February 2014
Emily Billingham tried to scream through the hand that covered her mouth.
The fingers were thin but strong against her lower jaw. She forced out a sound that bounced back off his flesh and threw back her head to try to prise herself free. The back of her skull met with something hard, a rib.
‘Knock it off, you stupid little bitch,’ he said, dragging her backwards.
The pounding in her ears almost drowned out his words. She could feel her own heart beating hard against her chest.
The fabric across her eyes blocked out her surroundings but she felt the gravel underfoot.
Every step took her further from Suzie.
Emily bucked again. She tried to force herself away from his body using her upper arms but he just pulled her closer. She tried to squirm away from his grip but his arms tightened. She didn't want to go with him. She had to get free. She had to get help. Daddy would know what to do. Daddy would save them both.
She heard the creak of a door. Oh no, it was the van.
She summoned the strength to scream. She didn't want to go in the van again.
‘No … please …’ she cried, trying to squirm out of his grip.
He kicked her hard in the back of the knee.
Her leg buckled and she stumbled forward, but he stopped her falling to the ground by grabbing a handful of hair.
Her scalp stung as the tears broke free from her eyes.
In one movement he launched her into the rear of the vehicle and slammed the door shut. It made the same tinny noise it had days ago when she'd been walking to school.
Her classroom seemed so far away now and she wondered if she would ever see her friends again.
The van reversed quickly, launching her against the doors. The pain shot from the back of her skull like a firework.
She squirmed to right herself but the van was moving fast, throwing her onto her side.
Her cheek crashed against the wooden floor of the vehicle as it bounced along at speed. She winced as the skin on her bare calf snagged on a nail. A trail of warm blood trickled down to her ankle.
Suzie would tell her to be strong. Like when she'd sprained her wrist in gymnastics. Suzie had held her other hand and squeezed strength into her heart, telling her it would all be okay. And she'd been right.
But she hadn't been right this time.
‘I can't do it, Suzie, I'm sorry,’ Emily whispered as the tears turned to sobs. She wanted to be brave for her friend but the trembling that had started in her legs was now travelling the length of her body.
She pulled up her knees to her chin, tried to scrunch herself tighter, into the smallest of balls, but the shaking wouldn't subside.
She felt a drop of urine slip from between her thighs. The trickle turned to a stream that her body was powerless to stop.
A terrified sob was torn from her body as Emily prayed for the ordeal to end.
And then, suddenly, the van came to a stop.
‘Please M-Mummy, come and get me,’ she whispered as the sudden ominous silence settled around her.
She lay against the door, unmoving. The trembling had paralysed her limbs. She had no more strength to fight him and awaited whatever came next.
The fear formed a lump in her throat as her captor opened the door.
Kim Stone felt the rage burning within her. From the ignition point in her brain it travelled like electricity to the soles of her feet, then surged around again.
If her colleague, Bryant, was beside her now he would be urging her to calm down. To think before she acted. To consider her career, her livelihood.
So it was a good job she was on her own.
Pure Gym was situated on Level Street in Brierley Hill and ran between the Merry Hill shopping centre and the Waterfront office and bar complex.
It was Sunday lunchtime and the car park was full. She drove around once, spotting the car she sought before parking the Ninja right outside the front door. She didn’t plan on being there long.
She stepped into the foyer and approached the front desk. A pretty, toned woman smiled brightly and held out her hand. Kim guessed she was looking for some kind of membership card. Kim had a card of her own to show. Her warrant card.
‘I’m not a member but I do need a quick word with one of your patrons.’
The woman looked around as though needing to seek advice.
‘Police business,’ Kim stated. Kind of, she added to herself.
The woman nodded.
Kim looked at the directions board and knew exactly where she was heading. She took a left and found herself behind three rows of machines on which people were stepping, walking and jogging.
She looked along the rear views of people expending energy on going nowhere.
