But when they had stood beside Dewain’s bedside, observing the artificially induced movement of his chest, he had seen her right hand touch lightly on the boy’s wrist as it lay motionless above the crisp white sheet.
This was a case she would have worked herself if she hadn’t been trying to save the lives of Amy and Charlie. And she had passed it to him. He could not let her down. He would not let her down.
He approached a spacious front porch that displayed a selection of green, leafy plants in jardinières. The doorbell sing-songed in his ears.
The front door opened to reveal a girl in her late teens. Her legs were clad in Fair-Isle leggings covered by a slip of a black skirt. A plain pink T-shirt dropped off her left shoulder. The aroma of Reckless by Roja Parfums reached out towards him. He recognised it immediately as the fragrance he had bought his fiancée for her birthday. She had joked that he only ever bought her expensive gifts when he’d done something wrong. And that perfume had been expensive. Too bloody expensive for a teenager, he mused.
‘Lauren Cain?’ he asked, holding up his badge.
She didn’t look away from his face to acknowledge the identification before opening the door, just stepped back and stood in the doorway.
‘Come in,’ she said, with a smile, and a tilt of the head.
Dawson stepped in, taking care not to brush against her, and stood just inside the hallway as she closed the door behind him. He had the sudden, inexplicable desire to open the door back up.
‘Go through,’ she said, pointing to her right, exhibiting impeccable manners.
He entered a lounge that stretched the entire length of the house. A spacious garden preceded a view down into the basin of Lye and across to the Clent Hills.
‘Sit down, Officer,’ she said, tipping her head.
As he did she looked him up and down and made no secret of it.
He quickly assessed her. A square nose kept her face the wrong side of pretty but Lauren was a girl who made the most of what she had. Her hair was dyed an attractive blonde and her make-up had been perfected. More obvious was the sex appeal that hit him before her perfume.
Despite the abundance of chairs she sat right next to him on the sofa. Her knee rested against his. He moved it away.
‘I need to talk to you about Dewain.’
Her eyebrows lowered briefly in a calculated, questioning look.
Irritation surged through him. ‘Dewain Wright. Your ex-boyfriend. The one that died last week.’
If she heard the edge to his voice she ignored it.
She squeezed his upper arm as though he was a toy she didn’t quite know how to work.
‘Nice muscles,’ she said, tipping her head to the side.
‘Thank you,’ he said, moving his arm away and shuffling as far as he could to the left. ‘Can you tell me what you remember about the day Dewain died?’
He’d deliberately asked an open question to see if she admitted to receiving the text message from Shona.
She sat back against the sofa and crossed one leg over the other. Her ankle brushed his shin.
Dawson stood and moved towards the fireplace. This girl was not getting the hint.
‘I don’t really remember it all that well. Sorry. Are you married?’
‘That’s not really your business,’ he replied, tersely. He needed to ask his questions and leave this teenager to her little games. ‘How did you find out about the attack?’ he pushed.
She shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t recall.’
Dawson could see from her expression that she was no longer trying.
‘Lauren, I need you to—’
She stood. ‘I don’t have a boyfriend, you know.’
‘Did you know he was in a gang?’ he asked, ignoring the suggestion in her voice.
She rolled her eyes as she took a step towards him. ‘Duh, of course.’
Dawson took a step back. ‘Was that the attraction?’ he asked, openly.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t really …’
‘Remember,’ he finished for her.
Her expression didn’t change. She regarded him coyly and tipped her head as though they were playing kiss chase in the playground.
‘Were you told he’d died after the knife attack?’
‘I think so.’ She nodded. ‘Yeah, definitely told he was dead.’
Thank goodness she remembered something.
‘And you got a text message from Shona?’
‘Yeah, I got something from her. An hour or two later, I think.’ She took another step forward, twirling her hair. ‘My parents won’t be home for hours.’
It wasn’t so long ago Dawson had been a teenager full of raging hormones, but he couldn’t remember the girls acting like this. Back then he would have loved it but right now it just turned him off.
This flirty, over-sexed girl was nothing more to him than a witness. A person of interest in a crime he needed to solve.
‘Lauren, I have a fiancée and a child and what I need from you are answers.’
‘Doesn’t bother me,’ she shrugged. Dawson realised too late that he had allowed the conversation to divert from the death of Dewain but there was a determination in this girl’s eyes that was beginning to unnerve him.
‘Did the text message tell you Dewain was still alive?’
She shrugged. ‘I think so. I’m on the pill,’ she blurted out, leaning towards him.
Okay, enough was enough. The potential for this situation to become hazardous to his career progression was sounding warning bells in his head.
He stepped past her and headed towards the front door.
She followed closely behind. ‘I can tell my parents you did, you know,’ she hissed. Clearly, Lauren had finally got the message. Her sudden mood change was more suited to a toddler refused sweets.
