Black Country – Present Day
Kim crouched behind the wheelie bin. After fifteen minutes in the same position the feeling was leaving her thighs.
She spoke down into her jacket. ‘Stace, anything on the warrant?’
‘Not yet, boss,’ she heard in her earpiece.
Kim growled. ‘I’m not gonna wait for ever, folks.’
From the corner of her eye she saw Bryant shake his head.
His body was hunched over an open bonnet, positioned directly opposite the target property.
Trust Bryant to be the voice of reason. His cautious nature dictated they do everything by the book and she agreed. To a point. But they all knew what was going on in that house. And it had to end today.
‘Want me to come closer, boss?’ Dawson asked eagerly into her ear.
She was poised to respond in the negative when his voice sounded in her ear again.
‘Boss, IC2 male approaching from the other end of the street.’ A brief pause. ‘Five foot seven, black trousers and grey T-shirt.’
Kim edged back even further. She was two properties away from the target house, wedged between a wheelie bin and a hydrangea bush, but she couldn’t risk being seen. Presently they held the element of surprise and she didn’t want that to change.
‘Any ID, Kev?’ she asked into her jacket. Was it someone they knew?
‘Negative.’
She closed her eyes and wished for the figure to pass. They didn’t need a third male in the property. Currently the numbers were on their side.
‘He’s entered, guv,’ Bryant said from across the road.
Damn it – that could mean only one thing. He was a customer.
She hit the microphone button. Where was that damn warrant? ‘Stace?’
‘Nothing yet, boss.’
She heard the greetings between the two men as the door of the target property opened.
Kim felt the blood surging around her body. Every muscle she could name ached to sprint for the front door, barge in, cuff the occupants, caution them and worry about the paperwork later.
‘Guv, just give it a minute,’ Bryant said from beneath the bonnet.
Only he would know exactly what she was thinking.
She keyed the radio without speaking to acknowledge his words.
If she entered the premises without a warrant, the case would probably never get to court.
‘Stace?’ she asked again.
‘Nothing, boss.’
Kim heard the desperation in her ear and knew Stacey was as eager to offer the right answer as she was to hear it.
‘Okay, guys, I’m going to plan B,’ she said into the microphone.
‘What’s plan B?’ Dawson asked in her ear.
She really had no idea.
‘Just play along,’ she said, straightening.
She escaped the clutches of the hydrangea bush and stamped life back into her lower limbs. She smoothed her hands over her black canvas jeans in case any flower sap had attached itself to her clothes.
She strode purposefully to the front of the house and along the pavement, as though she hadn’t just crept out from a neighbouring garden. As she walked she pushed the wire from her earpiece into her hair.
Yes, the warrant was imminent but that man was most likely a customer and that was a thought she couldn’t stomach.
She positioned herself slightly turned so that her earpiece faced the road.
She knocked on the door and pasted a smile on her lips. Bryant hissed into the earpiece, which was still audible in her hair.
‘Guv, what the hell…?’
She raised her finger to her lips to signal silence as she heard steps from inside heading down the hall.
The door was opened by Ashraf Nadir.
Kim kept her face neutral as though they had not been watching his every move for the last six weeks.
His face instantly creased into a frown.
‘Hello there, I wonder if you could help me? We’ve broken down over there,’ she said, nodding towards Bryant. ‘My husband thinks it’s really complicated, but I think it might just be the battery.’
He glanced over her shoulder and Kim glanced over his. The other two occupants were talking in the kitchen. A wad of notes was passed between them.
Ashraf began to shake his head.
‘No… I’m sorry…’ The voice was thick with accent. Ashraf Nadir had arrived from Iraq only six months earlier.
‘Do you have any jump leads we could try?’
Again he shook his head. He stepped back, and Kim saw the front door moving towards her.
‘Sir, are you sure…?’
The door continued to close.
‘Got it, boss,’ Stacey screamed into her ear.
Kim thrust her right foot into the opening and launched her weight against the door. She felt a rush of air as Bryant materialised.
‘Ashraf Nadir, this is the police, and we have a warrant to search…’
The front door slackened to her touch. She pushed it open and saw Ashraf charging through the house, knocking over the other two occupants like bowling pins.
She tore after him, following out the back door.
