Play Dead (17 page)

‘
O
kay
, Stace, get me everything you can for the guy on the list named Ivor. It’s a bit thin, but there’s a chance this could be our guy.’

‘On it, boss,’ Stacey replied.

‘And while you’re at it, he had a mate named Larry something. Don’t know if he might also be listed with any of the clinics. They may have met there, and if we can find him he may be able to help.’

‘Got it,’ Stacey said before Kim ended the call.

‘What do you make of Rita’s story?’ Bryant asked as he drove towards Stourbridge. On the other side lay Stourton and the home of Jemima Lowe’s ex head teacher.

Kim shrugged in response. ‘Could have been a harmless misunderstanding and I’ve got Stacey barking up the completely wrong tree… but right now it’s the only tree we’ve got and for a guy with no form of identity I think every move forwards is going to be a leap of faith.’

‘I still don’t see why that particular tree has ended up in our forest to be honest,’ Bryant said.

Kim was saved from answering by the ringing of her phone. There was no need for him to know it had come from Tracy.

‘Stone,’ she said.

‘Inspector, it’s Doctor Singh, from Russell’s Hall. We spoke—’

‘Of course, Doctor Singh,’ she acknowledged.

‘I’m calling about Isobel…’

Kim braced herself for the news that she’d been dreading.

‘I’m ringing to tell you that Isobel has woken up.’

Kim ended the call and told Bryant to turn the car around.

Finally they had a witness.

D
awson didn’t
bother to remove his jacket from the car. Both the mid-morning heat and the absence of his boss dictated it would not grace his back today.

He parked on the gravel patch between the crime-scene Transit van and Harry’s low loader, which was used for transporting the ground-penetrating radar equipment. He suspected that Harry would be finished today providing he found no more nasty surprises, but the techies would be around for a few more days at least.

He tapped on the door before entering, even though they had opened the gate.

He walked into the back of Jameel, who turned and nodded in his direction. Dawson could hear The Shadows playing softly in the background.

This was one strange kid.

‘Yo, man,’ he said and turned back to his computer.

Dawson walked behind him and paused when he saw Catherine at the meeting table with a collection of graphs and charts spread out before her.

‘You’re here,’ he said stupidly.

She almost smiled. ‘Yes, I appear to be.’

‘But how did you get in?’ he asked.

He had been forced to wait a good few minutes while the officers at the cordon had cleared the press to let him through. The arrival of forensics tended to do that. As soon as the techies turned up, the press knew there was something to find and they had been steadily growing in number since the previous evening.

The boss had filled them in on Catherine’s history, and he hadn’t expected to see her back at work.

This time she did smile. ‘Under a picnic blanket in the back of the professor’s car.’

‘You told him?’ Dawson asked. The boss had also been clear that they were not to say a word.

She nodded. ‘A lot of what DI Stone said made sense. It’s better if I work,’ she said.

Dawson could understand that. Recently he’d been badly beaten while carrying out an investigation into the death of a gang member, but the following day he’d been right back at his desk.

‘She’s a strange one, isn’t she, your boss?’ Catherine asked, surprising him. It was the first time she’d spoken to him unless answering a direct question.

He felt himself bristle. ‘How so?’

‘There’s a bit more to her than meets the eye. She’s not the most likeable—’

‘Yeah, you don’t know her,’ Dawson said, crossing his arms.

‘… I was going to say on first impressions, but there’s a lot going on underneath. I wasn’t insulting her. She was very helpful to me yesterday,’ Catherine said, gathering up her papers. ‘Jameel, I’m going down to check on Elvis,’ she said abruptly before brushing past Dawson and heading out the door.

The young man didn’t turn or acknowledge her words in any way but mumbled something once the door closed behind her.

‘Sorry?’ Dawson said, taking a step back towards the office area of the Portakabin.

‘Something in my throat,’ Jameel said and then coughed for effect.

Dawson wasn’t fooled.

‘You two don’t get on?’ he asked. After the way Catherine had just spoken to him he wasn’t surprised.

‘Can’t be doing with changeable women, man. The species is hard enough to understand as it is, d’ya get me?’

Dawson smiled. Oh yeah, he got that.

‘Changeable?’ he asked, pouring himself a glass of water.

‘When she wants something she’s all over you, giving you compliments and stuff, but when she’s got what she wants she’s cool as a penguin’s belly.’

Dawson gave a small laugh. ‘Mate, you’ll find that’s the case with all women, not just that one.’ He made a show of looking around. ‘Curtis Grant not with you today?’

‘Nah. Good job. His aftershave was starting to get in my throat.’

Dawson smiled. Yeah, he’d noticed.

‘He’s been here quite a bit. Is there a lot to do to the system?’

Jameel shook his head. ‘I didn’t think so, but he wanted to check there were no bugs in the software upgrade.’

