It was his venue and one he’d started from scratch. Lou had had a vision of an upmarket club where attractive ladies danced for the enjoyment of customers. He’d had three principles from day one and they applied to the employees as stringently as the patrons: no nudity, no touching and no disrespect.
For his employees there was a fourth rule; no drugs. He himself chose to oversee the implementation of the first three and a monthly drugs test took care of the fourth.
His principles formed his business plan and his mission statement and he always led by example. No girl that Nicola knew of had ever been made to feel uncomfortable in Lou’s presence.
‘You’re not yourself tonight, girl?’
She considered lying but her boss knew her too well.
‘Just a bit distracted, Lou.’
‘Do you want to work the bar?’
Nicola shook her head, nodded and then sighed. Honestly, she didn’t know what she wanted to do.
He indicated for her to follow him through the door behind the bar. Once in the relative peace of the corridor he stopped walking.
Mary Ellen, an ex-model from San Diego, squeezed between them. Lou waited until she was out of earshot.
‘This got anything to do with your sister?’
Nicola felt her jaw drop. ‘How do you know about Beth?’
He looked up and down the corridor. ‘Look, I wasn’t going to say anything but she was here earlier today.’
Nicola felt her mouth dry up. ‘She was here?’
Lou nodded. ‘Demanded I let you go so you could do something more meaningful with your life.’
‘Oh, God, no,’ Nicola breathed. She could feel the heat climbing up her face. She’d never felt so humiliated in her life.
‘What did you say to her?’
‘I told her you were a big girl and perfectly capable of making your own decisions.’
‘Thanks, Lou. I’m so sorry. Did she say anything else?’
‘Yeah, she called me a few names and accused me of exploiting you. Nothing I haven’t heard before.’ He rolled his eyes.
Nicola smiled. ‘And you said?’
‘I thanked her for her comments and asked if there was anything else I could help her with.’
Nicola laughed out loud. It was a welcome release and an antidote to the tension that had built in her body.
Despite his good humour she was mortified that Beth had brought their family issues to her place of work.
‘Look, Lou. My heart’s not in it tonight so it’s probably best if I get home.’
He nodded his understanding. ‘I tell you what, out of the two of you I’m glad I got you ‘cos your sister is one pissed-off lady.’
‘I know,’ Nicola said quietly, while thinking to herself, you have no idea.
She began walking towards the changing room at the end of the hall.
‘Oh, and Nic ...’
She turned.
‘Watch yourself. I get the feeling that she’s really pissed off at you.’
Nicola sighed heavily and repeated her earlier thought.
You really have no idea.
Thirty-Two
‘Okay, Kev, you first,’ Kim instructed.
She had already briefed them about the crime scene of the previous day and the discovery of the conifer that linked both crimes.
Cerys had been true to her word and the photographs had been received just after six thirty. An aerial view of the site had been taped to the white board.
Dawson stood and traced the line from the location of the first grave to the edge of the map. ‘This is victim number one. Although there’s been no formal identification of sex, we believe from the clothing and the recovery of beads that the body is more likely to be female and that she’s been down there for approximately ten years.
‘The body has now been removed from the site and is at the lab with Keats and Doctor Bate. So far we know for certain she was decapitated.’
‘Gruesome,’ Stacey said.
Dawson made notes on the white board as he talked.
It bothered Kim that the heading was still ‘victim one’. The bones had once formed a person. There had been muscles and skin, perhaps a birthmark. There had been a face with expressions. It was not just bones. This girl had spent enough of her life anonymous and it angered Kim that she still had no name.
Kim recalled clearly her own realisation of just how invisible care kids were. When she was eight years old she had ventured into the linen room for a fresh pillowcase. Her gaze had caught a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard. The front page and the sheets behind were diagrams of each of the seven bedrooms. Each bed was drawn on and numbered; bed one, bed two, bed three with tick boxes below. She had wondered why her name was not listed instead of Bed 19.
Kim quickly realised that it was too much bother to label them according to the girl's name. The occupant changed, but the location of the bed did not.
Kim had perched herself on a wooden stool and leaned on the ironing board to write in every girls’ name next to the bed they occupied.
Two days later a cursory check in the linen room had revealed fresh, clean pages; bed one, bed two, bed three.
Her space, her identity, her one little area of safety so easily erased. It was a lesson that she'd never forgotten.
She refocused her attention on Dawson as he pointed at the board. ‘This is where the second mass has been detected; approximately fifty feet from the first.’
He drew a line to the edge of the map but marked it only with an asterisk. Her whole body reacted to his use of the word mass but she fought it down. As yet, there was no body.
‘Thanks, Kev. Today the archaeological team will conduct a full survey of the site to make sure there are no more.’
‘Do you expect more bodies, Guv?’
Kim shrugged. She really had no idea.
‘Stace, did you manage to look at the tape?’
Stacey rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, it mighta been used for the original recording of Ben Hur. It’s been taped over hundreds of times. I’ve gor a friend who might be able to clean it up a bit but he's not on our register of approved ...’
