The secret society of the Spades had come together and protected him. He had been grateful for the day when he was eleven years old and had been invited to join one of the four secret societies that existed at Heathcrest. He had relished the prestige of being a chosen one and had enjoyed all the benefits and connections of the brotherhood that continued beyond school. Once a Spade, always a Spade. And as expected his fellow Spades in high places had come forward and shielded him. Until the danger had passed.
And then they’d sent him the card.
The satisfied sigh of relief that he was untouchable had been silenced when he’d opened the envelope to find a ripped playing card. The nine of spades had been torn into bits and sent to him. No note. No explanation. Not that he’d needed one. He’d understood the message loud and clear.
The Spades had protected him for one reason only: they hadn’t wanted the police to destroy him because they had wanted to do it themselves.
Within forty-eight hours of opening the envelope he had been fired from his job as head surgeon at the private Oakland Hospital in Stourport-on-Severn. His brand new Lexus had been collected the same day, and his wife had thrown him out two days later when she’d learned why he had lost his job. The Spades were not upset because he’d performed the illegal abortion. They were upset because he’d been caught.
Within a week of expulsion he had been employed by Dudley Health Authority who were pleased to have him on board.
As well they should be, he reasoned. He had been educated at the best schools in the country and his record was impeccable. His official record, of course.
While not even close to the high six-figure sum he’d commanded at Oakland, the salary afforded him the opportunity of paying the mortgage on the home occupied by his wife with enough left over for rent on the one-bedroom apartment in Dudley and the nine-year-old Vauxhall he now drove.
It was all temporary. He knew that. This was his penance for being found out. This was his punishment for the police having got too close and bringing the whiff of scandal to a secret society that was steeped in tradition. But his fortunes would change in good time. Soon there would be a Spade that wanted his help. There would be some Lord or member of the cabinet with a careless teenage daughter who had a problem that needed taking care of by someone who could keep their mouth shut.
And that was when they’d bring him back. His old job would suddenly be available again. His Lexus would appear on the drive of his five bed, four bath barn conversion in Hartlebury, and his wife would welcome him home. His home once more.
But for now he would perform routine surgeries on the dregs of humanity for the NHS for a pittance of what he was worth.
‘Oh Doctor…’
‘Not now, Mrs Wilkins,’ he snapped, passing by the front door of flat 1A as the elderly woman peered out.
Ever since he’d foolishly mentioned that he was a doctor she had assaulted him with an ever-changing list of symptoms almost on a daily basis.
‘But, I just—’
‘Sorry, can’t stop,’ he said, reaching the first flight of stairs. He could still hear her protests but he wasn’t going back. He was just glad she didn’t have access to the internet. She’d have found one life-threatening disease after another.
He mounted the two flights of stairs while adjusting his breathing. His bulk didn’t take well to the absence of a lift, but in a month, he had shaved over sixteen pounds from his twenty-two stone weight. And although he didn’t wish to prolong his excommunication from his real life for longer than necessary, he secretly hoped he could shift another stone before returning home. His wife, Lilith, had tried dozens of diets, without success, and he had constantly told her less food and more exercise was the only way. He enjoyed a certain smugness and anticipated the ‘I told you so speech’ with relish.
These stairs, and not having his meals readily cooked for him, were working a treat.
He ignored the laboured breathing, white stars behind his eyes and the sweat on his forehead as he opened the door to his temporary home. It was a flat he’d kept for some years but only for a night here and there.
He stepped straight into the lounge which he swore got smaller each day.
An archway led to a boxy kitchen with no window and too many wall cupboards.
A door led to the bedroom which then led to the shower room behind.
It was still the stark empty box it had been the day he’d taken the keys.
He walked straight through to the bedroom loosening his tie as he went. After the first few days, Lilith had allowed him to return for a suitcase of clothes. She’d told him to take them all but to touch nothing else.
He smirked. She hadn’t noticed him swipe the bedside photograph of his two boys, Saul, already a surgeon and Luke in medical school. Small triumph, but a triumph all the same.
He reached into the bottom of his case to take out the photo, as he always did.
Placing it beside his bed admitted a permanence about his current situation that he was not prepared to acknowledge.
His pudgy fingers met with the silk lining of the case.
He frowned as he moved aside his spare pair of shoes and two pairs of socks.
He felt nothing but more silk and the securing strap.
He looked around the room even though he knew he had not removed it from its safe place in the suitcase.
‘Where the hell?…’
His words were cut off as a blinding pain shot through his head.
He fell forward as the sound of shattering glass reverberated in his ear.
Stars darted in front of his eyes as the nausea rose in his stomach. His consciousness threatened to desert him. He swallowed the saliva in his mouth to ward off the sickness.
He blinked rapidly hoping to outrun the descending darkness.
‘Hello, Doctor Cordell,’ said a smooth, calm voice behind him.
He fought off the nausea to turn and view his attacker.
The voice was not familiar, but as he turned, he realised that the face was. It was a face he had seen before but he couldn’t recall where.
