‘Mr Wright, I need to inform you of a development regarding Dewain. May I come in?’
Vin Wright hesitated before taking a step back.
Dawson knew there was no Mrs Wright and hadn’t been for twelve years, since her death due to complications during the birth of their fourth child.
Dawson stepped into a narrow galley kitchen where Shona was busy placing jars and packets back into the cupboard. A roll of plastic food bags lay on the side. Clearing the debris from the packed lunches for his younger two daughters, Dawson guessed.
A collection of literature displaying headstones and flowers was scattered in front of the kettle. This man was planning the burial of his son.
Vin remained in the doorway, keeping the discussion confined to the small space. Dawson suspected he was not staying long.
And that was okay, because he did not want to prolong the pain of this man for a moment longer than he needed to.
‘Mr Wright, it wasn’t the reporter who leaked the fact your son was still alive.’
A plate clattered into the sink, causing both Dawson and Vin to look towards Shona. She didn’t turn immediately but continued to stare at the object that had slipped from her grip.
Vin’s eyes remained on her for a few seconds before turning back to Dawson.
‘I don’t understand. It was obvious …’
‘The times don’t match. We have confirmation that the newspapers were only just leaving the printers by Dewain’s time of death. Everything happened so quickly we assumed …’
Dawson allowed his voice to trail away as he realised a note of apology had crept in.
Vin heard it too. His eyes held no accusation, just a deep well of sadness. ‘We all did, son.’
‘Which means that someone else leaked it.’
Vin nodded his comprehension. He’d already worked that out.
‘I need to ask you, who other than family members knew that Dewain was still alive?’
Vin rubbed the short, wiry hair on his head. ‘I don’t know, it’s all just a blur. This time last week my son was … It all happened so quickly. I got a phone call at work. I called the kids and …’
‘Lauren,’ Shona said, quietly.
Dawson waited. She finally turned.
‘We called Lauren. She is … was Dewain’s girlfriend. I left her a message but she never called me back.’ She looked to her father. ‘Remember, Dad, she never even turned up at the hospital?’
Dawson felt the stirrings of excitement in his stomach. The only call the police had made was to Dewain’s next of kin. He knew that they had been instructed not to tell anyone that the boy was still alive until his condition stabilised.
‘Do you know where I can find …?’
‘I’ll write it down,’ Shona offered, almost running out of the room.
Dawson turned to Vin whose gaze had followed his oldest daughter out of the room.
‘Any bother with the gang since Dewain died?’
He shook his head. ‘Since you lot arrested Lyron for the murder, Kai stepped up. He’s not as bad as Lyron. I think they’re under instruction to leave us alone.’
Dawson doubted that somehow. One death in the family at the hands of the gang didn’t keep his three daughters safe. Gangs didn’t work that way. Vin Wright would be watching over his girls until the second they were free from the Hollytree estate.
Shona returned to the kitchen and thrust a piece of paper into his hand. ‘This is where she lives.’
‘Thank you, I appreciate—’
His words were cut off by the sound of his mobile ringing in his ears.
‘Excuse me,’ Dawson said, turning away.
It was dispatch.
‘Finally, I locate a detective,’ offered the voice at the other end. ‘Can’t get your boss or DS Bryant either. So, I’ll have to pass it to you.’
He knew he was third out of four on the food chain of their team but he hated being reminded of it.
‘Hang on,’ he said, slipping his palm over the microphone. He turned to Vin Wright. ‘Thank you for your time and I promise I’ll be in touch.’
Vin nodded sadly and opened the door for Dawson to step through.
‘What’s up?’ he asked the control room as he stepped around the garden debris.
He stopped dead as the voice uttered the words he’d ached to hear for the last six years.
‘We have a dead body and, until we can get hold of your boss, it looks like you’re it.’
Finally, however briefly, he was the Officer in Charge.
Fifty-One
‘Go ahead, Kev,’ Kim said, answering the call.
‘Boss, I'm six feet away from the body of a female in her mid-twenties and I don't know if this is our—’
‘What colour trousers?’
‘Err … yellow.’
‘That's her,’ Kim growled, closing her eyes.
She listened as Dawson gave her the details.
‘On our way,’ she said, ending the call.
She turned to Bryant. ‘We're too bloody late.’
After what she'd seen on the CCTV, Kim had no personal feelings towards the woman one way or another. However, Inga had been their only solid lead.
She had been known to both girls, especially Amy. But Inga had betrayed them in the worst way. She had now paid with her life and, although Kim would have preferred to see the woman squirm on the witness stand, she couldn't muster any sympathy for her death.
‘Maybe she didn't have a choice, Guv,’ Bryant offered.
She appreciated his charitable spirit but she couldn't agree.
‘There's always a bloody choice. She was no stranger to these kids and still she stitched them up.’
‘Something made her run, though. Maybe her conscience—’
‘Bryant, grow up,’ she snapped. Just occasionally his optimism got right up her nose. ‘If it was her conscience, then she'd have continued with the plan and got the girls away at the earliest opportunity. What she did came from self-preservation. She got scared.’
