Silent Scream: An edge of your seat serial killer thriller (Detective Kim Stone crime thriller series Book 1) (18 page)

‘
S
hit
,’ Bryant said as they got into the car.

Kim felt sick. ‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘If it’s that there’s possibly another body to find, then yes.’

‘Insert the word
probably
for possibly and we’re pretty much bang on.’ Kim put the seatbelt on and turned. ‘You wrote those names down, right?’

Bryant nodded as she took out her phone. He followed suit.

‘Two missed calls and a message from Dawson,’ she said.

‘Mine are from Woody.’

They both keyed into their mailboxes. Kim listened to Dawson’s excitable voice and then deleted the message.

‘Dawson wants me back at the site straight away.’

Bryant chuckled. ‘Woody wants me to get you back to the station within the same timeframe and last I heard, talented as you are, you’ve yet to master being in two places at the same time.’ He turned to her. ‘So, Guv, column A or column B?’

Kim looked at him and raised one eyebrow.

‘Yeah, I thought that’s what you were gonna say.’

B
ryant pulled
the car onto the dirt patch. It had taken forty minutes to travel eight miles from the centre of Birmingham.

Kim opened the door. ‘Check in with Dawson, make sure he’s okay.’

‘Will do, Guv.’

She trotted to the third tent. The site was beginning to look more like a festival concessions area than a crime scene. She paused at the entrance. She turned and looked down the hill at the middle house and the prisoner within, and gave a little wave. Just in case.

Cerys turned as she entered.

Kim looked down into the pit. ‘Where’s she gone?’ she asked, sexing the body without thinking. There was no sure way of knowing this second body was that of a female except for her gut and that was normally good enough for her.

‘Dan has the body in the other tent. It was removed about half an hour ago. We’ve had chance to sieve a third of the pit and I thought you might like to know we found more ...’

‘Beads,’ Kim finished for her.

‘How did you know?’

Kim shrugged. ‘Anything else?’

Cerys sighed heavily and nodded slowly. ‘We’ve carried out a full sweep of the site and found ...’

‘One more mass,’ Kim interrupted again.

Cerys placed her right hand on her hip. ‘Shall I just go home now?’

Kim smiled. ‘Sorry, I’m just tired. One of those days. Will this second area be completed tomorrow?’

‘First thing in the morning I’ll get started on the excavation of area three. We haven’t marked it yet. We don’t want to give the vultures a head start,’ Cerys said, meaning the press. ‘We don’t yet know for certain that the third anomaly is another body.’

Kim felt the certainty in the pit of her stomach.

‘The press are watching our every move so I had the guys complete the sweep and then pack the machine away and keep clear of the area of interest so they don’t get suspicious.’

‘How will you know exactly where to dig if you haven’t marked it?’ Kim asked.

‘I’ve paced it from the edge of the tent. Trust me, I’ll know.’

Kim did trust her.

‘The good news is that site one can be closed down and filled in tomorrow. I just need to sign it off and the first tent can be removed.’

‘Anything else of interest?’

‘A few bits of cloth; all labelled, bagged and sent back to the lab. May help with identification.’

After their meeting with Nicola, Kim guessed it was only going to be the choice of three.

‘Anything else?’

Cerys shook her head and turned away.

Kim appreciated the woman’s tenacity. She accepted that her own drive grew from something more than the need to solve this case. Try as she might to convince herself that it was no different; it was. She knew the pain of these girls’ past. Not one of them had woken up one day and chosen the future mapped out for them. Their behaviour could not be traced back to an absolute year, month, day and time. It was a progressive journey of peaks and troughs until circumstances eventually stifled hope.

It was never the big things. Kim remembered only ever being called 'child'. All of them had been called 'child' so the staff didn't have to remember their names.

Kim understood that her own motivation came out of a need to seek justice for these forgotten kids; that her pace would not slow until she had.

And she appreciated anyone that tried to keep up with her.

‘Hey,’ Kim said, as she reached the exit. ‘Thanks.’

Cerys smiled.

Kim headed to the utility tent. Daniel had his back to her but she could see that he and two others were busy labelling plastic bags.

‘Hey, Doc, what you got?’

‘What – no insults, no abuse?’

‘Look, I’m tired but I’m sure I could muster ...’

‘No, it’s fine. Today I could live without it.’

Kim noted that the doctor was more sullen than usual. His shoulders were slightly hunched as he sealed the plastic bag containing the skull. White strips of tape bearing black marker pen listed the site and the bone within.

