Dead Souls: A gripping serial killer thriller with a shocking twist (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Series Book 6)

by Angela Marsons

  He tried to force the memory by picturing himself walking down the familiar road. But it wasn’t natural. It was like a film that he was directing instead of a recollection.

  As his mind lost focus and wandered from the trail of his memory, the questions flew into his mind.

  Where was he?

  Who had done this to him?

  What the hell had he done?

  Why was he being treated this way?

  Anger grew inside him as he felt the binding around his wrists, and his naked skin against the wall. He wished his captor were here, now, in front of him. Just one opportunity was all he needed. Although age was no longer on his side, he had learned to fight on the streets back in Jamaica.

  But those years were far behind him now. England had given him work, a wife. Family.

  A picture of his daughter’s face came into his mind.

  ‘Adaje…’ he cried out loud.

  NINE

  Bryant rubbed his hands together, sighed, accepted the inevitable and turned to Dawson.

  ‘What we got on that assault, Kev?’ he asked.

  The guv had popped in before heading for Kidderminster and reiterated her instructions from the previous day. As though he could have forgotten. Her expression had been tight and closed, and he had known her long enough to leave well alone.

  During the time he’d worked with Kim Stone he had wondered about the rumours that had whispered through the corridors of the station around five years ago, when she’d been promoted to DI. He had known her only by name and reputation back then but had still not played in the gossip pit. It helped no one.

  But what he had seen during the last two years was the tension in her jaw whenever the two of them had collided or even at the mention of Tom Travis’s name.

  Bryant’s daily workload normally involved a slice of tolerance with an extra helping of patience thrown in for good measure. And as he looked towards Dawson he had a feeling his tolerance in both those areas was going to be tested during his boss’s secondment.

  It wasn’t that he particularly disliked his colleague. Yes, he was reckless, sometimes, and yes, he defied authority other times. He was cocky and confident and full of his own opinion. None of this bothered Bryant. Most days he was entertained by it. He had no issue with the kid making mistakes. His problem was that he never seemed to learn from them.

  Dawson pulled at the top three folders of the stack in his filing tray, opened the top one and spoke as he read.

  ‘Polish male named Henryk Kowalski, early thirties, found in the car park next to the Job Centre, in town,’ he said, nodding his head across the road towards Halesowen.

  Bryant knew the car park. It was single storey and full of concrete pillars and dark corners that had seen their fair share of drug deals.

  ‘Is he a user?’ he asked.

  Dawson shrugged. ‘Haven’t got anywhere near him since Friday. In and out of consciousness. Nurse said we can have five minutes.’

  Bryant frowned. ‘Serious injuries, then. Any witnesses?’

  Dawson nodded. ‘A young kid named Marie, who had just closed up a jewellery shop for the night.’

  ‘Witness first?’ said Dawson.

  ‘Victim first?’ said Bryant.

  ‘Permission to just follow yow two around for the day?’ Stacey asked, smirking at them both.

  ‘Victim first,’ Bryant confirmed. ‘Need his full account of the incident so we know what needs corroborating.’

  Dawson thought for a moment.

  ‘Okay, victim first,’ he agreed.

  Bryant wondered if every minor decision was going to result in disagreement and debate.

  He stood up and grabbed his jacket.

  God help them when it came to deciding on lunch.

  TEN

  Kim pulled up at the address given to her by Woody, the day before. The semi-detached property, complete with box porch, lay on a small housing estate in Blakedown, an area between Hagley and Kidderminster. The house was as she’d expected it to be: bland and uninspiring; completely reflective of its owner, she decided grumpily.

  The morning had not started well due to a sudden freeze during the night which had left her eleven-year-old Golf GTI wearing an ice jacket. Cars with a decade under their belts didn’t do anything automatically so she’d grabbed the scraper and de-icer and broke it free.

  The pipes in her house had frozen as though this first freeze of the winter had taken them by surprise, and her last bottle of water had been poured into Barney’s bowl.

