‘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.