His assistant reached for the lid to the storage box but Daniel shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

Kim was confused. She’d seen bodies packed before with the heaviest bones at the bottom of the box and ascending so that the lighter, more fragile bones lay at the top.

Normally the skull was the last item to be packed.

She stood beside him as he reached for a container the size of a sandwich box, already lined with tissue paper. A collection of small bones was piled to the far right of the table. His hand trembled slightly.

‘Adult or non-adult?’ Kim asked.

‘Definitely non-adult. I can’t give you any idea of how she died at the moment. On first inspection there are no obvious areas of trauma to her body.’

His voice was quiet and controlled.

Kim was momentarily confused. ‘Hang on, Doc. Because our first victim was juvenile I couldn’t threaten you into sexing it but all of a sudden you’re referring to this one as a female before you’ve even taken the bones back to the lab?’

He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘That’s right. I have no hesitation in sexing victim number two, Detective.’ He looked back at the sandwich box.

‘Because this young lady was pregnant.’

‘
W
hat a bloody day
,’ Bryant said, parking the car at the rear of the station. They were the first words spoken since leaving the site. ‘Dawson was pretty quiet up there.’

‘Are you surprised?’

Dawson had been unable to take his eyes from the small container until the bones were loaded into the larger box, beside the bones of the mother.

‘Get off home, Bryant. I’ll go see Woody and then I’ll be heading home myself.’

It was just after seven and they were entering the thirteenth hour of the sixth working day. Bryant would keep at it right beside her. But he had a family. She did not.

Her last burst of energy was used as she mounted the steps to the third floor. She knocked and waited.

As Woody called for her to enter she marvelled at the level of controlled rage that could be contained in two syllables.

The stress ball was already in his hand when she took a seat.

‘You wanted to see me, Sir?’

‘Three hours ago, when I called, would have been more appropriate,’ he growled.

Kim looked to his right hand and swore she could hear the stress ball crying out for mercy.

‘There were developments at the site that required ...’

‘Stone, you were involved in a traumatic incident.’

‘Bryant’s driving isn’t that bad,’ she quipped weakly. It had been a long day.

‘Shut up. You’re fully aware of the procedure and the need for your return to the station for a debrief and a welfare check.’

‘I was fine, ask Bryant ...’

‘You’ll excuse me if I choose not to waste my time with that.’ He sat back and switched the stress ball to the left hand. Damn, she wasn’t out of the woods yet.

‘I have an obligation, a duty of care, which you make damn near impossible for me to exercise. You have to be offered support and counselling.’

Kim rolled her eyes. ‘When I need someone to tell me how I should be feeling I’ll be sure to let you know.’

‘That you don’t feel anything may well be the problem, Stone.’

‘It’s not a problem for me, Sir.’

He leaned forward, his eyes boring into her. ‘Not right at this moment but eventually all the negativity will affect you and your ability to function.’

Kim doubted that. It was the way she always handled things. The bad things were packed away in boxes and sealed shut. The key was in never opening the boxes and her only question was why more people didn’t do that.

The old adage stated that time healed everything. And she had mastered the art of manipulating time. In real time she had failed to save the life of Arthur Connop only seven hours earlier but the activity crammed into those intervening hours distanced the memory. In her mind, the incident could have happened last week. Therefore, the event was much further back in her past than Woody believed.

‘Sir, thank you for your concern but I really am fine. I accept that I can’t save everyone and I don’t beat myself up when people die.’

Woody held up his hand. ‘Stone, enough. My decision is made. Once this case is over you will seek counselling or you will face suspension.’

‘But ...’

He shook his head. ‘If not, the bad inside will destroy you.’

What she held inside was of no concern to her. It was locked up and contained. Her only fear was in letting it out. To release it would most certainly signal her destruction.

She sighed heavily. That was a fight for another day.

‘There will be no further discussion on the matter but before you go, there’s something else.’

Fabulous, she thought.

‘I’ve received a call from the superintendent who has received a call from the chief superintendent who both want
you
removed from this case.’ He sat back. ‘So, tell me who the hell you pissed off today.’

There was no point lying to him. Clearly someone’s feathers had been well and truly ruffled.

‘Sir, I could give you a list but it wouldn’t be exhaustive. However, the only person I’m aware of having angered that badly would be Richard Croft but I can’t imagine he has that kind of influence.’

