Kim smiled at the girl and nodded her head. She got it.
Her words were gentle when she spoke. ‘Elaine, ask her again.’
Elaine turned to look at her.
‘Please.’
Elaine turned back towards Daisy who now stared straight ahead.
‘Daisy, was your mummy ever in the basement?’
The teddy bear’s head moved from side to side.
‘Daisy, was there a man in the room with you and your dad?’
The teddy bear’s head moved backwards and forwards.
‘Daisy, was it a man that you knew?’
Kim held her breath.
The teddy bear said yes.
TWENTY-FIVE
Alex started the BMW as she saw the black Golf pull out of the side street that led onto the Wordsley Road. Her furtive observations had uncovered that the female detective was unmarried and without children. The fact that the woman was psychologically damaged she’d assessed during their first meeting, and although that information in itself was enough to pique her interest, she needed more.
The detective inspector was providing a welcome distraction while she waited for news on Barry. And she knew for sure it would come.
She allowed two cars to move out in front to put some distance between the two of them.
She had discovered all she needed to know about the detective’s professional life. Kimberley Stone excelled at her job and had been promoted quickly. She had an inordinately high success rate with solving cases and despite her lack of social skills, was quite well respected.
What Alex needed was another clue and knowing the subject would not come to her voluntarily, yet, she was forced to be a little more creative. The only way to further this research was to follow the woman on a Saturday afternoon to establish what she did when she wasn’t being a high-achieving detective inspector and that journey had currently landed her outside a florist in Old Hill.
Alex was intrigued when Kim exited the shop with a bouquet of lilies and carnations. The detective didn’t strike her as the flower-giving type.
Alex eased into gear and remained a few cars behind as she followed the Golf over a couple of islands towards the outskirts of Rowley Regis.
The only two places of substance were a small hospital and the Powke Lane Cemetery. An accidental meeting was far easier to engineer in the latter.
As though bending to Alex’s will, the Golf entered the cemetery at the entrance directly off the island. Alex took the earlier exit and headed up towards the hospital to put a little distance between herself and the detective.
She passed around the hospital car park and exited. As she drove slowly back down the road that ran alongside the cemetery, she located where the Golf was parked.
She stopped outside the gates and headed in, immediately spotting the figure clad in black walking up the hill. Alex appraised the area and chose a row of headstones that stood between where the detective was headed and where the Golf was parked. Perfect. The woman would have to pass Alex to return to her car.
She picked a gravestone and stood before it. The black marble was unfettered by flowers or ornaments, a good indication that she wouldn’t be inconvenienced by actual grieving relatives.
She couldn’t help the intrigue she felt for Kimberley Stone. There was a remoteness in those dark, vampiric eyes. Alex was often able to get a snapshot of a personality in a few seconds. She studied the minute details of non-verbal communication, which was lucky as the woman had barely spoken during their first meeting. She hadn’t been able to deduce much, but someone so reserved had experienced trauma and pain, and that made the woman interesting.
Alex knew she would have to be at her most manipulative against the calculated intelligence she sensed in the detective but she also knew she’d win eventually. She always did.
The figure started moving, so Alex put her plan into action. Leaning down, she placed a small pebble inside her right shoe. She timed her exit from the row of gravestones and started limping up the hill, meeting the detective halfway. Alex took a gamble and kept her head down.
‘Doctor Thorne?’
Alex raised her head and hesitated briefly, pretending to try to place the woman who had interrupted her deep thoughts.
‘Detective Inspector, of course,’ she said, offering her hand.
The other woman shook her outstretched hand for the briefest of seconds.
‘How is Ruth doing? Can I ask that?’
The detective burrowed her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans and Alex had the impression that the physical contact was being wiped away on the inner lining.
‘She’s been charged with murder, no bail.’
Alex smiled sadly. ‘Yes, I heard that on the news. I meant, how is she?’
‘Scared.’
Alex realised this was going to be difficult. The woman was more closed than she’d expected. ‘You know, I’ve thought about what you said as you were leaving my office.’
‘And?’
No apology, no backtracking. No attempt to explain the harsh words or pretence that they had been misconstrued. She liked this woman’s style.
Alex moved from one foot to the other, pained. She looked around and saw a bench ten feet away. ‘Could we sit for a moment?’ she asked, hobbling towards it. ‘I twisted my ankle yesterday.’
The detective followed and sat at the other end of the bench. Her body language screamed ‘get on with it’, as Alex had suspected. People stayed longer if you got them sitting down. The reason every venue imaginable made room for a coffee shop.
‘I went over some of my notes, searching for any clue I might have missed during our sessions. I looked for any indication of her intention, but there was nothing. Except …’
Alex hesitated, and for the first time she saw a flicker of interest. ‘Except, maybe I should have realised that she wasn’t responding as quickly as she should have. She was making little effort to move forward, and although it’s not a form of treatment that can be worked to a particular timescale, looking back, I think perhaps she was fighting the process a little.’
‘Oh.’
Bloody hell, this woman was hard work. Alex tipped her head. ‘You think I failed, don’t you?’
The detective said nothing.
‘May I explain my position or is this matter completely closed to you?’
The woman shrugged and continued to look forward. The fact that the detective was not yet back in her car told Alex there was some residual curiosity. The woman was still sitting here for a reason.
‘The mental health community doesn’t view damaged psyches the way other people do. Take yourself; you think that someone like Ruth can enter therapy and be completely restored to normality in a specific, scheduled timescale: a rape victim takes four months, a bipolar sufferer ten months, a victim of sexual abuse two years. It’s not a shopping list.’
Alex looked for a reaction to the triggers she’d mentioned but saw none. Her trauma lay elsewhere.
‘As a psychiatrist, I accept that people are broken. Psychologically, some of us are injured for a short period of time following a loss.’ She looked over at the gravestone of good old Arthur, and swallowed bravely. ‘And we find a way back, never to normality, but we mend as best we can.’
‘Who’s over there?’ the detective asked, without finesse or apology for the directness of the question.
Alex sighed deeply. ‘You saw the photos on my desk. My family, killed three years ago in a car crash.’ Alex’s voice broke on the last few words. She could sense the woman’s discomfort. She raised her head and stared forward. ‘Grief does strange things to you.’ Alex thought she saw a reaction and pressed on. Any response just whetted her appetite for more and she had plenty of heat-seeking missiles in her pocket. ‘I don’t think one ever truly comes to terms with a loss.’
The woman offered no encouragement but Alex persevered anyway.
‘I lost a sister very young.’