Play Dead (D.I. Kim Stone, #4)(16)

Kim placed the phone on loudspeaker and put it on the worktop. She moved back to the pile of parts in the middle of the garage and knelt. She was far more interested in fitting the connecting rod to the piston assembly than anything this low life had to say.

Kim said nothing to encourage her to continue but Tracy chose to anyway.

‘You remember it, surely?’

‘I remember it, but it wasn’t my case,’ Kim answered, reaching for the blowtorch.

It had been handled by Brierley Hill, which was a stone’s throw from the location the body was found. She’d had no involvement.

‘His killer was never found.’

‘And?’ Kim asked. That’s what happened sometimes. No police officer liked it but never forgot an unsolved case. It prodded at you periodically like an unscratched itch.

‘Come on, Stone. Surely you’re intrigued by a guy with no fingers. Doesn’t that pique your interest? A killer does something to make sure you can’t identify the victim and gets away with it. Is that not offensive to you?’

Yes it was and this infuriating woman bloody well knew it.

Kim noted with a smile that Barney had turned around and now lay with his behind facing the phone. He really was a clever dog.

Kim put down the blowtorch and began moving things around on the workbench.

‘Bloody hell, Stone, what are you doing?’ Tracy shouted.

‘Looking for a tool, so if you’re done with our late night—’

‘Come on, Inspector. If this had been one of yours there’s no way it would—’

‘Aaaah, spanner,’ Kim said.

‘Excuse me,’ Tracy said.

‘Found it,’ she said, reaching for the tool.

‘This poor guy has no identity, no name. I mean, imagine if that was one of your family members, eh? He wouldn’t have been dismissed quite so—’

‘No victim is dismissed,’ Kim snapped and realised too late that she had given this woman exactly what she’d been seeking. A reaction. ‘I’m hanging up now, Frost,’ she said, reaching for the phone.

‘And just to let you know I’ve bought new shoes for your commendation cere—’

Kim switched off the phone and enjoyed the sudden peace that entered the room. It had been no less invaded than if the woman had marched right in and sat down.

She reached over and brought Bach once more into her special place.

What had Tracy Frost been thinking? Like Kim really needed to take on cases unsolved by other teams in the borough. Her own local policing unit kept her busy enough.

And yet, as she tried to fit the connecting rod to the piston, Kim found herself thinking about a man named Bob.





Ten





Tracy Frost let herself into the small rented house at the bottom of Quarry Bank high street. Although it didn’t fall under the postcode for the more affluent area of Amblecote she used it in her postal address anyway.

Before doing anything else she stepped over to the laptop on the dining table and hit the space bar. The computer hummed to life and revealed that the white Audi TT, her most prized possession, filled the centre screen.

In Quarry Bank high street a car like hers could attract negative attention. Groups heading to one of the chip shops further up the hill sometimes stopped and admired it. Kids looking in the window of the motorcycle shop opposite might pop across the road to take a peek. Jealous neighbours might flatten a tyre or two. A regular occurrence before she’d had the camera installed.

It was almost one in the morning, and there’d be very few people passing her car tonight.

She left the screen open as she removed her five-inch heels. She hated the damn things, but she wouldn’t be without them for anything. She loved her car more than anything, but, given a choice, she would keep her heels. Her sanity depended on it.

All day she’d been plagued by a feeling of unease. She’d done all the things that normally quieted any anxiety within her. She had checked her online bills and found nothing outstanding. Her bank balance was hovering exactly where it always did, just below her overdraft limit.

She had gone backwards and forwards in her diary to make sure there were no birthdays or anniversaries forgotten or imminent.

She had phoned her mother and listened to the minor details on just about everything since her last phone call. As usual she had pretended that everything was fine and that she really would try to go round to see them both sometime in the coming week. She hated that both statements were lies and hated even more that her mother knew it.

She’d hoped that a bit of goading of her least favourite police officer would help lift her mood, but it hadn’t.

What she hadn’t admitted to Kim Stone was an element of guilt that accompanied any thought of Bob. Two years ago, when she’d watched his body being loaded into the ambulance, Tracy had vowed to expose whoever had done this to him. She had fully intended to speak to her editor about a human-interest piece focussed on finding out who he was.

Two days later she’d been covering the story of a local footballer whose cocaine addiction had been leaked by one of his mistresses. She had been unable to resist a sex and drugs piece, and her story had amassed the second highest circulation of the Dudley Star, beaten only by a commemoration edition for Princess Diana.

When she’d spoken to her editor the following week about Bob he’d had trouble recalling the man pulled from the lake and had denied her request. She wasn’t part of the police force tasked with investigating his murder, but she felt some kind of responsibility that his murderer still walked free. It was one of the things that periodically jumped into her consciousness and slapped her around a little. The news that West Mercia had been successful in clearing a few old cases had brought Bob back to the forefront of her mind.