Cristina felt the rage growing inside her. With a trembling hand she translated the response.
‘Of course, fella. You’ve just been sold. Now you belong to me.’
FIFTY-EIGHT
Kim stepped to the side as Skitt passed her with the steaming food. He placed it on the reception desk and bodies surged towards him. Kim could just about see his dark hair above the crowd.
‘Oi, shouldn’t you be out trying to catch a fucking psycho?’
Kim turned to find the owner of the hostility. Her eyes travelled down to a diminutive female with a shock of electric blue hair and a ring through her left nostril.
‘Excuse me,’ Kim said, fighting back her amusement.
‘Just asking why yo ay out catching the fucker that did Donna.’ She bobbed her head along with the street talk and looked Kim up and down. Her intimidating stare fell short, literally.
‘And yow doe look like yow need a free meal so what yow doin ’ere?’
‘What are you doing here?’ Kim countered.
‘Havin’ me tay.’
‘Then what?’
‘Gooin to work,’ she said. More attitude and more ghetto.
‘So, despite the fact there’s a killer out there and your mate Donna died last night you’re right back out there?’
‘I gorra fucking eat.’
Kim glanced pointedly at the plate of chicken. ‘Well, looks like that’s covered for tonight but you’re still going out there?’
‘It’s your fucking job to protect—’
‘If you couldn’t give a shit about your own well-being, why should I?’
Kim leaned in closer. ‘Now, you’re a long way from the ghetto so just bugger off and eat your chicken.’
Kim stepped away from the girl who called her a foul name before moving towards the doorway.
The crowds had moved away from the reception desk. Kim cast her eye around the room trying to locate the dark head of the police constable. She spied Tim ducking into the small office behind the desk. She followed.
‘Hey, Tim, did you see where that copper went?’
Tim placed a couple of receipts under a paperweight. ‘He’s gone. He normally hangs around for an hour or so but he’s got some pressing business.’
Kim leaned up against the wall. ‘How long has he been coming here?’
Tim shrugged. ‘Couple of months. He talks to the girls, they trust him.’
‘Last I heard, Nando’s wasn’t in the habit of giving away free food every week.’
Tim met her gaze. ‘He says they do and I’m not gonna argue.’
Kim heard the rumble of voices reduce to a murmur.
Martha appeared at the doorway.
‘It’s all gone, Tim. I’ll start packing away.’
‘Thanks, Martha. Did Sal come in yet?’
Martha shook her head. ‘Didn’t see her.’
‘Sal comes here?’ Kim asked, surprised.
‘Every week. She doesn’t always eat but she normally comes in for a cuppa.’
Sal wasn’t the one that Kim had come here to find but the fact she hadn’t turned up set alarm bells off in her head. She rushed outside, surprised to see how quickly the place had emptied now that the food was gone. The kid who had given her a mouthful was leaning against a bus stand with a triumphant look on her face. She was a kid with a secret.
Kim felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise as she sprinted across the road.
‘Where’s Sal?’
There was no surprise at her question and just a shrug in response.
‘Where is she?’ Kim growled, stepping closer.
The girl swallowed but met her gaze. ‘I saw what she did the other night. Tipped yow off when that girl come down the street. Yow ran into the minder ’cos of her signal, day yer?’
Kim grabbed her T-shirt at the breastbone and pulled her closer, rage ringing in her ears. ‘What did you do, you little shit?’
‘I mighta mentioned it,’ she said, snatching her T-shirt back.
‘You told Kai?’
She shrugged. ‘Thought he might wanna know who he could and couldn’t trust.’
Kim remembered Gemma’s words about there being no loyalty out on the streets. Wasn’t that a bloody fact?
‘Where is she?’ Kim demanded.
Again with the slow, lazy smile. ‘After what she done, where do you fucking think?’
There was only one place she could be.
Kim turned on her heel and ran.
FIFTY-NINE
Stacey approached the door to the café just as Mariana was turning the sign to closed.
Stacey mouthed the word ‘please’ around the opening hours sticker on the glass. The girl hesitated and then unlocked the door. Stacey was relieved to step in out of the cold. Dawson had offered to take her home but she had invented a grocery shop she needed to do en route. And when she had, this was exactly what she’d been hoping for. To catch Mariana alone.
After their conversation with Devon, Stacey was convinced that Vasile and his daughter knew more than they were letting on. Especially his daughter.
The Romanian community was a small one and she knew how that worked. The black community in Dudley had been sizeable as she’d grown up but the Nigerian portion had accounted for less than ten per cent and her parents had known everyone.
The Eastern European community was substantial but people gravitated to their own nationality when in a foreign land.
She remembered a weekend away in France in her early teens. Throughout the two days they’d bumped into people they had never met before boarding the coach in the Midlands. But in a foreign country they had become friendly, familiar, almost comrades. On the journey home telephone numbers had been exchanged, drinks nights planned and that was after two days.
Vasile had been here for more than twenty years. She suspected he did know the man at the canal but a bigger part of her wondered if Mariana knew the identity of the mother of the child. She had hoped for just a few minutes alone with the young woman.
