Blood Lines

  Kim shook her head. ‘All in all, this week has been one epic fail for you, hasn’t it?’

  ‘You know you can’t just walk away, Kim. There is a bond.’

  ‘Oh Alex, only in your own head; I’ve already told you that your obsession with me will be your downfall. Had you not chosen to involve me at this time there is every chance that one of your plans with Ruth would have worked, but you just couldn’t leave me alone, could you?’

  ‘Don’t pretend there is no bond, Kim,’ Alex said confidently. ‘You think of me at times.’

  ‘You’re right, Alex, I do think about you but I’m not consumed by you,’ Kim said as she stood. ‘You, better than anyone, know what I do with things I don’t like. I put them in a box and pack them away.’

  Alex smiled. ‘But I have a box.’

  Kim made a gesture holding her thumb half an inch from her forefinger. ‘A small one, Alex, only a very small one.’

  ‘You can’t just pretend I don’t exist. There will always be something there between—’

  ‘Yes, Alex, it’s called prison walls.’

  She smiled one last time and moved behind the woman. She was struck by a sudden memory. She remembered it as a kind of victory dance Alex had bestowed on her when she’d felt she was winning.

  It was time to return the favour.

  She leaned down and kissed Alex on the left cheek.

  ‘Goodbye, Alex, and this time it’s for good.’

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED

  Kim would have liked to stay and chat longer with Alexandra Thorne but she had somewhere else to be.

  She had cut it fine and walked into the Grantley Care facility two minutes before the hearing was due to start.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ Lily said, holding a thick folder to her chest.

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for anything,’ Kim said honestly.

  She followed Lily along the corridor into a meeting room at the end.

  Two men and one woman were already seated at a round table. Three separate piles of paperwork sat before them.

  Kim knew the parole board was an independent body charged with conducting a risk assessment on each individual case. Their primary goal was in establishing the likelihood of the prisoner reoffending. They would also be carefully observing her mother’s behaviour.

  Lily took a seat at the table and motioned for Kim to sit beside her.

  Instead, Kim headed to a single seat that had been placed out of the way in the corner.

  Kim put her hand into her pocket and felt the reassuring presence of the envelope she’d been given. She hadn’t yet opened it but the memory of that day and its implications were now fresh in her mind.

  Lily introduced Kim and then made a quick call from a phone that sat in the centre of the table.

  Two minutes later the door opened and in walked the woman she had seen the other day.

  Her mother looked around the room and finally her eyes rested in the corner.

  ‘Kim… ’ she whispered.

  Kim continued to stare straight-ahead.

  When the woman sat, Kim was treated to a profile shot and here she saw some resemblance to the mother she had known.

  Once the formalities were spoken for the purpose of the meeting notes the young woman that sat in the centre of the three officials leaned forward.

  ‘So, Patty, could you begin by telling us why you think you’re ready to be released?’

  Her mother took a deep breath. ‘I think being here at this facility for so long has been the right thing. I’ve had time to get better properly.’

  ‘So, you think you’re cured?’ asked the woman.

  Patty smiled. ‘Oh no, of course not. I will always have schizophrenia, but with the correct medication and continued support I feel that it is now under control.’

  Damn, she’s good, Kim thought, watching her closely.

  Her mother’s hands were set demurely in her lap. Her face was poised and relaxed, her voice regular and calm, and she made eye contact with everyone that spoke to her.

  ‘And how do you feel about the events that led to your incarceration?’ asked the portly man on the left.

  Kim wanted to scream at the tact being employed. Use the words, she wanted to say. Ask her how she feels about murdering her own child.

  She stopped herself from leaning forward. This she wanted to hear.

  Her mother swallowed deeply. ‘I’ve had a very long time to think about what I did.’

  You and me both, bitch.

  ‘And I can never turn back the clock to undo what I did.’

  Say it, bitch. Say you murdered your own child.

  ‘I have to live with Michael’s death for the rest of my life.’

  I’ll rip his name from your mouth, woman. And we called him Mikey.

  ‘I will never forgive myself for his death.’

  Neither will I.

  ‘But I now fully understand the consequences of my actions and, although I was mentally unstable at the time, I do take responsibility for the death of my son.’

  Too fucking right.

  Kim watched in amazement as more questions were asked with that same gentle, inoffensive tone and answered with that sickening, rehearsed response.

  Every single person around the table was buying it. Every face looked back at this pleasant, nicely dressed, calm, measured woman and believed in the strength and validity of the system.

  Kim could feel the words bubbling in her throat. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could bear this charade.

  Everyone was silently patting themselves on the back for a success story in rehabilitation. The female official leaned forward with a smile.

  ‘Lily here thinks you’d have a good chance at adjusting to life on the outside. She feels—’

  ‘Do you remember the camera?’ Kim said, cutting the woman off.

  Every face in the room turned towards her, but Kim looked only at her mother.

  Kim knew it wasn’t yet her turn to speak. Except she had decided it was.

  Slowly her mother turned to face her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Kimberly, I don’t recall—’

  ‘The camera, Mother. That big instamatic with the giant flash. You stole it from a chemist, with rolls and rolls of film.’

