‘Okay, guys, there’s something else. Another case we’re looking at.’
‘Because we haven’t got enough,’ Dawson grumbled.
‘Sit it out if you like then, Kev,’ she shot back, knowing that nothing would humiliate him more.
‘But I like to be kept busy,’ he said with an apologetic smile.
Kim didn’t smile back.
‘You all remember the guy found at Fens Pools a few years ago?’
‘The Pianist?’ Dawson asked.
Kim wondered just how many nicknames the guy had.
‘Uggghhhh, Kev,’ Stacey admonished as her face scrunched in distaste.
‘Yes, him,’ Kim confirmed. ‘We’re looking into it and before you say another word, Kev, yes this was a Brierley Hill case, but it remains unsolved.’
‘Wasn’t gonna speak, boss,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘We can all guess that his hands were removed to avoid identification, but I learned yesterday that his pacemaker was cut out also.’
‘They have a serial number,’ Dawson observed, narrowing his eyes. Now the case had his interest.
‘Don’t those patients have to take warfarin and get monitored every six months?’ Bryant asked.
‘And second prize of the day goes to the man on my right,’ she said and then looked to Stacey who knew what to do.
‘I’ll start ringing the clinics and check for anyone that started missing appointments about three years ago.’
‘Thanks Stace, and Kev… while you’re looking through mispers anyway…’
‘Got it, boss. But there’s just one more thing.’
‘Go,’ she said, rising from the desk.
‘I appear to be the only person who didn’t win a prize.’
She looked at him meaningfully. ‘And that, Kev, should tell you something.’
Forty-Three
Oh, Mummy, do you remember THAT DAY the same way I do?
You were a year late dropping me off at school. No preschool or nursery for me. No opportunity for a young mind to familiarise itself with other young minds.
A simple lie about my birthday, and I was all yours for another year.
You didn’t think I’d find out, did you?
That morning you cried as though your heart was being torn in two. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I cried too.
You sobbed as you brushed my hair. Your fingers trembled as you formed two equal pigtails that protruded from the side of my head. You were rough as though it was my fault.
You made me breakfast and gave me my vitamins, but they weren’t vitamins at all.
I remember my socks. They were ankle socks with pink butterflies in a line around the top. I didn’t like them, but I couldn’t say so because I remembered the pinafore dress.
As we walked hand in hand I wondered if I could somehow discard them during the day and then I could blame someone else.
There were tears at the classroom, from us both. I cried because you cried and then you cried some more. I can’t remember who stopped first as the teacher pulled us apart.
The other kids looked on, laughing and pointing meanly. I sat in the corner on my own hoping that someone would talk to me and praying that no one would talk to me.
I was sure when I told you how much I hated it you would not make me go again.
Louise was my designated escort. She was so pretty. At break time it was the job of the six-year-old girl to show me around. She took me to the little girls’ toilets. I didn’t want to go in front of her but the milk from the breakfast cereal weighed heavily on my bladder.
The doors were not full length. If you crouched you could see under, and if you jumped you could see over.
I peed as quickly as I could to the sound of Louise’s excited chatter about the lunch choices.
I stood and pulled up my knickers, oblivious to the fact that the chatter had stopped and that Louise was peering over the top of the door.
She was quiet and her eyes were wide. Heat infused my face and I didn’t know why.
But I was to find out later that day.
Forty-Four
Isobel held fast to the grey. It was edging along the black like a spreading stain. She knew it was trying to claim her, but she didn’t know if it was life or death.
And she no longer cared.
Anything but the unrelenting blackness that suffocated her would be a welcome relief.
The darkness had taken everything away. It had stolen her thoughts. There was nothing upon nothing that lived in the desolate bleakness.
Send her the grey, offer her the white, show her the tunnel that would lead her away.
At times the tide of grey slowed to an agonising crawl, causing her to wonder if she’d imagined its encroaching stealth.
There was also a blurring of the edges as though her consciousness was fraying.
The blackness was not as deep, but the more she reached, the higher the panic rose in the fragmented parts, and so she waited patiently for whatever was about to come.
Forty-Five
‘You told him, didn’t you?’ Kim spat as soon as they were alone in the car. ‘You sung like a canary about where I’d be.’
Bryant shrugged. ‘I might have mentioned that you walk Barney up Clent on a Wednesday night around nine and that you park in the lower car park. Just in passing, you know.’
She swung a hard left and bounced him against the passenger door. ‘Bryant, you do realise just how deeply I resent your attempted intrusion into my private life.’
‘Ha, is that what you think I did?’ he asked, righting himself.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Nah. Whenever we’re working on a big case you get turned all outside in. I know you don’t like Daniel Bate, so I thought this was the ideal opportunity for you to blow off a bit of steam. Basically if you’re shouting at him you’re not shouting at us.’
Kim realised that he’d had far too long to come up with that response.
‘And if you insisted on driving just to punish me, it’s working and I won’t do it again,’ he said, grabbing hold of the dashboard.