  If she believed in kismet, she’d think the universe was preparing her for the day ahead with Detective Inspector Travis.

  Their text conversation the previous evening had been brief and direct, the syllables counted on the fingers of one hand. Clearly, he was as excited as she was at the prospect of them working together. But like her, had probably been told there was no choice.

  Travis’s familiar form stepped out, attired in black trousers, black tie, white shirt and navy fleece: the uniform that had followed him throughout his career as a detective.

  Kim couldn’t help but feel that a fleece prevented any clothes from looking smart.

  His height was similar to Bryant’s six foot, but Tom was much broader, more bear-like than her colleague. His hair was now more salt than pepper and the short beard almost white.

  He turned his back on her as a woman appeared in the doorway. They hugged briefly before he turned her way.

  There was no acknowledgment of her presence, and his face was set as he strolled down the path.

  Kim sighed heavily.

  He opened the car door and folded himself into the passenger seat.

  Kim glanced his way. ‘Look, Tom, I’m sure we feel the same way about—’

  ‘Don’t speak to me about anything other than the case,’ he said, staring straight ahead.

  ‘I’d be happier not to speak to you at all,’ she retorted. ‘But I’m not sure that’s what our bosses had in mind.’

  Happy that the olive branch had been well and truly snapped in her face, she put the car into gear and pulled away.

  Yes, kismet had definitely been trying to give her the heads-up.

  Kim decided to remain in her own head as she headed towards Kidderminster Police Station: a thin sliver of a building that was flat-faced, three storeys high and eighteen windows to its length.

  West Mercia was the fourth largest force in the country. Covering 2,868 miles of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire, serving a population of 1.19 million, with almost two and a half thousand officers.

  It differed from her own force as it covered both densely populated areas, like Telford and Shrewsbury, as well as sparsely populated rural areas.

  She parked the car and followed Travis into the station.

  He stopped at the front desk to pick up her temporary identification, which she took without speaking and jammed into her pocket.

  He offered a few nods as they worked their way through the building, pausing to introduce her to no one. The strange looks she received made her feel like a curiosity or a suspect at his side.

  The low hum of conversation stopped completely as they entered the detective’s squad room.

  Kim was immediately struck by the difference in layout to her own set-up.

  For a start, the room was four times bigger than the one at Halesowen. The wall opposite the door held a total of eight wipe boards fixed together to make one long board. Two doorways were cut into the top wall like a pair of ears.

  The left led to an office, and the right appeared to be a small kitchen.

  But what she didn’t like was that the eight desks, four on each side of the room, all faced towards the front, like a classroom.

  There were no prizes for guessing who stood beside the small square table at the top that was holding a single pot plant with purple blooms.

  Five of the desks were occupied, and ten curious eyes rested on her as she followed Travis down the aisle that separa
ted them.

  ‘Weird floor plan,’ she said, following him inside the solid walls from where he could see a whole lot of nothing.

  ‘All eyes focussed on the boards,’ he said, shortly.

  Like detention, Kim thought.

  Her own view was that if it took staring at a wipe board to keep their concentration they were in some bloody trouble.

  ‘Do you always?…’

  ‘Look, Stone. You run your team and I’ll run mine, okay?’ he snapped.

  She’d only wanted to know if he always briefed at nine o’clock. It was beginning to feel like half the day was already gone.

  She offered no reply and waited while he gathered papers and a clipboard.

  Eventually he headed out of the office and across to the head of the room. Kim put her hands in her front pockets and leaned against the door frame.

  Travis began the briefing by introducing her. She guessed he’d explained the situation to his team, as she had to hers. Once he had offered her a name for each of his team she nodded in their general direction. She received a half smile from the single female in the room. The ratio saddened her.

  Travis rubbed his hands in front of him. ‘Okay, guys and… girls,’ he said, nodding towards Lynda with a smile.

