Play Dead (10 page)

K
im took
a swig of coffee before resting her behind on the edge of the spare desk.

The mug had appeared on her desk on her last birthday, a day she never celebrated.

Originally the caption above the picture had read ‘World’s Best Driver’, but some bright spark had inserted the word ‘Slave’ into the sentence with permanent ink. And not one of her team was brave enough to own up to it. But she had her suspicions.

‘Okay, you all know about our second victim, who remains both unidentified and alive. The priority with victim two right now is keeping her alive and we will speak with her as soon as we can. So right now we continue the focus on Jemima. Bryant, have you got the toxicology report?’

‘Circulated, guv.’

Everyone nodded.

‘So what do we think?’ she asked.

‘Obviously drugged,’ Dawson offered.

The level of Rohypnol in the bloodstream had been enough to subdue a medium-sized horse. The drug was used as a hypnotic, sedative and skeletal muscle relaxant. It was often referred to as the ‘date-rape drug’ due to its high potency and ability to cause amnesia.

‘Why?’ she asked. ‘There was no sexual assault.’

‘To make her easier to handle?’ Dawson asked.

‘Oi, Dawson, I had my hand up for that one,’ Bryant moaned.

Dawson smirked. ‘You snooze you—’

‘Both get a kick up the arse if you don’t stop it.’

Kim continued speaking, after her look had the desired effect. ‘So does the fact he needed her pliant mean anything, Stace?’

‘He knew exactly where he was going to dump her?’

‘Bingo,’ Kim said.

‘I had that one too,’ Bryant mumbled.

Kim ignored him. ‘That’s what I think. There are much easier places to dump a body. To get there he had to drive narrow lanes across two fields and then haul her up a hill. Why?’

No one answered. They knew when her questions were rhetorical.

‘Stace, I want you to find out everything you can about the land around Westerley. I want to understand the significance of the dump site and I want to know more about Catherine.’

Stacey nodded.

‘Also, the last document of Keats’s email is a photo of the hairpins. Do some digging and find out just how common those things are.’

‘Will do, boss,’ she said, making a note.

Kim used her phone to flick along to the second report sent by Keats. ‘Next – stomach contents. A mixture of sausage, beans, pastry and custard.’

‘Easy to get?’ Stacey offered.

‘And?’ Kim pushed.

‘Easy to cook?’ Dawson said.

‘And?’ she said, a little more forcefully.

‘He gave her dessert,’ Bryant answered.

And there it was. The man who had abducted, beaten and killed Jemima had also given her dessert.

‘A little bit weird,’ Dawson observed.

Kim reiterated. ‘So our kidnapper subdued her, snatched her, kept her, undressed her, fed her and then smashed her face in.’

‘Like I said – weirdo,’ Dawson said.

‘One weirdo or two?’ Bryant said, as though asking about sugar lumps.

Kim thought for a moment. ‘I still think just one,’ she offered. ‘Jemima was chosen for a reason. She is not some random victim discovered by chance, which means it has to be someone she’s been in contact with at some stage.

‘Kev, I want you on that. I want you to go to her old address and see if anyone remembers the incident before she left for Dubai. We don’t know if it’s linked to her murder as it was so long ago but Sara said that Jemima felt she knew the person concerned. We need to follow it up.’

Her mobile phone rang. She frowned when she saw the name of the pathologist at the top of the screen.

‘Keats?’ she said. He rarely contacted her by choice.

‘Inspector, we’ve had the results back from the soil that was forced into Jemima Lowe’s mouth.’

‘Go on.’

‘It definitely matches the soil at site,’ he said.

She had worked that much out for herself. ‘And?’

‘There are traces of blood. Well, more than traces to be accurate.’

Kim pictured the killer forcing dirt against the soft gum line. He could easily have caused a small injury. ‘The inside of her mouth could have been—’

‘Too much blood for that, Inspector,’ he said, cutting her off.

Kim stood. ‘Are you saying it could be from our killer?’

‘Not unless he cut off a digit during the course of the crime…’

Kim stopped listening as her heart began to hammer in her chest. She knew what he was going to say.

The blood in Jemima’s mouth was not her own. The blood had not come from the killer – which could only mean one thing.

Someone else had been killed in that spot.

‘
S
ir
, we need to get a team out to Westerley.’

Woody didn’t even chide her for her failure to knock.

His eyebrows narrowed. ‘What are you talking about? Forensics have just stood down from the site. They’ve been there all night and found a total of nothing.’

He thought she meant a team of techies. He was going to have to dig deeper into his annual budget for what she was about to request.

She shook her head. ‘No, sir, I need detection equipment, probably extraction and I need a full team of forensic—’

‘Calm down, Stone. What’s the development?’ he asked calmly.