The one she was looking for was stepping up and down in the far corner. The long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail was the clue. The fact that her phone was in front of her on the display screen was the clincher.
Having found her target, Kim became oblivious to the sounds of people’s limbs lifting and striding or the curious glances she received as the only fully dressed person in the room.
All she cared about was one woman’s involvement in the death of a nineteen-year-old boy called Dewain.
Kim straddled the front of the machine. The shock on the face of Tracy Frost almost pierced her rage. But not quite.
‘A word?’ she asked, although it wasn’t really a question.
For a second the woman almost lost her footing and that would have been just too bad.
‘How the hell did you …?’ Tracy looked around. ‘Don’t tell me you used your badge to get in?’
‘A word, in private,’ Kim repeated.
Tracy continued to step.
‘Look, I’m happy to do it here,’ Kim said, raising her voice. ‘I’ll never see these people again.’
Kim could feel at least half the eyes in the room upon them already.
Tracy stepped backwards in a dismount, then reached for her phone.
Kim was surprised at the height of the woman and guessed her to be five two at best. Kim had never seen her without six-inch heels, whatever the weather.
Kim barged through the door to the ladies’ toilets and pushed Tracy against the wall. Her head missed the hand dryer by an inch.
‘What the fuck did you think you were doing?’ Kim screamed.
A cubicle door opened and a teenager scarpered out of the room. They were now alone.
‘You can’t touch me like—’
Kim stepped back so that only a sliver of space existed between them. ‘How the hell could you break that story, you stupid bitch? He’s dead, now. Dewain Wright is dead because of you.’
Tracy Frost, local reporter and all-round pond scum, blinked twice as Kim’s words found her brain. ‘But … my … story …’
‘Your story got him killed, you stupid cow.’
Tracy began to shake her head. Kim nodded. ‘Oh yes.’
Dewain Wright had been a teenager from the Hollytree estate. He’d been in a gang called the Hollytree Hoods for about three years and wanted to get out. The gang had got wind of it and stabbed him, leaving him for dead. They thought they’d killed him but a passer-by had performed CPR. That was when Kim had been called in to investigate attempted murder.
Her first instruction had been to conceal the fact that he was still alive from everyone except his family. She had known that if word got back to Hollytree the gang would find a way to finish him off.
She had spent that night in the chair beside his bed, praying he would defy the prognosis and breathe on his own. She had held his hand, offering him her own energy to find the strength to come back. The courage he’d shown in trying to change his life and battle the fates had touched her. She had wanted an opportunity to know the brave young man who had decided that gang life was not for him.
Kim leaned in close and speared Tracy with her eyes. There was no escape. ‘I begged you not to break the story but you just couldn’t help yourself, could you? It was all about being first, wasn’t it? Are you so bloody desperate to get noticed by the nationals you’d throw away a kid’s life?’ Kim screamed in her face. ‘Well, for your sake I hope they do notice you – because there’s no place for you here any more. I intend to make sure of it.’
‘It wasn’t because of—’
‘Of course it was because of you,’ Kim raged. ‘I don’t know how you found out he was still alive but he’s dead now. And this time it’s real.’
Confusion contorted her features. The stupid woman wanted to speak but couldn’t find any words. Kim wouldn’t have listened anyway.
‘You know he was trying to get out, don’t you? Dewain was a decent kid just trying not to die.’
‘It couldn’t have been because of me,’ Tracy said, as the colour began to return to her face.
‘Yes, Tracy, it was,’ Kim said emphatically. ‘The blood of Dewain Wright is on your grubby little hooves.’
‘I was only doing my job. The world had a right to know.’
Kim stepped in closer.
‘I swear to God, Tracy, I will not rest until the closest you come to a newspaper is driving the delivery—’
Her words were cut off by the ringing of her mobile phone.
Tracy took the opportunity to step out of Kim’s reach.
‘Stone,’ she answered.
‘I need you at the station. Now.’
