Play Dead (D.I. Kim Stone, #4)(44)

Kim was happy to continue.

‘One body identified. Second victim not yet named is still alive but in a comatose state.’

‘Picture?’ Tracy asked.

‘In your dreams,’ Kim responded.

‘Go on,’ Tracy urged her to continue.

‘We are currently exploring all lines of enquiry. We do not feel that the purpose of the site has any connection to the crimes. All personnel have been ruled out of our investigation.’

Tracy frowned. ‘So why’s it being used as a dump site?’

Kim had stopped short of just how much she was prepared to reveal. She had to allow Tracy to feel she was earning this somehow.

Kim hesitated. ‘The exact location of the body was not actually on Westerley property.’ She held up her hands. ‘That’s all I’ve—’

‘Is there any connection between the victims?’ Tracy asked.

She shook her head. ‘Not yet established.’

Kim was surprised she had not been asked about the activity at the site. She had hope that this was, as yet, undiscovered. If Tracy knew of it that would definitely have been her first question.

‘Is there…?’

‘No more, Tracy,’ she said, pushing back her chair for the final time. ‘I’ve offered more than I should have already.’

‘I know,’ Tracy said, raising an eyebrow. ‘That’s what’s worrying me.’

Kim’s phone began to vibrate in her pocket. Tracy caught the subtle noise.

‘Your phone is ringing,’ she said.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Kim answered.

‘Not going to answer it?’

‘In front of you? Yeah, right.’ Kim placed her hand on her pocket and shrugged. ‘Run the story or don’t. Your call – but I’m not going to be talking to anyone else.’

Tracy licked her lips. A body-language expert would explain that as a ‘tell’ that she was excited.

The article would be at least half a page. Tracy would be able to turn what she’d said into some serious column inches.

‘I need a name,’ Tracy said, as her pen hovered above the pad. ‘If the first victim has been identified and next of kin informed, you can give me that.’

Damn this woman. Kim had been hoping to keep Jemima’s family out of it for a little while yet, but it would look more suspicious if the identity continued to be hidden.

‘Okay, Frost, her name was Jemima. Her full name was Jemima Lowe.’

The pen dropped from Tracy’s hand as Kim rose to her feet. She leaned down and picked it up.

Tracy took it without speaking, but Kim noted a slight tremble to Tracy’s hand that she hadn’t seen before.

She stepped outside as her phone stopped ringing. It started again before she had a chance to remove it from her pocket.

She saw immediately that it was Bryant, who was now back at the site.

He didn’t wait for her to speak.

‘Guv, we need you back here now. It looks like there’s another body.’





Thirty-Six





Tracy sat still for a minute and allowed her face to arrange itself into the expression it wanted to form. Confusion.

Damn it – Jemima Lowe was not a name she wanted to hear. Not ever.

She tried to tell herself that the vague trembling in her legs was because of exhaustion. She would take just a few moments to rest her legs. It had been a hard day. She’d been chasing a story around the Black Country all day about a vicious assault on an elderly woman in Bilston.

Right now she wanted to kick off her heels and hurry back to the safety of the car barefoot, but of course she wouldn’t. Her feet had been encased in five-inch stilettos since she was old enough to get a Saturday job and buy a cheap pair from the market. But the minute she had, her life had changed.

Yes, people still pointed and laughed, thinking she’d chosen heels way too high to master. And that was fine. Because they were no longer calling her a spastic.

Just the memory of the word brought colour to her cheeks and a rolling anxiety to her stomach.

No matter how you tried to outrun your past there were memories that refused to go away. And with the memories came the rush of emotions, as though it was yesterday.

Suddenly her breath seemed unable to get down her throat. The room before her was beginning to spin. The nausea was rising in her stomach. Not now, she silently begged. Please don’t do this to me now.

Tracy tried to stem the panic and get her breath. She tried to remember the coaching. First she must try to get her breathing under control, but the palpitations were vibrating within her chest cavity. She closed her eyes against the onslaught of dizziness.

‘Please no, please no,’ she whispered through dry lips.

The first episode had happened when she was seven years old. Her mother had thought she was experiencing a heart attack and she’d called for an ambulance. The diagnosis of panic attack did not do justice to the severity of the symptoms.

In the years since the first one she’d read that it was her body protecting itself following the shot of adrenaline launched through her system, but it sure as hell didn’t feel as though her body was on her side right now.

It will pass, it will pass, she told herself. The symptoms would peak in a few minutes. But as a fresh wave of perspiration broke out on her forehead and the nausea rolled in her stomach, she realised how long those ten minutes could last.