First Blood: A completely gripping mystery thriller (A Detective Kim Stone Novel) Page 11

  ‘Not when you hate someone as much as I hate him. If you’ve been investigating him you must already know he is not a nice man.’

  ‘Was,’ Kim said, feeling the need to remind the woman of the correct tense, despite the fact she’d seen his dead body.

  Lisa nodded her acknowledgment of that fact.

  ‘I would like to find the person who did this and shake them by the hand. I’m only sorry it wasn’t me.’

  Kim sat down and Lisa followed.

  ‘I’m assuming that as you weren’t close you know nothing of his private life?’

  Lisa appeared guarded but shook her head.

  ‘We’re trying to trace a woman and child who lived with him for a while. Would you have any idea who they might be?’

  Lisa shook her head again.

  ‘The woman had a birthmark over her—’

  ‘Inspector, I have no idea. I’ve spent my adult life trying to stay away from him.’

  ‘Only there were photos of the child on a computer that he made every effort to keep secret.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘In fact, there were lots of photos on your brother’s computer that would lead us to believe that he was a paedophile.’

  No shock. No surprise. No response.

  Kim finally got it. ‘Mrs Bywater, this is not news to you, is it?’

  The woman shook her head.

  Kim lowered her voice to little more than a whisper.

  ‘Lisa, were you your brother’s first victim?’

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Dawson glanced across at his colleague and had the distinct impression he was in a race.

  Stacey had not looked up as her fingers flew across the keyboard as though she was in some kind of hypnotic state.

  Personally, he’d never understood police officers who got fired up data mining. To him, being a detective meant being out there, talking to people, reading expressions, voice patterns, looking for little tics that indicated lying or hiding, looking people straight in the eye and making judgements. He had never done his best work from behind a computer.

  So far all he’d managed to find out was that the woman who had lived with Luke Fenton was possibly called Hayley and that was after making twenty calls to local shops and businesses that she might have frequented. For the last half an hour he’d been searching social media for a woman with a birthmark called Hayley. Surprisingly he’d had no luck so far.

  A small part of him was tempted to ask the woman sitting across from him if she had any ideas as to where to go next, but there was something inside him that kept the question firmly behind his lips.

  So far, he’d found himself two lines of enquiry with the nail and the woman and couldn’t seem to move forward on either of them. He’d asked for help once and had got more than he’d bargained for and he wasn’t going to ask again.

  He knew his colleague was working frantically on the background of Lester Jackson while also looking to interrogate the phone records of Luke Fenton. He knew he could offer to help but he didn’t like picking up the slack of someone else’s work. He preferred to find his own leads and what he needed right now was a flash of inspiration; a short cut of some kind so he could get ahead of the woman tapping furiously in front of him.

  Suddenly, she sat back and stared at her screen as though, somehow, she’d surprised herself.

  ‘Damn, I think I need to call the boss,’ she said, and Dawson had the feeling that whatever race he was running, he’d just been lapped.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  ‘You mean the Marianne Forbes is his niece?’ Bryant asked, as they headed towards Dudley.

  ‘So Stacey says. She went to live with him when she was nine years old after her parents died in an avalanche. She was away at boarding school at the time and Lester Jackson was her only living relative, her mother’s brother and an ex-minister for the Methodist church.’

  ‘Did you see her in the paper last week?’

  Kim nodded. It had been a double-page spread about her fourth shelter being opened in the area. This one in Walsall.

  The woman was a local legend, fighting every woman’s cause imaginable, appearing on local news to discuss any subject that concerned women and children, from domestic abuse to equal pay.

  From what Kim had read about her, she had used a chunk of her trust fund to open her first shelter, formed a charity or foundation and was highly skilled in securing donations and free services from local businesses and tradesmen.

  Her facilities were located in Dudley, Willenhall, Bilston and the latest in Walsall.

  Dudley was the registered address for the charity so they had decided to head there first.

  ‘Am I missing something?’ Bryant said, as they reached the end of Furlong Road.

  ‘I’m looking for number 94 and we end at 93.’

  Kim looked with him as they passed slowly through the road formed of three-storey high Victorian houses.

  ‘Hang on, what’s that?’ she asked pointing to a double metal gate at the end of the row. The entrance was flanked by a tall, dense conifer hedge that completely hid whatever lay behind. There was no sign, no number, no identity.

  ‘Aah, you see it?’ Bryant asked, driving forward.

  On the right-hand side of the gate was a brick pillar housing an intercom.

  He pulled up alongside it, his bonnet almost touching the gate.

  ‘Not sure it’s worth waiting for someone to slip out of here,’ he observed, referring to their method of entry into the block of flats earlier.

  Bryant pressed the buzzer, which was answered with a very deep manly ‘yes’.

  Bryant introduced them both for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

  ‘Please hold your identification up to the windscreen.’

  Bryant fished in his pocket and held it up, as requested.

  Kim leaned forward trying to spot the camera.

  ‘Both of you, please,’ said the voice.

  Kim glanced at Bryant as she followed suit, feeling like the camera was somewhere in the car.

