Child’s Play: A totally unputdownable serial killer thriller Read online

  ‘So, you came from that direction?’ she asked, nodding towards the path from the club.

  Although not a part of the park there was a path that led from Old Hill Cricket Club along to the entrance where she’d just parked.

  ‘Yeah, had a few pints with my mates and…’

  ‘And no one passed you as you were walking along?’

  Another shake of the head.

  ‘Did you hear anything as you approached?’

  ‘Nothing. It was dead…’

  His words trailed away as that one single word returned his mind once again to what he’d seen.

  ‘So, you saw and heard nothing and called the police straight away?’ she asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘Then what did you do?’

  Guilt flashed across his face. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Did you touch her at all?’

  He hesitated before shaking his head.

  ‘Are you sure, Eric?’ she pushed. They had to know.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t check. I mean I just couldn’t…’

  Kim understood the source of his guilt and evasion. He felt bad because he hadn’t had the courage to approach her and see if she was still alive.

  ‘It’s okay. I don’t think there’s much you could have done to help her.’

  He offered her a grateful smile as Bryant approached.

  ‘Okay, Eric, we’ll be in touch if we need anything further, and if you remember anything more give us a call.’

  He nodded his understanding as she met the gaze of the officer still standing to the side of him. ‘Get someone to take him home.’

  ‘Will do, Marm.’

  ‘Anything?’ she asked, turning to her colleague.

  ‘Mitch is here and is discussing with Keats the best way to remove her from the swing.’

  ‘Do we have her name?’

  ‘Belinda Evans, sixty-one years of age, lives in Wombourne and drives a BMW 5 Series. Less than two years old.’

  She raised an eyebrow. His last few minutes had been much more productive than hers.

  ‘Car keys in her handbag, along with her purse, untouched, her driving licence, a small make-up bag, a pen, glasses and a pack of breath mints. No mobile phone.’

  ‘And her car is?’

  ‘Parked correctly about fifty yards from the park gates. Locked and with no evidence of foul play.’

  ‘Good work, Bryant,’ she said, heading towards the entrance to the park. ‘Most of that information is utterly useless, but you’ve identified one piece of information that is incredibly helpful and relevant.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That Belinda Evans came to the park of her own accord.’

  THREE

  Kim entered the squad room and immediately realised that something was not right. It had nothing to do with the fact that when she’d left the room at 7.30 a.m. to brief Woody on the events of the previous evening, the office had been empty and was now full. No, it wasn’t that. She’d expected that to be the case. The change was more subtle than that.

  Ah, she got it.

  ‘Bryant, why is Betty on your desk?’

  Not once had he been awarded the prized plant for his work efforts.

  Stacey sniggered. ‘Told you.’

  ‘Just looking after it, guv, with Penn being away for most of the week.’ He paused. ‘And I kinda wanted to see how it looked.’

  ‘Then earn it,’ she said, placing it back on the windowsill.

  She turned back to the room. ‘And what the hell are those on your feet, Penn?’ she asked, folding her arms.

  ‘Trainers, boss.’

  Unlike the man who had occupied the place in her team before him, Penn was not a man easily given to smartness. His normal attire of plain black trousers and white shirt were presentable and met her standards, just. But put the man in a suit and somehow the suit managed to look just as pissed off as he did.

  Not that she knew much about men’s current fashion in suits but with its thick grey pinstripe, his court outfit looked as though it had crawled out of the Nineties. His unruly curly blonde hair did little to help, but she was pleased to see the bandana was missing and the curls had been tamed by some kind of man hair products.

  But the trainers.

  ‘Look, Penn, I don’t know what Travis put up with but when you’re going to court, even for one of your old cases, you are part of this team now and as such you’re representing both—’

  ‘They’re under the desk, guv,’ Bryant said, behind her.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘His shoes… they’re under the desk. I couldn’t let you do it. You were falling for it way too easily.’

  Penn smirked before reaching down to untie his laces.

  ‘Jesus, you’re dead funny, you lot,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘I’ll be back after though, boss, eh?’ he asked, hopefully. ‘Court finishes around four-ish.’

  Both Bryant and Stacey waited expectantly for her response too.

  She was sorely tempted to agree.

  ‘No, Penn. Go straight home. Woody ain’t budging.’

  A collective groan sounded around her.

  ‘Not my rules, guys,’ she said, holding up her hands in defence.

  She’d seen the memo sent out a month ago to all supervisory staff across the West Midlands Police Force. And initially she had quite happily ignored it. Until she’d been called up to Woody’s office and presented with a printed copy by her boss.

  The force was in crisis. Recruitment figures were down, violent crime was up and staff burnout rates were at an all-time high.

  ‘You work them too hard,’ Woody had said, waving the memo in front of her face.

  ‘This is my fault?’ she asked. She had a team of three which, even if she burned them all out, wouldn’t touch the overall figure.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he growled.

  ‘I keep an eye on them,’ she defended.

  ‘They’re like dogs, Stone.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir?’

  ‘They hide their illnesses,’ he clarified. ‘Police officers hate to admit when there’s something wrong. They battle on, soldier through it. You won’t know until it’s too late.’

