He passed his torch and she lowered it to the ground.
The single track lane lowered to a ditch on either side where the edge of the road surface met the soil beneath the hedgerow.
Brad’s body was turned into the foliage and lay on its side. The torch travelled the length of his black-clad body, almost lost in the darkness, until it reached his shoulders.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Kim whispered.
His head no longer held its shape. Gone was the tidy circumference of a normal skull. It appeared to have been replaced by a deflating football. As she shone the torch around she saw the trail of blood where Brad had been literally kicked around the road by his head.
Beneath where his skull now rested was a pool of blood and brain matter that had seeped from one of the many wounds inflicted. Had he not been wearing the same clothes Kim would not have recognised him. He didn’t look like Brad any more. He didn’t look like anyone any more.
‘Someone didn’t like this kid one little bit,’ Travis said, beside her.
She couldn’t be bothered to respond. The person who had done this hadn’t even known him. He had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had dared to ask someone for help.
She handed the torch back to the officer on her right. She’d seen enough.
She took two steps away from the body and turned back up the road.
‘Bloody hell, Stone, by my watch you’ve still got a minute and a half left,’ Travis sneered at her retreating back.
His snide comments were not worth her energy.
Travis would have to chase his own tail on this one. He wasn’t going to find anything but as she walked away she made a silent promise that she would make Brad’s killer pay for what he’d done.
As she neared the Ninja she groaned out loud as a familiar car extinguished its headlights.
She reached the cordon at the exact same second as Tracy Frost.
‘What the hell do you want?’ Kim asked by way of an opening greeting. For Tracy it was the best she had. Surely Woody’s instructions of ‘play nice’ didn’t stretch this far. Even Woody knew she had her limits.
Truthfully, she was not surprised to see the reporter on the scene so quickly. She was sure the woman had a police scanner implanted in her ear.
‘Just doing my job, Inspector,’ she said, removing a leather glove.
Kim looked behind her. ‘Yeah, and leaving a trail of slime as you go.’
Tracy took out a Dictaphone and switched it on. ‘More importantly, Inspector, what are you doing here? This is West Mercia territory.’
Kim approached the officer who was pretending not to overhear their exchange.
‘Do not let this woman sneak past the barrier. In fact, shoot her if you have to.’ She turned to Tracy and looked at the machine. ‘Hope you got that.’
She aimed to walk past the woman who fell into step behind her. Jesus, was there anything that would penetrate the rhinoceros skin?
‘Give me something, Inspector,’ she said, smiling. Remarkable really, seeing that just this morning Kim had pinned her to the wall and threatened her.
‘Don’t tempt me, Tracy,’ Kim said, pulling the helmet over her head. Unfortunately it didn’t block out the voice beside her.
‘I wanted to talk to you about the other thing.’
Kim turned. ‘By that I assume you mean the death of a young man named Dewain Wright and your contribution towards it?’
‘Yeah, that,’ Tracy said, leaning against her car.
‘I have nothing left to say.’
Tracy smiled coyly. ‘You’re going to feel very stupid when you realise you were wrong.’
‘I’m not wrong about you, Tracy. I know exactly what you are and how you work.’
Tracy shrugged. ‘Have it your own way, but I warned you.’
‘Yeah, well, now I’m warning you. Get out of my way or I’ll …’
Tracy stepped aside for her to pass. ‘Okay, but don’t think you’ve seen the last of me.’
Oh, if she had just one wish.
Kim threw her leg over the seat and waited for Tracy to approach the officer at the cordon. On this one she was the problem of West Mercia.
She looked back at the activity in the dark, narrow lane. What now held her attention was the thought that if the person who had done this to Brad was anywhere near Charlie and Amy, then God help them all.
Twenty
Kim tapped lightly on the door to attract the attention of the officer sitting just the other side.
It opened and she suddenly realised he had not been relieved from his post in over twelve hours.
‘Go take a rest on the sofa, Lucas,’ she said, removing her helmet.
He shook his head but his eyes were squinty and red.
‘Go,’ she insisted. ‘Your relief will be here in the morning.’
‘Don’t take me off the case, Marm,’ he pleaded.
‘I won’t, but you can’t work twenty-four hours.’
He nodded and tiptoed across the hallway into the informal lounge.
Kim tiptoed too. All shoes sounded loud on the expensive tiled floor.
She reached for the key in her pocket as she passed by the door to the kitchen. A shadow stood out in the darkness and Kim’s heart missed a beat.
‘Jesus, Karen, I thought you were in bed.’
‘Where’ve you been? I tried the door,’ Karen said, taking a sip from a glass of water.
Kim switched on the light. ‘I sometimes take the bike for a burn late at night. It clears my head.’
That was not a lie. She often did that. Just not tonight. But Kim was pleased that the key to the war room was safely in her pocket.
‘Are you working on another case, because my daughter is the most—’
‘Karen, I’m not working on any other case. This will be my only case until I bring Charlie and Amy home.’
‘Promise?’
Such a childlike request from a woman trying desperately to keep it together.
