Broken Bones: A gripping serial killer thriller (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Series Book 7)

by Angela Marsons

  ‘Is that why you asked to take one of the passports?’

  He nodded. ‘All too tidy. Everything we asked for, at his fingertips.’

  ‘Hmm…’ Devon added. ‘Almost like they’re ready for us to turn up at any time.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Stacey said to them both, but especially to Devon.

  ‘Any time, babe,’ Devon winked as the two of them headed towards the waiting officers.

  ‘I was talking to the guys there while you were inside,’ Dawson said, dragging her attention away from the figure of Devon walking away. ‘They raided one property in Netherton which housed twenty-seven people in a two-bedroom terrace.’

  ‘How the hell did they pack that many folks in?’ Stacey asked.

  ‘Shifts,’ he answered. ‘Everyone got an eight-hour shift on a bed and then off to work again.’

  ‘You reckon that’s what’s going on here?’ she asked.

  ‘Wanna go take a look at that address?’ he asked.

  She nodded distractedly as she got into the car.

  ‘The passport thing bothering you?’

  She ignored the question as she got into the car.

  Yes, the passports being in the control of the employer bothered her. But there was something else tapping away at the corner of her mind.

  But for now it would just have to wait.

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  ‘So, Mr Barton, you wanted to talk to me?’ Kim asked.

  Roger Barton was sitting forward, his elbows on the table and his hands knitted together. She could see a three-layer outfit of T-shirt, check shirt and jacket, which all looked surprisingly clean given the state of his home.

  ‘Yes, officer, I did.’

  Silence fell between them.

  ‘And now I’m here,’ she prompted.

  Bryant lay down his pen.

  ‘It’s about that girl,’ he said.

  ‘Kelly Rowe?’ Kim clarified.

  He shook his head. ‘The other one.’

  ‘Donna Hill?’

  He shook his head more forcefully. ‘I told you I didn’t meet with either of them.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Kim asked. ‘You seem to spend an awful lot of time on Tavistock Road.’

  ‘I was there on Sunday night, when you saw my car, but I haven’t been back—’

  ‘Mr Barton, how many of these ladies have you met with altogether?’ she asked.

  Kim considered asking him about the traces of Kelly Rowe’s blood that had been found in his car and decided against it for two reasons: she didn’t want to show her hand and she wanted to see why he had come to her. Any mention of the blood would send him running for the hills in search of his solicitor.

  ‘Most of them,’ he admitted. ‘But only the ones old enough,’ he said, colouring. ‘I’m not into that kind of—’

  ‘So, if you’re not talking about Kelly or Donna, who are you referring to?’ she asked, confused.

  ‘The other one. The one on the news. The one you dug up. Jazzy.’

  ‘Lauren Goddard?’ Bryant asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘What about her?’ Kim asked, suspiciously.

  ‘I met with her,’ he offered, blinking rapidly.

  Kim looked at Bryant who picked up his pen.

  Why the hell was he here admitting to contact with Lauren Goddard when they had absolutely nothing to tie him to her?

  ‘Look, I want to tell you something but I need you to believe that I didn’t kill anyone. I’m not like that. I wouldn’t hurt any one of these ladies.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘They’ve been very kind to me. All of them.’

  Kim was seriously beginning to wonder if Bryant was right about this man.

  ‘I think you’d better tell us what you know, Mr Barton,’ she said, coolly.

  He swallowed deeply. ‘I met with Jazzy, I mean Lauren, the night before she died,’ he said.

  Shit, Kim thought. This really was going from bad to worse for her gut instinct. At this rate they’d have this case wrapped up by lunchtime.

  She leaned forward as her phone began to vibrate in her pocket. She ignored it.

  ‘And?’ she prompted.

  ‘She was acting strange, jumpy. She didn’t want to go back,’ he said.

  Kim covered her pocket with her hand when her phone vibrated again.

  ‘Go back where?’ she asked.

  ‘The strip, Tavistock Road. She didn’t want me to drop her there.’

