First Blood: A completely gripping mystery thriller (A Detective Kim Stone Novel) Page 5

  ‘But didn’t you ditch me for the love of your life?’ she spat angrily, giving him even more hope. She still had a lot of emotion coursing through her at losing him. Perfect.

  ‘It’s not how I thought it would be, Lou.’ He paused again for dramatic effect. ‘It’s not how it was with us. None of it,’ he said, meaningfully.

  He knew she’d get it.

  The sex had been explosive.

  He heard an intake of breath and knew she was recalling exactly what he’d intended.

  ‘I mean… I dunno… maybe we should meet up. Just chat about stuff?’

  She hesitated. ‘Okay, maybe we…’

  ‘Seven at our usual place?’ he asked, tremulously, humbly, hopefully.

  More hesitation.

  ‘Okay, I’ll see you there.’

  He ended the call and smiled widely.

  Now he could concentrate.

  Because now he knew he had a bed for the night.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kim was surprised at how much bigger the morgue seemed under Keats’s supervision. The three metal dishes were lined up as they had always been.

  The fixed shiny metallic work surfaces hadn’t been moved or rearranged since her last visit, but there was something different.

  Keats’s predecessor had filled the space with his height and girth, and although the area had not been what she would call messy it was now positively sterile. Folders and books and measuring guides had been moved to the small desk in the far corner and all tools had been arranged onto a moveable trolley which sat between the first and second dish.

  She remembered the first time she’d attended a post-mortem. For a full two minutes she’d been unable to rip her gaze away from the tools. The pathologist had talked her through the different types of forceps; some for bone cutting and some for bone holding and others used just for arteries. Amongst the knives, scissors, retractors, clamps and chisels the most unnerving tools had been the selection of saws. She had expected the tools to look drastically different to the ones in the hardware shop. She had expected something that looked more gentle, less intrusive, more respectful, somehow.

  She was disappointed to see all the dishes empty. The workspace had been arranged to reflect the man’s tidy, efficient mind, but maybe it would have been time best spent arranging the body for post-mortem at the agreed hour.

  Because she was right on time.

  She put her hands on her hips. ‘I mean, any time you’d like to start on the reason we’re here so…’

  ‘The post-mortem on Luke Fenton has been completed.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Kim said, as the pathologist reached for a clipboard.

  ‘My lunch was a cold sausage sandwich and surprisingly I wasn’t all that keen, so I decided to crack on.’

  A low chuckle sounded from her colleague.

  ‘And my motivation for speed has absolutely nothing to do with getting you in and out of my workspace as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Your very tidy workspace,’ she noted, ignoring the jibe.

  ‘A tidy mind and all that, Inspector,’ he said, placing his clipboard behind him.

  ‘Vital statistics all recorded and will be sent in the formal report but in short our man was five foot ten and weighed around one hundred and fifty pounds. All major organs are of normal weight and size and exhibit no particular lifestyle vices. His last meal was some kind of Chinese dish with beef and noodles, and a full toxicology report will be with you once I have it back.’

  ‘Is that it?’ she asked.

  ‘Give a man time to pause for breath, Inspector, for goodness’ sake.’

  ‘Sorry to rush you but anything useful would be great,’ she said, offering what she thought was an accompanying smile.

  ‘Please don’t do that again,’ he said, frowning. ‘It’s not an expression that sits naturally on your face.’

  Yeah, he was right. It did feel kind of strange.

  He reached for a stack of printed photographs and laid three down.

  The snaps showed the victim’s hair parted to reveal a sizeable lump on the back of the head.

  ‘Wow,’ Bryant said.

  ‘Yes, our man was hit with great force with an object that was almost sure to have rendered him unconscious.’

  ‘Giving our killer time to get him into position,’ Kim observed, remembering the scene that had met her.

  ‘And strip him,’ Bryant added.

  ‘Okay, that’s mildly helpful,’ she said, nodding towards the three photographs.

  ‘Well, as it’s my only priority to try and impress you, I shall continue.’

  He laid out another three photographs and these needed no explanation.

  ‘The genital area,’ he said, which had been photographed from all angles. ‘The mutilation took place after death and although looks haphazard and frenzied was not. The cuts to the penis are amateurish but assured. There are few start and stop wounds so I’m guessing your killer knew exactly what they wanted to do.’

  ‘But it wasn’t the main event,’ Bryant offered quietly.

  Kim looked his way.

  He continued. ‘The nails were probably hammered in while the victim was unconscious. The genital mutilation was performed after death which pretty much leaves the neck work as the main course.’

  Kim agreed.

  ‘Keats, do you have the close-ups of the neck?’

  He took more photos and laid them out while gathering the others. ‘There are three modes of dismemberment, which are: disarticulation around the joints, which is basically the separation of two bones at their joint either by injury or surgery; transection of bone via chopping; and transection of bone via sawing.’

  ‘And we have?’ Kim asked.

  ‘The head was cut off with a saw,’ he said, pointing to a close-up of the jagged edge of the flesh where it had been chewed up by a heavily serrated saw.

