Child’s Play
Child’s Play
A totally unputdownable serial killer thriller
Angela Marsons
Books by Angela Marsons
Detective Kim Stone Series
1. SILENT SCREAM
2. EVIL GAMES
3. LOST GIRLS
4. PLAY DEAD
5. BLOOD LINES
6. DEAD SOULS
7. BROKEN BONES
8. DYING TRUTH
9. FATAL PROMISE
10. DEAD MEMORIES
11. CHILD’S PLAY
* * *
Other Books
DEAR MOTHER
THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN
Available in audio
The Detective Kim Stone series
1. SILENT SCREAM (Available in the UK and the US)
2. EVIL GAMES (Available in the UK and the US)
3. LOST GIRLS (Available in the UK and the US)
4. PLAY DEAD (Available in the UK and the US)
5. BLOOD LINES (Available in the UK and the US)
6. DEAD SOULS (Available in the UK and the US)
7. BROKEN BONES (Available in the UK and the US)
8. DYING TRUTH (Available in the UK and the US)
9. FATAL PROMISE (Available in the UK and the US)
10. DEAD MEMORIES (Available in the UK and the US)
* * *
Other Books
DEAR MOTHER (Available in the UK and the US )
THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN (Available in the UK and the US )
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Angela’s Email Sign-Up
Books by Angela Marsons
A Letter from Angela
SILENT SCREAM
EVIL GAMES
LOST GIRLS
PLAY DEAD
BLOOD LINES
DEAD SOULS
BROKEN BONES
DYING TRUTH
FATAL PROMISE
DEAD MEMORIES
DEAR MOTHER
THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN
Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to Jez Edwards.
* * *
Simply, Thank You.
Prologue
Winter 2010
‘Come on, what do you want?’ she snaps, rubbing her hands together, reminding me of when I was a child.
But I’m no longer a child. I’m a grown-up and I’m angry. But she doesn’t need to know that. Yet.
‘And what are we doing here, anyway?’ she asks, looking around the deserted park. It is mid-January and one degree above freezing, twenty minutes before the sun falls completely.
My promise of having something for her had lured her here as I’d hoped.
I pat the seat of the roundabout beside me. ‘Sit with me and I can give you your present.’
She looks unsure but curiosity gets the better of her.
I’ve been dreaming of this minute for eight years.
‘Come on, what’s this all?…’
‘Remember bringing me here to play when I was little?’ I ask.
She hesitates. ‘Err… I…’
‘Do you remember pushing me on the swings, sitting with me on the see-saw, playing with a ball on the field?’
‘Come on now, it’s late. I want to get home,’ she says, and I hear a note of fear in her voice.
She knows that something is wrong.
She moves away from me.
I grab her arm.
‘You don’t remember? No? Oh, that’s because you never did, you fucking bitch,’ I say, turning her around.
‘What the?…’
I’ve rehearsed this in my mind so many times. I know exactly how it is going to work.
I raise my right arm and punch her in the temple, knocking her clean out.
A genuine smile lights up my face. That felt almost as good as I have imagined.
I work quickly as the day begins to fade, unsure how long she’ll be out.
She starts to groan as I finish the last tie to her ankle.
‘Hey, what you?…’
‘Comfy?’ I ask, standing back to admire my handiwork.
Her legs are spread-eagled and tied to the metal frame of the spider’s web roundabout, facing down. Her body is bent at the waist so her upper half is hanging down towards the floor, the top of her head touching the concrete base of the ride. Her hands are tied behind her back.
‘Look, I’m gonna puke…’
‘Least of your problems,’ I say, enjoying the fear in her voice as she tries to move.
‘Aargh,’ she cries out as the barbed wire bites into the flesh of her wrists. A nightmare to apply but worth it to see the bright red results of her struggles.
‘You should have brought me here just once,’ I spit as I begin to push the spider’s web around.
She screams as her head is dragged across the surface.
I smile and keep pushing, safe in
the knowledge she won’t be heard. The houses the park had been built to serve were condemned and emptied years ago, after two fell into an old mining pit.
The only kids that use it now come from miles away but not on a night like this.
‘P… please… st…’
‘Shush. It’s my turn now,’ I say, pushing the frame harder. Clumps of hair are being left behind with each revolution. ‘You’re going to wish you’d played with me,’ I say, speeding up the pushes.
Her breath is coming in short, sharp bursts in between pain-filled screams as her flesh is dragged across the gravel.
The screams have turned to yelps now, and I guess she’s fading in and out of consciousness.
I stop the web from turning and push back the other way. The barbed wire cuts deeper into her flesh as the momentum builds again.
And finally we’re playing a game. A game that I have chosen.
A trail of blood is forming in a circle around the gravel.
I push harder, causing the roundabout to whiz past me at speed.
‘You should have listened to me,’ I cry, pushing as hard as I can.
The sounds coming from her are no more than a whimper.
The blood on the ground is pooling, clumps of flesh are sticking to the concrete base.
The crying stops completely after I hear the sound of the fracture of her skull.
I give one last good push of the spider’s web and stand back.
‘You really should have played with me,’ I tell her again, although I know she can no longer hear.
I walk away as the slumped, lifeless body continues to turn.
One
Present Day
Kim Stone arrived at the cordon tape at 11.29 p.m. The sun had been down for almost three hours but late August warmth still lingered in the air.
She had instructed Despatch to place a call to her colleague, DS Bryant, but his Astra Estate wasn’t yet visible amongst the squad cars, ambulance and coroner’s van. She looked at those two vehicles side by side. Surely only one or the other was needed.
