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

by Angela Marsons

  ‘She might have made some bad decisions but she didn’t deserve that.’

  ‘You mean going back to Luke Fenton?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kim had a sudden thought. Yes, they knew Hayley had gone back to a man who was possibly abusing her daughter but they hadn’t yet examined why.

  ‘But why was that, Marianne?’ Kim asked, recalling the maximum length of time the women were allowed to stay in the shelter. ‘Was her time here at an end?’

  ‘Yes, we had to let her go. There was no room. There were urgent cases. Her stay here had—’

  ‘Okay, thank you,’ Kim said, shortly, and headed across the hall.

  This woman had thrown her out when she had nowhere else to go. From what Stacey had uncovered about Hayley her life had been anything but joyful. She’d thought she’d found someone to love her in Luke Fenton but had eventually found the courage to leave him. For six months she’d been safe here, but for Hayley six months had not been enough to get her life back on track. Years of abuse, isolation, loneliness and crime had not been erased by a couple of courses and a polished CV. Hayley would have needed years of help, support and encouragement to get her life back on track.

  And in that respect, Marianne had failed her. Badly.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Marianne had seen the look on the police officer’s face when she’d tried to explain about the six-month time limit on placements at the shelter. Yes, she could have quoted statistics at the detective; that for every woman she accepted she had to turn five away and none were more deserving than the next. Every woman referred her way had suffered and try as she might she couldn’t save them all.

  She knew this time of year brought reflection from people. Occasionally she wondered if she should have married, had children, taken more holidays, but in truth she was married to the shelters and the women were like her children. Her only reflection was whether she’d done enough to secure as many futures as she could. The festive communication to past benefactors was her own way of making that last effort at a time of year when people were more in touch with their own generosity.

  She started combing through the responses to her mailshot. She hated to think of them as begging letters for more money but in effect that’s what they were. There were stories of all the good work and the statistics and the success stories over the last six months, evidence of their charitable pounds at work. And then at the bottom a list of jobs and goals yet to achieve. Not least the computer suite that would mean that more women could be online applying for jobs or updating their CVs at one time rather than the hourly time slots they currently allocated to share the resources of the two computers fairly.

  The mailshot had been emailed to seventy-six recipients. She accessed the statistics of the email. Of those seventy-six recipients, seventy-five had bothered to open the email, which brought a smile to her face. Of the seventy-five engagements, she’d received twenty-seven responses. Less than half, despite the season of goodwill.

  Marianne’s agitation increased when she returned to the only person who hadn’t even bothered to open the email. Probably the wealthiest person on the list and someone who had been extremely generous in the past.

  She would consider devising some kind of reminder; a prompt that would encourage him to reconsider.

  She scrolled through the replies she’d received. She only needed to read the first line, in some cases just the first word, before moving on to the next.

  Sorry but times are hard…

  It’s been a bad year…

  We’ve had to restructure…

  Due to stiff competition…

  Unfortunately…

  Marianne cared nothing for the excuses. All she saw was the word ‘NO’.

  At the bottom of her inbox was a message from Derek Hodge. The message header simply said ‘Mistake’. She clicked into it and read.

  Dear Marianne, having thought more about your recent request for assistance, it would appear that my refusal to donate to such a worthy cause may have been both churlish and hasty. After taking time to reconsider I have decided that a suitable contribution will be transferred by BACS payment directly to your account later today.

  Best regards

  Derek

  Marianne clapped her hands with glee. Perfect. Maybe the computer suite was not such a distant dream after all. With some of the residents they had to settle for helping them become computer literate as opposed to basic reading and writing.

  Hayley Smart had been one of those girls.

  Her thoughts returned once more to the unfortunate woman with the birthmark. That final look of desperation mixed with helplessness, the defeated slump of the shoulders. The revelation of what she’d finally done with Mia. The begging, the pleading that had come from her mouth. All to no avail.

  Yes, DI Stone had been unable to hide her disgust that the girl had been made to leave after the maximum period. Marianne couldn’t help wondering what the detective would say when she found out what she’d really done with Hayley.

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Dawson stared at the wipe boards on the wall where bullet points were written beneath the names of all five victims.

  Two of the five victims had been hit on the back of the head.

  Four of the victims had had their genitals mutilated.

  Two of the victims were known abusers.

  They were all poring over phone records and witnesses and links between two or four of the victims, but he was beginning to wonder if something linked all five, and if the answer lay elsewhere.

  There were things about the crime scene that mattered. He got that. Time of death, Forensics, MO. They all counted. And also, there were things that mattered less, or did they?

  What was the constant here between all five victims?

  Gender – no.

  Manner of death – no.

  Time of death – no.

  Genital mutilation – no.

  While they had uncovered links between one or two victims, there was no single connection between them all. Or was there, he began to wonder, tapping the pen against his lip.

