Evil Games Page 14

  The familiar red mist cloaked his mind and he welcomed it back like an old friend. He had perfected techniques over the years to keep it away, or at best to control it. Right now, he embraced it.

  Everything outside of these four walls dissolved into a vacuum. Right here, right now, was all there was. The holocaust had arrived and there was nothing else left.

  Barry moved towards them slowly, offered his hand to Adam.

  Barry saw the tension leave the upper body of his brother. Adam knew it was over. Barry knew it too.

  Adam raised his hand to accept the handshake.

  With one fluid movement borne out of having a ruthless trainer in the boxing ring, Barry’s right hand pulled Adam from the chair and loosed him onto the ground. A well-placed kick to the temple rendered him unconscious.

  ‘You fucking bastard,’ Barry spat.

  Lisa managed one quick gasp before Barry’s left hand grabbed her throat, silencing her. ‘And you are a deceitful bitch.’

  He pushed her against the wall and gazed into her eyes. Like a drowning man, their whole life together played out in his mind.

  Her eyes showed fear and hatred. Good.

  His wife’s terror fed the rage that filled every cell of his body. Every nerve ending in his fingers demanded satisfaction. They must both suffer what he had been made to endure.

  His hands encircled flesh that he had caressed, kissed, bitten.

  He spat in her face. ‘You cheating, disgusting whore. You did this to me.’

  He squeezed the soft skin, compressing the airway that gave her and her unborn baby life.

  Her arms flailed as her lungs screamed out for air. Desperate.

  He squeezed harder, his eyes burning into hers.

  ‘B … arry …’

  The sound of his name on her breath aimed straight for his heart. It was a sigh he remembered, but not like this.

  The tears sprang to his eyes, blurring her already distorted features. His left hand released her throat as his right fist thundered against her temple.

  ‘Fuck you, bitch …’

  Damn it, he still loved her.

  She coughed and spluttered, her hand clasped to her neck. ‘Ame— ’

  Even then Barry would have forgiven her anything; accepted her mistakes, until he saw her direction of travel.

  Her nails dug into the carpet pile as she struggled to reach the inert form of her crippled, unconscious husband.

  ‘You’ll never see our child again,’ he said, kicking the back of her head.

  Barry closed the lounge door behind him and shouted up the stairs. ‘It’s okay, Amelia. You can come down now. Come on, come down to Daddy.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The flat was situated on a snatch of land on the periphery of the Merry Hill shopping complex. The third-storey property was blessed with views of the entrance to the Food Court to the west and the busy Pedmore Road dual carriageway to the east.

  Kim couldn’t help her curiosity at the marketing strategy.

  ‘Better than some blocks we’ve been in, eh?’ Bryant said.

  Anything without daubed obscenities and the smell of urine was a step up from most blocks of flats they visited.

  Bryant knocked on the door and waited.

  Kim heard the clatter of something hitting a wall and a curse.

  A chain was pulled across and the door was opened by a man she barely recognised.

  Chris Jenks was dressed in sludge-coloured tracksuit bottoms. A university t-shirt was stained to the right of the logo. His growing stubble was dark and dense.

  His face registered surprise at their presence.

  Bryant leaned forward. ‘May we …’

  ‘Of course … of course …’ Jenks said, stepping back and opening the door wide.

  Kim stepped into a narrow hallway where two people couldn’t pass without touching. The absence of a window was not helped by the dim light of an energy saving bulb. Two closed doors isolated the small space entirely.

  Kim stepped carefully around the toys that appeared to be out of proportion with the size of the property. She headed towards a brightly lit room at the end of the tunnel which she guessed was the lounge.

  ‘Please … sit down …’ Jenks said, moving two colouring books and a box of felt pens.

  Kim took the seat that had been cleared. Bryant took the other end of the sofa but shifted uncomfortably before removing a remote control from somewhere beneath him.

  Jenks took the remote and remained standing.

