Silent Scream: An edge of your seat serial killer thriller (Detective Kim Stone crime thriller series Book 1) (20 page)

Kim felt the nausea rise within her. However far they tried to stretch the fabric of this case it sprang right back to the doorstep of William and Lucy Payne.

It was time for another chat.

‘
W
hat the hell
is going on here?’ Kim cried as the car pulled up outside the Payne house. Both a responder and an ambulance were parked outside. The rear doors to the ambulance were wide open.

As she ran around the vehicles two paramedics exited the property with a stretcher.

The small, fragile figure of Lucy hardly filled the narrow makeshift bed. They carried her as though she were a baby. The atrophy of her limbs was clearer out of the chair. An oxygen mask covered her small face but Kim could see her eyes and the fear that radiated out.

Kim touched her arm lightly but the paramedics were moving with a sense of urgency to place her in the back of the ambulance.

William Payne rushed out of the house. His face had been stripped of colour. His eyes were wide and frightened.

‘What happened?’ Kim asked.

‘She was breathless in the night but she seemed better this morning. I was upstairs changing the beds and she must have had difficulty again but she couldn’t make a sound. She couldn’t alert me.’

They both stood at the rear of the ambulance as the paramedics fixed the stretcher into position.

William’s eyes reddened as he fought back the tears. ‘She managed to press the button on the pendant and I heard the sirens in the distance. When I came back down she was turning blue.’ He shook his head as the tears began to fall. His voice was hoarse and terrified. ‘She might die because I couldn’t hear her cry for help.’

Kim opened her mouth to offer him reassurance but one of the paramedics jumped out of the vehicle.

‘Sir, we need to ...’

‘I have to go. Please excuse ...’

Kim nudged him towards the back of the waiting ambulance.

The doors closed behind him and the ambulance sped away with sirens and lights.

Kim felt an ache in her throat as she watched the vehicle disappear from view.

‘Didn’t look good, eh, Guv?’

Kim shook her head and crossed the road to the dig site.

She entered the tent of victim number two. Cerys was on her knees in the pit. She turned and smiled.

Kim offered her hand. Cerys removed a latex glove and held onto Kim as she stepped out of the pit.

The hand was warm and soft and coated with the talcum powder from inside the glove.

Cerys stepped to the head of the pit. ‘I heard sirens. Everything okay?’

Kim shrugged. There was little point explaining about Lucy. Cerys had no part in that area of the investigation and her own emotional reaction to the young girl did not make sense to Kim herself, never mind trying to explain it to someone else.

‘Site one's done, then?’ Kim asked. The first grave had been refilled and pieces of grass placed on top. It looked like a bad hair transplant. That tent had been removed but another had been erected.

‘Anything up there?’

‘Getting close. Readings indicate that the mass is less than two feet down.’

Unlike Cerys who, as a scientist, would not assume it to be a body until she saw bone, Kim already knew in her gut that it was the third girl. Now it was just a case of which one was which.

‘This one will be signed off later and filled in this afternoon.’

‘Anything further?’

‘We have the beads,’ she said, moving towards a fold-up trestle table. ‘Eleven of them. And this.’ Cerys held up a plastic bag.

Kim took it from her and felt the thickness of the fabric.

‘I’m guessing flannel,’ Cerys offered.

‘Pyjamas?’

‘Possibly, but only the top.’

‘No bottoms?’

Cerys shook her head.

Kim said nothing. The absence of a lower garment put a picture in her head that made her teeth grind together.

‘Could have been a different fabric, mismatched nightwear, the material may already have decomposed.’

Kim nodded. She could hope.

‘Nothing else?’

Cerys handed her a Tupperware dish full of mud-encrusted fragments.

‘Small pieces of metal but nothing that I think is linked to her murder.’

‘What next?’

Cerys wiped her hands on her jeans. ‘Up to site three, coming?’

Kim followed to the latest tent.

‘Just in time, Guv,’ Dawson said as she entered.

She looked down at the unmistakeable shape of a foot protruding from the dark earth.

Seven people within the tent stared down into the shallow grave. It didn’t matter that it was what most of them had expected to find. Each body deserved a moment of respect, a silent declaration of unity when all parties vowed to do their part in bringing the perpetrator to justice.

Cerys turned to face her. Kim met her gaze. It was haunted but firm.

Her voice was low and thick as she said what everyone else around them was thinking.

‘Kim, you have got to find the bastard who did this.’

Kim nodded and exited the tent. She had every intention of doing exactly that.

‘
G
uv
, I’ve got a message,’ Bryant said as they exited the tent. ‘Doctor Dan has something he wants us to see.’