There was a brief pause as their eyes met. ‘His wife,’ they said, together.

‘What did you say to him?’

She shrugged. ‘Many things,’ she answered, thinking Croft’s wife must love him very much after all.

‘Witness or suspect?’

She pulled a face. ‘Bit of both.’

‘Dammit, Stone. When will you learn that there is an element of politics when policing at this level?’

‘No, Sir, there is an element of politics in policing at
your
level. Mine is still about uncovering the truth.’

Woody glowered at her. Kim hadn’t quite meant it the way it had sounded. She relied on the fact that he would know that and chose not to open her mouth to change feet.

She stuck out her chin. ‘So, are you gonna follow instructions and remove me?’

‘Stone, I do not need goading from you to make use of a perfectly healthy spine. They have already been advised that you will continue to head the case.’

Kim smiled. She should have known.

‘The councillor clearly has something to hide or he wouldn’t have set his guard dog loose.’

For the first time in days, he offered her the promise of a smile. ‘So, I guess I’d better unchain mine.’

‘Yes, Sir,’ Kim said, with a smile.

K
im looked
from Bryant to Stacey. ‘Okay, new day. Dawson will be going straight to the site and he’ll call when there’s more to report.

‘So, to recap. Of the six staff members identified, only two remain; Richard Croft and William Payne. Richard Croft doesn’t like me very much so I don’t think we’ll be getting much more from him. But he’s hiding something.’

‘Guv, two of the objections to the professor’s project were filed by the law firm Travis, Dunne and Cohen.’

‘Croft’s wife?’

Stacey nodded. ‘She works under her maiden name of Cohen.’

‘So, whatever he’s hiding, she knows about.’

‘Worth a visit to her office, Guv?’ Bryant asked.

Kim shook her head. ‘She’s already tried to remove me from the case and I’m not giving her any further ammunition.’ She shrugged. ‘We're not gonna get any help from her. Whatever Croft’s hiding, his wife is party to it and will block us at every turn.’

‘How far do yer think she'd go?’ Stacey asked.

‘Depends on the level of potential damage,’ Kim answered, recalling the gated house, the cars, not to mention the career.

Kim stood at the board that had been divided into two. The first half had been further quartered. The details of Teresa Wyatt and Tom Curtis occupied the top two segments. The bottom quarters were occupied by Mary Andrews and Arthur Connop.

‘Anything back from forensics on Arthur?’ Kim asked.

‘Broken glass from a passenger-side headlight and some particles of white paint embedded in his trouser leg. They’re trying to match it now.’

Kim stared hard at the left hand side of the board. Despite her inability to prove the murder of Mary Andrews and Arthur Connop, she knew their deaths were linked to something sinister that occurred ten years earlier.

What did you do? she silently asked all of them.

The opposite side of the board was currently divided into two, representing the buried victims so far removed. Kim knew the board would be divided again before the end of the day.

Three names were printed to the side.

Melanie Harris

Tracy Morgan

Louise Dunston

‘How's the identification going?’ Stacey asked, following Kim’s gaze.

Kim didn’t turn. ‘Apparently these three were a close little group. I’m hoping Doctor Bate can offer us more clues to identify which girl is which.’

‘Do yer think there's more than three, Guv?’ Stacey asked.

Kim shook her head. There was a reason why a particular group had been targeted.

‘Can you find out more about these three on Facebook without being detected?’

‘Oh yeah. When I asked if anyone remembered me, one girl asked if I was that shy little black girl with thick glasses and a stutter. And I said yes.’

Kim rolled her eyes. ‘What did you find out about the minister?’

‘The only minister I could find with any link to Crestwood was Victor Wilks, the guy who did some charity work. His name's come up in a few posts. The girls all refer to him fondly as “Father”. He used to visit the place once a month to give a short service for the girls.’

‘Background?’

‘Hard to know. So far, I’ve got him spending a few years in Bristol, a couple in Coventry and a year in Manchester. I've thrown out some emails to see if I can get a bite.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Dudley.’

‘Since when?’

Stacey tapped the keyboard. ‘Two years ago.’

‘Got an address?’

Stacey passed Kim a piece of paper as Bryant replaced the receiver.

‘Guv, that was the front desk. You have a visitor.’

Kim frowned. She was too busy to drop everything for a walk-in.

‘Call them back and ...’

‘This one ain’t shifting, Guv. Your visitor is Bethany Adamson and she is mighty pissed off.’