  ‘Can I get you anything … coffee … tea …?’

  Kim shook her head.

  ‘Is this about the hearing?’ he asked, wringing his hands.

  ‘No, there’s something else,’ Bryant said.

  They would have no involvement with the disciplinary hearing. Both Jenks and Whiley had been suspended pending a formal investigation and that was being handled by their superiors.

  ‘You visited the home of Leonard Dunn for a domestic abuse complaint?’ Bryant asked.

  Jenks sat in the single chair but remained on the edge. He nodded, still holding the remote control.

  ‘Yeah, just a couple of months ago. Why?’

  Kim was happy to let Bryant lead. She glanced around the room.

  It was a home that had been taken by surprise by the arrival of children. The pebble detail fire was now obscured by a mesh guard. Floor vases that probably used to adorn the fire display now looked cumbersome on a recessed bookshelf. A collection of books and music discs were now interspersed with Calpol bottles, a nappy bag pack and two rattles.

  ‘There was someone else involved in the abuse of the Dunn girls.’

  Jenks’s mouth fell open as he looked from Bryant to her and back again.

  Bryant continued. ‘We don’t know the extent of the involvement yet, but we do know that another person was present during the filming of the abuse.’

  Jenks ran a hand through his hair and rubbed at his forehead. ‘Shit.’

  ‘We need to know if there’s anything you picked up that night, anything at all that might help us find out who was there.’

  Jenks’s eyes fell to the floor and he started to shake his head. ‘There’s nothing. I mean, it was just routine … it was …’

  ‘Tell us about the incident,’ Kim suggested.

  He nodded. ‘We got the call about seven thirty-ish, complaint from a neighbour concerned about the noise. When we got there we could hear Dunn shouting from the gate. We knocked …’

  ‘What was he shouting about?’ Kim asked.

  Jenks thought. ‘Couldn’t make it out from the gate but I think it was something about a school teacher.’

  Kim nodded and motioned for him to continue. It must have been the teacher’s first attempt at speaking to the parents about Daisy’s behaviour. From Kim’s recollection the woman had tried on three separate occasions before making the call. The resulting investigation had been carried out with the assistance of Social Services but had still taken almost two months until an arrest could be made.

  ‘Dunn let us in. You could see he was still raging. Mrs Dunn was on the phone at the time.’

  ‘Do you know who she was speaking to?’

  Jenks nodded. ‘Robin something. Her brother, I think. Whiley shuffled Dunn through to the kitchen and I went into the lounge with Mrs Dunn. I got her to hang up the phone and talk to me.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Just that her husband was upset at the actions of an overzealous teacher. She didn’t elaborate further.’

  Textbook response so far. The officers had separated the parties to defuse the situation.

  ‘Once we got there it all calmed down very quickly. I asked Mrs Dunn if there’d been any violence and she insisted not. I asked if she wanted to make any complaint against her husband and she refused. She maintained it was just an argument that had got out of hand.’

  Kim recalled the witness statement of the teacher. Kim knew this must have been the first time she
’d tried to speak to the Dunns. She’d had little opportunity to voice her concerns about the child before being asked to leave the house by Leonard Dunn who must have been incensed by the woman bringing the girls home.

  Jenks continued. ‘Whiley was having the same conversation in the other room with Leonard Dunn. We were there no more than fifteen minutes. Everything was quiet when we left.’

  ‘Were the girls there?’

  For the first time Jenks looked pained as he nodded. ‘They were sat together on the sofa. Daisy had her arm around the little one.’

  She heard Bryant’s phone vibrate in his pocket. He placed a hand over it. Her own signalled the receipt of a message. Damn it, her team knew where she was.

  Bryant’s sounded again. She tipped her head to the hallway.

  Bryant left the room.

  ‘So, is there anything else …?’

