Fatal Promise: A totally gripping and heart-stopping serial-killer thriller Read online

  ‘She doesn’t have her medication,’ Stacey said, quietly, answering Penn’s question.

  Penn frowned as he reached into the Tupperware box for what appeared to be a rock cake.

  ‘What’s the medication for anyway?’ he asked.

  Stacey opened her mouth to respond, and then closed it again.

  She wasn’t going to admit to Penn, because she could barely believe she was admitting it to herself; stupidly, she had never even thought to ask.

  Fifty-Two

  ‘So, who was texting you last night?’ Bryant asked as they pulled off the station car park.

  ‘None of your business, Dad,’ she said.

  ‘Which would be true if you had any kind of personal life, but as you don’t, I’m guessing it was work related and I’d just like to be kept in the loop.’

  He had a point.

  ‘Travis checking up on Penn.’

  ‘Nice of him. Did you explain to him that you’ve covered your eyes and put your fingers in your ears until the kid goes away?’

  ‘I can manage until this case is over,’ she stated.

  ‘And then he’ll be gone?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Bryant pushed.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she insisted.

  ‘And what about the next?’ he asked, negotiating a traffic island.

  ‘Next what?’

  ‘Replacement,’ he answered. ‘Woody is not gonna let us stay as a team of three for long.’

  She shrugged. ‘Cross that bridge when we come to it,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah but maybe we should just give it a go,’ he said.

  ‘You think we should keep Penn?’ she asked, horrified. The name Judas hovered around her lips.

  ‘I’m saying the fact he is so different to Dawson may be a good thing.’

  ‘Bryant, you stopping talking would be a great idea right now.’

  ‘Look, guv, I’m just—’

  ‘I mean it,’ she snapped.

  Bryant blew air out of his nose but, sensibly, closed his mouth and remained that way until he parked on the hospital car park.

  ‘Okay, I won’t mention it again,’ he said. ‘Your team is your call.’

  ‘Too fucking right it is,’ she said, slamming the car door.

  * * *

  As she headed towards the entrance she tried to analyse her growing rage towards her colleague. Bryant had always pushed her harder and farther than anyone else but he always showed correct judgement in stopping short of her tolerance limit. But right now either his judgement or her tolerance was broken and she wasn’t quite sure which.

  ‘Reckon she’s in yet?’ Bryant asked, as they strolled past the café and the smell of toast and bacon.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, shortly, still swallowing down her irritation.

  She was surprised that Terry wasn’t perched at his usual spot but then she supposed it wasn’t even eight yet.

  Despite the early hour Kim felt sure Vanessa Wilson would be at her desk. They had established the woman didn’t work normal hours and had left early the previous day due to a sick child, and Kim was guessing that fact would have ensured she was at her desk all the earlier the next day. Vanessa Wilson had not managed to secure the role of Operational Medical Director at the age of thirty-five by working eight-hour days.

  As expected the door to the admin block opened when she pushed.

  Three doors down she knocked and received an immediate instruction to enter.

  Kim pushed open the door and paused.

  Yes, she had expected to see Vanessa Wilson sitting at her desk bright and early. What she hadn’t expected was to see a small person sitting on a mat surrounded by toys on the floor.

  ‘My daughter, Mia,’ Vanessa explained, looking over the top of the desk. ‘Can’t go to school, childminder won’t take her because she’s ill, my mum’s busy and my husband is away until Saturday.’

  Kim smiled down at the little girl who was looking up at them questioningly.

  ‘Hi, Mia,’ she said, giving her a little wave.

  ‘My Little Pony,’ she said, holding forward a plastic pony with a long purple mane.

  ‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ Kim said, exhausting the limits of her ability to communicate with children.

  Bryant stepped forward and bent down to the child’s level.

  ‘You don’t have children, then, Inspector?’ Vanessa asked, with a smile in her voice.

  ‘That obvious?’ Kim asked, taking a seat opposite the woman.

