Page 63 of Deadly Cry

Kim had brought Barney on the occasional early morning walk during the summer months, when the Clent Hills got overcrowded as people amassed for the striking views.

Despite being an area of natural beauty, the site had no public rights of way and had been closed temporarily in 2017 due to ongoing issues with sheep worrying, dirt bike racing, drug dealing and dogging. Unsurprisingly, it had been named as Britain’s Baddest Woodlands.

Kim followed Bryant past the vehicles she knew well and through the kissing gate.

‘Follow the trail for about a quarter of a mile, Keats said,’ Kim repeated as she hopped over one of the many streams that ran through the site.

‘So who put Bella in the wych-elm?’ Bryant asked.

‘Bryant, have you finally lost your mind?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Do you even live around here?’ He paused. ‘Okay, seeing as you didn’t ask I’ll tell you anyway.’

She groaned as she pushed a brittle branch away from her face.

‘In the forties I think it was, just over the way there in Hagley Wood, four boys were bird nesting and found a skull in the hollow trunk of a wych-elm. An almost complete skeleton with a shoe, gold wedding ring and some fragments of clothing were removed. The pathologist determined that she’d been placed in the tree while still warm, as it would have been impossible to get her in there with rigor mortis. He also discovered a remnant of taffeta in her mouth, suggesting she’d been suffocated. Graffiti messages have turned up since 1944, asking who put Bella in the wych-elm, but despite an extensive investigation, she’s never been identified.’

‘Bryant, do you go to special classes for this stuff?’ she asked, taking a left when the trail forked.

‘Nah, I just read local books.’

‘I suppose you’re gonna tell me the woods are haunted next.’

‘Well, as it happens…’

‘Enough,’ she said, spotting activity about forty feet away from the main path. A young male she recognised was sitting on a bench beside a standing constable.

She headed there first.

‘Hey, Plinky,’ she said, using the force’s nickname for a low-level drug dealer who got banged up a couple of times a year for drug offences and still went back to his same stomping ground every time. Brains were not his strong point.

‘You out for your afternoon stroll?’

‘’S right, yeah,’ he said, looking up at her with a glazed expression. She was unsure if he was still in shock or had been smoking too much of his own product.

‘You weren’t here doing a deal or anything like that?’

‘Nah, nah, not me.’

‘You see anyone?’ she asked, unsure whether he was going to claim to have seen unicorns and fairies, looking at the state of him.

‘Nah, just called you lot.’

A drug dealer and yet stays with the body. Suitably called Plinky, as he didn’t have the brains to lie.

‘Did you touch anything?’

‘Fuck off, I ain’t into bestiality.’

‘Wrong sport, but I appreciate the sentiment and I didn’t mean sexually. You didn’t think about taking anything like money or phone?’

He shook his head, wearing an expression that said he’d never given it a thought but maybe had missed an opportunity.

‘Plinky, you must be the most honest drug dealer we know.’

He smiled weakly at the compliment.

‘Okay, we’ll need to talk to you again. Now show this nice police officer what you’ve got in your pockets.’