Lost Girls (7 page)

T
he engine
of the Ninja died as it reached the cordon tape.

She removed her helmet and hung it over the handlebars. The Lyttelton Arms was a gastropub situated on the Bromsgrove Road in Hagley; barely a mile from the border where the two forces of West Midlands and West Mercia met.

The pub itself was the last property before the road narrowed to a lane with hedges on both sides. Fifty feet from the pub Travis stood in her way, obviously alerted to her arrival by the Ninja. The cars had been cut off at the traffic island so every sound travelled.

Only the light of his torch illuminated the immediate area between them.

‘I need to take this case,' Kim said, without preamble. Niceties hadn't existed between the two of them for more than three years.

‘No chance,' he said, shaking his head. ‘I remember saying the same to you not too far away from here and you shot me down because you were there first.'

Oh yes, she remembered it well. It had been the body of Teresa Wyatt, which had kicked off the whole Crestwood investigation.

‘Don't make it personal, Travis. This is not the time to get me back,' she said, stepping to the side to walk around him. He blocked her path.

‘Why's this kid have your card in his pocket?'

‘His name is Brad and he has it because I gave it to him,' she said, stepping to the left.

Again he moved in front of her.

‘What the hell is your problem?' she growled.

‘You're not getting it, Stone.'

‘For God's sake, I can hardly pick up the crime scene and run away with it, can I? Just let me take a look.'

Somehow Woody's instructions to play nice appeared to have wormed into her subconscious. She hadn't called Travis one foul name yet.

‘Five minutes, Stone. I'll give you five whole minutes at
my
crime scene.'

She shook her head and stepped past him. Oh, the names were hovering at her lips.

‘I'm still curious how you know this guy,' he said, matching her stride.

‘And I wouldn't want to spoil that fun by telling you,' she said, as three torchlights shone her way.

She shielded her eyes and carried on walking. Two further torches shone down onto the body of Bradley Evans.

Kim took a few seconds to brace herself for the final expression this young face would ever make. Only hours ago he had been an athletic, animated young man, assisting her and Bryant before a night out with his mates. And now he was dead. The chill that ran through her had nothing to do with the temperature.

She could have done more to prevent his death. She knew she could. She wasn't sure what but somehow she felt there was more.

The keys of the leisure centre glistened in the torchlight. They had either fallen out of his pocket or been removed by Travis.

‘No pathologist yet?' she asked.

‘On her way,' Travis said.

‘What time was he found?'

‘Twenty past twelve,' Travis offered.

It was now after one a.m. and the pathologist wasn't here. As the Officer in Charge she would not have been standing around with a group of redundant police officers at this stage. She would have had the phone attached to her ear threatening to move the body herself if they didn't get here soon. For this short limbo period of time, clues could be getting lost, evidence destroyed, witnesses travelling further away. The investigation was stalled until the techies had arrived.

But, she had to remember this was not her crime scene.

She held out her hand to the closest officer. ‘May I?'

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.

K
im 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 wouldn'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.