Dead Memories (D.I. Kim Stone #10)(20)

Twenty-Seven





Alison tried to shake the feeling of doing something wrong as she entered the front foyer of Worcestershire Royal Hospital. She told herself that visiting a sick person was not a crime.

She was well aware that Inspector Stone had wanted more of an explanation. She had wanted the entire brief, word for word, as to her role in the case. And much as she would have loved to stay and fend her off she’d known she had a twenty-mile drive down the M5 to the hospital to make it before visiting hours ended.

Alison knew they weren’t as strict on the timings in ICU if you were visiting alone and made no fuss. In the silent cloistered environment of the gravely ill any cough or chair scrape was magnified as though in church or a library. Nurses moved around soundlessly in foam-bottomed shoes or crocs amongst the low beeps and tings of life-preserving equipment.

‘How is she?’ Alison asked Valerie, the ward sister, as she entered.

‘Same,’ she said, with a kindly smile.

‘Thank you,’ she said, heading over to the bed at the end. She removed her jacket and sat before taking a good look at the woman in the bed.

The bruises had barely faded in the six days since Alison had first seen Beverly lying here. Her face was still stained purple and yellow, with an occasional inch of pale cream flesh peeking out from beneath. And the marks didn’t stop there. The plum-coloured skin continued over her body where she’d been kicked and punched both before and after the vicious rape.

Alison shuddered as she thought about what this woman had endured.

She brought her gaze back to Beverly’s face; the stretched, shiny skin that had ballooned over her left eye. The shaved head bearing the scars of major surgery to reduce the swelling and bleeding on the brain.

Alison took the cool, smooth hand and stroked the thumb rhythmically.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

‘You have nothing to be sorry for,’ said Valerie, startling her. She hadn’t heard the ward sister approach. Damn those crocs. ‘You didn’t do this to her.’

Oh, but I did, Alison almost said, but managed to stop herself just in time.

‘I know,’ she said, recovering quickly. ‘But I was away on business and I can’t help but think if I’d been—’

‘Shh now,’ she said, kindly, straightening the sheet around Beverly’s shoulders. ‘That’s not the kind of talk she needs to hear. You need to tell her all the things you’re going to do once she’s better.’

Alison appreciated the optimism that didn’t match the prognosis, which was little more than a shrug of your shoulders and wait-and-see assessment.

‘Talk to her about shopping trips,’ Valerie said, squeezing her shoulder gently. ‘Talk to her about a weekend at a spa or a trip to the theatre. I’m sure that’s what your sister wants to hear.’

Alison nodded and fought away the reason for her own uneasiness and feeling of wrongdoing.

This woman was not her sister.

Alison was an only child.





Twenty-Eight





Kim tried to keep her face neutral as Alison entered the squad room for the morning briefing and sat at the spare desk.

She’d put in a call to Woody immediately following their conversation the previous night to be told he was giving some kind of speech at an awards ceremony. She’d been sitting outside his office at 6 a.m. but he hadn’t shown. A cynical person might have thought he was actively avoiding her. Realistically she knew he wasn’t. Woody always had the courage of his convictions and would never back down in the face of her anger, but that didn’t stop her wanting to question it.

She’d spent the night pacing and raging wondering why the hell he felt she needed babysitting to this degree. And she wanted to tell him he was wrong.

And if he was avoiding her it wasn’t going to last for long.

‘Okay, guys, what we got on the CCTV for Amy and Mark around Hollytree?’

‘Very little so far, boss,’ Penn said, tapping on his keyboard. ‘Got this one snatch of ’em coming out of Brierley Hill Asda at around 4 p.m. on Sunday from the car park camera. The footage is grainy at best and Amy’s carrying something, but still waiting on Asda for footage around the store. They head down Little Cottage Lane and disappear.’

‘Keep on it, Penn,’ Kim said.

Any footage of them on that final day might help.

‘Stace, I know you were doing background and we got some ourselves from Amy’s mother,’ Kim said. ‘Apparently, Amy fell for Mark, literally right outside Tesco. Not exactly a fairy-tale beginning but one has to wonder if part of the charm for Amy was in trying to save him and then got hooked on the stuff herself.’

‘Typical rescuer syndrome,’ Alison interjected. ‘Mainly females who focus on and worry about their partner more than themselves. Normally drawn to people with depression, anxieties or addictions. Love equates to work and suffering instead of a healthy, balanced relationship.’

‘Precisely, anyway,’ Kim continued, ‘Amy’s mother was mugged and beaten a few months ago and feels Amy and Mark were behind it after she refused to give her daughter money. Apparently, the woman had tried everything, even getting her friends to try and talk sense into her but nothing worked; she even came to the hospital high and was thrown off the ward.’