Kim shook her head. No way was it over two hundred and eighty grand.
‘Come on. It’s gotta be four bedrooms if not five.’
She explained her disagreement. ‘On the other side of that treeline is a busy road and the Merry Hill shopping centre. Look at the bigger picture.’
‘Yeah but—’
‘They’re here,’ she said as a vehicle rolled slowly towards them.
As the car stopped, Dawson got out of the front passenger seat and opened the rear door.
Mr Lowe stepped out and assisted his wife, who in turn held out her hand for the third occupant. Their other daughter.
Mr Lowe offered a brief nod to Dawson, who offered a respectful nod in return before getting back into the car.
She noted, as the family walked towards her, the absence of direct eye contact with each other. To do so would destroy their defences. To see their own pain reflected in the face of someone else would confirm what their hearts were not ready to accept.
Yet there was a physical connection threading the whole family together. Mr Lowe draped his arm loosely around the shoulders of his wife whose hand clung to that of her daughter. Sara Lowe had the same blonde hair as her older sister but she carried a few more healthy pounds.
‘Mr Lowe, Mrs Lowe,’ Bryant said, stepping forwards. ‘Detective Sergeant Bryant and Detective Inspector Stone. May we come in?’
Mr Lowe hesitated before nodding yes. Every other inch of him begged them to go away. And Kim sincerely wished that they could.
Intruding on the grief of a family was like entering their bedroom in the middle of the night.
They followed the family as they walked slowly across the drive.
Mr Lowe opened the front door and stood aside for his wife and daughter to enter. Once inside, the family paused in the hallway, not knowing what to do. Everything was the same but strange now. Their house looked different because their daughter would never be there again.
No one knew what to do. Normality had been suspended until they found a new one.
‘I’ll make tea,’ Mrs Lowe said to no one in particular.
It was an action, a movement, a minor distraction. The family liaison officer would arrive soon and even that small task would be shared.
A door to the right led to an informal lounge decorated in shades of beige. Kim saw a flat-screen TV in the corner.
Mr Lowe guided them inside. He took an armchair while she and Bryant took the sofa.
‘We are sincerely sorry for your loss,’ Kim offered.
Good manners prompted a nod as though the platitude meant something. It meant nothing. Anything other than it suddenly all being a mistake was meaningless to the grief-stricken man. And she understood. She had seen what he had just been forced to see. For her it was horrific enough; for him it was a trauma she couldn’t measure.
Kim guessed him to be mid-fifties. The white shirt and charcoal trousers showed the body of a man who had stayed fit and trim. His hair was short and unashamedly grey. His face carried an outdoor complexion.
‘Can we excuse Sara from this?’ he asked, looking from her to Bryant. The sudden concern took its place in his eyes amongst the worry and the grief.
Kim nodded. She would speak to Jemima’s sister only if absolutely necessary.
Mrs Lowe entered the room and placed a tray onto the glass coffee table. The tray contained a teapot, sugar bowl, milk jug but no teacups. No one commented as Mr Lowe stood for his wife to take the chair.
She was a woman who matched her husband’s height inch for inch with the assistance of high heels. Her hair was a mass of unruly red curls being held in check by clips and a rubber band. As Mr Lowe stepped behind the chair and placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder Kim couldn’t help but notice what an attractive couple they made.
‘Can you tell us when Jemima went missing?’ Kim asked.
‘Saturday afternoon,’ Mrs Lowe offered. ‘She was late from work. She’s never late from work.’
Kim wondered if it was something the thirty-one-year-old did every Saturday. Come home for tea with the parents.
‘Was Jemima married? Children?’
Mrs Lowe shook her head. ‘I got the feeling it was something she was beginning to think about, but her career has taken precedence since she left university. She’s an equine specialist but she’s been working locally and living here until she could get everything sorted.’
‘Sorted?’ Kim asked.
‘Oh, I’m sorry she’s… she’s…’
Mr Lowe took over from his wife, whose thoughts had been diverted by her own use of the present tense.
‘Jemima suddenly made the decision to move to Dubai about five years ago. She went to work for a family of horse breeders. She’s been back less than a month.’
Kim nodded her understanding.
‘Did Jemima have a boyfriend?’ she asked.
‘She’d been seeing someone. Just a couple of dates, I think.’
Bryant’s pen was poised above the notepad.
‘His name is Simon Roach, someone she met while shopping over the road. Deputy manager, I think.’
‘Did you meet him?’
‘Once,’ Mr Lowe confirmed. ‘One night she brought him round for a meal.’
‘And?’ Bryant asked.
‘I don’t like to judge on first impressions.’
The message was loud and clear.
‘Had Jemima had any problems with anyone that you know of?’
Mr Lowe frowned. ‘Not at all. Jemima is… was a gentle soul.’
Mrs Lowe stifled a sob on the past tense. Mr Lowe squeezed her shoulder again.
‘Jemima was not confrontational. She detested arguments and would always walk away.’
Kim stood. She had asked enough questions for now. They had intruded on the grief of this family long enough for one day.
Bryant followed suit and spoke before she had a chance. ‘Thank you for your time and, again, we are sorry for your loss.’