  She rolled her eyes in response.

  ‘We’ll do a quick catch-up before I ask you all to hand in your homework. And first we’ll go to… Gibbs,’ he said, casting his eyes around the room and landing on the smartly dressed man in his early forties.

  ‘Yeah, pick on the guy in the suit,’ Gibbs offered.

  Travis held up a hand and addressed the team. ‘I think we can all work out that Gibbs has court this afternoon,’ he said, raising one eyebrow.

  A few chuckles sounded around the room.

  ‘Go on,’ Travis urged.

  Kim could not tear her eyes away from her former colleague. This was not the man she had fought with across crime scenes for the last few years. It was not the man who had shown up yesterday, and it certainly wasn’t the man she’d driven in to work ten minutes earlier.

  But it was the man she remembered working with.

  ‘Finally got a full confession last night from Dalglish,’ Gibbs answered. ‘Admitted to driving the car in three of the four robberies. Insisted he didn’t do the fourth but gave us the name of the kid that did.’

  Travis nodded with satisfaction. ‘And?…’

  Gibbs growled. ‘Yes, you were right, guv. Revealing his mother was waiting for him outside loosened his tongue quite a bit.’

  Travis smiled. ‘I met her. I’m not surprised. I’d be more frightened of her than court, if I’d been in his shoes.’

  ‘Still waiting for a decision from CPS on the Turner rape case,’ Johnson offered, from the second row. His attempts to hide a prematurely receding hairline were not wholly successful.

  Travis’s mouth tightened. ‘Chase them again, I don’t want him back on the streets any time soon.’

  Johnson nodded.

  ‘Okay, homework time,’ Travis said. ‘And it’s back to Gibbs.’

  ‘The land where the body has been found is leased by the Cowley family,’ Gibbs said. ‘Which consists of father, Jeff; daughter, Fiona, and son, Billy. Originally leased around thirty years ago by Jeff Cowley’s father.’

  Travis nodded and turned to the only other female in the room.

  ‘Lynda?’

  ‘The Preece family own the land and have done for fifty-seven years. Robson Preece is head of the family and has one daughter, named Mallory. She has two sons, Bartholomew and Dale. All live together at Donnay Hall.’

  ‘Does Mallory have a husband?’ Kim asked.

  Travis threw her a murderous look, as Lynda turned to answer.

  ‘Killed in a boating accident years ago.’

  She nodded and closed her mouth, as Travis turned to the guy with ginger curls being held back by a Union Jack bandana.

  Kim swallowed her irritation. Clearly she was not allowed to speak.

  ‘Penn?’ Travis asked.

  ‘Started compiling a database for missing persons. Working backwards until we have some idea of time frame and description.’

  Kim was impressed. That was one hell of a task to start with no physical details of their victim.

  ‘Okay,’ Travis said, picking up the pot plant. ‘Wilma goes to Penn today for his proactive thinking.’

  He strode across the room and placed the purple flower on the edge of Penn’s desk.

  A murmur of good-natured dissatisfaction rumbled around the room as Penn performed a mock bow to his audience.

  ‘Okay,’ Travis said. ‘Focus is on learning everything there is to know about these two families. We have to rule them—’

  ‘Yeah, sorry to interrupt, guv,’ Lynda said, looking at her screen. ‘Just had a report come in about an attempted abduction.’ She continued to read the information on the screen. ‘Apparently some guy tried to haul a woman into a van on the Worcester Road.’

  ‘Well, as our newly appointed Detective Sergeant, Lynda, I suggest you get on it. We don’t have the luxury of working one case here at West Mercia.’

  Kim smarted at the misinformed arrow that was aimed at her and wondered how long her mouth would obey her brain during these briefings.

  ‘Will do, guv,’ Lynda answered, chirpily.

  It was as Travis began reallocating tasks that she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket.

  The text message was short, direct and from Doctor A.

