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  Penn thought for a minute. ‘You know, responding to any of that is not gonna help me trawl through the CCTV any quicker,’ he said, putting on the headphones.

  She’d already sent emails to every shelter and community centre in a 20-mile radius with a description of the unidentified victims and was waiting on a response. Mispers had turned up nothing so far.

  Penn was tapping away furiously, and Stacey couldn’t help the smile that landed on her lips. She was done being subtle with her colleague.

  ‘We have nothing on Hollytree, so you’re wasting your time,’ she said, loudly.

  ‘And I’ll take your advice over the boss’s direct instructions, shall I?’

  ‘She’d expect you to work it out and spend your time productively,’ Stacey offered.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. You do know I’m not really new any more?’ he asked, lifting up one earphone.

  She shrugged, happy that she’d tried to help. He should know by now there were times when you followed the boss’s instructions to the letter and times when you worked it out for yourself. Knowing which was which was a perilous journey and shouldn’t be attempted without safety equipment.

  ‘Hmm…’ Penn said, removing his earphones completely.

  Stacey peered around her computer.

  ‘Ah, so now you want me?’ she asked.

  ‘Anonymous call came in at 10.03 p.m. and Keats has time of death of the male at around 9 p.m.’

  ‘And?’ Stacey asked.

  ‘Well, we know officers had to force entry, so the call could only have come from the killer.’

  Stacey nodded. They had listened to the recording countless times and could not establish the age or gender of the caller through the words ‘Chaucer 4B, dead’.

  Penn continued. ‘So, the killer was in the room and must have known the girl was still alive.’

  Stacey was beginning to understand why the boss insisted on early identification. She hated hearing The boy, The Girl, The Male, The Female. It depersonalised them. Put distance between the victim and the investigation.

  ‘Go on,’ she urged.

  ‘Well, wouldn’t you want to make sure they were both dead?’

  ‘Could have been disturbed,’ Stacey reasoned.

  ‘And then go call the police?’ he asked, doubtfully. ‘Especially if you’d been disturbed. Wouldn’t you want to just get as far away from the scene as possible?’

  ‘Penn, your attention to detail…’

  ‘But why not make sure the girl is dead before leaving or even just do it and go and leave them to be found whenever. Why the call to the police?’

  Stacey took a second cookie, but paused before taking a bite.

  ‘No violence, no struggle, no bruises or defensive wounds. It’s like they both walked into that flat, sat down quietly and obediently and just waited to die.’

  He nodded. ‘There’s a word that keeps going through my mind but it’s not very nice. I keep thinking they were inconsequential, that they don’t matter, do you know what I mean?’ he asked, appearing puzzled at his own feelings.

  ‘I think I do,’ she said, following his train of thought.

  ‘It’s like this murder wasn’t even anything to do with them. It was all to do with something else. They were a part of the set, a prop.’

  Stacey could understand his view but she’d never worked a case where the victim or victims were not the focus of the investigation, so wondered if Penn was barking up the wrong tree completely.

  She was about to voice her thoughts as her inbox dinged the receipt of a message from the community centre in Stourbridge.

  She read it and then turned to Penn.

  ‘Well, whether or not Mark and Amy mattered to our killer, let’s make sure they matter to us.’

  Thirteen

  Kim took a few deep breaths before ducking below the crime scene tape. It was harder to enter now than it had been the night before.

  Fourteen hours earlier every available space had been filled with paramedics, police officers, potential witnesses and onlookers jostling for position even though they could see nothing four floors up.

  Last night the area had borne no resemblance to the flat a few floors higher but today things were different. The crowds had dispersed from the cordon tape, having gone back to normal daily life after the previous night’s entertainment. The barrier was being patrolled by two constables already feeling every gram of the 3 kg stab vest in twenty-degree heat before lunchtime.

  Beyond them one officer milled around the front entrance. She couldn’t pass any one of them without a small jolt of sympathy. This was not the dream of being a police officer; standing on a cordon. Guarding the entrance to a block of flats did not get you out of bed each morning.

  The officers had been removed from the other floors, allowing most residents to go about their business, except for the fourth floor which had officers stationed on the lift and the stairs.

  With less people, reduced activity and more open space Kim could see the detail of the property. She could see the narrow, windowless entrance hall that led all the way to the front room. A door to the kitchen and one bedroom on the right and the second bedroom and bathroom on the left. And that was the way she turned, into the room with a south-facing window, ideal for attracting the heat of the sun and turning the room into a space that could cook pottery.

  Normally spaces seemed smaller as you grew older but this one seemed bigger than Kim recalled although she knew it was the exact same size in the flat on the seventh floor.

  Of course in that flat the two single beds wedged together had completely dominated the room, leaving space only for a battered dresser that had easily held their meagre collection of clothes.

  Kim shook herself back to this room, in this flat where a white-suited Mitch and his colleague were putting the carpet back down. Her eyes fell onto the radiator, her mind replaying the images from the previous night.

  ‘Hey, Inspector,’ Mitch said, removing his blue gloves and face mask. ‘What brings you back?’