  ‘So what am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Rest them, Stone. You have to manage them and ensure they get enough downtime. Try to stick to shift patterns and look for tell-tale signs like emotional changes.’

  She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Okay, maybe in your case you should look for behavioural changes and physical signs like being withdrawn, irritable, aggressive. It’s all here,’ he said, waving the memo at her again.

  ‘Noted, sir, and I have only one question,’ she said, glancing at the piece of paper in his hands.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Did the criminals get the memo too?’

  If her memory served correctly that was the point at which he’d thrust the memo at her and told her to leave.

  Penn’s court case could not have come at a worse time. Any time over the last few weeks would have been fine by her, while they’d been working routine cases since their last major investigation into the sicko who had been recreating the most traumatic events in her life.

  Unfortunately, the CPS didn’t consult her diary when programming murder trials, and as it had been Penn’s last major investigation with West Mercia, she’d had no choice but to free him for the trial. Especially as he’d been the arresting officer.

  ‘Okay, let’s get cracking,’ she said, perching on the edge of the desk facing the wipe board. ‘Belinda Evans, sixty-one years of age found tied to a swing, late at night at Haden Hill Park. Smartly dressed, presentable, arrived there under her own steam but no mobile phone on her person. Lives in a nice area of Wombourne and hasn’t come to our attention before. Stace, find out everything you can about our victim. Bryant and I will be heading over to her house before meeting with Keats for the post-mortem at ten.’

  ‘Got it, boss,’ she said, turning to her computer.

  ‘Woody has delegated statement taking to Inspector Plant and his team seeing as Penn is taking a holiday this week.’

  Follow-ups normally fell to Penn. He shook his head. ‘Who the hell would want to hurt a little old?—’

  ‘Hey, sixty-one ain’t old, matey,’ Bryant said, being the closest person in the room to that age. ‘And my money is on Eleanor.’

  ‘Eleanor who?’ Kim asked, frowning.

  ‘Don’t know her last name but she’s rumoured to glide around the park looking for her lost love, a monk who was walled up in a passage alive and…’

  ‘Or it could be Annie Eliza,’ Stacey said, widening her eyes. ‘She lived there alllllll alone, never married or had children and…’

  ‘Or it could have been Yvette?’ Bryant added.

  ‘Another bloody ghost?’ Kim asked, moving towards the Bowl.

  ‘Nah, she’s real. Does Most Haunted programme and they’ve been to investigate—’

  ‘Enough, guys,’ she said, grabbing her jacket.

  Kim glanced back at the white board that contained just the barest of details. Right now, Belinda Evans was a bullet-point list, a collection of facts gained solely from the crime scene and already Kim had the feeling that the woman was going to become much more than that.

  FOUR

  Wombourne was a village in South Staffordshire with Anglo-Saxon origins that managed to hold on to its sense of community despite the numerous housing developments that had sprung up as an overspill housing solution for the nearby city of Wolverhampton.

  Bryant pulled up behind a squad car on Trident Road, a few streets back from the village green.

  As she got out of the car Kim noted that the double-fronted detached bungalow had be
en recently painted. A waist-high slatted fence enclosed the front garden and disappeared around the back. A hanging basket was placed either side of the door, both bearing identical flowers coloured pink and white. The property was tidy and pleasant and appeared to have been designed for low maintenance.

  ‘Wish my missus would go for something like this,’ Bryant moaned, holding his ID up for the constable on the gate. ‘Damn flowers back home have me sneezing all over the…’

  ‘Hang on,’ Kim said, stepping back to the officer on the gate. ‘Any interest?’ she asked, looking around the street.

  ‘Plenty, Marm,’ he said. ‘Lady at number seventeen watched from her bedroom window for over an hour before leaving twenty minutes ago. The person at number twenty-one doesn’t realise we know they’ve been behind that net curtain for forty-five minutes and Mr Blenkinsop from number fourteen along the road makes a very nice cup of tea.’

  Kim smiled. In her experience, there were four types of neighbour. The first, and her favourite on a personal level, were the ones that really couldn’t give a shit what was going on beyond their own front door. The second were the ones who wanted to know what was going on but didn’t want to show it. The third group were the openly curious but easily bored, and then there were her professional favourites: The Blenkinsops; the ones that were openly curious and made the effort to engage with police and find out what was going on.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said, catching up with Bryant who was already in the hallway.

  ‘Observant guy,’ she noted, glancing back to the officer.

  ‘Give the man a plant,’ Brant said, turning left.

  His failure to earn the plant had become a standing joke in the squad room. One which Bryant played for all it was worth.

  ‘Basic layout by the looks of it,’ he noted. ‘Living area on the left and bedrooms on the right. Decent size.’

  The hallway was decorated with an embossed wallpaper that had been painted with bland magnolia matt emulsion. The rooms offered a similar colour palette which gave the impression of fresh, clean but coolly detached somehow.

  ‘How much?’ Kim asked, looking around the lounge. Bungalows were pretty expensive around the area.

  ‘I’d guess around three hundred grand,’ Bryant said, frowning.