  Get here, now.

  ELEVEN

  Bryant hated the smell of Russells Hall hospital. Or any hospital, for that matter, but this one in particular. The ever-present aroma of disinfectant always tugged at his memories, and he had lost too many people in this damn place.

  His father had died in the ambulance outside the building when a second heart attack in twenty minutes had pushed his heart beyond repair. His mother had lost her life to breast cancer in the Intensive Care Unit, and it was where he and his wife had lost the two baby boys that should have been born before Laura.

  It was those two losses that came to mind every time he stepped into the building.

  And today, as he walked silently beside Dawson to the Surgical Ward, was no different.

  The six-mile journey from the station to Russells Hall had also passed without conversation. It was woefully obvious they had never worked together closely before, and their working practices could probably not have differed more. Bryant knew his methodical, logical approach was viewed as ‘slow and boring’ by his younger colleague. And he himself didn’t ascribe to the gung-ho style of investigation adopted by Dawson. He had already wondered if he would spend all his time carrying out mental risk assessments.

  Dawson’s methods often bordered on impetuous, and normally that would be the guv’s problem. But right now it felt like his.

  Dawson spoke into the intercom at the entrance to the Surgical Ward. He had called ahead and the staff were expecting them.

  They approached the desk, and Ward Sister, Jane, smiled.

  ‘You have five minutes. He’s still in pretty bad shape,’ she said, firmly.

  ‘How bad?’ Dawson asked, offering her a charming smile.

  ‘Better now he’s back in the land of the living. He’s in a lot of pain from the seven broken bones in his legs and arms.’

  ‘Seven?’ Bryant clarified.

  She nodded. ‘There’s a lot of soft tissue damage as well so he’s going to be hurting for a good few weeks.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Bryant offered.

  ‘Bed two, bay three and your time starts now.’

  Bryant immediately altered his walking pattern to reduce the sound of his shoes on the floor. Dawson did not and strode into the bay before him, his heels heralding his arrival.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, as the man slowly turned towards them.

  The face was swollen and bloated, as though parts of it were being inflated at different speeds – and it appeared to
have been coloured in by children daubing his stretched shiny skin with shades of red, purple and black.

  Bryant could make out a row of about seven stitches above his left eye and another railway track along his jawline. His left arm and right leg were encased in plaster.

  ‘Henryk Kowalski?’ Dawson asked, although no clarification was needed.

  He nodded and winced.

  Dawson introduced them both and took the easy chair to the man’s left.

  ‘I won’t even ask how you’re feeling,’ he said, quietly. His sympathetic smile and lowered tone caught Bryant by surprise.

  ‘Can you tell us anything about what happened to you, Henryk?’

  If it was up to him, Bryant thought, he would be asking short, direct questions to get as much information as possible in the time they had available. Additionally, the effort required by this man to answer open-ended questions was too much.

  ‘Henryk, how many people hurt you?’ he asked before Dawson’s follow-up.

  He shook his head and held up one finger, two fingers then a shrug.

  A few yes or no questions would have served them better.

  ‘Did you know them?’ Dawson asked, assuming there had been more than one.

  He moved his head to the left slightly to indicate no.

  ‘Did they say anything while they were hurting you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Can you manage a few words, just to give us an idea of the kind of things they were saying?’

  He swallowed three times.

  ‘Polish… bastard… scum…’

  Bryant was puzzled. ‘They knew you were Polish?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I know it’s difficult for you to speak, Henryk, but have you been having problems with anyone recently?’ Bryant asked. This was beginning to look more personal than a random attack.

  His voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘Normal… insults… we ignore… my wife… worries…’

  Bryant held up his hand. Too much effort and too much pain for no useful information. He didn’t want to cause the poor guy needless suffering.

  ‘Could it have been someone from the pub?’ Dawson asked.

  Henryk shook his head. ‘No drinking… no money,’ he said with a weak attempt at a smile.