  John Doe: an abandoned shoe had been found near the body. Why?

  Lester Jackson had been murdered in a priest hole. Why?

  Tommy Deeley had a small bell in his pocket. Why?

  Luke Fenton had a tiny piece of brown packing paper left on his body. Why?

  Hayley Smart’s crime scene had included the top from a vinegar bottle. Why?

  Dawson turned to his computer and began to search for something that could provide a link between all five victims through the small things found near them or on their person, the five anomalies: could he find something that made the connection?

  He scrolled through the results and could find nothing that made any sense using all five items included in the search term.

  On the second page of results, Google had decided he had lost his mind and was putting a blue line through two of his criteria, as though he didn’t know what he was searching for.

  He smiled when he saw some of the results he’d been offered.

  But as he looked more closely the smile died on his face and he began to read.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Kim took the seat in the viewing room that meant she could see the screens as they talked to the security guard.

  Half of her mind was still on the information Stacey had relayed by phone. That Tommy Deeley had been a registered sex offender too. She thought back to the interview she’d seen with Butcher Bill when he’d called the victim a dirty bastard. Had he known about Tommy Deeley’s past? Had he known that the man had been jailed twenty years ago for sexually assaulting a twelve-year-old girl when he’d been a volunteer at a Wednesfield youth club? She briefly wondered if Butcher Bill was responsible for all the murders, but quickly dismissed the thought. The man could barely remain sober long enough to tie his own shoelaces.

  There was still something inside her that said all
the murders were linked. A similar voice in her head whispered that someone from this shelter was somehow involved, but how those two voices could come together in harmony she had not the faintest idea.

  She put the thoughts out of her mind and tried to focus on the cases that were officially hers.

  She turned her attention on the security guard. ‘So, Jason, you’ve been here?…’

  ‘Three and a half years. Used to be a doorman but it all got a bit crazy out there. Too many drugs and too many knives.’

  Kim understood. Knife crime was continually on the increase and if you weren’t a police officer it wasn’t what you expected to deal with when you put your uniform on for a night shift.

  He was a big man, though that didn’t automatically mean he relished conflict.

  ‘So, you’ve seen quite a few of these women come and go in that time,’ she said, nodding towards the screens.

  While he considered her question she took a moment to look at what was currently on offer. The scenes were not dissimilar to those she’d seen two days ago.

  Dawn, the nutritionist had a group of ladies in the kitchen, a couple of women were waiting in line for a haircut. Curt or Carl was up a ladder in an upstairs corridor and the other twin was talking to one of the women while he changed a plug on a lamp in the dining room.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve seen a fair few come and go but don’t get involved with them,’ he offered, which seemed to be more answer than she’d requested.

  ‘I hadn’t thought that you did, Jason.’

  He looked forward to the gate and then back to the screens. ‘I sit here. My job is at the front of the building, making sure no one gets in. I rarely go back there,’ he said, nodding towards the door that led to the body of the building.

  ‘How well did you know Hayley Smart?’ Kim asked.

  ‘Not very. She was the sort who just kept to herself. She chatted with a couple of the ladies but mainly just played with her kid.’

  ‘Did Luke Fenton ever come here?’ Kim asked. It wasn’t uncommon for boyfriends and husbands to turn up at shelters and make a scene.

  He nodded. ‘One time he turned up. Didn’t get past the gate. Called the police, but he disappeared so I cancelled ’em, and one of the boys went out and made sure he’d gone.’

  ‘The boys?’ she asked.

  ‘Twins,’ he said, nodding towards the screen. ‘Not sure which one it was now,’ he said with a wide smile.

  Kim glanced back at the screens.

  The group in the kitchen had all moved away and Dawn was washing up.

  A different woman was sitting in the salon chair being tended by Nigel. And Curtis’s or Carl’s ladder was in a different part of the house.

  The other twin was still changing a plug.

  Chapter Eighty

  ‘Bloody nursery rhymes,’ Dawson cried out, once he’d finished reading.

  ‘Huh?’ Stacey said, barely looking up.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, wanting her full attention.

  She looked up properly.

  ‘The small things that have been overlooked. The vinegar and brown paper that links Luke Fenton to Hayley Smart.’

  His colleague appeared both interested and yet disbelieving at the same time.

  ‘But they’re just harmless little rhymes to entertain kids. To send ’em to sleep, or something.’

  ‘And that’s where you’re totally wrong, I’m afraid. Most nursery rhymes appear to have darker meanings in their past. At the least they are cautionary tales.’

  ‘Go on,’ Stacey said, dropping the frown but leaving the interest behind.

  ‘“Little Bo Peep”, for example, is a harmless ditty about lost sheep?’

  ‘Err… yeah,’ she answered.

  ‘Wrong. It’s about falling asleep on the job and someone getting killed as a result.’

  ‘But it’s for kids,’ Stacey argued.

