Child's Play (D.I. Kim Stone #11)(26)

‘We’re sorry for the loss of one of your colleagues,’ Bryant said, taking one of the seats with blue cushions on the door side of the desk.

A laptop sat open on the generic desk, and Kim noted that while spacious and pleasant the office was by no means opulent. The furniture was mismatched and appeared to have hailed from whatever department had been budgeted a refit.

‘We are very shocked as you can imagine. Belinda only left us a few months ago, although we begged her to stay.’

‘You did?’ Bryant asked.

Kim was happy to allow him to lead while she fought down the irritation at being kept waiting. Ida had more than adequately filled the time, revealing little about Belinda except that she tried to keep her life completely compartmentalised. Ida clearly knew nothing of her friend’s sexual appetites and probably wouldn’t have believed them had they been honest with her. More interesting was what they’d learned about the sister that wasn’t dead. If they disliked each other so much, why the involvement in each other’s lives?

‘Of course we asked her to stay,’ Felicity Astor said, turning her full attention towards Bryant. ‘She was one of our most popular professors. Standing room only in her classes.’

‘Any particular reason?’ Bryant asked.

‘Child Psychology is always a popular class. The qualification is an asset in so many professions: counselling, teaching, social work and your own police force but Belinda’s class was particularly popular.’

Bryant said nothing but nodded for her to continue.

‘She didn’t teach the subject, she lived it. I make a point of sitting in once a year on all my professors, and her lessons were just electric. Her knowledge of the child’s psyche was encyclopaedic especially in the area of mistreatment.’

‘Go on,’ Kim said, sitting forward.

Felicity turned her way. ‘Belinda was particularly expert on the long-term repercussions of early mental cruelty.’

Felicity looked heavenward and offered a sad smile.

‘In one of her lessons I was captivated by one of her studies. She talked of a little boy she met when he was nine years old. The poor thing had been locked in a small boxroom for most of his life. He was fed once a day and left in the dark. There was no interaction and no love. He wasn’t chained and the door was not locked. He had been trained, conditioned to never leave. The boy had been born to two addicts.’

‘Drugs?’ Bryant asked.

‘Alcohol?’ Kim asked.

Felicity shook her head at both of them.

‘Computer games. They spent every hour glued to the Xbox playing each other and other folks online. The woman hadn’t even known she was pregnant until the little boy popped out. They didn’t know what to do, so they put him in the spare room and watched YouTube videos on feeding.’

‘Is this for real?’ Bryant asked, although Kim remembered reading about something similar in the newspaper.

‘Oh, it’s real. Life went on as normal for the couple. Fed the child once a day, kept him in nappies and only got found out when the council insisted on inspecting the property’s boiler following a recent fatality in a similar home.’

‘What happened?’ Bryant asked.

‘Neighbours were horrified, parents were imprisoned, authorities began pointing fingers and the little boy was put into care.’

‘And?’

‘And now you can see why Belinda’s classes were electric, officers. She made the students care. She told stories of real children, real situations, people she’d met and interacted with.’

‘And the boy?’ Bryant insisted.

‘Is unlikely to see the outside of an institution for the rest of his life. Belinda explained that the conditioning of those nine years had destroyed his ability to love, trust and communicate. He couldn’t bear to be touched. Even someone brushing against him would prompt hysterical reactions. He hadn’t learned anything and consequently was locked into a world that no one else could understand.’

‘How awful,’ Bryant whispered.

And Kim agreed but was no stranger to the harm that parents could do. Then something else occurred to her.

‘But Belinda was a teacher, a professor not a medical health practitioner, so how did she know of these children?’

‘She studied them, Inspector. Any chance to interact with a troubled or damaged child was a gift to her. She never wanted to stop learning of the lasting effects of early childhood experiences.’

There was something here that was feeling unpalatable right now: the idea that the woman had met with damaged and broken children to study and analyse them and their suffering, but without the clinical training or knowledge to help them.

‘We suspect Belinda was planning to take a trip. Would you have any idea where?’ Bryant asked.

Felicity shrugged. ‘To my knowledge she rarely took holidays or mini breaks, so if she was going somewhere it was probably to further her knowledge.’

‘Okay, thanks,’ Kim said, standing. ‘And would you mind pointing us in the direction of Charles Blunt?’

‘Of course, but why?’

‘We believe he was Belinda’s last known lover.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, making no attempt to hide her shock.

‘We believe so,’ Kim repeated, realising that Belinda had managed to keep her relationship secret from everyone. Her friend hadn’t known and her boss hadn’t known, yet the sister she didn’t like had known. Their relationship was growing stranger by the minute.