‘Keep on that, Stace,’ Kim said. Missing children of dead parents did not give her a warm and fuzzy feeling.
‘Penn?’ Kim asked.
‘Well, boss, I met with Jenks, who said the thing Amy and Mark wanted the most was a home. One of the neighbours in the tower block mentioned something about a person from the housing association hanging around.’
‘The flats on Hollytree?…’
‘Are council owned,’ he continued. ‘I know, so I went to the council and got a list of everyone who had taken the key to view the property.’
‘Good work.’
‘And on the way back I dropped in on Dobbie and got the name of the person who sold him the car and the registration number.’
‘Jesus, Penn,’ Kim exclaimed. ‘Will somebody give the man a plant.’
‘He’s already got it, boss,’ Stacey said, wearily.
‘Oh, right, good.’
‘Registration doesn’t help us. Car was stolen ten days ago from a nineteen-year-old painter’s mate and reported straight away. No link to anyone involved or connected—’
‘From where?’ Kim asked.
Penn rechecked the address. ‘Taken from Fairview Road in—’
‘I know it,’ she said. Fairview Road. The location of Fairview Children’s Home. The place she’d spent the majority of her childhood. There was the link. There was the jab like an elbow right into her ribs.
‘But there’s more,’ Penn said. ‘The person who sold the car to Dobbie is also on the list of people who viewed the flat.’
‘You’re kidding?’ she asked, as Bryant also sat forward. This was huge.
‘Yeah, but you’re not gonna like it cos it’s someone you’ve already written off. It’s our very own John Duggar, who has no reason to hate you at all.’
Seventy
‘Hmmm… interesting,’ Alison said, appearing beside Kim at the bottom of the stairs.
She and Bryant were heading over to Duggar’s but Bryant had detoured to powder his nose first.
Kim agreed with her about what Penn had just uncovered. ‘Yeah, strange that Duggar’s hands appear—’
‘Not that,’ Alison said, following her through the key-coded door. ‘What’s interesting to me is Bryant’s response to my question about your behaviour at the post-mortem.’
Oh, that, Kim thought, hoping the woman had accepted his reply at face value.
‘I mean I wouldn’t exactly call him a liar but…’
‘Excuse me?’ Kim said, turning to face her.
‘Well, if Bryant was being truthful about your reaction to the burnt bodies at the post-mortem then your feelings for Keith and Erica are nowhere near—’
‘Alison, I strongly suggest you shut the fuck up,’ Kim said, striding towards the car.
‘And there you prove my point without even trying,’ Alison said, following her. ‘To have no reaction at all to the similarities between the two is just not normal, even for you, especially when those clenched fists show me the level of emotion you have towards the couple.’
Kim unclenched her fists, felt in her pockets and realised Bryant had the keys. Getting into the vehicle and reversing over the woman was no longer an option.
She turned. ‘Surprisingly, I am able to remain professional and do my job…’
‘I don’t doubt that,’ Alison said, shaking her head. ‘What interests me more is the phraseology of Bryant’s response. That you “acted exactly as he would have expected you to”.’
‘Bryant didn’t lie so don’t you dare…’
‘I will dare because I can and that’s what I’m here to do. If you think I expect you to have no emotional reaction to these events and that that is the best way to try and deceive me then you’re out of your mind. Your lack of transparency just makes me doubt your ability to handle this all the more, so you’re doing yourself no favours trying to pretend this is just like any other case.
‘And secondly I dare because you are not my boss. I’m attached to your team but—’
‘Yeah, cos if I was you wouldn’t be leaving after half a day’s work,’ Kim said, glancing up to the window where the rest of her team were still hard at work. It had barely passed five o’clock.
‘I have a relative in hospital,’ Alison answered vaguely.
‘For a behaviourist you’re a shit liar, you know,’ Kim observed. ‘But unlike you I’ll accept your answer because clearly you don’t want to tell me the whole truth. I’ll respect your wish to—’
‘Listen, I’m not your enemy here,’ Alison said, tipping her head. ‘You know yourself and I know people. I understand behaviour and whether you like it or not you’re going to be betrayed. No matter how hard you try and manage all your physical and psychological functions, something is going to let you down.’
Kim thought about the moment she’d been staring down the toilet pan after running out of the morgue. ‘Alison, I don’t need—’
‘Hear me out. I don’t know how you manage your past, whether it’s separation, ignorance, denial or a mixture of them all, but I can tell you that your normal techniques, your way of getting through an average day, are no match for the stress of having all your demons thrown into your face.’
Kim took a deep breath and looked away, hating again that everyone knew it was her demons they were fighting.
‘See, the problem isn’t so much being forced to remember all the bad shit, it’s the analysis of it that’s the real issue. You can’t glance at it like a billboard and look away, allowing the memory to drift safely back to the place you’ve stored it. To solve this case, to find out who is behind it you’re being forced to analyse, inspect and dissect it all for clues and leads.’
Kim met her gaze and was surprised to see empathy and understanding in the woman’s eyes.
