Page 65 of Guilty Mothers
‘We are, boss, but I’ve been thinking about something else. What are our chances of getting the dive team back out?’
‘You think there’s something else to find down there?’
‘No, that’s the whole point,’ he answered. ‘I don’t think there is.’
‘Hmm, let me think. You want to throw funding at a specialist dive team for a case that no one is claiming, to look for stuff you don’t even think is down there?’
‘Pretty much,’ Penn answered.
‘I’m so sure that Woody will authorise that, I’m gonna let you go ask him yourself.’
Penn looked doubtful.
‘His stuff was never found,’ Tiff said. ‘If he fell in, either his rods and stuff went in with him or most likely his killer took it away to remove any trace of his presence.’
‘Or it was left, and somebody nicked it,’ Kim answered. Not everyone needed to know the provenance of something, especially if it was just lying around free of charge.
‘We need to know,’ Penn pushed.
‘Leave it with me. Go make nice with Keats and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thanks, boss.’
Kim headed into the Bowl to grab her jacket. This case was beginning to feel like a ball of string, rolled so tightly it was impossible to find the end. But with two murders in two days, she just prayed that she could unravel it before anyone else lost their life.
FORTY-TWO
Stacey was still thinking about the talent show once the office had emptied around her. Penn’s effort had been a dud so the pressure was on her and Bryant.
There was no time in her life when she had done anything to perform or seek out attention. She’d had enough scrutiny as one of the only two black kids in her class. When the time had come for school plays or concerts, she’d been sure to scrunch herself up to near invisibility to avoid being chosen. Even on holiday, at Pontins in Rhyl, she had refused to get on stage or take part in anything that drew the attention of an audience.
Added to that, she had absolutely no skill or talent to showcase. She’d spent the night watching old auditions ofBritain’s Got Talentand even then, after watching a guy make portraits from toast and a woman knitting to music, she’d come up empty.
There had been no subject at school she had excelled at.
‘Ooh, hang on,’ she said to an empty room.
There had been one thing at which she’d beaten every other girl in her street. Whether or not she could still do it remained to be seen. But she had something to demonstrate, which was all the boss had demanded of her. A quick trip out at lunchtime and she’d be good to go.
‘Okay, flipper, where are you?’
She opened the folder holding the pictures Mitch had sent to her. He had photographed the fake teeth from every angle and circled a tiny emblem on the underside of the upper-right molar.
Zooming in, she could make out a P and an S.
She turned to Google and told it exactly what she wanted.
Her search for ‘baby false teeth manufacturers’ brought up a dozen or so names. Her attention was instantly grabbed by a company called Perfect Smile, which featured a crown-wearing pageant child on its first page.
She scrolled down to the contact details to find they were based in Rotherham. No quick visit then, she thought, dialling the number.
The phone was answered by a polite female by the name of Donna, offering to help.
‘Hello, there, this is Detective Constable Stacey Wood at West Mids police. I wonder if you can help me.’
‘I’ll certainly try,’ Donna said brightly, as though she received calls from the police every day.
‘I have a denture for a child – I think you call it a flipper. I need to try and confirm the identity of the child it was made for.’