‘Some people in front-facing jobs don’t like to use their real name, especially where they might meet conflict or live locally, so they use a middle name to make themselves less identifiable.’
‘Oh, got it.’
The security guard not named Tyrone turned once to make sure they were still behind before he turned the corner.
Kim immediately stopped walking and turned the other way.
‘Follow me,’ she said, heading for the stairwell at speed.
Once through the door she took the stairs two at a time. She heard a door squeak above her.
‘Guv, what are we?…’
‘Just keep up, Bryant,’ she hissed as she pushed open the heavy fire door back onto the corridor.
She looked both ways and swore.
‘I thought I saw someone I recognised,’ she said as her phone dinged receipt of a message.
She took out her phone and read it. Surprised at the sender and the contents, she read it again.
‘What’s up,’ Bryant asked.
She shook her head. ‘Never mind,’ she answered, looking up and down the corridor. ‘I swear I just saw—’
She stopped speaking as the double doors to the medical assessment ward swung open.
A white-clad orderly was backing out of the ward, guiding a hospital bed. She stood back against the wall and turned her head to look at the noticeboard.
‘It’s just an X-ray, Mr Braithwaite,’ he said. ‘We’ll have you back in no time.’
‘Bloody hell, he kept that quiet. We had no idea he worked here as well,’ Bryant observed, following her gaze.
The man they were watching was Giovanni Mancini.
Forty-Seven
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe! The phrase used by children for selection, making a choice. Isn’t that how it goes when you point at something and decide which one you want?
Children sometimes take a moment or two when making an important decision. They weigh up the long- and short-term gains, the instant or lasting gratification.
But not you.
The decision was swift, immediate and without hesitation. For me it was anti-climatical. Disappointing.
I expected more from you. I wanted indecision, pain, suffering in your plight. I wanted you to feel the suffocation of being trapped in a nightmare that makes no sense, that is so breathtakingly painful you wonder if your heart will suddenly stop beating right that second. I wanted to see you so consumed by fear and grief that you would break right there in front of me. But you didn’t.
Oh, you were a cold bitch.
You made your choice so quickly. You asked me once to reconsider. It seemed half-hearted, insincere. I refused and you accepted. How do you know that I wouldn’t have relented and let you both live?
As if.
That’s not how this game works.
That’s not how real life works.
But you didn’t even try.
You told me everything. Spilled the information like a knocked-over cup. You gave me everything I needed. I knew exactly where she’d be at the exact time. Watching the birds out in the garden. The information tumbled out of you as though it caused you no hardship at all.
But you will suffer. You will feel pain. You will feel despair. If you couldn’t feel it for the loss of someone you love then you will feel it for yourself.
Because you made your choice but it really wasn’t a choice at all.
Forty-Eight
‘They’ve both done time,’ Penn said, peering around his computer.
‘Huh?’ Stacey asked. She’d completely forgotten he was in the room.
‘Giovanni Mancini,’ Penn said, taking off his headphones. ‘Got a few months custodial for an assault in his late teens.’
Stacey had moved on. Her own investigation had uncovered a police witness statement for Dale Jones, who had been a character witness for a friend accused of statutory rape, as he had already mentioned to her. The sixteen-year-old had had no involvement with the police either before or since.
‘And although it was a long time ago, senior Mancini was put away for a month for that petty theft twenty years ago. So, they’ve both done time.’
‘Anything else?’ Stacey said, trying to sound interested. Basically, he’d found nothing.
‘Nope,’ he said, reaching for his empty Tupperware box. ‘Except, it’s almost seven and I’m going home.’
‘Okay, see yer,’ Stacey said, without looking up.
She waited until he was out of the room and let out a long breath. The tension immediately left her body.
When Penn was around it made it harder to pretend. To pretend that Dawson was coming back.
She stared past the blurring of her eyes, willing the emotion to subside.
She knew she had to be patient with herself, the therapist had told her that. Not to expect too much. His death was a loss to her. Yeah, she knew that too.
She also knew that although her head had accepted that her friend was dead she was waiting for her heart to catch up.
‘Pull yourself together, woman,’ she chided herself.
She blinked away the tears and focussed on the screen.
She had established Jessie Ryan’s boyfriend was clean. He’d committed no crime or he just hadn’t been caught.
And now she turned her attention to Emma Weston. Stacey could not rid herself of the image of the girl slapping her best friend around the face, right before they disappeared from view and Jessie disappeared altogether.
She typed in Emma’s name and address and took a sip of her drink.
She paused mid slurp as data filled the screen.
‘Jesus,’ Stacey said, placing down her drink.
For a fifteen-year-old kid she’d been busy.
Emma Weston had been arrested for violence.
And it had happened more than once.
Forty-Nine
It was almost nine when Kim stepped into the Lyttelton Arms in Hagley. She’d been home after a frustrating day at work to get a bite and take Barney for a walk.
The venue had been her suggestion, falling around halfway between their locations and because there was something about the place she liked and admired.
