His T-shirt was plain and had once been white. She wondered if it had been washed alongside the oil-stained jeans.
As her gaze travelled up the body it met with the bloody stumps that ended at his wrists. The flies weaved and ducked around the open flesh, undaunted by the police presence. Kim was instantly reminded of Westerley.
Although the picture had walked out of a bad horror movie, no special effects had been used. Gruesome as the sight was, the stumps were unusually clean.
‘After death?’ Kim asked Keats as she nodded towards the wrists.
Keats nodded. ‘Volume of blood indicates that the heart was no longer pumping.’
‘Cause of death?’ she asked as her eyes continued their journey looking for clues.
‘Ahem…’ said Dunn from beside her.
Damn, she had forgotten it was not her crime scene. She was here for information purposes only.
‘Sorry,’ Kim said and continued to walk around the body.
‘Well, for whichever detective inspector cares, there is no identification on his person, and I would estimate he’s been here for between fourteen to eighteen hours. I can’t state cause of death yet, however there is bruising to the upper-neck area.’
Kim knew this was for her benefit and that Keats was offering any information that might help her without her having to ask and encroach on someone else’s crime scene. He was also aware that she would not be able to attend the post-mortem.
‘Are you finished?’ Dunn asked her.
She nodded and turned away from the body. She had learned all she’d needed to know. The two murders were linked. Bob was involved in this somehow.
But good manners and ingrained ethics dictated that as it was now an active case again she should not do anything to hamper or interfere with the investigation of her colleagues.
‘So this other guy from Fens Pool…?’ Dunn asked.
She held up her hands. ‘It’s clearly your case now. I’ll step away and leave it alone.’
She was surprised when he threw back his head and laughed loudly.
‘Oh no you won’t, not if you learned anything from me at all,’ he said wryly before walking away.
She headed back to where Bryant leaned against the side of the changing rooms. Both of them viewing the body on a case that was not theirs would have been overkill.
‘What’s the betting his name is Larry?’ Kim asked.
She couldn’t help but focus on the similarity in location to where Bob had been found at Fens Pool.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Bryant said, staring across 20,000 square feet of water.
‘What is it that…?’
‘He’s luring them,’ Bryant said and immediately Kim knew he was right. Both locations were easy to get to but had areas of bush, foliage and trees. The perfect place for illicit activity.
With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Kim took out her phone.
Stacey answered on the second ring.
‘Guv… I was just about to call. I’ve described our Bob to a woman at the warfarin clinic, and I’m pretty sure his real name is Ivor.’
‘Yeah, Stace, I think so too, but drop what you’re doing. I need you to check and see if he’s on The List.’
Stacey knew she would mean the register of sex offenders.
Dunn’s recent words rang in her ear. Of course she couldn’t leave it alone.
There was a pause before Stacey spoke and Kim knew why. Searching the sex offenders register was a stark reminder of just how much evil surrounded them.
‘Got it, boss.’
Kim looked around and knew there was nothing more to learn.
It was time to go and see the headmaster from Jemima’s school.
The answer to that case lay in the past.
Fifty-Eight
Tracy negotiated the cobblestones that surrounded the entrance to the café. Uneven flooring was the bane of her life. Ramps, potholes, gravel and slabs with too much space in-between.
The afternoon rush had passed and the evening lull had descended. She stood at the counter feeling the additional heat from the appliances being blown towards her by a fan that was cooling no one.
She ordered a coffee that she had no intention of drinking.
It wasn’t as bad as where she’d met the detective inspector the other day, but it wasn’t far off. This establishment had brick walls and tablecloths. Yes they were plastic with a red and white chequered pattern that hadn’t been updated in twenty years, but they were tablecloths all the same.
It wasn’t the great coffee and haute cuisine that brought her here. It was about the only place from her childhood that hadn’t changed a bit. Her mother had brought her to Old Hill on a Saturday morning to traipse around the markets collecting the weekly shop. Her mother had never believed in the convenience of one-stop shopping. She had liked to distribute her business. Weighed down with plastic bags of produce, they had always stopped at this café for a pork sandwich and a cup of tea.
The markets had gone but this café had remained the same, and Tracy still came here often.
She wasn’t sure what had prompted the maudlin thoughts that had plagued her this week. Perhaps it was the news that one of her old classmates had been murdered. It had taken her back to a time that was not her proudest moment. A time she wished she could take back, at whatever cost to herself.
But truthfully, even at seven years of age, Tracy had been relieved when the bullies had turned their attention to someone else.
She acted as though she didn’t care what people thought of her. Unfortunately for her a by-product of being bullied and tormented meant that you did care. You cared very much. Too much. There was always the paranoia that everyone having a private conversation was talking about you. Every chuckle that met your ears was because people were laughing at you. And the worst thing about paranoia was knowing you could not be proven wrong.
And just as you strived to gain the recognition and acceptance of your peers throughout school, so you continued throughout life. Self-worth couldn’t be bought in the shops once you turned sixteen and escaped the education system.
Of course she knew the persona she projected, and it was intentional. It was her only form of defence. She had to show people she didn’t give a shit before they laughed and pointed.
It wasn’t armour she’d been born with. It had grown over her skin like a shield over the years, inch by inch, until she no longer knew how to take it off.
Of the people that she truly envied, Detective Inspector Stone was definitely up there. Tracy couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips. Now there was a woman who really did not give a shit. Yes, people talked about her, and yes they called her names, and Kim Stone did not give these people a second thought. How did one do that? Tracy wondered.
She just wasn’t sure whether the image she had shaped and honed for herself was now a perfect fit. There were days when she wanted to lower her barriers and drop the act even just a little. One day she would like to care less about what people thought, but the truth was she just didn’t know how.
She needed to talk about these things, Tracy realised as she pushed herself to her feet, but she was not in the right place to get answers.
As she concentrated once more on the cobblestones, she realised there was only one person who could help her. As she headed into the underground car park, she resolved that tomorrow she would visit her mother.
Fifty-Nine
The bungalow sat just off the main road that ran through Stourton and stopped short of the Stewponey lights, so named because of the pub.
The Stewponey Inn was known to have existed in 1744 when it was called the house of Benjamin Hallen. The inn gave its name to the nearby locks and bridge on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal, along with the octagonal toll house.
The pub had been demolished in 2001 to make way for houses.
The old headmaster’s property was double fronted with a single hanging basket for decoration. Geraniums peered listlessly at the floor.