Kim watched out the corner of her eye as the constable’s fingers flew over the keyboard. Her eyes were focussed and her body hunched forward. Clearly the officer had the start of a fire in the pit of her belly, but the intensity of her stare, her concentration told Kim where both the skills and passion of this detective lay.
‘Permission to speak freely, boss,’ Stacey said, as Bryant entered the room with two coffees and a bottle of diet cola.
‘How did you know that’s all I drink?’ Stacey asked, wide-eyed.
Bryant smiled at her. ‘Well, it could be that my super power is that I’m psychic or it could be the empty can in the bin that wasn’t there this morning.’
Stacey smiled her thanks.
‘Speak, Stacey,’ Kim instructed. ‘And this isn’t the army. You don’t have to ask.’
‘Okay, I’m feeling there’s something not quite right here.’
‘Go on,’ Kim said, wondering if the constable could put into words the feeling that had been dogging her since they’d learned his identity.
‘For a single man in his twenties it’s like we’re only getting part of the story, half the man. I can only find him with a half-hearted account with just one weird post. This computer ay even got Facebook on it.’
‘Could do it from his phone,’ Bryant observed.
Stacey nodded her understanding. ‘I get that but if this is his only computer he literally has no life at all. We all like easy access to everything: on our phones, computers, tablets. I have everything loaded on ’em all. He doesn’t even have his emails hooked up to this computer and there’s no search history at all.’
‘Deleted?’ Kim asked.
Stacey shook her head. ‘Still leaves a trace.’
‘Is the computer new?’ Bryant asked. ‘Perhaps he’s in the process of switching stuff over.’
‘He’s had this laptop for eighteen months.’
Kim sighed heavily. The constable had, in fact, located the unease in her stomach.
‘Ten hours on and we know very little about our victim, except that apparently he was not a very nice man,’ she said, quoting the lady at Wing Sun.
‘All I’ve found is this,’ Stacey said, returning to her own computer and turning the screen.
Kim frowned at the one-word post on Facebook.
‘What the hell does that mean?’
Stacey shrugged.
‘Okay,’ she said, checking her watch. ‘Get into that tomorrow and the phone company but we’ll call it a night. It’s been one hell of a first day,’ she said, fully aware that she was addressing only two thirds of her entire team.
His absence had better be worth it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kim turned the Ninja left as she headed out of the station car park.
She knew full well that she was on borrowed time in the mid-December weather and that she would have to bench it and use the ten-year-old Golf that sat on her drive. But every day was like a gift of the freedom to be herself.
She tried to put her thoughts of the day behind her and just enjoy the feel of the bike obeying her commands.
That thought led her straight to DS Dawson, appreciating the irony that the officer she’d seen the least had occupied her thoughts the most. A part of her was impressed he’d had the gumption to do what he had. But that wasn’t the biggest part of her. That larger portion was pissed off that he’d been unable to follow her instructions or assist his colleague once the workload had increased.
You couldn’t always force someone to be a team player and she sensed he was an ambitious young man, but his career aspirations were in serious jeopardy if he thought he was going to treat her like a mug.
She hadn’t voiced any of her aggravation, because he would be dealt with and she would do it in her own way, in her own time.
Her thoughts inevitably turned to their victim, Luke Fenton, who had been killed and tortured in the most horrific manner, and all they knew was that he wasn’t a very nice man because he’d stiffed the local Chinese. Somehow she knew that was not going to help them find his killer.
How was there so little of his life imprinted on the computer?
Suddenly she thought about her Golf, sitting on the driveway, used for nothing more than the odd few bad weather days.
Horses for courses.
She approached the next traffic island and rode all around it.
Home could wait. There was somewhere else she needed to go.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dawson checked his watch for the third time in as many minutes. He knew he was cutting it fine to make his date with Lou. He had to get back from the West Mids Police Forensic Department at Ridgepoint House in Birmingham, and after all the effort he’d gone to secure a bed for the night he didn’t want to have to text and say he was going to be late. Something told him that would lead to another night spent in the car.
He took out his phone and checked it. He’d been expecting a call from the boss for hours, had almost been hoping for it. He had his answers all ready. His explanation of the sudden idea he’d had about trying to trace the origin of the nails used to pin their victim down. Hell, he’d even had an insincere apology waiting in the wings in response to the lecture he’d been expecting. He’d wanted to bait her into a reaction, had wanted to show her that he wasn’t to be controlled, that he was an independent thinker. He had wanted to give her something to think about, but now all he could do was wonder about her silence.
As the tech he’d been waiting on finally gave him the thumbs up he couldn’t help wondering who was playing who.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kim arrived back at Luke Fenton’s property just before 7 p.m.
Roy greeted her in the hallway.
‘Quite the exciting search we’ve got going on here, Inspector,’ he said, telling her they’d found nothing of interest. ‘So, what brings you back?’
‘Just a hunch,’ she said, walking into the kitchen.
