Dead Memories (D.I. Kim Stone #10)(37)

‘Penn, I want you following up on Jenks at the community centre. We know he’s a sleaze and that Mark punched him. I want to know exactly what happened and I want to know everyone they came into contact with. I want to know who they were meeting on Sunday, cos if they were splurging what little money they had on flowers, it was to say thank you for something. So, who was giving them what?’

‘Got it, boss,’ he said.

‘That’s not all. I want you keeping up to date with developments on Rubik.’

He nodded his understanding.

She turned to the constable.

‘Stace, I want you to work on finding the next of kin for Bill and Helen Phelps. Then I want you double-checking we haven’t missed anyone that might want revenge against—’

‘But, boss, I know we joked last night but how do I narrow it—’

‘It’s the level of hatred,’ Alison cut in smoothly. ‘For this depth of revenge, to kill innocent people, to go to the trouble of planning copycat events, we’re talking life-altering incidents. This is major stuff.’

‘Understood.’

‘And anyone you identify, I want to know where they are and what they’re doing now. And pass the name to Alison, who will start to build a psychological profile, just as soon as she’s managed to find what she’s looking for in that bloody briefcase.’

‘Got it,’ she said, holding up a battered KitKat.

Kim allowed the rest of the team to stare at her in disbelief while she continued.

‘And Penn, when you’ve got a spare minute check on the junkyard to see if Dobbie has found his piece of paper detailing the car seller. Bryant and I will be attending the post-mortem of Bill and Helen Phelps later today.’

She shook away the images from the night before and the horrific manner of their death. ‘Heavy workload, I know, but we need to crack on before this bastard strikes again.’

‘Guv?’ Bryant asked. ‘You’ve given out all the work to these guys, we taking the day off?’

‘You wish,’ she said, taking a last swig of coffee.

‘So, what we doing?’

‘I’d have thought that was obvious, my good fellow,’ she said, with a wry smile. ‘We’re gonna focus on the people that hate me the most.’





Fifty





Symes did his final bench press of the weight bar at 300 lbs. He prided himself at being able to lift almost 1.5 times his own body weight.

Dale Preece took one end, Kai Lord took the other and placed it into the rest.

Breakfast workout complete, Symes sat up, turned on the bench and wiped the sweat from his brow. It had been a tough workout but it was what he’d needed. His body ached from the exertion but it had clarified the situation in his mind. There was only one thing for it.

‘I’ve gotta get the fuck outta here.’

‘Huh?’ they replied, together, as Screwball, a weedy kid in his late teens, started edging across the gym towards them.

Symes narrowed his eyes. ‘Fuck off you piece of piss.’

Screwball backed off. Kid would do anything to try and listen in. Rumour had it he got extra smokes for telling old Gennard shit that was going around.

Symes felt safe speaking honestly to Lord and Preece. The hate club currently had seven members but few of them had as much reason to hate the bitch as these two.

Lord because he wouldn’t see the light of day until he was drawing a pension and Preece cos the bitch had robbed him of his family.

‘Can’t hack it. Can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t wank because of that fucking cow. All I can see is her goddamn face and it’s driving me insane.’

‘Come on, Symes,’ Preece said, shaking his head. ‘We talked about this. Stick with the—’

‘Fuck that,’ he snarled. ‘I know you like all your I’s crossed and T’s dotted, pal. You want all your fucking ducks in a row. Sensible and deliberate. Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey and all that shit but I’m fed up of waiting. I just want the whore dead. I want to put my hands around that cocky neck and squeeze…’

‘Yeah, but you don’t wanna be caught,’ Preece insisted, tapping his head. ‘You’ve got to use this.’

Symes wondered for a second if the man was being disrespectful, but only someone who felt the same rage as he did could take that kind of fucking liberty.

‘Damn it, Symes, I hate that bitch as much as you do and if you want to do a poll let’s pit losing two family members against robbing you of a good time. I win,’ he spat as his eyes blazed.

Every instinct inside him wanted to knock this prick out for letting his mouth run, but the only thing that stopped him was the naked hatred he saw in the man’s eyes every time he heard the slag’s name.

My enemy’s enemy is my friend, he said to calm himself down. Both Duggar and Preece had remained loyal to him. Sometimes he’d caught the two of them talking privately. He’d wondered if they were staging some kind of coup but his paranoia had been groundless and Duggar had been released.

Now Lord he wasn’t so sure about. Too much standing back and watching for his liking. Happy to let folks fight it out and enjoy the entertainment. That’s not how you treated comrades. You didn’t have to like them but you needed to have their back.