She grabbed the evidence bag holding the keys to the Mercedes Estate as she passed by the front desk and met Mitch as he was positioning the tow truck.
‘Wanna go over it together before I hitch her up?’
Kim nodded and offered him the evidence bag.
‘Anything at the house?’ she asked while he completed the chain-of-evidence forms.
He shook his head. ‘We’re looking for something two feet square in a property the size of a small village. Nothing found to link him to Grace Lennard yet.’
Kim wasn’t expecting it. The timeline suggested he wouldn’t have had the time to take her to his home and then to wherever he’d stashed her.
If she was right about Steven Harte being the kidnapper, Grace Lennard had been in this car.
‘It’s very clean,’ Mitch observed, opening the rear door.
‘Too clean,’ Kim said. There was nothing in the rear of the car.
She considered her own car boot. There was de-icer and a scraper that never got removed during the summer months, a pair of muddy boots for when she took Barney for a walk in the rain, a foot pump just in case, a bottle of water for the occasional radiator overheat, amongst other stuff.
‘Mine’s got more crumbs than the floor of Greggs bakery, as well as tools, carrier bags and all kinds of shit that doesn’t need to be there. I treat my car like another room,’ Mitch said.
Most people did, Kim thought, looking around for the source of the sickly sweet smell that was now escaping from the confined space.
She found it in the front passenger footwell.
‘Summer rose air freshener,’ she said, looking around the front of the car. It was spotless – nothing in the door pockets, nothing on the console, nothing on the floor.
‘Excuse me,’ Mitch said from behind.
He reached in and opened the glovebox. Empty.
‘He prepared it beforehand,’ Kim said. There was no way he could have fitted in this level of cleaning between depositing Grace wherever he’d left her and arriving at the station.
Mitch moved to the back of the car, removed his glove and began to touch certain points above the wheel arches and behind the back seats.
‘Sticky. Four corners of the space. He taped some kind of covering and then threw it away somewhere. Reduces our chances of finding anything significant.’
Of course it did, Kim thought, but her mind was focused on the only thing that had been left in the car.
‘Check for urine,’ Kim instructed, patting the carpet in the back of the car. There had to be a reason for the air freshener. He’d been trying to mask the smell of something, and he’d had a terrified eight-year-old girl in the back.
‘Anything else?’ Mitch asked, closing the front passenger door.
Kim stood away from the vehicle, wondering exactly what else it could tell them. She’d already seen there was no satnav that she could interrogate.
‘The tyres,’ she said. ‘Take samples from each tyre before you move it.’
The results from any kind of analysis on the car were not going to be immediate.
She took an anxious look at her watch and headed back upstairs.
The clock was ticking.
Forty-Seven
Alex wondered if she’d ever get bored of replaying last night’s conversation over and over in her head.
Just seeing Kim again after so long was almost enough, but being able to witness the beginnings of the rollercoaster she’d set in motion had been just perfect.
Those hours, the months, the years of keeping in touch with Patty had been worth it. She had known if she persevered for long enough, she’d get something she could use.
When she’d started laying the groundwork to ask the question, she’d never realistically expected an answer. The technique had been quite simple. In every letter she would ask Patty questions about her teens, then her early twenties. Any response would then be magnified. If Patty had said she loved to go to the seaside, Alex would reply back with a dozen questions about the seaside. Who did she go with? How did she get there? Eventually she’d mentioned a ‘him’ and the ‘him’ had turned into a first name and then a surname. If she’d had a wish list of information she’d hoped to gain, the identity of Kim’s father would have been right there at the top. She was surprised Patty could remember, but according to Patty, he had been the only one.
Alex tried to imagine the thoughts that might have been going through the inspector’s mind. She would think that Kim would be filled with rage that she, of all people, had been trusted with the information.
If she knew Kim at all, she’d guess that her thoughts would have turned to curiosity. That same need to know that had brought her here. She could imagine all the possibilities that were running around her head. Was he alive? Was he a good person? Had he known about them? Did he have a family? Did she have relatives?
Kim had spent more than thirty years thinking the only blood relative she had left was the woman she hated with every cell of her being. How would she be reacting to the possibility of family, and how best would Alex be able to manipulate those feelings if she chose to?
Knowing Kim, she wanted another little Mikey to replace the one she’d lost, and if that was her motivation to return with a letter recommending her release, all the better.
She pushed the pleasurable thoughts away for now. The conversation would keep her company for hours to come, but right now she had to focus on plan B. And this particular plan she was hatching was going to result in death.
It was just a case of how much.
Forty-Eight
‘Stacey, I’m not kidding. If you can do anything to fray my nerves just a little bit more, I’d appreciate it.’
Stacey said nothing.
‘Stace, it’s three minutes to ten and—’
‘A whole two minutes has gone by since the last time you told me. Of the five potentials, I’ve managed to get four sets of dental records. I’m waiting for the fifth. What more do you want me to do?’
‘There’s an email gonna land in the next few minutes which will force me to go down there…’
Stacey’s email tinged at the exact same second as hers. She put her phone face down on the desk. She knew what hers was going to say.
‘Stace?’
‘Shh…’
‘Stace?’
‘Just give me—’
‘Stace, we don’t have—’
‘It’s a match,’ she cried, throwing pieces of paper in the air.
‘Thank God for that,’ Kim said as a cheer travelled around the room.
Stacey let out a huge sigh of relief and then sobered. ‘Boss, sorry I shushed you.’
‘It’s okay. Print me the details of our victim.’
She picked up her phone and opened the email from Keats which stated exactly what she’d expected. The body at Hawne Park wasn’t Melody Jones.
She typed an email response to Keats.
Thank you for this report. We have identified the victim and will send along details shortly.
We appreciate your assistance.
She waited for just a moment as Stacey collated the details. Keats’s response was short.