  ‘Was she frightened of Kai?’

  He shrugged and shook his head at the same time. ‘I don’t know. She didn’t say but she was definitely scared of something.’

  ‘Or someone,’ Kim added, trying to hide her irritation at the phone vibrating in her pocket. Damn it, she was interviewing a bloody murder suspect.

  ‘Why are you telling us this, Mr Barton?’ she asked.

  Was he just trying to distract them from the real truth? Was he scared that they were going to find something in his car to link him to Lauren Jazzy Goddard and thought there would be some advantage to owning up first?

  Right now she was more interested in talking to him about the woman who had left a trace of blood in his car and that she could forensically tie him to.

  ‘Mr Barton, I believe you did meet with Kelly Rowe,’ she said.

  He shook his head vehemently. ‘Not for a couple of weeks. I’ve not seen her out there or I would have—’

  ‘You’re lying, Mr Barton,’ she accused. He’d only had the car for a couple of weeks, so he was trying to hide something. Kelly Rowe had been in that car.

  ‘I’m not, I swear—’

  ‘You had Kelly in your car the night she was murdered, didn’t you?’ she pushed.

  He shook his head. ‘I came here to talk about Jazzy—’

  ‘But we want to talk about Kelly.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about—’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ she insisted.

  ‘I would tell you. It’s no secret I meet—’

  ‘Mr Barton, we found her blood in your car.’

  His mouth snapped shut as colour flooded into his face. His eyes narrowed in confusion.

  ‘I think it’s time for you to tell us the truth.’

  He opened his mouth to answer when a soft knock sounded on the door.

  Kim sent a withering glance in the direction of the constable who entered the interview room.

  ‘Sorry, Marm, but one of your team, Penn, needs an urgent word.’

  She looked at Bryant and stepped out of the room. She dialled back the number that had called her three times.

  ‘Penn, what the hell?’

  ‘You said you wanted to know the minute I located Ellie Greaves’s phone.’

  Kim didn’t reply. He was right. That was exactly what she’d said.

  ‘Okay, Penn, where the hell is it?’

  ‘That’s the weird thing, boss. It’s right here in this building.’

  SIXTY-NINE

  Ellie shivered against the bare stone wall. The garments against her skin had ceased to form any kind of protection hours ago.

  She had removed her arms from the sleeves and pulled them inside the T-shirt to use it as a flimsy blanket. She had moved around the black space with her arms thrust out searching for anything that might keep her warm. She had quickly established that the ceiling of the cellar sloped down and that at the end nearest the steps she could just about stand up. She had alternated between sitting on the stone steps and then standing when the cold had worked its way into her bones. Her flimsy shoes offered brief protection for her feet while she stood in one place.

  She had tried to keep counting so she could maintain an idea of passing time but as thoughts had rushed in and out of her mind she had lost count. She knew she had been put in the cellar in the evening time and she thought that it was the next day, but she couldn’t be sure.

  At first she’d cried and begged at the sliver of daylight beneath the door. She had screamed, cried, promised; God only knew what she’d pro
mised, but eventually a towel had been placed along the shaft of light and the thin strip of illumination had been extinguished.

  From that point on Ellie had lost all track of time as her efforts had been focussed on trying to keep warm.

  Although she could not count the number of hours she’d been in the cellar she did know she had urinated in the corner twice.

  Recently she’d thought a lot about the past, the recent past.

  She’d thought about school and had laughed out loud with mirth. What she wouldn’t give to be in that school right now. She would offer a limb to be sitting in a classroom being laughed at and talked about by Rebecca Weaver and her gang with their cruel comments about her weight, straggly hair and lingering virginity. It would have gladdened her heart. Being cornered in the alleyway behind the school and being pelted with eggs and flour would have been a welcome event. She would have run up to the lot of them and hugged them until they bled.

  Until yesterday Ellie thought she’d experienced fear. She now knew that assumption to be false. She may have experienced a heightened sense of anxiety or a mild panic but she had never felt in fear of her life.

