Child's Play (D.I. Kim Stone #11)(33)

‘One wound?’ Kim asked, walking around the body.

Keats shook his head. ‘I’m thinking two. The first one in the back to get him down and another one to the front.’

Clearly the man was local, within walking distance. A routine trip to the newsagents to collect his newspaper had ended in death. There was a sadness in the ordinariness of the circumstances. The man was fetching a bloody paper. What the hell had he done to deserve this?

She stood at the foot of his body assessing the position.

His left leg was straight but his right was bent so that his foot touched the opposite knee. His arms were to the side and not outstretched as though trying to break his fall. There was no standing position that could have led to a fall that looked like this.

‘Staged?’ she asked.

Keats nodded and came to stand beside her. ‘Look at the edge of the blood pool. It’s dry and smeared as though he was being moved around while bleeding out from the front.’

Kim took another walk around the body as the photographer took the last few shots.

She paused at his head and looked down, frowning.

‘Keats, is that chalk?’ she asked, looking at the faint white markings all around him.

Initially she’d thought they were faded white lines left on the tarmac from the parking area at the front of the pub.

‘Not sure. We’ll know more when we move him.’

She nodded; she’d seen enough.

The techies all moved forward and rolled him onto his back.

His white open-necked shirt was stained with blood proving Keats right about the second stab wound.

Kim could now see that the man was slim build, roughly her own height wearing brown trousers and blue slip-on Skechers.

His sports jacket sleeve was rolled up to reveal a standard men’s sports watch and the bulge of a wallet in his front trouser pocket, ruling out a robbery gone wrong.

‘Did you check for?…’

‘Yes, the X has been cut into the skin on the back of the neck, post mortem.’

‘Was it obvious?’ Kim asked.

Keats shook his head and held up his pen. ‘No, had to move the clothing aside to find it.’

‘Pity you didn’t bring your ruler,’ she remarked.

So, the branding of the X again was not obviously on show and in the same place as Belinda Evans.

‘It’s like it’s a message to them and not us,’ Bryant observed, appearing beside her.

‘Agreed,’ Kim said as they both continued to stare at the area around the body, at the ground that had been uncovered because he’d been moved.

Bryant broke the silence as they both took in what was now staring them in the face.

‘Guv, are those chalk marks what I think they are?’

‘Yes, Bryant, I bloody well think they are.’

The body was not lying on the white lines of the pub car park at all.

He was lying on top of a hopscotch grid.





Thirty-Three





Penn placed the last of the evidence boxes on the wooden table and closed the door.

Lynne had fetched fresh coffee, and Doug was looking miffed that his easy day in court had been cut short.

Travis had secured them a small room at the station with a round table, whiteboards but no window. The DI wanted them as far away as possible from the current investigation into the murder of the defence witness, Dexter McCann. He didn’t want either case tainted, and wanted the new murder to be viewed objectively by officers not directly involved.

Penn had tried to explain that the two were inextricably linked.

Travis had shaken his head, resolutely. ‘Whoever killed Dexter McCann last night has no bearing on whether we got the right man last year. We have to keep the cases separate,’ he’d explained, expelling them to an office in Siberia.

On the plus side they were only a short walk away from the canteen.

‘Okay, guys. We gotta go through this from the beginning, just like the boss instructed,’ Penn said opening the first box that contained the statements. DI Travis had made it clear that he was to lead the review, after he’d informed him that his boss had agreed to the temporary secondment.

A part of him hoped she’d fought just a little bit.

‘Right, first thing I want is a timeline,’ he said, taking the bandana from his suit pocket. It was afternoon and the gel used to keep his hair flat was on the losing side of the battle.

‘And our man is back,’ Doug said, leafing through the statements.

Lynne smiled and looked away.

Penn grabbed the black marker pen. ‘Okay, incident was twenty-sixth of October,’ he said, noting it on the board.

‘Ricky Drake identified our man on the twenty-ninth of October,’ Doug called out.

‘Nuryef was questioned on the thirtieth. Same day his missus said he’d been at home all night.’

Penn continued to write the timeline as his colleagues called out the facts.

‘Mrs Nuryef came in to recant her statement on the thirty-first,’ Doug added.

‘Got warrant on the first and found bloodstained tee shirt in shed,’ Lynne called out.

‘Got DNA back on the third November. And charged him on the fourth.’

Penn stood back and surveyed the board.

26/10 – Incident 29/10 – Ricky Drake identified 30/10 – Nuryef questioned 31/10 – Mrs Nuryef recanted 1/11 – Found tee shirt 2/11 – Got results of DNA 4/11 – Nuryef charged with murder