‘What the—’
‘Shut up, Doctor Cordell,’ said his attacker cutting him off.
‘Lovely boys you have,’ Cordell heard, as he tried to blink his wavering vision back to normal.
Only then did he realise he’d been struck with the photo. The picture of his wonderful sons.
The photo was thrust into his face.
‘The time has come for you, Doctor Cordell. It’s time for you to make a choice.’
Three
Kim pushed aside the feeling of unease as she approached the doors to the station. She hadn’t set foot in the place for over a month. At first, she had railed against sick leave, insisting that she could function close to normal, but Woody’s risk assessment said otherwise.
Jack offered her a nod and a half smile as she passed the front desk.
‘Welcome back, Marm,’ he offered.
She nodded in return but said nothing.
She walked the familiar corridors busy at evening shift changeover, the air crackling with both cheer and misery.
Normally she took the stairs two at a time up to her boss’s office on the third floor without a moment’s thought. Today she took the lift. She passed two other executive offices before knocking on Woody’s door.
Again, the unease returned. An activity she’d performed many times over the last few years without a moment’s thought or hesitation no longer held the same familiarity.
His low steady voice told her to enter just as she shifted weight onto her right leg.
She pushed the door open and suddenly realised that this man was a constant in her life.
Never did she doubt that he would be sitting behind his desk, his smooth brown skin and shaved head accentuating the smart white shirt. The wedding band still on his finger despite the loss of his wife three years earlier.
He removed his glasses and placed them in front of a framed p
hotograph of his granddaughter, Lissy.
‘So, you’re back, Stone?’
Exactly the words she would have expected but a difference in tone. There was an edge, an element of tolerance. Forced through gritted teeth as though the moment had arrived too soon.
‘Fighting fit, sir,’ she said, taking a step forward.
He regarded her coolly. As well he should. There was an issue between them that hadn’t yet been addressed.
She took a breath. ‘Sir, there’s something I’ve been meaning—’
‘Counselling, Stone,’ he said, cutting her off. Clearly his urgency was focussed on a different priority to hers.
‘Not necessary,’ she retorted, automatically.
‘In whose opinion?’ he asked.
‘Mine, sir. I’m fit to return to work.’
‘As I wouldn’t accept your judgement on your own physical fitness, why would I accept your assessment of your psychological readiness?’
‘Because I know my mind better than anyone,’ she said, simply.
‘Stone, I enjoy a good steak but it doesn’t make me a butcher. An appointment has been made with a force psychologist for—’
‘No,’ she said, simply.
His face hardened. ‘This is not negotiable.’
She took her warrant card from her pocket and placed it on his desk.
‘You’re right, sir, it’s not.’
Never would she allow the force psychologists near her again. Ten years earlier, during her time as a constable, she’d been involved in a child abuse case where a young boy had been found dead on the day she’d accompanied Child Services to remove him from the home.
A routine visit to the force psychologist after the investigation had turned into much more when he had tried to link her feelings of anger to the death of her twin brother when she was six years old. That he’d gleaned the information from her personnel file had been bad enough but his insistence that she had relived her own brother dying of starvation as they had lay chained to the radiator together had boiled the blood that ran through her veins. Yes, she relived Mikey’s death and her inability to save him regularly but only in her dreams.
Despite her protestations that she was angry because the difference between the child’s life and his death was owing to the paltry two hours it had taken to get the authorisation letter signed, the force psychologist had filed a report stating she was ‘not addressing key issues that may be problematic in the future’.
Luckily her sergeant had been overworked and understaffed and had filed the report under ‘unlikely to be my problem by then’. But had he taken it more seriously she would probably have been out of a job.
Woody tipped his head and waited for her explanation.
‘I’m not going to open up to anyone and you know that. I’m not going to explore anything and, trust me, sir, you don’t really want me to.’
His expression told her he was not backing down. ‘It is a requirement of the—’
‘Sir,’ Kim interrupted. ‘The basics are that you need to be sure I’m able to do my job.’
‘There is significantly more to it than that,’ he argued. ‘One of your team members lost his—’
‘I don’t need reminding of that,’ she snapped before she could stop herself. She amended her tone before continuing. ‘But ultimately, that’s your main concern, isn’t it? Can I function?’
He nodded.
‘In which case, there will be a report on your desk by the end of the week from a qualified psychologist with an answer to your question, but in the meantime you know me well enough to allow me back to work.’
‘With Bryant?’
She just about managed to stop her eyes rolling upwards. Her boss sure liked keeping her attached to her steady, pragmatic partner. She wasn’t sure how Bryant would feel about that. She hadn’t seen him in weeks.
‘Of course,’ she answered, hoping she was speaking for Bryant as well as herself.
He thought for a moment before nodding and pushing her warrant card back towards her.
‘And dramatics don’t suit you, Stone.’
She took her identification back and said nothing. It was no drama. She would have walked.
She took a deep breath.