Sometimes she wished he would just act before asking her twenty questions. It reminded her of calling an ambulance in an emergency situation. You wanted to shout, ‘
Just get it on its way – then I’ll give you the details.
’

‘The sample taken from the soil in Jemima’s mouth. It was scraped up from the scene and forced in. The dirt contains traces of blood that do not belong to Jemima.’

‘The killer?’ he asked.

Kim could swear she’d just had this conversation. ‘Unlikely. Too much of it and it’s been there a while.’

‘You’re sure?’

She nodded. ‘Keats tested the soil with luminol and, to use his phrase, “it glowed like a beacon”, sir.’

‘Any indication how old the blood is?’

‘No. Keats is doing further tests, but he said it can be detected for years, at least six to eight,’ she said, sharing with him something she hadn’t known before the phone call.

He sat back in his chair and sighed. Time to sell herself and get what she needed. She had a sudden flash of
Dragons’ Den
.

‘Sir, I think there’s going to be another body buried at the site,’ she clarified in case she wasn’t making herself clear.

Kim knew he was weighing up the expense of the operation against the likelihood of a find. She was eternally grateful that financial planning fell under his remit and not hers. She was also grateful that he was not guided solely by budgetary constraints. Like her, his priority was always the journey to the truth. Only his job description said he had more questions to answer if it went horribly wrong.

‘Any change with the second victim?’ he asked.

She understood his logic. If there was a chance they could make an identification in the near future from the second victim, the expense was unlikely to be sanctioned without further justification.

‘Called first thing. They’re still stabilising her after surgery to the head. They’ll let us know if and when we can speak to her.’

He paused and rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. ‘I understand that Daniel Bate is on site at Westerley.’

Kim frowned. ‘He was, I’m not sure he’s still—’

‘Probably a good idea to try and keep him there. I’ll get it authorised.’

‘He’s not the only osteoarchaeologist in—’

‘He’s the only one who is on site now. If you want this to move as quickly as you normally do, I’m surprised you haven’t made the call already.’

She stared at him for a moment, unable to find the right words to argue. She had experience of Daniel’s expertise in determining sex, age and health of human remains in the past.

He stared right back and then frowned. ‘Probably best get moving, Stone. Daniel Bate is an opportunity you don’t want to miss.’

‘Sir, I…’

‘It’ll take hours, if not days, to get another scientist of his expertise on site. If I were you I’d hope that he hasn’t already left.’

Kim turned and left the office, annoyed that she had to converse with Daniel Bate. Her boss could not have been clearer.
Use the resources available and this will go ahead
.

Okay, Woody had won this one. If Daniel Bate was still at Westerley she would speak to him.

And, if it helped find the killer sooner, she would even ask him to stay.

K
im entered
the Portakabin and was faced with a wall of despair. She supposed having one dead body and one battered woman turn up in a matter of a few days was enough to crush your workplace morale. That they were all still turning up for work was a testament to their professionalism.

And now they were to be told it was probably going to get worse.

‘You’re still here?’ Kim said to Curtis Grant.

He smiled. ‘I have been home. Different suit,’ he said, flicking at his jacket.

She acknowledged his response. ‘Are you almost finished, Mr Grant?’

He glanced over at Jameel, who nodded.

‘I’ll be back later in the week to add two new cameras and upgrade the software.’

Kim nodded and headed further into the space as Bryant and Dawson came to a halt behind her.

Catherine sat at the meeting table. A quick glance acknowledged their presence.

Professor Wright and Daniel Bate stood at the furthest point from the door.

‘Morning everyone,’ Kim said. ‘We have some information that we need to share following some test results.’

‘And that is my cue to be on my way,’ Daniel said, shaking the professor’s hand.

He stepped past her on his way out and offered a nod in her direction.

Bryant coughed.

She glared at him before stepping past Dawson to the door.

Kim followed Daniel outside. Two steps away from his pickup truck he turned.

‘Excuse me, are you lost?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘We need to talk.’

He leaned his arm on the side of the vehicle as his gaze narrowed with interest.

‘About?’

‘This case,’ she clarified.

He stepped away and opened the passenger door. Lola tried to jump down from the passenger seat. He held her back and wound down her window before closing the door again.

Kim could see his overnight bag in the foot well.

‘I’m not sure I can offer anything to help,’ he said, walking around to the driver’s door. The keys jangled in his hand.

‘I think there’s another in the ground,’ she said.

He paused.

‘Don’t ask me to repeat what I know, and Bryant is explaining it inside right now, but my boss has asked me to ask you to stay and help.’

Daniel paused at the door and turned, leaning against the pickup section of his truck. He put the keys in his pocket and looked up at the sky before turning his head towards her.

‘So let me get this straight: your boss, Detective Chief Inspector Woodward, has asked you to ask for my help should you find a body buried underground?’

She nodded.