The precariousness of the situation was not lost on him. He was alone in a house with a kid who had all but pinned him to the floor and he had done everything by the book. At nineteen years of age he didn’t need parental consent to question her but what he did need was a witness. For his own safety.
Dawson waited until he was outside the door before he turned and asked the only question that mattered.
‘Tell me, Lauren, did you tell anyone at all that Dewain was still alive?’
She smiled at him coyly and he could recite the words before they even left her mouth.
She couldn’t bloody remember.
Sixty-Seven
Karen emptied the water from the sink and reached for the cream cleaner. Her beautiful kitchen had always reached levels of laboratory standard cleanliness but she now felt that open heart surgery could be performed on her worktops without any fear of infection.
The house had settled into the afternoon routine that had quickly cemented. The guard sat at the front door with little to do. Helen wandered around in the background eager to fetch and carry for anyone who moved a muscle.
There were times when Helen’s presence irritated her; not the woman herself but her constant attempts to try to make life easier for them all. Karen didn't want the distractions removed. She wanted to pick up plates, mugs, glasses. She wanted to do anything that occupied her mind or her body, even if only for a second.
Any distraction from the questions in her head was a welcome relief. She knew that Stephen, and to some extent Elizabeth, felt that the press blackout was the wrong move. So far she had managed to persuade the two of them to trust Kim but she didn’t know for how much longer. Stephen was not an easy man to convince.
Yet Karen still felt they were right to trust Kim’s judgement. Their paths had crossed throughout their childhood and the surly, dark-haired girl had been an enigma to them all. She didn’t want friends; in fact, she actively avoided forming any kind of bonds.
Just like prison, personal circumstances and reasons for being in care were rarely shared and it was only much later that Karen had learned of Kim’s tragic past. That the young Kim could function carrying all that baggage w
as astounding.
But there was another reason Karen trusted the forthright woman and Kim didn’t even know.
* * *
Twelve years earlier Karen had been living in a squat on the outskirts of Wolverhampton. She hadn’t had a job in two years and had lost her flat. The derelict pub had been raided by twelve police officers and three social workers for the seven children living inside. She had recognised Kim immediately and had kept her hand up to her face.
One woman, Lynda, had slammed the bedroom door shut and refused to open it, threatening to throw her two-year-old son out of the window if anyone entered the room. While the rest of the police officers had cleared the building, Kim had stood at the door and kept Lynda talking.
She had promised Lynda that no one would touch her son and they would be kept together until his health had been assessed.
Eventually, when the building was clear, the whole team was assembled outside the last door. Karen could hear officers urging Kim to let them break the door down but Kim would not get out of the way.
A further forty minutes of reassurances passed before Lynda opened the door. Two social services women rushed forward to take the child but Kim stood in their way.
‘I gave her my word,’ was all she said.
Karen had seen and heard it all, because she’d been in the room when Lynda locked the door. Upon being freed she had hurried past, unnoticed.
She had been mortified to reflect on her own life in the face of the woman’s success. Kim was a bloody police officer and she was scum in a squat.
The next morning Karen had walked into the job centre and refused to leave until they found her some kind of work.
* * *
‘Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were in here.’
Although Karen knew the voice, she turned to see Elizabeth backing out of the room.
‘Can we not even be in the same room now?’ Karen asked, sadly.
It had been such a short time since they'd stood in this room, holding each other, comforting each other. Sharing a pain that only the two of them could understand.
‘It's just …’
Elizabeth’s words trailed away. It was just what? That a few days ago they had been closer than sisters. And now they were in competition for the lives of their children.
The surreal nature of the situation hit Karen hard. No matter the outcome, they would never recover from this.
It would never be a memory fondly recalled over dinner on a balmy Saturday night.
They stood in opposite corners of the room with more than the breakfast bar between them.
Karen wanted to say something, anything that would take them back to the night she had trusted her best friend with the biggest secret of them all. Only Elizabeth knew that Robert was not Charlie’s father.
For the first time she looked at her friend closely.
‘Your lip is swollen,’ she said, angling her head for a better view.
Elizabeth turned an inch away. ‘Oh, I fell over in the bathroom.’
‘On what?’ Karen asked. She didn't even try to hide the disbelief in her voice. They had known each other for too long.
‘I just slipped on …’
‘You've slipped in the bathroom before, Elizabeth. I remember it.’
Elizabeth took a step backwards. ‘No … I didn't …’
‘You said you wouldn't let him do this to you again.’
‘It's just the situation. I pushed and …’
‘Robert hasn't hit me and we're feeling it just as much as you are.’
Karen hadn't meant the words to come out that way. In her head they had sounded so different. Out of her mouth it sounded like they were competing for levels of distress and pressure.
