BROKEN BONES
A GRIPPING SERIAL-KILLER THRILLER
ANGELA MARSONS
This book is dedicated to my Granddad, Fred Walford, who was taken from us far too soon.
I would have liked to have known you better.
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
SILENT SCREAM
Angela’s Email Sign Up
Also by Angela Marsons
A Letter from Angela
EVIL GAMES
LOST GIRLS
PLAY DEAD
BLOOD LINES
DEAD SOULS
DEAR MOTHER
THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN
Acknowledgements
PROLOGUE
Black Country: Christmas Day
Lauren Goddard sat on the roof of the thirteen-storey block of flats. The winter sun shone a grid onto her bare feet dangling over the edge. The cold breeze nipped at her wiggling toes.
The protective grate had been erected some years ago after a father of seven had thrown himself over. By the time she was eleven she had stolen a pair of wire cutters from the pound shop and fashioned herself an access point to the narrow ledge that was her place of reflection. From this vantage point she could look to the beauty of the Clent Hills in the distance, block out the dank, grubby reality of below.
Hollytree was the place you were sent if Hell was having a spring clean. Problem families from the entire West Midlands were evicted from other estates and housed in Hollytree. It was displacement capital. Communities around the borough breathed sighs of relief as families were evicted. No one cared where they went. It was enough that they were gone and one more ingredient was added to the melting pot.
There was a clear perimeter around the estate over which the police rarely crossed. It was a place where the rapists, child molesters, thieves and ASBO families were put together in one major arena. And then guarded by police from the outside.
But today a peace settled around the estate, giving the illusion that the normal activities of robbing, raping and molesting were on pause because it was Christmas Day. That was bollocks. It was all still going on but to the backdrop of the Queen’s Speech.
Her mother was still slurring her way around the cheerless flat with a glass of gin in her hand. Her one concession to the event was the line of tinsel wrapped haphazardly around her neck as she stumbled from the living room to the kitchen for a refill.
Lauren didn’t expect a present or a card any more. She had once mentioned the excitement of her friends. How they had enjoyed presents, laughter, a roast dinner, a chocolate-filled stocking.
Her mother had laughed and asked if that was the kind of Christmas she wanted.
Lauren had innocently nodded yes.
The woman had clicked the television to the Hallmark Channel and told her to ‘fill her boots’.
Christmas meant nothing to Lauren. But at least she had this. Her one piece of Heaven. Always her safe place. Her escape.
She had disappeared unnoticed up here when she was seven years old and her mother had been falling all over the flat pissed as a fart.
How lucky was she to have been the only one of the four kids her mother had been allowed to keep?
She had escaped up here when her mother’s drinking partner, Roddy, had started pawing at her groin and slobbering into her hair. Her mother had pulled him off, angrily, shouting something about ruining her retirement plan. She hadn’t understood it when she was nine years old but she had come to understand it now.
She had cried up here on her sixteenth birthday when her mother had introduced her to the family business and to their pimp, Kai Lord.
She’d been up here two months earlier when he had finally found her.
And she’d been up here when she’d told him to fuck right off.
She didn’t want to be saved. It was too late.
Sixteen years of age and already it was too damn late.
Many times she had fantasised about how it would feel to lurch forward onto the wind. She had envisioned herself floating to and fro, gently making the journey like a stray pigeon feather all the way to the ground. Had imagined the feeling of weightlessness of both her body and her mind.
Lauren took a deep breath and exhaled. In just a few minutes it would be time to go to work. Heavy rain, sleet, snow, Christmas – nothing kept the punters away. Trade might be slow but it would still be there. It always was.
She didn’t hear the roof door open or the footsteps that slowly strode towards her.
She didn’t see the hand that pushed her forward.
She only saw the ground as it hurtled towards her.
ONE
‘Are you kidding me?’ Kim screamed at the dashboard of her eleven-year-old Golf. ‘I mean, really?’ she cried, turning the ignition key once more.
Any slim hope that her tantrum had persuaded the car to start was lost as the battery squealed its last few painful breaths before dying completely.
She sat for a moment, rubbing her hands together. She shouldn’t really be surprised at her vehicle’s refusal to mov
e. It had been sitting on the car park since 7 a.m. in temperatures that had not nudged above -2 ̊C. The Golf had had fourteen hours to plan its revenge.
