Page 2 of Child's Play

‘You should have brought me here just once,’ I spit as I begin to push the spider’s web around.

She screams as her head is dragged across the surface.

I smile and keep pushing, safe in the knowledge she won’t be heard. The houses the park had been built to serve were condemned and emptied years ago, after two fell into an old mining pit.

The only kids that use it now come from miles away but not on a night like this.

‘P… please… st…’

‘Shush. It’s my turn now,’ I say, pushing the frame harder. Clumps of hair are being left behind with each revolution. ‘You’re going to wish you’d played with me,’ I say, speeding up the pushes.

Her breath is coming in short, sharp bursts in between pain-filled screams as her flesh is dragged across the gravel.

The screams have turned to yelps now, and I guess she’s fading in and out of consciousness.

I stop the web from turning and push back the other way. The barbed wire cuts deeper into her flesh as the momentum builds again.

And finally we’re playing a game. A game that I have chosen.

A trail of blood is forming in a circle around the gravel.

I push harder, causing the roundabout to whiz past me at speed.

‘You should have listened to me,’ I cry, pushing as hard as I can.

The sounds coming from her are no more than a whimper.

The blood on the ground is pooling, clumps of flesh are sticking to the concrete base.

The crying stops completely after I hear the sound of the fracture of her skull.

I give one last good push of the spider’s web and stand back.

‘You really should have played with me,’ I tell her again, although I know she can no longer hear.

I walk away as the slumped, lifeless body continues to turn.

One

Present Day

Kim Stone arrived at the cordon tape at 11.29p.m. The sun had been down for almost three hours but late August warmth still lingered in the air.

She had instructed Despatch to place a call to her colleague, DS Bryant, but his Astra Estate wasn’t yet visible amongst the squad cars, ambulance and coroner’s van. She looked at those two vehicles side by side. Surely only one or the other was needed.

As she removed her helmet she wondered from what activity her colleague had been disturbed when he’d received the call. Knowing Bryant, he’d been about to fall asleep with the crime channel playing on the TV in the background.

She’d been preparing to take Barney for his late-night walk. She’d left him after a quick visit out to the back garden and the promise of a run at the park when she got home. Whatever the time. She’d neglected to mention it was Haden Hill Park to which she’d been called, feeling he wouldn’t forgive her absence quite so readily if he knew she was visiting a park they frequented often for an early morning walk.

Haden Hill House was a Victorian residence built on parkland in 1878 by George Alfred Haden Haden-Best. He had originally intended to demolish the grand Haden Hall and extend his home but his elderly aunt, widow of the squire, lived in the Old Hall, and by the time she died in 1903 he had lost the will to enlarge Haden Hill House, so the two buildings remained side by side.

Upon his death in 1921, the house, the Old Hall, gardens and 55 acres of land were bought by public subscription for use as a park. In the years since, the Old Hall and House had been used as a refuge for evacuees and a bombing raid shelter. The Old Hall had lain in ruins for years following a fire until lottery funding had helped restore it to its former glory.

Kim had been directed to the entrance off Haden Park Road that led onto the kids play area at the top of the grounds, a short walk away from the refurbished buildings. A dozen or so onlookers were already craning their necks to see beyond the police officers and vehicles and more doors were opening as locals gave up the pretence of looking through downstairs and upstairs windows.

She showed her ID and ducked under the cordon tape, heading towards the collection of fluorescent jackets and multiple torch beams shining in the absence of street lighting.

Officers moved aside as she headed to the centre of the crowd, passing paramedics who had obviously been dismissed but remained in discussion beside the giraffe-emblazoned play slide.