Even Flora thought it was a good idea.
‘It is too early to tell if the incident is linked to other cases under investigation. However, I can reveal that we have not yet ruled it out.’
Good old Freddie thought it was a great idea.
‘The post-mortem will take place tomorrow, after which the identity of the victim will be revealed and witnesses to the incident will be sought.’
And even Alison agreed.
‘I would like to reiterate that we will catch the person responsible for this crime and bring them to justice. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that we still have not located a six-year-old boy named Archie. His family are desperate for news on their little boy who has now been missing for over twenty-four hours.’
First part done. Now on to the second paragraph about which every expert around her agreed. Every one of them.
‘Thank you for your time, ladies and gentlemen, and there will be more for you tomorrow.’
She turned her back and walked into the building, taking out her phone. There was no live broadcast on the news, but the footage would hit the internet in about thirty seconds. Half a minute before Woody blew up her phone.
‘What the hell was that?’ Bryant asked, following her inside.
‘In a minute,’ she said, surprised that the missed calls were from Stacey. Well, she’d have to wait. She scrolled to the number she wanted and waited four seconds for it to be answered by a thin, incredulous voice.
‘Stone, what the?…’
‘Listen carefully, Frost, without making it obvious, meet me around the back of the building.’
‘Stone, I only go round the back of buildings for a smoke or a snog, neither of which I wanna do with—’
‘Just do it, Frost,’ Kim snapped, before ending the call.
‘Okay, now I’m even more confused,’ Bryant said.
‘Go see what Stacey wants and I’ll explain all later.’
She put her phone back in her pocket, aware that the second Woody saw her abbreviated press conference he would be seeking answers, but regardless of the instructions she’d received, the public chastisement had not felt right to her. There was much she wanted to say to this man, preferably with a red-hot poker, but not while he still had possession of a little boy.
She agreed that the killer was awaiting some kind of response from her, and he was going to get one.
Kim heard the rhythmic clicking of the high heels three seconds before Frost came into view.
‘Stone, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing but those folks back there ain’t happy.’
‘Crying on the inside, Frost. Now I need you to do me a favour.’
Her face hardened immediately.
‘Don’t worry, there’s something in it for you.’
‘Go on,’ she said, tipping her head.
‘I want you to write your story, but I want you to add in some quotes from me.’
Frost frowned. ‘I can name you?’
‘You must name me,’ Kim said.
Frost took out her notebook. ‘Okay, Stone, what the hell are you up to?’
‘Write this down. I want you to say that we fear for the safety of an innocent child, that there’s no need for Archie to get hurt, that we understand how Archie has unwittingly become an innocent party. Add that we know his captor doesn’t want to hurt him, we know to him there’s a good reason why he’s doing the things he is and that I would welcome the opportunity to talk to him about it.’
‘Fuck me, Stone, I wish you were this empathetic to folks who weren’t going round murdering folks,’ Frost said with her pen poised.
There wasn’t one ounce of empathy in her for someone who had killed three women in three days. It was a calculated move. If he wanted a parent, she didn’t think harsh, cold disciplinarian was the way to go.
On cue, her phone started to buzz in her pocket.
‘Can you do it, Frost?’
‘Err… yeah, exclusive content from the senior investigating officer on a triple murder case, I’ll do it, but why me?’
‘I read yesterday’s article online. There was no mention of any letters from the killer.’
Frost rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, sometimes I slip up and do the right fucking thing.’
Kim was grateful that she’d chosen not to divert the direction of the story and had kept the focus on the missing boy, but they still needed to know whose loose lips were going to be kissing their career goodbye. ‘Look, your source…’
Frost looked up and to the left. ‘You wanna tell that Mitch guy to be more careful when he’s carrying plastic evidence bags around. I have zoom on my camera, you know.’
‘Fuck, Frost, you said there was a leak in—’
‘Yeah, I ain’t all nice, you know. You guys pissed me off.’
‘We all square now?’ Kim asked, aware they used Frost when it suited them, and for once she’d done the right thing by them.
‘For now,’ she said, putting her notepad away.
‘How long until it’s live?’ Kim asked.
‘The article will be online within the hour and in the early print edition tomorrow afternoon.’
Kim prayed Noah was searching online. Every hour that passed where she didn’t receive a call to attend the body of a young boy offered another sliver of hope that they could get Archie back unharmed.
Her phone rang again, reminding her that she had to go back and face the music.
But not before she’d played some music of her own.
Sixty-One
‘Alison. Bowl. Now,’ Kim said as she entered the squad room.
‘Boss, she—’
‘Not now, Stace,’ Kim snapped. Her rage had been building as she’d mounted the stairs.
Alison closed the door behind her.
‘What the fuck did you think you were doing?’
‘I got it wrong. I’m sorry. I realised as soon as you’d left—’
‘But you didn’t get it wrong, did you, Alison? I could almost forgive you that because people make mistakes, but you read that statement and you knew it was the wrong way to go. You, who have been studying the crimes, the methodology as well as the letters, knew I was being steered wrong and you said nothing.’
