Page 68 of Guilty Mothers
‘That’s the right thumb, and you’ll see we have a fracture of the second phalanx.’
‘The middle one,’ Penn offered. As far as he knew, fingers had three phalanges.
Keats offered him a withering glance. ‘Basic biology, my boy. Unlike fingers, the thumb has only two and one of them is broken.’
Every day was a school day, especially with Keats, but Penn was unsure why the pathologist was looking so pleased with himself.
‘Could have been an existing injury,’ Penn said.
‘Said a man who has never fished,’ Keats scoffed. ‘You try operating a fishing rod with a broken thumb. Never gonna happ—’ Keats stopped speaking as his phone rang.
He listened, frowned and ended the call.
‘Jimmy. Please put our friend back to bed.’
As though they were invisible, Keats rushed back to his anteroom and began to disrobe.
Penn had a feeling his boss was about to get a call.
FORTY-FOUR
‘Nobody seems to have done particularly well out of the pageant business,’ Bryant observed as they headed towards an unremarkable area of Dudley.
Kim understood his point. The dressmaker to the baby stars lived in a flat above his shop in Bewdley, and a sought-after make-up artist lived in a shoddy-looking end terrace with a walk-through meadow for a front garden.
Bryant shook his head as he pulled up outside the house. They all had their little pet peeves and one of Bryant’s was the state of people’s front gardens. He hated being badgered into doing his own, but he did understand Jenny’s insistence on keeping it tidy.
‘One sec,’ Kim said as her phone tinged a notification. It was the one she’d been waiting for. Frost’s article was live on theDudley Starwebsite.
She clicked in and began to read.
Bryant peered over and seeing what had her attention sat back and waited in silence.
Kim read the piece quickly, looking for sensationalism or the inclusion of unnecessary gruesome details. She found none. She read it again, slowly, to ensure that nothing had been printed that could adversely affect Katie in any way. There was nothing.
‘She’s not done a bad job,’ Kim grudgingly admitted, putting her phone away. The piece was interesting but factual, sympathetic without sentimentality, and made no mention of any activity in the custody suite.
‘You gonna give her a break then?’ Bryant asked as they got out of the car.
‘I’m gonna assume that question was rhetorical,’ Kim answered, approaching the gate.
Bryant laughed as they traversed the weeds that had grown alongside and between the paving slabs. At the top of the path, he knocked the door.
It was answered hurriedly by a woman in her late thirties with tied-back brown hair and a tee shirt sporting the name of a local funeral director.
‘I’m an atheist,’ she said, trying to close the door just as swiftly as she’d opened it.
‘Good for you,’ Kim said, placing her foot in the way and producing her ID.
‘Oh, sorry, thought you were Jehovah’s. They love estates like this. Think we all need saving. What now?’ she asked impatiently, looking up and down the street. ‘Whatever it is, I didn’t see nothing, and I didn’t hear nothing.’
Kim was warmed by her community spirit and willingness to aid the police.
‘Jenna Bond?’ Kim asked.
The woman nodded.
‘Then it’s you we need to speak to.’