Dead Memories (D.I. Kim Stone #10)(4)

She opened her arms expressively, unsure what he wanted to hear. ‘Err… Bryant got there before—’

‘And appeared to remain alone judging by the level of detail you’ve just given me.’

‘I’m not sure what?…’

His gaze intensified in line with his irritation. ‘Were the needles used for the hit present? Was the tourniquet on the male’s arm and were you even there?’

Kim thought for a moment, before speaking.

‘I arrived at the scene and entered the larger of the two bedrooms, which was approximately ten feet by ten. On my right were two police constables and a female sergeant. One of the officers was blonde and two were brunette; one had an eagle tattoo on his left forearm; and the blonde guy had a beard.’

‘Stone, I think…’

‘On my left was a third constable standing over two paramedics who were on the ground trying to keep the female alive, who had died twice, incidentally, before I got there. One of the paramedics was wearing—’

‘Stone, shut up,’ he snapped.

‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

‘What about the handcuffs, chained to the radiator?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she answered, pushing the vision from her mind.

‘You didn’t think to mention this to…’

‘Coincidence,’ she finished for him, totally convinced that’s what it was.

‘You don’t believe in coincidence,’ he responded, shrewdly.

‘In all honesty, I’m thinking it’s some kind of sex game gone wrong. Perhaps some type of I’ll inject you and you inject me thing that got out of hand. I’m sure the drug paraphernalia is there somewhere and Forensics will have it bagged and analysed.’

‘So, you don’t draw any comparisons at all?’ he asked.

‘To what?’ she replied, being deliberately vague as though the thought had never occurred to her.

If she was honest, the second she’d walked into that room a few floors below her own home for six years, she had immediately been transported back thirty years and saw her dead brother lying against the radiator, but as her working brain had kicked in she’d realised that it was purely coincidental and had no link to her own childhood. Sad as it was, these kids were drug addicts and had died by the sword.

The loss of the young man’s life, although tragic, had no link to her or Mikey.

She should have guessed that Woody would remember the salient facts from her personnel file and, although they’d never spoken about it, she was well aware that he knew things she had shared with very few people. Even Bryant only knew the barest of bones.

‘So, Stone, I repeat my question: you’re convinced there is absolutely no tie to you at all?’

She didn’t hesitate. ‘Completely, sir,’ she said, and meant it.

Almost.





Five





By 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning Kim had drunk a pot of coffee back home, walked and fed Barney, her unsociable, spirited Border Collie, got into work and prepared herself for Bryant’s early entrance.

‘Morning, guv. You—’

‘I’m fine and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be. Got it?’

‘So, how’d you sleep?’ he said, asking her the exact same question but with different words.

‘I slept fine,’ she answered, pouring her fourth coffee of the day.

And that was a blatant lie.

After her late-night walk with Barney she had crawled into bed and instantly felt wide awake. She’d stared into the darkness, playing back the scene in her mind, and pushing away the memories that were trying to force open the lid of the box within which they were stored.

She’d employed all her old habits to trick her mind into shutting out the intrusive thoughts. She picked one of her favourite biking routes: up through Stourton to the Bridgnorth Road, past Six Ashes and through villages like Enville and Morville.

She tried to imagine herself handling the Ninja, dipping and leaning into the bends, opening up the engine, working hard to control the bike on the route she knew all too well. Normally she’d feel her mind react to the need for concentration, her body tensing and adjusting until she fell asleep, her mind distracted for just long enough to escape the thoughts.

But not last night. In her mind, she’d crashed the bike four times as her brain had refused to join in the exercise that was her version of counting sheep.

All she could picture was that young man’s body slumped lifelessly against the radiator and lying in the dark silence of her bedroom had not helped rid her of that vision.

And so she’d risen, made coffee, and worked on the bike for a couple of hours before commencing her morning routine, which had been dangerously close to her night-time routine.

‘Ooh, is that a caffeine twitch or are you just pleased to see me?’ he joked.

‘Yeah, splitting my sides at that.’

He glanced sideways at her. ‘You trying to be funny?’ he asked, glancing down at his own left-hand side which had been split with a five-inch blade a month earlier.

‘Jeez, Bryant, I didn’t mean—’

‘Morning,’ Penn said, saving her from continuing.

He placed the Tupperware box on the spare desk before removing his man-bag and throwing it beneath his desk.