‘Damn you,’ she said, opening the driver’s door.
She’d have to go back into the station and call a taxi. Oh, she could imagine the satisfied expression on Jack’s face after she had smirked at his inability to get any sense from a drunk who insisted his name was Santa Claus. Two weeks too late but the guy was insistent.
She prepared herself for his glee as she reached out to open the door to the station.
Suddenly, the door flew out towards her as two black clad uniforms exploded from the building. One continued running while the second slowed and apologised.
‘Sorry, Marm,’ he said, ‘five car pile-up on the motorway slip road.’
She nodded her understanding and stepped aside.
They slid into the squad car, hit the blues and tore off the car park. Their journey would meet little resistance from other vehicles even though it was Saturday night. Most sensible people were home watching television with a warm, comforting drink. It’s where the rest of her team were and where she’d hoped she was heading. Damn car.
Luckily, Barney was enjoying the four-bar gas fire at Charlie’s after their recent walk. On long work days her seventy-year-old neighbour stepped in and took care of Barney for her.
Coming to get you soon, boy, she promised silently as she crossed the space left by the speeding squad car.
She frowned as she saw an alien shape against the wall of the building. She knew what it looked like, but surely not, she thought as she moved warily towards it. Nestled in the corner the object had gone unnoticed by the distracted officers tearing out of the station to a multi car pile-up.
The external temperature was suddenly forgotten as ice ran through her veins.
‘No bloody way,’ she whispered, taking two steps forward. ‘Oh shit,’ she said, as she stepped into the light.
TWO
Kelly Rowe walked along Tavistock Road trying to remain visible while avoiding the snowflakes that had thickened over the last two hours and now aimed diagonally for her.
The cold wind swirled around her bare legs. The denim mini just about protected the skin to her mid-thigh.
The rest of the girls had dribbled away slowly since ten o’clock. Only Sally Summers, one of the older prostitutes, remained hopeful at the top of the road.
Snow was not good for business.
She took out her phone and made a call. Her mother answered on the third ring.
‘Hey, Mum, everything okay?’
‘Yeah, Lindy was in bed finally by ten. Kept insisting she just needed another biscuit.’
Kelly allowed the warmth to spread through her. For a four-year-old Lindy had a devious streak, and she used it to full effect on her nanna. Oh, how she ached to go home and snuggle in bed next to her little girl. Feel the plump, small hands in her own. Nothing in the world was as bad when she was holding Lindy.
She wanted to but she couldn’t.
Part of her had been secretly hoping that her daughter was awake, unsettled so she could speak to her, reassure her she’d be home soon. Just hear her voice.
‘Club busy tonight, Kel?’ her mother asked, filling the silence.
Kelly crossed her fingers and closed her eyes. Her mother thought she spent three nights each week bartending at a night club in Stourbridge. The truth would break her heart.
‘Yeah, still a few left in. Just popped out for a quick fag break.’
‘All right, love. Well, be careful getting home. It’s coming thick and fast now.’
‘Will do, Mum, thanks,’ Kelly said, ending the call.
Had she stayed on the phone any longer her mother would have heard the tears thickening her throat and for the hundredth time she cursed herself for her own stubborn streak. If only she’d swallowed her pride eighteen months earlier she might not be in this situation now.
She hadn’t expected to find herself single and pregnant at seventeen and, God forgive her, she had been an hour away from a termination. But at the very last minute, against her mother’s wishes, she had chosen not to go through with it and not one second of regret had passed through her mind since.
She had been absolutely determined to take care of her daughter and had been doing okay. She’d secured an administrative job and a small two-bedroom flat in Netherton which was big enough for her and Lindy. The rent had just about been affordable as long as she shopped clever, picking up discounted goods at the end of the day.
Two and a half years in and she’d lost her job as a care home administrator. The debts had started to mount up and every envelope that dropped on her mat was coloured red. Total desperation had gripped her when the electricity was finally turned off.
It was her neighbour, Roxanne, who had come to her aid and suggested she accept a loan from Kai Lord. The enigmatic West African man had offered her much more than she’d needed, but he was insistent she take it, for ‘the little one’.
She had briefly considered asking her mother for help but the woman had been critical of the decision to leave home so soon. She had believed Kelly incapable of taking care of her daughter on her own. To have turned to her for money would have been admitting defeat.