Detective Chief Inspector Woodward wasn’t the warmest of bosses but he normally took the time to offer some kind of curt greeting.
Kim’s mind worked quickly. He was calling her on Sunday lunchtime after insisting that she take the day off. And he was already pissed off at something.
‘I’m on my way, Stacey. Get me a dry white wine,’ she said, hanging up the phone. If her boss was confused because she’d just called him Stacey, she’d explain it to him later.
No way was she going to reveal an urgent call from her boss while standing within spitting distance of the most despicable reporter she’d ever met.
It could be one of two things. Either she was in a shitload of trouble or there was something big kicking off. Neither scenario would benefit from this lowlife hearing the conversation.
She turned back to Tracy Frost. ‘Just don’t think this is over. I will find a way to make you pay for what you did. I promise,’ Kim said, opening the bathroom door.
‘I’ll have your job for this,’ Tracy shouted after her.
‘Crack on,’ Kim tossed over her shoulder. A nineteen-year-old had died last night, for nothing. These weren’t the best days she’d ever had.
And she had a feeling that this one was about to get worse.
Kim parked the Ninja at the rear of Halesowen Police Station.
West Midlands Police served almost 2.9 million occupants, covering the cities of Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton and the area of the Black Country.
The force was divided into ten Local Policing Units, including her own area of Dudley.
Kim reached the office on the third floor. She knocked, entered and froze.
Her surprise was not because Woody was seated beside the imposing figure of his boss, Superintendent Baldwin.
It wasn’t even because Woody was dressed in a polo shirt instead of his normal white shirt complete with epaulettes bearing force insignia.
It was because even from the doorway Kim could see beads of sweat on the caramel skin covering his head. His anxiety had nowhere to hide.
Now she was worried. She had never seen Woody sweat.
Four eyes rested upon her as she closed the door.
She was unaware of anything she'd done to piss off both of them. Superintendent Baldwin hailed from Lloyd House in Birmingham and she'd seen him often. On the television.
‘Sir?’ she said, looking at the only man in the room who meant anything to her. It was impossible to view her boss without also seeing the framed photo of his twenty-two-year-old son wearing full Navy uniform. Woody had received his dead body back from the Navy two years after the photo had been taken.
‘Sit down, Stone.’
She moved forward and sat on the single chair, abandoned in the middle of the room. Now she looked from one to the other, eager for a clue. Most conversations that took place between herself and Woody were preceded by his need to strangle the stress ball that rested at the front of his desk. Normally, it was a reassuring sign to her that all was well between them.
It remained on the desk.
‘Stone, an incident occurred this morning: an abduction.’
‘Confirmed?’ she asked, immediately. Often people went missing and were found within a couple of hours.
‘Yes, confirmed.’
She waited patiently. Even with a confirmed kidnapping Kim was unsure why she was sitting before the DCI and his boss.
Luckily Woody was not a man given to unnecessary intrigue or suspense, so he got straight to the point.
‘It's two young girls.’
Kim closed her eyes and took a breath. Ah, now she understood the escalation along the food chain.
‘Like the last time, Sir?’
Although she hadn’t been part of the investigation thirteen months ago, every member of the West Midlands force had been interested in the case. Many had helped in the subsequent search.
Kim knew many things about the old case but the most resounding fact came straight into her mind.
One of the girls hadn’t come back.
Woody brought her attention back to the present. ‘At this point we're not sure. Initially it appears so. The two girls are best friends and were last seen at Old Hill Leisure Centre. One of the mothers was due to collect them at twelve thirty but her car had been immobilised.
‘Both mothers received a text message at twelve twenty confirming that kidnappers have both girls.’
It was now only fifteen minutes past one. The girls had been taken less than an hour ago but the arrival of the text message meant there would be no enquiries to friends and neighbours, no hope that the girls had simply wandered off. The girls were not missing, they'd been kidnapped and the case was already live.
Kim turned her gaze to the superintendent.
‘So, what went wrong last time?’
