Play Dead (D.I. Kim Stone, #4)(99)

His hips began to rock as he tried to unlock himself from the embrace in which she held him, but she couldn’t allow him to find that knife.

The wriggling of his body told her he was gasping for breath. That was exactly what she wanted. It was her only chance.

Suddenly she let go. He reared up and opened his mouth.

Her hand reached around to the side and closed around the only thing available to her.

Her palm rested around the thorns on the flower stems.

Graham’s mouth was open wide as he gasped for breath. She raised her hand holding a foot-long thorny stem and used all her might to jam it into his throat.

For a split second he was still, his eyes bearing down on her, confused.

He fell to the side, clutching at his neck.

Kim knew he could pull it out, but it had bought her the minute she needed.

She reached around and finally found the handle of the torch.

Graham rose and stood, choking and staggering as he pulled the flower stem from his throat. He coughed madly and turned towards her. She shone the light directly in his face and watched as he took two steps towards her, the murderous glint back in his eyes.

Another step and his foot met with something on the ground. He shouted out as he tumbled to the floor and out of view.

Kim turned the torch to the grass. It rested on the squirming form of Tracy Frost.

Kim folded to the ground as Dawson appeared, panting, in front of her.

He shone a torch directly at her and then across to the form of the reporter.

‘Jesus, boss, are you okay?’ he said, kneeling down beside her.

Kim’s body was beginning to let go of the adrenaline that had kept her upright. In its absence the fatigue was trying to take hold.

‘I’m okay, Kev,’ she said. ‘Check that they’re both still alive.’ She didn’t want them dead. She wanted to see them in the courtroom.

Dawson looked around. ‘Where are they?’

She nodded towards the graves of Jack and Vera, no longer sure who was in which one.

He shone the torch and nodded. ‘Yeah, boss, they’re both still alive.’

The rain was starting to slow, but the storm still lingered in the air. A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, but it was heading somewhere else.

Kim scooted along the grass towards the reporter who had escaped with her life.

‘Hey, Frost, we’ve been looking for you,’ Kim said, stroking the sodden hair from Tracy’s face. She wasn’t surprised by the emotion she saw in the eyes that were hooded with exhaustion. Kim knew this woman much better now than she had a week ago.

‘I… w-wanted… to… had… to… help… ’ she stammered.

Her hands and chin were caked in dirt.

Kim could see how Tracy was fighting the debilitating drug that was ravaging her system.

The woman could have lain low and simply waited to be found. But she hadn’t. She had painfully pulled herself to the top of the hill, instead of just keeping herself safe.

Kim reached out and squeezed the woman’s shoulder.

‘It’s all right, Tracy. You’re okay. We’ve got you now.’





Ninety-Three





The morning sun was reflected in the black marble of the gravestone. The heat of the day wrapped itself around her body like a gentle, reassuring hug. The heat was cleaner today, thinner and calmer.

The gravestone before her bore two names.

To Kim’s mind it was the grave of her parents.

With her, she had two pieces of paper.

Keith and Erica West were the closest thing to a family she had ever known and although her time with them had been short, she missed them every day.

She had been hoping to visit them yesterday on the anniversary of their deaths, but she knew that they’d understand.

There had been one final thread that had needed unravelling and she had felt compelled to see it through.

After briefing Woody on the events of the night before she had headed down to the squad room on Saturday morning to find Dawson was already there.

The pile of missing-persons reports had been stacked high on his desk.

‘What are you doing?’ Kim asked.

‘Isobel still has no name,’ he answered simply.

Together they had waded through the papers, armed with more knowledge than they’d had before. Three hours later, they had found the report they were after.

Isobel was an ex-prostitute who had turned her life around two years earlier. She had been reported missing at the beginning of the week by a work colleague. And her name was Mandy Hale.

Kim had asked Dawson to pay her a visit and fill her in on her life. Warts and all, she deserved to know the truth. It was her identity, and it was her life. A less than perfect life was better than no life at all.

Catherine and Duncan were both in custody. Duncan had been charged on four counts of murder, one attempted murder and one count of abduction. Catherine was facing a whole host of accessory charges. They were both naming the other as the mastermind behind the whole thing, claiming they had been coerced as a minor. There was an amusement that even now they were offering the same justification without knowing it. Ultimately, neither of them were likely to see the free world until their early sixties and, in the case of Duncan, perhaps not at all.

He’d kept all the victims in an old corner shop that was boarded up at the end of a line of terraced houses condemned and awaiting demolition. Once he’d forced entry to the premises his activities had been seen by no one. Kim had seen the photos of the macabre room and the rocks he’d used as weapons.