Play Dead (19 page)

T
racy Frost finished reading
the article and placed it on the passenger seat.

It was good copy. Her editor had loved it.

She had chosen not to reveal to him that she had known she was being used. A fact that was still gnawing at her insides like a hungry ferret.

Her natural instinct was to go digging into the exact thing Inspector Stone wanted to keep hidden, and she hadn’t been able to help herself completely. She had managed to find out the name of the woman who worked there as an entomologist, which had made her even more curious about what it was about Catherine Evans that Kim Stone wanted to hide.

Her fingers had been poised to start searching when she’d realised what she was doing. She had given her word and there came a time when that had to mean something. They had agreed to scratch each other’s backs and Tracy knew she couldn’t stop scratching just because she’d found a juicier itch. That’s what had kept Bob anonymous for this long. And so she had removed her fingers from the keyboard and ripped out the page with the name so no one else could find it. A deal was a deal.

Now that she had parked, Tracy knew she eventually had to try to leave the car, but it would take another couple of deep breaths before she could even think about it.

She glanced up to the bay window. He would know she was here. His seat was to the left of the first glass pane. A spot he’d claimed as his own when he’d married her mother twenty-one years ago.

Tracy felt the rage course through her as she turned the ignition and started the car.

She still couldn’t force herself to go in there.

‘
Y
ou wanted to see me
?’ Kim said, closing the door behind her.

She was not surprised to see a copy of the
Dudley Star
on Woody’s desk.

‘Stone, you have a leak.’

She moved closer to the desk. ‘May I?’

‘Carry on,’ he said, pushing it towards her.

She turned the paper around. The headline screamed ‘
Body Farm Shocker
’, which caused her an internal groan. Tracy had had plenty of time to come up with a decent headline.

The front page began the story, which then took up the majority of pages two and three.

She scanned it and found that Tracy hadn’t done a bad job, despite the appalling headline.

‘It’s got everything, Stone. I distinctly remember instructing you to keep this low profile. Did you not think to pass that instruction to your team?’

‘I did, sir,’ she said, pushing the paper back towards him.

‘Do you realise what this is going to cause? Do you have any idea of the letters, complaints and petitions that are going to flood in?’

Luckily they wouldn’t be coming to her.

‘I am not happy about this at all, Stone. The location of the facility has been compromised because you have a leak in your team, someone who cannot be trusted to follow a simple instruction or keep their mouth shut.’

Woody slapped the newspaper. ‘It’s clear that she has spoken to someone involved in the investigation and I want the name of that person…’

‘It was me, sir,’ she said calmly. ‘I spoke to Tracy Frost.’

It was not often Kim was afforded the luxury of seeing her boss speechless, but it didn’t last for long.

His disbelief turned into a knowing frown. ‘No, Stone, you’re covering for one of your team members, and I won’t stand for it. I want to know who it was.’

‘It really was me. I spoke directly with Tracy Frost and gave her most of the information. Some she dug up herself but not much. It came from me. I am the unnamed source.’

Woody sat back in his chair, shaking his head. He regarded her with an expression that demanded answers.

Even in the face of his anger, she wasn’t sorry she’d done it. She’d defied a direct order, and she had no regrets.

Very few other publications would want to run the story if all they were doing was repeating the same old facts, and Tracy had included them all. Tracy was the only person who had spoken to Catherine and the entomologist wouldn’t be taking any more calls from the press.

‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’

She took a deep breath. ‘Sir, my job is to serve and protect, and sometimes you just have to trust that I’m doing my job.’

‘Is that it, Stone? Is that all I’m going to get?’

She said nothing.

‘You expect me to take that explanation to Lloyd House – because that’s where I’m now going first thing in the morning.’

Kim knew she had placed her boss in an untenable position. Then she remembered Catherine hiding in the lawnmower box.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ve a good mind to take you with…’

His words trailed away as her phone began to ring.

His expression dared her to answer.

‘So tomorrow morning you can…’

This sentence was not destined for completion as his own phone began to ring just as hers dinged the arrival of a voicemail.

He snatched up the receiver without taking his eyes from her face.

‘Yes,’ he snapped. He didn’t offer his name. The detective chief inspector’s phone didn’t ring by accident.

His gaze moved from her face to a point above her head, signalling the shift in his focus.

He listened for five seconds before replacing the receiver.

