Dead Memories (D.I. Kim Stone #10)(42)

She frowned not quite believing the man’s admission.

‘And make no mistake, Inspector, cos he hates you almost as much as Symes does.’





Fifty-Five





By twelve thirty Stacey had had enough. Since returning from her urgent errand she’d seen the woman across the office chow down a breakfast bar, not bad. An apple, quite good. A bag of Maltesers, questionable, two cakes from Penn’s Tupperware box and was now munching through a chicken and sweetcorn sandwich from the canteen.

Stacey had treated herself to her special cake from Jasper and then had a plain egg salad to compensate.

‘Alison, are you part hobbit?’ she asked.

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, from what I saw on the films they have breakfast, mid-morning snack, pre-lunch, lunch…’

‘Oh, I get it,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m just lucky, I suppose. I always get ravenous when I’m desk-bound.’

‘You must spend hours at the gym,’ Stacy said, hopefully.

Alison hesitated. ‘If it makes you feel better, yes,’ she answered.

Just one more reason not to like you, Stacey thought, turning back to her screen.

She’d started researching Bill and Helen Phelps, which was not rocking her world one little bit.

Google had turned up absolutely no results for anything. No social media activity, which wasn’t too strange but not a lot of help at all.

He was a bank manager who retired at fifty-five, and Helen had managed a florist shop which she’d left when her husband had retired.

They’d spent a few years travelling on a boat but health problems with Bill had brought them back home. Stacey could find no good reason for their murder unless it was punishment for being too nice, too ordinary, too average. But surely too average didn’t get you killed.

She followed her own protocols and put Bill’s name into the system while laughing to herself. Yeah, like there was going to be anything from that.

And she got a hit.

She sat forward in her chair.

A neighbour dispute to which the police had been called. Mr Phelps had struck his neighbour over an ongoing issue with a wheelie bin.

Laughable as it was Stacey felt a stirring in her stomach at the possibility of conflict. And then she read further down where the two men had been encouraged to avoid charges, court and shake hands. And they’d agreed. Nothing further had occurred in the five years since.

Stacey read it again just in case she’d missed the involvement of anyone else in ‘bingate’ and her brain registered a sentence that she hadn’t noticed before.

Mr Phelps was eventually restrained by his twenty-two-year-old son.





Which begged the question: where the hell was the Phelps’ son?





Fifty-Six





‘Hey, wonder if Keats wants to join the fan club that Symes has got going,’ Bryant said, as they got out of the car at Russells Hall.

‘You think this is funny?’ she asked, glancing at him sideways.

‘No, I think it’s tragic, creepy and frightening. I think you should be removed from the case and placed into protective custody under armed guard until this lunatic is caught, but seeing as neither you nor Woody agrees with me I’ll just have to save my breath,’ he said, as they entered the building.

‘We don’t agree because no one has threatened my life. No one is trying to actually kill—’

‘Yet,’ Bryant reminded her. ‘We have no idea what this psycho is going to do next.’

Kim shook her head in disagreement and walked silently to the morgue, steeling herself for what she was about to see.

‘Hey, Keats,’ she said, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on his face as she entered.

He said nothing for a few seconds.

‘I’m sorry but I was waiting for the witty rejoinder that normally accompanies a greeting from you. Scriptwriter on holiday?’

She ignored him and headed to stand beneath the air con unit. Keats kept it a constant 16 degrees which suited her just fine.

She watched the pathologist shoot a questioning glance at Bryant, who shrugged in response.

‘You’ll be pleased to know the burnt-out vehicle has been released to Forensics, who have their fire investigators on it right now.’

‘Will they be able to identify the cause of the fire?’ Bryant asked.

‘Hard to say but I’m pretty sure they’ll be able to rule out engine faults resulting in spontaneous combustion.’

Even though she had not yet looked directly at the forms on the metal dishes, she knew that unlike normal dead bodies the sheets did not cover the flat prostrate form. The covering was high, tented, as though there were kids playing underneath.

‘Okay, let’s begin,’ Keats said, removing the first sheet.

Kim tried to swallow down the nausea as the burnt figure was revealed. The blackened form was resting on its side as though in the foetal position with knees bent but with a straight back. Kim knew that the heat caused the muscles to dry out and contract making the limbs move and adopt postures. Had the figure been upright it would have appeared to be still sitting on the car seat.

‘What’s that?’ Kim asked, moving closer and pointing to the chest area at a piece of fabric unlike the strips of material that remained from the clothing.