Play Dead (D.I. Kim Stone, #4)(84)

Kim knew there was only one person she could ask.





Seventy-Seven





‘Just there,’ Kim said, pointing to a terraced house with a freshly painted door.

‘Is this the guy you mentioned?’

Kim nodded.

‘Want me to stay in the car?’

She took a moment to answer.

They were sitting outside the house of a man named Ted Knowles.

Throughout her childhood, periodically, she’d been sent to see Ted. She was supposed to talk to him so that he could help her come to terms with her pain. And she had steadfastly refused to utter a word about her life.

But he had not been like all the others.

If she’d chosen to open up to anyone it would have been Ted. More recently he had helped her get into the mind of a sociopath. And it had pretty much saved her life.

She took a deep breath. ‘No, you can come in,’ she answered.

Bryant gave her a long look before getting out of the car.

The twelve-year-old Citro?n confirmed that the man was at home.

Two short knocks and the door was opened by a short, portly male whose head was hanging on to the last bit of hair around his ears. What he had left stuck out in a ‘mad professor’ kind of style. Unbelievably, in Kim’s head this was exactly how he had looked twenty-eight years ago, when she was six years old.

His face broke into a smile at the sight of her and widened when his gaze rested on Bryant.

‘Kim, how lovely to see you,’ he said, stepping aside.

‘This is Bryant, my colleague,’ she said.

Ted offered his hand as Bryant passed.

‘Not a social visit then?’ he asked.

Despite the absence of reproach in his voice, Kim still felt a pang of guilt. She had only ever visited him when she needed something and today was no different.

‘You’re looking well,’ she said and meant it.

‘It must be those strange food hampers that come through once a month from Marks & Spencer’s. Not a clue who sends them.’

She shrugged. Her lack of contact didn’t mean she didn’t think about him or wasn’t grateful for his willingness to treat a victim damaged by the sociopath about whom she’d sought his help.

‘How is Jemima’s mother?’ she asked.

‘Making progress is all I shall say. Now you’re here for something, and I’m sure you’re busy so do you have time for coffee?’

Kim nodded as he reached for the mugs from the cupboard. They were all emblazoned with the insignia of the local football teams. Bryant got the Albion mug, she got the Wolves mug and Ted took the Aston Villa.

‘So how can I help?’ he asked.

Had Bryant not been with her, Kim knew that Ted would have delicately probed into her life. He would have asked if she’d visited her mother. He would have asked if she was talking to anyone. He would have asked if she had a boyfriend. And she would have tired of saying no.

None of those questions would he ever ask in the presence of someone else. But that wasn’t why she had allowed Bryant to accompany her inside. She was a big girl and had been saying no to Ted for years.

She had allowed her colleague in because there was no reason not to. It was a matter of trust.

‘We have a killer, and I need an idea of what I’m dealing with,’ Kim said.

He nodded as he took his mug and headed out into the garden, which had changed very little since she was a child.

The outside border was like the Chelsea flower show. A sunken fish pond was the star of the show beneath a water-dribbling stone mermaid.

They each took a wooden chair around a circular table. Kim placed her back to the afternoon sun.

‘In this case we actually know who he is – or rather was. His name is Graham Studwick and he was born male, but his mother dressed and treated him as a girl until he was eleven years old. At which point he murdered her.’

Ted showed little surprise. In his years as a psychologist there was little he had not seen.

‘Okay, how about the crimes?’

‘The first one occurred a few years ago. Her face was badly beaten and her mouth and throat filled with dirt. Likely to have been drugged and no evidence of sexual assault.’

‘You mention the first… so there is a second?’

‘The second victim was murdered this week, and she had the same injuries and dirt in the mouth. Also we have a third victim that didn’t die. He was disturbed before completing what looks like a ritual.’

‘You have a witness?’ he asked, sipping his coffee.

‘Without any memory of events,’ Bryant chipped in.

‘You have a history?’

Kim sipped her coffee before answering. ‘All of these girls were involved in exposing his secret when he was six years old. He was held down and taunted before one of them ran away to get help.’

Ted looked off into space and nodded. ‘So he’s never been able to forget the looks on their faces and the things they said. What he recalls is their disgust, which mirrors his own repulsion at himself.’

‘Our witness recalls the phrase one for you and one for me,’ Kim added.

‘Then it’s a game,’ he said emphatically.

‘It’s not much of a—’

‘Either that or some kind of recreation. But I’ll come back to that in a minute. Did either of you hear of the David Reimer case in Canada?’