‘Tata,’ she called behind.
Damn it. Clearly that was not going to happen.
‘Mariana, may I just ask…’
‘What is…’
Vasile’s words trailed away as he appeared from the back of the shop. In his hands was a striped tea towel. He frowned at her and then at his daughter who was already backing away. The anxiety in the room was palpable, and Stacey had no idea why. She realised the tension was not coming from Vasile but from his daughter.
Mariana wasn’t scared of her father, as Stacey had suspected. Once closer to his reassuring bulk the tension began to leave her face.
He handed her the tea towel and pointed back towards the kitchen. He watched her go with sadness that still lingered when he turned to her. There was a gentleness to this man mountain that she couldn’t help but warm to.
‘Officer?’
‘Sir, I think you know more than you are telling us,’ she said, honestly.
He removed two chairs from on top of the table, sat, and pointed for her to do the same.
She did so. ‘I understand how minorities within communities work. I really do. There is an unwritten comradeship, code of protection. But we have an abandoned baby and a dead man and we don’t know for sure if either of them are Romanian.’
He thought for a moment.
‘Seems reasonable based on the evidence,’ he said, meeting her gaze.
Stacey instantly understood. He didn’t know what evidence they had.
They were correct.
‘And we feel that someone at Robertson’s is involved somehow.’
He nodded. ‘I can understand why you would think that.’
Another correct assumption.
‘The girls there seem very frightened of everyone.’
‘I suspect they are.’
‘Even though they are all legal immigrants.’
‘Hmm…’ He shrugged.
So, maybe they weren’t.
> ‘I think the mother of the child might work there,’ she ventured.
‘It’s possible,’ he said, opening his hands.
‘Sir, is there no way you can—?’
‘I think that the mother of that child must have had a very good reason to give him up. I think she must have loved him very much to do such a thing. It was not a decision she would have made lightly.’
Was he telling her to leave it alone?
‘But maybe we could assist the mother; if you would just help us identify her, we could…’
‘Do you remember the house raid in Lye?’
She nodded. The one Devon had told them about.
‘Someone from the Romanian community was concerned for the safety of the children and made a call to the authorities.’
She nodded her understanding.
‘The call was anonymous but three days later the daughter of the confidential informant was brutally raped,’ he said, staring out of the window.
A shadow appeared at the doorway to the kitchen.
Stacey’s breath caught in her throat as the pieces slotted into place.
‘Mariana…’ she breathed.
‘I feel for that little baby, officer, but Mariana is my bebelus and I have to protect her. I can tell you nothing.’
The raw emotion in his voice hit her right in the throat. The investigator in her wanted to pry names and dates and details from him to follow this up and bring the rapists to justice.
As though reading her mind he shook his head. ‘It is not what she would want.’
She placed her hand on his arm and swallowed.
‘Sir, I am sorry for what you have been through, and I thank you for your time.’
She stood and let herself out of the door. She had no doubt that Vasile had all the answers she sought but she would not return to ask him again.
This small family had suffered enough.
SIXTY
Kim parked outside the maternity entrance of Russells Hall hospital. It was the only access point open once normal visiting was over.
She had chosen to disregard the instruction of the ward sister that she could not visit. The door opened and a woman in a spotted dressing gown and furry slippers stepped out carrying a single cigarette and disposable lighter. Kim took her opportunity and grabbed the door before it closed.
The corridors were eerily deserted with an overpowering aroma of disinfectant. She passed the central concourse and the direction boards. She’d visited the Medical Admissions ward more times than she cared to remember.
She buzzed the intercom and introduced herself as Detective Inspector. The door clicked open and Kim headed to the Nurse’s station. Two blue clad ladies pushed aside a half-empty pizza box. Only on the late shift was ten p.m. lunchtime.
‘I need to speak with Sally Summers.’
The older woman gave her a knowing look.
‘You sound remarkably like the sister I spoke to on the phone half an hour ago when I told you it was too late to visit.’
Kim shrugged. ‘I won’t cause you any problem. I just need to speak to her.’
The younger nurse said nothing and opened a folder.
‘Look, officer, I think you should come back tomorrow when—’
‘By tomorrow I may well be visiting a third murder scene.’ She paused. ‘I’m sure you’ve seen the news.’
‘The prostitutes?’
Kim nodded, and watched the veil of disinterest that closed over the woman’s face like a Roman blind. Kim understood the look. It represented much of the population. Prostitutes were less deserving of the rights allowed to other citizens. Somehow they were to blame for their own fate, even if that fate was a brutal, horrifying death. Most people would not voice the thought that slipped into the minds of ‘good people’. That she should be working on other cases; solving crimes committed against the worthy. Good people would not say it but the thought would be there nonetheless. A fire fighter killed in the line of duty was a hero, his death a tragedy. A prostitute was simply one less. It all came down to career choice.
‘Second room along,’ the older nurse said, nodding to her right.
Kim thanked her and passed by the darkened wards. A gentle hum of equipment cushioned the silence.
One wall light illuminated the small room. Sal lay on her back; her eyes closed.