‘This isn’t over, Stone, but right now you have an urgent message to ring Keats. This may be about your latest victim.’

Kim took out her phone. Her own voicemail was from the pathologist. The message was short and instructed her to ring him back.

‘Sir, I’m going to—’

‘Get out, Stone,’ he said, waving her away. ‘But believe me that this isn’t over.’

She closed the door behind her and pressed the button to return Keats’s call.

‘About time, Inspector,’ he said as a greeting. He sounded in a hurry.

Jesus, it had been less than thirty seconds.

‘I’m on my way to Netherton Reservoir, and I suggest you might like to join me.’

Did he really think she didn’t have enough work to do?

‘Keats, I’m a bit pushed—’

‘Well, get unpushed. I’m going to collect another customer and I’m reliably informed that this one has got no hands.’

K
im pulled
up close to the clubhouse on the edge of Netherton Reservoir. It was more commonly known as Lodge Farm Reservoir and was used for watersports and supplying water to the canal system.

‘Bloody hell, quiet day for Brierley Hill, eh?’ Bryant asked as they headed around the building. She counted six squad cars and two civilian vehicles.

She could see fluorescent jackets scattered around the perimeter of the lake as the officers cleared the area. A clutch of personnel stood 150 feet to her right. She headed in that direction.

‘Hey, Stone, are you lost?’

Kim recognised the bellow as the deep grumble of Detective Inspector Dunn. For this man she readily held out her hand. He took it and smiled warmly.

She had worked with Dunn when he’d been a sergeant and she a constable. His work ethic was not unlike her own.

She remembered one case where he had persuaded a woman with two children to press charges against her husband after suffering a broken arm, dislocated jaw and more bruises than the medical staff could count.

The man had been removed and charged and then bailed with a restraining order to stay away from his wife. There was no space at the shelter for the woman and her three children, and no family members would take her owing to fear of the repercussions from her husband.

Unable to get police resources authorised for protection, Dunn had finished his shift each night and parked up outside the woman’s house.

On the third night, a drunk and angry Roy Bradley stumbled blindly into his front garden and had barely reached the front door before Dunn had wrestled him to the ground. The man had been back in cuffs and safely behind bars before Laura Bradley had a clue what had happened.

During her time with Dunn, Kim had learned a lot.

He was about eighteen months away from retirement and a small property in Spain. And he’d earned it.

She mirrored his smile. ‘Oh you know, got a bit bored. Thought I’d come and see what you boys were up to over here.’

‘Yeah, right,’ he said knowingly. ‘Nothing to do with you snaffling a file on one of our cold cases then?’

She shrugged. ‘Thought it might be connected to something I’m working,’ she said honestly. She motioned towards Bryant. ‘My colleague, Detective Sergeant Bryant.’

Dunn held out his hand. ‘My sympathies, Sergeant,’ he said, raising one eyebrow.

Even Kim broke out a smile.

‘Yeah, good job on the Ashraf Nadir case. How’s the kid?’

‘He’s doing okay,’ Kim said. She had spoken to Negib’s father twice since the raid. Only the night before he had told her that Negib’s older sisters were not letting him out of their sight. Normality would not return easily to the close-knit family, but the boy had a lot of love and support to help him through.

‘Did your boss ever tell you she didn’t make sergeant first time of asking?’ Dunn said, looking at Bryant.

Kim groaned. ‘Let’s not rehash—’

Bryant stepped forwards. ‘No, actually she didn’t.’

Dunn nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah, she was in line for it, a dead cert, really but…’

‘What happened?’ Bryant asked as Kim shoved her hands into her pockets.

‘There was this raid on a flat in Hollytree. The gangs weren’t prolific back then, and it was every man for himself. A car chase led to a run up three flights of stairs at Holden Court.’

‘One of the maisonette blocks?’ Bryant asked.

Dunn nodded. ‘By the time the two chasing officers, that’s your boss here and a kid named Lampitt, got to the scene, we’d had intelligence the youth was high on heroin and carrying a knife. The order was issued not to enter until backup arrived.’

‘And?’ Bryant asked.

‘They forced entry, and the kid jumped out the window. The little shit didn’t die, but he wasn’t very well for a bit, and your boss here was the one that made the call to enter, said her statement. Promotion gone,’ he said, opening his hands as though setting something free.

‘Okay, that’s enough reminiscing about the good old days,’ Kim said, moving to stand between Bryant and Dunn.

