Page 28 of Guilty Mothers
Kim folded her arms. ‘We were assigned another case. Why, what’s up?’
Tiff’s troubled expression didn’t look like she’d suffered personal trauma.
‘Something doesn’t feel right. The guy’s been missing for almost two years, and the last folks to see him are acting a bit weird. A woman and her son in his early twenties. She was upset; he wasn’t bothered. He identified the body and then asked me out.’
‘After being in the morgue with Keats?’ Stacey asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘Not Keats. Body is over at West Brom. Post-mortem is tomorrow.’
‘Likely to be sent to Wolvo then,’ Bryant offered.
‘Yeah, Dudley’s stuck on a court case. I feel like this is gonna be passed around until it falls through the cracks,’ Tiff said. ‘There’s probably nothing forensically viable due to the time in the water, and no one is really fussed in chasing a result. His only relative lives abroad and they weren’t particularly close.’
‘So what exactly is your problem?’ Kim asked.
‘Something feels off with the partner and her son. There was a tension in the air. It was like I wasn’t getting a truthful reaction, emotionally, from either of them.’
‘You think they’re responsible?’ Kim asked.
‘Yes. No. I don’t know. I just didn’t know what to do.’
‘So what do you want us to do?’ Kim asked, not unkindly.
‘Investigate?’ Tiff asked hopefully.
Kim understood the girl’s frustration. She was in the process of making the transition from officer to detective. She’d come across a situation that didn’t smell right, and she knew this case was going to fall by the wayside. It was a frustration Kim understood. Throughout her career, she had always done her utmost to ensure no one got left behind.
Problem was they had their own major investigation. They had their own victim in Sheryl Hawne. And although they might have some of the answers, they didn’t yet have them all.
‘No,’ Kim said.
Tiff’s face dropped. ‘You won’t investigate?’
Kim shook her head. ‘No, we won’t. You will. Penn will help, and you’ll work it together. I’ll clear it with Inspector Plant and square it with Woody.’
Because Tiff was in training it would officially be Penn’s case, and she would be assisting as she had done on other occasions.
There was not one time they had gone to this girl for help and been refused. She had a hunch, and they had a responsibility to help her either prove or disprove it.
‘Okay, briefing at seven, including you, Tink. Now get lost, the bloody lot of you.’
TWENTY-ONE
It was after midnight when Kim took Barney outside for his last walk, and she still hadn’t been able to shake off the memories of Katie Hawne.
That look of bewilderment while sitting on the sofa. The lost, childlike expression as she was being put in the car. But the image that wouldn’t get out of Kim’s head was the bright, infectious sparkle that had been present while she’d been doing her impromptu performance in the holding cells. She felt as though she’d met three different Katies in the space of one day, and she still wasn’t sure which one was real.
‘Park tonight, boy,’ she said, having already gauged the weather.
There’d been a dry spell about an hour ago, and she suspected that most of the dog walkers would have taken the opportunity to get their last walk in before the rain.
Neither she nor Barney minded the rain, and both were happy to weather it for an empty park.
She was pleased to see the small car park empty and after a cursory glance around established that only the two of them were stupid enough to be out in the wet.
She leaned down and unhooked his collar.
He ran off fifty feet ahead and then came back. It was a process he repeated until she put the lead back on him. It was as though he liked that taste of freedom but not too much. He could also smell the apple in her pocket that she brought for recall emergencies.