Play Dead (D.I. Kim Stone, #4)(24)

The same line stretched perfectly halfway between her buttocks and her calves.

She looked to Keats who shrugged.

No, she’d never seen anything like it either.





Sixteen





‘Jesus, I’m gonna get car sick in a minute,’ Bryant said sarcastically The journey from Russell’s Hall to Dudley Wood had taken less than ten minutes. The address they sought was directly opposite the old site of the Cradley Heath Speedway track.

The speedway team was formed in 1947 at the Dudley Wood Stadium. The club was one of the most successful in the sport throughout the eighties and nineties, winning seven Speedway World Championships.

In 1995 the team were evicted by their new landlords, who had bought the stadium to redevelop it into housing.

Kim couldn’t pass the stadium without a pang. Most of her Saturday nights between the ages of ten and thirteen had been spent standing between Keith and Erica watching the bikes race around the track.

She could easily recall the sound of the tyres on the red gravel track above the Saturday-night crowds. A noise that to the locals was unbearable yet was missed once it had gone. The smell of methanol used for bike fuel mixed with cheap hot dogs was a combination she would never forget.

Initially Kim had not understood their fascination for speedway. Round and round the track until one bike won. A bike was a bike was a bike. She had never supported any kind of team in her life.

But their enthusiasm had been contagious, her foster parents fervent in support of their local team. She cheered them on not because she felt any kind of pride in them but because Keith and Erica did. The fish and chip supper on the way home remained the same, win or lose.

But whether she got it or not, those nights had been magical.

Hidden behind the spacious houses that lined Dudley Wood Road was a small development of newbuild properties. The mixture of townhouses and apartments were set around a small paved courtyard.

The property of Simon Roach appeared to be a ground-floor flat with an old BMW-series car on the communal drive.

The paintwork on the door had been patched up with a shade of blue that didn’t match.

Bryant pressed the doorbell but there was no connecting sound in the property.

Kim knocked on the door. Three sharp bangs and listened. Nothing.

Bryant tried again. Kim stepped back and surveyed the area. No activity.

She looked at her colleague. This male was not at work. His car was parked outside and his girlfriend had been murdered less than forty-eight hours ago. Bryant got it.

He nodded. ‘Yeah, I think this time I’m gonna agree with you.’

Bryant pushed on the door and established the exact location of the lock.

Kim got into position beside him. She would kick beneath the lock at the same time he threw his weight above it. It wasn’t pretty and could look like a standing variation on the game Twister. But they’d done it before and it had worked.

‘On three,’ Bryant said.

She raised her leg, ready.

‘One… two… three… ’

The force of their joint weight both above and beneath the lock forced the door open.

The momentum bounced it off the inside wall.

‘Police,’ Kim shouted, entering the small, dark hallway. A number of closed doors cut off any light source to the poky space.

The second door along opened. A beam of light appeared before the shape of a stark-naked male.

‘What the fuck…?’

‘Simon Roach?’ Kim asked.

‘Fuck, yeah. Who are you?’

Bryant produced a warrant card and introduced them to the man who was making no effort to cover any part of his anatomy. Kim couldn’t help thinking his confidence was misplaced.

‘What the hell…?’

‘Simon, what’s going…?’

‘Nothing, Rach,’ he called back without turning.

He moved forwards, bringing himself just a little too close to the boundary of Kim’s personal space.

She stepped to the side. He closed the bedroom door behind him and opened the door to the next room.

Kim followed him into the lounge, keeping her gaze on the back of his head. Roach’s hair was long, dark and tousled.

Two sofas faced each other over a wooden coffee table. He aimed for the furthest seat from the door and sat.

Kim sat opposite.

He raised his left foot onto his right knee.

Kim didn’t miss a beat.

‘We’re here about your dead girlfriend,’ she clarified. She knew his failure to cover up demonstrated a lack of respect and was an attempt to unnerve her. It would not.

‘Jemima?’ he asked, causing Kim to wonder just how many dead girlfriends he had.

Kim nodded.

‘Girlfriend is probably a bit formal,’ he said as a lazy smile spread across his face.

And that was when she saw it. His blatant and unabashed charisma. Kim’s brief time with this man had already prompted the question of what the hell Jemima had seen in him.

The lazy smile had transformed his face. The humour in his mouth travelled up to his eyes and made them sparkle with challenge and danger.

He locked his gaze with hers.

Kim was unimpressed. Men who were truly dangerous did not need to advertise it. But she’d play along.

‘What about Rach? Is she your girlfriend?’ Kim asked.