‘Sir, I’m sorry,’ she said forcing the words out of her mouth. They did not leave her lips often.
‘Leave it, Stone,’ he said, through a tightening jaw.
‘No, sir, I won’t,’ she said, stubbornly. ‘My apology may be six weeks overdue but I shouldn’t have doubted you during the Heathcrest investigation. I should have known that your first and only priority was for those children. It’s not a mistake I’ll make again.’
During their last major investigation she had urged him to announce the death of a child as murder to protect other families at the Heathcrest facility, but he had been forced by higher powers to keep that word firmly out of the press conference. She had questioned his integrity while being unaware of an arrangement he’d made with Frost, the reporter for the Dudley Star, that Frost would raise the question of murder during the press conference which had produced the exact response that Kim had wanted but without him having to defy a direct instruction. She felt bad in part that she hadn’t realised herself what he’d been up to and just as bad that it had taken Tracy bloody Frost to point it out to her. And it had all served to remind her of the reasons she aspired to no higher position in the police force. Woody could keep the office politics.
His mouth twitched. ‘Feel better after that, Stone?’
‘Actually, sir, yes, I do,’ she said honestly.
The air between them had been tense since the press conference, despite the loss of Dawson, but she was hopeful that in their working relationship they could get back to the mutual respect and trust they’d always had.
‘It’s been pleasantly quiet here without you, Stone,’ he said, as the expression in his eyes warmed up a degree or two.
‘Don’t doubt it, sir,’ she said, nodding. ‘But I’m back now, so where the hell is my team?’
Four
Kim opened the door to the squad room and turned on the light. She faltered and took a step back as her gaze fell immediately on to Dawson’s empty desk. For some reason, she expected to see his belongings still sitting there. She’d expected to see his photograph of Charlotte. The paperweight under which he’d filed anything he classed as not urgent. The solar-powered nodding alien Stacey had bought him after he’d admitted he detested the things. He had hated it but kept it anyway.
Someone had found the strength to remove his stuff and it was now nothing more than a desk. An empty desk. Just a workspace. As though he’d never been there.
She pulled herself away and headed for the glass bowl in the corner. The eight feet square space which housed only a desk, chair, and filing cabinet seemed to have shrunk in her absence.
She threw her leather jacket over the back of her chair as Bryant arrived. The first of her team to return. And now fifty per cent of her team. He stole a glance at the empty desk before smiling in her direction and offering his hand.
‘Evening, Marm, my name is…’
She shook her head indicating that it wasn’t funny or appropriate.
‘How’s the leg?’ he asked, taking his seat.
‘Not bad,’ she answered, on safer ground. ‘But you’ll be happy to know I can’t drive.’
‘I already know that, guv. Oh sorry, you meant you’re not allowed to drive. My mistake.’
Kim couldn’t help but smile as they quickly settled back into their bantering relationship. She supposed that’s what happened with friends. Even ones you hadn’t seen in over a month.
And that had been her choice not his.
She was sure her withdrawal would come up at some stage but not right now and for that she was grateful.
‘So where’s?…’
‘Hey, boss,’ Stacey said, with forced brightness as she barrelled into the office. She removed the satchel that crossed her
body before throwing herself into her seat.
Kim noticed that she hadn’t glanced at the desk opposite.
‘So, you two had a good holiday?’ she asked, perching on the spare desk.
It occurred to her this was the first time they’d all been in the office together since Dawson’s death. There was a sense of imbalance resting around her. There were many times it had just been the three of them but it reminded her of when she’d been on sick leave. When Barney was just in another room she never gave it a thought and just carried on with her business as though he was right behind her. But two weeks ago her dog’s groomer had collected him and taken him for his bi-monthly detangling and the sense of emptiness in the house had been overwhelming. She had been able to focus on nothing and had just paced and checked her watch until the doorbell signalled his return.
It wasn’t that Dawson wasn’t sitting there right now that caused the imbalance in her mind. It was that he wasn’t sitting anywhere.
‘Well, I’ve been to Costa del Brierley Hill,’ Bryant answered. ‘Desk duties mainly. They like their bloody paperwork trails,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘Cote D’Sedgley for me, boss,’ Stacey said. ‘Mainly CCTV stuff.’
Kim had known her small team had been reassigned to new teams in her absence. And neither placement seemed to have known what to do with the additional resource and so had put them on ‘mug’s work’ as she liked to put it.
‘Anything of interest?’ she asked, aware that all their desks were relatively empty as the cases would have been distributed around neighbouring teams.
They both shook their heads but Stacey’s response was just a nanosecond too slow.
‘And what about?…’ Bryant asked, nodding towards the empty desk.
‘Woody’s on it,’ she said, holding up her hands. He’d told her no more than that.
She glanced up at the clock. It was almost seven but she’d wanted to just touch base with them both before starting work the next day.
‘Well, thanks for…’
Fatal Promise: A totally gripping and heart-stopping serial-killer thriller Page 2