Child's Play (D.I. Kim Stone #11)
Angela Marsons
Prologue
Winter 2010
‘Come on, what do you want?’ she snaps, rubbing her hands together, reminding me of when I was a child.
But I’m no longer a child. I’m a grown-up and I’m angry. But she doesn’t need to know that. Yet.
‘And what are we doing here, anyway?’ she asks, looking around the deserted park. It is mid-January and one degree above freezing, twenty minutes before the sun falls completely.
My promise of having something for her had lured her here as I’d hoped.
I pat the seat of the roundabout beside me. ‘Sit with me and I can give you your present.’
She looks unsure but curiosity gets the better of her.
I’ve been dreaming of this minute for eight years.
‘Come on, what’s this all?…’
‘Remember bringing me here to play when I was little?’ I ask.
She hesitates. ‘Err… I…’
‘Do you remember pushing me on the swings, sitting with me on the see-saw, playing with a ball on the field?’
‘Come on now, it’s late. I want to get home,’ she says, and I hear a note of fear in her voice.
She knows that something is wrong.
She moves away from me.
I grab her arm.
‘You don’t remember? No? Oh, that’s because you never did, you fucking bitch,’ I say, turning her around.
‘What the?…’
I’ve rehearsed this in my mind so many times. I know exactly how it is going to work.
I raise my right arm and punch her in the temple, knocking her clean out.
A genuine smile lights up my face. That felt almost as good as I have imagined.
I work quickly as the day begins to fade, unsure how long she’ll be out.
She starts to groan as I finish the last tie to her ankle.
‘Hey, what you?…’
‘Comfy?’ I ask, standing back to admire my handiwork.
Her legs are spread-eagled and tied to the metal frame of the spider’s web roundabout, facing down. Her body is bent at the waist so her upper half is hanging down towards the floor, the top of her head touching the concrete base of the ride. Her hands are tied behind her back.
‘Look, I’m gonna puke…’
‘Least of your problems,’ I say, enjoying the fear in her voice as she tries to move.
‘Aargh,’ she cries out as the barbed wire bites into the flesh of her wrists. A nightmare to apply but worth it to see the bright red results of her struggles.
‘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 11.29 p.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.