Child's Play (D.I. Kim Stone #11)(53)

No answer.

She knocked again.

Nothing sounded on the other side of the door.

‘Bryant…’

‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, already looking around.

Kim headed through a waist-high side gate that led on to an area of decking supported by stilts that disappeared into the sloping ground below.

A patio window looked out on to the decking but the curtains were drawn.

Kim tried the door. It was locked.

‘Damn,’ she said, continuing around the property, stepping off the decking back on to hard ground.

‘Kitchen window,’ Kim said, holding up her hands either side of her face and peering in. Bryant did the same.

The kitchen appeared in order but empty.

‘He has to be here. His car’s right…’

Bryant’s words trailed away as a fly hit the window.

They looked at each other.

‘Time of year, guv,’ Bryant said, hopefully, while taking another look.

Another two flies hit the window on the inside.

‘Okay, fair enough,’ he said, heading back on to the decking. He carried on towards the side door where they’d originally knocked.

She picked up a wrought-iron chair and raised it above her head.

‘Guv,’ Bryant shouted just in time. ‘Door’s open.’ Well, that had just saved a chunk of their budget for new glass if their man was alive and well and just sleeping heavily.

She joined him and immediately covered her nose.

‘Jesus,’ she said, breathing through her fingers. There was nothing sleeping heavily in here. It was a stench they both knew well.

It was the pungent, unholy smell that could only be compared to a room full of rotting meat with the added smell of faeces. It was an odour that could live in a house for years despite deep cleaning and was unmistakeable as anything other than a dead body.

They now knew there was no need to rush as they entered the property. She turned left into the kitchen where she’d seen the flies. Bryant turned right into a small reception room.

From inside she could now see the floor of the kitchen, which was clear.

She headed into the hallway. The property appeared to be a warren of small spaces.

The room to the left of the kitchen had the door closed. A quick look at the open doors revealed a downstairs toilet and a utility room. And no shout from Bryant told her what she needed to know.

‘In here, Bryant,’ she called out.

Bryant joined her in the hallway and nodded that he was ready for her to open the door.

She held down the handle and pushed it open. Both the buzzing and the stench directed them before they even entered the room.

Kim filled her lungs and stepped in.

‘Oh my god,’ Bryant said as their eyes met the sight before them.

Freddie Compton was sitting in an easy chair, wide eyes staring towards the curtained patio window, with a kitchen knife protruding from the middle of his chest.

His white shirt, once sodden, was now stiff with the blood that had poured from the wound over his stomach, rippling along the contours and folds of his shirt, onto his legs, and staining the chair beneath him.

Flies were entering and exiting his nostrils, his slightly open mouth, hovering and buzzing around his eyes, and maggots crawled over his shirt around the wound, which would have been their first choice destination once they’d located the dead body.

She tore her eyes away from the community that had made a home within what had once been a walking, talking human being.

‘Seen what’s on the table, guv.’

‘I have indeed,’ she replied, taking out her phone.

Sitting on the table was the board game of snakes and ladders.

Bryant walked around the chair.

‘Can’t see it but I’m guessing the X is on his neck, and I’d say he’s been dead for four to five days.’

‘Yes, Bryant,’ she agreed. ‘I’m willing to bet this was our guy’s first kill.’





Fifty-Six





‘Okay, Tiff, what you got?’ Stacey asked, sitting back in her chair.

Since learning the real surname of the sisters was Loftus, having later both changed to their mother’s maiden name, they had researched the internet and been working their way through the hundreds of hits.

‘Okay, so Veronica was four years old when Belinda came along in 1957. Born to parents Alfred and Martha Loftus. He was a professor of economics, and she raised the children. All appeared normal until Belinda was six and Veronica was ten and both kids disappeared from the school register. They hadn’t moved home, so it looks like they were home schooled. Not the done thing back then and, incidentally, Mr Loftus seemed to disappear from academia at around the same time.’

‘He gave up his job to school his children?’ Stacey asked.

‘Looks like it.’

‘So, how did the family survive?’

‘Ah well, it appears that Mr Loftus liked to show off his daughters, particularly Belinda who was not only a gifted mathematician but could also name every city, town and village in the UK by the time she was six years old. Mr Loftus opened his house each Friday night for people to come and play with his children.’

Stacey felt the sour taste at the back of her throat.

‘Play?’