Dead Memories: An addictive and gripping crime thriller

by Angela Marsons

  ‘I’d imagine she’s going to be busy assisting West Mercia now they’ve got the real killer. I’m sure we’ll get official notification from Woody that she’s been re-reassigned, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Missing her already,’ Bryant said, glancing at the spare desk.

  Yeah, Kim had kind of got used to her presence too.

  ‘Knocker knocker,’ she heard from the doorway.

  Kim smiled in the direction of Doctor A, who was carrying a white Perspex tray. She waved her into the room.

  ‘Good morning,’ Kim greeted.

  Doctor A frowned. ‘Are you here today or are you not here like yesterday when you were but weren’t…’ she shook her head. ‘You English are strangers.’

  ‘I’m here,’ Kim confirmed.

  She lay the tray down on the empty desk and moved to the top-right corner holding out her hand.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Penny,’ she said, shaking the hand of the newest member of the team. ‘And Bryan,’ she said, nodding to the other sergeant. ‘And the lovely Stacey,’ she added, causing Kim to wonder for the hundredth time how many of the woman’s misspoken words were mistakes and how many were uttered for her own amusement.

  The detective constable positively beamed from the compliment while Bryant simply shook his head and Penn looked around bemused.

  ‘I bring you the puzzlement I spoke of yesterday,’ she said, standing beside the empty desk. ‘These are the unidentifiables and are neither flesh nor machine. All photographed, examined and tested for DNA. Maybe they help, maybe not but I wouldn’t care less as I am tired and my work here is done.’

  ‘Thank you for assisting at short notice, Doctor A,’ Kim said.

  ‘You are welcome and now I shall leave you in pieces. Must get back to the university as my students are revolting.’

  Kim understood her real meaning and thanked her again for her help as she headed out the door.

  They all huddled around the tray and took a look.

  ‘Oh,’ Kim said, feeling slightly underwhelmed.

  She could make out a few bits of plastic no more than a centimetre wide, a clip that had been flattened and a few pieces of blue fabric.

  She pushed the tray to her left. ‘Here you go, Penn. I know how much you like a puzzle,’ she said. He had been the person to find the missing letters in a paper puzzle that had ultimately led to the team saving the life of Stacey Wood.

  ‘Cheers, boss,’ he said, taking the tray back to his desk.

  ‘Anyway, questions I want answered. Number them, Stace.’

  Stacey put the number 1 at the top of the board.

  ‘How did Duggar know or tempt Amy and Mark to the flat on Hollytree?’

  Kim waited until Stacey was halfway before continuing.

  ‘What’s the significance of the drug injected into Amy, Mark, the Phelpses and Rubik?

  ‘Next question. Where did the book go once it reached the prison? Four, did Duggar meet the Phelps at Winson Green and is that how he chose them? Joel Greene, their son, said they spent a lot of time chatting with other people. Next, why was Duggar so violent with Billie? And finally, who the hell is Rubik?’

  ‘Could Duggar have turned violent because Billie refused to take him back?’ Stacey asked, tapping the marker pen against the board.

  ‘Not sure,’ Kim said. ‘He hadn’t been violent to date and what little Billie did say would indicate he wasn’t violent with her, although he was with her at the time of the attack.’

  Kim shrugged in response to their questioning glances. ‘Yeah, exactly. Annie is going to try and get something more from her this morning.’

  ‘That it, boss?’ Stacey asked, having caught up.

  ‘Another couple of things bothering me,’ she admitted. ‘I’m not comfortable with the relationship between Jenks and Nina. It smells off to me.’

  ‘That a question, boss?’

  Kim shook her head. ‘Just note it on the board.’

  ‘But we’re not changing direction, are we, guv?’ Bryant asked. ‘I mean, Duggar’s definitely our guy, right?’

  Kim glanced at all the questions on the board.

  She nodded. ‘Oh yeah, Duggar’s definitely our guy.’