The rear garden was dense with overgrown shrubs. An old sofa protruded from the vegetation against a broken-down fence to her right. Ashraf tore forwards, heading through the garden. Kim hurtled after him pushing aside the tall grass trying to entangle her ankles.
Ashraf paused for a split second and frantically looked around.
His eyes rested on a garden shed partly obscured by a wild ivy plant.
He leapt onto a bucket and scrabbled with his feet for traction against the brick. Kim lunged forwards from the ground and missed his foot by a couple of inches.
‘Damn it,’ she growled, tracing his route, step for step.
As she hauled herself onto the top of the shed Ashraf was easing himself down the other side.
Kim sensed she had lost ground and he sensed it too. A smile began to form on his thin lips as his face disappeared from view.
His look of triumph lit a fuse that led all the way to her determination.
She took a second to assess the garden into which he’d jumped and saw what he had not.
The property was open and tidy with a manicured lawn and a paved patio area. The right-hand side was adjoined to the next property.
The left was secured with a fence that rose seven feet high topped off by cat spikes. But in front of the fence stood two things that were far more interesting.
Kim sat on the shed and dangled her feet over the edge. And waited.
Two German shepherds rounded the building and Ashraf stopped dead.
Kim heard Bryant’s voice in her earpiece.
‘Guv… where are you?’
‘Take a look out back,’ she responded into the microphone.
‘Umm… guv, you’re sitting on the shed.’
Bryant’s powers of observation never ceased to amaze her.
Knowing that her number-one suspect was not going anywhere, her thoughts turned immediately to the reason for the Sunday-morning raid.
‘Have you got him?’ she asked.
‘Affirmative,’ he answered.
Kim rested her hands either side of her thighs and watched as the tan and black dogs advanced towards Ashraf, reclaiming their territory.
He began to back away from the animals, his body desperate to flee, his mind searching for other possible escape routes.
‘Need any help there, guv?’ Bryant crackled in her ear.
‘Nah, I’ll be back in a minute.’
Ashraf took another two steps backwards and turned her way.
She gave him a little wave.
The German shepherds matched his two strides.
Although moving slowly their intention showed in the focus of their eyes and the tension in their necks.
Ashraf took one more look at the dogs and decided he’d be better taking his chances with Kim.
He turned and bolted towards her. His sudden movement unleashed the pent-up aggression in the dogs, who charged after him, barking. Kim lowered her right hand and pulled him to safety.
The dogs leapt and barked, missing his heels by an inch.
The man she had grabbed bore no resemblance to the man who had opened the front door.
She could feel the trembling of his whole body through the conduit of his thin wrist.
His forehead was mottled with beads of sweat. His breathing was hard and laboured.
Kim reached into her back pocket with her left hand, securing his right wrist before he had the opportunity to gather his nerve. She wasn’t chasing him again.
‘Ashraf Nadir, I am arresting you on suspicion of the kidnap and false imprisonment of Negib Hussain. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
She turned him around on top of the shed so he was facing the target property.
The whole six-foot height of Bryant stood with his arms folded and his head tipped.
‘Any time you’re finished, guv?’
She moved Ashraf closer towards the edge. She would happily have pushed him forwards, head first, but the code of conduct frowned upon gratuitous violence towards apprehended suspects.
She leaned on his shoulder and forced him to a sitting position.
‘Cautioned?’ Bryant asked, easing the male down to the ground.
She nodded. On top of a garden shed was not the strangest place she’d made an arrest but it was probably top five.
Bryant took hold of Ashraf’s cuffs and pushed him ahead.
‘What stopped him running?’
‘Two German shepherds.’
Bryant looked at her sideways. ‘Yeah, I’d probably have taken my chances with the dogs.’
Kim ignored him and entered the back door first.
The second target and the customer were cuffed and under the guard of Dawson and two uniforms.
She looked at Dawson, the question in her eyes.
‘Living room, boss.’
Kim nodded and took the next door off the hallway.
Stacey sat on the sofa a good foot and a half away from the thirteen-year-old boy clad only in underpants and a T-shirt beneath Bryant’s suit jacket, which dwarfed him and made him look like a toddler playing dress up.
His head was bowed, legs together, and he was sobbing quietly.
Kim glanced down at the hands that were strangling each other.
She covered the hands with her own.
‘Negib, you’re safe now. Do you understand?’
His flesh was cold and clammy.