Kim headed through the hallway.
A shadow moved at the top of the stairs followed by the gentle closing of a door.
Kim hesitated for just a second before leaving the house.
Nine
Kim switched on the iPod. Bach was a composer she hadn’t listened to extensively before, but the string work in the Brandenburg Concertos complemented her work on the bike.
He had scored the concertos for several instruments: two natural horns, three oboes, a bassoon, two violins, a viola and a cello. The artistry required to bring all of those components together to produce a piece of music was not unlike the task of forming the parts strewn over her garage floor. One day it would grow up into a 1954 BSA Goldstar.
She had called time on the working day following the meeting with Jemima’s parents. Dawson was getting paper cuts from the missing-persons reports. Stacey was going cross-eyed staring at the screen, and Bryant had been stuck with her since first thing. They all deserved the opportunity to get home before seven p.m.
She hated this part of a case: the beginning, when the letters on the whiteboard in the office had room to breathe. To her it always felt like trying to stack pebbles. Without some kind of mortar it was going nowhere.
She had taken the time to clean all her windows and take Barney for his night-time walk. He now lay straddling the threshold of the doorway to the kitchen. At the tip of his front paws lay a portion of antler bone. The treat was supposed to last a long time and give the dog something to work at. In Barney’s case, he tried every now and again and then just left it. At this rate he could pass it on to his children, Kim mused.
Her dog was all about instant gratification.
Barney had come to her from one of her earlier cases. He had been the faithful pet of a convicted rapist who had been murdered on the Thorns Road. Following the attack the dog had not run away to freedom but had chosen to sit beside his master with his blood-spattered fur. And although the marks were now gone Kim still pictured him sitting
there.
Clearer still was the image of him being led away from an old lady unable to take care of him and placed in the ‘no-go’ area of the dog’s home. His kennel had lacked even a nameplate. So sure was the facility that he would not be re-homed again.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the dog didn’t play well with others and had seen more homes than a Barratt’s digger.
Kim gave him one last rub and stood, fully aware that she had more in common with a dog than anyone else in her life.
She tipped her head at him. Much the same way he did at her.
‘Want a carrot?’
His ears pricked and his tail whooshed the floor.
‘Yeah, I thought—’
Her words ended as the mobile phone next to the iPod began to ring. Good news didn’t usually come after midnight.
She checked the display. It was a number she didn’t recognise.
‘Stone,’ she answered.
‘Ah, Inspector, I thought you’d be up.’
At first the lazy, baiting voice didn’t register, but when it did she groaned into the mouthpiece.
Tracy Frost, local reporter, national pain in the arse and someone who should not have had her number.
‘Is it not midnight under your rock, Frost?’ she asked.
‘Oh, you know us reporters. We never sleep.’
Kim thought the term ‘reporter’ held a little too much dignity and professionalism to apply to Tracy, but she let it pass. The woman had been the pea beneath her mattress during her last major investigation, threatening to expose a kidnapping story despite a media blackout. The timeliness of the search had been imperative to the well-being of the girls, but Tracy Frost had added just that bit of extra pressure.
‘A bit like you police officers, eh? We are so much alike.’
Kim held the phone away from her ear and looked at it as though it had just licked her lobe. Was this woman on medication?
‘I’m hanging up now so…’
‘I wouldn’t if I were you. You’re going to want to hear—’
‘Tracy, you do know that we’re not friends, don’t you?’ Kim clarified.
‘Of course,’ she said, chuckling.
‘And you know that I can’t stand the sight of you and will never give you the heads-up on any case I’m working?’
‘Absolutely,’ Tracy answered.
‘Then why the hell are you on the other end of my phone?’
Kim held her breath, praying that the news of Westerley had not yet broken. She didn’t want to have to get Woody out of bed to fight fires at this time of night.
‘Well, I’m writing a feature about West Mercia having recently solved a few cold cases. To be honest the article focusses more on the fact that West Midlands Police have not, and your name does come up a bit so I thought I’d give you the chance to comment.’
Kim sighed with both relief and disgust at the same time. Trust Tracy Frost to concentrate on the negative. She also knew that the chance to comment realistically meant opportunity to defend herself.
‘Frost, I’m going to hang up now,’ Kim said, moving the phone away from her ear.
‘Keep your knickers on, Stone. I already asked your boss for a quote and he refused, so I thought I’d come to you, seeing as your name will be all over it.’
Of course it would. Kim’s refusal to play nice with the woman often meant she was front and centre when Tracy mentioned anything to do with West Midlands Police. Frost’s call to Woody further explained the timeliness of the visit to Westerley.
‘One of the cold cases I’m going to mention is that guy named Bob…’
‘Who the hell is…?’
‘Unidentified male found in Fens Pools reservoir two years ago with his fingers chopped off. I refer to him as Bob—’
Kim wrinkled her nose in distaste. ‘You called him Bob because he was found in the water?’
‘I called him Bob because he reminded me of my uncle Robert. Fuck me, Stone. I’m not that cold.’
Kim’s inner jury was out on that one.