‘And now she's dead,’ Bryant said, as though it meant something; that the slate was clean. For Kim it wasn't. Because Amy and Charlie had been subjected to at best a terrifying ordeal, and at worst, a horrific death.
‘Bryant, do me a favour and just drive.’
Nope, her tear ducts were well and truly dry.
Fifty-Two
Kim jumped out at the cordon tape, flashed her badge and entered the crime scene. The narrow alley ran between a supermarket and a hardware store on the edge of Brierley Hill High Street.
Dawson stood in her way. His face was drained of colour.
‘Boss, it's a mess in there.’
‘I'm a big girl, Kev,’ she snapped, pushing past him.
‘Ah, Inspector, I thought I heard your soft, warm tone.’
Keats was the resident pathologist who just about reached her shoulder. All the hair from his head appeared to have dropped to the lower half of his face in a tidy moustache and a pointy beard.
She took the blue latex gloves he offered that matched his own.
‘Keats, trust me when I say I'm not in the mood.’
‘Oh, dear, has Bryant—’
‘Keats, take it from me,’ said Bryant, appearing beside her. ‘She really ain’t in the mood.’
Kim was already assessing the scene before her. She stepped around a forensic photographer to get a better look.
The body appeared to have been placed at an impossible angle. Kim was reminded of the white tape figures used at murder mystery weekends to depict the victim.
The right arm was raised above the head but the wrist pointed the wrong way. The left arm lay to the side of the torso. The shoulder appeared much lower and the hand was facing up.
Inga’s face was bloated and swollen. The left eye was obscured completely by flesh that had expanded from her cheek and her forehead. Her right eye stared up to the sky. A trail of blood travelled from the middle of her face to the bottom of
her chin. Kim guessed a broken nose was hiding in there somewhere.
Clumps of blonde hair were scattered around as though she were a shedding dog.
‘Inspector,’ Keats said, indicating that she join him at the foot of the body.
Kim stepped out of the way as the photographer knelt to take close-up shots of her face.
‘From my cursory exam we're looking at multiple broken bones. I'd say at least four.’
‘All of her limbs?’ Kim asked.
He nodded and pointed to the right leg. The ankle had been turned a full one-eighty.
She took a step closer and peered at the area where the blood trail from the nose ended.
A thin line travelled across her throat from ear to ear. From the width of the wound Kim guessed some kind of garden twine.
She knew immediately that she was not looking at the scene of the crime. Inga had been tortured. There would have been screams that would have alerted someone. This was where her body had been dragged from a vehicle and dumped.
‘Cause of death?’ Kim asked.
Keats shrugged. ‘Hard to tell until I get her back for a detailed examination but I thought you might like to see this.’
Keats took two steps along the body. He gently pulled at the jacket collar that covered her neck.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Kim said, shaking her head.
She stepped forward and counted. There were seven or eight additional ring marks around her neck.
Bryant appeared beside her and followed her eyes. ‘Struggle, Guv?’
Kim shook her head. The marks were too pronounced for that. The lines from a struggle would have been less ingrained into the skin as she squirmed.
Dawson appeared on the other side of the body.
‘What do you think, Kev?’ she asked.
Dawson looked at the rings and then the rest of her body. ‘He tortured her, boss. Strangling her to the point of unconsciousness and then beating her back to life.’
Kim nodded her agreement. ‘She would have felt every single injury before she died.’
‘Evil bastard,’ Bryant murmured before moving away.
Kim had to agree but this was a crime scene she viewed dispassionately. Inga had made choices. She had been party to the abduction of innocent children. Yes, this pitiful figure had felt fear but she was now free of that fear. For two little girls, it went on. She hoped.
Somewhere, they were out there; confused, terrified and alone. Back at the house four parents tried to hang on to their own sanity after being thrust into a cruel game of bidding for the life of their child. And this woman had been instrumental in the cause of it all.
Kim took one last look over the body, committing it to memory in lieu of the photographs. Her gaze paused at the ankle that had been twisted. The fabric of the yellow jeans an inch higher than the other leg.
She bent down and gingerly pushed it higher. Black ink stared back at her. She pushed the denim further. She saw a rectangle with a line through the middle. A dot on either side of the line.
Kim beckoned the photographer. ‘Close-ups of this,’ she said, standing up.
‘Crude, do-it-yourself job,’ Keats observed.
Kim nodded as Bryant leaned over and took a look.
‘Who called it in?’ she asked.
‘Guy who delivers snacks to the pub,’ Dawson called back. ‘Ducked in here for a piss before his next call. He's just about finished throwing up ’cos there can't be anything left inside him.’
‘And?’
‘Last I can gauge was the pub owner emptied a bin around eleven and our girl wasn't here then.’
‘Not going to hassle me for a time of death like you normally do?’ Keats asked.
‘Well, if you can offer better than the two-hour slot I've just been given, feel free.’
‘I'd say closer to this end of the two hours,’ Keats offered.
Kim nodded as the mobile phone in her back pocket vibrated. This was a number she knew.
‘Stone,’ she answered.
‘Is it her?’
Woody’s own social skills appeared to be matching hers right now.