Dunn looked around her. ‘Poor old Officer Lampitt was first day back on shift after his missus had suffered a miscarriage and it’s ever so strange that he was the one with the bruised shoulder, not your boss here.’

‘I don’t mark easily,’ Kim said, narrowing her eyes at Dunn.

‘Yeah, so you said.’ He looked back to Bryant. ‘Cost her a good nine months until she eventually got what she deserved.’

‘Mike…’ she warned.

He shrugged. ‘Just thought the guy could do with knowing what kind of boss he was working with.’

Bryant nodded his head. ‘Thanks for that, but I’ve got a pretty good idea.’

‘Hey, Inspector, glad you could make it,’ Keats called, looking up at her from the ground.

Kim ignored him as her eyes focussed on the thing she’d come to see. The body. This male had been dumped closer to the treeline approximately twenty feet from the water. An old condom sat three inches away from his head, leaving Kim in little doubt about some of the woodland activity.

This victim was the complete opposite of the man found at Fens Pool. She could see by the greying of the hair that they were similar in age, but this man was tall and gangly. His frame was slight and appeared undernourished.

His feet were clad in trainers that had not accumulated their filthy colour over a few days. His jeans were supermarket brand and ingrained with oil stains that would never come out. She knew all about that.

His T-shirt was plain and had once been white. She wondered if it had been washed alongside the oil-stained jeans.

As her gaze travelled up the body it met with the bloody stumps that ended at his wrists. The flies weaved and ducked around the open flesh, undaunted by the police presence. Kim was instantly reminded of Westerley.

Although the picture had walked out of a bad horror movie, no special effects had been used. Gruesome as the sight was, the stumps were unusually clean.

‘After death?’ Kim asked Keats as she nodded towards the wrists.

Keats nodded. ‘Volume of blood indicates that the heart was no longer pumping.’

‘Cause of death?’ she asked as her eyes continued their journey looking for clues.

‘Ahem…’ said Dunn from beside her.

Damn, she had forgotten it was not her crime scene. She was here for information purposes only.

‘Sorry,’ Kim said and continued to walk around the body.

‘Well, for whichever detective inspector cares, there is no identification on his person, and I would estimate he’s been here for between fourteen to eighteen hours. I can’t state cause of death yet, however there is bruising to the upper-neck area.’

Kim knew this was for her benefit and that Keats was offering any information that might help her without her having to ask and encroach on someone else’s crime scene. He was also aware that she would not be able to attend the post-mortem.

‘Are you finished?’ Dunn asked her.

She nodded and turned away from the body. She had learned all she’d needed to know. The two murders were linked. Bob was involved in this somehow.

But good manners and ingrained ethics dictated that as it was now an active case again she should not do anything to hamper or interfere with the investigation of her colleagues.

‘So this other guy from Fens Pool…?’ Dunn asked.

She held up her hands. ‘It’s clearly your case now. I’ll step away and leave it alone.’

She was surprised when he threw back his head and laughed loudly.

‘Oh no you won’t, not if you learned anything from me at all,’ he said wryly before walking away.

She headed back to where Bryant leaned against the side of the changing rooms. Both of them viewing the body on a case that was not theirs would have been overkill.

‘What’s the betting his name is Larry?’ Kim asked.

She couldn’t help but focus on the similarity in location to where Bob had been found at Fens Pool.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Bryant said, staring across 20,000 square feet of water.

‘What is it that…?’

‘He’s luring them,’ Bryant said and immediately Kim knew he was right. Both locations were easy to get to but had areas of bush, foliage and trees. The perfect place for illicit activity.

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Kim took out her phone.

Stacey answered on the second ring.

‘Guv… I was just about to call. I’ve described our Bob to a woman at the warfarin clinic, and I’m pretty sure his real name is Ivor.’

‘Yeah, Stace, I think so too, but drop what you’re doing. I need you to check and see if he’s on The List.’

Stacey knew she would mean the register of sex offenders.

Dunn’s recent words rang in her ear. Of course she couldn’t leave it alone.

There was a pause before Stacey spoke and Kim knew why. Searching the sex offenders register was a stark reminder of just how much evil surrounded them.

‘Got it, boss.’

Kim looked around and knew there was nothing more to learn.

It was time to go and see the headmaster from Jemima’s school.

The answer to that case lay in the past.