Bryant remembered the first major incident he’d attended as a police officer. A kid had been stabbed in Lye High Street. When he’d arrived the paramedics were struggling to stop the blood flow from the male’s inner thigh. He had concentrated on his own job of questioning witnesses and had eventually finished his shift and gone home, feeling fine and unaffected.
His dreams had been filled with images of streaming blood-filled rivers and waterfalls. Eventually he had risen early, headed for the gym and beat seven shades out of the punchbag.
Feelings had to come out. And they would find a way. If this young girl held in negative emotion for the sake of her mother, it would bite her in the end.
‘Can you tell me what happened?’ Dawson asked, gently.
She nodded and sat forward in the seat, her hands neatly folded.
‘The first thing was the sound. I had my back turned. I was locking the door.’
She made the motion with her right hand.
She kept her eyes on Dawson. ‘It was sickening, the cry, like an animal being hurt. At first I thought a dog had been hit by a car. It took me a minute to see where it was coming from. I didn’t know it was a person.
‘I crossed the road, and I could tell the noise was coming from the car park, but at the back. And then I heard a voice…’ Again she swallowed the emotion down her throat and into her body.
The door opened and Christie entered with a tray that she placed on the glass table beside Dawson.
Dawson offered her a smile of thanks then turned back to her daughter.
The woman stepped back but didn’t leave the room.
‘Go on,’ Dawson urged.
Bryant watched with interest as she continued.
‘I know I should have stopped and called the police, but I just kept moving forward. I could hear punches and kicks landing,’ she said, as her fists began to clench. ‘And horrible names…’ she said, shaking her head.
‘Was there any accent to the voices you heard, Marie?’
She thought for a moment and shook her head. ‘Local, I think.’
‘What happened next?’ Dawson asked.
‘I stood still for a second, not knowing what to do. My phone rang. The noise stopped.’
Bryant looked to the mother. She offered a wry smile that acknowledged it had been her calling.
‘There was a pause and then I heard footsteps running along the back of the cars.’
Bryant knew the layout. It was single storey, one lane in, one lane out.
‘Did you see them at all?’ Dawson asked.
Marie shook her head.
Bryant imagined they were running away along the exit aisle, and Marie’s viewpoint was blocked by cars.
They were going to get no description from her.
Marie looked to her mother for reassurance.
Bryant knew he was looking at a good kid who had never been any trouble. She would have wanted to do nothing that would make her mother’s life any harder.
‘What did you do next?’ he asked.
Dawson shot him a look that said they had everything they were going to get from this witness. And they had. Almost.
‘I called out. He groaned quietly, and I ran over. I knew they were gone so I knelt down and… I told him it would be okay, and then I called the ambulance.’
The hesitation between actions was what he’d been waiting for.
Bryant leaned forward and spoke gently. ‘Marie, do you have his phone?’
Her face coloured instantly ‘His phone?’ she repeated.
Bryant nodded. ‘You’ve not done anything wrong. I’ve seen police officers instinctively pick something up without considering the evidential repercussions. But it could help our investigation.’
She hesitated.
‘You’ve done nothing wrong,’ he emphasised.
Her lip quivered but she nodded and pushed herself to her feet. She left the room and her mother’s concerned eyes followed her.
Bryant turned to her mother. ‘Has she cried yet?’
Christie shook her head. ‘She rarely cries. She’s a very brave girl.’
‘She’s holding it in,’ Bryant said, kindly. ‘Get her to keep talking about it.’
‘How do I get her to let go?’ she asked.
‘Ask about his injuries,’ Dawson piped up from the sofa. ‘And get her to talk about the noises she heard. Those are the things that will keep her awake.’
Bryant nodded his agreement as Marie re-entered the room.
The old cream Nokia had been wrapped in cling film.
‘I thought…’
‘It’s okay,’ Bryant said, taking the phone from her.
From a useable evidence perspective this was as good as a confession written in pencil. But they could look at it for clues.
‘Thank you for your help, Marie. If we need…’
‘There was something I heard that seemed strange,’ Marie said, ‘but I don’t know if I heard it right.’
‘Anything at all,’ Dawson offered.
She scrunched up her face as though listening to the words in her mind once more.
‘The attacker… I’m sure he was telling the man on the ground to close his eyes.’
‘Close his eyes?’ Bryant queried. Seemed like a strange request to him.
She shrugged and shook her head. ‘I think I must have heard wrong,’ she said.
They said their goodbyes and got into the car.
‘So, what do you think of that?’ Bryant asked.
Dawson shook his head dismissively. ‘She must have heard wrong. Why would the attacker tell him to close his eyes when he had every intention of killing him? Makes no sense,’ Dawson said, taking out his phone.
Bryant agreed with his colleague; Marie must have been mistaken.
But a very small part of him wasn’t so sure.
FOURTEEN
Stacey replaced the receiver and sat back. For a moment there had been some animation. Some activity to cut through the silence of the squad room. It hadn’t lasted long and the air had once again fallen silent around her.
