Page 29 of Guilty Mothers
As she watched her dog’s ritual, her mind returned to Katie Hawne. She hoped for a call early tomorrow from the doctor to say that she’d been faking and she was perfectly fit for interview. Yet a small voice inside insisted that wasn’t going to happen.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of her phone. It sounded loudly in the silence of the empty park.
She reached to take it out, and Barney hurtled back towards her.
‘Wrong pocket, buddy,’ she said before seeing the name.
‘Stone,’ she answered as her heartbeat increased.
‘Let me first confirm that earlier today we were in agreement?’ Keats said.
‘About what?’ she answered. It was a bit late at night for an ‘I told you so’ call.
‘The reason why Katie Hawne killed her mother.’
‘Not sure why we’re having this conversation at midnight, but yes, I could see your point. Why?’
‘Because it turns out we were both wrong. We’ve got another one. Early hours of the morning.’
Kim stopped walking as her whole case crashed to the ground. A moment ago, she’d had one victim and one killer, and their time was being spent filling in the details. At no point had she considered the idea that Katie Hawne had not brutally killed her mother. But if Keats was correct and this crime mirrored the first, Katie could not have been responsible and they were already a good twelve to fifteen hours behind their killer.
‘Fuck. Text me the address,’ she said, reattaching the lead to Barney’s collar.
‘Already done,’ he said before ending the call.
Her phone tinged receipt of a message as she put Barney in the car. She considered calling Bryant but decided against it.
‘Okay, buddy. You’re gonna be my partner in crime tonight.’
TWENTY-TWO
The house in Bromsgrove was a semi-detached property in a small cul-de-sac about a mile away from the motorway island.
Ten pairs of houses looked onto a small green that was also used as a turning circle, and right now it was a meeting point for most of the residents watching the flashing blue lights illuminating the sky.
‘Don’t go anywhere,’ she said to Barney as she lowered her window just an inch.
She pushed through the crowd and ducked under the cordon as Mitch’s van pulled up.
Keats was already waiting.
‘Andrea Shaw, aged forty-seven, stabbed multiple times, found by her daughter, Toyah, twenty-two, who lives at home and had returned after a night out.’
Kim was already donning protective equipment while Keats talked.
‘The body is in the living room, and the daughter is hysterical in the kitchen.’
Kim entered the home and immediately saw evidence of a struggle. Cushions had been thrown from the sofa, a small bookcase had been pulled over and ornaments littered the floor.
The woman on the ground lay amid a pool of blood. Her nightgown was stained red from the breastbone down to the lower stomach.
‘Woken from her sleep for this,’ Keats said from behind.
‘She wouldn’t have been properly sleeping. Not if her daughter was still out. Likely why she answered the door in her nightie, thinking the kid had forgotten her key.’
‘You’re the expert?’ he mocked.
‘Keats, I can’t go to sleep if I don’t know exactly where my dog is, so it’s a pretty safe bet I’m right.’