First Blood: A completely gripping mystery thriller (A Detective Kim Stone Novel)

by Angela Marsons

  Unsurprisingly there were no kids out playing.

  ‘You didn’t think she was going to be here, did you?’ Bryant asked.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, Bryant, that’s exactly what I thought.’

  She got out of the car, walked towards the playground and was through it by the time Bryant caught her.

  A row of semi-detached houses lay beyond a grass verge on the other side of the space.

  She walked along the pavement looking over fences and hedges as she went. A threadbare silver Christmas tree had been slung into the corner of one garden. No doubt to make way for a brand-new model, possibly with snow-speckled branches or built-in LED or even a pine-smelling real one that lasted barely longer than the goodwill that accompanied the season.

  ‘Err… guv, what are?…’

  ‘This one,’ she said, opening a waist-high gate onto the property.

  Bryant’s gaze finally found what she had spotted. Two bikes beneath the windowsill.

  She knocked the door, which was quickly answered by a slim woman wearing a jogging suit and an angry expression.

  ‘I’m sorry but I already donate to enough…’

  ‘Police,’ Kim said, holding up her identification.

  Her expression softened. ‘Sorry, but I’ve had three callers already today. Time of year but you can’t give to everything.’

  ‘Understandable,’ Kim said, as the expression turned pensive as she remembered who they were.

  ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Everything’s fine, Mrs…’

  ‘Willis, Kate,’ she said.

  ‘Mrs Willis, do you use that playground over there?’

  ‘Of course. I have eight- and six-year-old boys,’ she said, as though it were obvious that the house alone could not contain such levels of energy.

  ‘Have you at any time seen a woman here with a birthmark over her right eye and a little girl…’

  ‘You mean Hayley?’

  From the corner of her eye she saw a smile tug at her colleague’s features.

  ‘You know her?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t say I knew her. I struck up a conversation with her once, got a name out of her but she wasn’t one for conversation. She’d stand over by the bench just watching her little girl play. Lovely little thing named Mia, polite but quiet.’

  ‘Any idea how long she’d been coming here?’

  ‘It’s been a while, I’d think. A couple of years. I just never bothered to strike up a conversation with her again.’

  So, she’d been coming to this little park before she moved in with their victim. If she didn’t drive then she must have lived close by.

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’ Kim asked. Open-ended questions could sometimes yield priceless results.

  ‘Nothing much except that I really felt sorry for her. Not because of the birthmark but she just always seemed so sad and lonely. Staring off into space and not really speaking to anyone both before and after she got with the guy from the council. Didn’t seem to make her any happier.’

  ‘Guy from the council?’ Kim asked as her phone began to ring.

  She ignored it, and waited for an answer.

  The woman continued. ‘Yeah, I felt pleased that she’d found someone.’

  ‘And how do you know he was from the council?’

  ‘Always coming around to check on the playground equipment. Safety and stuff for the kids.’

  Kim felt the nausea rise in her stomach, remembering all the photos. That had been no maintenance guy for the council. This was where Fenton had found Hayley and her child.

  ‘Okay, thank you for your time,’ Kim said, moving away and heading back towards the gate.

  Bryant seethed behind her. ‘Bastard was here posing as a…’

  His words trailed away as her phone rang again.

  ‘Stone,’ she answered.

  ‘It’s Keats. Are you busy? Actually, scrub that. Don’t care. I need you to get to the Wren’s Nest estate right now.’

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Stacey had been through the phone records three times and had thought she’d found Hayley’s number; not hard to find as it was listed under her name in his contacts list. She had paused before ringing the boss, because something had not felt right. The last contact between the two phones was too long ago. It was before the six-month absence of the photos.

  Of the numbers he’d called or had called him in the three months prior to his death, she had accounted for them all except two.

  She’d already fired off an email to the provider requesting content information for all of the numbers, but for these two first. If she’d had the phone itself she felt sure she could have got in and found any text messages.

  She got two pieces of paper and wrote down the details for each phone. She wasn’t prepared to call the boss unless she was absolutely sure she knew what she was talking about. Her colleague across the desk was doing enough of that for both of them.

  And now he was wittering on about something to do with priest holes, or something.

  No, she had to be sure she’d got something the boss could use.

  Right now, she suspected that one of the numbers belonged to Hayley. And the other one had called him the night of the murder. Could just be some kind of coincidence but she dared wonder if the other one belonged to their killer. Both went straight to voicemail. But the killer had to have got in touch somehow. Luke Fenton had left his Chinese meal to meet someone.

  She grabbed a pen and began to make a list.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  The Wren’s Nest estate was originally all council housing built in the 1930s to rehouse families from town centre slum clearances.

  By the 1980s the poor quality of housing alongside all forms of crime including anti-social behaviour, joyriding and burglary sent the area into decline. Unemployment was above the national average and the decay of the estate seemed irreversible.

  In the 1990s the council committed millions to a regeneration project giving properties new boundary walls, double glazing and decent heating. Crime levels fell along with the unemployment rate and the estate continually walked a tentative line dictated by socioeconomic factors.