  Her mind switched back to Roxanne and the beating she’d received yesterday. She knew that Roxanne must have been put in a position of no choice. Roxanne would not have voluntarily lured her into a trap. She’d spent days with the woman. She knew that deep down inside Roxanne was her friend and she’d been forced into this nightmare.

  Thoughts of school, college and even what had happened in the kitchen were easier to bear than the thought of her mother.

  Ellie did not doubt that the whole situation had been a trap from the very beginning.

  Roxanne had befriended her on Facebook, said all the right things to make her feel important and made all the right noises of understanding. But she knew that Roxanne had been forced into it.

  Ellie realised how cleverly it had all been done: the home-cooked meals, the flattery of the attention, the subtle manipulation of her anger at her mother. She even guessed that the initial mugging that had left her without money or a phone was no accident.

  Every single move, conversation and nuance had been planned, scripted down to the last detail. Ellie knew all of this for a fact just as she knew that Roxanne’s involvement was through her fear of that man.

  These thoughts had been easier to hang onto when fatigue had been in the distance but not now. Now she knew that if she gave into the exhaustion her body temperature would drop further and the involuntary shivers would not be controlled. The last three shudders had prompted her to jump to her feet and run on the spot for a full minute to generate some heat. Her limbs had turned to stone and the effort of the exertion only exhausted her more. All she knew was that the trembling that she couldn’t control was bad.

  She had tried to block thoughts of her mother for the whole time she’d been locked away, because every thought brought guilt, love, regret. Every emotion that she could think of and they all came with tears.

  Their arguments seemed so ridiculously irrelevant that she could not even imagine the importance they’d held a week ago. Disagreements about her room, her curfew, her dress sense, her taste in music, her refusal to attend college.

  Every single one of which she would welcome right now.

  Ellie now knew beyond doubt that her mother did not know where she was and had never been given Roxanne’s number. How stupid had she been to think that her mum would not have called, even to scream at her? How easily she’d been convinced that her own mother didn’t care.

  These hours had clarified in her mind that her mother did care. Ellie visualised her sitting at the kitchen table, crying, worried, fearful.

  Suddenly, Ellie wondered if she would ever see her mother again. The tears stung her sore eyes and this time she could not hold them back. Just to walk into that kitchen with all her problems that didn’t seem like problems any more.

  Oh, how grown up she had wanted to be; a maturity she’d been sure of dissolved against her wish to just feel her mother’s arms around her, holding her close, just one more time.

  Her mind stilled as she heard the click of the cellar door lock.

  The light burst in and forced her to close her sore eyes.

  ‘If you shout, scream or make any attempt to get away you’ll be put back in. Do you understand?’

  Ellie nodded and slowly opened her eyes, blinking against the light. The form in the doorway was definitely Roxanne but the harsh tone and facial expression belonged to someone else.

  At that point Ellie had no idea for what reason she was being released. Who was out there? Where was she going and with whom?

  SEVENTY

  Kim left Roger Barton in the capable hands of Bryant and watched as a constable lifted Johnny Banks to a standing position.

  The blue jeans rested somewhere around the middle of his buttocks, revealing the Calvin Klein label of his underpants. His Nike trainers had the tongue of a lizard. A black T-shirt sat underneath a hoody topped by a duffled body warmer. Fair stubble was erupting through his shaved scalp.

  The constable walked the youth past her. He looked her up and down and sucked the air through his teeth, a mark of disrespect.

  ‘Interview room two,’ she advised the constable.

  He seated the male, whose legs instantly splayed apart, nonchalantly. His cuffed hands landed in his lap.

  The constable stood at the door but Kim indicated for him to leave.

  ‘You sure ’bout dat?’ Johnny asked as the door to the interview room closed.

  ‘Yeah, I’m feeling pretty safe,’ she said, placing the Samsung phone on the table. ‘Where’d you get it, Johnny?’

