Dead Memories (D.I. Kim Stone #10)(45)

How had she forgotten about that?

She’d read every newspaper report on the incident and yet she had forgotten about that.

As though sensing her stare, Alison raised her head. ‘Sorry, was it something I said?’ she asked.

Stacey returned her gaze to the computer screen and opened a new search tab.

‘Yes, Alison, I think it was.’





Fifty-Nine





‘Bryant, I’m fine,’ Kim said for the twentieth time as she took a MenthoLyptus sweet from the pack he offered. ‘Just something I ate,’ she continued, explaining why she’d just emptied the contents of her stomach in the toilet bowl.

‘Yeah, if you ate,’ he mumbled, popping a sweet in his own mouth.

She ignored him as he turned back towards the automatic doors.

‘Ready to go back in?’ he asked.

Was she ready to go back in the room and watch Keats violate those burnt and blackened bodies to seek answers she needed to find the bastard who’d done this? Could she watch the man do his job without visualising Erica and Keith behind those featureless faces?

She shook her head. ‘You go back in. I’m gonna check on Rubik.’

He hesitated for just a second before hitting the button to re-enter.



* * *



Kim headed to the end of the corridor, knocked lightly on the incident room door and entered.

The room had been split into three clear areas. To the right was the remainder of the cube with Doctor A kneeling before it. From behind, her Doctor Martens protruded from the white coat she wore offering a comical appearance.

In her hand was the business end of an endoscope camera used to perform keyhole surgery. She pushed it into the wreckage and pictures flashed up onto the screen. Kim couldn’t help the smile that began to form on her lips when she remembered the approaches and tools that had been considered by Keats and Mitch. Instead Doctor A had utilised the probing equipment used to work on flesh and organs to penetrate and interrogate the cube, to understand it before trying to separate the man from the machine.

The left side of the room contained a bright white sheet holding extracted pieces of metal. In the corner, closest to her, was a large clear plastic tub with evidence bags draped over the side and a metal detector against the wall. She guessed the instrument was to check any body parts for traces of metal before bagging the body bits and sending them next door to Keats.

‘See, I told you, Mitchell, that the inspector had not forgetting about us,’ Doctor A said, narrowing her eyes, and switching off the camera.

‘Been a bit busy, Doc,’ Kim said, returning her gaze.

Mitch nodded her way and returned his attention to the clipboard in his hands.

‘Great progress, Doctor A,’ Kim said, remembering the original size of the cube.

‘Ahem,’ Mitch said.

‘Both of you,’ she corrected, moving to stand behind the doctor.

‘So far we have extracted one and a half legs, most of the arms parts, one hand and two feet. Still much middle to find,’ she said, pointing to her stomach. ‘We are assembling the parts on a stretcher in the cupboard,’ she said, nodding towards the door.

Kim guessed she meant the room that held the bodies in the cooling drawers that were stacked from floor to ceiling.

‘Tissue samples have been taken and sent to lab and if he was married he wore no ring.’

Kim remained silent and waited.

‘What?’ Doctor A demanded. ‘I have no more at this time.’

‘You’re kidding?’ Kim asked. Thirty-six hours and that was all they had? She’d been able to tell that from the hand sticking out.

‘Oh, Inspector, your sense of humours appear to have gone AMOL. Our victim is male aged between forty-five and sixty. He is between five foot five and five foot eight and weighs around seventeen stone. He had two broken bones as a child, right arm and left leg but not at the same time. All weights and measurements are approximate and—’

‘Doctor A, I love you,’ Kim said, taking out her phone.

‘Get in line, Inspector,’ she said, tossing her long ponytail behind her.

‘Can you send…’

‘Emailed to you and your team ten minutes ago,’ she said, returning her attention to the cube.

‘Thanks, Doc,’ Kim said. With that information, they could begin to build a detailed picture of their victim.

She sidled over to Mitch. ‘Hard act to follow, eh?’

‘Yep, nothing as sexy or progressive from me, I’m afraid,’ he said, recording a measurement onto the clipboard.

To her it was a mass of numbers, arrows and mathematical signs.

‘Interesting,’ she said, unable to make head nor tail of what he was recording.

‘This might make more sense,’ he said, taking another sheet of paper from the back of the clipboard. He opened it out to A3 size.

She saw a collection of shapes in different colours with reference numbers attached.

‘Red shapes are body parts recovered and blue are car parts.’

‘Okay,’ she said, taking his word for it. The body parts were labelled as numbers, so she had no way of knowing what was what.

‘I’ve yet to feed all the data into a computer simulation back at the lab but I’m prepared to state that I think our victim was locked in the boot of the car.’