Silent Scream: An edge of your seat serial killer thriller (Detective Kim Stone crime thriller series Book 1) (25 page)

S
he hit the call button
. The battery flashed red.

‘What's up, Stace?’

‘Guv, I've been trawling back through some old posts on Facebook and I've come across something I think yer should know.’

‘Go on.’

‘About eight months ago one of the girls spotted Tom Curtis at Dudley Zoo with his family. She posted on the board commenting on his weight and wondering what they'd all seen in him back then.

‘A few childish jokes followed about him putting his hot dog in someone's bun and crap like that but then they started mentioning our three girls as well.’

Kim closed her eyes against what she knew was coming.

‘It's clear he was having sex with one of 'em, Guv.’

Kim thought about the pregnant fifteen-year-old. ‘Was Tracy mentioned by name?’

‘No, Guv, that's the thing. Tom Curtis was sleeping with
Louise
.’

Kim shook her head as the rage built within her.

‘You okay, Guv?’

‘I'm fine, Stace. Good work, now get off ...’

Her words trailed away as her phone charge ran out.

She put the phone in her pocket and kicked out at the wall.

‘Damn, damn, damn,’ Kim growled.

The anger that ripped through her veins had nowhere to go. These bastards had been entrusted with the safety of these girls and they had failed them badly. It seemed that every single one of them had found some way to further abuse these kids.

Child abuse was categorised into four main areas; physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional maltreatment and neglect. By Kim’s count, the staff at Crestwood had pretty much scored a strike on all four. The irony lay in the fact that most of the girls at Crestwood had been placed there to
remove
them from mistreatment.

No girl at Crestwood had been there by choice. She knew from her own experience that homes like this were dumping grounds; a civic amenity, like a landfill site. A place for unwanted and broken individuals where at best, kids were dehumanised and stripped of identity and at worst, they were abused even further.

Kim had seen it herself. Poor treatment became an expectation. And slowly, like a stump being hammered into the soil, your head could only remain above ground for so long.

Kim walked around the bike, trying to expel the heat from her veins. She clenched and unclenched her hands to relieve the building tension.

Each girl had arrived at Crestwood for various reasons, and none of them good.

Melanie had been discarded by her father so easily. Gifted to the state so there was one less mouth at his table. The selection criteria being that she was the less attractive child. How could Melanie not have known that to be the case? How did she reconcile that in her head? Thrown away by the one man who should have cared for her, all because she was ugly.

The child had begged for any scrap of attention, some validation that she was a person worthy of affection. Even trying to buy friendship to find her place. Happy to be the runt of the litter, just as long as the litter accepted her.

That was Melanie's story. But there was not one story. All the children in the system had a story. Kim herself had a story. But hers had not started alone.

A vision of Mikey swam before her eyes. It was not the picture she wanted but it was the one she always got. She stepped back into the darkness of the corner as the emotion thickened her throat.

Three weeks premature, Kim and Mikey had both been born with fragile health. Very soon Kim's health had improved, she had gained weight and her bones had strengthened. Mikey's had not.

Their mother, Patty, had taken them home when they were six weeks old, to a high-rise flat on Hollytree.

Kim's first memory dated back to three days after her fourth birthday and was a vision of her mother holding a pillow tightly over the face of her twin. His short legs had thrashed on the bed as his lungs fought for air. Kim tried to pull her mother away but her grip was firm.

Kim had thrown herself to the floor, opened her mouth wide and sunk her teeth into her mother's calf like a rabid dog. She applied every ounce of pressure she could muster and wouldn't let go. Her mother had spun around and the pillow fell from the bed, but still Kim didn't let go. Her mother had staggered around the room, screaming and trying to kick her free, but only when they were a safe distance from the bed did Kim unlock her jaw.

She remembered running over to the bed and shaking Mikey awake. He spluttered, coughed and gulped at the air. Kim ushered him behind her and stared up at her mother.

The hatred in the eyes of the woman who had birthed them took Kim’s breath away. She backed up the bed, keeping Mikey behind.

