Play Dead (D.I. Kim Stone, #4)(41)

There was the faintest of sobs.

Kim heard a sharp intake of breath from Bryant, who was standing behind her. She glanced around to find him shaking his head with bewilderment. She turned back to the container.

‘It’s okay, Catherine. I know you’re the orange-box kid.’

Kim heard another sob and she knew Stacey had got it right.

‘I also know your name was Janet Wilson and you were abducted from your front garden in Walsall. You were kept in an orange storage box for seventeen days before you managed to get away.’

Kim now understood the scarring on her hand. It was from trying to escape.

The sobbing became even louder. Bryant stood behind her, not making a sound.

‘I know why you’re scared, Catherine. Will you please come out and talk to me?’

The sobbing had stopped and Kim knew she could throw open the lid and haul the fully grown Catherine out. Only it was nine-year-old Janet who was hiding in the box.

Stacey had read her everything she’d been able to get her hands on.

‘The doctors couldn’t understand how you’d managed to stay alive, could they?’ Kim asked.

But Kim knew. The nine-year-old had lived on insects and it was why she showed them such great respect now. They had kept her alive.

‘Catherine, I promise you can trust me. Please step out of the box.’

The lid began to open and a contorted body began to unfurl.

Kim held the lid open as Catherine resumed her normal shape.

Bryant offered his hand to help her step out of the box.

Her face was pale, tear-stained and looked much younger than her thirty-two years.

‘May we go inside?’ Kim asked.

Catherine nodded and stepped through the patio door.

Kim followed and Bryant stood in the doorway.

Catherine sat on the sofa and stared at her hands. This was not the self-assured, aloof woman Kim had met at Westerley.

Kim sat beside her. ‘Catherine, I know you’re still in hiding. The men that took you were never caught, were they?’

It didn’t matter how many years passed, the fear that they were coming back for her would always be there.

Kim had experienced dreams for years that her mother had managed to find her and put the handcuffs around her wrist again. Her mother had been locked in Grantley Care psychiatric facility for more than twenty-five years. And yet still the dreams came.

‘Trust me, Catherine. I get it,’ Kim said, meeting her eye.

Kim was saddened by the fear she saw there.

‘I can’t go back,’ she whispered.

‘To Westerley?’ Kim clarified.

Catherine nodded and lowered her head. ‘I’ll have to move again. Once the papers start printing the story my name will appear and someone might make the connection. It didn’t take you long. He’ll find me. I know he’ll find me.’

Kim could see her point, although not everyone had a Stacey up their sleeve.

The fear was not rational anyway. Catherine was now a grown woman with a different name and a different life, but the fear came from the nine-year-old girl who knew her torturers were still out there. She had worked through her education safely, although she’d moved university twice, and she’d found a job doing what she loved in a place where she could never be found. Finally, she had felt safe.

But Catherine was correct. Westerley would be examined in depth, staff members and all.

‘I was happy there,’ Catherine offered. ‘I haven’t felt so safe since leaving Bromley…’

The very name sent a frisson of fear through Kim. She knew of Bromley. Every kid in the care system knew of Bromley. Twenty years ago it had been a closed psychiatric unit for youngsters and a place surrounded by mystery and fear. It had been the threat that lived on the lips of every care worker that couldn’t handle an unruly or spirited kid.

Catherine caught her expression. ‘You know of it?’

Kim nodded. ‘I was a care kid, Catherine. It was often used as a threat to keep us in line. We were terrified of the place,’ she admitted.

Catherine looked surprised. ‘Really? I was happy there. I couldn’t cope, you see. Afterwards. I went home to my family, but it wasn’t the same. They tried to make me feel safe, the police even arranged for panic alarms to be fitted throughout the house, but my mind found a way around everything.

‘They could disable the panic alarms, cut the power, take me again while I was sleeping. It was the fear… it consumed me. I couldn’t eat or sleep and nowhere felt safe. I just cried every day. They tried drugs first, but nothing worked until I was sent to Bromley. They took care of me there. They protected me.’

‘Did you stay there?’ Kim asked gently.

Catherine shook her head. ‘My first stay was two weeks. The second I heard those doors close and lock behind me I felt safe. I felt relief. Amongst all that craziness, I finally felt sane.’

Kim understood that she had hated it for the very reasons Catherine had loved it.

‘The second I got home the old feelings returned. Two days later I was back at Bromley. The trips home became less frequent, and that was fine by me. My parents visited as often as they could, and my father consulted a solicitor who made a case for a new identity.’

Catherine’s expression saddened further at the mention of her father.

‘By the time I left Bromley for good I no longer knew my parents. They just reminded me of what happened, and so I stayed away.’