First Blood: A completely gripping mystery thriller (A Detective Kim Stone Novel) Read online

  She remembered little of the two weeks that had followed, where she had been in hospital fighting for her life. By the time she was released the press had lost interest in the story. She had never read a report or looked at a newspaper clipping about the events of her life. She didn’t need to: she’d been present the whole time. She’d even heard that a book had been self-published by a money-grabbing journalist trying to make money from her misery. She had been oblivious to it all when she’d been removed from the hospital and delivered to Fairview Children’s Home with a half-full bin liner containing her possessions.

  What had followed was a succession of foster homes that had each left a mark on her in some way. With the stream of homes had come an equally long line of psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors all trying to crack open her psyche and pour out the contents like a raw egg. Only one had been different; a middle-aged man named Ted who had allowed her to sit silently and watch the fish in his tiny garden pond. She didn’t speak during their sessions but she had always felt calmer when she left. In his own quiet, non-invasive way he had tried to get her to talk about her pain, but she had resisted every attempt and had instead chosen to build boxes in her mind where she stored all the bad memories from her past. She didn’t open those boxes for fear of what would happen if she did.

  Even when she visited her twin brother she tried only to remember his smile when she’d found some kind of treasure in the kitchen or his chuckle when she had tickled his feet. Those were the memories she allowed out of the box.

  Those moments were precious to her, evidence of the bond that had existed between them and couldn’t even be broken in death.

  He was still, and would always be, the other half of her and it was where she would always go when she needed to talk.

  She lowered herself and sat down at his headstone.

  ‘So, Mikey, I’ve got this new team…’

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Kevin Dawson reclined the passenger seat in his Ford Escort to the lowest position and lay back. He’d considered trying his mates again to beg a bed for the night but had known that wasn’t going to work. His mates didn’t mind him kipping on a spare sofa, but the patience of their wives and girlfriends was starting to wear thin. And much as he would have loved to have been bedding down somewhere comfy and warm, he didn’t want to place a strain on anyone else’s relationship.

  He had briefly considered Lou again but the sick feeling from the morning had stayed with him until lunch time.

  He’d considered his parents but they wouldn’t leave him alone until he told them what was going on with Ally and he wasn’t ready to do that. He didn’t even want to think about it, let alone talk it out.

  And his overdraft limit prevented him considering a hotel, even a cheap one. The few quid he had would be needed for food and drink, to get him to next pay day. But none of that mattered right now.

  The discomfort couldn’t wipe the smile from his face.

  After some gentle persuasion he had something coming that would blow his boss’s socks off.

  Yeah, Stacey had spent the day pounding the keyboard without stepping out of the office once. And yes, those efforts had yielded some results, he admitted grudgingly, but that wasn’t real police work. That was an office job.

  And DS Bryant had spent the day following the boss around the outskirts of this case, driving her wherever she wanted to go. That wasn’t his idea of the job, either.

  He believed in talking to people, using what and who you knew, and he couldn’t wait for the following morning to demonstrate to the boss that he really was the star of this show.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  ‘Okay, guys, before we start, I’ve been told that there are Christmas drinks in the canteen this evening at sixish if anyone is interested.’

  ‘A glass of cheap warm wine and a budget mince pie?’ Dawson asked.

  She thought and then nodded. ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘I’ll pass.’

  ‘They do know we’ve got a body, guv?’ Bryant asked. ‘I’d rather be up here working the case.’

  ‘Yep, me too,’ Stacey added.

  Dawson nodded as though he wished he’d thought of that response himself.

  In her experience the station party was a budgetless directive from above for the purposes of station morale. A couple of plates of portioned sausage rolls, pork pie and a bowl of crisps did not offer the team a sense of value.

  The fact that two thirds of her team had immediately prioritised the case they were working over an early finish and a bit of socialising, said much about the two officers concerned. And even more about the remaining one third who hadn’t given it a thought.

  ‘Please yourselves. Now, I’m sure you’ve all taken a look at the boards so I’ll talk you through what I’ve done. We’ve been getting crumbs of information for two days about cases that might or might not be linked to the murder of Luke Fenton.’ She pointed to the white board to the left of the door, which had been divided into three columns. ‘I’ve noted what we know about each of these cases.’

  They all looked again at what she’d written.

  John Doe (Staffs)

  Genitally mutilated

  Shoe

  Six years ago

  Lester Jackson (West Mercia)

  Genitally mutilated

  Small Space

  Sexual Abuser

  Four weeks ago

  Tommy Deeley (Wolverhampton)

  Genitally mutilated

  Bell

  Six days ago

  She gave them a moment and continued. ‘And on the other board we have what we know of our own victim.’

