Child's Play (D.I. Kim Stone #11)(56)

‘But,’ she said, thinking aloud, ‘if the game is as important as the murder, it has to be done right. Our guy couldn’t assume there’d be a board game here to play. He had to have brought it,’ she said looking around.

‘Wait just one minute,’ she said, heading back to the kitchen. Bryant was close behind.

‘There’s the box, guv,’ he said, pointing to the kitchen table.

‘It’s not the box I’m after,’ she said, lifting the lid of the swing bin.

‘Aha, there you are. Mitch,’ she called over Bryant’s shoulder.

He entered the room slapping on gloves.

She pointed at the cellophane wrapper. ‘You can’t handle that stuff without leaving your prints all over it. It’s a nightmare to get off. It’s like opening a packet of biscuits.’

Mitch opened an evidence bag as he reached into the bin. He extracted the cellophane and held it up to the light.

He smiled in her direction.

‘Yes, Inspector, I think we might just have something.’





Fifty-Eight





‘Okay, so I can find very little in the way of public performances after that date,’ Stacey said, scrolling through the google hits.

‘Belinda entered Oxford aged fifteen and completed the four-year mathematics degree in half the time. Whole family moved to the city so she could come home each night. Probably wanted her back at home to be a sock drawer. Not clear where Veronica was during this time,’ Tiffany said.

‘Back up. What’s a sock drawer?’ Stacey asked, feeling her eyebrows lift.

‘Her dad probably wanted her to come home each night so he could use her free time to cram in even more facts and learning. It’s like my sock drawer at home. However full it is I can get one more little sucker in there.’

Stacey laughed out loud.

‘Anyway, from what I can find the girls remained living with their parents until they were in their thirties, when both parents died in a car crash. The day after the funeral they both changed their names to their mother’s maiden name and disappeared from view until…’

Tiffany stopped speaking as Stacey’s phone rang.

She pressed a button. ‘Hands free, boss,’ she advised.

‘Got a third victim, Stace. Our previous Brainboxes organiser. Been dead for days.’

‘First victim?’ she asked as Tiffany listened intently from across the room.

‘Yep, I’ve got his phone number but Mitch has the phone, so write this down.’

Stacey wrote down the mobile number the boss recited.

‘Get into it, Stace. I want to know everything about him. Especially, I want to know why he stopped arranging the Brainboxes event and handed it over. Does it have anything to do with Belinda Evans or Barry Nixon?’

‘Okay, boss, and talking of Belinda…’

‘Anything that can’t wait until we get back?’

‘No, boss but still digging and with this—’

‘Well, leave Tink to carry on…’

‘It’s Tiff, boss,’ Stacey said, feeling the heat rush into her cheeks at the boss’s mistake.

‘Yeah, I know that,’ was the terse response.

‘Boss, you’re on hands-free,’ she spelled out.

‘Yeah, I know that too. What’s the problem?’

‘Nothing, see you in a bit,’ she said, ending the call.

‘Tiff, I’m sorry about—’

‘About what?’ she asked, brightly.

‘The boss forgetting your name.’

For some reason, she felt bad for the girl.

‘She didn’t forget it, Stacey,’ she said beaming. ‘The boss just gave me a nickname.’





Fifty-Nine





‘Glad of the break, guv, but what’s up? I thought you’d want to be away from here as soon as possible.’

He was right. Kim had taken them both by surprise when she’d told him to pull over once they reached the village of Cleobury Mortimer and she saw traces of human existence once more.

A tiny café with handwritten signs and two outside tables had beckoned to her. Right now she needed fresh coffee and fresh air. The stench of Freddie Compton’s rotting body was imprinted on the membranes of her nostrils. She also needed a minute to think.

‘Bryant, what do all the crime scenes have in common?’

‘The victims were all dead,’ he offered, smartly.

‘That kind of response is not gonna get you a plant,’ she said, breathing deeply through her nose.

‘Well, obviously the connection to playing a game of some kind and the letter X on the back of the neck.’

‘Yeah, about that, about the placement. What are your thoughts?’

He shrugged. ‘Easy to get to.’

‘Inflicted after death, so why would that matter?’ she pondered. ‘He’s shoved a blade inside them, pretty intimate already. He wants them dead, so why does he care?’

‘Maybe the neck is important. Maybe that part of the body means something to him.’

‘And the clothing?’ she persisted. ‘Always in place, always correct, nothing showing. It’s like…’