Dead Memories: An addictive and gripping crime thriller

by Angela Marsons

He stopped speaking as her phone rang. They would continue this conversation later.

  ‘Stace?’ she answered

  ‘Boss, I’m at Children’s Services in Dudley.’

  ‘Err… why?’ Kim asked. She wasn’t sure of any link from her questions on the board to that particular building.

  ‘The detail, boss,’ Stacey explained.

  Kim listened to her explanation and found herself surprised she hadn’t realised that herself.

  And her colleague wouldn’t be calling if she hadn’t found something.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘There’s a social worker. Early fifties, exact description we got from Doctor A for Rubik. He’s been absent from work for a few days and could easily have had access to your records.’

  ‘You think he passed some detail on to Duggar.’

  ‘I do, boss,’ Stacey said.

  ‘Okay, Stace, try and get me an address for—’

  ‘His name is Ernest Beckett. It’s 17 Wilmslow Avenue in Norton, Stourbridge,’ Stacey answered.

  ‘Stace…’

  ‘Gotta go, I’m being called through. Somebody here wants to talk to me.’

  ‘Okay, but do me one favour when you get back to the office.’

  ‘Yeah, boss.’

  ‘Take the plant from Penn.’

  ‘Will do,’ she said, ending the call with a chuckle.

  ‘Right, Bryant,’ Kim said, with renewed energy. ‘Let’s go see if Ernest Beckett is at home.’

  One Hundred Thirteen

  Stacey followed the lanky, thin man through a general office to a room at the back. The space wasn’t personalised and she guessed it was a meeting room used by all.

  ‘May I know of your interest in Mr Beckett?’ he asked gravely.

  Stacey hesitated before answering. In the short space of half an hour she’d gone from waiting in the outer office in Siberia for the scrap of someone’s time to find out about the protocols of accessing information in an old file, to being escorted into the nucleus of the operation by Mr Tweedy, Team Leader. But only once she’d hinted at a link to Ernest Beckett.

  This man wanted something from her and he wanted it quick.

  She was in no rush.

  ‘Mr Tweedy, I need to know if Mr Beckett accessed a particular file I told your receptionist about. The one concerning a girl called Kimberly Stone. Until I have that information I’m unable to share any knowledge that—’

  ‘Yes, officer, we have reason to believe he accessed it. He entered the archive room two months ago.’

  ‘Is there any way of knowing what he went in there for?’

  ‘Only two people have been in since. And one of them was me. It’s not a room we use often. The files in there are very old.’

  ‘So, why are you so sure he accessed the record that I mentioned?’ she asked, confused. They were talking thousands of files, surely.

  ‘Because the records are no longer there,’ he said, quietly.

  ‘He took the whole file?’ she asked.

  He nodded. Oh, she could not count the levels of shit this man was in and about that she couldn’t give a flying fig. Her boss’s entire childhood was in that file and it was no longer contained in a safe environment. Away from prying eyes and hungry gossipmongers. If that file got into the wrong hands…

  Okay, she needed to leave right now.

  She pushed back her chair and stood.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Tweedy protested. ‘You haven’t told me what link you have to Ernest Beckett.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but as it’s part of an active investigation, I’m unable to share the details.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘Can you at least tell me if you have him in custody?’

  Stacey considered his question and nodded. They had most of him in custody.

  ‘Can you give me any idea of the nature of the charges against him?’

  Why was the man assuming that he was a suspect in something?

  ‘You seem awfully nervous about our dealings with Mr Beckett,’ she observed.

  ‘I just need to know something, officer. I need to know if your business is linked to a complaint received about Mr Beckett this week. A very serious complaint indeed.’

  One Hundred Fourteen

  ‘There’s a definite smell,’ Kim said, raising her head from the letterbox. ‘I don’t think it’s a body but it’s not Chanel N°5 either.’

  ‘You reckon he’s our guy in the cube?’ Bryant asked, looking around.

  Kim knew what he was doing and followed. They both smiled at the row of three plant pots beneath the front window.

  ‘Which one?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘Far right,’ she said, without hesitation.

  ‘I say middle,’ he smirked.

  She crossed her arms while he did the honours. First, he lifted the left. Nothing. He lifted the middle and groaned. He lifted the far right and the metal sparkled up at him.

  ‘How do you do that?’ he asked, shaking his head and retrieving the key.

  ‘The middle is too obvious. Everyone would try that first.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Bryant mumbled.

  ‘The left is too close to the actual door, which is too close for the subconscious, so the only one remaining is the one on the right. Simples,’ she said as he opened the door.

  ‘Jeez, you’re right about the smell,’ he said, pulling a face.

  She leaned down and picked up the small pile of post on the floor as her phone began to ring.

  She took out her phone and groaned. ‘Frost, get the message. I can’t speak to you. Boss’s instructions,’ she shouted at the screen before cutting off the call.

  ‘You being the guv, I’ll let you check out the kitchen and I’ll do the lounge.’

  ‘Cheers,’ she said, pretty sure that’s where the smell was coming from.

  ‘Jesus,’ she said to herself as she entered the space.

  Ernest Beckett was clearly a man who cleaned and tidied only when he’d run out of things to use.