Horses for courses.
‘You do know we’re not done yet and you could have just called and…’
‘Ssshh… give me a minute,’ she said, standing in the middle of the kitchen.
This was the room in which they’d seen the most signs of life.
‘What exactly are you looking?…’
‘That wasn’t a minute,’ she said, glancing at the tea-stained counter and the film of dust that covered most surfaces.
She walked over to the chair that their victim had used to flick through the car magazine. She sat down, noting the burn rings all in the same area of the table.
She looked around the room from this angle, noting the dust on the shelves, on top of the cooker hob, on the oven door handle.
Her eyes fell to the utility drawer beneath the oven, used for storing pots and pans.
No dust.
Roy continued to watch her from the doorway, glancing at his watch.
She pushed back the chair and took the three steps to the cooker.
She opened the bottom drawer and found the missing part of the puzzle.
A second laptop computer.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was almost eight when Kim pulled the Ninja into the garage and closed the shutter.
The thirteen-hour day had stretched into the middle of next week, or so it felt.
She struggled to believe it had been only that morning that she’d left the house with no team and no case. And now she had both.
She switched on the percolator before removing her jacket. It was a job she did every morning, prepare the coffee machine for her return. She knew she’d down the pot, whatever the time.
She didn’t bother to switch on the TV or the radio. She’d never needed additional sounds to fill the house. And she didn’t plan on spending too long in the living room anyway.
A coffee at the breakfast bar followed by a shower and change and then she’d be headed into the garage to work on the explosion of bike parts that would eventually turn into a f
ully restored 1951 Triumph Thunderbird.
It was a passion she had adopted from foster family four. A middle-aged couple called Keith and Erica who had no children of their own.
From the age of ten to thirteen she had known how it had felt to be part of a family. To be surrounded by love. They had not tried to fix her after the trauma of her first six years. They had not tried to repair the break in her heart from the loss of her twin brother. They had not tried to get her to relive the pain of living with a paranoid schizophrenic intent on killing one of her own children. And succeeding when he was six years old.
They had not tried to wipe away the children’s home she’d been sent to, or erase the three foster homes that had come before them. They had simply loved her like their own, before being killed in a motorway pile-up just after her thirteenth birthday.
They had given her love, affection, a sense of worth, security and a love of bikes both old and new.
Working on the Triumph held the power to erase the stresses of the day. If her hand was holding a screwdriver, ratchet or spanner she was focussed on putting together the jigsaw of parts. Except she wasn’t sure that tonight it was going to unwind her.
Her brain wanted to chew over the events of the day. It wanted to work through all the data.
From the second she’d arrived at the horrific crime scene she had been intrigued as to what this man had done to deserve such hatred and they had found out nothing. Sure, the lady at the Chinese takeaway wasn’t over keen, but stiffing them on a bill and being rude wasn’t usually motivation for beheading and genital mutilation.
Only at the last second had they found the second computer, and whatever was on there was going to tell them something on the man himself.
Roy had arranged to have it sent straight into the lab but she was guessing no work would begin on it until tomorrow. Once she had the second case from Wolverhampton they could start looking for links between the two of them. If she had her way, she’d be heading towards Wolverhampton right now to demand the case files, but she did understand that processes had to be followed. And she wasn’t all that popular at the Wolves station anyway.
Her thoughts turned to her team.
There was something instantly likeable about DS Bryant. His height and demeanour screamed solid and dependable. There was a calm friendliness about him which put people at ease. An asset she would probably use exhaustively for the duration of this case, to compensate for her own shortcomings in the personable department.
Stacey Wood was keen and constantly smiling. Kim wondered how long it would be until that stopped. Soon, she hoped, because the woman was trying to please too much, even in the face of a corker of a first case. The crime scene had winded her but she’d chosen to come back. Kim liked that she had spent most of the day working alone without complaining while her colleague was shirking, and Kim respected that, but she had no intention of allowing it to continue. But the real passion, the moments when the false, appeasing smile had dropped from her face had been when she’d been busy at the computer.
And DS Dawson. Where did she even start? She’d met many Dawsons during her career. He was ambitious and not necessarily for the right reasons. Dawson wanted attention; he wanted reactions. He wanted to rebel against his new boss. She got it but she wasn’t going to take it.
All she had right now were opinions, observations of her team based on one day of work.
It wasn’t enough.
She switched on her laptop to find out more.
For tonight the Triumph would have to wait.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kim was ready and waiting as the team filed into the squad room.
She was unsurprised to see Dawson trail in last. A quick appraisal told her he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, but he at least appeared clean and had shaved. The stench of a brewery hadn’t followed him in today, which was surely an improvement from the day before.
To her eye he appeared more subdued. His eyes met hers expectantly.
Oh, it appeared he was still awaiting her reaction from yesterday.
She pointed to the brand-new coffee pot she’d picked up from the 24-hour superstore on her way in.
