Page 63 of First Blood

‘Looks like Dawson was right after all,’ Bryant said, switching on the car engine and the heater. After a week of mild December temperatures the mercury had plummeted by five degrees.

Her colleague had a point. They’d knocked on every door in the street where Luke Fenton had lived and they’d found out no more about this mystery woman and her child.

‘You noticed he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday?’

She nodded. She also knew his car hadn’t moved from the same spot on the station car park from the day before. She knew nothing of his personal life and she didn’t care to, but sleeping at the station and grabbing a quick shower before starting shift was not something she could allow to continue.

‘At least he used his brain to get us a copy of that post-mortem report,’ she acknowledged. ‘Which, regardless of anyone else’s opinion, convinces me that it’s the same killer.’

‘Not gonna get us any of the cases though, is it?’ Bryant asked.

She shook her head.

‘Or help us track down this Hayley woman with her child.’

There was no need for her to acknowledge that fact.

‘Where to?’ he asked, rubbing his hands together.

‘Give me a minute,’ she said, tapping the dashboard with her fingernails.

Think, think, think, she told herself.

The woman had lived here with her daughter. She must have gone to school somewhere but trying to track down where would have them running around in circles. Kim knew of at least seven schools in a mile and a half radius and all they had was the woman’s first name, possibly. Same issue for checking with doctor’s and dentist surgeries.

But what might her child need? Kim wondered. What else would a mother try to fulfil for her child?

Kim took out her phone and did a quick search of the local area.

‘Got it,’ she said.

‘Is it catching?’ her colleague asked.

She looked at him sideways. ‘Was that a joke?’

‘Obviously not. Sorry, what have you got, guv?’

‘An idea. Take us to the end of the road and turn left.’

Chapter Fifty-Six

Dawson looked again at the old plans of Redland Hall and although he was no architect he could see that there was a certain area missing. The place where Lester Jackson’s body had been found.

He knew the boss wanted him to look for any possible links between the victims, but just like her he wanted to understand why Lester Jackson had been killed where he had. And looking at these plans had done nothing but stoke his curiosity. The place was vast. By his count it had 117 rooms. He could understand the body being placed there after the fact to hide it from less tenacious looters, but why kill him there?

He’d found the floorplan on the local council’s archive website. The National Trust had it listed as only one of their properties along with a brief history of the families that had owned it, but gave no more detail than that. It appeared that no one seemed to know what to do with the rambling old property. He guessed it would take millions upon millions to restore it.

He returned to the National Trust site and vowed to spend no more than a few minutes looking at similar properties for clues. At this rate, he’d be facing his own charge of wasting police time.

He clicked into the link for a place called Baddesley Clinton, a moated manor house, eight miles out of Warwick. The house had been built in the thirteenth century when large areas of the forest of Arden were cleared for farmland.

Dawson had no idea what he was hoping to find but the property bore striking similarities to Redland Hall.

He learned all about the history of the place and was about to click out when something caught his eye. He read it and read it again.

‘You ever heard of a priest hole?’ he asked Stacey across the desk.

‘Huh?’ she answered without looking up.