  One Hundred Eight

  Stacey stared at the board for a good few minutes after the boss and Bryant had left the room.

  ‘Do you ever think about it, Penn?’ Stacey asked.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The crimes and the boss. Putting the two together.’

  He shook his head. ‘Really try not to.’

  ‘I mean there was a book written about her childhood. The physical and mental abuse at the hands of her mother while trying to protect her brother. Being chained to that bloody radiator.’

  ‘I said I try not to think about it,’ he said.

  ‘And then there’s Keith and Erica who took her in for three years and loved her, broke down her walls and—’

  ‘You did hear me say I try not to—’

  ‘And the vicious sexual assault on Billie Styles that—’

  ‘Yeah, I’m really not gonna think about that one, Stace,’ he said, firmly.

  ‘What I’m trying to say is that this vicious bastard is laying out her entire life for everyone to see. Everything she’s tried to keep secret and hidden from…’

  Her words trailed off as she stared at the board.

  Penn followed her gaze. ‘Yeah, which of those questions you wanna make a start on?’

  Stacey frowned as she grabbed her satchel.

  ‘I’ll leave you to get cracking,’ she said.

  Because suddenly Stacey had a few questions of her own.

  One Hundred Nine

  Kim had had many reasons to visit the National Probation Service based at Hope House at Castlegate Way in Dudley and today she found herself sitting across the table from a plump woman with owls dangling from her earlobes. Her salt-and-pepper hair cut was short and severe so that the ear embellishments took centre stage.

  ‘John Duggar,’ Kim said. ‘Can you tell me when you last saw him?’

  ‘Two days ago,’ she answered, and then checked her diary. ‘Around lunchtime.’

  ‘And, how was he?’ she asked.

  ‘Agitated, not quite himself.’

  ‘You know him well?’ Bryant asked.

  She smiled. ‘It’s getting harder,’ she admitted. ‘We have many more to look after than the old days, and I’ve been at this for twenty-six years but yes I know John reasonably well.’

  ‘So, when did you first meet him?’

  ‘About nine years ago. After his second or third spell inside. Gentle giant, I like to call him. Never hurt a fly.’

  Kim pictured Billie in the hospital bed and wasn’t sure she would agree.

  ‘Tell us about him,’ she urged.

  ‘His story isn’t unique; abandoned by his mother and then surrendered to the care system by a grandmother who couldn’t cope with three kids but found enough energy to get to the off-licence for cider.’

  ‘She kept the oldest child,’ Bryant noted.

  ‘Took less looking after than the younger two. And she could help out around the house.’

  ‘She died, you know, the eldest. In a house fire, a few—’

  ‘We know,’ Kim said. ‘And how did John take that?’

  ‘Not well,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘He’d lost touch with his other sister with whom he was placed into care. She was a much calmer kid: quiet, took instruction and got fostered long-term, I believe, but John not so much. He was bullied for a number of reasons, his size, struggled to read and write. The kid was lonely. He wanted someone, anyone. He’d tried to reach out to his eldest sister even though they didn’t know each other and she’d agreed to see him. But she died before they met up.’

  ‘Shit,’ Bryant whispered.

  She offered him a sideways look. Even for her it was difficult enough to remember this was the man trying to kill her. She could do without her colleague losing t
hat focus as well.

  ‘So, when he lost his sister?…’

  ‘It was like he lost hope for anything better. Like everything he’d been chasing was out of reach. He stopped expecting anything good. Until he met Billie.’

  Kim said nothing and waited for her to continue.

  ‘Happiest I’ve ever seen him. It was his first serious relationship and it was like he’d just discovered the secret that everyone else had been keeping. It didn’t last of course, but—’

  ‘But, why didn’t it?’ Kim asked. ‘If he was so happy.’

  ‘He’s in the vacuum, Inspector. His life of petty crime has trapped him into more crime. He’s on a cycle that he’s unlikely to escape.’