‘Send it anyway. From an evidentiary point of view it’s worse than useless, because we can never prove foul play in the death of Mary Andrews, but it might just give us something.’
Stacey nodded and made a note. ‘Nothin’ more on Teresa Wyatt. I’ve gor her phone records and there's no calls in or out that can't be accounted for. Forensically they found nothing at the scene except for a couple of shoe prints, double trodden.’
Their killer had taken the time to retread his initial footsteps to further confuse any identification. As if the damage done by the fire service wasn't bad enough.
‘Both clever and impatient,’ Kim observed.
‘Why impatient?’ Bryant asked.
‘The discovery of Teresa Wyatt’s body was expedited by arson so that she was found within an hour of her death. Tom Curtis would have most likely died had he continued to drink the whisky but that wasn’t good enough for our guy.’
‘He wants us to know he’s angry,’ Bryant mused.
‘He certainly has something to say.’
‘Well, let’s stop him before he says it to anyone else,’ Stacey added, hitting a few keys on the computer. ‘Okay, following on from Kev’s work I can confirm Richard Croft from Crestwood is most definitely the Conservative MP for Bromsgrove.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Kim said. Woody was going to love this.
‘And I've gor an address for both him and the second night watchman.’
The printer kicked into life and Bryant grabbed the single sheet.
‘I also have the most up-to-date record of the girls at Crestwood from a local GP but to be honest I’m getting better info from Facebook of who was there at the end.’
‘Keep on that, Stace, it may prove useful in helping us identify our first victim. Someone may recognise the beads. For us today the focus is on the staff membe
rs. There’s nothing to suggest that the ex-occupants are in any danger.
‘Bryant and I have already spoken to William Payne. He has a severely disabled daughter. Loved his job but didn’t see the other staff members all that often. He's recently been the victim of an attempted break-in which, based on the level of security at his home, makes no sense. Kev, pay him an advisory visit when you get back to site.’
Dawson nodded his understanding.
Kim stood. ‘So, we all know what we’re doing. Yeah?’
Kim stepped into The Bowl to grab her jacket.
‘Come on, Bryant. We’re off to the lab to see if Doctor Spock has anything else to tell us.’
Bryant followed her out the door. ‘Easy, Guv, it’s barely half past seven. Give the guy a chance.’
‘He’ll be there,’ she said, reaching the bottom of the stairs.
She took a deep breath as she opened the passenger side door.
Who the hell knew what they’d turn up today.
Thirty-Three
As Kim entered the autopsy suite she blinked three times to adjust her vision. The overload of stainless steel was like a dozen flashbulbs all going off at once.
‘This place gives me the creeps.’
She turned to Bryant. ‘When did you turn into such a little girl?’
‘Always been that way, Guv.’
The pathology suite had recently been modernised and now held four separate bays positioned like a small hospital ward.
Each area came complete with a sink, table, wall cabinets and a tray of tools. Many of the instruments looked harmless and not unlike the scissors and scalpels used in routine surgery but others, like the skull chisel, bone saw and rib cutters, looked like they’d been plucked from the imagination of Wes Craven.
Unlike the wards in the main part of the hospital there were no curtains around each bay. These customers cared nothing for false modesty.
The recovered skeleton was laid out in form and looked somehow more forlorn than in the ground. Now the bones were displayed in a sterile environment being scrutinized, analysed and studied. It seemed just another indignity to be suffered.
The table was long and had a lip all the way around that gave the impression of an oversize turkey dish. Kim had the overwhelming urge to cover the bones over.
The ceiling light was pulled down to shoulder height and reminded Kim of the type used at the dentist.
Doctor Bate measured the right femur and noted the measurement on a clipboard.
‘Someone’s been busy.’
‘Early bird catches the worm, as they say. Unless you’re an entomologist and then that would be just plain weird.’
Kim clutched her chest. ‘Doc, did you just try and make a funny? You did, didn’t you?’
The white coat hung open, revealing a pair of faded jeans and a green and blue striped rugby shirt.
‘Detective, are you this sarcastic to everyone you meet?’
She thought for two seconds. ‘I certainly try to be.’
He turned to face her fully. ‘How have you been this successful by being so rude, arrogant, obnoxious ...’
‘Hey, easy there, Doc. I have bad points as well. Tell him, Bryant.’
‘She does have ...’
‘So, what can you tell us about our victim this morning?’ Kim interrupted.
The doctor shook his head in despair and turned away. ‘Well, for a start, the bones will often reveal more about a victim’s life than their death. We can estimate how long they lived, illness, old injuries, height, build, if any deformities were present.
‘The age at death inherently affects decay. The younger the person, the faster they will decay. With children, their bones are smaller. They contain less mineral.
‘Conversely, an obese person will decay faster because of the large amounts of flesh available to feed micro-organisms and maggots.’
‘Fabulous, now is there anything you can tell us that will actually help?’
The Doctor threw his head back and roared with laughter. ‘I’ll say one thing for you, Detective, you’re consistent.’
