One Last Smile: An Action Packed British Crime Thriller (DI Benjamin Kidd Crime Thrillers Book 7) by GS Rhodes

Author:GS Rhodes [Rhodes, GS]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dark Ship Crime
Published: 2022-07-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Kidd and Sanchez set up a cordon of their own until the forensic team and the uniformed officers arrived. The moment they were relieved, they started knocking on doors, trying to find out what had happened, if anyone had heard anything. The information that they got was minimal, the upshot of it being that they had heard something but chosen not to investigate.

“You can normally count on nosy neighbours,” Kidd grumbled as they left the apartment building. The air inside had felt stuffy, the scent of death filling his lungs, permeating every corner of every corridor. “You’d think they would be all over it. I can’t imagine it was a quiet death.”

Kidd had, of course, never witnessed one of The Grinning Murders up close, but there was likely a reason that they always seemed to have been done in places where you were less likely to be heard screaming. The last copycat Tony had performed had been in Bushy Park, deep in the forest. No one would have been there to help his victim, and no one would have been there to help this man, either.

“How long until we find out who the victim was?” Sanchez asked.

“They’re looking through his apartment now,” Kidd said. “They’ll probably check for a wallet or something and then call the family. Why did no one help?”

“It’s very possible they didn’t hear it,” Zoe replied.

The door had been left open. Kidd thought the victim was likely the neighbour. That he’d heard people in the flat next door when no one should have been there, and he’d gone to see what was going on. Maybe he’d caught Tony off guard, or Tony had feared he’d be recognised, and took matters into his own hands.

There was a mess of blood on the floor, bloody footprints trodden through the apartment all the way to the bathroom. The bath was blood-stained where he’d tried to wash off the evidence before he’d left.

“We’re going to need that CCTV as soon as possible,” Kidd said. “We’re going to need timings. It might at least help us figure out where he could have gone to.” Kidd shook his head. “We’re being given the runaround here,” he added. “It’s one thing for a killer to be one step ahead of you, but Tony seems to be two or three. We’re just playing catch up and clearing up the mess in his wake.”

“You think he came out of prison intending to kill more people?” Zoe asked.

Kidd opened his mouth to respond but realised that he wasn’t quite sure of the answer. Tony always contested that he had never set out to kill Jennifer Berry in the first place, that it was him trying to cover his tracks by showing it off as a Grinning Murders-style killing. But now this murder was telling an entirely different story.

Displaying the body like that, the pieces of paper with the smiley faces on them, all of it pointed to someone who was using it like a calling card.

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