  The sink and surrounding area was awash with plates, bowls, cups and glasses still containing leftover food and drink. A few flies rose from the carnage as she approached. They hovered frantically before heading towards an area of the work surface where the man had clearly been preparing himself a snack. A block of cheese had been left out in the path of direct sunlight next to the kettle that was spottled with grease stains.

  A tub of margarine sat beside a dirty knife.

  To leave everything out had to mean the guy had left in a rush but there were no signs of a struggle. The door had been locked and a spare key in its normal place.

  ‘Never gonna win cleaner of the year,’ Bryant said, joining her.

  He glanced at the mess by the sink as he swatted away a fly from in front of his face.

  ‘And there’s more of that upstairs on his bedside cabinet.’

  ‘Ugh,’ Kim said.

  ‘Wife won’t even let me take a slice of toast to bed,’ he moaned.

  ‘Surprising what some men get up to when left to their own devices.’

  ‘You know, I did it once,’ Bryant said, opening and closing cupboard doors. ‘Wife went with her sister to a weekend spa in Cheshire. Remember the film Home Alone where Macaulay Culkin is tearing round the house doing whatever he wants? That was me that was. Spent all day Saturday in my pyjamas, ate what I wanted, drank what I wanted, downloaded every mindless action movie I could find.’

  ‘Turned into a ten-year-old boy,’ she observed.

  ‘Exactly that, but by the next morning I was over it and spent Sunday cleaning up the evidence. She still knew I’d had toast in the bed, though.’

  ‘Your missus sounds like a better detective than—’

  ‘And I’m gonna stop you saying something right there that you can’t unsay, guv.’

  ‘So, what’s this tell us about the man?’

  ‘Tells us he either didn’t care or had stopped seeing the mess around him,’ Bryant answered. ‘Also tells us he
probably wasn’t expecting any visitors.’

  ‘Doesn’t tell us if he’s the man in the car,’ Kim grumbled.

  ‘No, but the computer in the lounge might.’

  ‘Bryant, we could have been working on…’

  ‘Relax,’ he said, smirking at her. ‘Stacey and Mitch are already on their way, so don’t even think of touching it until they get here.’

  One Hundred Fifteen

  ‘Really, boss?’ Stacey asked, looking at her, then at Mitch and Bryant and then back at the table.

  The laptop had been logged and bagged by Mitch but he’d expertly done it so that the computer was on, open and the keys could be seen through the plastic.

  ‘Come on, Stace, you’ve worked in tougher conditions than this,’ Kim said, standing behind her.

  ‘Yeah, working through a giant condom is not my normal working day,’ she said, turning to the three of them looking over her shoulder. ‘And a little space, please.’

  They all backed away as Stacey began to type.

  ‘I think I know what I’m going to find,’ Stacey said, as Kim saw the screen flash from one back-end menu to another. Kim was constantly amazed at Stacey’s ability to know exactly what she was looking at. It reminded her of the back corridors at an arena. Service areas and dark passageways that operated behind the scenes. Only the people that knew it well could find their way around.

  ‘You wanna share?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘If I did I would’ve,’ she said. ‘What I’m really interested in is how they—’

  Stacey stopped speaking and Kim knew better than to push her. She wasn’t really talking to them but more to herself.

  ‘I’m gonna head off,’ Mitch said, collecting up his things. ‘Let me know what you want doing with the rest of this place.’

  ‘Will do,’ Kim said. She’d already explained they had no positive identification on whether this guy was the man in the car.

  For all they knew the homeowner could walk in any minute with a perfectly reasonable explanation for his absence from work and from his home.

  Although after what Stacey had told her about the missing file she doubted that scenario very much.

  ‘Wanna take a good look for it?’ Bryant asked, thinking the same as her.

  She shook her head. ‘No point. If Ernest Beckett took my file it wasn’t for some late-night reading. He could have read it at work without risking his job and career. I reckon he got it for someone.’

  ‘I’d agree with that,’ Stacey said.

  They both ignored her.

  ‘Yeah, I am actually talking to you guys, now,’ Stacey said, with amusement.

  They both moved closer to the dining table.

  ‘Okay, as I thought. This file here is full of kiddie porn. Over three thousand images to be exact.’

  ‘Bastard,’ Bryant said. And Kim hoped that if it was Ernest Beckett mangled in the metal that he’d been alive at the time.

  ‘Not so fast,’ Stacey said, hovering her mouse over one short line of data amongst the thousands.

  ‘That is the only image that’s been viewed.’

  ‘Why?’ Kim asked, surprised. ‘Not normal behaviour for a paedophile.’

  ‘To check, I think,’ Stacey said. ‘Because I don’t think he downloaded them. Not intentionally anyway. They all landed on his computer on the same day. Nothing before and nothing since. He accessed one single image as though making sure that’s what they were.’

  ‘Blackmail?’ Kim asked.

  ‘Looks like it. I’ve got the email the attachment was embedded in. It came as a chance to win a holiday. Pretty poor and amateurish but to the naked eye convincing enough; but as soon as he pressed on the link to enter the images downloaded.’

