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

by Angela Marsons

Chapter Ninety-Five

  Stacey had no idea what had caused the sour expression on her colleague’s face but it had altered when he’d got off the phone with the boss.

  Had she liked him more she would have taken the time to ask.

  Would he ask her? She suspected not.

  She glanced again at the clock wondering when this shift was going to end. So far this week each night the boss had given them the nod to go home. There’d been no nodding yet and Stacey was beginning to have visions of the boss and Bryant having gone home without telling them.

  From what she could gather her colleague didn’t have a home to go to, but she did. Admittedly all that was waiting for her was a pizza and a couple of hours on Warcraft but it was more than he had.

  In the absence of the go-home nod she returned to the phone register of the killer. She already knew it was a pay-and-go phone topped up with vouchers.

  The register appeared to have days in between uses and the only numbers called belonged to Luke Fenton, Lester Jackson and Hayley Smart. There were no calls to Charles Lockwood, but he had not been lured from his home. The killer had taken the crime scene to him.

  Just ten minutes ago she’d received the mobile phone tower information from the phone network. Stacey knew that whenever a mobile phone made a call it emitted electromagnetic radio waves, also known as radio frequency or RF energy. Once those radio waves were emitted, the antenna from the nearest tower received them.

  She pulled up a map of the Black Country and took a screenshot of it.

  Next, she plotted the locations of the phone towers in the area with a red dot.

  As she began to place green dots at approximate locations a pattern began to form.

  She added another overlay to the document and plotted yellow dots for the shelters owned by Marianne Forbes and realised that the killer’s phone was never very far away.

  Chapter Ninety-Six

  ‘How the hell are we going to predict who comes next?’ Bryant asked.

  That was exactly what Kim was trying to work out when her phone rang.

  She rolled her eyes seeing her boss’s name appear on the display.

  ‘Stone, where are you? I expected an update hours ago.’

  ‘Sir, we’re just following up a lead and…’

  ‘In my office in one hour. We need to talk resources for this. We have three victims likely to have been murdered by the same killer. We need to draft in more—’

  ‘S… rr… y… s… r… can’t… hear… go… thr… tunn…’ she said, waving the phone around in front of her.

  She ended the call. In his opinion it was three victims and in hers it was now six. She didn’t have time for a briefing right now and she certainly didn’t have time to bring a whole new team up to speed. By the time she’d finished she could be heading to the crime scene of victim number seven.

  Their killer was going to strike again and she had to find out who the victim was going to be.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said, thinking back over the events of the day.

  ‘What?’ Bryant asked, rubbing at his forehead.

  ‘Hang on,’ Kim said, taking out her phone. She dialled Marianne’s number. The woman answered with a voice mixed of breathlessness and irritation.

  ‘DI Stone, how may I help you?’

  ‘There was a woman today, at the shelter; mid-thirties, cream jumper and navy slacks, looking quite smart and—’

  ‘Diana Lambert, thirty-six years old, had a custody hearing today to retrieve her daughter from the state.’

  ‘Was the child sexually abused by her father?’ Kim asked.

  ‘How did you know?…’

  ‘Lucky guess. What’s her story?’

  ‘Husband had been abusing their child for two years but Diana had no idea. He accused her of taking prescription drugs and endangering the child following a minor car accident when all along he’d been molesting the little girl. Diana left him and reported him to Child Services but the child refused to speak. There were accusations back and forth of neglect and abuse and drug-taking so Lily was removed from the home, and Diana sought help from us while an investigation was carried out.’

  ‘And what about the husband?’ Kim asked.

  ‘He’s a doctor, a GP I think.’

  ‘And what’s happening to him?’ Kim asked, feeling the tension tighten in her stomach.

  ‘It’s my understanding that Child Services have still not been able to glean anything from the child, but they have deemed it safe to return her to Diana. So, in the absence of any kind of statement from the child I’m pretty sure there’ll be no further action and he’ll receive no punishment at all.’

  Kim thought back to Carl Wickes’s lengthy conversation with Diana earlier that day.

  She had a feeling that was about to change.

  Chapter Ninety-Seven

  Bryant pulled the car into the kerb in front of The Full Moon pub in Dudley High Street. When asked if she could return to the shelter at almost ten to speak to Diana Lambert, Marianne had told her that Diana was celebrating at the local Wetherspoons with a few of the women from the shelter after a successful meeting with Child Services. Marianne had been invited but had been unable to attend.

  Kim entered the establishment as a blur of sashes, veils and tiaras came stumbling out. The cheap beer drew in most stag and hen parties from a three-mile radius.

  She spotted Diana Lambert amongst three other women on a table behind a fruit machine halfway along the space. She was immediately struck by the fact that Diana was swaying along to the background music and the other three were not. She could feel their discomfort as she approached.

  ‘Diana Lambert?’ she asked.

  Diana focussed on her and nodded.

  Kim held up her identification. ‘May we have a word?’ She looked around the group. ‘It’s urgent.’

  The other three women grabbed at handbags and jackets hanging from the back of their chairs.

  ‘Gotta go anyway, Di,’ said one.

  ‘Yeah, time to get back,’ said another.