  ‘I know my rights, bitch. You gotta tape this and I want my brief.’

  ‘Shut up, Johnny. Did you hear me caution you for any offence? We’re just talking.’

  ‘I ain’t fucking talking.’

  ‘Oh, I think you might.’

  ‘I ain’t scared of you, bitch.’

  Kim sat back and smiled. ‘Where were you lifted from today, Johnny?’

  He shrugged. ‘Blud’s yard.’

  ‘Just a brother?’ she asked.

  He smiled knowingly. ‘Yeah, man, just a brother.’

  ‘Well, I can arrange for the shoplifting charges on your warrant to be dropped and then give you a comfy ride back to your blud’s yard in a nice shiny police car. How’d that work for you?’

  Any normal person would have clutched that deal with both hands but for Johnny it would be hell. Dropped charges and a comfy ride home would mean he’d been cooperative. His blud wouldn’t like that very much.

  ‘Look, I’m not interested in the other petty crap you’ve been up to. I just want to know about this phone.’

  ‘I found it, fair and square. D’ya get me?’

  ‘Okay, a free ride back it is,’ she said, standing.

  ‘All right, all right, some bitch told us what to do. Gave us a ton to take some kid’s phone and backpack and scare her a bit.’

  A feeling of dread began to form in her stomach. She was right: Ellie had been trapped and possibly by the same person as Donna.

  ‘What did she look like?’

  Johnny shrugged. ‘About five foot, mousy hair, about sixteen.’

  ‘The woman, Johnny, not the girl.’

  He shrugged. ‘Never saw her; it was a third party contract.’

  ‘A brother?’

  He smiled ‘Yeah, you getting it, a brother.’

  Kim didn’t believe him.

  ‘You’re lying,’ she said, as she continued towards the door. ‘And I’m not in the mood for giving you any more chances, blud. An officer will collect you shortly.’

  ‘Aaah, man, you not even gonna thank me by sucking my—’

  ‘You know, Johnny, you’re not the hardass you’d have me believe,’ she said, turning back to face him.

  ‘How’d you know what I am, bitch?’ His voice had risen an octave.

  She took t
wo steps back and rested her hands on the table.

  ‘Because, you’ve got no gang tattoos and you’re not wearing any colours. That means either you’ve managed to avoid recruitment or you haven’t yet managed to perform the initiation task.’

  Kim knew that normally included the killing of something smaller that couldn’t defend itself.

  ‘So, at this point, you still got a chance.’ She locked on his gaze and shrugged. ‘Either take it or don’t but I’ll tell you one thing, matey, if anything happens to that girl you robbed I am going to find you and there ain’t no brother gonna be able to save you.’

  She walked away and reached the door.

  He coughed into his hand and she heard a name.

  She turned.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Just a cough, innit?’

  Kim held his gaze for a few seconds before she stepped out of the room.

  That was no simple cough. He had offered her a clue.

  The name he had coughed was Roxanne.

  Roxanne had been a neighbour of Kelly Rowe.

  And Kim wanted to speak to her right now.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  ‘And yes, the Robertsons do own this house,’ Stacey confirmed, putting away her phone.

  They’d had no idea of that when they’d followed the minibus here the day before.

  ‘Bloody hell, Stace. What are they up to?’ he asked, parking the car.

  ‘So what you wanna do, Kev?’ Stacey asked, looking towards the target property. ‘Shall we take a look round back?’

  Dawson shook his head. All the curtains were closed even though it was lunchtime.

  ‘We’re not gonna see anything. We need to try and get a look inside.’

  ‘Yeah but we don’t have cause,’ she said, stating the obvious.

  He ignored her but turned her way. ‘You got a notebook in there?’ he asked, looking down at her satchel.

  ‘Pocket notebook?’

  He shook his head. ‘Normal notebook?’

  She frowned. ‘Why would I?’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Stace, all women’s handbags are a mystery to me. You got anything in there, like official?’

  ‘Warrant card official enough?’