  The residents were served by schools, shops and the Summer Road Chippy, in front of which Bryant was trying to park right now.

  ‘Do you think he does this a lot?’ Bryant asked, blocking in a couple of squad cars. ‘You know, just ring up and demand attendance somewhere?’

  ‘Not sure he’s gonna get to do it again,’ she answered, getting out of the car.

  She began the walk around the building to a row of bins and a collection of high-visibility jackets.

  Yes, maybe a quiet word with Keats would be required. She didn’t appreciate being summoned to a location with no explanation.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, walking through two constables trying to find somewhere to tie the cordon tape.

  ‘Okay, Keats, what the hell?…’

  She stopped speaking as Keats silently stepped aside to reveal the figure on the ground.

  Her gaze began at the bony feet, bare, with shoes kicked to the side. A bird tattoo on the ankle peeped out from beneath dark, worn jeans that hung loose from the body. An open denim jacket revealed a striped, woollen jumper underneath.

  Her gaze continued to travel up to the carnage at the neck where the head had been severed from the body.

  The ringing of her phone shattered the silence.

  She took it from her pocket and pressed the answer button without looking away from the body.

  ‘Go ahead, Stace,’ she said, quietly.

  ‘Boss, I think I’ve got the correct phone number for our girl, Hayley.’

  Kim’s gaze finally rested on the birthmark covering the left eye.

  ‘Never mind, Stace, I’m looking at her right now.’

  Chapter Sixty

  Dawson walked into the Black Country Museum which he barely recognised from hi
s only visit when he was around ten years old.

  The museum entrance now doubled as a gift shop displaying souvenirs, traditional homeware, local history books and artists’ prints and canvasses from around the area.

  The site had originally opened to the public in 1978 and had since added more than fifty shops, houses and other industrial buildings that had been relocated from their original sites around the Black Country and had been used as a filming location for many films and TV series including Peaky Blinders.

  Dawson hadn’t realised how much the place had grown since his one visit, but right now, he was here to meet a man named Arthur who supposedly could help him.

  One of the contacts he’d emailed regarding the nail composition had replied to say the nail was like nothing he’d worked with as it consisted mainly of wrought iron. He had suggested a meeting with someone from the museum who would perhaps know more about where in the area these nails were being produced.

  Dawson thought he was on a highway to nothing but he’d taken this lead and now had to run with it. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t when Arthur Nugent offered his hand across the reception desk.

  ‘You’re the police officer that called?’ he asked, lifting the glasses from their resting position against a check jumper and placed them on his nose.

  ‘I am Detective Sergeant Dawson.’

  ‘Okay, well, let’s see it,’ he said expectantly.

  Dawson raised his hands. ‘I don’t have it.’

  Arthur frowned. ‘You want me to look at a nail that you don’t have?’

  He took the sheet of paper from his pocket.

  ‘I have this.’

  Arthur looked at it and humphed around the reception.

  Dawson followed him past life-size photo boards with brief histories of prominent industrial figures from the area.

  Dawson was about to ask where he was being led when Arthur stopped abruptly at a waist-high cabinet full of nails.

  ‘Okay, which one of these does it most resemble?’ Arthur asked him.

  Dawson ran a hand through his hair. ‘Jeez, I’ve got no…’

  ‘Lad, have you even seen this nail?’

  Dawson put aside his resentment at being called ‘lad’ as he knew the man was just trying to help.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve seen it, briefly.’

  ‘Well, take a closer look. They’re all very different.’

  A nail was a bloody nail as far as he was concerned. You picked up a box from a hardware shop and hammered stuff into a wall. All he wanted to know was which bloody hardware store this particular nail had come from.

  To pacify the man he took a closer look, thinking back to the ones he had seen at the crime scene.

  Arthur talked as he looked.

  ‘Nails date back at least to Ancient Egypt, even as far back as 3400 BC. Trust me, they’re not all the same.’

  He looked hard and realised the man had a point.

  ‘That one,’ he said, resting his finger on the glass. ‘Or the one beside it.’

  ‘Well, make up your… oh, yes, they are quite similar. Those, my boy, are not your standard mass-produced nails we have today. In fact, they’re not even from this century, or the last, or even the one before.’

  ‘Go on,’ Dawson said, his interest piqued.

  ‘Those nails were made by hand, as was usual up until around the early 1800s. Do you see those marks on the side?’

  Dawson nodded. That’s what he’d remembered from the one he’d seen.

  ‘They’re slitters’ marks. From the late sixteenth century, workmen called slitters cut up iron bars to a suitable size for nailers to work on. But over time manual slitters disappeared due to slitting mills.’

  ‘So, you’re saying it could be from the sixteenth century?’ he confirmed.

  ‘If it looks like that, yes.’

  Dawson thanked him for his time and walked away.