  Luke Fenton

  Genitally mutilated

  Sexual abuser

  Beheaded

  Packing paper

  Two days ago

  ‘So, we have to be careful just how much time we give to the other cases although we can’t afford to discard them completely. The beheading of Luke Fenton sets him apart from the other victims. We know he was a paedophile whose first victim appears to have been his sister. We also know that a woman named Hayley with a facial birthmark lived with him for a time with her daughter. There’s no evidence to suggest the child was his as the photos began when the child is around nine years old. Incidentally, that’s the age his sister was when he began with her.’

  ‘Sister did it,’ Dawson said.

  ‘Not according to her clock card at the supermarket that says she was doing an extra shift on nights to cover annual leave.’

  ‘Could have been—’

  ‘Let it go. She’s not a suspect,’ Kim stated.

  ‘We know that he had no friends to speak of and kept everything about himself private.’

  ‘Neighbours are just as—’

  ‘Dawson, if you’d like to interrupt me one more time I sure would appreciate it.’

  ‘Sorry, boss,’ he said, not sounding sorry at all.

  ‘And we’ll get back to Fenton’s neighbours in a minute. But what we don’t know about Fenton is whether there are any other victims of his deviant behaviour. He’s never been charged with an offence and hasn’t crossed our radar, why not?’ She held up her hand. ‘It’s rhetorical, Dawson. I just want you to give it some thought. If his first act of abuse was to his sister when she was nine and he was fifteen, what about the fourteen years that followed? Why has he never been a person of interest in any intelligence, operation or surveillance?’

  Kim knew that the force had achieved great success in uncovering and breaking up paedophile rings both online and physical and yet his name had appeared nowhere.

  ‘Okay, so, Stace, I want you on the phone records and chasing up the lab for anything further.’

  The constable nodded her understanding.

  ‘Dawson, I want you looking for any links between Luke Fenton, Lester Jackson and Tommy Deeley. There has to be something. And Bryant and I are going back to the neighbours to find out more about this girl.’

 
Dawson’s face fell. ‘Boss, I already…’

  ‘You may have missed something,’ she said, honestly. He’d spoken to one elderly lady. There were doors he hadn’t knocked and this woman and her child needed to be found.

  She offered him a warning glance to leave it alone. They all had their instructions and she was hoping to make it out of this briefing without murdering one of her team.

  ‘Boss, can I say something?’ Dawson asked.

  Or not, she thought as her hands clenched in her pocket.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I have something I’d like you to see,’ he said, sliding a piece of paper to the edge of his desk. ‘It’s Lester Jackson’s post-mortem report.’

  She looked at him before reaching for the piece of paper.

  ‘I know a woman…’

  ‘Dawson,’ she said, narrowing her gaze.

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing like that. An assistant at the morgue owes me a favour. I gave her son a bit of a talking to when he was making some bad decisions.’

  She reached for the paperwork. ‘Not sure how this is going to help us. We know how the man died.’

  ‘But we didn’t know every injury he’d sustained or how similar the MO was to our case.’

  She looked over the single sheet of paper that was not the full report but contained the list and sites of injury, marked on a printed drawing of a male body.

  Her gaze passed over all the information she already knew.

  And then located the fact she didn’t already have.

  Just like their victim, Lester Jackson had been bashed on the back of the head.

  ‘Note it on the board,’ she said, sighing heavily.

  Everyone watched as Dawson did what she asked.

  ‘Despite the similarities, we have to hope that everyone else is right and we’re wrong and that these cases are not related to our own.’

  ‘And if they are?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘Then what we have on our hands is an escalating serial killer.’

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Marianne waited for the last page to sputter out of the printer before opening the door.

  ‘Jay, send Carl in when he gets here,’ she called across the hall before retreating back inside.

  She folded the page and closed the envelope on her desk.

  It was barely 7.30 a.m. and already she’d cleared her emails from the previous day, designed a new mailshot to send to her list of existing benefactors and written a Christmas newsletter to be circulated around all the shelters.

  She knew people marvelled at her energy levels. Some of the staff called her The Tornado and it wasn’t a nickname she minded. They all knew that everything she did, everything, was born of passion and determination to ensure the safety of the women and children who passed through her doors.

  Most of the women who came to her had been beaten to a shadow of their former selves either physically or psychologically. Others were victims of childhood sexual abuse and were still recovering from the trauma. Only last month she’d accepted a twenty-seven-year-old chartered accountant who had recovered memories of childhood abuse by her stepfather. Previously an astute, intelligent, balanced woman leading a charmed life she had suddenly found herself and her life falling apart around her. Others came because their children had been abused and they needed a place of safety.

  She was proud of everything she’d achieved, the number of women she’d helped. The lives she had mended. She asked for nothing in return except their commitment to taking the tools they’d been given and moving forward with their lives.

  There was nothing she wouldn’t do for the women who came into her care, she thought, as a short, single knock sounded on the door.

  ‘Come in, Carl,’ she called.

  He stepped into the office and closed the door behind him.