Kim took one hand in each of her own to stop the trembling.
‘Negib, I need you to go to the hospital and then we’ll get your father…’
The head shot up and began to shake. The shame shone from his eyes and Kim thought her heart would break.
‘Negib, your father loves you very much. If he hadn’t been so insistent we wouldn’t be here now.’ She took a deep breath and forced him to look into her eyes. ‘It is not your fault. None of this is your fault and your father knows that.’
She could see the brave effort it took for the boy to hold back his tears. Despite the pain, the humiliation, the fear this child was feeling, he did not want to break down and cry.
Kim remembered another thirteen-year-old who had felt exactly the same way.
She reached across and touched his cheek gently. She uttered the words she had longed to hear back then.
‘Sweetie, it’s going to be okay, I promise.’
The words unleashed a torrent of tears accompanied by loud, heaving sobs. Kim leaned in and pulled him close.
She stared over the top of his head thinking, Go on, sweetheart, just let it out.
Jemima Lowe felt the palms close around her ankles.
With one sudden movement she was yanked from the tinny van. Her back landed on the floor followed by her head. The pain shot around her skull like a star bursting through the darkness. For a few seconds the shards of pain were all she could see.
Please, just let me go, she offered silently as her mouth was unable to move.
The muscles in her body had been severed from her brain. Her limbs no longer obeyed her. Her mind screamed messages but the rest of her body wasn’t listening. She could run a half marathon with ease. She could swim the Channel and back. She could ride a bike a triathlon distance, but right now she couldn’t even make a fist. She cursed her own body for letting her down and succumbing to the drug ravaging her system.
She felt herself being turned on the ground. The gravel bit into the small of her back where her top had hiked up.
Her body was being dragged along by the ankles. She had the sudden image of a caveman dragging a freshly killed carcass home for the family.
The texture beneath her changed. It was grass. Her head bounced up and down as her body was pulled along by invisible hands. The angle changed. She was being pulled up hill. Her head was thrown to the side. Her cheek hit against a small rock.
She sent an instruction to her hands to grab on to the ground. She knew her only chance was to slow this down. It was her only way to live.
Her thumb and forefinger almost grabbed at a small clutch of grass but then slid away as the digits refused to hang on. She knew the drugs were deep in her system. The tears of frustration stung at her eyes. She knew she was about to die – but also knew she couldn’t stop it.
A laboured sigh from her captor punctured the silence as the incline grew steep and the angle of her body changed.
Please, just let me go, she prayed again. Her thoughts had sharpened, but her muscles refused to catch up.
Her body came to a halt. It was level, her legs in line with her back.
‘You want me to stop, don’t you, Jemima?’
There was the voice. The only voice she’d heard for twenty-four hours.
It chilled her to the bone.
‘I wanted you to stop, Jemima. But you wouldn’t.’
Jemima had already tried to explain, and yet she had been unable to find the right words. How could she ever explain what had happened that day? In her mind the truth had sounded so inadequate and once out of her mouth it had sounded much worse.
‘One of you put a sock in my mouth so I couldn’t scream for help.’
She wanted to apologise. Say sorry for what she had done. She had spent most of her adult life running away from the memory of that day. But it had never worked. The shame of it had always been with her.
Please, just let me explain, her mind screamed through the numbness. If she could just have a minute to think she was sure she could say the right thing.
She managed to open her mouth. But before she could summon the strength to speak something was forced in through her lips. Her tongue recoiled from the thick dry substance.
‘All I hear when I go to sleep is the sound of your laughter.’
Another handful of dirt entered her mouth. She could feel it travelling down and clogging her airway. A scream was building in her throat, but it couldn’t find a way out.
‘I will never hear your laughter again.’
Another handful was forced in and then a palm clamped over her face. Her cheeks bulged as the dirt tried to rearrange itself to make room. The only exit it had was to try to escape down her throat.
She could feel the breath leaving her body.
She tried to writhe away from the hand covering her mouth. In her mind the movement was strong and forceful. It emerged as a pathetic wriggle.
‘And then you held me down, didn’t you, Jemima?’
Is this what it had felt like? she wondered, as her body fought for breath.
She could feel the life draining out of her and into the ground. Her mind screamed the protest that her body could not.
For a second the hand moved and Jemima had a fleeting hope that it was over.
