She viewed herself in the full-length mirror, a donation from Uncle Cedric. Like most things in her new flat, it had come from either members of the family or the wider Nigerian community in and around Dudley. That was how smaller communities worked, like one big family. She remembered when her father had been made redundant from his printing press job. The news had been whispered around the streets of Dudley and each night a bag or box of groceries and essentials had been left at the front door until he had found work again. No names, no need for thanks or repayment. Stacey was proud of her Nigerian heritage even though she had never stepped foot outside England and was equally proud to be British.
She took a deep breath to expel the anxiety caused by all the change in her life that seemed to have come at once.
Just one week after receiving the keys to her new flat she’d passed the detective constable exam and right now it felt as though she was living someone else’s life. Just one month ago she was working eight-hour shifts in uniform and then going home to a freshly cooked meal from her mum.
Yes, she had wanted that independence. As a woman just starting out in her career she’d realised that she needed to rely on the protective support of her parents a little bit less.
She had envisioned independence as euphoric freedom. Evenings of wine and experimental cooking with friends.
It wasn’t until she’d moved out that she’d realised that she actually didn’t have that many friends. She had police colleagues with whom she’d worked for the last few years who had become surprisingly distant since she’d passed the detective exam.
In the stillness of her own home she realised just how many hours she spent online in the fantasy land of World of Warcraft.
At home, with her parents fussing around she had felt it was an escape, a diversion from the job. Sitting alone in her flat with nothing else around her she realised it had become her entire social life.
She pushed the thought away. That was for another day.
Today, her immediate problem centred on whether she was dressed appropriately for her first day. New detective, new team, new boss. And the new just kept on coming.
Eventually she had settled for cream slacks, one-inch-high court shoes and a plain white long-sleeved shirt. She had seen members of CID in all kinds of attire: power suits, mismatched suits, jeans, chinos. She’d never worn a power suit in her life and didn’t intend to start now, although her father’s words burned in her brain.
‘I know, Dad,’ she whispered to her own reflection. ‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression.’
And she so desperately wanted to make a good first impression, she admitted to herself.
Despite trying to shake it off over the years she knew she was a people pleaser. She knew she wanted people to like her as well as respect her capabilities, and that trait had accompanied her since little Courtney Jackson had refused to sit beside her on her first day at school.
She had wondered what she could do to make the little girl more comfortable. She had smiled as widely as she could manage. She had pulled her chair further to the left to give Courtney more room. She had offered the girl the first toy from the toy box and in some way or another she’d been doing the same ever since.
She surveyed her appearance once more before reaching for her satchel, and resisted the urge to send a picture of herself to the new phone she’d bought her mum, to check she’d got her appearance just right.
Twenty-two-year-old detective constables didn’t do that.
She expelled another deep sigh as she locked the door to the flat that did not yet feel like home.
She stretched the tension from her jaw by smiling widely.
Folks warmed quickly to people who smiled.
Chapter Seven
Kim appraised the set-up of the squad room from the glass partitioned bowl at the far right corner of the room. Her office; clearly erected for someone who liked to observe their team from behind some kind of barrier.
On the other side of the glass were four desks, two sets of two, facing each other with a walkway through the middle of the office that led from the door to a row of cupboards supporting a printer and a filthy looking kettle. She’d rather drink from the slushy puddle outside than from that. Due to her need for coffee to get through the day that was a situation that would be remedied at the earliest opportunity.
Her thoughts turned to the imminent arrival of her team. She wondered who they were and where they had come from. Were any of them difficult to work with? Had they all been the broken cog in otherwise well-oiled teams? Was DCI Woodward throwing a bunch of bad eggs into one basket?
She was saved any further ruminations as a figure appeared in the doorway.
The man rose up to around six feet high wearing a dark suit, blue tie and beige overcoat.
She left the bowl to greet him and realised that he reminded her of someone but she couldn’t think who.
‘DS Bryant,’ he said, offering his hand.
She shook it briefly. ‘And I bought coffee, Marm,’ he said, pleasantly while stating the obvious.
‘Good call on the coffee but points lost on the Marm,’ she said, lifting the lid on one of the drinks.
‘Duly noted and they’re all flat whites,’ he said, looking around. ‘Wasn’t sure how many of us there were…’
‘Another two I’m told,’ Kim answered, taking one of the four cardboard cups. Another good call on the number. ‘And guv or boss will be fine,’ she clarified.
An uneasy silence dropped between them and Kim remembered what DCI Woodward had said about getting to know her team. Trouble was there was nothing she cared to know. How he could do his job would become evident.
It was going to be a long bloody day.
She was saved from trying to think of an appropriate question to ask by a second new face at the door.
‘Hi, is this CID?’ asked the black woman with a satchel crossed over her frontage.
Kim nodded, as the woman stepped in with a wide smile and an outstretched hand.
‘I’m Stacey Wood, police const… I mean detective constable, and I’ve been assigned to this team.’
Kim introduced herself, and Bryant rushed forward to take her hand and give his own name.