‘Promise,’ Kim offered, then tipped her head. ‘What are you doing down here alone?’
‘Got fed up with pretending to try and sleep. Robert is tossing and turning and I can hear Elizabeth crying down the hall. I came down for a glass of water and just … stayed.’
She touched the screen on her mobile phone.
Kim wondered, to the nearest hundred, how many times she'd done that.
‘I just keep staring at it, willing it to go off and dreading the fact that it might.’
Kim took a seat on the opposite side of the breakfast bar. The rest of the house was silent around them.
‘I keep thinking that if I concentrate hard enough I can turn back time and stop them from going to the leisure centre.’
Kim suspected it would have made no difference. The snatch had been planned, the families chosen and it would have happened at some point.
‘One minute I'm filled with rage that someone has my daughter and the next I want to offer them my life in exchange for my baby. In my mind I've pledged to every charity and vowed to be a better person. There's nothing I wouldn't give to get Charlie back. She's my world.’
Karen reached behind her. She placed a framed photograph of two girls beside the phone.
‘Do you want to take this next door, just so you know?’
Kim shook her head. She needed no reminders but she took a moment to assess them in detail. Charlie's skin was more tanned than Amy's. She was slightly taller than her friend and sported a mass of blonde, unruly curls. Her mouth was a moustache of ice cream. Her eyes were piercing blue.
Amy’s hair was a dark helmet with an untidy fringe. They both looked into the camera, their necks stretched, hands gathered at their chests, their faces scrunched.
Karen touched the outline of the fair-haired child. ‘They were pretending to be meerkats. We were at the safari park. We couldn't get them away from the little creatures. Not even for the fair rides. They were trying to name every one of them but they w
ouldn't keep still.’
‘What's Charlie like?’ Kim asked, staring at the mass of curls.
Karen smiled. ‘I think spirited would be a good way to describe her. See that hair, she's been singled out because of it since nursery school. She's been called “mop head” and other less pleasant names but she refuses to get it cut or even trimmed. She loves her hair and that's all that matters.
‘Don't get me wrong, she's not spoiled. Robert is indulgent but he's a stickler for manners. He allows her to express herself but won't tolerate mean or spiteful behaviour. He loves her more than anything in the world. He's the first one to roll on the floor or chase her around the garden making animal noises.’
Kim was content to sit and listen. Sleep was not even a distant promise with the picture of Brad in her mind.
‘Do you have children?’ Karen asked.
Kim shook her head.
Karen looked sad and Kim chose not to correct her. For her it was a conscious choice. Her mother's genes would end with her.
‘You're missing out, Kim. You don't know love until you're a mother. Every other type of love fades beside it.’
Yeah, still not worth it to continue this particular bloodline, Kim thought. She said nothing. She could cite a hundred cases of child cruelty and neglect that didn't quite conform to Karen's spring meadow view. Hell, she could even quote her own, but she didn't.
‘You didn’t like me much, back then, did you?’
Kim was startled at the sudden change of subject matter. It was a dire understatement but Kim simply shook her head.
‘Why?’
‘Now isn't the time—’
‘Please, Kim, talk to me about something else. I need a break from my own thoughts. The pictures being conjured in my mind are going to drive me insane. Tell me how you remember that time.’
With more clarity than you, Kim thought. It was pointless going down that road. It was in the past. Unalterable.
Karen continued. ‘I know we weren’t close but there was still a bond between us all. There was a sisterhood. We all looked out for each other.’
‘That's really how you remember it?’
Karen's open and honest expression was her answer.
Kim had seen this before. Some people rewrote their own past. They reinvented themselves completely to add distance to the facts. Kim chose to pack it in boxes and leave it there.
‘Karen, there was no sisterhood and we certainly didn't look out for each other.’
‘I know I was a bit aggressive at times but that was just—’
‘You were a selfish individual who wanted what everyone else had,’ Kim said honestly.
Quite frankly she'd have been happy to leave Karen's memories where they were, in a work of her own fiction, but she'd brought it up and Kim was not an enabler.
Those days had been hard for them all. Some kids had chosen to band together; to belong to something, forming a substitute family. Kim had not. She had formed no lasting friendships or enduring bonds with anyone. But she had hated bullies with a passion.
Intermittently from the age of six her path had crossed with Karen’s and the interludes had rarely been pleasant.
But it wasn't until that last foster home that they’d spent any real time together.
‘Do you remember a slight Indian girl named Shafilea?’ Kim asked.
Karen searched her memory. ‘Oh, God, yes, she was a funny little thing, wasn't she? If I remember correctly she had a big head.’
Yes, she'd had a big head and a very small body.
She'd been removed from the care of her parents who had starved her for months because she'd worn a pair of ripped jeans. Kim had overheard the foster parents moan about the strict diet and nutrition menu they had to follow to build up the muscle mass of the girl gently.
Kim had tried to speak to Shafilea a couple of times but even the three trips per week to a therapist would not induce the girl to open her mouth.
‘Do you remember those drinks she had after tea?’
Karen smiled. ‘Yeah, we all wondered why she got a milkshake and we didn't.’