  ‘You know, Marm. There’s a picture in my head that I just can’t shift,’ he said. His eyes were still fixed on a teddy bear in the middle of the room. ‘When I think back now, that girl just stared at me. Daisy. It was intense … like she was trying to tell me something. And I don’t even know if I’m right or if I just imagined it because of what I know now.’

  For a second Kim was tempted to tell him he was right. She had been on the business end of that stare.

  But Jenks was fighting for his job, his career and his method of providing support for a young family. Paid suspension was no holiday. He had struck a suspect and there would be consequences. Kicking the shit out of him when he was down would not change anything. He already knew that he should have read the situation better and Kim could not advise him otherwise.

  She heard Bryant curse from the hallway. He appeared in her peripheral vision and motioned for her to join him.

  She nodded at Jenks and stood.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We gotta go.’

  ‘What the …?’

  ‘Incident at the multi storey car park in Brierley Hill.’

  Kim took out her phone. What the hell was dispatch thinking, calling her and Bryant?

  Bryant put a hand on hers. ‘Entire force is caught up on the demonstration in Dudley.’

  Recently, there had been many outbreaks of violence between the English Defence League and Islamic residents of Dudley, over plans to build a new mosque.

  ‘Pretty bad. It’s all over social media. Both sides calling supporters to join the riot. Seven injured so far.’

  Kim growled.

  Bryant raised an eyebrow. ‘No offence, Guv, but ours is a potential suicide. Do you really think they’d send you if they had a choice?’

  She turned to Jenks who was now standing behind her.

  ‘Okay, Jenks, we’re gonna have to leave it there for now. If you do think …’

  ‘I couldn’t have stopped it, could I, Marm? I mean there’s nothing I could have done, is there?’

  Kim had nothing to say.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘I’ll drive,’ she said, rushing past him.

  ‘On this occasion I was actually going to suggest it.’

  Kim fired up the engine and overtook anything that got in her way, flashing her lights and hitting the horn. They made it to the edge of Brierley Hill in record time.

  ‘Get out the fucking way,’ she screamed at a black Range Rover whose female occupant was speaking into a mobile phone.

  ‘I know you’d love to book her, Guv, but first things first, eh?’

  Kim manoeuvred around the vehicle and parked at the cordon, currently manned by two uniformed police officers. A quick assessment told Kim they were the only presence on site.

  The four-storey structure was no more than six months old and was part of a regeneration of the town in an effort to lure customers away from the free parking at the nearby shopping complex. Vehicle access was from the front but the cordon was set at the top of a service road that ran the length of the car park to the right.

  Kim fought through the swelling crowd and ran along the darkened service road, stopping about halfway.

  She looked up into the darkness, and thanks to one street light, could easily make out the figure who had stepped over the metal fencing on the top level of the car park and was hanging onto the barrier from the wrong side.

  Bryant caught up with her. ‘Four PCSO’s just turned up. Two are manning the entrance and two doing a second sweep to make sure the car park is evacuated. Eyewitness says he’s been in this position for about twelve minutes now.’

  ‘Accurate?’

  Bryant nodded. ‘Yeah, she’s recording it on her mobile phone.’

  Of course she was. ‘Has he asked anyone for anything?’

  Bryant shook his head but was prevented from speaking when a casually dressed male started shouting to them from the cordon. Great, just what they needed.

  ‘Go see what that nutter wants.’

  Bryant ran over to the cordon as she considered any strategy that would just keep the man in place until a negotiator arrived. There were officers trained specifically to be able to talk potential jumpers down with the least amount of fuss. Kim knew if she opened her mouth he’d lose the will to live and drop immediately. She barely knew how to talk to people who weren’t on the brink of suicide, so this was a no-go.

  ‘Guv, this is David Hardwick, of Hardwick House. He knows this guy.’

  The male was two inches taller than her and appeared pensive and out of breath. ‘Long version or short?’

  ‘Well, he’s been up there for about fifteen minutes now, so I’d go for short.’