  ‘No, girls, stay, we need to paaaaarrrrtttaaaayyyyy,’ she cried, punching the air. ‘It’s my victory night.’

  The three women smiled tolerantly and headed for the exit.

  Kim took a seat and nudged Diana’s handbag and a few glasses along the table to make room for her forearms.

  ‘Diana, I need to talk to you about Carl Wickes and your conversation earlier today.’

  ‘You like my hair?’ she asked, shaking it like a shampoo advert. ‘New style. Carl said he liked it.’

  ‘Did he?’ Kim asked, although she wasn’t sure it had taken him twenty minutes to comment on her hair.

  She nodded coyly.

  ‘You talk to Carl a lot?’ Kim asked.

  ‘If I can find him,’ she said, with a lazy smile.

  He hadn’t appeared to be trying too hard to hide, she thought, remembering the camera view.

  ‘You talk to him about your husband, your daughter, the abuse?’

  Her eyes narrowed. The woman might have had a few drinks but she wasn’t completely wasted.

  ‘Everyone knows what that bastard did. There are no secrets at the shelter and I have nothing to hide.’

  ‘So what exactly did you tell him?’ Kim asked.

  ‘Told him that Steve tried to get my little girl all to himself. Tried to get me out the picture so he could do whatever he wanted without interruption.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Bastard tried to cover himself by saying I was endangering the life of our child. But I had him good and proper.’

  The expression on her face Kim could only read as triumph.

  A feeling started to churn her stomach. There was something not right here.

  She glanced at Bryant who also looked puzzled. She remembered what Marianne had told her.

  ‘There was some kind of accident?’ she prompted. ‘A car accident involving your daughter?’

  Diana waved her hand in th
e air. ‘It was nothing. A scrape when I picked up Lily from school one day. She had a bang on the head and Steve said I should have taken her to hospital.’ She blew a raspberry and then laughed out loud. ‘She didn’t need no doctor to put a plaster on her brow,’ she said, rolling her eyes.

  Kim knew little of the man beside her but she was pretty sure he would have taken his daughter to hospital following any type of road accident. As would most mothers.

  But hospitals ask questions, said a small voice in her head.

  Kim stayed quiet for a few seconds. The woman had been drinking and her tongue was loose.

  ‘Had a bloody massive row. Bastard accused me of being a drug addict just cos I took a few painkillers. Dickhead threatened to call the police on me but I had him.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Kim asked, but she already had a suspicion.

  ‘I left the bastard and went to the shelter.’

  ‘Oh,’ Kim said. That wasn’t the timeline Marianne had given her. She had indicated that the drug-taking accusation had been in response to the sexual abuse allegation.

  ‘They found you a place?’ she asked. ‘Most shelters are for the assistance of women or children abused in some way by their husbands or a family member.’

  ‘Well… yes… I was coming to that. Lily told me about her father and then he accused me of taking tablets and…’ she frowned as her words trailed away as though her muddled brain couldn’t quite follow the script.

  Kim took a good look into the dark brown eyes with dilated pupils. She knew there were many drugs that worked on the brain’s neurotransmitters causing the iris to expand including antidepressants, amphetamines, LSD, ecstasy and cocaine.

  Kim’s left arm twitched violently and Diana’s handbag fell to the floor. Before Diana had even realised what had happened Kim was bending to pick up the bag and the contents that had spilled out.

  As she raised herself back to a seated position her right hand held the bag and her left hand held pills. Three bottles of pills.

  ‘A couple of painkillers?’ she asked, waving the bottles in the woman’s face.

  Diana grabbed for them, finally understanding what had happened, but Kim kept them out of her clumsy grasp.

  ‘Mrs Lambert, did you lie about your daughter being sexually abused by your husband to deflect from your addiction?’

  Despite the shake of the head the truth was in the colour that filled her cheeks.

  Kim jumped up from the table and rushed towards the exit.

  ‘Slow down, guv,’ Bryant said, reaching her outside.

  ‘We don’t have a minute to lose right now, Bryant. Our murderer is about to kill an innocent man.’

  Chapter Ninety-Eight

  ‘Okay, pass me to Dawson,’ Kim said, once she’d finished speaking to Stacey, who had informed her of the killer’s proximity to the various shelters whenever the phone was switched on.

  That was no surprise to her now. Both Carl and Curt carried out the maintenance tasks for all of the sites.

  ‘Right, Dawson, I need you to get digging on nursery rhymes. We need to try and think ahead of the killer. I have to know where this murder is going to take place. I don’t care how outlandish your theories might be. We have to do something. And pretty much all I can say is our guy is a doctor.’

  ‘Okay, boss. I’ll get right on it.’

  She could hear the fatigue in his voice but no one else was going to lose their life if she could help it.

  ‘Thanks, Dawson,’ she managed to say.

  ‘No probs, boss, and Stacey wants you back.’

  Kim had to hand it to the detective constable, who already had an address.

  Chapter Ninety-Nine

  ‘Not bad,’ Bryant said, as they pulled up outside 27 Redlake Lane.

  Located on a new estate in Hagley, the house was detached with faux stone pillars either side of a racing green front door.