‘Basically, you’re being forced to relive every horrific event, and I swear that at some time in the future it’s going to make you do something you later regret.’
Seventy-One
Alison had just about thrown off her irritation with the detective inspector when she entered the hospital foyer. Trying to get the woman to understand that she wasn’t the enemy was turning out to be a complete waste of time. Her words and advice were going nowhere and she had the feeling she was watching a high-speed car travel towards a wall with no way to stop it.
She had offered as much warning as she could, she resolved, as she said her name into the loudspeaker and was buzzed through.
Valerie was sorting papers at the desk.
‘How is she?’ Alison asked.
‘Same, I’m afraid. Not responsive yet but we’ve not given up hope.’
Alison was glad to hear it.
She thanked the nurse and headed away from the desk.
‘Good to see that your mother finally arrived,’ Valerie said, quietly.
Alison’s step faltered. ‘Wh… what?’
‘Your mother is with her now. I assumed you’d want to know. It could have been quite the shock for you seeing as you told me she was dead.’
Alison felt the heat surge into her cheeks. She tried to think of a way around the lie.
‘Don’t bother,’ Valerie said. ‘You’re a terrible liar. Has anyone ever told you that?’
Recently, a few people, she thought.
‘I’m sorry for lying. I should—’
‘I knew the first time you came, but no one else had been to see her. She’d been completely alone.’
‘So, you just let me in?’
Valerie shrugged and half smiled. ‘You looked smart enough and I read that the guy who attacked her was in custody. You weren’t a risk to her.’
Alison couldn’t believe that she, as a total stranger, had been allowed to sit beside the bed of an attack victim for hours on end.
‘You seemed so sad, so sorry and lost that—’
‘You let me in because I was sad?’ Alison asked.
Valerie smile. ‘No, I let you in because I have this,’ she said, pointing bene
ath the rising of the desk.
Alison looked over. A single screen displayed four screens.
‘CCTV?’
‘I was watching you the whole time.’
Alison hadn’t even known there was CCTV.
‘Look, I don’t know what your deal is but her family is with her now. There’s nothing more you can do for her.’
Suddenly Alison realised there was someone she could apologise to that might help relieve the burden that was like a chain attached to her body, being dragged wherever she walked.
‘Can I just go and speak to her mother?’
‘Depends,’ Valerie said. ‘Do you have anything to give her? Any comfort? Any reassurance? Anything that will make looking at her daughter in that state any easier to bear?’
Alison thought and then shook her head.
‘Then no, I’d rather you left them alone.’
Alison understood that there was nothing more she could do.
Except one thing.
‘Do you have her belongings?’ Alison asked.
‘I’m not sure I want to know why you’re asking me that but no, everything was taken away by the police once she was taken into surgery.’
Damn, of course. It was painfully clear that she was no detective.
‘But of course, we removed everything from her and listed it. When a victim is alive their personal safety comes before the preservation of evidence and I was not about to let those officers or crime scene guys touch her.’
Alison couldn’t hide her smile.
‘And obviously we log it all for chain of evidence and to cover ourselves,’ she said, reaching behind for a lever arch file.
She licked her finger and leafed past the first couple of sheets before turning it towards her.
Alison saw Valerie’s signature next to DCI Merton’s to agree the items handed over.
Alison read down the list:
Trousers
Tee shirt
Bra
Pants
Sandal x 2
Handbag – brown
Purse – brown (unopened)
Casio watch
Ankle bracelet
Alison’s heart began to hammer as she reached the bottom.
She pointed. ‘Are you sure?’
Valerie nodded. ‘Removed it myself.’
The entry read,
Plastic earring – pink flamingo x 1
Seventy-Two
‘Hey, Bryant, knock like you bloody mean it,’ Kim said, banging harder on the front door.
It had taken less than fifteen minutes to get from the station in Halesowen to Duggar’s house behind The Civic.
The journey had been frenetic but not so much for Bryant who’d had his eyes closed. He’d asked what she and Alison had been discussing and one look had told him she wasn’t in the mood to share.
‘Let’s try around the back,’ Kim said, jogging to the end of the row. Behind the houses was a narrow gulley filled with old kids’ toys and garden rubbish.
Kim negotiated her way to the third one along, and stopped dead.
The six foot fencing was finished off with a trellis that ran the length of the wooden panels, adding another foot to the height. That wasn’t the problem. The issue was the barbed wire wrapped all the way around it.
‘Bloody hell, home from home or what?’ she said.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Bryant warned. ‘Even Bear Grylls ain’t getting over that.’
‘Hey, Bryant, what costs more, a glass panel or a fence panel?’ she asked, thoughtfully.
‘Well, fence panels are pretty cheap these—’
‘Yeah, my thoughts exactly,’ she said, raising her leg and kicking the fence panel.
‘Jesus, guv, we don’t even know—’
‘Shut up and help,’ she instructed. When he hesitated she rolled her eyes. ‘Look, Woody will be overjoyed I considered his budget restraints, and I have reason to believe the man is in danger, satisfied?’