He smiled widely. ‘And you’re just hating every single minute of it, aren’t you?’

She dug her hands into her pockets and said nothing.

He placed his arms on top of the cab and then rested his chin and stared at her.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked. His blatant stare was as annoying as his delay in giving her an answer.

‘Oh, I’m wringing every second of enjoyment I can from your discomfort.’

‘Not childish at all though?’ she asked.

‘Probably,’ he said. ‘So if you just ask me nicely, I’ll give it some thought.’

She felt the heat burn in her cheeks. ‘Daniel, this is no longer funny.’

‘I disagree, and hearing my actual name from your lips is almost enough to persuade me to stay.’

‘Are you prepared to assist on this case or not? I need to call my—’

‘You can’t do it, can you? You can’t actually ask me to stay,’ he said, still amused.

She faced him squarely. ‘Daniel, I’m asking for your help but if you’d rather this bastard—’

‘One condition,’ he interrupted. ‘I’ll stay if you just do me one small favour.’

Kim frowned. She wasn’t agreeing to anything until she knew what it was.

‘Drop the Doc and the Doctor Bate and continue to call me Daniel.’

She considered for a moment then nodded. That, at least, she could do.

From behind she heard the truck door open and four paws landed on the gravel.

‘Come on, girl. It looks like we’re hanging around.’

Kim hid the satisfaction in her smile.

‘
H
e’s
like a dog with two dicks,’ Bryant said as they headed out of Westerley.

Kim knew her colleague was referring to Dawson, who was happy to remain at Westerley as the first point of contact for both the staff and the tech experts as they began to arrive.

During the Crestwood investigation eighteen months ago, Dawson had been stationed at site and had done an exceptional job. Kim didn’t believe in fixing things that were not broken.

Bryant drove and talked. She had already told him where she wanted to go.

‘So the doc is staying on then?’

‘Bloody hell, nothing gets past you, does it?’ she said.

‘You mean like the smile that you were trying to hide when you walked back in?’ he observed.

‘That’ll be because I won,’ she admitted.

‘Won what? I didn’t realise there was a prize on offer.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said.

‘You do know he likes you,’ Bryant stated.

‘And you do realise that this is not high school and there’ll be no need for you to pass notes between us.’

Bryant glanced her way.

‘And I’m sensing you like him just a little bit too.’

Kim ignored him. That wasn’t strictly accurate. To state that she liked him was a little exaggerated. She just disliked Daniel less than a lot of other people.

‘Bloody hell,’ she said as they entered Russell’s Hall hospital. The car park already looked fit to burst.

The super hospital was an amalgamation of three local hospitals that had either been closed down completely or their A&E departments removed. Unfortunately the parking had not been increased pro rata with the expansion.

Bryant spotted a space at the furthest point from the hospital and parked quickly.

‘Wait here – I won’t be long. Just want to see how she is.’

Bryant grumbled.

She ignored him and headed in through the maternity entrance, up the stairs and across to the Surgical High Dependency Unit. This ward, together with ITU, provided the critical-care element of the hospital. High dependency normally took emergency surgical patients and was staffed on a ratio of one staff to two patients. ITU provided care on a one-to-one basis.

She spoke at the intercom to gain entry.

As she pushed the door open she was again struck by the absence of chatter or daily noises. No televisions hummed quietly. There was no clink of the tea trolley doing its rounds. No conversations that travelled from bed to bed to fill the hours before visiting, no occasional moans of discomfort and pain.

None of that was present in this unit. This area was reserved for the sickest people in the building.

Kim held up her badge and smiled at the ward sister named Jo. She was late thirties with blonde hair that fell in a short but shiny bob around a plump face.

Jo took a good look at her identification and nodded.

‘A woman was admitted last night.’

‘Head injury?’ Jo asked, turning to face the whiteboard behind.

Kim nodded.

‘No identification, so for now she’s Jane.’

Many facilities had now adopted the American procedure of labelling unknown victims John or Jane.

‘She’s in bay two, bed three,’ Jo said.

‘Is she…?’

‘Conscious?’ Jo asked and shook her head. ‘She’s in an induced coma. Her brain has taken a battering.’ She leaned over the desk and looked up and down the corridor.

‘Doctor Singh is still on his rounds. I’ll ask him to come and have a word.’

Kim nodded her thanks and headed around to bay two.

Jane lay in the top-left corner closest to the window.

Kim suspected that the rich chestnut hair that had been matted and tangled with blood and dirt was now gone, leaving a bald, shaved head beneath the bandages.

The index finger on her left hand was being clutched by a white plastic pulse oximeter measuring the oxygen saturation in her bloodstream and her heart rate. The results, along with her blood pressure, were being transmitted on the screen to her left.

Her right hand was covered in white plaster holding down the intravenous cannula. Blood had seeped through the tape, indicting they’d had trouble accessing the vein.