Kim could barely contain her amazement at Karen's twisted recollection. Kim was unsure where she was on the day that house unfolded into a sparkly fairy castle awash with butterflies and elves.
In truth the foster home had been two council houses knocked into one, holding more bunk beds than Ikea.
‘They were protein shakes formulated to strengthen her undernourished body.’
‘Oh, I didn't know—’
‘I caught your best mate flushing the girl's head down the toilet until she handed it over.’
Karen looked doubtful and began to shake her head.
‘The girl was ten years old.’
Karen looked horrified. Just a year older than her own daughter was now.
‘No, you must be mistaken,’ Karen said. Although her words lacked the conviction of the righteous.
‘Well, she wasn't plaiting her hair with pink, glittery ribbon,’ Kim snapped.
Karen's hand covered her mouth. ‘Oh my God. It was you, wasn't it?’
Kim didn’t respond.
‘You were the one who beat up Elaine. She never said anything and neither did you but I remember it. And now I come to think of it, she really did hate you.’
Finally, Kim thought, some clarity.
Her actions that day were not something she was proud of but sometimes you just had to speak the same language as a bully.
Silence settled between them as they both filed away their own recollections of the past.
‘You know, Kim, you might be right about back then but right now the only thing I care about is seeing Charlie again.’
Kim nodded her understanding as Karen covered her mouth to stifle a yawn.
Kim checked her watch. ‘It's almost three. Go and try to get a couple of hours, okay?’
Karen nodded and touched her phone once more.
Kim leaned over and placed her own hand on Karen's. The frightened eyes implored her.
Their gaze held for a few seconds.
‘I will bring your little girl home.’
Karen nodded and squeezed Kim's hand in response. She yawned once more and headed out of the kitchen.
Whatever the circumstances, the body demanded rest and – although it could be delayed by stress, energy, fear, worry – eventually fatigue came knocking.
Kim was still waiting.
It was time to head back into the war room.
She reached out and took the photo.
Twenty-One
Kim emptied the old filter into the bin. The sodden coffee sent it to the bottom with a thud.
She placed a crisp, white triangle into the machine and added four generous measures of coffee and then another for good luck.
She sat at the table and waited, her eyes drawn to the photo on the wall.
She was entranced by the girls’ purity. Both beamed at the camera, a snapshot of joy caught forever. Two young souls secure in the world built around them: their families, their friends, their innocence.
Kim wondered if there had ever been a moment in her own earlier life when such a moment could have been caught.
There may have been a time between the ages of ten to thirteen when the camera might have framed a smile. With Erica on one side and Keith on the other, foster family four had made her feel safe. And yet, even then her eyes would have reflected the sorrow inside. The kindness of the couple could not have erased her past.
She could not think of Keith and Erica without travelling to Mikey. The box in her mind marked 'loss' held the memories of them all.
She closed her eyes for a second. How different would life have been if they'd had a mother like Erica?
Kim quickly shook the thoughts away. Delving into the contents of her mind was like a game of mine jumping. Stay for too long and she'd be blown to smithereens.
She hated to admit that Karen's words had unnerved her. The description of maternal l
ove couldn't have been further from her own experience. That all-encompassing devotion of which she spoke was lost to Kim. She had no frame of reference and so couldn't comprehend the thoughts. There had been no magical bond with her mother. Kim had been too busy trying to keep herself and Mikey alive.
The chat with Karen had drawn her back to the past and now it was with her. Here. In the room.
Kim pushed the chair back and opened the door. She gingerly stepped along the hallway.
‘You okay there, Marm?’ said a figure from the corner.
‘I thought you were sleeping,’ Kim said to Lucas, who had resumed his position.
‘Had a couple of hours. Fine now until relief arrives,’ the young officer replied.
She nodded and pulled open the heavy oak door. The freezing temperature reached in and grabbed her bare skin. She happily stepped out to greet it.
She thrust her hands into her pockets and faced the cold wind head on.
It swirled around her head, numbing her ears, before pushing against a tree, which passed the movement along so that the entire row of conifers leaned to the right.
Kim thrust her hands down deeper as she walked to the tree line. The wind paused abruptly. The only sound was her feet landing on twigs made brittle by the ice and dislodged by the wind.
Kim turned as a sudden gust lifted the lid of the wheelie bin and threw it back down before retreating again.
She resumed her walk but a rustle reached her ears. No plants or trees moved.
Her body reacted instantly, senses switched to high alert. She froze every muscle in her body to listen for the sound again.
Silence.
No light reached her from the street lamps at the end of the drive. The only light from the front of the house was in the hallway, obscured by the heavy oak door that Lucas had pushed closed.
A scent wafted past her nostril. A hint of petunia but no flowers were in bloom.
She turned her head slightly in the direction of the rustle. A gust blew along the tree line, revealing a mass on the other side of the dense hedge.
The smell grew stronger as the shape moved slightly to the left. The two of them were now level but separated by the tree line.
The movement of her heart sounded loudly in her ears. If she retreated to the house she would never know who had been out here in the shadows, skulking and watching.