  ‘You have six seconds to drive through,’ the voice instructed as the gates began to open inwards.

  ‘Bloody hell, what are they guarding in here?’ Bryant asked, foot on the accelerator ready to zoom through.

  ‘Vulnerable women,’ Kim answered, not unhappy with the safety precautions.

  The timer on the gate was to prevent any forceful and determined husbands or partners tailgating into the premises.

  Bryant drove around a sturdy oak tree that obscured the building from the gate.

  The space out front was not as sizeable as she’d expected and the Victorian house was no more than fifty feet from the gate.

  Bryant struggled to find space to park amongst the cars and electricians vans already crammed into the small space. He parked between a Mondeo Estate and a silver Mercedes, which Kim suspected belonged to Marianne herself. Kim didn’t begrudge it. The woman had earned it.

  Bryant lifted and dropped the heavy door knocker twice.

  The door was answered by a man to whom they both had to look up. His girth filled the doorway. He wore black trousers, a navy jumper and an SIA security licence on a lanyard around his neck.

  She peered at the identification and saw that the voice on the intercom belonged to a brick shithouse of a man called Jason, which didn’t suit the bearded guy one bit.

  ‘May I help you?’ he asked, pleasantly.

  ‘We’d like to speak to Marianne Forbes if she’s free.’

  ‘I’m sorry but she’s unavailable right now.’

  ‘It’s about her uncle who…’

  ‘It’s okay, Jay, you can let them in,’ called a voice from the right-hand side of the door.

  He stepped aside, and Kim saw that there were two rooms, one on either side of the front door, before a door to the rest of the house could be accessed.

  Office to the right. Security room to the left. Both looking out of the front of the house.
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  Gatekeepers, Kim thought. Again, not unhappy that these women’s safety was taken so seriously.

  ‘Please, come in,’ Marianne said, standing.

  Kim noted that she looked just as polished as she had for the newspaper article.

  The woman was in her late forties with straw blonde hair pulled back into a simple, tight ponytail with no stray hairs that Kim could see. Just a touch of make-up accented the piercing blue eyes, and high cheekbones. Simple stud earrings adorned her ears and a plain thin chain around her neck was all the jewellery she could see besides a man’s watch with an oversize face.

  She held out her hand and Kim shook it.

  The grip was dry and firm.

  ‘Mrs Forbes, could we?…’

  ‘Marianne, please,’ she said, nodding for them both to take a seat.

  Jason, the security guard, closed the door to the handsome office that Kim guessed might previously have been a library.

  ‘We’d like to talk to you about your uncle.’

  Her face tightened slightly and Kim noted that she worked hard to relax herself.

  ‘Isn’t the case being dealt with by a different force? I’ve already spoken to detectives from West Mercia.’

  Kim suddenly thought of Sergeant Greene, the first officer on the scene. And now it was a West Mercia case.

  ‘We’re investigating what we feel might be a similar crime.’

  ‘There are two…’ she interrupted and then stopped herself.

  ‘Two?’ Kim asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Never mind I haven’t seen my uncle for years, as I told the other officers, so I’m not sure exactly how I can help.’

  ‘It was a particularly brutal murder, Marianne.’

  ‘So I was told but I’ve had no involvement with my uncle since I was sixteen years old.’

  ‘Didn’t you live with him after the death of your parents?’

  She nodded. ‘My uncle took me in for his own reasons, some of which were financial. My mother and he came from humble beginnings, but my mother married well. My uncle never did anything to help himself towards a better life and their deaths were quite fortuitous for him.’

  Kim was surprised at the bluntness of this woman’s words.

  ‘But surely there were some people that liked him?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘If there were I don’t know them. Just as I don’t know who would do this to him. I hadn’t seen the man for over thirty years.’

  Kim was sensing a strange dynamic here. What she wanted to find out was whether his murder was in any way connected to her own case, but something in this woman’s manner was tinging the alarm bells in her head.

  ‘But weren’t you grateful to him for taking you in when you lost?—’

  ‘I am grateful to him for nothing although many people here are,’ she said, rising from her seat. ‘Come with me.’

  Kim was confused but followed anyway.

  Marianne led her across the hallway to the security room next door. Of a similar size to Marianne’s office this room would once have been a small drawing room. Marianne’s office still held some of the period features of the property but this room was all business.

  Jason sat at a curved desk surrounded by computer screens, each showing a quad display. The first covered the outside of the property: front and rear. Kim saw that the camera they had shown their identification to was actually installed within the gate.

  The cameras at the rear looked on to a walled garden and were sweeping the entire area.

  Marianne stood to the side of her.

  ‘Obviously I’m not going to let you through to the house as that would only unnerve the women but I just want you to see what we do.’

  She pointed to the kitchen.

  ‘That’s Dawn, a student at the catering college, who comes a couple of times each week to show the women how to cook themselves quick, nutritious meals.’ She pointed to another screen. ‘That’s Nigel in the lounge. He visits two afternoons a week to give the ladies a haircut, to help them feel better about themselves.’

  Kim saw a slim man wearing tight jeans and tee shirt with a blonde undercut fringed haircut holding a mirror to the back of a woman’s head.