  She shrugged and moved away, stepping towards the window. ‘Just wanted to get a feel for the place,’ she said, almost adding ‘again’.

  The logical, adult police officer knew this wasn’t the same room and yet she could picture Mikey sleeping peacefully in the left-hand bed. She could see him wrapping himself like a sausage roll in the grey, coarse blankets and shouting ‘come and find me’ and herself pretending to look for him.

  She could see clearly the fear in his face as their mother had pinned him to the bed, holding a bread knife to his chest swearing she would cut the devil right out of him if she had to.

  But clearest of all was the image of his small frame resting against her as his weakened, sickly body had finally betrayed them both. And even then the six-year-old girl had thought that if they were found soon enough her brother could be brought back to life.

  Help had come eventually. At first she’d thought the banging sound was from the radiator to which she was tied. Twice a day, 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., the heating system had kicked in to keep a supply of hot water to each flat, sending a loud shudder from the roof through the ancient pipes. Initially, she’d tried to count the rumbles to keep track of time but she’d become confused.

  Only when the banging had continued and punctured her semi-conscious state had she understood that help had arrived. But it had been way too late for her twin. Just as it had been for the male who had sat in the exact same position the night before. And yet they’d reached the girl in time – not to save her, but she’d been alive, just as Kim herself had been thirty years earlier. Malnourished, weak and frail but with enough energy to fight the police officers who had tried to separate her from her brother.

  She couldn’t help draw the comparisons like a list in her mind.

  Location – check.

  Radiator – check.

  Handcuffs – check.

  Boy dead – check.

  Girl alive – check.

  Cracke
r packet – check.

  Coke bottle – check.

  She understood that Woody was choosing to ignore the blatant connection so that he could keep her on the case after she’d assured him that she could handle it.

  And she could.

  She was sure of it.

  Fourteen

  Kim returned Stacey’s missed call and put the phone on hands-free.

  ‘Jeez, Bryant, your air con broke?’ she asked right before the constable answered.

  He shook his head, started the car and switched on the air conditioning. The cool air hit her face immediately with a blast of freshness.

  ‘We have names,’ Stacey said before Kim had chance to speak.

  ‘Go on,’ Kim said, feeling something tense within her body. She realised she was waiting for names she recognised.

  ‘Mark Johnson and Amy Wilde, boyfriend and girlfriend who hung around a couple of shelters and community centres but mainly Stourbridge. The guy there talked to the pair quite a bit.’

  ‘Great work, Stace, and where can I find this guy?’ she asked, motioning for Bryant to turn the air con down. Her right ear was getting frostbite.

  ‘Langley Road, at the back of the bus station.’

  ‘And his name?’ Kim asked, motioning again to Bryant, who turned the dial up once more.

  ‘His name is Harry—’

  ‘Hang on,’ Kim interrupted. She turned to her colleague. ‘Down, Bryant, not up,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, my mistake,’ he said with an expression that said it wasn’t a mistake at all. Damn his little victories.

  ‘Go on, Stace.’

  ‘Harry Jenks manages the centre.’

  ‘Got it. Thanks, Stace. Good—’

  ‘Boss, Penn and I were talking and we think there’s something a bit weird going on here. It’s a bit like the murder of these kids wasn’t about them at all. I mean—’

  ‘Thanks, Stace, talk later,’ Kim said, ending the call.

  Damn it, this wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d thought.

  Fifteen

  ‘Yeah, not sure that’s a line of enquiry the boss wants us to follow,’ Stacey said, stunned by the silence in her ear.

  Adjusting to the boss’s operational levels of brusque had taken some fine-tuning on her part over the years.

  In person, she registered as chilly but with the benefit of facial expressions and body language. Over the phone she normally dropped a few degrees once the body language had been lost, but that response had been positively arctic. Most unlike the boss to refuse to even listen. Normally she heard people out and then said no.

  ‘Guess it’s back to the CCTV for me then,’ Penn said, as his phone began to ring.

  He answered it, frowned, wrote something down, said okay and ended the call.

  ‘Dobbie’s Salvage, Brierley Hill, some hysterical woman on the phone,’ he said, standing. ‘Officers en route but want CID to pop along, just in case. You coming?’

  Stacey shook her head, still smarting from the boss’s attitude. ‘Sounds like a waste of time. I’ll get on to the CCTV close to Hollytree and you can join me when you get back.’

  He nodded and left.

  Stacey sat back and sighed heavily. Her own instinct had been echoed by Penn, but the boss had told her to leave well alone.

  There was something off with these two victims but the boss wasn’t interested.

  The question was, should she continue to pursue it anyway?

  Sixteen

  Kim took an instant dislike to Harry Jenks but wasn’t sure why.

  She could forgive the hair dye that coloured his hair an unnatural black. She could forgive the sweaty palm, the memory of which wouldn’t leave her until she’d nicked one of Bryant’s antiseptic wipes back in the glove box of the car, but what she couldn’t forgive was the bling.

  The watch on his left wrist was expensive and showy. On the other wrist was a thick chunky belcher chain that matched the one around his neck. She’d never been a fan of jewellery on men but, even her own prejudices aside, it was the context. In her mind, you didn’t come to work in all your finery when you were dealing with people who didn’t know how they were going to get their next meal.