‘Seems to know his stuff though,’ Dawson observed.

‘To be fair he does. His company is his life. Talks about it like it’s a child.’

Dawson acknowledged his words. ‘Did he do all the planning for the security provision? Siting the cameras and everything?’

‘I think so. It was before I started, but Professor Wright brought him in and seems to trust him.’

Dawson finished the water and headed towards the door.

Suddenly Jameel turned. ‘You got a minute? There’s something I want to ask you.’

Dawson was momentarily surprised. Jameel had been totally disinterested in the activities at the site. He had asked nothing and had just kept his head down and got on with his job.

‘Go on then,’ he said.

Jameel put his hands on his thighs and his eyes opened wide. A quick tongue flick across the lips before he asked his question.

‘I’m dying to know, Sergeant. Have you ever killed anybody?’

‘What?’ Dawson asked incredulously. ‘You realise this is the Black Country not South Central LA?

Jameel leaned forwards. ‘Yeah but have you?’

Dawson tried not to roll his eyes as the day stretched out in front of him.

B
ryant pulled
into the hospital car park and stealthily followed a patron to their car to nab their space.

Kim jumped out of the car and semi-sprinted to the hospital. She headed for the High Dependency Unit on autopilot.

She buzzed the intercom and pushed against the familiar click.

Doctor Singh stood at the nurses’ station, completing a chart. The same ward sister from the previous day smiled in her direction before stepping away from the area with a cardboard bedpan.

Doctor Singh completed what he was writing before turning in her direction. ‘That was very fast, Inspector,’ he observed.

They had postponed the visit to the head teacher in favour of interviewing the live witness who had actually spent time with their killer.

‘She’s awake, you said,’ she said, stepping past him.

He placed a gentle hand on her arm. She moved away from his touch and offered him a frown.

‘Doctor, I need to speak with her immediately. She is imperative to our—’

‘I understand that. It’s why I called you the moment she regained consciousness.’

‘So?’

‘There have been, er… developments since we spoke. It’s become complicated.’

Kim felt her irritation growing in spite of the doctor’s gentle manner. Twenty feet away was a woman with answers she needed. Isobel could hold the key to solving this case before anyone else got hurt.

‘Look, if there’s a form you need me to sign—’

‘A form isn’t going to help you, Inspector. Isobel may be awake, but she has no memories whatsoever of recent events. In fact, she doesn’t even know who she is.’

K
im stepped back
and leaned against the ledge of the nurses’ station.

‘That’s why I wanted to speak to you before you see her. Isobel is suffering from retrograde amnesia. Sometimes the lost memories before an event are only seconds or minutes, occasionally a few years and, less often, everything.’

Kim allowed the breath she’d been holding to escape. ‘Will it come back?’

He moved his shoulders in an up-and-down motion. ‘I can’t say yet, Inspector. In many of the cases I’ve worked on, the memories return like a jigsaw, randomly. She could recall something from last week and then minutes later remember something from when she was seven years old. We have many more questions to consider in the coming days. We need to assess the true extent of the damage.’

Kim was confused. ‘Isn’t that clear already?’ The woman had no memory. What more was there to learn?

‘Ah, there is a difference between memory making and memory storage,’ he said and paused. ‘Imagine there is a fire in a pottery and all the pots are destroyed. Your stock is gone, what has already been made is no more. But what of the potter’s wheel? Does the equipment still work or is that gone too?’

Kim got it. ‘She hasn’t been conscious long enough for you to find out?’

Doctor Singh smiled. ‘Exactly. Short-term memory can be checked after about thirty minutes. Long-term memory demands recall after a day, two days, a week or more.’

Kim shook her head, reeling.

Already she felt sorry for the battle Isobel had yet to fight.

‘Thank you for your time, Doctor Singh,’ she said.

‘You’re welcome and now you may see her.’

Kim hesitated before stepping into the ward. She was already on tiptoe to avoid her biker-boot heels thudding her arrival.

She took a deep breath and turned into the bay.

The first thing Kim noticed was the bed next to Isobel was now empty. In this ward you didn’t ask why.

The second thing she noticed was Duncan gently helping Isobel to feed herself.

Kim approached the bed with a smile and touched Duncan gently on the shoulder before speaking.

‘Hi, Isobel, I’m Detective Inspector Stone and would like a word, if that’s okay?’

After her chat with the doctor she wasn’t sure how much she was going to get.

‘She prefers “Izzy”,’ Duncan offered with a smile.

Isobel looked from one to the other, not speaking.

Her face was pale and her eyes were dark. Her eyelids appeared heavy with fatigue. Kim could only wonder at the strength it had taken for her to fight back from wherever she had been.

Kim stepped around to the other side of Isobel. Duncan was perched on the bed, so she moved the requisite easy chair closer, taking care to lift not drag.