Something hit her in the middle of her face. She heard the sound of cracking bone a second before the pain exploded around her head. Blood spurted from her nose and cascaded over her lips.
The agony travelled to her mouth, causing her to cry out even though she could make no sound. The action sent more dirt travelling down her throat.
Her gag reflex tried to eject it, and she began to choke. She tried to swallow the arid ground, but it was sticking to the sides of her throat like freshly poured tar.
Tears forced themselves from her eyes as she tried to find a breath somewhere in her body.
A second blow landed on her cheek.
Her mind screamed out with the agony.
She writhed against the ground. Her cries of terror were held in the dirt.
A third blow landed on her mouth. Teeth burst away from her gums.
Every inch of her had succumbed to the pain as the calm voice reached her once more.
‘I will no longer see your face in my dreams.’
She had one last thought before the darkness claimed her.
Please, just let me die.
Kim knocked once before entering the domain of her boss, Detective Chief Inspector Woodward, who resided in a corner office on the third floor of Halesowen Police Station.
The landline was at his ear. Mild annoyance shaped his features before he ended the call abruptly.
‘Didn’t feel like waiting for the word “enter”?’ he growled.
‘Er… you asked to see me, sir,’ she said. It’s not like he didn’t know she was coming.
He checked his watch. ‘Almost an hour ago.’
‘Really, that long?’
She stood behind the chair that faced him.
He sat back and offered her an expression that her best guess said was a smile. But she wouldn’t bet her house on it.
‘Congratulations on a positive result yesterday with the Ashraf Nadir case. Had you not been so insistent that there were more people involved in that prostitution ring we would never have found the second property.’
Kim accepted the compliment. Woody had managed to condense her dogged effort into one single sentence. If she recalled correctly it had taken four separate requests to investigate Ashraf Nadir after she’d spotted him talking with a male suspected of involvement in the publicised Birmingham case. She hadn’t exactly camped outside his office but she’d been close to buying a tent.
She took a step back to leave.
‘Not quite yet, Stone. I have a couple of questions.’
Oh, if only she’d been called to his office just for a pat on the back. Too late she realised the completed statements from her team on the Nadir raid were neatly piled on his desk.
He popped the reading glasses onto his nose and lifted the first page of the top statement, which he really did not need to do. Kim knew that any questions he wanted to ask her were already in his head.
‘I’d like you to clarify the time difference between receipt of the warrant and entry to the Nadir property.’
‘Marginal, sir,’ she answered honestly.
‘Minutes or seconds?’ he asked.
‘Seconds.’
‘Double figures or single?’ he asked, removing his glasses and staring at her, hard.
‘Single.’
He placed the glasses on the desk. ‘Stone, was the warrant in place before you entered the property?’
She didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes, it was.’ She didn’t add the word ‘just’. She also decided it was best not to add that she’d been about to go in anyway. She tended to get in enough trouble for her impetuous acts of judgement. Adding in near misses was a whole new story.
He eyed her suspiciously for a few seconds before tapping the statements with his fingers.
‘Other than that, watertight,’ he said.
She nodded her understanding and again took a step backwards towards the door.
‘So much so, I think you and your team have earned yourselves a little treat.’
She narrowed her gaze and opened her ears. Now she was suspicious.
‘Do you remember being briefed about that facility in Wall Heath?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘The one carrying out forensic research? Of course.’
Everyone down as far as detective-inspector level had been briefed when the place had originally started work. It was called Westerley and focussed on studying the human body after death.
Kim wondered if the mid-July heat was getting to her boss. Outwardly the twenty-three-degree heat had only prompted him to loosen his shirt cuffs but maybe he was melting on the inside.
Completing cases was not like bowling. Solving one didn’t knock the other ones down. There were many more cases spread across the desks of her team, and Woody knew it.
‘Sir, any chance of a rain check?’ she asked. ‘My team has six new cases that have landed over the weekend.’
Again, that almost-smile appeared on his face.
‘No, Stone. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity for the last few weeks but delayed it while the Nadir case was live. But you will take the trip today.’
She had learned to accept when her boss would not be moved, and she now chose her battles more wisely. Still she had to give it one last try.
‘Is there any particular reason why now is…?’
‘West Mercia have solved two cold cases in the last month based on the research being carried out at Westerley,’ he said, with a look that left her in no doubt that the discussion was over.
They were going.