The miserable expression on the woman’s face did nothing to soften Kim’s rage. ‘What do you think could have happened to Archie if I’d read that bloody statement? I’m pretty damn certain he’d be coming back in a fucking body bag, and I also know that you knew that. You wanna come with me to tell his family, cos that’s my job, Alison. That’s my consequence when I get it wrong.’
‘I’m sorry. I tried to—’
‘Too fucking late, Alison. I need your opinion when I bloody well ask for it, not once the damage has been done. I didn’t ask for your help here because you’re shit at what you do. I asked for your help because you’ve always had the balls to tell me when I’m wrong. I rarely listen, but at least you’ve got the courage of your convictions. Or at least you did have.’ Kim paused for breath as the face grew even more miserable.
‘Look, I know you’re not being paid to do this. You agreed to help and that makes this conversation all the harder, but free service or not, if I can’t trust you to use and share your expertise then there’s no point—’
‘If anything happens to that little boy, I’ll never—’
‘I didn’t use it,’ Kim said, relieving her of some of her misery.
‘You didn’t?’
‘I didn’t agree with it, so I’ve taken another route. The onus is now on me, but seriously, Alison, dipping your toe in this thing is no good to us. Either get back on the horse or get out of the fucking stable. Your choice,’ Kim said, opening the door back into the squad room.
She’d said all she needed to say and right now she had to go suffer an arse-chewing of her own.
Sixty-Two
Kim had barely swallowed down her own anger by the time she walked into the full force of someone else�
�s. Her own was rooted in a person’s inability to make a decision, but the rage she faced was because she had.
‘Do not let my calm exterior fool you that I am anything less than furious right now,’ Woody said as she walked in the door.
‘Sir, if you’ll just let—’
‘Let you what, Stone? Get away with bloody murder? Deliberately disobey a direct instruction from your superior? Decide your own course of action regardless of expert advice? Let you think you know better than everyone you meet despite their education, experience and credentials? What exactly do you think I should let you do?’
Oh, this was a tricky one. Should she try and insert her point of view and reasoning into the centre of his rage or let him shout it out and explain herself later?
She knew which was the safer option. Just let him get it all out, remain quiet and non-confrontational. That’s what she should do.
‘If you want the truth, I’m just as pissed off at you, sir,’ she shot back. Waiting her turn had never been her strong point.
His head reared backwards, and his eyes burned even brighter. ‘And what exactly do you have to be pissed off at?’
‘Being given the wrong tools for the fight. I listened and I understood, and I disagreed. There were many things I shouldn’t have done as a kid and I can tell you now that a hard, swift slap across the face wouldn’t have prevented me from doing any one of them again. In fact, it would have just made me worse.’
‘This is not about your childhood, Stone. It is about you taking accountability for your actions, which may well result in—’
‘But we are talking about that, sir, because you three all assumed that this could only go one way. That he would be cowed by my anger and judgement. You never gave any thought to it having the opposite effect. Saying nothing would have been preferable to an outright bollocking.’
‘Well, you got your own way then, didn’t you? You ignored a direct instruction and missed a perfect opportunity to connect—’
‘I didn’t ignore your instructions recklessly without a plan of my own. I’ve tried to reach him another way, low-key, non-judgemental and through Frost.’
His face hardened more. ‘Stone, are you trying to incite me to violence? Why on earth would you trust Frost with any part of this? She’s already responsible for two internal investigations and won’t divulge—’
‘There is no leak,’ she said. ‘Frost saw the letter through the evidence bag that Mitch was carrying away from the scene and told me so. It was a shot at you for cutting her off.’
The fleeting relief was gone in seconds.
‘Regardless, we always return to the same problem we have faced historically, Stone. You cannot follow orders from people who are paid to make difficult decisions.’
‘So I’m supposed to do it anyway because your decisions absolve me of all responsibility? You think I’m going to follow instructions just so I can sleep at night if it all goes badly wrong because it wasn’t my call? You really think I’m going to care less about a child’s life because the call wasn’t mine? Sir, you know me better than that, so…’
‘I remind you, Stone, three people told you—’
‘And those three people were wrong.’
Woody brought his fist down hard on the table. ‘How dare you,’ he raged. ‘Who do you think you’re speaking to? Your flouting of rules, regulations and procedures would have had you thrown out on your ear many times had I not supported your abilities. More than once I have been forced to fight for your job, and you fail to learn that there is an authority to which you must answer, and that authority is me.’
Kim stood firm, her gaze unwavering. ‘All of that is true, but you were still wrong.’
The thick silence that filled the room was alien to her. Never before had she told her boss that he had made the wrong decision. She had disagreed, appealed, pleaded but never had she told him he was just plain wrong.
When he finally spoke his voice was low and measured.
‘You’d better hope we were wrong, Stone. For the sake of a six-year-old boy.’
Sixty-Three
‘You’re quiet,’ Kim said as they got in the car.
‘Guv, you’ve just ripped Alison a new one, took a lashing yourself from Woody and then told the whole team to pull their fingers out and get cracking. So it’s safe to say I know when to keep my mouth shut.’