  Bryant touched her arm. ‘I’ll go and give a quick briefing,’ he said, nodding towards the cordon. Two squad cars and an ambulance had just caught up with them.

  ‘His name is Barry Grant. He called me about an hour ago to say that he wouldn’t be coming back and to divide his stuff up. He said he didn’t deserve to live after what he’d done.’

  ‘What’s he done?’

  The male shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but one of the guys at the house recalled him mentioning this place as an ideal suicide point, so I headed down here to see if I could find him. I kept trying to call but his phone is switched off.’

  Kim looked up. ‘No point trying again, he can’t really answer. What’s his story?’

  ‘He was released from prison a few months ago. He was jailed for GBH on his brother for having an affair with his wife. He put the guy in a wheelchair.’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘He’s an ex-boxer so he knows how to cause pain. He did his time without getting into any scrapes and seemed genuinely sorry for what he’d done. That’s why we accepted him at Hardwick House.’

  Kim wasn’t sure what Hardwick House was but she recognised the name from somewhere.

  ‘Had he said anything about wanting to die?’

  ‘Nothing. He’d been adapting well to life outside of prison. We were looking to get him back into a driving job and he seemed to have accepted that his previous life was over.’

  ‘So, what changed?’

  David shook his head, bewildered.

  Kim turned and saw Bryant heading towards her with another person.

  ‘You have got to be bloody kidding me?’ Kim said as her eyes fell on the familiar shape of Doctor Thorne.

  The woman nodded towards here. ‘Detective Inspector.’

  ‘Doctor Thorne,’ Kim acknowledged.

  Bryant shrugged and stood beside Kim as David started filling in the doctor.

  ‘She says this guy called her. Apparently she does pro bono work for this shelter or halfway house or something.’

  ‘Really?’ Kim asked, surprised.

  Bryant nodded and shrugged.

  Kim stepped away. Bryant followed. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Umm … negotiator is dealing with a situation the other side of Birmingham. Alcoholic with a knife won’t let his wife out the house.’ Bryant looked at his watch. ‘Even if he left now, with the traffic, we’re looking at forty minutes at
least.’

  Yep, getting through the city centre at five thirty was not going to be easy. ‘Damn. Anything else?’

  ‘Press is arriving. They’re all busy interviewing witnesses, who are only too happy to share the story so far. The area is as sterile as it can be and there’s a cleaning company on the way in case we need to clear him up.’

  Bryant did not say this callously. It was a fact of life that the man might fall or purposely drop at some point.

  A quick assessment confirmed that the press and onlookers would get a great shot from the end of the road. And there would be an air of disappointment if it never occurred.

  She glanced at the sea of eager faces at the cordon. She had briefly considered letting them stay where they were and if they were fortunate enough to witness the impact of his bones breaking like breadsticks they would have the pleasure of reliving it in their dreams for months. Only procedure stopped her from making that call.

  ‘Bryant, we need a second cordon. Get those folks moved back around the corner.’

  Bryant took a few steps away from her then bellowed the instruction to the growing swell of fluorescent jackets.

  ‘Let me go and talk to him,’ Alex said, speaking to her for the first time.

  ‘Have you been prescribing yourself stupid pills?’

  Kim was sure Bryant could have offered a more professional response but she didn’t have the time.

  Alex looked around and smiled. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear – you seem to be running out of options. I know Barry. He’ll listen to me.’

  Kim ignored the doctor and turned away.

  Bryant returned to her side. ‘We just need something to break his fall.’

  Kim nodded and then had an idea. She’d read a report recently of police officers hiring a bouncy castle and inflating it at the projected point of impact. Because he was on a ledge that ran the entire length of the car park he would only need to shuffle two feet along and miss the thing completely.

  ‘Send some officers into the shops. Round up as many of those garden gazebos as they can find.’ She looked up at the height. ‘If we get enough we can line them up along the edge. It’s not a high-rise building, so if he drops they might just reduce the impact.’