Kim sat beside Ruth on the sofa. ‘Ruth, what Allan Harris did to you was horrific but I think you should know that he was sorry. We all hope that prison will rehabilitate offenders but we don’t always believe it. On this occasion it did. Allan Harris was genuinely remorseful for what he’d done.’
Bryant stepped forward. ‘Ruth Willis, I’m arresting you …’
‘I wasn’t frightened,’ Ruth said quietly as Kim moved to stand. She sat back down.
‘Miss Willis, I have to warn you …’
‘I was nervous but I wasn’t frightened,’ she repeated.
‘Miss Willis, anything you say will be …’ Bryant started to say.
‘Leave it,’ Kim said, shaking her head. ‘This is for her, not us.’
‘I watched him exit the park. I was standing at the crossing. I felt powerful, righteous. I stood in the shop doorway, in the shadows. He bent down to tie his shoe lace. The dog looked right at me. He didn’t bark.’
She raised her head, her face wet with tears. ‘Why didn’t he bark?’
Kim shook her head.
‘I was tempted to drive the knife into his back right then but it wouldn’t have been right. I wanted my light.’
Kim looked at Bryant who shrugged.
‘I was confident and in control. I followed him and asked him the time.’
‘Ruth, we need …’
‘I plunged the knife into his stomach. His flesh was against mine, but this time it was on my terms. His legs wobbled as his right hand clutched the wound. Blood ran over his fingers. He looked down and then back at me. And I waited.’
‘Waited?’ Kim asked.
‘I withdrew the knife and stabbed him again. And I waited.’
Kim wanted to ask what she’d been waiting for but dared not break the spell.
‘And again, and again. I heard his skull land on the concrete. His eyes began to close so I kicked him, but he wouldn’t give it back to me.’
‘Give what back to you, Ruth?’ Kim asked, gently.
‘I wanted to do it again. Something had gone wrong. He still had it. I shouted at him to give it me back but he wouldn’t move.’
‘What did he have that belonged to you, Ruth?’
Ruth looked at her as though it were perfectly obvious. ‘My light. I didn’t get my light.’
Instantly her body folded and the sobs were being ripped from her throat.
Kim once again looked towards Bryant, who shrugged in response. She sat silently for a full minute before nodding her head towards her colleague.
He took a step towards the woman who had just confessed to murder. ‘Ruth Willis, I’m arresting you for the murder of Allan Harris. You do not have to say anything but anything you do say …’
Kim left the house before Bryant had finished. She didn’t feel triumphant or victorious, only satisfied that she’d caught the person who had committed a crime and that her job here was done.
A victim plus a perpetrator equalled case closed.
SIXTEEN
It was just after midnight when Kim entered the garage. The quiet family street had closed down ready for the week ahead; truly her favourite part of the day.
She switched on her iPod and chose Chopin’s Nocturnes. The solo piano pieces would ease her through the early morning hours until her body demanded sleep.
Woody hadn’t helped her state of mind either. After she’d sent the others home Woody had stopped by her desk bearing gifts: a sandwich and coffee.
‘What am I not going to like, Sir?’ she’d asked.
‘CPS wants to tread carefully with this one. They’re not keen on a murder charge yet. They want some background. They don’t want some clever defence trying for a diminished responsibility plea.’
‘But …’
‘It needs to be tight.’
‘I’ll get Wood and Dawson on it tomorrow morning.’
Woody shook his head. ‘No, I want you tidying this one up, Stone.’
‘Oh come on, Sir.’
‘There’s no debate. Just get it done.’
Kim let out a huge sigh, putting every ounce of dismay she could muster into that one exhalation. It changed nothing but she felt it got her point across.
Woody smiled. ‘Now for goodness’ sake, go home and … do whatever it is you do when you’re not here.’
So she had.
As she lowered herself to the ground beside the motorcycle parts, she growled in disgust.
She hated mopping up. The case was over. She’d caught the bad guy, or girl in this instance, within forty-eight hours. A full confession had been recorded and now the CPS wanted their arses wiped as well.
She crossed her legs and began to assess the pieces around her. Every part of the bike was here and would fit together to produce a classic, beautiful British machine. Now all she had to do was figure out how.
An hour later, every part of the puzzle was still in the same place. There was something in her stomach that refused to play dead.
A sudden thought occurred to her. She stood and reached for her boots.
Maybe her insomnia wasn’t being caused by this case, after all.
SEVENTEEN
Kim dismounted the Ninja and unlatched the waist-high gate. The stubby drive and snatch of lawn appeared to be contagious throughout the street. Many residents of the small clutch of council properties on the Dudley border with Netherton had taken advantage of the right-to-buy scheme and secured themselves a spacious property for a fraction of the cost. The Dunn family had been one such household.
This time there was no rush of activity, thundering of boots or loud access to the property with the enforcer. Just her and a set of keys.
She wandered through the house more slowly than the first time. The urgency had been spent. The house had been prodded, probed and stripped of anything that might help the case.
There was a sense of abandonment in the air. As though the occupants had been painted out of the picture. Reading books and toys were stored in various corners. A cereal box and bowls stood ready in the kitchen. In addition to the abuse, normal life had taken place in this house. At times they’d just been two little girls.
Eventually she reached the wooden door at the top of the stairs. Kim was struck by the fact they all described the space as a cellar. It was not. Kim had seen poky cellars in a few of her foster homes around the Midlands. The houses had been called back-to-backs and came in rows of twenty. Homes built by factory and mine owners during the industrial revolution that would house as many as six families. The cellars were tiny spaces, barely the width of a person, situated down a couple of stone steps and created for the storage of coal.
But not this one. This house had been especially remodelled to create this space buried down in the ground.
Many men hungered for a man cave; a place to call their own. A garden shed, a spare room to build models, play computer games, but Leonard Dunn had wanted a space to abuse his children. That he had spent many hours adding a basement especially for that pleasure added a sickness to his depravity that Kim could barely stomach.
The physical space was now almost empty, inoffensive since the removal of the evidence. But Kim still saw it as it was on the morning of the raid. The gym mat, the lamp, the digital camera. But more than that, the foul acts that had taken place were embedded in the fabric of the room and would never disappear.
The far corner now held only the desk. The computer and discs were at the station. The area could have belonged to an architect, an accountant, anyone wishing for a little privacy to think, concentrate or create.
She crossed the room to the wardrobe, now emptied of the costumes used for Dunn’s sickening games.
The lamp had been pushed to the far wall during the evidence collection. But she needed no reminder of where it had stood. It had been positioned behind the camera, casting a spotlight on the gym mat.