  ‘It’s a learned behaviour,’ Vanessa said. ‘Well, it certainly was for me. When I first had Mia I couldn’t understand why my sound reasoning at 2 a.m. about the fact she was crying for no reason had no effect on her at all. I could sit in a room with medical personnel, lawyers and government officials and get my point across and yet one tiny human destroyed my entire self-image.’

  ‘And did it work the other way?’ Kim asked as Bryant’s pony noises elicited squeals of delight from the little girl.

  How the hell did he do that? she wondered, finally forgiving him their earlier altercation.

  ‘You mean did I try and spoon-feed my colleagues while making “choo choo” noises once I returned from maternity leave?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Kim said.

  ‘Not quite that bad but I did clap excitedly after one of my colleagues burped during a lunch meeting if that’s what you mean.’

  Kim couldn’t help the smile that teased at her lips.

  ‘So, my security brief tells me you were trying to bang down my door after I’d left last night. What was so urgent?’

  ‘I needed to speak to you about a surgical nurse here at the hospital,’ Kim answered.

  Vanessa reached into her drawer and took out a business card. ‘All my numbers are on there in case it happens again.’

  Kim took it. ‘Her name is Mansell. Her mother was murdered at Cedars Retirement Home yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Oh my god, how absolutely terrible. Does Nat know?’

  Kim shrugged. ‘The address they have at the retirement home is an old one, and her phone keeps ringing out.’

  ‘Oh no, let me get you everything you need,’ she said, reaching for the phone.

  ‘Before you do, Mrs Wilson…’

  ‘Vanessa, please,’ she said. ‘Over this last week I’ve seen more of you than I have my husband.’

  ‘Vanessa, is there any link between Natalie Mansell and Doctor Gordon Cordell?’

  As the colour began to leave her face Vanessa nodded.

  ‘Yes, Inspector. She was a witness for Doctor Cordell in his complaint against Angelo Mancini.’

  Fifty-Three

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Stacey said, loud enough for Penn to hear.

  He ignored her.

  ‘Oi, Notkev, look at this,’ she said, turning her screen.

  Her first call to the Practice Manager of Wychley Medical Practice had not been fruitful. She had refused Stacey access to Jessie’s medical records based on the absence of consent from the patient, and no matter how many times she’d tried to explain that the patient was missing, the woman had not budged. Stacey had requested an urgent call from Jessie’s GP, Doctor Bristow, who had called her back ten minutes ago. After quoting Section 29 of the Data Protection Act 1998, the doctor had correctly explained that he was not compelled to allow access, but after listening to her had agreed that the need to disclose the patient’s records outweighed the patient’s interest in keeping the information confidential.

  She had just signed into their system on the temporary credentials he had given her and her mouth had fallen open at what she’d seen.

  Penn’s eyes widened as they quickly ran across all the entries.

  She scrolled down to show the extent of what she’d found.

  She scrolled back to the top.

  ‘The poor kid has been in and out of hospital since she was born. Started with feeding problems when she was just seven months old. She’s had apnoea
, diarrhoea, seizures, cyanosis, fevers, asthma; the list just goes on and on. It’s like a bloody medical journal,’ she said, as the fear for the girl’s safety grew in her stomach.

  Penn was trying to keep up as she scrolled. ‘Let’s see again,’ he said.

  She went back and used the cursors to move through the screen slower.

  His eyes whizzed across the page as his fair eyebrows drew together. ‘Go back to 2013,’ he said, coming around to stand beside her.

  ‘Why?’ she asked, as she began to scroll down.

  ‘There,’ he said, pointing at the screen.

  She looked at what he’d noticed.

  ‘A three-year gap,’ she said. ‘From 2013 to 2016 there was hardly anything. Just a couple of chest infections.’

  ‘Yeah, but look at the problems afterwards,’ Penn said. She could hear the puzzlement in his tone.

  ‘She’s been in and out almost every month for the last couple of years.’

