Deadly Cry (DI Kim Stone #13) - Angela Marsons Page 0,79

article?’

Kim nodded.

‘Anything new to add?’ Frost asked hopefully.

‘Nice try, but no.’ She wasn’t offering the woman an exclusive. ‘Can you not do some kind of round-up of events so far?’

Frost raised one eyebrow. ‘Yeah, cos my editor just loves me to write stuff that goes over the same ground we’ve already covered.’

Kim appreciated Frost’s subtle reminder that she had a boss too.

‘Sorry, Stone, can’t—’

‘For an intelligent woman, you’re not thinking very clearly,’ Kim said, having anticipated Frost’s resistance. ‘I can give you nothing, except the fact I’m asking you for a favour. Do you want to think about that for a minute?’

A slow smile spread across her face. ‘So you’ll owe me one?’

Kim nodded.

‘Which I can call in any time I want?’

‘Not a fucking chance,’ Kim said. ‘But I will pay you back and you know it.’

Frost hesitated for only a second before reaching for her notebook.

‘Okay, what do you want in there? I’ll work the article around that.’

‘Okay, I want you to say that not every murderer is evil, that if they want to stop they can. That no one else has to die and that help is available and—’

‘Bloody hell, Stone, do you want to tuck him in and read him a bedtime story too? This monster has killed three women and—’

‘I’m trying to make sure he doesn’t kill a fourth. Unless he chooses you and then I’m not all that—’

‘Okay, carry on,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘You must mention my name, and you must emphasise that no one else needs to die. Got it?’

‘Yeah, yeah, but working it into a bloody news story is another matter.’

‘I have every faith in you, Frost,’ Kim said, pushing back her chair.

‘Whatever,’ she said, taking out her laptop and making herself comfortable at the corner table in the café.

As they stepped outside, Kim glanced back at Frost’s fingers flying across the keyboard.

Whatever words she’d chosen to use, it was a plea for him to stop what he was doing, and with it being almost twenty-four hours since the last murder, Kim only hoped that she wasn’t too late.

Eighty

‘Penn, what the hell are you doing?’ Stacey asked as he wrote furiously on the wipe board.

‘Give me a minute, Stace,’ he said without turning.

‘You’re just writing random incidents on the board that have nothing to do with—’

‘Okay, I’m done,’ he said, standing back.

Stacey looked at the completed board and tried to take it all in.

May 2010 – Burglary – Scratches in sideboard

May 2010 – Burglary – No scratches

August 2012 – Peeping Tom – Scratches on window sill

August 2012 – Peeping Tom – No scratches

January 2014 – Assault – Scratches on hand

January 2014 – Assault – No scratches

February 2019 – Murder – Homeless Woman – Scratches on arm

February 2019 – Murder – Homeless Woman – No scratches

Current – Murder 1 – Katrina Nock – Scratches

Current – Murder 2 – Louise Webb-Harvey – No Scratches

Current – Murder 3 – Nicola Southall – ???

She reached the bottom of the list and looked to Penn for explanation.

Alison looked just as puzzled as she felt.

‘I’ve been searching for unsolved crimes involving scratches. I’ve also searched for unsolved crimes with similarities to another crime and for crimes that happened closely together. After a lot of cross-referencing, this is what I’ve got. Every one of these crimes happened within days of each other, and every single one of them is unsolved.’

He paused, looked at the board and then pointed to the first listing. ‘In May 2010, there was a burglary at a house in West Hagley. The scratches had been carved into the sideboard that held the jewellery that was taken. You couldn’t miss it. Second burglary was a similar MO but just round the corner, in Pedmore. No scratches.’

Stacey listened as his pointing finger moved down to the second pairing. ‘In August 2012, a twenty-seven-year-old woman in Bilston reported seeing a shadowy figure staring at her through the bedroom window at around 11 p.m. She lived alone and was terrified. When shown where she’d seen the figure, officers noted fresh scratches in the paintwork of the outside window sill. A photo was taken and held on the file. The next day, the same thing happened to a twenty-five-year-old woman in Coseley. Exactly the same, even the same time of night. The victim saw someone peering through the window, but no scratches were found. Still with me?’ he asked.

Both she and Alison nodded.

‘In January 2014, a thirty-nine-year-old male was knocked unconscious as he walked home from his job at a