Dead Memories (D.I. Kim Stone #10)(63)

He nodded to his team mates as he began a couple of stretching exercises. There were still a couple of guys on the team from when he’d first started but he could tell their hearts weren’t in it so much any more. The bruises and cuts healed slower in your late forties, the aches and pains from a tough match lingered longer, but the guys still hung on having not yet found anything to replace this golden snatch of man time.

And he had his reasons, too. While he was running up and down the field trying to keep up with players half his age he was thinking of nothing but the game. The physical exertion and focus left no room for thoughts of the job, his family, his worries. Everything stayed in the dressing room with his clothes.

He groaned as he saw a player he recognised. A rough kid named Beasley in his late twenties with some kind of point to prove. At six foot three and shoulders across which you could run an A road, he wasn’t known for playing nice.

Bryant appraised the red-haired man wondering if he’d been hardened by the shit he’d taken at being one letter away from his doppelganger in the Harry Potter films.

Come get me, dickhead, Bryant thought. Cos I am just in the mood for you.

He took his position and waited for the whistle.

Immediately he could feel the rhythm of the game. There was a tension being passed around with the ball.

Within a few minutes he narrowly escaped a kicking in a maul, got a smack to the back of the head in a rolling maul and a kick to the shins in a ruck.

Oh yeah, a rough game was just what he needed right now, he thought, as Lenny called him forward.

A scrum was being formed following an accidental offside. He took his place in the front row ready to push against the other team to win the ball.

The scrum half fed the ball into the scrum and the hooker turned his foot to get possession. His team had the ball.

As he was released from the scrum an elbow caught him just above the right eye. The pain shot around the whole of his face as the skin split and he felt the coolness of the blood oozing down his cheek.

He wasn’t surprised to see Beasley’s grinning face as he followed the direction of the elbow.

‘What the fuck was?…’

That hadn’t been fair play. The damn scrum had finished.

‘Get off the field, old man,’ said Beasley.

Bryant lunged with his fist raised as the blood began to drip into his eye. ‘Say that again, you—’

‘Hey, hey, hey,’ said Lenny, stepping in front of him.

Beasley’s coach took the opportunity to guide him away.

‘What the hell, man?’ Lenny asked, blocking his view. ‘It was a fair—’

‘You’re joking. He’s a thug with a bloody shirt…’

‘Calm it, mate. This ain’t you. Yeah, he’s a shit but that was just rough play. You had a bad day or something?’

‘I’m fine,’ he snapped, wiping the blood away from his eye with the back of his hand.

‘Yeah, well go and be fine in the block. You’re playing no more tonight.’

‘Jesus, Lenny,’ he protested.

Lenny shook his head. ‘You’re off or I end the game. You ain’t right. Now go.’

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he spat as he stormed across the field to the changing room. He took off his shirt and used it to wipe the blood from his eye.

‘Had a bad day?’ he raged, throwing the shirt to the ground. Nah, he’d only spent the week watching the private life and past of his boss and friend being used as a knife to stab her with. He’d watched her bury her emotions to get the job done, to catch the sick bastard who was killing innocent people to prove a point. He’d watched her continue to lead a team and analyse evidence and facts, sifting and sorting clues, while quietly detaching herself in the midst of losing the thing that meant most to her. Privacy. And then he’d had to watch as she’d been removed from the case.

Yeah, it had been a bad fucking day at work. Was there really any other kind? Every single day he was forced to look at and analyse the despicable depths of humanity, see things that he couldn’t unsee, images that wedged in his brain and played over and over in his mind’s eye, torturing him and sickening him repeatedly, only to return late at night in his dreams.

He kicked his kit bag across the floor with force.

‘Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it,’ he screamed, as his teeth ground together.

He paced the changing room floor, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. He needed a target. He needed an outlet, somewhere to expel the rage that was surging like molten lava around his veins.

The knowledge.

The thoughts.

The images.

‘Nooooo,’ he cried out as his right fist hit the wall.

The pain was immediate and welcome but it didn’t clear his mind. Somewhere in there, mashed up with everything else he’d witnessed this week was the image of Billie Styles, viciously and brutally assaulted. Left for dead in the woods, subjected to unspeakable horror that would change her life for ever.

But that wasn’t the image that tortured him. That wasn’t the image that had followed him onto the rugby field. This one was more personal and closer to home and filled him with a rage that burned like a wildfire all the way to his soul.

A thirteen-year-old girl, abandoned by everyone, loved by no one, unprotected, frightened but trying not to be, taken into the woods and raped.