  ‘She’s been having ECGs, chest X-rays, MRIs, CT scans and… bloody hell…’

  ‘What?’ Stacey asked.

  ‘Five months ago she had transesophageal echocardiogram,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s pretend I was off sick the day the police gave us medical training,’ she snapped.

  Penn ignored her tone and explained. ‘Patient is sedated to ease the discomfort and decrease the gag reflex while an ultrasound probe is passed through the oesophagus. It’s invasive but shows all areas of the heart including aorta, pulmonary artery, valves, atria, everything.’

  ‘How do you even… never mind. I don’t even care,’ Stacey said. ‘But Jesus, this kid’s been through it.’

  ‘Results were inconclusive and Mrs Ryan demanded a second opinion,’ Penn said. ‘Insisting that the symptoms had not decreased.’

  Stacey reached the end of the list and read the final entry.

  ‘Which would explain that,’ Stacey said, quietly.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he answered.

  Staring at her was a signed admission form.

  ‘She’s due to go into hospital tomorrow for an angiogram.’

  ‘My dad had that done,’ Penn said. ‘He had anaesthetic pumped into his wrist for his radial artery. They slid a narrow plastic tube up the artery to his heart and injected dye so the arteries would show up under an X-ray. He was sixty-seven and shitting himself.’

  And Jessie Ryan was due to have this procedure tomorrow.

  ‘What’s the purpose of it?’ Stacey asked. She’d heard the term on medical programmes but had no clue what it meant.

  ‘In my dad’s case it was to detect narrowing of the arteries but it was pretty much after all other tests had been exhausted.’

  ‘Like Jessie?’ Stacey asked.

  He nodded, and Stacey didn’t feel the need to state the obvious.

  With all the health problems this teenage girl had, if they didn’t find her soon, Jessie Ryan could die.

  Fifty-Four

  ‘Bryant, you could always try your luck going over thirty miles an hour,’ she groaned, feeling her right foot pushing down on the imaginary accelerator at her feet.

  ‘It’s ten to nine, guv, and kids run out of side streets,’ he said, patiently.

  ‘You did hear Vanessa, didn’t you, or were you too busy combing the mane of the pony?’

  ‘To be fair it was quite therapeutic but yes I did hear.’

  ‘So, you know Nat Mansell has not been at work since Monday and could be lying dead in her own home right now?’

  ‘Then there’s no need to rush, is there?’ he asked, smartly.

  She fought the urge to reach over and grab the steering wheel. He was enjoying having control of the car a little too much for her liking. She had the feeling this case would be solved much quicker if Bryant would learn to put his foot down.

  She remained silent as he drove through Gornal Wood which was located on the western boundary of the Dudley Metropolitan Borough and had been the epicentre of the 2002 earthquake that had been felt as far away as North Yorkshire.

  ‘Love that place,’ Bryant said, nodding towards the Crooked House pub where the left-hand side was approximately four feet lower than the right due to mining subsidence.

  ‘Aah, it’s this one,’ he said, coming to a sudden stop as he’d turned into Wilde Street.

  The narrow road separated identical fifties semi-detached houses facing each other. Each home had a small drive and a patch of garden in front of the house.

  Bryant pulled on to the empty drive. Kim noticed a four-course-high brick wall that separated the nurse’s small garden from the one next door.

  Nat Mansell’s lawn was cut short with a one-foot border that appeared to have been recently dug over ready for plants. A small bucket holding a pair of gloves and some hand tools sat in the corner underneath the front window.

  ‘So, we know she lives alone, divorced seven years ago, with no kids and doesn’t drive,’ Kim said as they approached the porch door.

  ‘You know, this could be completely coincidental,’ Bryant said.

  ‘Jesus, you have been on holiday,’ Kim said, waiting for her colleague to wake up and smell the coffee. ‘Not sure how they do things at Brierley Hill but here we find clues and put them together until we find the bad person.’

  Bryant ignored her and knocked on the door.