The phone from the incident was on its way to her and that was about it. Her whole job list from Dawson and Bryant had taken approximately seven and a half minutes.
Stacey couldn’t help but feel her skills were not being fully utilised. If her fingers were still, she was underworked.
Normally, the peace and quiet of the office was filled by the activity in her brain. She didn’t notice it as her thoughts whirred from one task to the next and her tapping keyboard tried to keep pace.
And although she spent many hours working alone while the rest of the team was out in the field, the days rushed by; the end of shift normally taking her by surprise. Already she was missing the constant calls from the boss; check this, research that, analyse this, dig into that. She knew this was not the boss’s choice but she resented the fact those calls were going somewhere else.
She sighed heavily and checked her emails again. Nothing new. She drummed her fingers on the desk and looked around the office.
Her eyes rested on an eerily empty whiteboard. She had already wiped away the ‘unidentified skull’ title daubed by Bryant.
With little else to do, she stood and stepped around to Dawson’s desk. How he found anything in this mess just astounded her. Bryant’s desk was not clinically organised and tidy, like her own, but there was an order that matched his methodical mind. Dawson’s desk was Armageddon, and she couldn’t stand it a minute longer.
Stacey pushed away his chair and began separating the papers, matching them to the relevant case file. She rolled her eyes as a few stray baguette crumbs fell from a stack of leaflets.
Within ten minutes the piles were orderly except for his bottom tray. She knew it was where he filed ‘don’t know what to do with it so I’ll leave it until later’ stuff.
She pulled out the pile and began to sort it. Perversely, he wouldn’t even notice what she’d done. For an astute detective, Dawso
n missed a lot.
She moved a half completed expense form to reveal a handwritten page. The toner mark along the top told her it was a photocopy.
The two words at the top of the page caught her attention.
Dear Mum
Her stomach turned when she realised it was the suicide note of Justin Reynolds. Dawson had removed it from the scene, copied it to attach to his statement, and returned the original to the family.
The simplicity of those two words being written as though leaving a note about football or a reminder to pick something up for tea. Especially when it was the last thing he would ever write, the last thoughts he would ever communicate. The vision of his youthful face and teenage existence at odds with the blood spattered wall had not yet left her mind.
Stacey felt she should do him the honour of listening.
She slid down into Dawson’s chair and began to read.
Dear Mum,
I am sorry for everything. I’m sorry I couldn’t explain it to you. Whatever happens, whatever you find out it’s not your fault. It’s mine and it’s who I’ve become. I just can’t live with myself and what I’ve done. I’m not the person you think I am. Not any more. I’m sorry, mum, so sorry for everything
Stacey ignored the slight tremble in her hand as she placed the letter back in the bottom tray on the desk.
It was no longer their case, as there were no suspicious circumstances.
The boy was dead and it was not their problem. A family was broken, stunned and bewildered but it wasn’t their concern.
Oh, but she recognised elements of the letter.
The first few words were written strongly, neatly, with conviction; smaller letters, more focussed concentration. As the letter progressed the words got bigger, more untidy as emotion controlled the pen. The last few words, scrawled, messy, at the heart of the pain and then nothing. A half page of white nothingness. Acceptance and death.
Stacey bit back the tears forming in her eyes.
Oh yes, she recognised the letter all right.
FIFTEEN
‘So, what did you think of our landowner turning up at the site?’ Kim asked, weaving through the traffic. She could no longer cope with the interminable silence of the car.
‘Sorry, are you talking about the guy I spotted and you did not?’ Travis asked smartly.
Kim gripped the steering wheel harder, wishing he was not correct.
So, clearly she was presented with the choice of complete silence or petty little digs.
‘Seemed very interested in whether we’d spoken to the Cowley family,’ she observed.
Travis shrugged. ‘He’s bound to be interested. Human remains have been found on his property. Wouldn’t you want to know what was going on?’
‘Yeah but there was an arrogance there, an expectation of getting his own way. A sense of entitlement.’
‘Not surprised you’d pick up on that, Stone,’ he mumbled as he opened his leather folder and made a note.
Okay, perhaps complete silence was better after all, she thought, biting her tongue. She wondered if four hours was really too soon to drive back to her boss and concede defeat? She decided it probably was.
The ringing of Travis’s phone startled her.
He answered, listened, looked her way, cursed and hung up.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘The Cowley residence,’ he said.
‘Yeah, we’re on our way,’ she snapped. What did he want from her? Travel at the speed of light in an eleven-year-old Golf.
‘Well, step on it because someone there has just been shot.’
SIXTEEN
Bryant pulled up outside a mid-terrace house with heavy green velour curtains suffocating the small downstairs window and a board in place of glass upstairs.
‘You sure this is the address?’ he asked Dawson. The property looked abandoned.
‘Number twenty-three,’ he confirmed.
Bryant got out of the car and almost heard the swish of net curtain as people had a nose out of their windows. He took a look around. It was a small street. The houses had no front gardens so the upstairs windows faced each other across the narrow road.
He approached the door and knocked. He heard a female voice shout something in Polish.
