The speed with which bags and jackets were gathered confirmed it was time to call it a night.

  ‘Except you, Alison,’ she said, as the woman walked a wide berth around Barney.

  She caught the glance that passed between the behaviourist and Stacey before Bryant ushered them out of the front door.

  ‘Relative still sick?’ Kim asked as Alison retook her seat.

  ‘Yeah, that’s it,’ Alison replied vaguely.

  Kim knew that Alison was lying and her lies had somehow involved her detective constable.

  ‘You wanna share what’s going on with you and Stacey?’

  Alison shook her head. ‘It’s nothing. She’s just been helping me with something.’

  Kim folded her arms. ‘Connected to this case?’

  ‘No.’

  Kim realised she was getting nothing more than that and resolved to call Stacey later.

  ‘You wanted something from me?’ Alison prompted.

  Kim dropped her arms and hid her smile. Directness was a quality she both liked and admired.

  ‘Your opinion,’ Kim answered.

  Alison laughed out loud. ‘You’re joking, right? You’ve spent the whole week decidedly not wanting, or ignoring, my opinion.’

  Kim rolled her eyes. ‘Give me a break, woman. It’s been a tough week and right now I want to know what your opinion is before I ignore it.’

  She offered a smile to demonstrate she was joking. In her case it wasn’t always clear.

  ‘What’s your gut saying about John Duggar and this new information?’

  Alison raised one eyebrow. ‘My gut is not what inspires my professional opinion. I tend to use my education and my degree in—’

  ‘Why do you do that?’ Kim asked, pouring two coffees from the pot.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Recite your education and qualifications whenever we talk?’ she said, pushing one mug towards the woman. ‘You spend a lot of time quoting your CV when all I want is a bloody conversation.’

  ‘You don’t trust me,’ Alison blurted out, coloured and looked away.

  ‘I do,’ Kim protested. ‘Well, as much as I trust anyone… actually… okay… you got me.’

  To her surprise Alison laughed out loud but it wasn’t the derisive sound of a few moments earlier. This was hearty and came from her stomach.

  ‘Okay, look, it’s not that
I distrust you completely. It’s just that I object to the assumptions that are a staple of your profession. Works well for TV shows like Cracker but not so much in the real world.’ Kim held up her hand as Alison opened her mouth to protest. ‘However, on this occasion you’ve been involved in the case for almost as long as the rest of us. You’ve built up a knowledge of the people we’re dealing with and the crimes committed. Putting that information together with your expertise is something I can live with; so now will you answer my question?’

  ‘Did we just bond?’ Alison asked with amusement dancing in her eyes.

  Kim narrowed her gaze.

  Alison took a breath. ‘Okay, this new information does change things but also doesn’t change a thing.’

  Kim threw her hands in the air as Alison took a sip of her drink.

  ‘I’ll explain. You didn’t kill Duggar’s sister but you didn’t save her either. They were not close and hadn’t grown up together strengthening that sibling bond. He didn’t know her. We think that the person behind these crimes hates you because you irrevocably changed their life. You didn’t change Duggar’s life by not saving his sister.’

  ‘So you don’t think it’s him?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. If Duggar is a fantasist and had invested a great deal of emotion into the life he might have if he connected with his sister then he could still hate you enough for having taken that option away from him.’

  ‘I sense a but in your voice.’

  ‘We need to know more about his dominant personality traits to put it all together, which I hope we’ll be able to do after you’ve talked with his probation officer tomorrow. We have no evidence of prior violence against Billie but her injuries were—’

  ‘Horrific,’ Kim finished for her.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But doesn’t his lack of violence rule him out completely?’ Kim asked, trying to get her head around it all.

  Alison considered. ‘I’m afraid not. Traumatic events or triggers can incite different behaviours and inspire people to act against type.’