  ‘And back in the day, kids were workers too. There were no child labour laws back when every hand in the family was needed to survive.’

  ‘Dawson, I ay sure…’

  ‘Okay, listen to this. “Goosey, Goosey, Gander where shall I wander, upstairs, downstairs and in my lady’s chamber. There I met an old man who wouldn’t say his prayers. I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs.”’

  ‘Yeah, I know it. To teach kids to say their prayers,’ she said.

  ‘You’d think, wouldn’t you? The origins of the rhyme date back to the sixteenth century. It’s talking about the need for Catholic priests to hide in priest holes to avoid persecution from Protestants. If they were caught then the priest and the family were executed. The moral implies that something unpleasant would happen to anyone failing to say their prayers correctly. And by correctly it means Protestant prayers said in English and not Catholic prayers said in Latin.’

  ‘So, you’re making this whole assumption because Lester Jackson was found in a priest hole?’ Stacey asked.

  ‘When he could have been killed anywhere in a hundred or more rooms, then yeah, I’m thinking it has to mean something, but you haven’t heard the best bit.’

  ‘Oh, do continue cos it’s not like I ay got any work of my own to do.’

  He paused. Was that sarcasm from his meek and mild young colleague? Hmm… so there was a bit of spirit in there just dying to come out.

  He continued anyway, unable to ignore the burning in his gut. ‘“Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. Up Jack got and home did trot as fast as he could caper. He went to bed and bound his head with vinegar and brown paper.”’

  ‘I have no idea what that’s about,’ Stacey offered but her gaze did move over the wipe boards.

  ‘Jack and Jill are said to be King Louis XVI, of France, and his consort, Queen Marie Antoinette, who were both beheaded. The words were made more acceptable for children by providing a happy ending. They were beheaded for treason during the reign of terror in 1793, so I’m wondering…’

  ‘If that’s symbolic of Fenton and Hayley Smart for what they did to Mia?’

  ‘They both made her suffer. Him with the actual abuse and Hayley for going back after being free of him for six months.’

  Stacey was again looking at the board. At the details that had as yet remained unexplained.

  ‘What about Keats’s John Doe. An old shoe or something?’ Stacey asked.

  ‘I was just coming to that one and I just found this. Listen, “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread; and whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.”’

  Stacey waited.

  ‘The origins of the rhyme are based in child abuse.’

  ‘Jeez, I’d never even considered…’

  ‘And listen to this. Tommy Deeley was found with a small silver bell in his pocket, which could refer to the bell mentioned in “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary”, which continues “how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row.” Goes back to Queen Mary I, whose torture techniques earned her the nickname “Bloody Mary”. But both silver bells and cockleshells were not innocent items, they were torture devices.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Dawson,’ she said, still looking at the board.

  ‘So, what do you think now?’ he asked.

  ‘I think it’s time for yer to call the boss.’

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Kim glanced at her watch before opening the door of Marianne’s office. The woman had kindly offered her own working space to enable them to speak to the staff.

  ‘Hey Jay, Curt does know we want to speak to him today, doesn’t he?’

  ‘I told him straight away but I think he’s just gone into the mess room.’

  ‘Mess room?’

  ‘Sorry, small storeroom next to the kitchen with a couple of lockers and tool boxes. So called cos the place is a bit of a…’

  �
�Mess, yeah, got it,’ Kim answered for him. ‘Buzz us through, Jay. I’m not waiting any longer.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘Marianne knows we need to speak to people.’

  He pressed a button and the door clicked open. Bryant followed her through and pushed the door closed behind him.

  If she remembered correctly from the computer screens the kitchen was at the rear of the house beyond the smaller lounge used as the salon.

  Kim felt a strange sense of calm as she moved along the hallway. She could hear voices coming from each room that she passed, an occasional laugh against the Christmas carols playing somewhere in the background.

  Colourful, handmade decorations mixed with strands of tinsel framed every doorway. A generous tree sparkled multicoloured lights from the main lounge.

  The aroma of cooking, either late breakfast or early lunch hanging below the scent of cinnamon guided her forward.

  If you were going to be in a women’s refuge over Christmas, this was definitely the place to be, she thought, remembering her Christmases at Fairview Children’s Home.

  An ancient battered tree had been retrieved from the storeroom each year, held together only by dust. One crisp box held all the decorations, which grew less each year with breakages. Two members of staff decorated it half-heartedly, just to say it was done right, before they were all brought together into the dining room on Christmas Eve. Not for a special meal or present giving but to be ready for the annual visit from the Salvation Army. It was the same every year where the kids were told to behave and ‘look grateful’. Christmas morning two plates of mince pies were handed round by whichever staff members had drawn the short straw on the rota. A chicken dinner was served before business returned to normal for the rest of the day. It wasn’t Oliver Twist and it was no Hallmark movie either. It was just another day.