  The people that frequented the community centre didn’t do it out of choice. It wasn’t found on any ‘places to visit’ website, like TripAdvisor, or listed as a desirable destination. The people who came here were at rock bottom, homeless, street workers, unemployed. All of them in need of help. The man was doing nothing wrong but it just struck her as a little cold and insensitive.

  ‘I understand you’re familiar with a couple that go by the names of Amy Wilde and Mark Johnson,’ she said nodding an acknowledgment towards a woman sitting at a desk on the other side of the room.

  On the far-left wall was a row of blank screens. Kim thought about the one-room centre on Hollytree that was run by volunteers who opened for just a few hours each week and the place was rammed from the second they opened the door. They had one computer that had been thrown out by the dinosaurs with less memory than a smartphone but it was constantly in use.

  ‘Yes, your girl sent out an email asking.’

  ‘Yes, my detective constable was attempting to make an identification,’ Kim said, coolly.

  She saw a smile tug at the mouth of the woman although her typing fingers never paused.

  ‘And you knew them?’ Kim clarified.

  He hesitated. ‘As well as I know any of the people that come here. We don’t get emotionally involved with our customers,’ he added, narrowing his eyes. ‘But I’d like to know exactly what they’ve done, officer.’

  She didn’t appreciate the immediate assumption that they’d done something wrong.

  ‘They died, Mr Jenks,’ she said, aware that the victims’ names had not been included in any news reports. She’d only known their names for half an hour herself.

  The fingers to the right of her stopped tapping but the woman didn’t turn.

  ‘How?… I mean…’ His words trailed away as he put it together. ‘The news last night. It was Amy and Mark – the couple that overdosed?’

  ‘What can you tell me about them?’ she asked, answering nothing.

  The tapping to her right had resumed but slower.

  He took a moment to think.

  ‘They were a strange couple. From very different backgrounds. Amy had a stable family, Mark was shunted around the care system and has never had a proper home, so they were very different characters.’

  ‘Any enemies you know of?’

  The typing stopped.

  Kim turned to her colleague.

  ‘Bryant, mind taking a couple of notes?’

  His expression asked if she’d lost her mind but he took out his notebook anyway.

  Harry Jenks licked his lips and shook his head.

  ‘No one they pissed off at all?’ she repeated. ‘Took one too many needles, ate an extra portion from the soup kitchen?’

  He shook his head.

  The typing resumed slowly but Kim could see a set expression on the woman’s face. Kim found it ironic that she was learning more from the person in the room that wasn’t speaking.

  ‘And when was the last time you saw then?’ she asked.

  He consulted something on his computer screen. They last signed in three weeks ago. They took condoms, needles and ate cottage pie.’

  ‘And that’s the last time you saw them?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he answered.

  The woman pursed her lips.

  Kim held out her hand for Bryant’s notebook.

  ‘Just making sure you’ve got everything,’ she said, opening it up.

  She read the single line that he’d written: ‘The Guv has lost the plot!!!’

  Kim hid her smile.

  ‘Yes, I think that’s everything,’ she said, standing. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Jenks, and I’m sure we’ll be back to talk again once we know more.’

  She motioned for Bryant to go ahead as
she passed by the woman’s desk. She caught her eye and nodded before continuing to the door.

  She closed it behind her before Bryant raised an irate eyebrow.

  ‘What the hell was that all about? I’m not bloody senile and I can recall basic facts, especially when we’ve just learned a total of bugger all,’ he ranted, striding to the car.

  She stayed silent while he vented. Sometimes it was a welfare concession on her part. The poor bloke was stuck with her day in, day out. He needed to vent now and again.

  ‘And where’s my pocket notebook?’ he asked, holding out his hand.

  ‘Ah, well, about that…’

  ‘Officer, wait, you dropped this,’ said the typing woman holding out Bryant’s notebook.

  ‘Devious, guv,’ Bryant whispered before the woman reached them.

  Kim pretended to check herself and then shook her head.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Thank you, Miss?…’

  ‘Mrs Tallon, Emma. I’m the Assistant Manager.’

  ‘Oh, so, you’d have known Amy and Mark too?’ she asked, conversationally.

  Mrs Tallon hesitated before nodding. ‘I don’t do much of the evening work, kids you know, but I was here that last night any of us saw Amy and Mark.’

  ‘And did something happen that night?’ Kim asked, knowing there was something this woman wanted to say.

  ‘Yes, Inspector, it was the night Mark Johnson punched Harry Jenks in the mouth.’

  Seventeen

  Penn had seen aerial shots of the scrapyard but he’d never set foot in it.

  From above he could picture the strip of land a quarter mile long containing row upon row of cars, some stacked three vehicles high.

  He parked behind two squad cars and headed towards the building he knew lay at the centre of the property.

  As he approached there was no sign of staff or police officers. Walking around reminded him of the public library when he’d been at school. The shelves of books had towered above him just as the broken cars did right now. Had they been in tidy rows he may have been able to see to the end of the site.