  Even on the photo Kim could see that the wound which had been inflicted to kill him was an inch higher than the saw marks, and it was that first cut she wanted to understand. The psyche of someone who could get on their hands and knees and saw someone’s head off she would consider later. But as Bryant had noted, the victim had been beheaded after death so the kill wound was the priority and told them more about both the crime and the criminal.

  ‘Bryant, would you mind lying on the floor?’ she asked.

  The two men looked at each other and then back at her.

  He didn’t move.

  ‘Guv, are you?…’

  ‘Look, I’ll lie on the floor if you want. I just need to…’

  ‘Okay dokey, I’ll do it,’ he said, removing his jacket and lowering himself to the ground.

  ‘Adopt the position of the victim,’ she instructed.

  He put his arms out to the side and opened his legs wide.

  ‘Jeez, I can’t even think what’s been on this floor,’ he said, turning his head to the side. ‘Hey, Keats, there’s a pound coin under your fridge.’

  ‘Noted,’ Keats said, keeping his eyes on her.

  She walked in between Bryant’s legs. His eyes were watching her closely.

  ‘If you couldn’t move, how would you be feeling right now?’

  ‘Well, my hands are itching to cover my knackers quick smart.’

  ‘Give me an emotion, not an action,’ she said, peering down at him.

  ‘Vulnerable,’ he admitted. ‘And please don’t let this leave the room.’

  Kim continued to stare down at him.

  She changed her position and stood with her feet either side of his waist.

  ‘How about now?’

  ‘Not so much but I can see your expression better. I feel like I can read your eyes now.’

  Kim held her hand out. ‘Keats, you got something?…’

  A ruler was thrust into her hands.

  Watching her, following her thought process and anticipating her next move, definitely earned him a couple of Brownie points.

  Kim continued
to move up her colleague’s body. The tips of her boots were almost touching his armpits.

  ‘How do you feel now?’ she asked, staring down into his eyes.

  ‘Intimidated, powerless, maybe just a little freaked out seeing as we only met a few hours ago.’

  Kim lowered herself and placed the ruler half an inch below Bryant’s ear. He swallowed deeply but her eyes never left his as she slowly pulled the ruler across his throat.

  ‘Okay, you can get up now,’ she said, stepping aside and handing the ruler back to the pathologist.

  ‘Strangely compelling,’ he said, placing it on the work surface.

  ‘Hmm… so what are the rest of the photos in your hand?’ she asked, as Bryant jumped to his feet with more agility than she would have expected.

  ‘Observant, Inspector,’ he said, laying out the last three prints.

  She looked closer. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Brown paper,’ he said. ‘Placed just inside the mouth. Nothing written on it. Just a perfect square about an inch wide of brown paper. I suspect it’s the kind used for parcels and packaging, but it’s gone off to the lab for analysis so there may be something more to come from that.’

  ‘Accidental or intentional?’ Bryant asked.

  Kim shook her head. She really had no idea.

  ‘Anything else, Keats?’ she asked, edging towards the door.

  He shook his head.

  Bryant waited until they were in the corridor before speaking.

  ‘Guv, that wasn’t some kind of first day initiation prank, was it?’

  ‘No, Bryant, it was a whole lot more than that.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘It told me what this murder was all about.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Intimacy, Bryant. Intimacy and power.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Stacey considered holding out her hands to see which ball in the air would fall down first.

  She was trying to research the life of their victim and pin down his last known address. Once she’d got that she could approach the phone companies to see if they could offer any details on his phone. She was still trying to check the CCTV of the areas around the crime scene and the feeling of not putting something together in her stomach was not going away.

  And DS Dawson was staring out the window.

  Admittedly he’d returned to the office after lunch with a smile and a whistle and had then proceeded to do bugger all.

  ‘Hey, do yer fancy giving me a hand with?…’

  ‘I’m thinking,’ he said, looking past her and out of the window. ‘There has to be an easier way.’ He looked pointedly towards the papers strewn across her desk. ‘And it ain’t the method you’re using.’

  ‘You mean good old-fashioned police—’

  ‘You got a washing machine?’ he asked, cutting her off.

  She frowned. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Did you know they used to hand-wash every garment at one time. Hot soapy water, squeeze, rinse and mangle?’

  Of course, she knew. Many years ago she’d watched an elderly aunt do it.

  ‘Well, folks don’t wash that way any more, you know. There are easier, quicker, less labour-intensive ways of doing things,’ he said, as his face broke into a smile.

  He pushed back his chair. ‘You just sit there and keep hand-washing, Stacey, but I think I’ve got a better idea. See you later.’

  Stacey opened her mouth to say something and then changed her mind. She knew it would make no difference to her colleague at all. He wanted a quick, easy fix to finding their killer.

  He wanted a fast food solution. He wanted to drive through Maccie’s and come out the other side with a Happy Meal, a McFlurry, the killer’s name and address and current location.