‘Yes, Sir. It is.’
‘So, that’s two dead, Stone?’
She began to edge away from the group of people surrounding Inga’s body.
‘We’ve been trying to find her since—’
‘But you didn’t, did you, Stone? Who was on it?’
Kim knew Dawson had done everything humanly possible to track Inga down. No way was that happening. Woody was not going to throw Dawson to any lion.
‘Sir, Inga did not want to be caught by either us or the kidnappers. She was involved in the snatch and if I have to choose dead bodies then I’ll take hers over Charlie’s or Amy’s any day of the week.’
She heard his intake of breath. ‘Stone, who was responsible for that part of the case?’
Jesus, he was like a dog with a bone. It was clear he wanted a name.
‘Me, Sir. I’m the Officer in Charge and I was out looking for Inga.’
She sensed the stress ball in his left hand.
‘Of course you were.’
Kim growled at the empty line in her ear.
She walked back towards Inga’s body.
Keats had caught part of the conversation. ‘You've been looking for this girl?’ he asked.
Kim nodded. ‘Current investigation.’
Keats waited for more of an explanation.
Kim offered nothing as she took one last look at the body.
An attack so brutal normally called for an insane rage – an uncontrollable anger bursting from the hands of the killer – but Kim had the undeniable sense that this had been done for fun.
They headed back towards the car.
‘Oh, Bryant, please tell me that’s not an Audi up there,’ she said.
‘Yeah, the bloodhound is here.’
Too many dog comments came to mind but she kept her mouth firmly closed.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Kim said, holding up her hand as Tracy approached.
‘I only have so much patience, Inspector,’ Tracy said, flicking her long blonde hair.
‘Me too, Tracy, and you are severely testing mine.’
‘And your threat only holds me for so long,’ she warned.
‘Which one?’ Kim asked, honestly. She shrugged. ‘No matter. I’m sure I can come up with another.’
Tracy had walked behind them all the way to the car. ‘You do know that other police officers are far more co-operative with the press. We can be helpful, you know.’
Oh that was a good joke and one Kim couldn’t let pass. ‘Bring me a helpful member of the press right now and I’ll have a chat, but as it’s only you I’ll pass, thanks.’
‘How long have those two girls been missing?’ Tracy asked.
In one movement Kim turned and stepped right into Tracy’s space.
‘Guv …’ Bryant warned.
Kim ignored him. ‘You repeat that question to anyone else and I promise you this will get personal. Shutting you up is worth losing my job.’
Kim was careful not to touch Tracy in any way but if the woman did anything to interfere with the safety of Charlie and Amy, Kim would make sure she never knew a minute’s peace again.
She stepped away and headed for the car.
‘Guv, you were a bit—’
‘Bryant, talk to me about the case or nothing at all.’ She wasn’t in the mood for appraisals of her behaviour.
He sighed heavily and glanced back towards the cordon tape. ‘If this guy is anywhere near our girls—’
‘Okay, probably best you don’t talk at all,’ she snapped, getting in the car.
The pictures were already in her head.
Fifty-Three
‘Charl,’ Amy said, beside her. ‘I can feel you shaking.’
Charlie was trying desperately to tell her body off for the involuntary movements. She could no longer tell if it was due to the fear or the cold. She only knew
that now and again her teeth chomped against each other and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
‘I’m okay, Ames, just a bit cold,’ she said, scooting across until the bare skin of her thigh found the bare skin of Amy’s.
The wet bathing costume that had welded itself to her body last night had dried against her skin, giving her a chill that reached into her bones. Amy’s towel was smaller and was under their bottoms but the cold found its way up through the mattress and the cloth. Her own towel was stretched around them like a shared cape. Amy held one corner and she held the other.
The sound of the key in the lock startled her. She hadn’t heard the warning signs. Gradually she was becoming less attentive to what was happening around her. She tried to back further into the wall, holding Amy’s hand tightly. Amy stared at the door.
The figure stepped into the open doorway.
Charlie shielded her eyes from the brighter light beyond the doorway. It was the bigger man again. The one who had taken their clothes.
Amy moved closer. ‘Charl, what's he …’
‘Sshhh …’ Charlie said.
The man had one hand behind his back. He stood with two legs apart.
His left hand came forward. In it was a tiny black and white kitten. Its eyes were sleepy and docile.
Charlie's immediate reaction was warmth. Her gaze fixed on the ball of fur that was opening its eyes and trying to look around.
A sensation formed in the pit of her stomach.
Charlie looked up into the only part of the man she could see. His eyes were crinkled at the corners. He was smiling but she detected no warmth. His eyes were not even on the kitten; they were on her.
The dread in her stomach continued to rise. It was how she felt before a trip to the dentist. But worse. She could hear her own heartbeat in her chest. She wanted to jump up and snatch the kitten from his hands but the trembling was travelling from her head to her toes.
She swallowed deeply, trying to control the involuntary movement of her body. The moisture was sucked from her mouth. Her throat closed around the words that were too frightened to come out.
Charlie watched as the man raised his right hand and placed it around the neck of the kitten.