Finally their eyes met and Karen saw the tears form as Elizabeth gingerly touched her lip.
Normally she would have crossed the distance between them and comforted her. But even that felt like a betrayal of her own daughter. How could she consort with the enemy? The notion stabbed at her heart but whatever the outcome, they would never be able to look at each other and not know each other’s innermost thoughts. What each of them would be willing to sacrifice for the sake of their own child.
Her darling Charlie was her world. Karen would offer her own life and the life of anyone else to save her child. Including Amy. And she knew that Elizabeth felt the exact same way. No friendship could ever endure that knowledge.
And as they stared across the kitchen table, they both knew it.
Karen turned back to the sink.
There was nothing left to say.
Sixty-Eight
Kim looked up and down Wordsley High Street. The grit bin was positioned on the corner.
‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘Eleven fifty-five.’
Kim walked along the street. The left-hand side was a string of shops including a café, butchers, jewellers and a mini market.
The opposite side of the road held a row of new town houses.
She walked back to the middle of the road and continued to look both ways. She tuned out the crowds on her side of the road, rushing in and out of the shops.
What made this road useful to the kidnappers?
‘Bryant, when were those houses built?’
‘Only recently. They're mainly studio apartments.’
Kim started to get a picture in her head. ‘So, back then it was an empty space?’
‘I think so. What you seeing, Guv?’
‘I'm seeing nowhere on that side of the street for officers to lie in wait. There's nothing there so anyone hanging around would have stuck out like a sore thumb. The only viewing point is over here. I'm missing something so …’ her words trailed away as she spotted the last piece of the puzzle. ‘And here it comes.’
Bryant looked to his left. A double decker bus ambled along the street and stopped right in front of the grit bin.
‘Jesus, nobody would have been able to see a thing. He could have been waiting just around the corner. He would have heard the bus pull up.’
Kim nodded. ‘A few people to get off to do their shopping and we're talking at least a minute to open up the bin and pick something up.’
‘Simple but clever.’
Kim ran the twenty feet to the top of the road. She caught the number of the bus as it turned the corner.
‘Bloody hell, Guv, what was that about?’ Bryant asked, catching her up.
‘The front of the bus. Damn it, the bus number was the 278.’
Sixty-Nine
‘Jesus Christ, Symes, did you have to do that much damage?’
Will had read the newspaper article twice, which held considerably more detail than the television reports.
Symes shrugged and smiled. ‘I got the job done and I'm happy in my work. What's your fucking problem? Dead, ain’t she?’
Will shook his head and turned away. There was no point trying to explain to the moron that he was taking unnecessary risks. The more violent the crime scene the greater the chance of him leaving behind something of himself for them to analyse. He was just thankful the idiot hadn't raped her. With the leisure centre kid Symes had used only his feet, judging by the online news report. And his Tesco trainers were common enough to be untraceable. But still, it was unnecessary.
He wheeled himself over to the phone table.
He switched on mobile phone number one and was not surprised to see a missed call.
He switched on phone number two. Another missed call from the same number.
He switched on phone number three to see he had a voicemail and a text.
He put the phone on loudspeaker and hit the play button.
The voice was calm and pleasant.
‘Matt Ward, negotiator. Give me a call and we can resolve this. I can help you get what you want.’
Will deleted the message. He didn't need to speak to any negotiator. He had stated his terms and the onus was on them.
‘You wouldn't think about it, woul
d you?’ Symes asked.
‘Think about what?’
‘Changing the plan, making a deal – ’cos we have a deal, remember?’
Will did remember. It was something he'd agreed to so he could keep Symes away from the girls. For now.
He could not risk the idiot damaging the merchandise until they had the money. And after that, well …
‘We have a deal,’ Will confirmed.
He scrolled to the only incoming message he was interested in. It had come from one of the parents.
The game was finally on.
With a smile he opened the text message and read. His eyes widened in surprise as he read it again.
He turned to Symes who was waiting eagerly.
As he handed over the phone, he said, ‘Well, I wasn't expecting that.’
Seventy
‘This really gonna do us any good, Guv?’ Bryant asked, bringing the car to a stop.
‘Bryant, I have no idea,’ she said, honestly. She only knew that something was compelling her to speak to the woman.
The dwelling was an unassuming bungalow at the top of a slope on a small residential estate. A blue, ten-year-old Fiesta sat in the uncluttered driveway.
‘Wait here if you like,’ Kim said, opening the car door. It was mid-afternoon and the woman could be off trawling the Wednesday markets for all Kim knew.
She had no idea what she was going to say, anyway. Bryant had been right when he'd surmised that she probably wouldn't believe a word that came out of her mouth. And yet she was here all the same.
‘With all due respect, Guv, the last time I waited in the car you attempted to force entry into a leisure centre so I think I'll tag along.’
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