  She idly wondered how often that actually happened in CID. In uniform the whole process of policing had been divided into sections with neighbourhood teams, traffic teams, firearm teams. She had attended jobs and then never known the outcome. Jobs were passed on and dealt with by close-knit teams who…

  Her thoughts trailed away as the reason for the knot in her stomach made itself known to her. She’d overheard something on her last day at her old station. Only three days earlier. She’d been in the locker room at Wolverhampton station, clearing out her stuff. Two of her colleagues came in to clock off. They hadn’t spoken to her and she hadn’t taken too much notice of them, but she knew they’d attended the discovery of the body of a homeless man in the city centre, and although they’d been whispering she’d heard the words ‘genitals’ mentioned before they’d lowered their voices even more.

  She turned to her computer and searched for the news article. She skim read it and then pored over it in detail. The news report offered no identity and had quickly been buried under the news that a foreign diplomat’s daughter had been abducted. The report was brief and mentioned nothing of genital mutilation, but perhaps that was one of the details being withheld by the team running the case. It would explain why her colleagues had been whispering as they would have been briefed at the scene.

  She tapped her fingers on the desk. What if this had happened before? What if this wasn’t the killer’s first victim?

  She took a deep breath as her email dinged and one of her balls in the air fell into her hand.

  She had found Luke Fenton’s last known address, and it was time to call the boss.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Please tell me you have the address, Stacey?’ Kim said, answering the call. She was eager to learn more about their victim. This murder was one of the most personally intense crime scenes she’d ever witnessed and she already felt sure that knowing more about Luke Fenton would lead them to his killer.

  ‘Gor it, guv,’ Stacey said. ‘And texting it to Bryant right now.’

  ‘Okay,’ Kim said, hearing a note of trepidation in the young detective’s voice.

  If she was texting the address why the need for the phone call?

  ‘And?’

  ‘Err… boss… it might be nothing but… err…’

  ‘Out with it, Stacey,’ she said.

  ‘Well, the other day, as I was finishing up at Wolverhampton I overheard…’

  Kim was about to chivvy her up as Bryant took out his phone to read the text message, but realised that what she was hearing was nervousness. She closed her mouth and let the girl finish.

  ‘…two officers talking about a crime scene they’d attended in the city centre and…’

  ‘The homeless guy?’ Kim asked. She’d heard the news report. From the sparseness of the details she’d assumed that the death was a result of a fight over a bottle of beer or some other item. She was sure she’d heard the man had been stabbed.

  ‘Yeah but they were talking about genitals and I just wondered if there was anything there we should…’

  ‘You heard them say the word genitals?’ Kim asked, raising an eyebrow in Bryant’s direction.

  ‘Yeah, I mean, I know it ay…’

  ‘See what you can find out,’ Kim said, noting that Stacey’s Black Country accent became stronger the faster she spoke. ‘But don’t spend too much time on it,’ she advised. Luke Fenton was their priority, although Stacey’s call had dusted off the memory of something she’d heard and forgotten.

  She ended the call and scrolled down her call register.

  ‘Hey, Keats, got a minute?’ she asked, not really caring if he was free or not.

  ‘Just about to perform a—’

  ‘Great,’ she said. Just about to do something was not yet doing it, which in her language meant he had a minute. ‘You said something earlier about our victim’s mutilation not being the worst you’d ever seen. What were you talking about?’

  ‘A case a few years ago in Stoke. Single stab wound to the heart but a right mess of the testicles.’

  ‘Any other similarities to our guy this morning?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, the man still had his head but I can’t remember every detail.’ He paused a
nd let out a breath. ‘But I will take a look at my report later and see if there’s anything that jumps out.’

  ‘Thanks, Keats,’ she said ending the call.

  Just like Stacey’s lead it was probably going nowhere but it didn’t hurt to check.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Darkness was already dropping by the time they were a mile away from the property in Amblecote that Stacey had called through to them.

  ‘So, you work with DS Dawson before?’ she asked idly.

  ‘No, thank God,’ he said and then turned her way. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t…’

  ‘It’s fine. Just wondered what you thought,’ Kim said. She’d form her own opinion on the detective based solely on his performance under her remit, but she was curious as to whether their paths had crossed. As Stacey was a new detective, she knew he wouldn’t have worked with her, and Kim’s opinion was already forming on that score.

  ‘Sorry, guv, but don’t like to speak ill of the brain dead.’

  She hid her smile at his humour. ‘I’m gonna take that as a no.’

  ‘Didn’t realise quite how lucky I’d been,’ he said, pulling off the main road, leaving her in no doubt about his opinion.

  ‘Just up here,’ Bryant said, checking the satnav.

  The house itself was one of four narrow properties that had been built on a plot previously occupied by a decent-sized bungalow, judging by the other properties along the road.

  The empty frontage was a sliver of tarmac wide enough only for a medium-sized car, and Kim would not even have called it a driveway.

  Bryant negotiated the waiting squad car and pulled in. There was no way of avoiding stepping on to the neighbouring property as they got out of the car.

  ‘You tried the door?’ Kim asked of the constables ready and waiting.

  ‘Locked, Marm,’ the guy on the left answered.

  Kim glanced around at the prying eyes looking out of brightly lit windows, aglow with flashing fairy lights.