Kim said nothing as she headed back down the hill. Bryant started the car and headed towards Russells Hall hospital. He knew when to leave her alone.

A rage was building inside her. Regardless of what they’d done, these girls had not deserved to die. That someone had felt their lives were disposable sickened her. She had been one of these girls and they had all deserved a fighting chance.

A poor start in life did not dictate the acts of the future. Kim was a testament to that fact. Her early years had promised a life of crime, drugs, suicide attempts and possibly worse. Every road sign had directed her towards destruction of life, either her own or that of others and yet she had shown two fingers to a pre-determined existence. There was nothing to suggest that her three victims would not have achieved the same.

Bryant stopped the car outside the main entrance of the hospital.

She jumped out and started walking. Bryant caught her up as she reached the bank of lifts.

‘Jeez, slow down, Guv. The rugby I can manage. Keeping pace with you is another thing entirely.’

She shook her head. ‘Come on, Grandpa, quicken up.’

Kim entered the mortuary. She could see that the bones of victim number two had been laid out on a table beside victim number one.

Although dead, Kim couldn’t help the feeling of relief that victim number one was no longer alone amongst the stark clinical coldness of the lab. If they’d been friends in life they were now together again.

Any relief she felt was short-lived as she saw a small collection of bones next to the second victim.

‘The baby?’ she asked.

Daniel nodded.

No pleasantries or greetings were offered by either of them.

Kim looked closer. The bones were so small they bore no correlation to an actual form, which Kim found all the more sad.

And it was Daniel's job to inspect these bones for clues and pretend they were not the building blocks of a baby. A scientific objectivity was required from them all. There was a need to extract the emotion from the process. But he had to dissect clues from a life that never was. It was not something she could do.

There would be no smart mouth today.

‘How old?’ she asked

‘Bones begin developing at thirteen weeks. At birth a newborn has approximately 300 bones. I’d estimate this mite to be somewhere between twenty and twenty-five weeks.’

Most definitely a person, Kim thought. Both ethically and legally. Abortions were not normally carried out after twelve weeks unless a significant risk existed to the mother.

‘Be a double murder, then, Guv; both mother and child?’

Kim nodded. Her hand was drawn to the bones. She wanted to cover them. For what reason she had no idea.

Daniel moved around the table and stood between the two girls. ‘Don’t know if it’s going to help but I have extra background on victim number one. She was around five foot four, her diet was poor and I’d say she was undernourished.’

Bryant took out his notebook.

‘Her teeth were not cared for and the lower central incisors crossed over. At some stage two fingers on her left hand had been broken and her right tibia had been fractured. These injuries were not sustained close to death.’

‘Childhood abuse?’

‘More than likely,’ he said, turning away, but not before she’d seen a deep swallow in his throat.

He turned to victim number two. ‘I don’t have the same level of detail yet on our second victim but I thought there was something you needed to know.’

He moved to the top of the table and gently moved the lower jaw of victim number one. ‘Take a close look at the inside of the teeth.’

Kim bent in closer. She could see what Daniel had noted about the lower teeth being crooked but other than having no gums or flesh attached the teeth looked relatively normal.

‘Now take a look at victim two.’

Kim turned and bent over the skull of the second female. The teeth were reasonably straight and no trauma seemed to be evident but there was something different in the colour of the overall enamel.

‘Has victim one been cleaned?’ she asked.

Daniel shook his head. ‘Neither has been cleaned.’

Kim’s tolerance for guessing games was evaporating quickly. ‘Spell it out for me, Doc.’

‘The dirt present on the teeth of victim number one would have found its way into the mouth cavity over time once the flesh had decomposed, probably five to six years after death. The dirt on the inside of the teeth of our second victim was there from the day she was put in the ground.’

Kim quickly joined the dots scattered by Daniel. There was only one way that the soil could have become fixed to the inside of the teeth so quickly.

This girl had been buried alive.

T
racy was
the first to 'run away', and there were times when I wish she hadn't. The pang of regret I felt afterwards was so surprising and unknown that I struggled to name it.

Retrospective thinking does not come naturally to a psychopath unless a plan goes wrong – and then it is only analytical, not emotional.

The world tipped slightly on its axis as I wrestled this intruder to the ground. Upon submission I understood that the regret came not from what I'd done but that I would not see her again; that I would not watch the swing of her hips as she moved around the room.

That the regret was only in correlation to what was lost to
me
.

The world righted itself.

Despite this, I knew Tracy was different. There are females that even as young girls stand out. They enter a room and heads turn; eyes rove. It is not to do with beauty but an inner core; a spirit that will not be broken. A resolve that ensures that the owner will achieve whatever they set their mind to.

It is attractive and arousing.