  Kim couldn’t work out if this woman was a pessimist or a realist, but she didn’t support to the ‘No hope’ theory that she prayed wasn’t being ascribed to the fresher, younger batches of criminals.

  ‘Despite meeting Billie, he was destined to reoffend. It was only a case of when and for how long Billie would put up with it.’

  ‘So, you’d written them off as a couple before their second date?’ Kim asked, tightly.

  She shrugged. ‘Over twenty years’ experience and I was right, wasn’t I?’

  Kim tried not to react to the triumph in her voice.

  Yes, this man they were discussing hated her with a passion and yes, he was trying to kill her but bloody hell, was there anyone who hadn’t given up on him over the years?

  ‘And even that break-up didn’t make him violent?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘I’m not sure anything would have, officer. He’s not built that way. He’s a bit like the local, loveable village idiot,’ she said. ‘And before you react I’ll explain what I mean. John is a people pleaser. He’s driven by other people’s opinions. He’s easily led and manipulated.’

  Kim’s interest was piqued, remembering what Alison said about his eagerness to belong.

  ‘So, he could be persuaded to act against his nature given the right set of circumstances.’

  The woman thought. ‘John Duggar does not expect to be liked. Not many people have liked him all that much, so I’d say John Duggar could be persuaded to do just about anything by someone who was being nice to him.’

  One Hundred Ten

  Penn finished the email he was typing and glanced over to the Perspex box on the spare desk.

  The boss had delegated the puzzle to him and he was guessing she’d meant when he had nothing better to do, but considering the list of questions on the whiteboard that time wasn’t coming any time soon.

  And yet, there was something about it that demanded his attention. Not least because he was in awe that the mangled cube of man and metal he’d seen just a couple of days ago had been reduced to this. For that, the woman responsible could call him anything she liked.

  Almost against his will he pushed back his chair and moved over to the spare desk.

  He took a moment to assess the contents and pushed aside items he felt could not help him, which were three short pieces of wire, a couple of bent coins that must have been in the victim’s pocket, four buttons and a zip.

  That left three pieces of card, approximately two centimetres square, a clip and three pieces of blue fabric.

  He took these items from the tub and lay them on the desk. He used a pencil to push them around for a better look.

  The blue fabric pieces were slivers approximately 10 cm long and 1 cm wide and ribbed, the fibres woven tightly for strength. He moved them around to see if the frayed edges matched each other like bin bags ripped from a roll. They did not, meaning that pieces of the fabric were missing and therefore the whole had been longer than the 30 cm he had in front of him.

  He pushed them aside and turned his attention to the flattened clip. The mechanism for opening the clip had been broken and the little pincer teeth were jagged and worn. He pushed it aside towards the blue fabric and pulled the three pieces of card closer. He moved them around with his pencil as he had done with the fabric to see if any of the pieces fitted together, but couldn’t find a match.

  All three pieces were plain on one side.

  He looked more closely at each piece individually. The first had a snatch of grey at the top left. To the right he could make out three letters. He grabbed a notepad and wrote down the letters ‘REN’. He put it back and reached for the second. This too had a couple of letters between the tears in the card. He wrote down the letters ‘IC’ and went for the third. On the last piece there were no letters but what looked like part of a white arc that grew thicker as it travelled up and across the paper. It reminded him of an artistic dab of sauce at a fancy restaurant.

  He sat back and looked at what he had. It wasn’t much but it was something and now it was up to him to make it count.

  One Hundred Eleven

  Stacey approached the glass partition. ‘Excuse me, you said it might be a while until someone could speak to me but it’s been almost half an hour since…’

  ‘Officer, when I said a while I meant you might have to come back tomorrow and the next day. This is Children’s Services and we don’t sit around eating pasta salad all day.’

  ‘What if I wanted to report a child in danger?’ Stacey asked, unable to believe getting a quick meeting was so difficult.