  A BMW 5 Series car sat in the drive.

  She knocked on the door, hard.

  She waited a few seconds before looking through the darkened windows.

  She could make out only vague shapes of furniture and yet one of those shapes could be a dead body.

  ‘Guv, I think…’

  ‘Forget it, Bryant. This time I’m going in because I really do think someone is in danger.’

  ‘I was actually going to suggest it.’

  She smiled in his direction.

  ‘Okay, you get the top and I’ll get the bottom.’

  In the absence of officers with the big key, their combined strength would have to do.

  ‘Okay, on the count of three.’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Thr… Jesus…’ she cried as they both fell into the hallway.

  An attractive woman wearing satin pyjamas, an eye mask on her forehead, had opened the door a split second before they made contact with it.

  ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ she asked, looking from her to Bryant and back again.

  ‘Police,’ Kim explained.

  The expression didn’t change.

  ‘And?’

  Kim frowned at her. ‘Who are you?’

  The woman folded her arms.

  ‘I’m pretty sure you should be introducing yourself seeing as you were just about to break into my home.’

  ‘Your home?’ Kim asked, showing her ID.

  She was going to be seriously pissed off if Stacey had given them the wrong address.

  It wasn’t that she minded complaints landing on her boss’s desk, but she could do without needless ones on top of the genuine ones where she’d seriously pissed people off for a reason.

  ‘Well, that I share with my partner.’

  ‘Who is?’

  The woman’s head went back and the frown deepened.

  ‘I’m sorry but…’

  ‘Can you just tell us his name, please?’ Bryant offered with as much patience as he could muster after a fourteen-hour shift.

  ‘Steven Lambert. That’s Doctor Lambert.’

  Kim breathed a sigh of relief. Good job, Stacey. At least this complaint would be excused. They were trying to save the man’s life.

  ‘May we speak to Doctor Lambert?’

  ‘I have no idea what this is all about but you’ll have to come back tomorrow, at a more reasonable hour if you want to talk—’

  ‘Miss… it doesn’t matter. We really need to speak to him now.’

  ‘Well, you can’t. He’s not here.’

  The exact words she did not want to hear.

  ‘Where is he?’

  She shook her head in exasperation as Kim pictured this particular complaint making it on to two pages.

  ‘He’s a doctor, a GP, he gets called out. He left about half an hour ago.’

  Chapter One Hundred

  ‘Please tell me you’ve got something, Kev, we are seriously running out of time.’

  Kim could not rid herself of the feeling that someone was going to die tonight. And that it was going to be her fault.

  ‘I’m trying, boss. I’m looking at the “Doctor Foster” nursery rhyme.’

  ‘Put me on hands-free and read it out.’

  She heard Stacey’s fingers tapping furiously as Dawson read out loud.

  ‘“Doctor Foster went to Gloucester, in a shower of rain; He stepped in a puddle, right up to his middle and never went there again.”’

  ‘Okay, Stace, you listening?’ she called out.

  ‘Yeah, boss.’

  ‘Search for places in the local area with Gloucester in them. I want roads, avenues, anything and then look for ones that are close to a body of water.’

  ‘Thing is, boss…’

  ‘Dawson, get on to the doctor’s call-out service to see if there were any emergencies funnelled through them.’

  There was hesitation behind his silence until he eventually gave her the answer she wanted.

  ‘Okay, boss.’

  Good. She would have hated giving him
a dressing-down on loudspeaker in front of the whole team.

  ‘Got something,’ Stacey called in the background. ‘Just outside Romsley there’s a Gloucester Street with a fishing pond that backs on to some of the houses.’

  ‘Give me the post code,’ Kim said, feeling like they were finally getting somewhere.

  She just hoped they weren’t already too late.

  Chapter One Hundred One

  Dawson could feel the excitement for the lead from the boss through the phone line.

  When the call ended he saw his colleague’s eyes alight with achievement and pride that she was potentially sending the boss to a murder scene.

  Except he wasn’t so sure they were following the right clues.

  He had been in the process of researching the possible meanings behind the ‘Doctor Foster’ nursery rhyme when the boss had called in.

  So far, he’d read that it was based on a story of Edward I of England travelling to Gloucester, falling off his horse into a puddle and refusing to return to the city again.

  There were two other interpretations of the rhyme and neither of them were dark in origin, unlike the others the killer had used.

  His gut was saying that the murderer was unlikely to change his MO now for convenience. The darkness behind the rhymes had been consistent throughout: the killer wasn’t making the murder fit the wording of the nursery thyme. Though he’d looked into what possible darker meaning could lie behind the rhyme and behind Doctor Foster, he simply hadn’t been able to find anything sinister.

  ‘Cheer up, Dawson,’ Stacey said, still breathless with excitement and anticipation.

  ‘You wanna check the doctor’s call-out for me?’ he asked.

  ‘Still trying to get folks to do your work for you?’ she said, raising one eyebrow.

  He considered every possible response, in every possible tone and then settled on the truth.

  ‘Stacey, I could do with your help.’

  She hesitated and he wasn’t sure he blamed her.