  The face before her began to close down.

  ‘Do you remember how frightened Mikey was to have his photograph taken at school?’

  Her mother said nothing.

  ‘I remember, Mother. It’s because you would pin him down on the bed taking close-up shots of his eyes until he couldn’t even see. You would set off that flash a dozen times a minute, convinced that just one photo would show you that your son really was the devil.’

  Kim’s eyes bored into those of her mother. There was no one else in the room.

  ‘And when you couldn’t see it you slapped him, didn’t you, Mother? For hiding the devil inside. He couldn’t win, could he?’

  The whole room awaited her response. She had brought events to them. They had read the family history. They knew what Patty had done but now, in this room, a little boy was screaming as his mother pinned him to the bed searching for the devil inside him.

  They wanted to see evidence that her mother had learned from what she’d done. That she was sorry but, most importantly, that she understood that she’d been wrong and that nothing like it would ever happen again.

  And that’s what Kim was waiting for too.

  ‘You just wouldn’t leave him alone, would you?’ her mother asked as the face began to drop into one that Kim recognised. ‘You wouldn’t believe me when I told you the truth.’

  ‘What truth, Mother?’ Kim asked.

  ‘That your brother was the fucking devil. I saw it in him every minute. It taunted me and laughed at me. I could see it as clear as day,’ she cried, as her face became an angry snarl. ‘I told you he had to die, and you wouldn’t get out of the way. You hung on to him every minute, and only I knew the truth. He was possessed,’ s
he cried, only at Kim. ‘And there was no choice. He had to die.’

  Kim sighed, as embarrassment took a seat at the table.

  She stood. ‘You will never be fit to walk free again. You will never understand that you murdered your child, and you will never be sorry for what you did.’

  Kim stepped right up to her mother and drew level with her face.

  ‘And for that may you burn in hell.’

  She straightened and looked at no one as she left. Her job was done.

  Her mother would not be released today.

  She took a breath outside the door as voices crossed each other across the meeting table. There was no triumph in her heart, not even satisfaction that she had achieved what she had come here to do. What she felt was vindicated: justified in what had been a solitary opinion about the woman’s ability to function in the outside world. If, after all these years, her mother still believed that the devil had lived inside her six-year-old son, then Kim felt sure that she would never be released.

  As she moved slowly along the corridor Kim felt a loosening of emotion inside her. She would never let go of the anger towards her mother. She would never offer an inch of forgiveness but she would carry away with her the knowledge that she could face her mother – and survive.

  She walked out of the building into the freshest air she’d ever tasted, and to a car she instantly recognised.

  She laughed out loud, feeling the tension ease from her body.

  ‘Really?’ she said to Bryant who was leaning against his Astra.

  ‘I was just passing and saw your bike parked—’

  ‘Bryant, honestly?’ she asked, shaking her head. The building was two miles from the nearest road and almost seventy miles from home.

  ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘I think “requires further treatment” will be the official response.’

  He smiled and then frowned. ‘Would life get any easier for you if she just died?’

  Kim shook her head. ‘I don’t want her to die,’ she said simply.

  ‘Bloody hell, Kim, that surprised me. You hate—’

  ‘Not for her,’ Kim clarified. ‘She could rot in hell for me. But what if there’s an afterlife, Bryant? I don’t believe in it, but what if I’m wrong?’

  ‘Not been known to happen before, has it?’ he said, smiling.

  ‘But what if I am wrong and Mikey’s there and she gets there before me. It’s a thought I just can’t bear.’

  Bryant was silent. He had no answer and neither did she.

  ‘Everything okay at the station?’ she asked. Woody had refused to allow her any part of the questioning following the trauma of the incident with Leo.

  She knew that Lissy had responded positively to surgery and was conscious. The little girl was going to make it. Woody had not left her bedside and wouldn’t, Kim suspected, until Lissy left the hospital.

  Whatever Woody was going to do about Baldwin’s failure was not yet known to her but her boss would take action. She knew that. And she would be right there to support him.

  ‘I assisted Dawson on the questioning, just as you asked,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you. He does need a bit more freedom. He’s earned it.’

  ‘He was actually very good,’ Bryant said. ‘I think after their conversation in the woods he had a good idea of the questions to ask. Within twenty minutes she’d coughed to the lot.’ He chuckled. ‘Much to the despair of her brief.’

  ‘Why now?’ Kim asked, wondering what had prompted the murders nine years after the fact.

  ‘Watching and waiting,’ Bryant answered. ‘Anna wanted to make sure that she murdered the person closest to the object of her hatred. She didn’t only want a person close to Mitchell, Geraldine, Harold and Woody. She wanted the closest person to each of them and that took patience.’

  ‘Anything on Jason Cross?’ she asked.

  ‘He disappeared to his mother’s house in Norwich. Cried on her shoulder, came home and told his wife the truth, the whole truth, and they are now temporarily living apart.’

  Kim couldn’t summon any feeling for the man at all. She neither liked nor disliked him but he was now paying the price for dishonesty. Fair enough in her eyes.