  ‘Do you?’ she asked.

  Stacey shook her head.

  ‘Then rest assured that the people you’re here to see are either taking new reports or dealing with existing cases.’

  ‘Who deals with all the old cases?’ Stacey asked. ‘Say from thirty years ago.’

  ‘Well no one,’ she said frowning. ‘Because they wouldn’t be children any more, would they?’

  ‘I mean who looks after the records for old cases,’ Stacey clarified while trying to keep the impatience out of her voice.

  ‘They’re kept in a central archive. All social workers would have access.’

  ‘Would there be a record of who had recently accessed a file?’

  ‘From thirty years ago?’

  Stacey nodded.

  ‘Wouldn’t be electronic, not that old, but personnel have to swipe into the archive room, so there’s a record of who accessed the room but not which records they looked at while they were in there.’

  Damn, Stacey thought, biting her lip.

  As she’d looked at the board with Penn, Stacey had been struck by the level of detail Duggar had gone to in recreating these events. The exact location of the assault, the reference to the pop bottle, the ripped-up five pound note. None of these things had made it into the book because the author hadn’t known. His account had covered the past, the death of Mikey and the couple of years following the boss’s entrance into the care system.

  She doubted very much that these were details the boss would have chosen to share with anyone. Ever. So, she suspected they could only have come from the file.

  She had hoped that someone would be able to log into their mainframe and tell her who had accessed any electronic record for the boss in the last few months and give her a lead she could follow.

  ‘And if that’s what you want to talk to one of the social workers about I’d bring a packed lunch tomorrow. You could be waiting weeks.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. They’re busy, we’re all busy but we don’t keep banging on about it,’ Stacey said, turning away. Her time would definitely be better spent back at the station, answering the boss’s questions on the board.

  ‘Thanks for your time,’ she said, heading to the door. She paused as her phone began to ring.

  ‘Wood,’ she answered.

  ‘Stace, you still in Dudley?’ asked Penn.

  ‘Just leaving. Getting nothing…’

  ‘Can you see a staff member?’

  She turned. The woman was back on the phone. ‘Errr… yeah.’

  ‘Is her identification card white and grey?’

  Stacey moved back towards the glass partition and took a look.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered.

&n
bsp; The woman looked at her questioningly as she continued to speak into the phone.

  ‘Blue lanyard?’ Penn continued.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With the words “Children’s Services” on it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the Dudley Council logo with the arc of white line on—’

  ‘Penn, all yeses now what the?…’

  Her words trailed away as she remembered the contents of the tray brought in by Doctor A.

  ‘Oh shit, you don’t think?…’

  ‘Yep,’ Penn answered.

  ‘I’ll call you back,’ she said, ending the call.

  She knocked on the glass.

  The woman gave her a filthy look before putting down the phone.

  ‘I think it’s time for you—’

  ‘Do you have a staff member off sick or absent?’ Stacey asked as her heart began beating in her chest.

  She hesitated before nodding. ‘Yes, one of our case workers, Ernest Beckett, been absent for a few days. Can’t get hold of him—’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, but can you give me a description?’ Stacey asked, taking out her mobile phone.

  It looked like Rubik was about to get a new name.

  One Hundred Twelve

  ‘Bryant, I gotta be honest, there’s something about this guy not sitting right in my gut.’

  ‘You know, guv, never do I want a cigarette more than when you say things like that.’

  ‘Almost four years, Bryant, remember that,’ she said of his abstinence from the thirty-a-day habit he’d kicked.

  ‘But we’re all agreed that Duggar is our guy. His fingers are in every pie. You think we should ignore that?’

  ‘We can’t ignore anything,’ she said. ‘Even the stuff that points away from him.’

  ‘But nothing has actually pointed away from him. Yeah, he had a shit life and if you like I can show you another hundred or more guys in Winson Green with the same history and background. He’s not unique and I don’t understand the change in your gut—’