Just one more step and she loosed the string in her fist.
Catherine fell to the ground and beyond. Her body hit against the side wall of the grave on the way down and Kim heard a loud groan and a cough as she landed on top of the corpse named Jack.
Kim knew that the radio was on the ground somewhere. She just needed to find it with her feet and that meant keeping Duncan’s hands away from her.
She moved backwards, further away from the light of the torch but also further away from the graves.
The rain was beating down upon them both. Kim felt it had entered every orifice in her body.
‘You went back to the hospital to finish the job, but you couldn’t get in. You said you were her boyfriend, but she was being monitored too closely. You couldn’t do it. And when I came you just embellished the story. And because we had you we didn’t look for any other relatives or friends who would disprove your story of knowing her.’
He was listening intently, appearing to enjoy his own cleverness.
Kim continued to move one step at a time, but he had gained on her by a foot. Her vision blurred as she raised her hand to wipe the rain from her eyes.
‘Catherine has been helping you bury the bodies, hasn’t she? You were in this together since your days at Bromley?’
The tip of her toe met with something hard. It was the site radio, but Duncan was no more than two feet away.
Kim turned it with her foot and then leaned her weight on it, hoping she was near the transmission button.
‘You made a pact that you would help each other seek revenge on the people who made your lives hell.’
She released her foot. No response. She had not activated the microphone.
‘I know what they did to you when you were Graham. I understand how they hurt you, but they didn’t deserve to die,’ she said as she used her toe to push the radio over. She rested her weight on it again.
‘Of course they had to die,’ he said, smiling. His face took on a childlike innocence as though there was no other way. ‘And so will the rest, once I’ve taken care of you…’
‘How many?’ Kim asked. She’d thought Tracy would be the last.
‘Twenty-seven people ridiculed me that day,’ he said, taking another step closer.
‘Why the wait between Louise and Jemima?’ she asked.
‘There has to be a method, Inspector. It has to be done in order of hate and whose voice I heard loudest, whose face was most in my dreams.’
Kim realised that her second attempt to activate the radio had been unsuccessful, but she had to keep him talking.
‘You killed the two men that held Catherine captive, didn’t you?’ Kim asked, releasing the button again.
Silence met her ears until Duncan broke it. He was no more than a foot away from her.
‘We needed each other to get what we wanted,’ he said.
Kim hit the radio again with her foot and gave it a good stamp. She knew she was running out of time, but her colleagues would never hear her cries through the storm.
She stepped back and the radio crackled into life.
‘Boss, you all in order?’ Stacey’s voice sounded.
Duncan looked down to the voice that had come from her feet. Kim knew she would not be able to find the transmit button again to reply, but her failure to answer would bring assistance from the rest of her team.
‘Boss, please confirm all in order,’ Stacey cried.
The second call acted as a catalyst and Duncan lunged towards her.
In the darkness, she saw the glint of a knife.
She tried to duck away from his grasp, but his left hand made contact with her neck.
‘You are not going to spoil this for me, bitch,’ he cried. ‘I’ve been waiting all my life to set this straight.’
Kim couldn’t keep track of the location of the knife.
‘Don’t you fucking understand? I have to do this.’
Every word increased the pressure of his hand on the back of her neck but the words ignited a fuse within her. He had to do it. He hadn’t done it yet. Tracy was still alive. Wherever the hell she was, he hadn’t killed her yet.
She tried to prise herself away from his hand but feared for the knife.
He was struggling to hold her with one hand and keep hold of the weapon at the same time.
She gathered her strength and barged him backwards.
Graham fell onto his back, his legs flailing for balance. She turned and wrestled the knife from his grip. As soon as the knife was freed he used both hands to throw her to the ground. Her shoulder met with a puddle that sent rainwater splashing into her face and she tried to shake it away.
He sat astride her, fumbling in the grass. He leaned down onto her body, trying to find the blade around her shoulders and head. The position reminded her of when she was riding the Ninja. His weight bore down on her.
The stems of the flowers bit into her back.
Kim knew that if his hand found that knife she was dead.
The weight of his body prevented her from moving her own. She kicked and thrashed her legs, but his thighs had her pinned at the waist. She had no weapon and only her hands free to use.
His hands were planted to the ground either side of her head. One arm was being used to keep him stable as the other hand searched for the knife.
There was only one thing she could do.
She thrashed her head against his supporting arm. The full weight of his torso landed on top of her.
Kim gasped as the wind was rushed from her lungs, but she had to make her move.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down, burying his face into her breastbone.
She adjusted her arms around the back of his neck, locking him in a twisted lovers’ embrace.
He tried to turn his head to escape, but she held firm. His position on top of her meant there was nothing he could use to lever himself back up to a sitting position. She pulled his face right into her chest and held him close.
His hips began to rock as he tried to unlock himself from the embrace in which she held him, but she couldn’t allow him to find that knife.