As she removed her helmet she wondered from what activity her colleague had been disturbed when he’d received the call. Knowing Bryant, he’d been about to fall asleep with the crime channel playing on the TV in the background.
She’d been preparing to take Barney for his late-night walk. She’d left him after a quick visit out to the back garden and the promise of a run at the park when she got home. Whatever the time. She’d neglected to mention it was Haden Hill Park to which she’d been called, feeling he wouldn’t forgive her absence quite so readily if he knew she was visiting a park they frequented often for an early morning walk.
Haden Hill House was a Victorian residence built on parkland in 1878 by George Alfred Haden Haden-Best. He had originally intended to demolish the grand Haden Hall and extend his home but his elderly aunt, widow of the squire, lived in the Old Hall, and by the time she died in 1903 he had lost the will to enlarge Haden Hill House, so the two buildings remained side by side.
Upon his death in 1921, the house, the Old Hall, gardens and 55 acres of land were bought by public subscription for use as a park. In the years since, the Old Hall and House had been used as a refuge for evacuees and a bombing raid shelter. The Old Hall had lain in ruins for years following a fire until lottery funding had helped restore it to its former glory.
Kim had been directed to the entrance off Haden Park Road that led onto the kids play area at the top of the grounds, a short walk away from the refurbished buildings. A dozen or so onlookers were already craning their necks to see beyond the police officers and vehicles and more doors were opening as locals gave up the pretence of looking through downstairs and upstairs windows.
She showed her ID and ducked under the cordon tape, heading towards the collection of fluorescent jackets and multiple torch beams shining in the absence of street lighting.
Officers moved aside as she headed to the centre of the crowd, passing paramedics who had obviously been dismissed but remained in discussion beside the giraffe-emblazoned play slide.
‘Hey, Keats,’ she said, spotting the diminutive pathologist, who reached for something from his equipment bag which had been perched on some kind of cartoon character on a spring.
He shook his head, sorrowfully, causing Kim to wonder exactly what she’d been called out to. And then the reason for his dismay clicked in her mind and it had nothing to do with the crime scene.
‘He’ll be along shortly,’ she said, acknowledging the fact that the man liked her colleague far more than he liked her and made no attempt to hide it. It didn’t bother her. Most people felt that way.
A slow smile began to turn up the man’s dour mouth.
Clearly, Bryant had arrived.
‘Evening, Keats,’ her colleague said, with a smile and an outstretched hand.
She offered him a look that he ignored.
Keats smirked. ‘Now, that’s how you greet—’
‘Sorry, but did someone say there was a body here, somewhere?’ Kim asked, pointedly looking around.
‘There is indeed, Inspector, and the poor soul has not been touched except to check for life signs.’
‘Okay, well, point me in the right—’
‘Guys,’ Keats said, nodding to the group of uniformed officers.
Suddenly, by collective torchlight, like a solo performance on a darkened stage, the area to the left of her lit up as though a switch had been flicked.
It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust as Bryant came to stand beside her.
His sharp intake of breath mirrored her own.
‘What the bloody hell is this all about?’ he asked, taking the words right out of her mouth.
Two
At first glance Kim saw a late-middle-aged female sitting on the far-right swing. Her handbag was positioned neatly beside the metal frame. It wasn’t open, it wasn’t strewn, it was placed with the shoulder strap coiled to the left.
Kim began her second detailed perusal of the strangely macabre sight before her.
The woman’s hair was thick and grey but well styled. Even by torchlight Kim could see the glisten of lipstick on an attractive face that showed signs of wear but had not yet given itself up to deep wrinkles.
Small pearl studs decorated each earlobe and matched a single strand around a neck that had not escaped the ageing process as well as the face.
The string of pearls disappeared into a white collared blouse covered by a thin summer cardigan with three-quarter sleeves.
The skirt was flared, patterned blue with small yellow flowers; it fell just below the knee but was probably longer if she were standing. Nylon covered her legs down into blue court shoes with two-inch heels.
So, just a middle-aged lady pausing for a go on the swings as she took a walk through the park. Reliving a childhood memory or unable to resist an impetuous urge. Harmless.
Except for two things: the bright red stain colouring the front of her blouse and the barbed wire that was tied around her wrists.
Her body was trying to slump forward but was held in place by the vicious wire entwined into the hanging chain of the swing. Her legs were slightly bent, the tips of her shoes dragging against the ground.
‘Some kind of sexual game gone wrong?’ Bryant asked.
‘Dunno yet,’ Kim said, struggling to pull her eyes away.
Take away the barbed wire, and in the daylight the picture of this woman laughing and moving to and fro on the swing beside her grandchild expelling whoops of delight would elicit smiles and laughter. Late at night even without the blood and barbed wire the scene offered a more sinister and compelling sight.
‘Who found her?’ Kim asked, to no one in particular.
‘Chappie over by the climbing frame, and avoid that puddle by the gravel. That belongs to him too,’ said one of the uniforms.
Bryant turned and nodded towards him. ‘Want me to go over and?…’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You take a
look in her handbag. Keats is less likely to have a paddy at you.’
The pathologist didn’t much like things being touched until the techies had been through them, but the bromance between the two of them offered Bryant a bit more leeway. Antagonising Keats at the beginning of a case rarely worked out well for her.
She knew much of Keats’s affection for her colleague grew out of sympathy at Bryant’s plight of being stuck with her every day. Keats felt the man had enough crosses to bear. And she didn’t necessarily disagree with him, she thought, as she stepped around the pool of vomit to approach the fair-haired male sitting on the ground.