Dead Memories (D.I. Kim Stone #10)(32)

‘On it,’ she shot back.

‘Alison?’

The woman shook her head. ‘The lead I was following came to nothing. I think you might be right about Alexandra Thorne.’

Kim didn’t hide her smile of triumph.

Alex didn’t play the same game twice. She bored too easily and Kim had known she wasn’t involved, but sometimes you just had to give people a little bit of rope.

From Alison’s set expression Kim guessed Alison didn’t enjoy being proven wrong.

‘Penn?’ she asked, praying he’d got something.

He took out a piece of paper and passed it to her. It was a full timeline for the period Amy and Mark had been in the supermarket.

‘After the phone call Amy slips something into her pocket. It was in the toiletry aisle, so I’m guessing a roll-on deodorant or something like that.’

Kim nodded her agreement.

‘But that’s not the interesting bit,’ Penn said, turning his screen towards her.

Kim watched the montage of footage taken from different cameras and pieced together by Penn.

She saw Amy and Mark exit the toilets, pass the cigarette kiosk, the newspaper stand, the security kiosk and then stop.

Kim frowned as she continued to watch. The footage ended.

‘Play it again,’ Kim said, scratching her chin.

She watched once more.

‘So, a couple of homeless drug addicts go into the supermarket, stare longingly at the food, get a phone call, steal deodorant but spend what little money they have on flowers?’

Penn nodded. ‘Exactly.’

‘So, who the hell was on the phone and what did they promise these kids?’





Forty-Four





‘Saved herself a bit with that one, eh?’ Bryant said, as they reached the car.

Stacey had pulled out all the stops to get a current address for John Duggar, Symes’s recently released cellmate. She still didn’t recall his name from any major investigation but she’d worry about that when she met him.

‘Yeah well, she needed to,’ Kim said.

‘If you’d just—’

‘Shut up and drive,’ Kim said, looking out of the window. There was still no definitive proof that the murders of Amy and Mark were anything to do with her. The call she’d made to Gemma had also highlighted Harry Jenks. She suspected he had offered Amy money for sex and Mark had found out, leading to the altercation. Which also explained Jenks’s failure to reveal the incident at all or report it.

She was looking forward to her next conversation with him and doubted she’d be quite so polite.

‘So, you know where this guy lives?’ she asked Bryant as he negotiated the Shenstone traffic island.

‘Yeah, just behind The Civic in Old Hill.’

‘Jeez, Bryant, where’s that?’

‘You don’t know The Civic?’ he asked, aghast.

‘No, and now you’re making me feel as though I’m really missing out.’

‘Called The Civic for decades even after being renamed The Regis. Built early Fifties and hosted everything: weddings, works parties, the lot. Six hundred capacity ballroom. Supposed to be posh and if you’d been invited to a—’

‘Bryant, shut up,’ Kim snapped.

‘Well, you asked…’

‘Shush,’ she repeated.

She turned up Bryant’s handheld station radio that accompanied them everywhere.

‘Shit, sounds serious,’ Bryant said as voices filled the car.

‘Fire at Dudley Wood,’ Kim said, trying to piece together the details through the crackling and disjointed voices.

Bryant slowed down as he approached a line of traffic through the centre of Old Hill.

‘Did he say car fire?’ he asked.

‘I heard the word occupied,’ she answered, turning up the radio.

‘I just heard speedway,’ Bryant said.

Kim swallowed deeply as that cool finger was back on her spine.

‘Bryant, take us there. Now.’





Forty-Five





Bryant got them as close as he could before they had to abandon the car outside the Kawasaki bike shop and run.

The scene was mayhem. A build-up of traffic, sirens, police cars trying to get through and the unmistakable sound of water gushing from the fire hoses.

As they turned the corner Kim saw the plume of smoke reaching into the sky, the acrid smell wafting straight into her lungs.

Four police cars and two fire engines were right in front of what used to be the entrance to the speedway, which was now a housing estate.

A third fire engine was trying to get through the traffic that was clogging Dudley Wood Road.

A cordon had already been established and uniformed officers were assembling in high-vis vests to redirect traffic away from the scene.

Both Kim and Bryant showed their ID before ducking under the cordon tape.

Kim could now see that the chaos was organised and although frenetic every person there was engaged in either tackling the fire or protecting the people that were.

‘Hey,’ Kim said to the first officer she recognised. Sergeant Bowyer operated out of Brierley Hill.

He frowned. ‘I was expecting an Inspector but not CID,’ he said.