Play Dead (D.I. Kim Stone, #4)(53)

‘I would estimate that the female is over twenty-five years of age. The clavicle – collar bone – is the last bone to complete and is fully grown.’

Kim said nothing and waited. She was hoping for a little more than that or she had been seriously short-changed when humiliating herself in asking him to stay.

Daniel continued. ‘Throughout a lifetime bone makes new osteons, which are minute tubes containing blood vessels. Younger adults have fewer and larger osteons, but with age they become smaller as new ones form and disrupt the old ones.’

Kim was grateful for the information but wasn’t sure she would ever have cause to use it again. If this woman could not be identified by her osteons it wasn’t a great deal of help to her.

‘And finally the cranium. The bones that enclose the brain grow together during childhood along lines called cranial sutures. During adulthood bone remodelling gradually erases these lines.’

‘So age wise are we looking to early thirties like Jemima Lowe?’ she asked, determined to force a more accurate answer.

‘Except for one key difference,’ Daniel said. ‘This victim has had a child.’

She exchanged a look with Bryant.

Now the service provided was becoming worth the price she’d paid. But his expression said that he wasn’t finished yet.

‘Pregnancy doesn’t modify a woman’s bones, with one exception. During childbirth the pubic bones separate to allow an infant to pass through the birth canal. The ligaments connecting the pubic bones must stretch. They can tear and cause bleeding where they attach to the bone.

‘Later bone remodelling at these sites can leave small circular or linear grooves on the inside surface of the pubic bones called parturition pits—’

‘Doc… Daniel, what are you trying to tell me?’ she asked.

‘I suspect she gave birth in her teens.’

And that final statement had sealed the deal.





Forty-Six





Isobel looked around the darkness. Her heart beat faster as she realised that it wasn’t black any longer but more of a dirty grey.

The black was being bleached out of her mind but not just at the corners any more. And it moved.

There was something beyond the darkness and there was a shadow.

There were voices. She listened carefully to see if they were in her mind. She wasn’t sure, but she suspected they were beyond her head and not in it.

The familiarity of the warm feeling on her hand was back. It was reassuring, comforting.

Please, someone, help me, she cried. I’m in here. Please let me out. I don’t know how to leave.

The effort of trying to communicate with her mind brought about sudden exhaustion. But there were sensations. There was a tickle in her foot. Something cold being placed on her chest. I’m here, she wanted to scream but her body wouldn’t listen.

For a while she’d wondered if her body parts were scattered around her head but the sensations told her they were connected.

Her body was still whole and she might be alive, not stuck in this silent, eternal hell.

But if she allowed hope then she must also prepare for despair, and she didn’t know if she could take the disappointment of being wrong.

He heart cried with unshed tears as she prayed for the nightmare to end.

Being dead made much more sense and that’s why she had so readily accepted it. Being alive was far too complicated, exhausting.

If she was dead, she no longer had questions.

If she was alive, she had too many.





Forty-Seven





‘I still don’t see why you’re quite so, er… animated,’ Bryant said, as they exited the hospital.

Kim switched on her phone to see she’d missed a call from Stacey. Just the person she wanted to speak to.

She pressed to return the call and threw the car keys at Bryant. He’d suffered her driving enough.

‘What have you got, Stace?’ she asked.

‘Something I think you’re going to like.’

‘Go on.’

‘I have the address of the old head teacher from Jemima’s junior school. I’ve got a list of staff that were there when she would have been.’

‘Good work, Stace. Text the address to Bryant. Now find out from her parents which high school she went to and check to see if you can find anything on a teen pregnancy for any girl around the same time,’ she said as they got into the car.

‘On it, boss, and one more thing. There are seven warfarin clinics in the area. Spoke to them all and have a list of eleven men who stopped attending around the time Bob was found.’

‘Bloody hell, Stace. Are you on fire?’ Kim asked. ‘Just give me the first names,’ she said as Bryant exited the car park.

‘Alphabetically, they are Alan, Charlie, Edward, Geoffrey, Ivor, Jack, Lester, Malcolm, Norman, Philip, Walter.’

Kim shouted them out as Stacey said them.

‘Guv, you do know I’m driving and I can’t write anything down?’

‘Use your memory,’ she said, moving her mouth away from the phone.

Bryant shook his head and continued driving. He stopped at the Brierley Hill high-street lights.

‘Catch up later,’ Kim said, ending the call.