  ‘I’m thinking there must have been some kind of follow-up message somewhere to tell him what to do, so I’ll carry on going through his emails and stuff.’

  ‘And you say there was a complaint at work?’

  Stacey nodded. ‘An anonymous letter stating he’d acted inappropriately with one of his cases.’

  ‘But if he’d done everything they wanted, why do that anyway?’ Bryant asked. ‘He got them the file, handed it over so…’

  ‘Unless he said no. Maybe he had some sudden rush of conscience and said he was going to the police,’ Bryant said.

  ‘Could be,’ Kim agreed, taking out her phone.

  She took the card from her pocket that she’d grabbed earlier and called the number.

  The probation officer for John Duggar answered on the second ring.

  Kim offered her a brief outline of what they’d found and then asked the all-important question. There was no hesitation from the woman in answering.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ she said. ‘John Duggar would not be remotely capable of executing anything near what you’ve described.’

  Yes, that was exactly what she’d thought.

  ‘But I think he’d know a man who could.’

  One Hundred Sixteen

  Bryant ended the call and turned to her.

  ‘Yep, Officer Gennard confirmed that Duggar’s cellmate for five months was one Derek Lowry who was inside for cyber theft and selling on stolen identities. Could easily have cooked up the message with the images imbedded.’

  ‘Great, you get an address?’

  Bryant nodded. ‘As of three days ago he was residing at HMP Bristol after breaking his parole.’

  ‘But that’s for young adult and…’

  ‘The kid is seventeen years old.’

  ‘Got it,’ Stacey said, causing them both to turn.

  ‘Email came the day after the download message. Here it is.’

  Kim read it over her shoulder.

  Mr Beckett.

  * * *

  Please read this carefully. This is not junk mail and your reputation and career rely on you taking this message seriously and following the instructions below to the letter.

  * * *

  At 10.05 a.m. yesterday you downloaded thousands of images containing child pornography to your computer. You will find them in the photographs folder on your directory in a subfolder called Childs Play. If you try to delete them they will still leave a trace.

  * * *

  The police and your employers will be contacted if you do not do the following:

  * * *

  Obtain the file of Kimberly Stone who entered the care system on 15 June 1988

  * * *

  Deposit the file in the yellow grit bin on Llewellyn Avenue, Lower Gornal at 11 p.m. on Friday night.

  Return home and delete this message.

  * * *

  Any variation on these instructions will prompt an immediate complaint and call to the police.

  * * *

  ‘Jesus,’ Kim said. ‘If only he’d contacted us we could have stopped this. We could have had them right there and then.’

  ‘Should we go and check out the location stated?’

  ‘Don’t need to,’ Kim said. ‘It was the street of foster family number one.’

  ‘But why?…’

  ‘Because he knew, Bryant. He knew we’d follow this trail. It’s just one more slap in the face for me,’ she snarled, pacing the room. ‘I swear to God, just one more fucking—’

  She stopped speaking as her phone began to ring.

  ‘Keats,’ she snapped into the phone, catching the exchange of expression between her two colleagues.

  ‘Well, if you were pissed off before I called,’ he said, ‘you’re going to be even more irate by the time I’ve finished. Come meet me at the entrance to Netherton Tunnel and I’ll show you why.’

  One Hundred Seventeen

  Netherton Tunnel opened in August 1858 and was the last major canal tunnel to be built in Britain during the canal age. Built with a width of 27 feet it allowed two-way working of narrowboats with towpaths running through it.

  Kim remembered Keith bringing her for a walk through the tunnel on a bright Sunday afternoon, guiding her into the darkness and t
hen pointing out the speck of light that signalled the other end over 9,000 feet away.

  As they travelled towards it, he would point out the chainage markers on the eastern wall of the tunnel and talk to her of horse-drawn narrowboats. She would try to ignore the drips that fell from the vents called ‘pepper pots’ on the roof of the tunnel and focus on how exciting he made it sound.

  Kim pulled herself back to the present. There were many emotions she should be feeling, but her first emotion as she looked down at the body of John Duggar was sadness.

  This guy had not had the best start in life and fate seemed to have just dealt him one blow after another. His height, background and illiteracy had all made him a target to the insecure and cruel. She knew at times there’d been hope. His job, his relationship with Billie had all been opportunities for him to change his life.

  ‘You been looking for this guy, Inspector?’ Keats asked, standing up.

  She nodded. ‘Yeah, suspect in a lot of what’s happened this week.’

  ‘Well, if it’s anything that’s happened since Wednesday night it wasn’t him because he’s been dead for approximately thirty-six hours.’

  ‘And he’s only just been found?’ Kim asked.

  ‘He was back there,’ Keats nodded towards the side of the tunnel mouth. ‘Covered in foliage but some guy’s retriever came back with one of his shoes and the body was spotted. Single stab wound to the heart by the looks of it.’

  Kim stepped back and took a good look. Whether or not he liked to fight this would have been a hard man to fell and yet she could see no defensive wounds on his hands or arms.

  ‘Got any more for me, Keats?’ she asked.

  ‘Judging by the blood loss back there he hasn’t been moved.’

  Yeah, cos that would have taken a small army, she thought.