She appeared reassured by his presence and welcoming demeanour. Kim could tell she hadn’t been a detective long as she’d almost introduced herself under her old rank.
‘Well, pick your desks, folks,’ Kim said, taking a sip of her drink.
Bryant placed his overcoat on the back of the door and then took the desk closest to the bowl, with his back to it.
Stacey removed her satchel and took the one across the aisle from him and so they were both facing the door.
Kim idly wondered at DCI Woodward’s logic at giving her two detectives at opposing ends of the career ladder. It would be just her luck that she had one who knew nothing and another who didn’t want to do anything except twiddle his thumbs right up to retirement.
She found herself praying for something in her last team member. Just as another face appeared at the door.
Her heart sank. Never touching the stuff, she could smell the alcohol on him and it wasn’t from his aftershave.
Before speaking his eyes swept the room dismissively and rested on her. She caught the quick up and down and she did the same thing.
What she noted immediately was the navy trousers crumpled at the knees and the crotch. The light blue shirt had a mark to the right of his bright pink spotted tie; the knot of which appeared to be keeping a respectful distance from his open shirt collar.
And if he’d shaved he’d done it in the dark. Only his dark brown hair appeared to have turned up ready for work.
Kim knew she was seeing the Sunday night version of the man and not the Monday morning model.
He slapped his right hand against his temple in a mock salute and smiled.
‘Detective Sergeant Dawson reporting for duty, Marm.’
She saw Bryant’s cringe and
shake of the head from the corner of her eye, and the detective constable didn’t seem to know where to look.
Aah, confidence. She liked that in a person, provided it was substantiated by ability and results and that it didn’t cross the line into arrogance.
‘Not Marm, thank you,’ she said, calmly. ‘And pick a desk.’
Unsurprisingly he chose the one that he was closest to, which was nearest to the door and faced Stacey.
She took another sip of coffee as the other two introduced themselves across the room.
She noted that the young detective sergeant took a drink from the cardboard tray without either a request or an acknowledgment. And the detective constable had taken nothing.
‘Okay,’ she said, perching on the edge of the spare desk, ‘right now, we appear to have no active…’
Her words trailed away as a phone rang. They all looked around.
‘It’s me,’ said Bryant, reaching for the handset.
He listened, eyebrows raised and thanked the caller before replacing the receiver.
‘Looks like we have got a case after all. Body found on the west side of the Clent Hills.’
She gauged their facial reactions as she stood. Bryant – expectant and alert. Stacey – fearful. Dawson – excited and almost salivating.
‘Who’s going, guv?’ Bryant asked.
‘Well, seeing as I barely know your names yet, never mind any of your strengths and weaknesses, I guess we’ll all go.’
Bryant reached for the receiver.
‘Shall I call for a squad car to take?…’
‘No one here drives a car?’ she asked, looking around. Squad cars had better things to do than ferry detectives around.
Stacey shook her head.
Dawson looked horrified.
‘Astra Estate if that’s any good?’ Bryant offered.
Hardly a muscle car that was going to get them there in record time, but it had four wheels and a roof unlike her mode of transport.
‘Go fire it up then,’ she said.
Bryant headed for his jacket, and Stacey followed closely behind.
Her own placement in the doorway blocked DS Dawson’s exit.
‘Not you,’ she said, watching the anticipation fade from his eyes.
‘Go home, get ready for work properly and meet us up there.’
As she headed out of the office she couldn’t help wondering if she’d just made enemy number one. And if so, that was a record.
Even for her.
Chapter Eight
Kim found her right foot pressing down on an imaginary accelerator in the passenger foot well of the Astra Estate. Oh, how she wished he had dual controls, but he’d made sure to observe every speed limit, red light and zebra crossing en route. It wasn’t as if they had a crime scene to get to.
Neither he nor Stacey had asked as to the whereabouts of the younger DS when she’d reached the car and told Bryant to drive.
The four-mile journey to Clent was made in silence, and given the speed her colleague had driven she was surprised when they reached the site before sunset, which in the short days of mid-December never seemed that far away.
The Clent Hills range consisted of Wychbury Hill, Clent Hill and Walton Hill continuing towards Romsley, attracting approximately a million visitors per year.
They had arrived at Clent Hill, the most popular hillwalking summit in the range and had been told to access the climb from Nimmings car park off Hagley Wood Lane.
She got out of the car, glad to be away from the magnetic light-up Rudolph the Reindeer on DS Bryant’s dashboard before the damn thing gave her some kind of seizure.
She made her way through three squad cars, an ambulance and the pathologist van all parked close to the visitor centre and café not yet open. Two police officers were guiding dog walkers back towards their cars.
She followed the trail of yellow jackets as though they were breadcrumbs dropped around the visitor centre and across an open field with picnic benches. Beyond which an officer stood at the end of the path that led into a wooded area.
Inside, the path was more rustic and trodden than originally planned. It wound around fallen trees that had developed into an unofficial playground. Right at the centre was more high-visibility tape than a builder’s construction site.
