EVIL GAMES
A GRIPPING, HEART-STOPPING THRILLER
ANGELA MARSONS
Published by Bookouture - an imprint of StoryFire Ltd.
23 Sussex Road, Ickenham, UB10 8PN, United Kingdom
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www.bookouture.com
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Copyright © Angela Marsons 2015
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Angela Marsons has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work.
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-909490-95-6
Created with Vellum
This book is dedicated to my nan, Winifred Walford. My best friend and with whom no time would ever have been enough.
ONE
Black Country – March 2015
Three minutes to go.
Dawn raids didn’t come bigger than this. The case had taken months to build. And now Kim Stone and her team were ready. The social workers were positioned across the road and would be given a signal to enter. Two little girls would not be sleeping here tonight.
Two minutes to go.
She keyed the radio. ‘Everyone in position?’
‘Awaiting your command, Guv,’ replied Hawkins. His team, parked two streets away, was poised to secure the rear of the property.
‘Good to go, Guv,’ said Hammond from the car behind. He had possession of the ‘big key’ that would gain a fast and deafening entrance.
One minute to go.
Kim’s hand rested above the door handle. Her muscles tensed, an adrenaline rush borne of impending danger; her body making the choice between fight or flight. As if flight had ever been an option.
She turned to look at Bryant, her partner, who had the most important thing: the warrant.
‘Bryant, you ready?’
He nodded.
Kim watched the second hand hit twelve. ‘Go, go, go,’ she called over the radio.
Eight pairs of boots thundered on the pavement and converged at the front door. Kim got there first. She stood aside as Hammond swung the enforcer at the door. The cheap wooden frame collapsed against three tonnes of kinetic energy.
As per the briefing, Bryant and a constable ran straight up the stairs towards the master bedroom to serve the warrant.
‘Brown, Griff, take the lounge and kitchen. Strip the place bare if you need to. Dawson, Rudge, Hammond, you’re with me.’
Immediately the house was filled with the sound of cupboard doors being swung open and drawers crashing shut.
Floorboards above her creaked and a woman wailed hysterically. Kim ignored it and gave the signal for the two social workers to enter the property.
She stood before the cellar door. A padlock secured the handle.
‘Hammond, bolt cutters,’ she called.
The officer materialised beside her and expertly snapped the metal.
Dawson stepped ahead of her, feeling along the wall for a switch.
A funnel of light from the hallway lit the stone steps. Dawson carried on down and powered up his torch, lighting the walkway beneath her feet. The smell of stale smoke and damp permeated the air.
Hammond headed over to the corner which held a spotlamp. He switched it on. The beam was aimed at the square gym mat that dominated the middle of the room. A tripod stood just beyond.
In the opposite corner was a wardrobe. Kim opened it to find a number of outfits including a school uniform and bathing costumes. On the floor of the wardrobe were toys: a rubber ring, beach ball, dolls.
Kim fought back the nausea.
‘Rudge, take photos,’ she instructed.
Hammond knocked on each of the walls, checking for any secret spaces.
In the furthest corner, in an alcove, sat a desk with a computer. Above it were three shelves. The top one was filled with magazines. The thin spines offered no clue to their content but Kim knew what they were. The middle shelf held a selection of digital cameras, mini discs and cleaning equipment. On the lowest shelf, she counted seventeen DVDs.
Dawson took the first one labelled Daisy Goes Swimming and put it into the disc drive. The high-powered machine quickly sprang into life.
Daisy, the eight-year-old, appeared on the screen in a yellow bathing costume. The rubber ring encircled her tiny waist. Her thin arms hugged her upper body but did nothing to stop the trembling.
Emotion gripped Kim’s throat. She wanted to tear her eyes away, but couldn’t. She pretended to herself that she could prevent what was about to happen – but of course she couldn’t, because it already had.
‘Wh— what now, Daddy?’ Daisy’s tremulous voice asked.
All activity stopped. The cellar stood still. Not a sound came from four hardened officers paralysed by the little girl’s voice.
‘We’re just going to play a little game, sweetheart,’ Daddy said, coming into camera view.
Kim swallowed and broke the spell. ‘Turn it off, Dawson,’ she whispered. They all knew what happened next.
‘Bastard,’ Dawson said. His fingers shook as he replaced the disc.
Hammond stared into the corner and Rudge slowly cleaned his camera lens.
Kim pulled herself together. ‘Guys, we are gonna make this piece of shit pay for what he’s done. I promise you that.’
Dawson took out the paperwork to itemise every piece of evidence. He had a long night ahead.
Kim heard a commotion upstairs. A female screamed hysterically.
‘Guv, can you come up here?’ Griff called.
Kim took one last look around. ‘Rip the place apart, guys.’
She met the officer at the top of the cellar steps. ‘What?’
‘Wife is demanding some answers.’
Kim strode to the front door, where a woman in her mid-forties stood clutching a dressing gown to her gaunt frame. Social workers placed her two shivering daughters into a Fiat Panda.