‘Jesus, look at this,’ Dawson said, peering closer at the door. Although painted over, scratch marks into the wood were still evident. The new paint had simply settled in the lines.
Bryant counted seven different profanities and insults that had been scribed into the wood.
The door opened to reveal a slim mousy woman dressed in a washed-out grey tracksuit. A baby was climbing over her shoulder.
‘Mrs Kowalski?’ Dawson asked.
She nodded but didn’t step back as she continued to pat the child on the bare back.
The aroma of a soiled nappy wafted towards him.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, suspiciously.
Dawson introduced them, as the baby offered a loud and satisfying burp and immediately began to cry.
‘May we come in?’ Bryant asked, eager for the door to be closed. The child would catch its death.
She stepped back as a toddler came hurtling towards them. He ran into her calf and fell to the ground. The toddler began to cry. She leaned backwards and pulled him to his feet by the wrist with her free hand.
Bryant guessed the toddler was around eighteen months old.
‘Niech to szlag,’ she breathed, as she ushered him away from the door.
He stopped crying and continued on his journey, rustling a nappy as he went. A lime-green potty was visible amongst the building blocks, books and soft toys that stifled the carpet.
A third cry sounded, and Bryant saw there was another baby, a twin, in a rocker beside the sofa.
The woman placed baby one on the sofa then lifted baby two onto the sofa, placed baby one into the rocker and then put baby two onto her lap.
She lifted her sweatshirt and positioned baby two accordingly.
Bryant felt himself blush slightly and kept his gaze firmly on her face.
Dawson coughed.
‘Sit, sit,’ she said.
Dawson stayed where he was, and Bryant didn’t blame him. A jam-covered blanket and a rolled-up dirty nappy took up most of the sofa. He pushed them to one side and sat.
‘We’ve been to see Henryk,’ he said.
Tears immediately sprang to her eyes but she blinked them away.
Baby one began to grumble. Her left foot slid to the side and began to nudge the rocker back and forth.
The tears in her eyes were replaced with hostility.
‘So, it takes almost him being killed to get your attention?’ she asked.
‘I’m sorry?’ Bryant said, trying not to focus on the black patch of damp he could see crawling up the wall.
‘We have called many times, many problems, but no help.’
‘What kind of problems?’ he asked.
‘Vandalism, insults, threats…’ she said as her voice began to rise.
The toddler looked up from the toy he was banging against the side of the sofa.
Bryant wanted to calm her down. There would be little co-operation at the moment.
‘It’s a nice house,’ he said, ignoring the crack in the wall above the fireplace. ‘How long have you lived here?’
‘Shit hole,’ she said, looking around. ‘But landlord give no care. No interest. No listen.’
He could see where she had made the effort to keep the house as nice as she could. Framed flower prints livened up the stark walls. There were no layers of dust on the surfaces, and the vacuum cleaner was stationed behind the door. Despite her efforts, the aroma of damp was evident.
He got the feeling this woman was tired of being ignored.
‘Go on,’ he said, patiently.
‘Henryk and I moved to UK seven years ago. We want to start a family but not in Poland,’ she explained. ‘We both have jobs to come to in my uncle’s building company. Henr
yk labourer and me in office. We earn money, we pay taxes,’ she said, defensively.
Bryant felt saddened as he wondered how it must feel to have to explain yourself. They had done nothing wrong. They were legally in the UK and had followed the rules.
‘Sounds perfect,’ Bryant smiled.
The smile in return was brief but it gave Bryant a glimpse of the woman beneath the rage.
She shrugged. ‘There was occasional insults for the first few years but we just ignored them. The babies started coming,’ she said, sweeping her eyes around the room. I gave up my job but business was suffering anyway.
‘A year ago the business died and Henryk lost his job. At first he refused to get help. He did not want to drain a country he had grown to love. We lived on our small savings and began to sell our possessions.’
Bryant had only just noticed there was no television, music centre or evidence of any other technological gadgets.
‘Eventually we ran out of items, and Henryk had no choice but to get state help. Then the insults and threats became worse. Neighbours were shouting nasty things, telling us to go home and take our bastards with us.’
She swallowed deeply, as Bryant felt the anger growing inside him.
Her face had softened with sadness.
‘We found insults on our door. New ones every day. We had a brick through the window, and Henryk spat at many times.’
Bryant had the urge to apologise but he wasn’t sure on whose behalf.
‘Did you report the incidents?’ Dawson asked, unnecessarily. Of course they had.
She nodded. ‘And then two days ago we received the letter.’
‘What letter?’ Bryant asked.
The woman removed the child from her breast and pulled down her sweatshirt. She stood and reached for a single folded sheet on the fireplace, passed it to Bryant.
He opened it and began to read.
‘Fuck off you Polish bastards. Go home and stop taking our money and our jobs. You’ve been warned. We will rape your wife and stab your kids.’
‘Any idea who might have sent this?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Pinned to the door, no envelope,’ she replied, wearily.
Dead Souls: A gripping serial killer thriller with a shocking twist (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Series Book 6) Page 6