‘Excuse me?’ he asked, surprised. Clearly, he didn't expect to be addressed directly.
Kim studied his face as his brain formulated a response. Police media training at its best. There were no furrowed lines or beads of sweat at the hairline. Hardly surprising. There were many levels of culpability beneath him.
Baldwin offered her a dead stare in response to her question. A warning to keep her mouth closed.
She stared back. ‘Well, only one child came back, so what went wrong?’
‘I don't think the details—’
‘Sir, why am I here?’ she asked, turning back to Woody. This was a double abduction. This was a matter for force CID, not local. The management of a case like this would be divided into many different sections. There would be the search for clues, background, door to door, CCTV and press. Woody would never put her in charge of press.
Woody and Baldwin exchanged a look.
She sensed that she was not going to like the answer. Her first guess was that her team was being seconded to assist. Forget the current workload of sexual assaults, domestic violence, fraud and attempted murder cases they were working as well as the finalising of statements for Dewain Wright.
‘You want my team on the search—’
‘There is no search, Stone,’ Woody said. ‘We're issuing a media blackout.’
‘Sir?’
This was virtually unheard of in an abduction case. The press normally got hold of it in minutes.
‘Nothing has been transmitted via the radio frequency and at the moment the parents are not saying a word.’
Kim nodded her understanding. If she recalled correctly the same had been attempted the last time but the news had broken by day three. Later that day the surviving child had been found wandering along the roadside and the other had not been found at all.
‘I'm still a little confused as to what …’
‘You've been requested to head this case, Stone.’
Ten seconds passed, during which she waited for the punchline. None came.
‘Sir?’
‘Of course, that's impossible,’ Baldwin said. ‘You are certainly not qualified to head an investigation of this magnitude.’
Although Kim didn't disagree she was tempted to mention the Crestwood case where she and her team had captured the killer of four teenage girls.
She turned in her seat so she faced only Woody.
‘Requested by?’
‘One of the parents. She's asked for you specifically and won't even speak to anyone else. We need you to take the initial details whilst we assemble a team. You'll report back here immediately and hand over to the Officer in Charge.’
Kim nodded her understanding of the process, but he still hadn't fully answered her question.
‘Sir, can I have the names of the girls and the name of the parent?’
‘Charlie Timmins and Amy Hanson are the girls. It’s the mother of Charlie that has requested your involvement. Her name is Karen, says she’s a friend of yours?’
Kim shook her head blankly. That was impossible. She knew no Karen Timmins and she definitely had no friends.
Woody consulted a sheet of paper on his desk.
‘Apologies, Stone. You might know this woman better under her maiden name. Her name was Karen Holt.’
Kim felt her back stiffen. The name lived safely in her past; a place she rarely visited.
‘Stone, your expression says you do indeed know this woman.’
Kim stood and aimed her gaze only at Woody.
‘Sir, I will go and carry out the initial questioning to hand over to the appropriate Officer in Charge, but I assure you this woman is no friend of mine.’
Kim steered the Ninja through a line of traffic to the front of the queue. As the amber light promised to illuminate she spurred the machine into life and roared across the intersection.
At the next island her knee air-kissed the tarmac at forty miles an hour.
As she travelled south she left the heart of the Black Country, named due to the thirty feet of thick iron ore and coal seam outcrops in various places.
Historically, many people in the area had held an agricultural smallholding but supplemented their income by working as nailers or smiths. By the 1620s there were twenty thousand smiths within ten miles of Dudley Castle.
The address she'd been given was a surprise to Kim. She hadn't envisioned Karen Holt living in one of the finer parts of the Black Country. In fact, she was marginally surprised the woman was still alive at all.
As she headed through Pedmore, the properties began to recede from the road. The plots grew longer, the trees higher and the houses further apart.
The area had originally been a village in the Worcestershire countryside but had merged into Stourbridge following extensive house building during the interwar years.