‘Well, not really cos he’s built like a brick shithouse as my nan used to—’
‘Who doesn’t like conflict,’ she reminded him, as his second kick made the hole bigger. Two more and they were through to the row of laburnum trees that hid the barbed wire from the house.
Kim pushed through aware of the cobwebs attaching themselves to every piece of her clothing.
She headed towards the patio door but could already tell the kitchen was empty.
She tried the door.
It opened as the sound of dog barking began.
Bryant looked at her questioningly. She knew what he was thinking. Would a man who had barbed wire around his garden leave a door open when he left the house?
She stepped into the kitchen and stood beside the door to the utility room.
‘It’s all right, Mofo,’ she called out. The dog gave one last bark, a growl and then quietened down, as though his job of keeping people away had failed, so there was no point carrying on.
Bryant stepped into the lounge so that both exits were covered.
‘Police,’ he shouted. No answer and no sound of movement.
‘Police,’ he repeated. ‘I’m coming up,’ he called heading to the stairs.
Kim could see that Bryant was not going to find anything upstairs.
A cup of coffee sat in the middle of the kitchen work surface. It was still lukewarm to the touch.
John Duggar had left the house some time in the last half hour, and by the looks of it, he’d been in a bit of a hurry.
Seventy-Three
Despite the boss’s instruction to go home Stacey found herself standing outside the home of Mr and Mrs Phelps.
There was something incomplete about this whole situation. Two respectable, unassuming people had burned alive in a car fire and there’d been no one to tell.
She had established they had a son who was away travelling and she hoped there was some kind of clue here as to where he’d gone. A postcard, a letter, a computer she could check for emails.
The neighbour had given her the name of Joel and her searches for ‘Joel Phelps’ had turned up nothing on her normal searches: no police record, no social media, so wherever he was travelling he appeared to have checked out of civilisation; but surely, he was in touch with his parents.
She showed her ID and slipped under the cordon tape. A few onlookers were hanging around in small groups but there was no spectacle. Looking around at the tidy, unremarkable semis in the street she guessed the folks here didn’t really do spectacle, but there was little to see. There were no bodies being brought out, no scandalous secrets being broadcast on the news. Their home was being combed for clues.
‘Hey, Mitch,’ Stacey said, stepping into the hallway. ‘You having a break from Doctor A?’ she asked, remembering what the boss had said.
He rolled his eyes. ‘I swear, if the woman calls me an idiot one more time…’
His words trailed away as he shook his head.
‘Anything interesting?’
‘Nothing to indicate any kind of struggle. All rooms are in order, stuff put away. What brings you here, anyway?’ he asked removing the mask from the top of his head.
‘Just wanna get a feel for them. You see any computer or iPad?’
He shook his head again. ‘Folks didn’t even have Sky or cable. Freeview and a normal landline.’ He checked his watch and looked around. ‘And we’ll be sealing the property in about half an hour.’
Stacey nodded and began to walk around. The first thing she noticed were the books. Everywhere, on shelves, on occasional tables, small piles beside chairs. This couple had liked to read, a lot, which explained their lack of interest in television channels.
She ventured upstairs and counted three bedrooms. The biggest held a double bed, fitted wardrobes, a dressing table and more books. The second double bedroom had been turned into a library-cum-reading room and the smallest was being used as storage.
Looked like the son wasn’t coming home anytime soon.
>
She returned to the master bedroom and sat on the right side of the bed.
She pulled open the single drawer in the bedside cabinet and almost jumped back.
‘Jesus,’ she whispered as her eyes took in the colourful assortment of sex toys and lubricants. Stacey closed the drawer and smiled. The couple had clearly enjoyed more than a good book. And fair play to them, she thought.
She moved to the other side of the bed and hesitated before opening the drawer, unsure what she might find.
She sighed with relief. No more sex toys, instead she found a few hair grips, a couple of items of jewellery and a clutch of receipts, and underneath everything was a small lockable diary that reminded Stacey of the one she’d had as a teenager. The tiny key dangled from the strap, but the diary clicked open.
Stacey wondered how many different ways she could invade this couple’s privacy as she leafed through it.
The latest entry had been made the night before they died. The handwriting was tidy but the words brief, Stacey noticed, as she read what appeared to be short notes as a form of record rather than an outpouring of feelings.
The day before their murder they had attended a doctor’s appointment for Bill’s blood pressure, visited the post office to buy stamps and nipped into the library.
Stacey leafed backwards seeing similar entries throughout until she reached a date two weeks earlier.
Saw Joel. Didn’t know what to say. Left early.
Stacey frowned. Where had Helen Phelps seen her son? The neighbour had given her the impression that Joel had been travelling for a while.
And why had she struggled for conversation?
This was no longer making sense, she realised, as she leafed to the back of the diary and found a single piece of paper, battered and marked by time.
She opened the piece of paper to find it was a birth certificate.
Her eyes took in the detail a few times.
The birth certificate was for Joel and his last name wasn’t Phelps at all.
No wonder she’d been unable to find any trace of him.
Dead Memories: An addictive and gripping crime thriller Page 17