  Marianne pointed to another screen.

  ‘That’s Louella, a counsellor from the Salvation Army, who comes in when needed to offer the women a chance to talk. These people offer their time and services to broken women who have been subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse.’

  The words ‘broken women’ worked their way under her skin. Every woman here had suffered at the hands of someone else, most likely someone close to them, someone they loved or had loved, trusted, relied on. She couldn’t help but think of her own mother, someone she should have been able to trust.

  She forced the thoughts from her mind and back to the present where it was safe.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she asked, spying a rare male figure on a pair of stepladders in one of the stairways.

  ‘That’s Carl. He and his brother Curt look after the general maintenance in all four facilities.’ Marianne turned to her. ‘You seem surprised?’

  ‘I’d have thought having men on site would…’

  ‘We don’t encourage the women to hate and avoid all men. We do keep the presence of men to a minimum and only have Carl and Curt here on a regular—’

  ‘Ahem,’ Jason coughed.

  Marianne touched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, Jay. And of course, our team of four security personnel that provide a 24-hour service, headed by Jay here.’

  He nodded, satisfied, and continued scrolling through the screens.

  Kim watched for a moment, her eyes taking in a couple of mothers with their children in a playroom. A few others sitting in a second lounge chatting. A woman in another room reading while her toddler crawled around the floor.

  ‘How many places do you have here?’ Kim asked, following Marianne back to her own office across the hall.

  ‘This is our largest home and here we can take up to four mothers with children and twelve singles.’

  ‘How long do they stay?’ Kim asked, wondering if any of them ever wanted to leave the safe environment created by this woman.

  ‘We normally feel we’ve done all we can after about six months but it varies. Some women stay for much shorter periods; a few weeks while they decide their long-term options; return to family, move away but we do what we can while they’re here with—’

  Her words were interrupted by a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Marianne called despite their presence. Kim suspected there was little that was more important than being available for the women in her care.

  Nigel stepped into the doorway, a pair of scissors and a comb in his hands. ‘Are you ready for?…’

  ‘Give me five minutes, Nige.’

  ‘No probs,’ he answered brightly. He snapped the scissors open and closed looking at both her and Bryant. ‘Anyone else fancy a free trim?’

  ‘We’re good, thanks,’ Kim said, as he backed out of the room.

  ‘And for what it’s worth, I pay for mine,’ Marianne said, once the door was closed.

  ‘Of course,’ Kim said. She would have expected nothing less. She couldn’t help but be impressed by the woman’s commitment and drive, though she was bothered by something Marianne had said earlier.

  ‘You said these women had a reason to be grateful to your uncle. Why?’

  ‘It was because of him that I opened this place.’

  Kim frowned. ‘I’m sorry but I don’t quite understand…’

  Her words trailed away as Marianne held her gaze and Kim saw the look in her eyes.

  Aah, now she understood.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  ‘Sir, we need that case from West Mercia,’ Kim repeated.

  DCI Woodward shook his head. ‘And I repeat that we are not going to get it. It would have been one thing trying to get a case handed over from a team in our own borough but from another force en
tirely…’

  ‘And I still think Tommy Deeley’s murder is linked to ours.’

  He narrowed his gaze. ‘Even after viewing the taped interview earlier today?’

  News travelled fast so there was little point denying it. ‘Especially after watching the interview,’ she said. ‘I was literally passing the door, sir,’ she explained. ‘And he offered.’

  The fact she couldn’t get access to that case right now bothered her no end. Her instinct told her the murders were related and until someone with some sense ruled out Butcher Bill it would remain where it was.

  But she’d heard of cases being wrestled from other forces before. She had to give it her best shot.

  ‘They’re related, sir. Both victims are paedophiles.’

  ‘And you know this?’

  She nodded. ‘Our victim sexually abused his sister from when she was nine years old, and Marianne was sexually abused by her uncle when he became her legal guardian after the death of her parents.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Both were mutilated at the genitalia.’

  ‘Copycat?’

  She shook her head. ‘Wasn’t revealed, just like ours.’

  He shook his head again.

  ‘Sir, it’s got to be the same killer.’

  ‘I’m not sure I disagree with you, Stone, but we’re never going to get the case away from West Mercia and nor should we.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘It’s already been through two police forces: Warwickshire and West Mercia. If we get involved, CPS will never even take it to court. Way too many chain of evidence and procedure loopholes for the defence to drive a truck through.’

  ‘But this is like asking me to finish a jigsaw puzzle while keeping half of the pieces in your pocket.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I’m afraid that does seem to be the case.’

  If she didn’t know better she’d think he was enjoying the challenge he’d laid before her.

  ‘So, Stone, time to see just how creative you and your team can get.’

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Marianne took a quick look at herself in the rear-view mirror before getting out of the car. The hair was Nigel’s but the make-up was hers. Not too much and not too bright; a gentle pink lipstick instead of rose red. Enough concealer to disguise the deepening lines beneath her eyes but not cover them completely. Her companion knew exactly how old she was. And just a touch of mascara to frame her blue eyes. He’d always liked it when she wore mascara.