She pulled off Redlake Road into a driveway that crunched beneath the tyres of the bike. She rolled up to the property and whistled in her head.
The detached house was double-fronted and Victorian, perfect in its symmetry. The white brick looked recently painted.
Kim stopped the bike at an ornate portico entrance supporting a balustraded balcony above. Bay windows protruded on both sides.
It was the kind of house that said you'd made it. And Kim had to wonder what the hell Karen Holt had done to get here. If Bryant had been with her they’d have played their usual game of ‘guess the house value’ and her opening bid would have been no less than one and a half million.
Parked beside a silver Range Rover was an unmarked Vauxhall Cavalier. A brief assessment confirmed the house was not overlooked from any direction. As she went, she made mental notes to pass on to whomever Woody nominated as Officer in Charge.
The front door was opened by a constable Kim recognised from a previous case. She stepped into a reception hall boasting a Minton tiled floor. The centre of the space was dominated by a round oak table supporting the tallest vase of flowers she had ever seen. A reception room lay on either side of the hallway.
‘Where is she?’ Kim asked the officer.
‘Kitchen, Marm. The mother of the other child is here as well.’
Kim nodded and headed past the sweeping staircase. A woman met her halfway. The recognition took some time to register on Kim's behalf but was instantaneous on the face of the woman before her.
Karen Timmins bore little resemblance to Karen Holt.
The slashed jeans that had once melded to every available curve had been replaced by a stylish pair of slim-leg trousers. The low, tight tops that had barely contained her breasts had been replaced with a V-neck jumper that whispered at the body beneath instead of screaming it out loud.
The dyed blonde hair had been allowed to return to its natural chestnut and was cut stylishly around a face that was attractive but not striking.
There had been surgery. Not a lot but enough to significantly change her face. Kim guessed at a nose job. Karen had always hated her nose and there'd been a lot there to hate.
‘Kim, thank God. Thank you for coming. Thank you.’
Kim allowed her hand to be clutched for a whole three seconds before she took it back.
A second woman appeared beside Karen. The terror in her eyes gave way to hope.
Karen stepped aside. ‘Kim, this is Elizabeth, Amy's mum.’
Kim nodded to the woman whose eyes were blackened with smudged mascara. Her hair was a sleek bobbed helmet of auburn. She carried a few more pounds than Karen and was dressed in cream chinos and a cerise jumper.
‘And you are Charlie’s mum?’ Kim asked.
Karen nodded eagerly.
‘Have you found them?’ Elizabeth asked, breathlessly.
Kim shook her head as she ushered them back into the kitchen.
‘I'm here to collect the initial details for the …’
‘You're not going to help us find …’
‘No, Karen, a team is currently being assembled. I'm only here to take the initial details.’
Karen opened her mouth to argue but Kim held up her hand and offered a reassuring smile.
‘I can promise you that the very best officers will be assigned to work with you with far more experience in this kind of case. The sooner you give me some details, the quicker I can pass them along and get your children back home safely.’
Elizabeth nodded her understanding but Karen narrowed her eyes. Oh yes, that was a look she recognised.
And just as she had when they were teenagers, Kim ignored it.
‘You were sent messages?’ she asked.
They both thrust their phones towards her. She took Karen's first and read the cold, black words.
There is no need to rush. Charlotte will not be home today. This is not a hoax. I have your daughter.
Kim handed the phone back to Karen and took Elizabeth's.
Amy will not be home today. This is not a hoax. I have your daughter.
‘Okay, tell me exactly what happened,’ she said, handing it back.
The two women sat at the breakfast bar. Karen took a sip of coffee then spoke. ‘I dropped them off at the leisure centre this morning—’
‘What time?’
‘Ten fifteen. The class starts at ten thirty and ends at twelve fifteen. I'm always there to collect them at half past.’
Kim could hear the emotion in her voice as she fought back the tears. Elizabeth covered Karen's free hand and urged her to continue.