  ‘I’d have expected a bigger property,’ Kim said, honestly, purely based on the car model and registration of the car that the victim drove.

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ he said touching the top of a sideboard. ‘It’s a nice place but…’ His words trailed away as he pulled open the top drawer of the cupboard.

  ‘Empty,’ he said, looking her way.

  Kim shrugged, and continued walking around the room. The television was flat screen but not much bigger than a computer monitor. An old-fashioned stacker system music centre sat on a two-drawer unit in the opposite corner. She could see no speakers attached and it appeared to be just for show.

  She opened the drawers. ‘These are empty too.’

  They moved along to the kitchen. The heart of the home. In this property it appeared to have suffered a cardiac arrest. The space was a functional area of boxes, hard edges and sharp corners. Nothing softened the space or brought it to life. No chopping board, place mats, canisters for tea bags, bread bin, teapot. All the things that people have and don’t really use.

  Again, Bryant began opening doors and drawers.

  ‘A few bits and pieces but little more than we found in the lounge. Not sure we’re gonna find any evidence to help solve her death when we can barely find anything to prove her life.’

  Kim turned to her colleague.

  ‘Bloody hell, Bryant, you been reading books again?’

  ‘Actually, Carl Jung says—’

  Bryant’s words were cut off by a cough that came from behind.

  Kim turned and her breath met a brick wall in her chest.

  ‘Jesus,’ Bryant whispered, as they both stared at the person before them.

  She had the feeling they were looking at a ghost.

  FIVE

  ‘Marm, I’m sorry… she just…’

  Kim waved away the constable’s apologies. Judging by the look on the woman’s face the entire day shift kitted out in riot gear would have struggled to stop her.

  She took a moment to process the sight before her. From the floral skirt to the plain blouse to the pearl earrings and matching necklace. The face was a little more worn but the resemblance to Belinda Evans was uncanny.

  ‘May I ask what you’re doing in my sister’s house?’ she asked in a clipped, stern voice that held no Black Country twang.

  Kim stepped forward. ‘Mrs?…’

  ‘It’s Miss Evans, like my sister and my name is Veronica,’ she stated, as Kim’s phone began to ring.

  ‘You can ignore that call and explain what you’re doing in my sister’s home,’ the woman said with steel in both her voice and expression.

  ‘Yeah, I’m probably not going to do that,’ Kim said, turning away. Even Woody didn’t speak to her like that, but right now she had to force herself to remember that this person was about to find out they’d lost a family member.

  ‘Stace,’ she answered.

  ‘Next of kin, boss, is sixty-five-year-old Veronica Evans, lives at—’

  ‘Thanks, Stace, I’ll get back to you,’ she said, ending the call and wishing it had been just two minutes earlier.

  ‘Miss Evans, I think you should take a seat,’ Kim said, pointing back towards the lounge.

  The woman ignored her advice.

  ‘Is she dead?’

  ‘Miss Evans,’ Bryant said, stepping in to take over the sensitivity portion of their job description.

  ‘If you could just step into…’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then?’ she said, looking from Kim to her colleague.

  Okay, so it appeared that Bryant could put his kid gloves away for the time being.

  ‘Yes, Miss Evans, I’m afraid—’

  ‘Veronica, please, or we’ll all get confused. How did it happen? In that fast car of hers, I suppose. Ridiculous how she drove it. I’ve been telling her for months that she needed to act her age, but—’

  Bryant stepped forward. ‘Miss… Veronica, I really think you should come into the lounge and…’

  The woman speared Bryant with a look. ‘Officer, will my sitting down make my sister any less dead?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Kim answered for her colleague who was nonplussed by the woman’s manner.

  Kim had seen it before. Sometimes relatives remained stoic for days, weeks, months and then broke down because of something trivial or a certain memory. Whatever the reason Kim was going to make the most of it.

  ‘No, Veronica, your sister will be no less dead but the situation is more complicated than you suspect and would be better discussed sitting down.’

  ‘Complicated, how?’

  Kim took matters into her own hands and walked past the woman into the lounge. She stood in front of the sofa thereby directing the woman to the single seat.

  After all his efforts to make Veronica sit, Bryant remained standing in the doorway.

  ‘Veronica, I’m sorry to tell you that your sister was murdered.’

  Kim waited for an emotion to cross her face. Any emotion would do but she wasn’t expecting the one she saw.

  Annoyance.

  Kim couldn’t work out if it was annoyance that her sister had died or because her demise was not in the manner that Veronica had prophesised.

  ‘No, I’m sorry but you must be mistaken. It’s either an error of her identity or the way she died but there’s no way Belinda—’

  ‘There’s no mistake,’ Kim said. ‘Your sister was murdered at Haden Hill Park by a single stab wound to the heart.’

  Veronica’s hand went to her throat as though she’d just been told there was a fly in her soup.

  The lack of emotion caused Kim to wonder how close the sisters had been. It appeared that Veronica lived close by due to the time in the morning she’d just happened along for a visit. They had uncannily similar interests in clothes and jewellery and both still went by their maiden names.

  ‘Veronica, I’m sorry, this must be an awful shock but do you have any idea why your sister was at the park last night?’