Sensing Kim behind her, Wendy Dunn turned. Her eyes were red against a colourless face. ‘Where are they taking my children?’
Kim controlled the urge to knock her out. ‘Away from your sick, perverted husband.’
The wife clutched the garment at her throat. Her head shook from side to side. ‘I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t know. I want my children. I didn’t know.’
Kim tipped her head. ‘Really? The wife tends to disbelieve it until she’s shown proof. You haven’t seen any proof yet, have you, Mrs Dunn?’
Her eyes darted everywhere but back at Kim. ‘I swear to you, I didn’t know.’
Kim leaned forward, the image of Daisy fresh in her mind. ‘You’re a lying bitch. You knew. You’re their mother and you allowed them to be damaged forever. I hope you never know a moment’s peace for the rest of your miserable damn life.’
Bryant appeared beside her. ‘Guv … ’
Kim dragged her gaze away from the trembling woman and turned round.
She looked over Bryant’s shoulder, straight into the eyes of the man responsible for ensuring that two young girls would never view the world as they should. Everything else in the house faded away and for a few seconds it was just the two of them.
She stared hard, noting the flaccid, excess skin that hung from his jaws like melting wax. His breathing was fast and laboured
, his forty-stone body exhausted by any type of movement.
‘You can’t … fucking … come in here … and just do what … the hell you want.’
She walked towards him. Her entire being recoiled at closing the space between them. ‘I’ve got a warrant that says I can.’
He shook his head. ‘Get out of … my house … before I call my … solicitor.’
She removed the handcuffs from her back pocket. ‘Leonard Dunn, I am arresting you on suspicion of assault of a child under thirteen by penetration, sexual assault of a child under thirteen and causing a child under thirteen to engage in sexual activity.’
Her eyes bored into his. She saw only panic.
She opened the handcuffs as Bryant grabbed Dunn’s forearms in preparation.
‘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 closed the handcuffs, taking care not to touch the hairy, white flesh. She threw his arms away from her and looked at her partner.
‘Bryant, get this foul, sick bastard out of my sight before I do something that we’ll both regret.’
TWO
Kim smelled the aftershave before the wearer came into view.
‘Piss off, Bryant, I’m not home.’
His six-foot frame bent under the half-raised garage shutter door.
She muted her iPod, silencing the silvery notes of Vivaldi’s Winter Concerto.
Snatching up a stray rag, she wiped her hands, and using every inch of her five-foot-nine height, she faced him squarely. Her right hand instinctively ran through her short shock of black hair. Bryant knew that was her pre-battle habit. She placed the errant hand on her hip.
‘What do you want?’
He carefully stepped around the explosion of motorcycle parts that littered the garage floor.
‘Jesus, what does this want to be when it grows up?’
Kim followed his gaze around the space. To him it looked like a small corner of a scrapyard. To her it was forgotten treasure. It had taken almost a year to track down every part to build this motorbike and she couldn’t wait.
‘It’s a 1954 BSA Goldstar.’
His right eyebrow lifted. ‘I’m gonna take your word on that one.’
She met his gaze and waited. This wasn’t the reason for his visit and they both knew it.
‘You weren’t there last night,’ he said, retrieving the exhaust manifold from the floor.
‘Well deduced, Sherlock. You should consider becoming a detective.’
He smiled and then sobered. ‘It was a celebration, Guv.’
She narrowed her gaze. Here, in her home, she was not Detective Inspector and he was not Detective Sergeant. She was Kim and he was Bryant; her work partner and the closest thing to a friend she had.
‘Yeah, whatever. Where were you?’ His voice softened. It wasn’t the accusation she’d been expecting.
She took the exhaust from him and placed it onto the workbench. ‘It wasn’t a celebration for me.’
‘But we got him, Kim.’
And now he was talking to her as a friend.
‘Yes, but we didn’t get her.’
She reached for the pliers. Some idiot had secured the manifold to the housing with a screw a quarter-inch too big.
‘Not enough evidence to charge her. She claims she knew nothing about it and CPS can’t find otherwise.’
‘Then they should get their heads out from their arses and look harder.’
She clipped the pliers around the end of the bolt and began to turn gently.
‘We did our best, Kim.’
‘It’s not enough, Bryant. That woman is their mother. She gave birth to those two little girls and then allowed them to be used in the worst possible way by their own father. Those kids will never lead a normal life.’
‘Because of him, Kim.’
Her eyes bored into his. ‘He’s a sick bastard. What’s her excuse?’
He shrugged. ‘She insists she didn’t know, that there were no signs.’
Kim looked away. ‘There are always signs.’
She turned the pliers gently, trying to tease the bolt free without causing any damage to the manifold.
‘We can’t shake her. She’s sticking to it.’
‘You’re telling me she never wondered why the door to the cellar was locked, or that there wasn’t one time, just one, that she came home early and felt something wasn’t quite right?’