‘Would you like me to leave?’ Duncan asked.

Kim shook her head. He was helping Isobel lift her right hand to her mouth from a bowl of thin soup on the hospital table.

Isobel tried to lift her left hand to offer a handshake. Kim touched the hand and laid it back down.

She leaned forwards, resting her arms on her knees.

‘Izzy, I understand that you don’t remember anything, but I have to ask, okay?’

She nodded as Duncan guided her hand once more to her mouth. The effort of swallowing the murky liquid seemed to take a great deal of effort.

‘If you get too tired, just let me know.’

‘I don’t want to close my eyes,’ she said.

Her voice was weak, barely more than a whisper. Had Kim been further away she wouldn’t have heard a word.

Kim could also understand her reluctance to close her eyes. Perhaps she was frightened of returning to her comatose state or even not waking up at all.

Duncan held her hand and scooped another spoonful of soup before helping her guide it to her mouth.

Again she swallowed with effort and held up her left hand to signal no more.

Duncan put the spoon back into the dish but continued to hold her hand.

‘Isobel, I know this might be difficult for you to take in, but your injuries are not from any kind of accident.’

She swallowed and nodded. In the short time she’d been awake she had probably already worked that out.

‘We’re pretty sure you were abducted and kept against your will. Your head injury was supposed to kill you.’

A cry sounded from her throat. Kim placed a reassuring hand on Isobel’s arm.

‘Don’t worry – you’re safe. He’s not going to get to you here. But we need to catch this man before he does it again.’

Kim didn’t want to frighten her further by admitting that two other women hadn’t been as lucky.

Isobel’s look of horror turned to frustration. ‘I don’t…’

‘Save your throat,’ Kim instructed. ‘I just want to see if we can shake anything loose.’

Isobel nodded, but the frown remained. Kim saw her look to Duncan for reassurance. He smiled and squeezed her hand. ‘You’re doing great, Izzy.’

‘There are marks on the back of your legs and your stomach,’ Kim explained. ‘Do you have any idea where they came from?’

Isobel shook her head.

‘Do you remember anything about being taken, a smell, a sound, anything?’

Isobel shook her head.

‘Do you have any recollection of where you might have been taken from?’

She shook her head and then looked to Duncan who was pained that he could offer no response.

‘Is there anything in your mind to do with where you were held, anything at all?’ Kim asked.

Isobel’s eyes filled with tears and Kim understood.

With no memory of anything she was looking into an empty space. She knew nothing about herself. Her mind was an alien place to be with nothing familiar, nothing she knew. No memories of herself or people that she cared for.

Duncan stroked her arm. ‘It’s okay, babe. It’ll come back.’

Kim hoped he was right, not only for her own sake, and what she might learn for the investigation, but for Isobel too.

Otherwise the woman had to start again. She had to make a whole new person. Her memories would begin from about half an hour ago, providing the equipment was still working, but that was a worry for another day.

As Kim opened her mouth she caught sight of the doctor at the entrance to the bay.

He had said she couldn’t take long and he was reminding her of her instruction. She couldn’t tire the patient too much.

She was tempted to keep asking questions in case just one smidgeon of information had become lodged in the brain before the injury had washed it away. Just one stubborn recollection that was hanging on the end of a thought.

But it would be unfair and probably fruitless.

Kim stood and returned the easy chair to its position.

‘Isobel, you’re doing great, so don’t push yourself to recall stuff. The harder you try the more it may stay out of reach.

‘I’m going to leave my card here. If you do remember anything ask Duncan to give me a call.’

Isobel nodded and attempted a weak smile. Duncan nodded too. He looked tired and sad.

‘You okay?’ Kim couldn’t help but ask.

‘I’m fine,’ he said brightening.

‘You need rest too,’ she advised. Hospitals were draining, and the worry was etched into his face.

‘I’m okay. I’m going to fetch a few things for Izzy when I leave here.’ He turned to his girlfriend. ‘Pink pyjamas. You always wear pink.’

Kim enjoyed the expression of warmth that spread across Isobel’s face. Facts, information, any little nugget would be gratefully received and hopefully stored.

Kim wondered how many times the finite detail of their few dates would be recounted back to her over the coming days. And each time she would learn something new about the person she was.

Kim said her farewells and headed back to the doctor.

‘Sorry if I overstayed.’

‘No, no, Inspector. It’s not that. There’s something I think you should know.’

He stepped away from the opening to the ward.

Kim followed.

‘The blood tests you asked for have come back. There was a definite trace of Rohypnol in her blood, but there’s something else.’

‘Go on,’ Kim urged.

He turned to the clipboard and consulted the notes one more time.

‘Our patient has hepatitis C.’

Kim stepped back and glanced into the ward.

Duncan was helping his girlfriend take a drink of water from the plastic beaker.

She couldn’t help but wonder if either of them knew.