Dead Memories (D.I. Kim Stone #10)(28)

The two biggest stepped forward and followed them through the key-coded door and remained silent until Gennard stopped short at a heavy metal door.

He key-coded his number and opened it.

Iqbal stepped in before them and took a place in the left-hand corner. Harris moved in behind.

Kim appraised the muscly, shaven-headed man with a scar where his left eye should have been. Kim felt no remorse that she’d been responsible. She was looking at the most evil, twisted man she had ever met whose thirst for inflicting physical pain knew no bounds. The hatred in his eyes travelled the space between them.

She smiled right through it as she said, ‘Hey, Symes, are you pleased to see me?’





Thirty-Nine





‘Settle down, settle down,’ Gennard said, as Symes tried to wrench his handcuffs from the security bar that confined him to the table.

There were no chairs on this side of the table. Evidently, his feelings for her had not softened since they’d last seen each other and she had embedded glass in his eye. She was exceptionally proud of the scarring she’d given this man as a permanent reminder that he’d failed in his efforts.

‘So, how’ve you been, Symes?’ she asked as Gennard came to stand beside her.

‘What the fuck you want, bitch?’ he asked, as his nostrils flared.

‘Just a welfare check. See if you’re behaving yourself.’

‘I swear if I could—’

‘Symes,’ Gennard warned.

‘You been making friends and playing nice in here?’ she asked.

‘The fuck it’s your business,’ he spat.

‘Ahhh, nobody wants to play, eh? Good to see the guys in here have standards.’

Kim could feel Gennard stiffening beside her at the lazy, taunting tone but it was necessary, calculated and intentional. And that’s why she had wanted Bryant out of the room. He would have tried to stop her.

‘I mean, even these guys can’t stand cowards that hurt children,’ she said, staring into his one good eye.

‘Just one hand around your fucking throat and—’

‘And they don’t much care for failures, do they? I suppose they know you were stopped by a woman, which must do your credibility zero good,’ she said, making the figure o with her thumb and finger.

‘Gennard, you wanna get this?…’

‘And I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that those little girls are happy, fit and healthy and they give you no thought at all,’ she added with a smile.

‘I’ll wring your—’

‘So, come on, who you been taking needlework classes with, anyone interesting?’ she asked, noting how the rage was travelling all the way to his white clenched knuckles but for once he remained silent.

‘So, you been thinking about me much?’ she asked.

Symes suddenly sat back and regarded her coolly.

‘Somebody got it in for you, bitch?’ he asked.

Kim realised that throughout their exchange he had not looked at anyone else in the room once and neither had she.

‘Answer the question, Symes,’ she said.

‘You really think I’m after you?’ he asked.

‘Answer the question,’ she said again.

‘You know, Stone, your face keeps me awake every fucking night. I picture you underneath me struggling and screaming while I rape the fuck out of—’

‘Symes,’ Gennard warned.

Kim held up her hand. ‘Let him speak freely,’ she said. She was here to learn the depth of his hatred for her and whether he could be responsible, remotely, for the murder of Amy and Mark. She had goaded him into brutal honesty and now she had to listen.

‘I picture you screaming for mercy as I fucking break you in half with my cock. And when my dick is done I lamp the living daylights out of you. One broken bone after another until I’m kicking around a bag of skin with every internal organ smashed.’

Kim could see the veil of ecstasy dropping into his eyes as he spoke. This man had only ever lived for violence but now he only lived for violence inflicted on her.

She had no doubt what would happen if this man ever got free.

She hid the sensation of the cold finger travelling up her spine.

‘Yeah, whatever, now are you gonna answer the question?’ she pushed.

‘If somebody’s rattling your cage then they have my fucking vote, but one thing you should already know about me, you fucking bitch, slut, whore.’

‘Which is?’

‘If it was me that was after you, you’d already be dead.’





Forty





Symes closed his palm around his flaccid dick and started to pump.

Yesterday, after a visit from Deana – the dirty slag – he’d had the pleasure of whacking off in the visitor’s toilets after telling Gennard he couldn’t hold himself back to the wing.

There was something satisfying about having a wank in the visitor’s toilets. The clean floors with well-stocked bog roll and a smell that wasn’t four-day-old piss and shit.

But not today. Today he hadn’t even been taken to the visitor’s room. Not safe for the visitor, they’d said and they’d been fucking right to chain him to the damn table because if his hands had been free…