Deadly Cry: An absolutely gripping crime thriller packed with suspense (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thiller Book 13) Read online

  Deadly Cry

  An absolutely gripping crime thriller packed with suspense

  Angela Marsons

  Books by Angela Marsons

  Detective Kim Stone prequel

  FIRST BLOOD

  Detective Kim Stone series

  1. SILENT SCREAM

  2. EVIL GAMES

  3. LOST GIRLS

  4. PLAY DEAD

  5. BLOOD LINES

  6. DEAD SOULS

  7. BROKEN BONES

  8. DYING TRUTH

  9. FATAL PROMISE

  10. DEAD MEMORIES

  11. CHILD’S PLAY

  12. KILLING MIND

  13. DEADLY CRY

  Other Books

  DEAR MOTHER

  THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN

  Available in audio

  Detective Kim Stone prequel

  FIRST BLOOD (Available in the UK and the US)

  Detective Kim Stone series

  1. SILENT SCREAM (Available in the UK and the US)

  2. EVIL GAMES (Available in the UK and the US)

  3. LOST GIRLS (Available in the UK and the US)

  4. PLAY DEAD (Available in the UK and the US)

  5. BLOOD LINES (Available in the UK and the US)

  6. DEAD SOULS (Available in the UK and the US)

  7. BROKEN BONES (Available in the UK and the US)

  8. DYING TRUTH (Available in the UK and the US)

  9. FATAL PROMISE (Available in the UK and the US)

  10. DEAD MEMORIES (Available in the UK and the US)

  11. CHILD’S PLAY (Available in the UK and the US)

  12. KILLING MIND (Available in the UK and the US)

  Other Books

  DEAR MOTHER (Available in the UK and the US)

  THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN (Available in the UK and the US)

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Hear More from Angela

  Books by Angela Marsons

  A Letter from Angela

  FIRST BLOOD

  SILENT SCREAM

  EVIL GAMES

  LOST GIRLS

  PLAY DEAD

  BLOOD LINES

  DEAD SOULS

  BROKEN BONES

  DYING TRUTH

  FATAL PROMISE

  DEAD MEMORIES

  CHILD’S PLAY

  KILLING MIND

  DEAR MOTHER

  THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN

  Acknowledgments

  *

  This book is dedicated to Lynda Allen

  My sister and my friend.

  Prologue

  ‘Mummy, Mummy, look at this,’ I cry, holding out my arm. I am trying to hold back the tears, but one droplet escapes and rolls over my cheek. I am relieved I have caught her at the front door.

  ‘Not now, sweetie, I’m late for work,’ she replies, not even looking my way.

  ‘Please, Mummy, look, it hurts,’ I say, thrusting it at her. ‘There’s even a red mark, here, on my arm.’

  She puts down her handbag and grabs my arm roughly. Her face has hardened. She is annoyed with me. That hurts me too, but in a different way.

  ‘Where?’ she snaps, causing me to shrink back from her.

  ‘Th… there.’ I point.

  She looks more closely. ‘There’s nothing there. Stop being such a silly baby.’

  Now the tears break free and the sobbing starts. I want to wrap my arms around her legs and stop her from leaving. There is something there. The skin is still smarting from the fingers twisting my flesh.

  She gives me back my arm and with it a gentle shove away.

  ‘And don’t disturb Daddy with your silliness. He has an important conference call this morning.’

  She regards me for just a minute, as though weighing up whether to lean down and kiss me before she leaves. My heart hammers with hope.

  I wait.

  The urge passes and I see a dozen thoughts about the day ahead enter her mind. She smiles weakly, as though she knows that there is more she should do.

  She turns and leaves, closing the door with finality.

  I go back to my room with an empty feeling; it’s as if someone has scooped out my insides.

  It won’t be long until fresh marks appear. How many more times will I try to explain?

  Because she doesn’t listen.

  No one ever does.

  One

  ‘Oh, Bryant, make them turn it off,’ Kim moaned, covering her eyes with her hands. Just ten minutes she’d wanted. She’d told Bryant to pull up in front of the café so that he could buy her a m
uch-needed latte after their Diversity Awareness refresher at Brierley Hill.

  Treating people differently because of colour, age, race or gender was not something she needed a morning of death by PowerPoint presentation to understand. She had no bias towards or against anyone and was generally rude to everyone.

  ‘Bryant, I’m begging,’ she said to the detective sergeant, glancing back at the television. It seemed that wherever she went, there was no escaping the impending visit of the celebrity Z-lister, Tyra Brooks, famous for sleeping with a prominent, married footballer and then writing a kiss-and-tell book about it.

  Every local news programme or bulletin mentioned her book tour and signing at the imaginatively named The Book Store, in the shopping centre in Halesowen, at the end of the week.

  Even here, at a half-filled, back-street café in Brierley Hill, the small television was repeating the girl’s history, interspersed with clips of Superintendent Lena Wiley from West Mercia urging peace and order across the nine scheduled events in the Midlands.

  ‘New Age celeb, guv,’ Bryant said, trying to get the attention of the café owner, who had his back turned and was watching the news himself. ‘It’s all wags, shags and reality TV these days. I remember when you had to be skilled at something to be—’

  ‘Okay, let’s get out of here,’ she said, finishing her drink. She didn’t disagree with her colleague, but she wasn’t wearing the right shoes for a trip down memory lane.

  Bryant looked dolefully at the rest of his sandwich before following her out the door.

  ‘What the?…’ Kim said as she collided with a uniformed security guard from one of the stores. Another was running across the road, radio in hand.