A diminutive man stepped away from the crowd and approached her. She guessed him to be mid-fifties behind his pointy brown beard.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, peering over the top of his glasses.
She held up her warrant card. ‘Same question.’
‘Joseph Keats, Pathologist.’
‘ID?’ she asked.
‘Really, Inspector?’ he replied, meeting her gaze. She didn’t blink or look away. He opened his jacket to reveal the lanyard around his neck.
‘Where’s Tony?’ she asked of the easy-going, friendly white-bearded man she’d dealt with in the past.
‘Retired,’ he answered, buttoning up his jacket.
Oh, she hadn’t even known he’d been close.
‘And in case you’re interested I’ve transferred from South Staffs, but I’m sure I’m not the person you’ve rushed here to see.’
Rushed, not so much, she thought glancing back at her new colleague.
She made to step forward when the man blocked her path.
‘Not without these you don’t,’ he said, holding out shoe coverings. He looked behind her and reached for more.
All three of them donned the footwear to avoid contamination.
‘Happy now?’ she asked, offering the pathologist a stern look.
‘Satisfied would be more appropriate,’ he said, leading the way.
The sea of white tech suits parted.
‘Bloody hell,’ she said.
‘Oh my God,’ Bryant offered.
And Stacey Wood simply gasped out loud.
‘Yes, quite,’ Keats added. ‘Although not the worst attempt I’ve seen in recent years.’
Kim looked down at the naked body of a man in his late-twenties. His skinny frame was milky white from head to toe. His legs were open wide and staked to the ground at the ankles by oversize nails. His arms were stretched wide from his hairless chest and staked into the ground at the wrists.
She counted fifteen stab wounds around the body, not deep enough to cause severe blood loss but enough to inflict pain.
She suspected those wounds had been a warm up for the main event; a bloody mess of flesh and skin at his centre where his genitals had once been.
She stared at the wound for just a minute, feeling the rage that must have been present to inflict such a vicious attack not only on the genitals but all over the body.
What did you do to deserve this, matey? she thought to herself.
‘Mugging gone wrong?’ Bryant asked, drily.
‘Well, there’s no wallet,’ Keats retorted, with a half-smile.
She hadn’t received a half-smile. What did Bryant have that she did not? The question didn’t stay in her mind for long because she didn’t much care.
‘In fact, there’s nothing left except the body,’ Keats continued. ‘No phone, no money, no clothes. Nothing.’
Kim paused for a moment, working through the possibilities of the pathologist’s words.
She knew that some killers would take an item from a crime scene as a keepsake. Something onto which they imprinted the memory of the event to relive it over and over. That was more common with sexually motivated killings and the killer normally took one item, not the whole lot.
The killer might also have been concerned that they’d left DNA or trace evidence on the clothing or items, but she’d never seen a victim stripped of every single item.
The word stripped stayed in her mind. Stripped of everything: clothing, belongings, possessions, pride, life.
She continued her walk around the body taking in every limb position, every detail to keep the scene fresh in her mind until the photographs came through.
She noted the s
wallow tattoo on his left arm. She noted the dirt caking his fingernails telling her that death had not come quickly, despite the fact his throat had been cut.
And not very tidily either. She frowned at the marks on the flesh from the tip of the blade. And then peered down at the wound more closely.
Keats was watching her intently: Bryant was following her around the body and Stacey still had one hand covering her mouth. She was learning more about her new team with every passing minute.
‘Stacey, go back to the car and point Dawson in the right direction when he finally gets here.’
The detective constable nodded gratefully and left the area.
Even Kim had to admit that this was one hell of a gruesome scene to view on your first day in the job.
‘You see that there?’ she said to her left-hand side.
Bryant looked to where she was pointing. To what she had thought was simply the dark stain of blood beneath his neck. But it wasn’t red. It was black, like soil.
As though she could see through his throat to the ground.
She looked towards the pathologist. ‘Has this man’s head been removed?’
Keats nodded slowly.
‘Yes, I’m afraid to say that this poor fellow was beheaded.’
Chapter Nine
Kim just wanted an approximate time of death and another look at the tattoo before heading away from the crime scene when DS Dawson put in an appearance, looking more like she would have expected.
The suit was fresh, the shirt was clean, the tie was more subdued and the face was shaven.
He looked at her expectantly. She said and offered nothing. She was not into congratulating someone for turning up to work appropriately attired.
She was more impressed that his younger colleague had chosen to walk back with him and take another look at the scene.
‘You got a close-up of that tattoo?’ Kim asked the photographer.
He nodded but she took one with her mobile phone anyway. There was something familiar about it.
‘Well, he got his dick handed to him on a—’
‘Time of death, Keats?’ Kim asked, cutting off Dawson’s smart-arse comment. She was all for gallows humour. It often kept people in their profession sane, but there was a golden rule: it had to be funny and not just inane.
First Blood: A completely gripping mystery thriller (A Detective Kim Stone Novel) Page 3