Her mother moved closer. ‘You stupid little bitch. Don't you know he's the fucking devil? He's got to die and then the voices will stop. Don't you fucking get it?’

Kim shook her head. No, she didn't. He wasn't the devil. He was her brother.

‘I'll get him, I promise you, I'll get him.’

From that point on, Kim had had to remain one step in front of her mother at all times. There were further attempts during the following year but Kim was never far from Mikey's side.

During the day she kept a badge in her pocket and pricked her lower arm to keep herself alert. At night she took handfuls of coffee from the jar and placed them straight into her mouth, absorbing the bitter granules into her tongue.

Only when she heard the rhythmic sound of her mother's snoring would she allow herself to rest.

There were occasional visits from social services. An overworked individual conducting a ten minute cursory inspection with a mental clipboard; a test she somehow managed to pass.

Kim had wondered many times since just how low the pass grade would have had to have been for them to remain in the care of their mother.

No evidence of crack cocaine – check.

No evidence of parent stumbling and drunk – check.

Children free of obvious scarring – check.

A week after their sixth birthday Kim had exited the lavatory, to find her brother attached to the radiator with handcuffs.

Kim looked at her mother with horror, confused for a few seconds. It was all the time her mother needed. Kim felt her hair being grabbed from behind and bunched in her mother's fist. She was dragged to the radiator and cuffed to her brother.

‘If I've gotta get you to get him then that's what I'll have to do.’

Those were the last words she ever heard from her mother.

By the end of that day Kim had managed to squirm her right foot beneath the bed and dislodge a pack of five cream crackers and a half bottle of Coke.

For two days she had been convinced that her mother would return. That one of her rare lucid moments would occur and they would be freed.

On day three she realised that their mother was not coming back and had left them to die. With only two crackers and a few mouthfuls of Coke remaining, Kim stopped eating completely. She divided the last two crackers in half and half again, making eight bites for Mikey.

Every few hours she would try and force her hand through the cuffs, removing slivers of skin each time.

By the end of day five the crackers were gone. A single mouthful of liquid remained in the Coke bottle.

Mikey turned his face towards her; so thin, so pale. ‘Kimmy, I peed again,’ he whispered.

She looked into his eyes; so distraught at one more puddle amongst the foulness beneath them. His earnest expression made her laugh out loud. And once she started laughing, she couldn't stop. Even though he didn't know why, Mikey joined in until the tears rolled over their cheeks.

And when the tears stopped falling, she held him close. Because she already knew. She whispered into his ear that Mummy was on her way with a meal and that he just had to hang on. She kissed the side of his head and told him she loved him.

Two hours later he died in her arms.

‘Sleep tight, sweet Mikey,’ she whispered, as the last breath left his battered, fragile body.

Hours or days later there was a loud noise and then people. Lots of people. Too many. They wanted to take Mikey and she was too weak to fight them off. She had to let him go. Again.

The fourteen day stay in hospital was a blur of tubes, needles and white coats. The days had melded into one.

Day fifteen was much clearer. She was taken from the hospital to the children's home. And she was given bed number nineteen.

‘Excuse me, Miss, are you okay?’ asked a voice from above.

Kim was startled to realise that she had slid down the wall and was now sitting on the ground.

She wiped away the tears and sprang to a standing position. ‘I'm fine, thank you, I'm fine.’

The ambulance driver hesitated for a second but nodded and then wandered away.

Kim stood and breathed deeply to dispel the overwhelming sadness as she placed the memories back in the box. Never would she forgive herself for her failure to protect her brother.

She unlocked the helmet from the wheel. Her body now filled with fight and determination.

No, she would not have it. Kim would not fail these girls because damn it, they mattered to someone. They bloody well mattered to her.

S
tacey leaned back
in her chair and stretched. A heat burned across the muscles in her neck. She rolled her head to the left and then to the right. Something clicked in her right shoulder blade.

The Guv had said go home and that's what she intended to do.

She closed down the Facebook page and her emails beneath. There were a few at the top still in bold and unread but she would see to them on Saturday morning. All she craved right now was a long hot soak in a bubble bath followed by a takeaway pizza and a dose of
Real Housewives
. She didn't care which one.