Kim said nothing and just waited while he put on a pair of simple black-framed glasses.
‘We have two fractured metatarsals on the left foot. An injury more consistent with playing football, but this was not an old injury. No fusion of the bones had occurred.’
‘Could it be from kicking something?’ Bryant asked.
‘It could be, but a normal person would kick with their right foot, unless they had been trained to use both feet equally.’
He moved up the table closer to the head.
‘I’ve already shown you the fracture in the cervical vertebrae so we know that the victim was beheaded at some stage. It was a savage attack and the blow that severed the bone was not the first.’
He took a magnifying glass. ‘If you look at C1 and C2 you’ll see what I mean.’
Kim leaned down beside him. There was a visible ridge in the bone of C1.
‘Do you see?’
Kim nodded, noting the smell of mint on his breath.
‘Here, hold this,’ he said, passing her the magnifier.
He gently turned the body slightly so that the bones of the neck were sideways on. ‘Now look at C2.’
He held the body in place while she lowered the glass over the top area of the neck bones closest to the skull. Again she saw a clear ridge.
Kim stepped back as a sick feeling began to build in her stomach. ‘But the injury you showed me yesterday was not on the side of the neck.’
The Doctor nodded and for just a second their gaze held in understanding.
‘I don’t get it,’ Bryant said, leaning over the table for a closer look.
‘She was alive,’ Kim murmured. ‘She was moving around when he was trying to take her head off.’
‘Sick bastard,’ Bryant exhaled, shaking his head.
‘Could the injury to the foot have been caused by being stamped on, to render the victim less mobile?’
That would explain why the victim was writhing on the ground but unable to get away.
‘That would seem to be a logical conclusion.’
‘Be careful you don’t commit there, Doc.’
‘I can’t confirm that theory, Detective, in the absence of any soft tissue but I can state that I have not identified any other obvious cause of death.’
‘How long has she been down there?’
‘As little as five years, possibly as many as twelve.’
Kim rolled her eyes.
‘Look, if I could give you a day, month and year I would but decomposition is affected by many variables; heat, soil content, age, illness, infection. Like yourself I would like to find everybody with a photograph, full medical history, a passport and recent utility bill but unfortunately this is what we’ve got.’
Kim was unperturbed by his outburst. ‘So, what exactly have we got, Doc?’
‘My educated estimation is that we have the body of a non-adult, no older than fifteen years of age.’
‘Educated estimation? Is that scientific jargon for a guess?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I’d testify in a court to that conclusion. My guess is that it is the body of a female.’
Kim was puzzled. ‘But yesterday, you said ...’
‘There is no scientific rationale.’
‘Is this because of the beads?’
He shook his head. ‘Cerys brought this over last night.’
He held up a plastic bag containing a piece of cloth. She peered closer. There was a design.
‘It’s part of a sock. Wool decays much more slowly than other fabrics.’
‘But I still don’t ...’
‘Under the microscope I can just make out the remnants of a pink butterfly.’
‘That’ll do for me,’ Kim said, as she turned and left the lab.
Thirty-Four
I didn't like the girl from the moment I saw her. There was something pitiable about her: pathetic. A
nd she was ugly.
Everything on her body was a size too small. Her toes wore a tear at the tip of her shoes. Her denim skirt showed a little too much thigh. Even her torso seemed too small for the long limbs that sprung from it.
She was the last girl I expected to cause me a problem. She was so inconsequential that I barely remember her name.
She wasn't the first and she wasn't the last but there was something truly satisfying about ending her misery. She was a girl that no one was ever going to love and no one ever had.
Born to a fifteen-year-old mother on the Hollytree estate the fates had been rather unkind. After giving birth to a second child five years later the mother had fled.
Paternal rejection came six years later when her father dumped her at Crestwood with one bin bag of accrued worldly goods. He made it clear that there would be no weekend visits or hope of return.
The girl stood at the reception desk as her father gave her away; old enough to understand.
He walked away with no hug, touch or farewell but at the very last minute he turned and stared at her. Hard.
Did she, for one brief minute, hope for regret, for some kind of explanation; a justification she could understand. Did she hope for the promise of her father’s return, even if it was false?
He walked back and pulled her aside.
‘Listen, kid, the onny thing I can say to steer yer right is try 'ard with the books 'cos yo ay never gonner ger a man.’
And then he was gone.
She stole around her peers like a shadow; eager to ingratiate herself, desperate for love or anything that looked remotely like it.
Her limited knowledge of affection dictated that the attention she received from other girls elicited a pathetic gratitude and an undying loyalty that brought forth gifts of food, allowance; anything her two cronies asked for. She trailed after them like a puppy Lurcher and they let her.
It is amusing that the most inconsequential girl ever to walk the earth is now of some importance. Everyone is looking to her for answers and I am happy to have given her that gift.
She said to me one night, ‘I have a secret about Tracy.’
Silent Scream: An edge of your seat serial killer thriller (Detective Kim Stone crime thriller series Book 1) Page 13