I knew that Tracy's nine-year-old body was sold for thirty-five pounds by her mother, Dina. A week later it was sold for considerably more when Dina understood the market value. Two months later, Dina retired from the business completely.

Tracy was removed by social services two days after her fourteenth birthday. She was brought to Crestwood and placed amongst other abused girls who had been beaten, raped, neglected.

She was not thankful.

She was not a victim and she had wanted to stay exactly where she was.

Having learned the hard way that she could trust no one, Tracy had been hiding earnings from Dina for two years. Tracy didn't complain about life's challenges. She simply turned them to her own advantage.

She told me all about her early life. It reminded me of a factual narration being read from a book. Maybe once or twice her voice faltered but she quickly recovered and moved on.

I listened and I nodded and I offered my support.

And then we had sex. Correction ... I had sex and she struggled. Rape is an ugly word and does not define what took place between us.

Afterwards she stood and looked me in the eye. Her gaze was cold, calculating and at odds with such a young face.

‘That is gonna cost you big,’ she said.

I had no fear about Tracy telling anyone what had occurred between us. She trusted no one, only herself. She would figure a way to use it against me that would have some benefit to herself.

I admired her youthful optimism and was not surprised when she cornered me a few months later.

‘I'm pregnant and it's yours,’ she said, triumphantly.

I was amused even as I doubted both parts of her statement. One of the things I liked most about Tracy was her ability to manipulate any situation to her own benefit.

‘So?’ I asked. We both knew that negotiations had been opened.

‘I want money,’ she said.

I smiled. Of course she did. The real question was, how much. Past transactions posted a figure in my head. It would be the price of an abortion and a little extra. The normal cost of doing business.

I remained silent, using the most powerful negotiation tool available.

She tipped her head and waited. She knew it too.

‘How much?’ I asked, indulgently. There was something about this girl.

‘Enough.’

I nodded. Of course I would give her enough.

‘Is five hundred …’

‘Not even close,’ she said, narrowing her eyes.

It had been worth a low opening bid. One never knew. It had worked twice before ...

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Five grand or I'm opening my mouth.’

I laughed out loud. That was more than a little extra. ‘Abortions don't …’

‘I ain’t having a fucking abortion. No way. I want money to get away.’ She patted her stomach. ‘To start again.’

No way in hell was that going to happen. I am a reasonable person. I knew that if she were to make accusations right now she would not be believed; with a walking DNA match I would never be free. The date stamp of its birth would be a constant threat.

That baby could never be born.

I nodded my understanding. I needed time to think; time to prepare.

Later that night I was ready.

‘We really should part with a drink,’ I said, pouring a generous measure of vodka into a dribble of Coke.

‘You got my money?’ she asked, raising the glass.

I nodded and patted my top pocket. ‘What are you planning to do?’

‘I'm gonna go to London, ger a flat and a job and then goo back to school and get some qualifications.’

She continued to talk and I continued to top up her glass. Twenty minutes later her eyes were hooded and her words were slurred.

‘Come with me, I want to show you something.’ I offered my hand. She ignored it, stood and fell back down. It took a few moments for her to attempt it again. This time she weaved towards the door like a dog on an agility course. I stepped ahead and opened the back door. The sudden gust of fresh air sent her falling into me. I steadied her but her legs buckled forward and she fell to the ground.

She laughed as she tried to push herself up from the floor. I laughed with her as I grabbed her by the upper arms and marched her across the grass.

Twenty-five paces north west and I dropped her. She fell into the hole on her back. She chuckled again. So did I.

I knelt in the pit beside her, my hands at her throat. The feel of her skin against my palms was arousing, even as she tried to swat my hands away. Her eyes were closed and she writhed beneath me in a semi-conscious state. The move of her hips and the swell of her breasts was hypnotic. And could not be ignored. The flimsy shorts were ripped away with one swift movement and immediately I was inside her.

Her body was pliable in my hands as she drifted in and out of consciousness. She moved as though in a dreamlike state. There was no struggle like the first time.

When I stood her eyes had rolled backwards. I crouched beside her in the limited space and reached for the ripped shorts. They were mine to keep forever. They would help me remember.

My hands once more found her throat. My thumbs hovered above her larynx but they just wouldn't press. Her pretty face still smiled from the stupor.

Frustrated, I jumped out of the hole. The first shovel of dirt landed on her torso. She still didn't open her eyes.

I worked frantically, filling the hole within minutes. This method of disposal was new to me.

I stamped the ground down and re-laid the grass.

For half an hour I stayed with her. I didn't want her to be alone.

I sat beside the grave and cursed her for what she had made me do. If only she hadn't been so greedy. If she'd just accepted the money for the abortion everything would have been okay.

But that baby could never have been born.