Karen swallowed. ‘Right on time, I left the house to pick them up. They always wait in the reception area until I get there. My car wouldn't start – and then I got the message.’
‘Do you have any CCTV on your house?’ Kim asked. She had to assume that the car trouble was deliberate and had been achieved by access to the property.
Karen shook her head. ‘Why would we?’
‘Don't touch the car again,’ Kim ordered. ‘Forensics might be able to lift something.’ It was possible but not probable. ‘The kidnappers knew your routine well.’
Elizabeth lifted her head. ‘More than one?’
Kim nodded. ‘I would think so. Your girls are nine years old. Not easy to handle together. A struggle would have been difficult to contain with one adult and two children. There would have been noise.’
Elizabeth made a small sound but Kim couldn't help that. Crying would not get their children back. If it would, she'd summon a few tears herself.
‘Have either of you noticed anything strange recently? Familiar faces or cars turning up; perhaps the feeling of being watched?’
Both women shook their heads.
‘Have your girls mentioned anything different, perhaps being approached by a stranger?’
‘No,’ they said together.
‘The girls' fathers?’
‘On their way back from golf. We managed to contact them just before you arrived.’
That answered all her questions. Clearly both fathers were in the picture so any kind of custody battle was unlikely. It also told her that the two families were very close.
‘Please be honest with me. Have you contacted anyone else, friends, relatives?’
They both shook their heads but Karen spoke. ‘The officer we spoke to told us not to until someone had been in touch.’
It had been good advice, and given because the snatch was confirmed. They were not missing. They’d been taken.
‘What should we do, Inspector?’ Elizabeth asked.
Kim knew that their natural instincts would prompt them to be searching, moving, walking, acting, doing. The girls had been gone for around an hour and a half. And it was going to get a whole lot worse than this.
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. We can now assume this is a planned kidnap by people who know what they're doing. They know your routines and have watched you closely. The girls will most likely have been lured away from the entrance of the leisure centre in one of three ways. The first is by a person they know. The second is by a person they perceive to be trustworthy and the third is with a promise.’
‘A promise?’ Karen asked.
Kim nodded. ‘Your girls are too old to be persuaded by sweets, so more likely a puppy or a kitten.’
‘Oh, Lord,’ Elizabeth breathed. ‘Amy has been begging me for a kitten for months.’
‘There are few kids that can resist the temptation,’ Kim offered. ‘That's why it works.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Listen, there's going to be a media blackout on this.’
At this point they didn't need to know why. The less they knew about the previous case the better.
Kim continued. ‘So, there'll be no search. There's no point. We're not going to find them in a manhunt. The crime has been planned and they've already made contact. Your girls are not in a field somewhere waiting to be found.’
‘But what do they want?’ Karen asked.
‘I'm sure they'll let you know but until they do you have to keep quiet. Not even family members are to be told. There are no exceptions. If the press get hold of this it will make a difference to the investigation. Hundreds of people scouring the area is not going to get your girls back.’
Kim could see the indecision on their faces and that would be someone else's fight soon but for now she had to urge them to remain silent. At least until she got back to the station and it became someone else’s problem.
‘It may be your natural reaction to want everyone you know on the lookout, just as you'd like to be out there searching yourselves, but it won't do any good.’ Kim stood. ‘The Officer in Charge will be here soon. You should take that time to make lists of people you might need to contact over the next few days to explain the absence of your children or yourselves.’
Karen looked stunned. ‘But I want … can't you—?’
Kim shook her head. ‘You need someone with more experience in abduction cases.’
‘But I want—’
Right on cue a child started crying from the next room. Elizabeth pushed her chair back. Kim followed, heading for the front door.
Karen grabbed at her forearm. ‘Please, Kim–’
‘Karen, I can't take the case. I don't have the experience. I'm sorry but I promise you that the assigned officer will do everything possible—’
‘Is this because you hated me back then?’
Kim was stunned.. . .
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