Dead Memories (D.I. Kim Stone #10)(52)

She expected him to rush out of the car to get something urgent or take out his phone to make some important call. Instead he unclipped his seat belt and turned towards her.

‘I don’t think you should be working this case.’

‘Excuse me,’ she said, sharply.

‘I don’t think it’s healthy.’

Kim wondered where the hell this had come from.

‘Is this because of what happened back at the morgue?’

‘It’s not one single thing,’ he said, chewing his lip. ‘I just don’t think you ought to be putting yourself through this.’

For the life of her she couldn’t understand his problem.

‘I’ve not been overly emotional. I’ve not dwelled on the events of the past. I’ve not become hysterical or started crying while we’ve been questioning someone.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about,’ he said, quietly.

‘Bryant, you’re making no bloody sense.’

‘There is no emotion. Even when Henry was recounting the meeting with your mother. I saw what you did, again. This was new information and yet your emotional reaction was stifled, suffocated and pushed down. This bastard is forcing you to face some of the most painful times of your life, dredge up the most horrific memories you have and there is no emotion. You’re acting like it’s happening to someone else. You’re pushing your feelings so far down into yourself that—’

‘That what, Bryant?’ she asked.

‘That you might never find them again. It’s not normal and it’s not healthy. Even your own body betrayed you earlier, at the morgue, but you just won’t listen.’

‘That was just a bug or something,’ she lied. ‘You gotta remember that I was there. These incidents are no surprise to me. I’ve experienced them already and I’ve lived with it all my life.’

‘It’s not like you’re reliving a trip to the zoo or a good holiday that you remember fondly. These are traumatic events that you’ve chosen to box up in cold bloody storage. It’s not even reaching you.’

‘So, let me get this straight. You want me off this case because I’m handling it?’ she asked to make sure she’d understood his warped logic.

‘I want you off the case because you’re handling it well. Too well for it to be normal. You’re cutting off your emotions at the knees, crippling them and who knows if you’ll ever—’

‘Bryant, start the car,’ she instructed. The long-term well-being of her emotions was not her greatest concern right now, and she would do whatever was needed to catch this bastard before he hurt anyone else.

‘Guv, just listen to—’

‘Start the car, Bryant, and take us back to the station. Cos lunch break is well and truly over.’





Sixty-Eight





Stacey couldn’t help feeling bad for saying no to Alison. But interrogating HOLMES2 for incidents similar to those on her previous case was no simple task.

She had listened to Alison, who had thought it was a matter of entering a few key details, and it might have been had she been looking for cases of brutal rape and murder; but if Alison was right that the killing of Jennifer Townes was the result of escalation, they were looking at incidents of unsolved rape which numbered in the thousands and would take weeks of interrogation and analysis.

And if she was honest she really did think Alison was wasting time on a case where the West Mercia team had their man, and the behaviourist was just having trouble coming to terms with her own mistake.

She wasn’t insensitive enough to say that but the air seemed to have cooled between them, and Stacey couldn’t help her relief as familiar footsteps sounded in the general office.

‘Hey, Stace,’ Penn said, rushing into the office and casting off his man-bag.

He turned and nodded in Alison’s direction as an afterthought, as though he’d forgotten she was there.

‘Where’s the boss?’ he asked.

‘Checking out a lead in the Cotswolds. Detail in the first crime scene our killer couldn’t have got from the news. Haven’t heard back from her yet,’ Stacey said, thinking it strange. Boss normally checked in every couple of hours.

‘Back up, what’s in the Cotswolds?’

Stacey had almost forgotten how long he’d been gone.

‘Guy who wrote a book about the boss’s childhood, a journalist or something.’

‘Bloody hell, there’s a book?’

Stacey nodded. ‘It’s the cracker wrapper. Doesn’t appear anywhere in the press so I got thinking…’

‘Ahem,’ Alison said, without looking up.

‘With a little help from over there,’ she acknowledged. ‘That he had to have got it from somewhere. Boss has gone to see if he’s sold any copies recently.’

‘And she couldn’t have phoned?’ he asked, taking the last cake from the Tupperware box.

Alison offered him a hateful glance as he took a bite. Stacey didn’t even want to try and count the daily calorie intake of the woman.

‘Well, I’ve been…’ Penn said.

‘So, I’ve been…’ Stacey said at the same time.

They both laughed.