Child's Play (D.I. Kim Stone #11)(6)

She had the feeling they were looking at a ghost.





Five





‘Marm, I’m sorry… she just…’

Kim waved away the constable’s apologies. Judging by the look on the woman’s face the entire day shift kitted out in riot gear would have struggled to stop her.

She took a moment to process the sight before her. From the floral skirt to the plain blouse to the pearl earrings and matching necklace. The face was a little more worn but the resemblance to Belinda Evans was uncanny.

‘May I ask what you’re doing in my sister’s house?’ she asked in a clipped, stern voice that held no Black Country twang.

Kim stepped forward. ‘Mrs?…’

‘It’s Miss Evans, like my sister and my name is Veronica,’ she stated, as Kim’s phone began to ring.

‘You can ignore that call and explain what you’re doing in my sister’s home,’ the woman said with steel in both her voice and expression.

‘Yeah, I’m probably not going to do that,’ Kim said, turning away. Even Woody didn’t speak to her like that, but right now she had to force herself to remember that this person was about to find out they’d lost a family member.

‘Stace,’ she answered.

‘Next of kin, boss, is sixty-five-year-old Veronica Evans, lives at—’

‘Thanks, Stace, I’ll get back to you,’ she said, ending the call and wishing it had been just two minutes earlier.

‘Miss Evans, I think you should take a seat,’ Kim said, pointing back towards the lounge.

The woman ignored her advice.

‘Is she dead?’

‘Miss Evans,’ Bryant said, stepping in to take over the sensitivity portion of their job description.

‘If you could just step into…’

‘I’ll take that as a yes, then?’ she said, looking from Kim to her colleague.

Okay, so it appeared that Bryant could put his kid gloves away for the time being.

‘Yes, Miss Evans, I’m afraid—’

‘Veronica, please, or we’ll all get confused. How did it happen? In that fast car of hers, I suppose. Ridiculous how she drove it. I’ve been telling her for months that she needed to act her age, but—’

Bryant stepped forward. ‘Miss… Veronica, I really think you should come into the lounge and…’

The woman speared Bryant with a look. ‘Officer, will my sitting down make my sister any less dead?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Kim answered for her colleague who was nonplussed by the woman’s manner.

Kim had seen it before. Sometimes relatives remained stoic for days, weeks, months and then broke down because of something trivial or a certain memory. Whatever the reason Kim was going to make the most of it.

‘No, Veronica, your sister will be no less dead but the situation is more complicated than you suspect and would be better discussed sitting down.’

‘Complicated, how?’

Kim took matters into her own hands and walked past the woman into the lounge. She stood in front of the sofa thereby directing the woman to the single seat.

After all his efforts to make Veronica sit, Bryant remained standing in the doorway.

‘Veronica, I’m sorry to tell you that your sister was murdered.’

Kim waited for an emotion to cross her face. Any emotion would do but she wasn’t expecting the one she saw.

Annoyance.

Kim couldn’t work out if it was annoyance that her sister had died or because her demise was not in the manner that Veronica had prophesised.

‘No, I’m sorry but you must be mistaken. It’s either an error of her identity or the way she died but there’s no way Belinda—’

‘There’s no mistake,’ Kim said. ‘Your sister was murdered at Haden Hill Park by a single stab wound to the heart.’

Veronica’s hand went to her throat as though she’d just been told there was a fly in her soup.

The lack of emotion caused Kim to wonder how close the sisters had been. It appeared that Veronica lived close by due to the time in the morning she’d just happened along for a visit. They had uncannily similar interests in clothes and jewellery and both still went by their maiden names.

‘Veronica, I’m sorry, this must be an awful shock but do you have any idea why your sister was at the park last night?’

Kim had checked and there had been no events, at either the park or house.

‘I have absolutely no idea.’

‘Was it a favourite place of hers?’ Kim pushed. ‘Maybe something from your childhood?’

As people got older they liked to wander down memory lane, relive particularly happy memories.

‘Belinda was found sitting on a swing,’ Kim offered, leaving out the detail of the barbed wire that had been securing her.

‘Murdered while sitting on a swing late at night?’ she asked, trying to stare Kim down. ‘Is this some kind of ridiculous joke?’

‘I’m afraid not. Your parents never took you to Haden Hill Park?’ she repeated the question that had not been answered.

‘No. Our parents were not park people and Belinda had no interest in swings,’ she said, with exasperation, as though Kim had lost her mind.