Child's Play (D.I. Kim Stone #11)(27)

‘I think you’re mistaken but I’ll take you to Mr Blunt myself.’

Kim fell into step behind the woman, already wondering what they were going to find.





Twenty-Six





‘What the fuck was that about?’ Lynne hissed as they exited the courtroom.

The judge had asked for the jury to be excused and was speaking to both barristers privately.

Penn had no clue what was going to happen next.

‘Come on, Lynne, we were expecting the defence to rough her up a bit,’ Doug said, taking out his phone. ‘The woman did a complete about turn in her statement, and although we felt she was telling the truth the second time, you can understand why the jury might—’

‘Not that you gonk,’ Lynne said, exasperated. ‘Of course, I expected that, but what was this cheating bollocks she was screaming about and does it have anything to do with her change in testimony?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Doug said, smiling. ‘The jury won’t forget the bloodstained tee shirt in a hurry. Her statement got us the warrant, and that’s when we found the tee shirt in the shed. Dev Kapoor’s blood on his clothes is kind of indisputable, don’t you think?’

The man had a point. Forensic examination had linked the accused to the crime, but Penn had seen juries rule out forensic evidence if they felt that witness testimony was weak or fabricated. It destroyed their trust in the police, the case and the process. And it took both a strong stomach and a watertight case to convict for murder. Jurors hung on to the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ so they were not party to the irrevocable change of a person’s life. Which went double for anyone who had watched the Netflix show Making a Murderer.

Unfortunately, the response boxes on the jury service notification didn’t include an option marked ‘I don’t feel I could ever convict’.

‘It’ll be okay, though,’ Lynne said, wringing her hands. ‘We’ll get the conviction and we can all get back to work.’

Doug shrugged. ‘Don’t mind being paid to sit in court all day. Easy money.’

‘Jesus, Doug,’ Lynne blustered but there was a smile in her voice. Doug would always be Doug.

‘Sir, do you have a?…’

‘Mr Kapoor, of course,’ Penn said, stepping away.

‘Are things going wrong?’ he asked, quietly.

Penn shook his head. ‘No, everything is fine. The judge has decided that both barristers need telling off. Prosecution should have prepared the witness better and the defence was guilty of needling her but they’ll be finished in a minute and the trial will resume,’ he said, as he saw Lynne put her mobile phone to her ear.

‘I’ll come find you afterwards and we can have a better chat, okay?’

Mr Kapoor nodded as Penn moved back to his old colleagues.

‘Everything okay?’

Lynne looked troubled and shrugged in response.

‘No idea but the boss, Travis to you, wants us back at the station. Now. And he said that includes you.’





Twenty-Seven





Stacey sat back from Belinda’s phone records, which now resembled a rainbow. Using different coloured highlighting pens she’d ruled out most of the phone numbers on the sheets, which were overwhelmingly yellow for her sister’s mobile phone. Stacey shook her head. She’d never spoken to one person so many times in a day. Ever. Never mind every day.

Blue was for ruled out harmless calls. Mainly incoming from PPI scavengers and other marketing calls.

Pink represented service calls she’d made and received: hair, nails and a recent podiatrist appointment, taxis and a twelve-minute call to her internet provider.

Only three numbers remained. Two outgoing and one incoming.

She tried the first which was to a mobile number that went straight to voicemail. Bog standard message with no indication of who should be at the other end. She put a little pencil mark by it and moved on to the next. It was a landline that just rang out until it eventually cut off. No message option. Stacey put a small pencil mark by that to indicate she hadn’t yet ruled it out.

Then she dialled the last number, a landline that had called Belinda early on the day she was killed.

Stacey waited patiently for the call to be answered and was surprised by the greeting when it was.





Twenty-Eight





Kim instantly understood Felicity’s doubt about the relationship between Charles Blunt and Belinda Evans the second the woman pointed him out.

After berating Bryant for being judgemental she’d fallen into the exact same trap herself and the man was not what she’d been expecting.

Felicity strode across the empty sports hall towards an athletic-looking man in his early to mid-forties. His short black hair was showing strands of silver at the temples. His face was pleasant and open and he exuded health and fitness in khaki tracksuit bottoms and a plain white tee shirt that showed off the dark hairs that ran down his arm to a sports watch fixed at the wrist.

‘This is Charles Blunt who runs our Sports and Exercise Science HND class, and many other things too,’ she said, touching his arm.

He smiled in their direction as Felicity continued.

‘These police officers would like to speak to you about Belinda.’