The wriggling of his body told her he was gasping for breath. That was exactly what she wanted. It was her only chance.
Suddenly she let go. He reared up and opened his mouth.
Her hand reached around to the side and closed around the only thing available to her.
Her palm rested around the thorns on the flower stems.
Graham’s mouth was open wide as he gasped for breath. She raised her hand holding a foot-long thorny stem and used all her might to jam it into his throat.
For a split second he was still, his eyes bearing down on her, confused.
He fell to the side, clutching at his neck.
Kim knew he could pull it out, but it had bought her the minute she needed.
She reached around and finally found the handle of the torch.
Graham rose and stood, choking and staggering as he pulled the flower stem from his throat. He coughed madly and turned towards her. She shone the light directly in his face and watched as he took two steps towards her, the murderous glint back in his eyes.
Another step and his foot met with something on the ground. He shouted out as he tumbled to the floor and out of view.
Kim turned the torch to the grass. It rested on the squirming form of Tracy Frost.
Kim folded to the ground as Dawson appeared, panting, in front of her.
He shone a torch directly at her and then across to the form of the reporter.
‘Jesus, boss, are you okay?’ he said, kneeling down beside her.
Kim’s body was beginning to let go of the adrenaline that had kept her upright. In its absence the fatigue was trying to take hold.
‘I’m okay, Kev,’ she said. ‘Check that they’re both still alive.’ She didn’t want them dead. She wanted to see them in the courtroom.
Dawson looked around. ‘Where are they?’
She nodded towards the graves of Jack and Vera, no longer sure who was in which one.
He shone the torch and nodded. ‘Yeah, boss, they’re both still alive.’
The rain was starting to slow, but the storm still lingered in the air. A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, but it was heading somewhere else.
Kim scooted along the grass towards the reporter who had escaped with her life.
‘Hey, Frost, we’ve been looking for you,’ Kim said, stroking the sodden hair from Tracy’s face. She wasn’t surprised by the emotion she saw in the eyes that were hooded with exhaustion. Kim knew this woman much better now than she had a week ago.
‘I… w-wanted… to… had… to… help… ’ she stammered.
Her hands and chin were caked in dirt.
Kim could see how Tracy was fighting the debilitating drug that was ravaging her system.
The woman could have lain low and simply waited to be found. But she hadn’t. She had painfully pulled herself to the top of the hill, instead of just keeping herself safe.
Kim reached out and squeezed the woman’s shoulder.
‘It’s all right, Tracy. You’re okay. We’ve got you now.’
Ninety-Three
The morning sun was reflected in the black marble of the gravestone. The heat of the day wrapped itself around her body like a gentle, reassuring hug. The heat was cleaner today, thinner and calmer.
The gravestone before her bore two names.
To Kim’s mind it was the grave of her parents.
With her, she had two pieces of paper.
Keith and Erica West were the closest thing to a family she had ever known and although her time with them had been short, she missed them every day.
She had been hoping to visit them yesterday on the anniversary of their deaths, but she knew that they’d understand.
There had been one final thread that had needed unravelling and she had felt compelled to see it through.
After briefing Woody on the events of the night before she had headed down to the squad room on Saturday morning to find Dawson was already there.
The pile of missing-persons reports had been stacked high on his desk.
‘What are you doing?’ Kim asked.
‘Isobel still has no name,’ he answered simply.
Together they had waded through the papers, armed with more knowledge than they’d had before. Three hours later, they had found the report they were after.
Isobel was an ex-prostitute who had turned her life around two years earlier. She had been reported missing at the beginning of the week by a work colleague. And her name was Mandy Hale.
Kim had asked Dawson to pay her a visit and fill her in on her life. Warts and all, she deserved to know the truth. It was her identity, and it was her life. A less than perfect life was better than no life at all.
Catherine and Duncan were both in custody. Duncan had been charged on four counts of murder, one attempted murder and one count of abduction. Catherine was facing a whole host of accessory charges. They were both naming the other as the mastermind behind the whole thing, claiming they had been coerced as a minor. There was an amusement that even now they were offering the same justification without knowing it. Ultimately, neither of them were likely to see the free world until their early sixties and, in the case of Duncan, perhaps not at all.
He’d kept all the victims in an old corner shop that was boarded up at the end of a line of terraced houses condemned and awaiting demolition. Once he’d forced entry to the premises his activities had been seen by no one. Kim had seen the photos of the macabre room and the rocks he’d used as weapons.
There could have been a small part of Kim that was tempted to feel sympathy for these two souls who had been damaged earlier in life, but there wasn’t. Both of them had suffered horrific ordeals at the hands of other people and had been powerless to defend themselves. But here was the issue for her. So had thousands of other people. She had come to learn over the years that very few childhoods were ideal. Most kids suffered some kind of emotional trauma, whether it be a simple lack of attention from a busy mother trying to do her best, to kids suffering all kinds of physical and emotional abuse. And yet they didn’t all allow the cold, sharp blade of revenge to carve away their hearts.
