Play Dead (D.I. Kim Stone, #4)(13)

Well, it had, Kim reasoned, just not in the way he thought. Biting her boss’s fingers would definitely have come up in her performance review.

Kim moved in her seat. ‘May we…?’

‘Go on, Stone,’ he said, waving his hand towards the door.

She could feel Bryant’s smirk burning into the back of her head all the way back to the squad room, which was silent when she entered.

Stacey was staring hard at the computer as Dawson glared dolefully at a pile of paper that stood like a tower block in the middle of his desk.

‘We need to weed out the youngest and the oldest and—’

‘I did. This is what’s left.’

The process attached to missing persons was much more involved than people thought and was not as simple as passing on a few facts in a simple report.

Missing persons had historically been recorded only on paper but were now logged on a computerised system called ‘Compact’ and the procedure now split into two parts.

The person taking the initial call was required to ask sixteen very important questions in order to establish whether the person was actually missing from home or was just absent. The details included the usual – full name, date of birth, home address, description of the person, clothing that they were wearing, mental state and physical state – from which they built up a picture.

Once answered, the details were logged on the command and control system called OASIS. At this point a duty inspector was informed and had to make decisions on escalating the misper report or not.

The electronic system was vast and not always speedy so they worked through the paper copies of reports filed at Halesowen and the electronic system for other stations.

‘Okay, divide the pile into four and let’s get cracking.’

There was no higher priority than giving their victim a name.

Kim sat at the spare desk, and the room fell into silence. Only the sound of pages turning could be heard.

Kim used the process of elimination. The two most common forms of description were hair and eye colour. The eye that had remained visible through the swollen flesh had been blue.

Any report that didn’t contain both blonde hair and blue eyes was turned face down onto the desk.

‘Bloody depressing,’ Bryant said, shaking his head.

She noted the way he gently placed each report that wasn’t a match. She got it. The investigator in him wanted to delve deeper into every single one of these missing females. The father in him wanted to bring them home.

‘How far back did you go, Kev?’ she asked.

‘Three months.’

So bloody many in so short a period of time.

‘Got her,’ Dawson said, holding aloft a piece of paper.

Everyone except Dawson looked at each other doubtfully.

His eyes moved over the details as he nodded. ‘Yeah, boss. There’s a picture. She’s wearing that cross.’ He began to read. ‘Been missing since Saturday lunchtime. Reported by her parents. Her name is Jemima Lowe.’

Kim felt a bit of peace rest in her mind.

Her victim had a name.

Now Kim just had to find the bastard who’d killed her.





Eight





‘Go on then. How much?’ Bryant said.

She knew what he was asking. They often mused at house values. The property concerned was that of the Lowe family.

Dawson was bringing the family home. Kim hated that they had to see the body of their daughter in such a condition, but it was necessary for them to progress with the case.

She knew that Keats would have done his best to minimise their distress, but he was a pathologist, not a miracle worker. The truth and brutality of Jemima’s battered face could not be hidden. There were no kind words that could disguise the pain their daughter had felt immediately prior to death. It was a picture that would never leave them.

It had been a positive identification based on clothing, jewellery, an appendix scar and a poorly formed bone in the little finger of the right hand.

Their victim was definitely thirty-one-year-old Jemima Lowe.

Kim narrowed her eyes and assessed the property. It was double fronted with a door nestled between two leaded bay windows.

The house was detached and the two-car garage ended the row of three similar properties.

‘Three ten,’ Bryant guessed.

Kim shook her head. No way was it over two hundred and eighty grand.

‘Come on. It’s gotta be four bedrooms if not five.’

She explained her disagreement. ‘On the other side of that treeline is a busy road and the Merry Hill shopping centre. Look at the bigger picture.’

‘Yeah but—’

‘They’re here,’ she said as a vehicle rolled slowly towards them.

As the car stopped, Dawson got out of the front passenger seat and opened the rear door.

Mr Lowe stepped out and assisted his wife, who in turn held out her hand for the third occupant. Their other daughter.

Mr Lowe offered a brief nod to Dawson, who offered a respectful nod in return before getting back into the car.

She noted, as the family walked towards her, the absence of direct eye contact with each other. To do so would destroy their defences. To see their own pain reflected in the face of someone else would confirm what their hearts were not ready to accept.

Yet there was a physical connection threading the whole family together. Mr Lowe draped his arm loosely around the shoulders of his wife whose hand clung to that of her daughter. Sara Lowe had the same blonde hair as her older sister but she carried a few more healthy pounds.