That hadn’t been her intention but she’d bear it in mind for the next time.
‘Any change with Isobel?’ Bryant asked as she slowed at the Russell’s Hall traffic island.
He knew she would already have checked.
‘Nothing significant but there is still brain activity.’
‘Uggh…’
‘What?’ she asked.
‘Have you ever thought about it?’
Instead of answering she just waited for the inevitable continuation.
‘It’d be like being buried alive, wouldn’t it? I mean, your brain still working but locked in darkness because your body won’t move and your senses are numb. It’s like being just a head. Do you know what I mean?’
Unfortunately she did. It was something she had been forced to ponder on one of their earlier cases when she’d met a young girl named Lucy. She had not been in a coma but her body had been destroyed by muscular dystrophy, leaving her only the use of a few fingers. Her brain had worked perfectly.
‘It’s like your whole existence is being just a head,’ he continued then sighed.
‘Okay, Bryant,’ she said. She’d heard enough. ‘If you want something to think about, spend some time working out why Bob had pound coins and a raffle ticket in his pocket ’cos it’s got me beat,’ she admitted, parking the car.
‘Yeah, I’ll be sure to give that priority,’ he moaned.
She had lost count of the times they had visited the hospital over the last few days but this time they weren’t heading to a ward.
‘But why eleven pound coins?’ she mused out loud, as they headed down the corridor to the morgue.
‘Trick question, guv?’ Bryant asked.
‘Why not a tenner or fivers. Why all coins?’
‘I really have no idea,’ he replied.
Kim found it strange sometimes how different minds chose diff
erent things to dwell on. Bryant had given the detail no thought and yet she’d thought of little else. With so little evidence to dissect, everything had to mean something.
‘Hmmm…’ she said, pressing the access button into the morgue.
A wall of white coats greeted her.
‘Keats… Daniel,’ she said. ‘What do we have?’
The pathologist shook his head. ‘Inspector, if you spent less time on small talk, you’d save yourself… well, no time at all really.’
Kim was grateful that the crisp white sheet covered their victim up to the shoulders.
She knew from the picture that had remained in her head all night that the woman’s face was decaying slowly. The injuries she had sustained were still evident.
‘How many blows to the face?’ she asked and had no preference for whichever one of them decided to answer.
‘I’ve counted seven so far, all to the left side,’ Keats stated.
Kim knew he was inferring that the murderer was likely to be right-handed. The blows probably came from above while the killer was astride the victim.
‘Mouth?’ Kim asked.
Keats nodded. ‘Full of dirt. Most likely the cause of death but we haven’t finished yet so I’m not prepared to commit, but go take a look on my desk.’
Kim strode to the table in the corner of the room. An evidence bag was positioned in the corner. She picked it up and turned it around.
It was a kirby grip. There was no broken heart, but she could see a gap in the white plastic where something had been broken off.
‘Same as Jemima,’ she whispered.
‘A little bit coincidental, Inspector?’ Keats offered.
She nodded her agreement and put the bag back onto the desk. Curious but not much help to her. They were mass-produced and available in two chemist chains and countless supermarkets.
She moved back to the table.
‘Any idea how long she’s been down there?’ Kim pushed.
Regardless of their stage of the process, she needed answers. Anything that would help her identify this woman.
‘Given the seasonal and climatic variation, the amount of soil water and acidity, I would estimate four to five years.’
‘Seems a bit far gone for such little time,’ Bryant observed.
‘Bodies decay quicker the higher up they are buried,’ Keats replied.
Of course their victim had only been about two and a half feet down.
‘Anything that will help me put a name to her?’ Kim asked. Her priority on both a professional and personal level.
Daniel stepped forwards. His Clark Kent glasses were like a uniform that converted him to a serious, studious scientist. Gone was the playful, teasing expression she’d seen the day before.
‘Over a lifetime the human skeleton undergoes sequential chronological changes normally categorised as foetus, infant, child, adolescent, young adult and so on. Up to the age of twenty-one the teeth are the most accurate indicator of age. From what I can tell so far, our victim falls under young adult, which typically spans from twenty to thirty-five years of age.’
‘Can you be any more specific?’ she asked. She would have liked to offer Dawson something in his search through missing persons. That was one heck of an age range to cover over the last four to five years. And that was if the woman had been reported missing.
‘I would estimate that the female is over twenty-five years of age. The clavicle – collar bone – is the last bone to complete and is fully grown.’
Kim said nothing and waited. She was hoping for a little more than that or she had been seriously short-changed when humiliating herself in asking him to stay.
Daniel continued. ‘Throughout a lifetime bone makes new osteons, which are minute tubes containing blood vessels. Younger adults have fewer and larger osteons, but with age they become smaller as new ones form and disrupt the old ones.’
Kim was grateful for the information but wasn’t sure she would ever have cause to use it again. If this woman could not be identified by her osteons it wasn’t a great deal of help to her.