  She knew many of the stores were members of a Retail Watch Scheme where they shared information and intelligence on local criminals. Sightings of known shoplifters and troublemakers were communicated between the small network so that each could be on the lookout for trouble in their individual stores.

  She turned to follow.

  ‘Guv…’

  ‘Police business, Bryant,’ she said, quickening her step.

  In her experience, store security would only leave their own premises if someone on the network had called for urgent assistance, normally for a shoplifter getting violent, some other kind of public order offence or something involving children.

  Kim followed the security officers into the Shop N Save store nestled between a bank and a Blue Cross charity shop. She navigated the long, narrow aisles filled with bargains and low-priced items, ranging from home furnishings to toys to food products.

  A row of tills was located right at the back of the store. She could hear no shouting or any other indication of a scuffle as she approached a small huddle of people.

  ‘Move aside,’ Kim said to the security guys as Bryant showed his identification.

  The bodies moved to reveal a little girl, aged four or five, clutching a small, grey bear that had been taken from a toy rack beside the tills.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Kim asked, moving to the centre of the crowd.

  ‘Can’t find her mummy,’ said the store assistant who was kneeling beside the chair on which the little girl was sitting.

  The child looked up and viewed her through red-rimmed, frightened eyes. Tear tracks stained her cheeks, but Kim still breathed a sigh of relief. Better to have the child than the parent.

  ‘How long?’ she asked. Normally parents and children were reunited in a matter of minutes.

  ‘Almost a quarter of an hour.’

  ‘Got a description?’ she asked.

  ‘Jeans and blue jacket,’ she answered as the child hugged the bear closer to her tear-stained cheeks. An occasional sob broke free from the small body.

  Another store assistant appeared with a bag of sweets.

  The child shook her head and tried to hide her face in the side of the bear. Kim stepped back and motioned for Bryant to do the same. Too many people crowding the little girl.

  ‘Jimmy’s gone to check the CCTV now,’ one of the shop assistants said, looking behind Kim.

  Her face appeared to relax. Kim turned to see two uniformed officers approaching as Bryant answered his phone.

  The male officer offered her a quizzical look: what was CID doing attending a lone-child incident?

  ‘Just passing,’ she explained as a second pair of officers turned up.

  Bryant ended his call.

  ‘Woody wants you back at the station now.’

  Kim realised that her boss rarely rang her personally any more to summon her back and rang her steadying colleague instead. Perhaps he’d realised that there was a certain fluidity to her interpretation of ‘right now’, whereas Bryant attached a higher degree of urgency to the request.

  She turned to the shop assistant closest to her. ‘Move some of these folks away. The poor kid must be—’

  ‘Guv…’ he urged, proving her point.

  She stepped away from the crowd of shop assistants, security officers and police. There were more than enough people to deal with a displaced parent.

  She nodded her agreement to her conscientious colleague and headed for the door.

  This was a minor incident that really had nothing to do with her at all.

  Two

  Kim stared back at DCI Woodward for a full minute, waiting for the punchline that would follow her boss’s opening statement.

  There was only silence behind his own unflinching gaze.

  ‘With all due respect, sir, are you having a fu… I mean, are you kidding me?’

  ‘No, Stone, I’m not kidding you. The Emergency Planning Team is meeting today, at four o’clock, and I need you to be there.’

  Kim knew the EPT group, or as she preferred to call it the INEPT group, who met in preparation of any forthcoming major event that could impact on the general public. She’d known them meet for proposed English Defence League demonstrations, discussion of raising the terror threat level and other major incidents, but meeting for the imminent visit of a bloody glamour model signing a few books told her they really did not have enough to do.

  ‘I understand as CID we don’t normally get involved, but there’s no one else available.’

  ‘Sir, my desk is full of—’

  ‘Nothing that can’t wait for an hour. And talking of desks, you need to start giving this one a bit of thought,’ he said, tapping the edge of his work space. ‘I’m not at retirement age quite yet, but the day will come…’

  ‘No offence, sir, but that desk fits you perfectly; I prefer my desk to be a bit more mobile while I’m out catching bad people doing bad things, not attending—’

  ‘And I think it’s time you started to learn how to play nice with people outside your immediate team.’

  Kim laughed out loud. ‘While I appreciate your faith in me, sir, I’m barely able to play nice with my own dog and he’s my best friend. Is there no way you can send Bryant to the INEPT meeting? He’s so much better with people than I am.’

  ‘That’s not exactly news, Stone, but it needs to be an inspector. My understanding is that the handover plans from West Mercia to us are in place and this meeting is to finalise details before a walk-through later in the week.’

  ‘It really needs this level of planning to get an ex-glamour model into the shop to?…’

  ‘She has her fair share of haters, Stone. Many see her as a homewrecker, and there were a couple of scuffles in Leamington Spa. No one wants to see anything happen on their watch. Once West Mercia hand her over to us, her safety is our problem.’

  As ever, Kim was stunned by the double standard. It was the footballer who had been unfaithful, but it was the woman being subjected to the vitriolic attacks. She wasn’t the one who had committed to monogamy.

  ‘If it has to be an inspector, we could temporarily promote Bryant for the rest of the day,’ she offered hopefully. ‘I’ll even call him boss if you want,’ she added desperately. She did not do well at these meetings.

&nb
sp; He shook his head as boredom started to shape his features.

  It was over.

  The battle had been fought and she’d lost.

  Three

  ‘Okay, guys, what’re we up to?’ Kim asked once she’d placed the canteen drinks on the spare desk. She was hoping they’d revive her team from the early afternoon slump they appeared to have fallen into.