  She nodded towards the envelope on her desk. ‘I have another name for you.’

  He followed her gaze. ‘Marianne, is it a good idea to carry on?’

  She frowned. ‘You don’t believe in what we’re doing?’

  He shrugged. ‘You know, with the police coming around. It won’t take them long to…’

  ‘It’ll be fine, Carl. I promise,’ she said, surprised at the pensive expression on his face. She had not given the detective inspector another thought once she’d left the building. ‘But we can’t stop now. We have to protect these women. We’ve come too far.’ She paused. ‘We’re in this together. You do understand that, don’t you?’

  He hesitated and then nodded his agreement.

  ‘Good,’ she said, pushing the envelope towards him. ‘Everything you need is in there. You know what you have to do.’

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  ‘Looks like Dawson was right after all,’ Bryant said, switching on the car engine and the heater. After a week of mild December temperatures the mercury had plummeted by five degrees.

  Her colleague had a point. They’d knocked on every door in the street where Luke Fenton had lived and they’d found out no more about this mystery woman and her child.

  ‘You noticed he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday?’

  She nodded. She also knew his car hadn’t moved from the same spot on the station car park from the day before. She knew nothing of his personal life and she didn’t care to, but sleeping at the station and grabbing a quick shower before starting shift was not something she could allow to continue.

  ‘At least he used his brain to get us a copy of that post-mortem report,’ she acknowledged. ‘Which, regardless of anyone else’s opinion, convinces me that it’s the same killer.’

  ‘Not gonna get us any of the cases though, is it?’ Bryant asked.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Or help us track down this Hayley woman with her child.’

  There was no need for her to acknowledge that fact.

  ‘Where to?’ he asked, rubbing his hands together.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ she said, tapping the dashboard with her fingernails.

  Think, think, think, she told herself.

  The woman had lived here with her daughter. She must have gone to school somewhere but trying to track down where would have them running around in circles. Kim knew of at least seven schools in a mile and a half radius and all they had was the woman’s first name, possibly. Same issue for checking with doctor’s and dentist surgeries.

  But what might her child need? Kim wondered. What else would a mother try to fulfil for her child?

  Kim took out her phone and did a quick search of the local area.

  ‘Got it,’ she said.

  ‘Is it catching?’ her colleague asked.

  She looked at him sideways. ‘Was that a joke?’

  ‘Obviously not. Sorry, what have you got, guv?’

  ‘An idea. Take us to the end of the road and turn left.’

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Dawson looked again at the old plans of Redland Hall and although he was no architect he could see that there was a certain area missing. The place where Lester Jackson’s body had been found.

  He knew the boss wanted him to look for any possible links between the victims, but just like her he wanted to understand why Lester Jackson had been killed where he had. And looking at these plans had done nothing but stoke his curiosity. The place was vast. By his count it had 117 rooms. He could understand the body being placed there after the fact to hide it from less tenacious looters, but why kill him there?

  He’d found the floorplan on the local council’s archive website. The National Trust had it listed as only one of their properties along with a brief history of the families that had owned it, but gave no more detail than that. It appeared that no one seemed to know what to do with the rambling old property. He guessed it would take millions upon millions to restore it.

  He returned to the National Trust site and vowed to spend no more than a few minutes looking at similar properties for clues. At this rate, he’d be facing his own charge of wasting po
lice time.

  He clicked into the link for a place called Baddesley Clinton, a moated manor house, eight miles out of Warwick. The house had been built in the thirteenth century when large areas of the forest of Arden were cleared for farmland.

  Dawson had no idea what he was hoping to find but the property bore striking similarities to Redland Hall.

  He learned all about the history of the place and was about to click out when something caught his eye. He read it and read it again.

  ‘You ever heard of a priest hole?’ he asked Stacey across the desk.

  ‘Huh?’ she answered without looking up.

  Obviously not, he thought, as his stomach began to react.

  He continued reading about the Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton who had remained Roman Catholic after the Reformation.

  Many such families had sheltered Catholic priests who would have been killed if discovered.

  Special arrangements were made to hide and protect them by building priest holes and secret passages to hide priests when properties were searched by the authorities. Some were hidden by wooden panelling, others in the sewers and some even hidden beneath the stairs.

  Dawson sat back and thought for a moment. This was why the tiny space was nowhere to be found on the floorplans. It had either been a secret space or built after the issue of the ancient plans.

  The priest hole had to mean something. Of all the space in that house, why had he been killed there?

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  ‘Not really much of a playground, though, is it, guv?’ Bryant asked, rubbing his hands together. The temperature had risen only two degrees above freezing due to a biting wind.

  He wasn’t wrong about the park. The space had a see-saw, three swings and a short metal slide.

  But it was the nearest playground to Luke Fenton’s house, and from what the elderly lady had told Dawson about this Hayley woman walking past the window, she didn’t have a car.