‘The pot is full. If you want to drink anything else, bring it yourself and if you pour the last cup, make a fresh pot.’
They all nodded.
‘Okay, to recap, our victim is twenty-nine years old, worked as a storeman at Wainwrights, enjoyed Chinese takeaway, had a child’s bed and hoody in his home and hides his computer away. So, where do we go now?’
‘Neighbours, workmates?’ Dawson offered.
‘Yep, well volunteered, Dawson,’ Kim replied.
‘Still need to know about phone records first and the CCTV second,’ she instructed. ‘I want to know more about this woman that Luke Fenton contacted on Facebook. What is she to him, is this the mother of the child who was in his home?’
Stacey nodded her understanding.
‘And Bryant, find out who is running the murder investigation in Wolverhampton.’
She had a meeting with Woody in ten minutes and she just wanted the heads-up on who was going to be doing the handover.
She reached for the phone as she stepped into the bowl. They really needed to find out what was on that second computer belonging to Luke Fenton.
Roy answered on the second ring.
‘Good morning to you, Inspector.’
‘Anything?’ she asked.
He paused.
‘Yeah, good morning,’ she offered as an afterthought.
‘Jerry’s working on the computer right now but it’s locked up tighter than a duck’s…’
‘Don’t you have software that can break in?’
‘You know, for a police officer you watch way too many cheesy cop shows. Yes, we have software and no sooner it’s been tested and implemented some spotty teenager comes up with a workaround. We have to make sure there’s no destruction software that will annihilate the data if we get too close to it.’
‘Annihilate?’ she questioned.
‘Using terms you can understand,’ he said, with a smile in his voice.
‘Yeah, thanks but if you’ve got nothing in the next few hours, I’m finding the nearest spotty teenager and sending him over to assist,’ she said, ending the call.
Her fingers began drumming on the desk in frustration. Whatever the hell was on that computer was important. Her mind pictured a hammer crashing down on it to open the whole thing up. But until they could access the info it looked as though they were all going door to door to find out more about the man.
She reached for her coat as her ears tuned into the conversation beyond her door.
‘So, what age did you make DS?’ Dawson asked Bryant.
‘Thirty-two,’ he answered, without looking up from his two-finger typing practice.
‘Jesus, that old. I got there at twenty-five,’ he crowed.
‘Good for you,’ Bryant mumbled.
‘You take the exam?’ Dawson pushed.
‘Yeah, I took it.’
‘More than once?’ Dawson asked, keenly, as though he was scoring points with every answer.
Bryant ignored him.
‘Cos if you fail it twice, statistically that means you’re never gonna…’
‘You wanna talk statistics, Dawson?’ Kim asked, standing in the doorway. ‘How about the fact that in the last five years Bryant has achieved a total of one hundred and forty-two arrests as opposed to your record of ninety-six. Or shall we talk about conviction records based on those arrests? Bryant’s arrests have accumulated a conviction rate running at ninety-three per cent against yours which is in the low eighties. So, which one of those statistics would you like to?—’
‘Guv,’ Bryant interrupted.
She ignored him. ‘This is not a competition, Dawson.’
The jumping muscle in his cheek told her she’d made her point.
‘So, let’s get back…’
‘I’ve got
something, boss,’ Stacey said. ‘Umm… sorry, I day mean to…’
‘It’s fine, Stacey. What have you got?’
‘An address for Lisa Bywater, the woman Luke contacted on Facebook.’
‘Good work. Text it to Bryant,’ she said, heading out the door. ‘And once I’ve got this second case transferred to us we’ll find out what this woman has to say and who exactly she is to Luke Fenton.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kim knocked the door of DCI Woodward for what she felt was a foregone conclusion. If he was worth his position he would already have been making calls to Wolverhampton.
‘Enter,’ he called back.
She stood just inside the door, as far away from the seat as she could be. This shouldn’t take more than a minute and she could be on her way to speak to this woman, Lisa Bywater.
‘Take a seat, Stone,’ he instructed, looking over his glasses.
‘Sir, I’m fine stand—’
‘Take a seat, Stone,’ he repeated, but in a deeper voice as though she was a child refusing to put her toys away and the request process had increased a defcon level.
She moved forward and sat. She had learned with her superiors to choose her battles wisely.
‘How was your first day with the new team?’
She narrowed her gaze. ‘Sir, if there’d been any problems I’d have let you know.’
This wasn’t why she’d requested the meeting. Any issues with her team she would deal with one way or another. She’d never yet sought her superior officer’s help with people management and she wasn’t about to start now.
‘I understand that Sergeant Dawson can be a bit…’
‘Sir, can we talk about?…’
‘And I understand that having an officer so fresh to the job might be difficult.’
‘Honestly, I have no complaints at the moment about—’
‘But Bryant appears to be a steadying influence which can only—’
First Blood: A completely gripping mystery thriller (A Detective Kim Stone Novel) Page 7