The whirring of the computer came to a halt, plunging the room into silence.

Her feet slipped into the shoes beneath the desk. Stacey donned her jacket and walked to the door.

Her left hand hesitated over the light switch but something nagged at the back of her mind. Something she'd seen but couldn’t work out the meaning of just yet.

She growled as she stepped back to her desk. The whirring seemed louder, as though it were under duress. Stacey guessed she was projecting.

She keyed in without looking and went straight to her emails. It was the second unread message that quickened her heart. She read from the beginning, her eyes open wide.

By the time she reached the end of the text her mouth had run dry.

With trembling fingers, Stacey reached for the phone.

K
im parked
the bike at the side of the fenced-off building. She dismounted and stepped to the side.

It was only eight o’clock but it felt much later. The cold night air had already dropped below freezing, driving families to lock the doors, close the curtains and curl up before a flickering orange flame and a night-time film.

It was a notion that had occurred to Kim when she’d briefly stopped by her home, a place she'd barely seen for the last week, but she knew she couldn’t rest. The answers were emerging from the fog but there was one missing piece that still troubled her.

The dig site was now empty. All traces of activity had been removed. To see the site shut down was eerie. The white tents were back in storage awaiting their next victim. The equipment had been removed and would be gone the next day. Along with Cerys.

To the naked eye and in the darkness, the land looked as it had one week earlier. Even the few bunches of flowers and teddy bears had now disappeared.

But Kim knew she could walk to all three graves and identify their exact location. And that fact would remain long after the scars of the landscape had healed.

Kim couldn’t help but wonder how long the girls would have remained lost had the professor not been so determined to find buried coins.

But because of his tenacity, three young girls who had lain beneath this unassuming piece of land would now be afforded proper burials. And Kim would attend every one.

She knew the case had touched them all. Cerys had removed the bodies from the ground. Daniel had examined the girls to indicate the manner of death and now it was up to her to pull it all together.

She looked over to the middle house. There was activity inside. Lucy and William were back from the hospital and their life together would continue as normal. For now.

Kim pulled her gaze away from the illuminated window. The time had come for her to have a very difficult conversation with William Payne; but he wasn’t going anywhere and there was one missing piece she had to find first.

The denture was here somewhere and somehow, it mattered. That it was not on the body and not in the grave meant that it was still in the building. The location would tell her everything. And this time Kim had come prepared.

She reached into her saddlebag and took out a hammer. She reckoned that by removing two fence panels she’d be able to climb through the gap.

Kim removed the black leather gloves and placed the pencil torch in her mouth. She used the claw of the hammer to remove the nails that held the rough wooden panels against the vertical stumps.

The first two dislodged easily. She tried to prise the panel away from the post but the two fixed to the other side held fast. The top one came loose easily but the bottom one wouldn’t budge. She was able to swing the panel down so that it hung vertically, still fixed with one stubborn nail.

It was clear that ten years ago the council budget for decent workmanship far outweighed the budget for quality materials.

Kim repeated the same process with the second panel, providing a space wide enough to climb through. Once on the other side she shook her hands and cupped them to her mouth. The raw wind on her exposed fingers had made the tips numb.

She had deliberately not informed Bryant or the rest of the team of her plans. She had no legal right to enter the building and a warrant would have taken far too long.

Woody’s message about the loyalty of her team had been received loud and clear.

Without the aid of daylight, she had to recall from memory the layout of the back of the building. She lit up the ground using her torch. The land was overgrown and littered with bricks and debris.

Kim shone the torch at the open window through which she’d entered the building previously. She tried to traverse a direct path from point A to point B but stumbled over a breeze block. She swore but carried on.

She reached the window and realised she had used the bin to get back over the fence. She travelled back, taking care to avoid the breeze block, then picked up the bin and placed it beneath the broken window.

She shone the torch around the outer edge of the opening to get an idea of where the shards were placed. Kim put the torch in her mouth and used both hands to ease herself through the broken window.

Yes, she was in.