Kim’s eyes travelled to the woman’s left wrist and the circle mark she knew so well. She wondered if Jane would still rub it for years after the mark had disappeared. Would she now and again just feel, for a split second, like it was still there? The mind could be cruel that way.

Kim’s hand fell and touched the red band. This woman had moved her wrist considerably to try to free herself. There were the telltale marks between her wrist and her knuckles where she had tried to force her hand through. Just like Jemima. And Kim herself, many years ago.

The memory of her own six-year-old hand scraped raw by her numerous attempts to free herself was sudden and painful. Kim pushed it away and rubbed gently at the skin of the girl nicknamed Jane as though trying to erase it from her flesh.

Her thumb passed over an area of raised skin. She rubbed her thumb back and forth a couple of times, frowning.

She turned the wrist over gently and saw what she would not have been able to see last night. Four very definite lines of scar tissue ran across the wrist. This girl had attempted suicide, and she hadn’t been messing about.

‘Officer…?’

Kim turned to an attractive dark-skinned man she presumed to be Doctor Singh. His white coat was unbuttoned and revealed plain black trousers and a white shirt. There was a kindly smile in his eyes.

Kim briefly wondered how long it would take the NHS to knock that out of him.

He stood at the end of the bed and picked up Jane’s chart.

‘Our patient here suffered a depressed cranial fracture and was in surgery until six this morning.’

Kim heard a slight trace of his Indian accent but only on certain words. His voice was caring and warm, and she liked him instantly.

Kim knew that depressed meant that the injury had caused the skull to indent or extend into the brain cavity.

‘There are many types of fracture but only one cause,’ he explained.

Kim knew the only cause was a blow to the head strong enough to break the bone.

‘The surgeon has released the pressure on the brain, but she has scored six on the Glasgow Coma Scale.’

Kim frowned. It wasn’t something she’d heard before.

‘It is a scale used to assess head injuries from a score of three to fifteen. A score of three is the most severe, but any score between three and eight reflects that the patient is in a comatose state.’

‘What’s that?’ Kim said, pointing to a wire leading from the back of Jane’s head.

‘Intracranial pressure monitor. It is monitoring the space between the skull and the brain. It will alert us to any changes in the pressure inside the skull.’

‘Will she survive?’ Kim asked, adjusting her voice to match the doctor’s soft, gentle tone.

He took a few steps away. ‘We don’t know. Really she should not have survived the injury, but somehow she managed to hold on. We must hope she continues to be strong.’

‘Can she hear?’ Kim asked, realising he had stepped away to speak.

He shrugged. ‘I like to be sure, especially when discussing chances of survival.’

Kim understood. ‘Do you have any idea how long…?’

The doctor was already shaking his head. ‘I can’t answer that. The brain is more complex than any of us can comprehend. People we expect to survive often don’t and then others…’

His words trailed away and Kim got his point.

‘And if she does wake?’

‘Inspector, you are asking me every question that I cannot answer.’

His voice was still kind but with a hint of amusement.

Kim smiled at his easy manner. It was a bit like her conversations with Keats, the pathologist – only this doctor was pleasant.

‘Well, thank you for your help… oh, actually there is one more thing,’ she said.

‘Of course.’

‘There is something I need to check on her body but I wouldn’t…’

He nodded his understanding. She would never handle Jane’s body without seeking permission.

He stepped back towards the bed and drew the curtain around him. ‘Where?’

‘The back of her legs.’

He lifted the sheet and gently moved the woman slightly onto her side.

‘May I?’ Kim asked.

He nodded.

Kim gently lifted the bottom of the hospital-issue nightgown.

The marks were there.

Two one-inch red lines stretched across the back of her lower thighs.

Kim took out her phone and clicked a couple of photos.

‘I need to check her stomach.’

Doctor Singh placed Jane onto her back and lifted the sheet up to her midriff before raising her nightgown.

The line stretched just above her belly button. Kim snapped a couple more photos.

She reached for the sheet to cover Jane back up and then paused. A tiny red cut to the skin of the lower leg caught her attention. She moved around the bed, taking photos of the woman’s legs from the knee down.

‘Significant?’ Doctor Singh asked.

Kim smiled. ‘Now it’s my turn to say I don’t know.’

He acknowledged her answer. ‘Is that all?’ he asked.

‘May I just have a minute more?’

‘Of course,’ he answered before turning away.

He drew back the curtain and stepped towards the patient opposite.

Kim put the phone back into her pocket and placed her hand back onto Jane’s wrist. ‘I’m sorry I had to do that, but I want to catch the person who did this to you.’

Once more Kim felt the scar tissue beneath her touch.

This woman had suffered in the past, and now she was suffering again.

‘I promise you will not be a Jane for long.’