‘But if you were a braver man?’
‘I’d say that was the last thing the guys needed to hear when they’ve already been working twelve hours.’
‘Bryant, I—’
‘And I also think you already know that, which is why I’m not going to say it.’
‘Fuck off, Bryant,’ she said, turning towards the window.
‘Absolutely, guv,’ he said, guiding the car out of the car park. It was about six miles to the home of Kate Sewell in Belbroughton, but there was one stop to make first, which she’d already told Bryant, and now she’d just as soon spend the short journey-time in silence.
Her ass-chewing from Woody was in no way connected to the frustration she’d been feeling when she’d barked at her team. Yes, the air between her and her boss was as tense as she’d ever known it. Rarely, if ever, had they gone toe-to-toe in such a manner, but her annoyance with her team stemmed from the fact they were no closer to finding the killer than they had been after the first murder on Monday. Two more women were dead.
It wasn’t a new situation, but Kim had the strangest feeling that the clues were there, all rolled together like a stick of dynamite just waiting for someone to light the fuse.
She just hoped that one of her team found a match before someone else lost their life.
‘Okey dokey, we’re here and I’d sure love to know why,’ he said, pulling up at the entrance to Dobbie’s scrap yard. It was exactly three minutes to seven.
‘Your life might just be about to get a whole lot easier,’ she said, getting out the car. ‘Or harder,’ she added, remembering the circumstances. If she lost this frame, she was likely to buy them all crash helmets.
‘Jesus, what now?’ she said as her phone signalled a Google alert. ‘Oooh, article from Frost is up,’ she said, pressing the link.
She continued to walk slowly through the gates of the scrap yard as she read. She searched the piece for the phrases she’d quoted and found them all there.
Good job, Frost, she thought, putting her phone away. All she could do now was hope.
‘So, you getting a new project?’ Bryant asked hopefully.
‘Oh, yeah,’ she said as they headed towards the office at the centre of Dobbie’s yard. The last time she and Bryant had been here together, it had been to view the mangled remains of a murder victim crushed to death in Dobbie’s machine. A hand had been found protruding from a square chunk of moulded metal, earning their victim the nickname Rubik until they’d been able to make an identification.
In the distance, she could see two men, one in a suit, one in casuals, and Dobbie in his black T-shirt and jeans.
‘Who are the guys?’ Bryant asked.
‘Potential thieving bastards,’ she said. ‘Now, do me a favour. Once the bidding gets over a thousand make it look like you’re trying to stop me going any higher.’
‘What the?…’
‘Just do it,’ Kim said as they met with the others.
The two men looked appreciatively in her direction as Dobbie looked at his watch.
‘Thought you weren’t going to make it, Inspector.’
The gaze of the two males dropped away.
‘How could I possibly resist your offer?’ she asked, glancing at the frame leaning against the wall of the office.
‘Everyone come prepared?’ he asked.
Kim tapped her back pocket where the notes were rolled.
‘Okay,’ Dobbie said, licking his lips, ‘you all know what you’re here for, so let’s start this bidding at five hundred.’
Two hands shot up and she nodded.
‘Six hu
ndred?’
Two hands and a nod.
‘Seven hundred?’
Two hands and a nod.
‘Eight hundred and fifty?’
Two hands and a nod.
‘One thousand?’ Dobbie said. His eyes were glistening with excitement. Seven hundred pounds more than he’d agreed with her, and all three bidders still in.
‘Twelve hundred?’
‘Guv,’ Bryant said once she’d nodded.
‘Fourteen hundred?’
One hand and a nod. Suit man was shaking his head.
One down.
‘Sixteen hundred?’
One hand and a nod as the suit man began to walk away.
‘Eighteen hundred?’
‘Jesus, guv, that’s way too—’
‘Shh,’ she said, nodding.
‘Two thousand?’ Dobbie said, as though he could barely believe it himself.
One hand up and a nod, but the hand had hesitated.
‘Two thousand, two hundred?’
Kim nodded. The hand itched but stayed where it was.
‘You sure?’ Dobbie pressed.
The owner of the hand agonised for a few seconds but shook his head. He looked longingly at the frame before accepting defeat and leaving the area.
‘Looks like it’s mine after all, Dobbie,’ she said, motioning for Bryant to pick up the frame.
Dobbie licked his lips and smiled. ‘I wanted you to have it to be honest.’
‘Ah, bless you, Dobbie, you old sweetheart,’ she said, reaching into her back pocket.
His meaty arm rose, and she slapped the money into his outstretched hand.
‘What’s this?’ he asked as his considerable eyebrows drew together.
‘It’s the three hundred quid we agreed on a month ago, Dobbie. A deal is a deal and we shook on it. Only you would try and swindle a police officer,’ she said as Bryant headed towards the car with her frame.
‘But it sure was an entertaining night out so thanks for inviting me,’ she said, walking away with her first genuine smile of the day.
Now it was time to go speak to Nicola’s agent.
Deadly Cry: An absolutely gripping crime thriller packed with suspense (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thiller Book 13) Page 17