The pub was originally the eighteenth-century former home of Lord Lyttelton and had reinvented itself countless times over the years. In the late nineties it had been a traditional ale drinkers’ pub like hundreds of others in the area. And like many of its contemporaries it had faced closure following the smoking ban and the eruption of cheap beer chain establishments in every high street.
In the early noughties it had saved itself from extinction by becoming a Harvester but was now a trendy gastro pub catering to people who wanted a quiet drink after work as well as those seeking an evening of lively entertainment.
In Kim’s mind it was the little pub that could.
He’d said eight thirty but she’d known he’d wait. He’d texted her for a reason.
Her eyes searched the space that was not overly busy on a Wednesday night.
He sat at a window seat and nodded in her direction.
His salt-and-pepper hair had been recently cut showing off a healthy complexion that did nothing to hide the tiredness around his eyes. And now she understood the slump of his shoulders weighed down by hopelessness.
She detoured to the bar and asked for a coffee, before taking a seat opposite.
‘You drinking, Travis?’ she asked, glancing at his glass.
‘A couple of pints,’ he answered.
‘You driving?’ she asked, frowning, as a waitress passed her carrying plates of spit-roasted chicken, and sea bass.
He shook his head. ‘Taxi.’
‘So, what’s this about?’ she asked, as the guy from behind the bar placed her coffee in front of her before rushing back to a group of four who had just entered.
‘How’s the leg?’ Travis asked, taking a sip of his drink.
She frowned at him. He had not asked to meet her for a welfare check.
/> ‘How’s things at home?’ she asked.
He smiled showing the ghost of a twinkle in the piercing blue eyes. They had never talked about personal stuff and they wouldn’t start now despite what they’d learned of each other.
To say their history was chequered was an understatement.
They had worked together as DSs for a couple of years, had worked well together before she made DI ahead of him. Around the same time, he had punched a suspect in the face and she had covered it up. Along with the fact that when she’d questioned him about it he had struck her too. He had immediately requested a transfer to West Mercia and made DI not long afterwards.
Bitterness and animosity had grown between them in the years since as they had fought over bodies and crime scenes, their friendship long forgotten.
And then they’d been forced to work together on a Hate Crimes case that had straddled their neighbouring forces of West Midlands and West Mercia. Only then had she learned that his actions back in the past had been due to his forty-three-year-old wife’s diagnosis of early onset dementia. She also knew that he was in love with a woman that he’d never allow himself to have.
The knowledge had helped her understand his actions, and their two teams had worked together to uncover a bunch of mindless racist pigs and save the life of Stacey Wood. And that was how she’d met Detective Sergeant Austin Penn.
‘I got your card,’ she said, taking a sip of her drink.
‘Least I could do. He was a bright lad.’
She nodded her agreement but said nothing.
‘So, how’s my boy doing?’ he asked.
Ah, so that’s what this was about.
‘You can ask him yourself when he comes back after this case is finished,’ she said.
‘He won’t be coming back to West Mercia,’ Travis stated.
‘How the hell do you know?’ she asked. ‘He moves police force like he’s playing musical chairs,’ she said. ‘West Mids, West Mercia and now West Mids again. Seems to be going for some kind of record.’
‘He has his reasons, Kim,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘They don’t concern me.’
‘I thought you liked Penn,’ he said.
‘I did when he was one of yours. I like him a lot less as one of mine.’
‘He’s a good officer. He multitasks well, equally as good out in the field as he is with data mining and—’
‘I know he’s a good officer but I’m not keeping him, Tom,’ she said, resolutely. ‘He doesn’t fit. I’ve made it clear to Woody that once this case is finished I want him gone.’
‘Didn’t you say that about Dawson once, in the early days?’
She shrugged in response. She didn’t remember.
‘He wasn’t your cup of tea but you stuck with him. You gave him a chance. You coached him, you taught him, you corrected him and he was a much better officer because of it.’
She tipped her head. ‘Tom, don’t blow smoke up my—’
‘Yeah, cos I’d really do that with you. It’s true. I saw how you worked with him. He looked up to you, respected—’
‘Enough, Tom,’ she said, holding up her hand. For some reason she couldn’t hear this right now.
He sighed, heavily. ‘Penn’s a good officer if you give him a chance. I know he’s not the easiest person to warm to but he’s a decent guy whose had his fair share of…’
‘Like what, Tom?’ she asked. ‘And why do you care so much? You’ve always kept your distance from your officers, so why the concern for Penn? What’s his story?’
Travis opened his mouth to say something and then appeared to change his mind and say something else.
‘Let’s just say I’ve grown to understand him. And I think he deserves a shot at being part of your team.’
She shook her head, unmoved.
‘It’s not happening, Tom. I appreciate you inviting me here to tell me absolutely nothing that would convince me to change my mind but—’
‘Do you remember Holly Baxter?’
Kim groaned and nodded.
‘Came into the station with a black eye, said her neighbour had assaulted her in the hallway for no reason. We brought him in for questioning. I felt there was something not right. The female PC who interviewed Holly Baxter felt something was off. But you wouldn’t have it. You questioned the neighbour for hours trying to get a confession. Even when the woman admitted she’d done it herself to get a rest from his loud music for one night, you still wouldn’t have it and demanded to see the coffee mug she’d used to injure herself.’
