Free Silent Scream: An edge of your seat serial killer thriller (Detective Kim Stone crime thriller series Book 1) by Angela Marsons

don't know why you hate me. I don't know what I've done. I don't know how I hurt you. On and on and on with the denial.
    However much Nicola protested otherwise, Beth felt the truth in her heart.
    Somewhere deep inside, she knew.

Seventeen
    ‘ J esus , Bryant, will you keep still?’
    He moved from foot to foot. The overnight temperature had dropped to minus three and the ground still held an icy core that seeped up through the shoes and into the bones.
    He blew warm breath into his cupped hands. ‘For those of us not made of titanium, it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.’
    ‘Man up,’ Kim said, walking to the edge of the site.
    The area itself was the size of a football pitch. It rose gently towards a row of trees that obscured the north tip from the council estate. On the west side was a road separating the site from the Rowley Regis crematorium. The remains of a large building sat at the southern edge nearest the road, behind a bus stop and a street lamp. The upper floor peered over at a row of terraced houses on the other side of the road. A six foot fence formed a snug perimeter around the structure, obscuring the lower level from view.
    She glanced to the west and shook her head. How comforting for kids that had been abandoned, abused and neglected to look out of their windows onto a field for the dead.
    There were times when the insensitivity of the system appalled her. It was a building that had become vacant and that was all that had mattered.
    She sighed and blew a silent kiss to Mikey’s grave, which now lay behind a curtain of mist, sealing them off from the rest of the world two hundred feet in each direction.
    A Volvo estate pulled onto a dirt patch at the top of the site.
    Kim walked over as Professor Milton and two men exited the vehicle.
    ‘Detective, good to see you again.’
    Kim saw a remarkable change in the demeanour of the professor since the previous day. His cheeks were rosy and his eyes bright. His gait was sprightly and purposeful. If that was after one night in the care of Mrs Pearson, she might consider booking in herself.
    He turned to his companions as Bryant materialised beside her. ‘This is Darren Brown and Carl Newton. They’re volunteers that were scheduled to assist on my dig. They’ll be operating the equipment.’
    Kim felt obliged to come clean with the professor after the trouble he had taken.
    ‘You know this is a hunch, Professor? There may be nothing down there.’
    His eyes were serious and his voice low. ‘But what if there is, Detective? I’ve been trying to excavate this land for two years and someone has done their level best to stop me. I’d like to know why.’
    Kim was satisfied that he understood.
    A Vauxhall Astra pulled in beside the professor’s car. A portly male in his fifties got out of the car, followed by a tall, red-headed woman Kim guessed to be in her late twenties.
    ‘David, thank you for coming,’ Kim said.
    ‘I don’t recall there being a great deal of choice, Detective,’ he said with a half-smile.
    ‘Professor Milton, please meet Doctor Matthews.’
    The two men shook hands.
    Kim had met Doctor David Matthews at the University of Glamorgan which, together with Cardiff University and South Wales police, formed a unique organisation in the UK called the Universities Police Science Institute. It was dedicated to research and training in police-related matters.
    Doctor Matthews was an advisor for the Glamorgan Centre for Police Sciences and had been instrumental in setting up the Crime Scene Investigation House at the university.
    Kim had attended a seminar there two years earlier and had offered a couple of suggestions for improvement to the scenario training based on her own crime scene experience, which had resulted in her staying on for the weekend.
    ‘May I introduce Cerys Hughes. She is a fully qualified archaeologist and has just completed a degree in forensic science.’
    Kim nodded in her direction.
    ‘Okay,