Kim’s own past was not from any storybook. She had lived with mental illness, loss, abuse and cruelty in all its forms and although the memories lived inside her, she had never succumbed to their power. Instead she used their presence as her driving force.
Kim had to wonder what would have happened if Catherine and Duncan had not been in Bromley at the exact same time. She couldn’t help but speculate if Jemima and Louise would still be alive. Had the prospect of getting even ruled Duncan out of accepting help? Would he have done so without the possibility of vengeance so prevalent in his mind? They would never know.
No, Kim’s sympathy did not stretch back to when the two of them were children. It was reserved for Jemima and Louise, who had lost their lives, and for Mandy, who might never recover hers.
She could not bring herself to lament the deaths of Ivor and Larry. Their crimes were horrific and not one cell of her being was sorry that they were dead. In truth she believed they deserved to die for what they had done to Catherine. But she would never believe their punishment to be the prerogative of anyone other than the justice system.
Yesterday she’d received a text message from her old mentor, Detective Inspector Dunn. She had opened it with one eye closed after having gone back on her word of leaving his case alone.
She need not have worried. The message had stated simply: ‘That’s my girl.’
Woody was content that the cases were solved and that there were two people to prosecute.
Westerley would continue its valuable work but with the help of another ‘maggot person’ and a better security provision. Curtis Grant had lost the contract at Westerley after Stacey had informed Professor Wright that Darren James should never have been working there in the first place. She had uncovered that Darren James had been removed from working the doors after the ejection of a male from a pub had turned into a vicious assault.
The incident should have been reported to the Security Industry Authority and Darren’s licence suspended. Instead, Curtis had risked his business by hiding him in the obscurity of Westerley. Both now faced investigation by the Security Industry Authority.
Kim couldn’t help but think that there would be some measure of relief for Darren James that he would never return to Westerley. The sight he’d stumbled upon when he found Mandy beaten and writhing on the ground had tortured him every waking minute since. His aggression at the hospital was a result of his desperation to see her. To put a different image in his head to the one he saw every time he closed his eyes. Kim doubted he would ever have been able to go back. Dawson had admitted that he had mentioned Isobel’s progress in conversation while on site at Westerley and had unwittingly given Darren all the information he needed to go and make a nuisance of himself.
Thoughts of Daniel were beginning to fade from her mind. There was still so much unsaid between them and yet, paradoxically, nothing now left to say. They both knew what the spark between them could have been, and it was that very thought that held her back. They would meet again, she felt sure, and perhaps by then she’d be whole and perhaps he’d be with someone else. But for her there was no choice, which meant there was no regret.
Kim knew she would do what she always did. Throw herself into the next case that landed on her desk.
She glanced again at the first piece of paper in her hand. It was the commendation she had received for her role in the case of two missing nine-year-old girls.
She lowered herself to the ground and placed the frame against the grave.
‘This is for you,’ she said as the tears thickened her voice. Had it not been for the time she had spent in their care Kim knew not what she might have become. That brief interlude in her childhood had bee
n enough. Those three years had shown her the type of person she wanted to become. They had set her up for life.
They had shown her what it was like to be part of a family and had loved her unconditionally. And she had loved them in return.
Any award would always belong to them.
She took from her pocket the second piece of paper. The one Erica had placed in her bag on that last and fateful day.
To other people it might only have been a permission slip to attend a school trip to Dudley Zoo, but to her it was so much more.
She opened the well-worn sheet of typewritten paper that was separated in two by a dotted line across the middle.
The top half was the detail of the trip: date, day and requirements for a packed lunch. The second paragraph was a request for their ‘charge’ to attend.
But it was as her eyes continued down the sheet that her vision began to blur. It didn’t matter because emblazoned across her mind was where they had scribbled out the word ‘charge’ and inserted the word ‘daughter’.
For a moment she let the tears flow as she clutched the paper that was all she had left.
She took a few deep breaths and fought the tears away.
She touched the top of the headstone lightly.
‘I love you, and I miss you,’ she whispered softly down to the ground.
A smile fought its way through the tears. After today she would remember only the love and the good times they had shared. They deserved no less.
She sighed heavily as she walked towards her bike. There was just one last thing that remained to be done.
She took out her phone and scrolled down her contact list. She pressed to call and a voice answered on the second ring.
‘Hey, Frost, it’s me. How are you feeling?’
‘Hello, Inspector, how—’
‘That’ll be Stone to you, Frost, if I remember correctly.’
Kim heard a soft chuckle on the other end of the phone.
‘It’s been a strange week to be honest. I feel different, you know?’
‘Yeah, near-death experiences will do that to you. But you’ll be back to yourself in no time.’
‘Really?’
Play Dead: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller Book 4 Page 30