Kim placed the phone on loudspeaker and put it on the worktop. She moved back to the pile of parts in the middle of the garage and knelt. She was far more interested in fitting the connecting rod to the piston assembly than anything this low life had to say.
Kim said nothing to encourage her to continue but Tracy chose to anyway.
‘You remember it, surely?’
‘I remember it, but it wasn’t my case,’ Kim answered, reaching for the blowtorch.
It had been handled by Brierley Hill, which was a stone’s throw from the location the body was found. She’d had no involvement.
‘His killer was never found.’
‘And?’ Kim asked. That’s what happened sometimes. No police officer liked it but never forgot an unsolved case. It prodded at you periodically like an unscratched itch.
‘Come on, Stone. Surely you’re intrigued by a guy with no fingers. Doesn’t that pique your interest? A killer does something to make sure you can’t identify the victim and gets away with it. Is that not offensive to you?’
Yes it was and this infuriating woman bloody well knew it.
Kim noted with a smile that Barney had turned around and now lay with his behind facing the phone. He really was a clever dog.
Kim put down the blowtorch and began moving things around on the workbench.
‘Bloody hell, Stone, what are you doing?’ Tracy shouted.
‘Looking for a tool, so if you’re done with our late night—’
‘Come on, Inspector. If this had been one of yours there’s no way it would—’
‘Aaaah, spanner,’ Kim said.
‘Excuse me,’ Tracy said.
‘Found it,’ she said, reaching for the tool.
‘This poor guy has no identity, no name. I mean, imagine if that was one of your family members, eh? He wouldn’t have been dismissed quite so—’
‘No victim is dismissed,’ Kim snapped and realised too late that she had given this woman exactly what she’d been seeking. A reaction. ‘I’m hanging up now, Frost,’ she said, reaching for the phone.
‘And just to let you know I’ve bought new shoes for your commendation cere—’
Kim switched off the phone and enjoyed the sudden peace that entered the room. It had been no less invaded than if the woman had marched right in and sat down.
She reached over and brought Bach once more into her special place.
What had Tracy Frost been thinking? Like Kim really needed to take on cases unsolved by other teams in the borough. Her own local policing unit kept her busy enough.
And yet, as she tried to fit the connecting rod to the piston, Kim found herself thinking about a man named Bob.
Ten
Tracy Frost let herself into the small rented house at the bottom of Quarry Bank high street. Although it didn’t fall under the postcode for the more affluent area of Amblecote she used it in her postal address anyway.
Before doing anything else she stepped over to the laptop on the dining table and hit the space bar. The computer hummed to life and revealed that the white Audi TT, her most prized possession, filled the centre screen.
In Quarry Bank high street a car like hers could attract negative attention. Groups heading to one of the chip shops further up the hill sometimes stopped and admired it. Kids looking in the window of the motorcycle shop opposite might pop across the road to take a peek. Jealous neighbours might flatten a tyre or two. A regular occurrence before she’d had the camera installed.
It was almost one in the morning, and there’d be very few people passing her car tonight.
She left the screen open as she removed her five-inch heels. She hated the damn things, but she wouldn’t be without them for anything. She loved her car more than anything, but, given a choice, she would keep her heels. Her sanity depended on it.
All day she’d been plagued by a feeling of unease. She’d done all the things that normally quieted any anxiety w
ithin her. She had checked her online bills and found nothing outstanding. Her bank balance was hovering exactly where it always did, just below her overdraft limit.
She had gone backwards and forwards in her diary to make sure there were no birthdays or anniversaries forgotten or imminent.
She had phoned her mother and listened to the minor details on just about everything since her last phone call. As usual she had pretended that everything was fine and that she really would try to go round to see them both sometime in the coming week. She hated that both statements were lies and hated even more that her mother knew it.
She’d hoped that a bit of goading of her least favourite police officer would help lift her mood, but it hadn’t.
What she hadn’t admitted to Kim Stone was an element of guilt that accompanied any thought of Bob. Two years ago, when she’d watched his body being loaded into the ambulance, Tracy had vowed to expose whoever had done this to him. She had fully intended to speak to her editor about a human-interest piece focussed on finding out who he was.
Two days later she’d been covering the story of a local footballer whose cocaine addiction had been leaked by one of his mistresses. She had been unable to resist a sex and drugs piece, and her story had amassed the second highest circulation of the Dudley Star, beaten only by a commemoration edition for Princess Diana.
When she’d spoken to her editor the following week about Bob he’d had trouble recalling the man pulled from the lake and had denied her request. She wasn’t part of the police force tasked with investigating his murder, but she felt some kind of responsibility that his murderer still walked free. It was one of the things that periodically jumped into her consciousness and slapped her around a little. The news that West Mercia had been successful in clearing a few old cases had brought Bob back to the forefront of her mind.
During the course of the day she had tried everything she could think of, yet the feeling had not cleared.
Maybe she just needed some sleep. These feelings rarely accompanied her into the next day.
She carried the pair of Jimmy Choos up to the bedroom and opened the door. She placed them behind the other pointy-toed stilettos in the Anouk range. So far she had six pairs. And every one of them had a support in the left shoe.
Play Dead: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller Book 4 Page 5