Kim stood for a moment, not surprised that the woman’s face was free of injury. The damage done was beneath the crisp white sheets. She quietly moved to the foot of the bed, careful not to disturb the gentle rising of the woman’s chest. Kim gently lifted the chart hooked over the edge of the bed. The notes were in medical jargon but she understood the words ‘laceration’ and ‘contusion’. She could also read a body chart.
Kim had seen worse. Sal had been smacked around and would be sore for a couple of days. She suspected the woman was being kept in for observation as one of the blows had been landed to the back of her head. Kai had wanted to teach her a lesson but not put her out of action for too long.
Kim remembered visiting the bedside of a prostitute working the streets of Balsall Heath when she’d been a constable. The girl had kept back £30 of her earnings for the night. She’d read that body chart too. Most of the injuries had been forms of punishment, not intended to kill but designed to cause the maximum amount of pain for the longest period of time. The X-rays displayed a broken rib on each side of her body. The bones could not be set in a cast and had to knit back together in their own good time. The injury to both sides meant that any movement would be excruciating. The bruises across her lower back and buttocks were to ensure that she would be unable to sit or lie down without pain. But the lacerations had been the worst. The girl had been slashed on both sides of her inner thighs. Not one single step could be taken without the agony of the two wounds rubbing together.
Sal had been lucky, Kim thought, as she sat back and watched the rhythmic rising and falling of the woman’s chest. Sadly, she still saw traces of the girl she had known as a child. The skin was lost to more burst capillaries than it should have been. The lines around the eyes were about ten years too deep, yet in the woman Kim still saw remnants of the girl.
Their paths had crossed many times during their childhood years. They had met the first time when Kim had been six years old. After her stay in hospital she had been taken to Fairview Hall children’s home, an unforgiving grey concrete slab of a building that had reflected the soulless interior. As she’d sat on the narrow single bed beside her bin bag of second-hand possessions a figure had loomed in the doorway. Kim could still recall meeting the curious gaze of the older girl eating an apple.
Sal had stared at her coldly but Kim had refused to look away.
‘Want some?’ Sal had said, offering the apple.
Kim had shaken her head and the girl had shrugged and walked away.
Eventually Kim had found out that Sal had been voluntarily surrendered to state care following the birth of her younger sister. She’d heard rumours that Sal had tried to hurt the baby but there had been rumours about them all.
‘What the fuck you doing here, bitch?’
Sal’s whispery voice pulled her back from the past. Her eyes were wide open but dulled by pain.
Kim shrugged. ‘Just passing.’
‘How’d you find me?’
Kim rolled her eyes. ‘You ain’t royalty, you know. You weren’t signed in under a different name.’
‘Jesus, you were a pain when you were a kid and you haven’t changed a bit since.’
‘I like to be consistent,’ Kim said.
‘Well, do something useful and pass me some water.’
Kim stood and poured fresh water into the plastic beaker.
Sal narrowed her eyes. ‘Look, I don’t know what you’re doing here but piss off and leave me in peace.’
‘It’s because of me, isn’t it?’ Kim asked.
Sal rested her head back on the pillow and shook her head.
‘Don’t flatter yourse
lf, Kim. It’s ’cos I don’t like to do what I’m told.’
‘I met the little shit that told him. She’s a piece of work. Didn’t you deny it?’
‘Got one of his goons to check my phone, found your mobile number.’
‘Jesus, Sal, I’m sorry.’
‘For what? I gave you the nod, ya dumb bitch, so take off the hair shirt. It don’t suit you.’
Sal was quiet for a moment then shook her head. A sound that seemed like a chuckle escaped from between her lips.
‘I saw what you did, you dumb tart. Have you got a death wish or something?’
‘I couldn’t just let her get in that car.’
‘Did she get away?’
Kim nodded. Sal smiled briefly. The expression quickly vanished.
‘There’ll always be more, you know,’ she said, wearily.
Kim nodded. She knew.
If she’d been born a superhero she might have been able to prevent many of the deaths that had coloured her life but she wasn’t and she could only fight what was right in front of her.
‘You know about Donna?’ Kim asked.
Sal nodded and swallowed. ‘Heard the news from one of the televisions out there. It didn’t name her but I just knew. Stupid cow was determined to go out every night. Said she’d clean up while the other pussies quivered under their warm quilts at home.’ Sal shook her head. ‘Poor bitch called that wrong.’
There was little compassion or regret in her tone. Kim understood that street life chewed away at sentimentality. It was an existence that left little room for enduring friendships. Bonds were formed through shared adversity but self-preservation always took priority.
‘You have to get out of this, Sal,’ Kim said quietly.
Sal turned her head slightly.
‘And do what, Kim?’
Kim shrugged. ‘Anything you want to. You’ve got a lot going for you. You’re an intelligent, attractive woman with a different future if you’d only take the help that’s been offered.’
‘What the hell is it with you? Just because my life doesn’t fit your stereotype you want me to conform to your ideals.’
‘No, Sal, I just want you to be safe.’
‘I can take care of myself.’
‘Bloody well looks like it.’
Broken Bones: A gripping serial killer thriller (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Series Book 7) Page 20