Dead Souls (D.I. Kim Stone #6)
Angela Marsons
PROLOGUE
Justin looked down at the blade as it hovered above his wrist. The knife was his mother’s; the trembling was his.
For a second he was overcome by the practicality of the task. Had he chosen the right knife for the job? There were so many of them. Knives in the cutlery drawer. Knives sticking out of a wooden block. A set of sterling silver knives left to his mother that lived in their own decorative box.
This knife was not his first choice. Initially he had reached for the biggest, baddest knife in the drawer. Its edge serrated. A row of sharp teeth like a mountain range.
The handle had felt good in his grip but the thought of those teeth ripping across his skin had made him wince. Ironic, that he was ending his life, yet worried about the pain involved.
He had put it back and reached for another. A long sleek number with a thicker, meatier handle. He’d seen his mother slice the Sunday roast with it many times.
A pang of sadness, mixed with regret, coursed through him.
He remembered sitting down every Sunday, beside his little sister, eagerly awaiting the most anticipated meal of the week. His mother would place each dinner plate, carefully, ceremoniously. Her face tinged with pride. He swallowed as he realised that she would never again look that way when thinking about him.
The knife faltered as he wondered if there was any way back to those days; his early teenage years when belonging within his family had been enough. The days out, the seaside holidays, the takeaway and film nights.
He swallowed deeply.
He wasn’t that boy any more. Had not been for years. The rage that had seeded within him had been fanned to a roaring inferno.
He knew what he had to do.
His mother’s face planted itself in his mind. The pain he felt was almost physical.
He cried out as he pulled the blade across his wrist.
The action left a scratch that criss-crossed some of the other poor attempts he’d already made. This effort was rewarded with a small bubble of blood at one end of the cotton-thin line. It was progress.
Her face remained in his mind. It was filled with understanding and forgiveness. The way she had looked when he had earned a detention for punching a boy in the school playground. Or the time he had taken another kid’s bike and damaged the front wheel. These were mistakes and he had been forgiven.
This would not be one of those times.
Never before in his eighteen years had he wished to turn back the clock. In the last two days he had wished it on the hour, every hour. The regret was not for himself. He would never marry. He would never bring a girlfriend home to meet his mum. He would never have children. But his regret was for his mother. He took with him her only hope of a grandchild.
In his mind the face of his mother changed and looked puzzled, confused, almost questioning.
The pain of her pain ripped through his heart.
She would question herself. She would wonder what she’d done wrong. If it was her fault.
Tears stung his eyes at the thought.
‘This is all wrong,’ he whispered, as he began to shake his head.
He couldn’t bear the thought of his mother blaming herself. It wasn’t her fault. None of this was her fault. It was his own.
His hand let go of the knife and reached into the top drawer of his bedside cabinet and took out a notepad and pen.
He knew there was no other way for him. Had known it for two days. But his mother did not have to live the rest of her life with guilt due to his choices. He would never forgive himself for what he’d done and, try as she might, she would never forgive him either.
He paused as he remembered the helpless, terrified face that had looked up at him, confused, searching for the reason; the motivation for his actions. It was a question he had suddenly been unable to answer, and it sickened him to his core. Those eyes, oh God, those eyes, full of fear, found the shame in his heart. It was only then he’d realised exactly what he’d become. The blackness of his soul had taken away his breath. He had turned into a monster.
It would not end with him. In truth, it was only just beginning. Death and hatred were coming, and he was too cowardly to stop them.
He placed the note to his mother on top of the pillow and reached once more for the knife.
His grip was firm and his hand was steady as he focussed on the vein in his wrist.
He slashed at the skin with the blade.
This time, he meant it.
ONE
‘Bryant, take this left,’ Kim cried, as she heard sirens in the distance.
The brakes screeched as he did a Clarkson around the bend onto a trading estate.
‘I’m pretty sure we were on our way home,’ he grumbled.
Kim ignored her colleague as she swept her gaze left, forward, right and back again, her eyes peeled for any movement between the darkened buildings.
‘Guv, you do know there are other officers on the West Mid—’
‘We were less than a mile away from an armed robbery with injury and all you can think about is your pie and mash?’ she snapped. It was his own fault for keeping his radio on.
‘Fair enough,’ he conceded. An evening meal paled against the vision of an innocent male bleeding profusely from a stab wound to the stomach.
‘I’m willing to bet he’s on here somewhere,’ she said, narrowing her eyes against the darkness.
She already suspected from the description that they were searching for Paul Chater, a nineteen-year-old prolific shoplifter she’d been hauling into the station since he was eleven.
The lad was banned from every shopping centre and high street shop that were members of an intel-based partnership scheme, and his photo had been passed around more than a reality star’s sex tape.
‘Why would he come on to here?’ Bryant asked.
‘Because it’s like a small town,’ she answered. ‘This place has over two hundred units and three miles of road.’
They were less than a quarter of a mile from the shop, and the kid was still riding a crappy old moped with a dodgy exhaust muffler. He would want to be off the main roads as quickly as possible.
‘We could both be driving around here for an hour and not meet,’ she said.
‘So, he probably knows we’re gonna look here?’ Bryant said.
‘Not in an Astra Estate,’ she answered. ‘He’ll be paying more attention to those bloody sirens.’
In recent years, Paul Chater had focussed his shoplifting and theft from small shops with limited or no CCTV. He took his frequent stretches inside as an occupational hazard and a well-earned rest. But the report of a knife was an escalation.
Kim rolled down her window, hoping the tinny sound of his bike would give him away, but the sound of the approaching sirens was doing nothing to help her.
‘Guv, we’re not gonna find—’
‘There he is,’ she cried, pointing through the windscreen.