Her team piled into her ten-year-old Golf, which was only with her today after dropping Barney at the groomers. Normally her Kawasaki Ninja provided all the space she needed.
Bryant folded his six-foot height into the front while Stacey and Dawson shuffled in the back.
‘Buckle up, kiddies,’ Bryant said over his shoulder.
‘Bloody hell, Kev. Move over a bit, will yer?’
‘Christ, Stace, you’ve got loads of room.’
Kim drove the car out of the car park as Dawson and Stacey continued to bicker in the back.
‘Hey, you two…’ Bryant said. Thankfully he was going to restore some order before she had to. ‘Hope you both went to the toilet before you got in the car.’
Dawson groaned and Stacey stifled a chuckle.
‘Hey, Bryant,’ Dawson said, leaning forwards. ‘Did you bring us all a packed—’
‘One more bloody word,’ Kim snapped, ‘and you’ll all be walking. This isn’t a school trip to the zoo.’
At least in the office she could retreat to The Bowl, a term used for her tiny office in the corner of the CID squad room. In her small car there was really nowhere to go.
Silence descended like a curtain.
Eventually Bryant broke the peace.
‘Guv?’
‘What?’
‘Are we there yet?’
‘Bryant, I swear—’
‘Sorry, what I meant to ask is where exactly are we going?’
‘Just on the outskirts of Wall Heath.’
The facility was right on the border where the West Midlands met the Staffordshire police force.
Wall Heath was primarily a residential area located on the edge of the West Midlands conurbation bordering Staffordshire to the west. It was at the very edge of Kim’s safety zone before the roads narrowed, traffic lights disappeared and roadkill was waiting around every corner.
‘That’s Holbeche House,’ Bryant said as she passed what looked like a stately home. ‘It’s famous for being where the flight of the Gunpowder Plotters ended. The mansion was originally built around 1600 but is now a private nursing home.’
‘Splendid,’ Kim offered. ‘Apparently we’re looking for a place called Westerley Farm,’ she said, glancing to her left.
‘Not signposted as a site of rotting corpses then, boss?’ Stacey asked.
‘Funded research?’ Dawson asked.
Kim was relieved that they had returned to grown-up questions.
‘Yes but not exclusively,’ she answered. ‘The programme is funded by a mixture of universities and police forces.’
‘Unlikely to be featured on the annual “look how we spent your money” leaflets,’ Stacey acknowledged.
Kim suspected not. It was definitely on the ‘not for public consumption’ list.
‘And you just passed it on the right,’ Bryant said, looking behind.
The lane was a one-track road. She drove along for almost a quarter mile before reaching a driveway she could use to reverse.
She drove back down the lane and slowed as she saw the break in the seven-foot-high hedgerow. A simple wooden sign with the name burned into it hung from a gate that offered a one-foot gap either side of the car width.
Bryant jumped out and unlatched the gate, waving her through. He closed the gate behind.
‘No lock?’ Kim asked, frowning.
The road narrowed further and became two strips of dirt with a central line of grass and weeds. The hedgerow grew higher and began to impose itself around them. Kim was reminded of taking the car through the car wash.
The track ended at a second wooden gate but, unlike the first, this one rose to a height of eight feet and was made of solid wood. The gate wore a hat of black, wrought-iron spikes. This gate was locked. She was guessing they’d reached the business end of the property.
Kim lowered the window and spoke into the speakerphone on her right.
‘DI Stone, West Midlands Police.’
There was no reply but the solid gate began to move along a single runner. Halfway across it juddered and then continued. Kim drove the Golf through as soon as the gap was wide enough. Although the thought of viewing the facility held some interest for her, real police work was stacking up on her desk. Her mind was already apportioning the one armed robbery, two sexual assaults and a vicious ABH to her team.
Kim brought the car to a halt beside a light grey prefabricated structure that was probably the length of two eight-berth caravans. Two red doors punctuated the row of perfectly square windows.
A collection of cars and pickup trucks were parked beside a double Portaloo.
The vehicles were all squeezed into a small gravel patch. Kim could see that some effort had been made to provide a line of gravel from the makeshift car park to the Portakabin, but the majority of the stones appeared to have been trodden into the ground.
Kim was forced to park the car on the dirt behind a red pickup truck. Bryant looked at the vehicle before a slight frown . . .
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