  ‘Families all informed?’ she asked.

  Bryant nodded. ‘Barbara Howard confirmed that Anna worked for the family for only three months when they lived in the Midlands. She left their employment when they made the move to Uttoxeter. Anna knew where they were moving to and just followed Tommy to school one day, got chatting to one of the mothers and found out about the school trip. She wasn’t a stranger to the child so he happily went with her when she lured him away.’

  Kim shuddered. ‘How is Barbara?’

  ‘Content that the killer has been found but is relieved that her husband isn’t here to witness the connection to him and his job. He would not have borne that, she said.’

  Kim understood.

  ‘Had a similar conversation with Geraldine, who is doing a special piece next week on the programme about drug addiction. She will publicly acknowledge her daughter and then resign.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Kim said. It was the job her mother wanted her to do.

  ‘And she’s been in touch with Maxine’s birth mother and they will be attending the funeral together.’

  For some reason that fact brought a smile to Kim’s face.

  ‘Saved the best until last, though, guv. Mitchell Brightman is taking his daughter for coffee later today.’

  ‘No way,’ Kim said, surprised.

  ‘Way,’ Bryant said, smiling.

  Kim offered an invisible air punch for the teenager.

  ‘Not one of them could believe Anna was behind it. She played the respectful, deferential employee brilliantly.’

  ‘Devious piece of work,’ Kim said, wondering again how Anna had got past her radar. And she suddenly reached a conclusion. The woman’s grief had been genuine. She felt no rage or bitterness towards the people she had killed. Her grief for Deanna had been real.

  ‘What about her real family?’ Kim asked. Anna had once had a husband and two other children.

  ‘Emigrated to New Zealand without her six years ago. She wouldn’t leave. It was more important to her to seek revenge than continue with the rest of her life.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Kim said.

  ‘Don’t even think about wasting a moment’s emotion on that twisted woman, Kim,’ Bryant said. ‘There was not one bit of guilt for murdering a child and trying again,’ he said.

  He had a point. She would give the woman no more thought. But she would offer a silent prayer for her victims.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked, seriously. It had been a long few days.

  She nodded and meant it.

  ‘You know I’m always gonna be here to help whether you want it or not.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I know it,’ she said, drily.

  ‘Because that’s what friends are for,’ he said.

  She put two fingers in her mouth and retched.

  He laughed and turned to the car door.

  She threw her leg over the bike and reached for her helmet.

  Yes, it had been a very long few days and, as usual, Bryant had been with her every step of the way. Even here the strong arm of his friendship was ready for her to take if she needed it.

  She felt a sudden wave of gratitude that this man was in her life, although she would never find the words to tell him.

  ‘Oi, Bryant,’ she shouted with a lopsided grin. The envelope still nestled in her pocket. ‘Meet me in town. I need your help choosing a frame.’

  Because that’s what friends were for.

  A LETTER FROM ANGELA

  First of all, I want to say a huge thank you for choosing to read Blood Lines. I hope you enjoyed the fifth instalment of Kim's journey and the return of her nemesis, Alexandra Thorne.

  If you did enjoy it, I would be forever grateful if you’d write a review. I’d love to hear what you think, and it can also
help other readers discover one of my books for the first time. Or maybe you can recommend it to your friends and family…

  After writing Evil Games I knew that the story between Kim and Alex was not finished and I wanted to show the power of a true sociopath even when confined. Even from prison Alex manages to affect the lives of those around her and to spread her venom and also to affect Kim Stone again. I also wanted to explore Kim’s relationship with her mother in further detail to offer a better understanding of the woman Kim is now.

  As the characters and storylines began to reveal themselves to me, this became a story that I did not want to finish.

  I hope you will join both Kim Stone and myself on our next journey, wherever that may lead.

  If so I'd love to hear from you - get in touch on my Facebook or Goodreads page, twitter or through my website.

  And if you’d like to keep up-to-date with all my latest releases, just sign up at the website link below.

  www.bookouture.com/angelamarsons

  Thank you so much for your support, it is hugely appreciated.

  Angela Marsons

  @WriteAngie

  angelamarsonsauthor

  www.angelamarsons-books.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In Blood Lines I wanted to explore the motivations behind crime and to understand where these driving forces come from. I wanted to portray a different type of punishment as perceived by the killer.

  I also felt that it was time to continue the journey between Kim Stone and her nemesis, Doctor Alexandra Thorne, while further exploring Kim’s relationship with her mother.

  Ultimately this became the book that I didn’t want to finish.

  As ever, I have to acknowledge the involvement of my partner, Julie. From typing the first draft to helping me find plot inconsistencies and offering me the honesty that I value. She brings me down from the ceiling and pulls me out of the holes. Her spirit and determination in everything she does inspires me every day.

  I would like to thank the team at Bookouture for their continued enthusiasm for Kim Stone and her stories. In particular, the incredible Keshini Naidoo who has the true and rare gift of knowing exactly what her writers can achieve. To Oliver Rhodes who has the expertise to know what to do with our books once we get there and to Kim Nash who offers us tea, sympathy, professionalism and fierce protection on the journey.