  He now had undeniable proof that those two murders were linked.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Kim was reminded of scenes from cheap horror movies as she looked again at the separation of the head from the body. Only this wasn’t latex and paint or tomato ketchup. This was flesh, muscle, skin and veins all cut crudely, hacked and chopped after the killer cut.

  Kim knew she was projecting when she sensed a sadness in the eyes that stared up to the sky. She knew that the muscles relaxed and that any emotions drained away from the eyes.

  She knew it was her own sadness she saw reflected there; sadness that this young woman’s life had been taken, but more because they hadn’t been able to find her in time.

  In truth, she had wondered if Hayley had been responsible for the murder of Luke Fenton, though her mind had been unable to link her to the murder at Redland Hall. But now she didn’t have to find that link. Because clearly someone had hated both Hayley and Luke.

  ‘Who found her?’ Kim asked.

  Keats nodded towards a male in his seventies sitting on the pavement with a Jack Russell on his left and a small black bag to his right.

  Kim glanced at Bryant who got the message and headed over.

  ‘Same as before?’ she asked Keats.

  ‘Similar,’ he said. ‘But the knife wound to the throat that killed her looks proportionately shorter than the first. Decapitated post mortem. And with a lot less finesse.’

  ‘Go on,’ Kim said, stepping closer. Every action of the killer told her something.

  He pointed to different spots across the opening. ‘Clumsier, than the first. More hacks.’

  ‘In a hurry?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Not for me to say.’

  If their killer had been in a rush, why bother with the beheading at all? The girl was dead from the cut throat.

  What the hell was the message in cutting off the head?

  ‘And you’ll have noticed the absence of—’

  ‘The genital mutilation,’ she finished for him. Her jeans were intact and there was no obvious staining to the fabric.

  ‘Bang to the head?’ she asked.

  ‘Haven’t moved her properly to look yet,’ he answered, as Bryant appeared beside her.

  ‘Albert Thomas,’ he said of the man being helped to his feet by a PC. ‘Seventy-six years of age. Walks his dog this way every day and approached the bin to dispose of Buster’s poo bag.’

  Kim glanced over at the tiny dog.

  ‘Buster?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Aspirational, guv,’ he answered. ‘Got all his details but I don’t think he’s our guy. With the arthritis in that guy’s hands he’d struggle to cut a loaf of bread, never mind someone’s throat.’

  Yeah, but they’d still check him out anyway.

  She turned her attention back to Keats, as Roy approached with evidence bags.

  ‘Time?’

  ‘Almost eleven o’clock, Inspector,’ he said, looking at his watch.

  ‘Of death,’ she clarified.

  ‘Some time before ten fifteen, which was the time I got here.’

  She said nothing and waited.

  He shook his head at her lack of humour. ‘I’d say between seven and twelve last night.’

  ‘Thank you. And when will you be?…’

  ‘I’ll see you at 4 p.m.’

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘Slow day on the suspicious deaths front but of course if that’s…’

  ‘We’ll be there,’ she said, turning to Roy.

  He held up three bags.

  ‘Debit card, phone and a five pound note.’

  Kim took all the bags and looked them over.

  She handed two back. ‘I’m keeping this,’ she said, holding up the phone.

  ‘But, it needs to come to the—’

  ‘It’s coming with me,’ she said, turning on her heel and heading back towards the car.

  ‘Guv, I’ve got a question,’ Bryant said, catching up with her.

  ‘You don’t have to warn me of that fact. Just ask it.’

  ‘W
here does she live? Where are the keys to her home?’

  That wasn’t the most urgent thought in her head. It wasn’t even her first question. There was something far more precious that Hayley had taken with her everywhere. And that now had to take priority above all else.

  ‘Not the only thing missing, is it, Bryant? Where is her nine-year-old daughter?’

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  I knew I would find you, my Queen. And your death matches that of your King. Your reign of terror is over for ever and that child will not know the fear you inflicted on her ever again.

  From the very beginning I knew that my actions were right and just. I knew I had approval from above. That if there is a God He is watching, waiting for your soul to be dispatched so He can give you your final judgment and send you to Hell for eternity.

  It’s His way of saying sorry for letting me down despite all my prayers.

  Oh no, it’s not happening again. I won’t go back there. I refuse to relive that pain. I have my proof and that is enough for me.

  It’s time to mark it done.

  I take out the book and the thick black marker pen. I can now put a line through the page. I can mark the duo as complete.

  I hesitate and wonder why I’m not filled with the same elation and triumph at your death that I felt with the King.

  I wonder if it’s due to the circumstances of the kill. I had no time to prepare as I’ve done with all the rest, but when God presented you to me like a mirage of an oasis in the desert there was no choice but to get it done.

  No, it’s not that. I had time to make my plan while I watched you eat, while you talked to me as you already had when we first met. I knew where I was going to take you, where I could leave my message. You talked of Mia and the actions you’d finally taken to ensure her safety. Too little too late.

  You spoke to me of a cryptic message you’d received and that your fear had not been only from Luke. I kept the smile to myself at the knowledge that the threat was sitting right in front of you.