A dour-looking man with body odour at the benefits office had helped her with her claim before explaining it would be at least a couple of weeks before the regular two-weekly payment of £200 would begin landing in her bank and no emergency payment was available.
So, with no electricity, her rent late and barely any food in her cupboards, she had taken the money from Kai, all £1,000 of it, and got all her bills up to date. Three weeks later the loan had been called in. Payment in full with interest. A total of almost three thousand pounds: triple the amount she’d borrowed.
When she’d been unable to pay, Kai had become angry. He’d told her that his associates would not be pleased and, although he himself would never harm the ‘little one’, he couldn’t guarantee her safety from the people to whom he would sell the debt. He had offered her a way out and she’d had no choice but to take it.
The first punter had been the worst but necessity and desperation meant she had to see it through.
After the first few she had found a way of disconnecting herself from the actual act and taking her mind elsewhere.
It had all been for nothing anyway as she’d been forced to move back in with her mother after her failure to secure a job before the loan from Kai Lord had run out.
But every time she got into a car she was one step closer to being free. She already had a plan for the future. Stay with her mum for as long as it took to get a respectable job, save some money and move out when she was properly prepared.
A car turned into Tavistock Road. The speed of the vehicle was indicative of a punter on the crawl.
She stepped out of the doorway, looking right and then left. The punter would see her before Sally at the end.
She stood tall against the biting wind, the snowflakes melting against her bare skin. She sauntered to the kerb and tipped her head suggestively.
The car pulled to a halt beside her.
She smiled and got in.
THREE
‘Err… it’s a baby, Marm,’ Jack said, from behind the safety of his glass partition.
‘You do know you’re wasted as custody sergeant?’ Kim snapped. She already knew what it was. What she wanted to know was what he intended to do about it.
‘Well, I know one thing, Marm, you didn’t have it when you left ten minutes ago.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Very funny, Jack. Now, buzz me through so you can—’
‘Can’t have it back here, Marm,’ he said, cutting her off.
‘Jack, stop pissing about and take this…’
‘Seriously,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘I’ve got two squad cars and a van on the way from a fight that got out of hand at the chippy.’
Fair enough, she thought.
That would definitely keep him occupied for the next few hours.
‘Okay, well just call someone down to…’
‘Of course, Marm. I’ll just ring the twenty-four hour crèche on the third floor.’
‘Jack…’ she warned.
He opened his hands and shrugged expressively.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted him to do either but the car seat handle was beginning to dig into her hand.
‘Buzz me through,’ she snapped. ‘And call social services right now.’
‘Will do, Marm,’ he said, picking up the phone.
She headed up to the office she’d left in darkness less than fifteen minutes earlier.
She placed the car seat on Bryant’s desk and switched on the radiator. Luckily the heat had not yet totally disappeared from the room.
‘Okay, now what?’ she asked, standing in front of the desk with her hands on her hips.
The small face wrinkled its nose and continued sleeping soundly.
Kim tipped her head. ‘Okay, I’m gonna search you for clues,’ she said, quietly.
She peeled back the white lace shawl that had been quadrupled and tucked around the baby’s legs and arms encasing it like a mummy. Beneath the shawl the baby was zipped into a lemon all-in-one suit that had feet, hood and ears. She felt around its body but there was nothing else in the chair. She gingerly opened the car seat clasp and touched the zip of the suit. She paused as the baby made a chomping motion with its mouth as though chewing on a steak.
Don’t wake up, she prayed silently, as her hand stilled on the fastener. She’d felt less anxious when dealing with hardened criminals. A morning raid on drug dealers, a two-mile foot chase in the dark to apprehend a rapist and entering the scene of an armed robbery were all incidents she’d recently dealt with and none had induced the levels of stress she was feeling right now.
The baby’s eyes remained closed, so she continued her investigation. As the zip lowered she saw that the child was dressed in another all-in-one suit but this was an inside garment.
Suddenly it stirred and kicked out its legs. Kim stepped back, and held her breath.
The phone rang, startling her.
‘Please tell me they’re here, Jack,’ she said, knowing it would be a social services record.
Broken Bones: A gripping serial killer thriller (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Series Book 7) Page 1