‘And finally the cranium. The bones that enclose the brain grow together during childhood along lines called cranial sutures. During adulthood bone remodelling gradually erases these lines.’
‘So age wise are we looking to early thirties like Jemima Lowe?’ she asked, determined to force a more accurate answer.
‘Except for one key difference,’ Daniel said. ‘This victim has had a child.’
She exchanged a look with Bryant.
Now the service provided was becoming worth the price she’d paid. But his expression said that he wasn’t finished yet.
‘Pregnancy doesn’t modify a woman’s bones, with one exception. During childbirth the pubic bones separate to allow an infant to pass through the birth canal. The ligaments connecting the pubic bones must stretch. They can tear and cause bleeding where they attach to the bone.
‘Later bone remodelling at these sites can leave small circular or linear grooves on the inside surface of the pubic bones called parturition pits—’
‘Doc… Daniel, what are you trying to tell me?’ she asked.
‘I suspect she gave birth in her teens.’
And that final statement had sealed the deal.
Forty-Six
Isobel looked around the darkness. Her heart beat faster as she realised that it wasn’t black any longer but more of a dirty grey.
The black was being bleached out of her mind but not just at the corners any more. And it moved.
There was something beyond the darkness and there was a shadow.
There were voices. She listened carefully to see if they were in her mind. She wasn’t sure, but she suspected they were beyond her head and not in it.
The familiarity of the warm feeling on her hand was back. It was reassuring, comforting.
Please, someone, help me, she cried. I’m in here. Please let me out. I don’t know how to leave.
The effort of trying to communicate with her mind brought about sudden exhaustion. But there were sensations. There was a tickle in her foot. Something cold being placed on her chest. I’m here, she wanted to scream but her body wouldn’t listen.
For a while she’d wondered if her body parts were scattered around her head but the sensations told her they were connected.
Her body was still whole and she might be alive, not stuck in this silent, eternal hell.
But if she allowed hope then she must also prepare for despair, and she didn’t know if she could take the disappointment of being wrong.
He heart cried with unshed tears as she prayed for the nightmare to end.
Being dead made much more sense and that’s why she had so readily accepted it. Being alive was far too complicated, exhausting.
If she was dead, she no longer had questions.
If she was alive, she had too many.
Forty-Seven
‘I still don’t see why you’re quite so, er… animated,’ Bryant said, as they exited the hospital.
Kim switched on her phone to see she’d missed a call from Stacey. Just the person she wanted to speak to.
She pressed to return the call and threw the car keys at Bryant. He’d suffered her driving enough.
‘What have you got, Stace?’ she asked.
‘Something I think you’re going to like.’
‘Go on.’
‘I have the address of the old head teacher from Jemima’s junior school. I’ve got a list of staff that were there when she would have been.’
‘Good work, Stace. Text the address to Bryant. Now find out from her parents which high school she went to and check to see if you can find anything on a teen pregnancy for any girl around the same time,’ she said as they got into the car.
‘On it, boss, and one more thing. There are seven warfarin clinics in the area. Spoke to them all and have a list of eleven men who stopped attending around the time Bob was found.’
‘Bloody hell,
Stace. Are you on fire?’ Kim asked. ‘Just give me the first names,’ she said as Bryant exited the car park.
‘Alphabetically, they are Alan, Charlie, Edward, Geoffrey, Ivor, Jack, Lester, Malcolm, Norman, Philip, Walter.’
Kim shouted them out as Stacey said them.
‘Guv, you do know I’m driving and I can’t write anything down?’
‘Use your memory,’ she said, moving her mouth away from the phone.
Bryant shook his head and continued driving. He stopped at the Brierley Hill high-street lights.
‘Catch up later,’ Kim said, ending the call.
She looked to her left as Bryant was forced to brake sharply for a group of teenage boys who stepped into the road six feet shy of a crossing.
‘Jesus, sometimes…’
‘Pull over, Bryant,’ she said, her eyes fixed on one of the shopfronts.
He expertly claimed a space vacated by a white delivery van.
‘Guv… what are…?’
His words trailed away as he saw where they’d stopped.
Every high street had one. No matter how deprived the area or the rate of unemployment. There was always the market for an amusement arcade.
‘Wait here, Bryant,’ Kim said, jumping out of the car.
She pushed open the door and stepped in. Her eyes took a few seconds to adjust from the bright day outside to the false night-time environment of the premises.
Three slot machines along, a man wearing jeans and a white shirt was wiping at the glass display.
‘Excuse me,’ Kim said, allowing the door to close behind her.
His face was thin and pale but he smiled openly. ‘Whassup, love?’
Kim didn’t feel like taking the time to explain her position. Her question was a simple one.
‘Do you use raffle tickets here?’ she asked, looking around. ‘For bingo or for…’
She stopped speaking as he was already shaking his head.
Damn it, although it had been a long shot.
‘Nah, love…’
‘Okay, thanks for…’