‘We can’t prove it, though. We all did our best.’
‘Well it wasn’t good enough, Bryant. Not even close. She was their mother. She should have protected them.’
She applied extra force and turned the pliers anti-clockwise.
The fixing collapsed into the manifold.
She threw the pliers against the wall. ‘Damn, it took almost four months to track down that bloody exhaust.’
Bryant shook his head. ‘Not the first set of nuts you’ve broken is it, Kim?’
Despite her anger, a smile tugged at her lips.
‘And I’m sure it won’t be the last.’ She shook her head. ‘Pass me those pliers back, will you?’
‘A please would be nice. Didn’t your parents teach you any manners, young lady?’
Kim said nothing. She’d learned plenty from all seven sets of foster parents and not much of it had been good.
‘The team appreciated the tab you left behind the bar, though.’
She nodded and sighed. Her team deserved the celebration. They had worked hard to build the case. Leonard Dunn would not see the outside world for a very long time.
‘If you’re staying, make yourself useful and pour the coffee … please.’
He shook his head, walking through the door that led into the kitchen. ‘Is there a pot on?’
Kim didn’t bother answering. If she was home there was a pot on.
As he fussed around the kitchen, Kim was again struck by the fact that there was no animosity from him that she had risen through the ranks at a much faster pace than he had. At forty-six, Bryant had no problem with taking instruction from a woman who was twelve years his junior.
Bryant handed her a mug and leaned back against the bench. ‘I see you’ve been cooking again.’
‘Did you try one?’
He guffawed. ‘Nah, it’s okay. I wanna live, and I don’t eat anything I can’t put a name to. They look like Afghan landmines.’
‘They’re biscuits.’
He shook his head. ‘Why do you put yourself through it?’
‘Because I’m crap at it.’
‘Oh yeah, of course. Got distracted again, did you? Saw a bit of chrome that needed polishing or a screw that needed …’
‘Have you really got nothing better to do on a Saturday morning than this?’
He shook his head. ‘Nope, the ladies in my life are having their nails done. So, no, I really don’t have anything better to do than bug the hell out of you.’
‘Okay then, but can I ask you a personal question?’
‘Look, I’m happily married and you’re my boss, so the answer is no.’
Kim groaned. ‘Good to know. But more importantly, why can’t you find the backbone to tell your missus you don’t want to smell like the dressing room of a boy band?’
He shook his head and looked to the ground. ‘I can’t. I haven’t spoken to her for three weeks.’
Kim turned, alarmed. ‘Why not?’
He lifted his head and grinned. ‘’Cos I don’t like to interrupt.’
Kim shook her head and checked her watch. ‘Okay, finish your coffee and naff off.’
He drained his mug. ‘Loving your subtlety, Kim,’ he said, heading towards the garage door. He turned. His expression asked her if she was okay.
She grunted in response.
As his car pulled away, Kim sighed deeply. She had to let the case go. The fact that Wendy Dunn had allowed her children to be sex
ually abused made her jaws ache. The knowledge that those two little girls would be returned to their mother sickened her. That they would again be in the care of the one person who was supposed to protect them would haunt her.
Kim threw the used rag onto the bench and lowered the roller shutter door. She had family to visit.
THREE
Kim placed the white roses in front of the gravestone that bore her twin brother’s name. The tip of the tallest petal fell just below the dates that marked the duration of his life. Six short years.
The flower shop had been aglow with buckets of daffodils; the flower synonymous with Mother’s Day. Kim hated daffodils, hated Mother’s Day, but above all, she hated her mother. What flower did one buy for an evil, murdering bitch?
She stood upright and gazed down at the freshly mown grass. It was hard not to visualise the frail, emaciated body that had been ripped from her arms twenty-eight years earlier.
She ached to recall a memory of his sweet, trusting face, full of innocent joy and laughter; of childhood. But she could not.
No matter how many years passed, the rage never left her. That his short life had been filled with such sadness, such fear, haunted her every day.
Kim unclenched her right fist and stroked the cold marble as though she was smoothing his short black hair, so like her own. She desperately wanted to tell him she was sorry. Sorry that she couldn’t protect him and so sorry that she couldn’t keep him alive.
‘Mikey, I love you and miss you every day.’ She kissed her fingers and transferred the kiss to the stone. ‘Sleep tight, my little angel.’
With one last look she turned and headed away.
The Kawasaki Ninja waited for her outside the cemetery gates. Some days the motorbike was 600cc of pure power that transported her from place to place. Today it would be her salvation.
She put on her helmet and pulled away from the curb. Today she needed to escape.
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She rode the bike through Old Hill and Cradley Heath, Black Country towns that had once thrived with Saturday shoppers hopping from the stores to the market and then the cafe for a weekly catch-up. But now the brand names had moved to out-of-town retail parks, taking the shoppers and the lively buzz with them.