  ‘She hasn’t been to work since the day Cordell was murdered, she hasn’t called in sick, she was linked to the complaint against Mancini and her mother was murdered yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Well, since you put it like that…’ he said, knocking again but harder.

  She bent down to listen at the letterbox.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Bryant stepped to the left as she stepped to the right.

  ‘I’ll see if there’s anything open around the…’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ she said, grabbing a glove and hand shovel from the bucket.

  She put on the glove, turned the spade and used the handle to smash the glass. She reached inside and turned the lock. If they continued to run this investigation on Bryant time their killer would have died of old age before they caught him.

  ‘We’re in,’ she said, stepping over the broken glass.

  The box porch was tidy with a fern overflowing its pot in the corner. A pair of dirty gardening shoes sat on a rubber mat and a couple of coats and a scarf hung from a brass coat hook. On the box shelf in front of the window was an oversized teacup and saucer holding a collection of cactus plants.

  Kim pushed open the door to the living room and stopped dead.

  ‘Oh shit, Bryant, come take a look at this.’

  Fifty-Five

  The living room stretched the front of the house with wooden stairs attached to the adjoining wall. Aside from that the entire room was carnage.

  Every cushion was on the floor. Lamps had been smashed and occasional tables upended. Porcelain figurines lay in shards along the mantelpiece. The phone was on the floor in the middle of the room, the cord disconnected.

  ‘Either a bloody good struggle or Nat Mansell had some kind of manic episode,’ Bryant said, stepping into the room behind her.

  Kim trod carefully across the carpet and gingerly opened the door to the kitchen diner at the back of the house, her heartbeat already increasing at the thought of what she might find.

  She sighed with relief at two rooms that appeared to be all in order

  ‘Check upstairs,’ she called over her shoulder.

  She assessed the two rooms. The neat orderliness of the rear of the property and the chaos at the front.

  She checked the patio door that led out to a small, lawned garden. It was locked.

  Everything had happened in the front room.

  She could hear Bryant’s footsteps above as he moved from room to room. Every second that passed without a distress call from above slowed her heart down.

  She breathed out as his footsteps thundered down the stairs.

  Thank God he had fou
nd no body.

  Kim stepped back into the lounge and looked more closely at the chaos. Amongst the debris in front of the mantelpiece were two photo frames face down. She carefully lifted one which contained a photo of a man in his seventies smiling from beneath a Christmas cracker paper crown. Kim guessed it was Nat Mansell’s father, who had died seven months earlier, according to Vanessa Wilson.

  Kim placed it back down and picked up the other.

  It was empty.

  She showed it to Bryant. ‘Any guesses who might have been in here?’

  ‘Phyllis Mansell?’ he said as they faced each other across the chaos of whatever had happened in this house.

  ‘Why take the photo, Bryant? Surely if he wanted to kill the woman he knew what she looked like.’

  Bryant shook his head. It made no sense to him either.

  ‘I think she let him in,’ Kim said, looking around.

  Their killer had not forced himself into the house. Nothing in the porch had been disturbed.

  Kim remembered the staff photo Vanessa had shown them and visualised the petite brunette walking back into the lounge and closing the door behind her. A struggle had followed and yet there was no blood, no sign of injury, so where the hell was she?

  ‘He’s got her,’ Bryant said. ‘It’s exactly like Cordell. He’s taken her somewhere to—’

  ‘Handbag,’ Kim suddenly said.

  ‘Gucci’s normally my first choice,’ Bryant joked.

  ‘Where is it?’ Kim asked, ignoring him and looking around. There was no purse, no house keys, no bus pass.

  ‘Maybe the killer took it or she grabbed…’

  ‘Yeah, she must have asked him to delay his plan to brutally cut her throat while she gathered up her things,’ she said, incredulously. ‘But if those things aren’t scattered around then they’re normally all together in a handbag.’

  ‘Which isn’t here,’ Bryant agreed.

  ‘He didn’t hurt her, Bryant,’ she said, looking around. ‘No sign of forced entry, obvious struggle but both doors locked.’