‘And?…’ She’d believed she was being thorough.
‘There’s a difference between stubbornness and sheer bloody-mindedness. Look, all I’m saying is he’s a good officer. He could be a great asset to your team; however hard he tries he’s never gonna be Kevin Dawson. No one is.’
Yep – and for her that was always going to be the problem.
Fifty
‘Okay, guys, new day new energy,’ Kim said, looking at the board that had changed very little from the day before. Cordell had been murdered on Monday and it was now Thursday and two clear days of space without any real development were mocking her. Only last night she’d heard a phrase on the TV about ‘trudging through molasses’ and although she wasn’t exactly sure what molasses were it sounded about right to her.
‘Just to recap, we spoke yesterday to the only people known to have a grudge against Doctor Cordell, being Angelo and Giovanni Mancini, who both state they were home on Monday night. Angelo Mancini claims he caught Cordell having sex with a nurse in Theatre 3 and that Cordell’s accusation of theft was designed to shut him up and get him out of the way, allegedly. We only have Angelo’s word on that.’
‘And the nurse?’ Stacey asked.
Kim shrugged. ‘We’re hoping to find out today from Vanessa Wilson if there’s anyone in particular that Cordell spent time with, especially Natalie Mansell, the daughter of the woman murdered at Cedars Retirement Home yesterday. She had blue fibres on her lips that may or may not match the fibres found around Gordon Cordell’s wound.’
‘To complicate matters further,’ Bryant added. ‘We learned last night that Giovanni Mancini also works at the hospital as a porter, so both were in the same vicinity as Cordell.’
‘Checked them both out,’ Penn offered. ‘Senior Mancini has form for theft but not for almost twenty years. Nothing since he’s been working at the hospital. And junior spent a few months away for grievous bodily harm in his late teens. Again, nothing since.’
Kim sighed heavily. Nothing there to hang her hat on.
‘Stace, any progress on your missing girl?’ she asked. Under her instruction Stacey had produced a summary document and circulated it to the team to bring everyone up to speed.
Stacey shrugged. ‘Appears to have just disappeared into thin air. She left her best friend’s house after an argument but never made it to her boyfriend’s a few streets away. Her stepfather was out looking for her and never found her.’
‘Mobile phone?’ Bryant queried.
‘No activity since Sunday night and now the battery has been removed by the looks of it. Can’t locate it.’
‘What are you thinking?’ Kim asked.
‘I’ve got reservations about the friend,’ Stacey admitted. ‘She’s got form for violence and she was definitely unhappy with Jessie enough to smack her one.’
‘What about the boyfriend?’
‘Seems clean. For him the relationship isn’t serious. I’d like to get into Emma’s house. She’s hiding something but I have nothing for a search warrant,’ she said, as though the jig was up and she could take it no further.
‘Correct,’ Kim said. ‘But you really gonna give up so easily, Stace?’ she asked. ‘Use your imagination and use your resources.’
Kim turned back to them all. ‘Come on, guys. There’s something out there just waiting to be found. I want fresh energy, fresh ideas, enthusiasm and a burst of energy. Got it?’
‘Yes, boss,’ they all shouted back.
‘So, I want more digging on Cordell. I want someone liaising with Forensics for updates on both Cordell and Phyllis Mansell. I want someone liaising with Traffic for any update on Saul Cordell’s accident.’
She looked from Stacey to Penn. ‘And how you divide that workload is completely up to you,’ she said as her phone began to ring.
She answered the phone and listened to Woody.
‘Damn it,’ she said, hanging up the phone. She turned to her colleagues.
‘Extra emphasis on Traffic. Saul Cordell just died.’
Fifty-One
‘So, what do you want, Forensics or Traffic?’ Penn asked, once the boss and Bryant had left the room.
‘I’ll take Traffic,’ Stacey said, ‘because I’m sure you want to get back to your footprint.’
‘It’ll wait, and what you sounding so snarky about?’
‘I’m not snarky,’ she said in a tone that kind of proved his point.
‘It’s Jessie, isn’t it?’ he asked, taking his headphones from his bag.
Yes, it was. She had barely slept thinking of the girl having spent her fourth night out there somewhere away from her parents and her home, her stuff, and all that was familiar to her.
Last night she had pored over the girl’s social media accounts looking for any sign of activity, but everything had just stalled. Jessie’s last post on Facebook had been a share of a cutie puppies video on Sunday afternoon. Her last tweet had been two days before she disappeared, and her Instagram pictured a Chinese takeaway on Saturday night, a full twenty-four hours before she’d gone missing. Every one of Jessie’s accounts remained exactly as it had been when she’d checked them on Monday morning, except for posts on her timeline from friends asking where she was.
Stacey had also spent a few minutes checking the social media of Emma Weston, which had only one post since Sunday. On Monday evening the girl had posted a photo of Jessie and an appeal for anyone who had seen her to make contact. Over a hundred people had commented on the post but none had offered any information. Good wishes, memes, GIFs, hugs but no sightings.
Fatal Promise: A totally gripping and heart-stopping serial-killer thriller Page 14