She’d asked him to source the frame for a Vincent Black Shadow, which she planned to rebuild from scratch.
‘Bloody hell. This is police harassment, yer know.’
‘Not yet but it could be. So…’
‘They’re like rockin’ horse shit, but I might have summat for yer tomorra. I’ll shout yer some time reasonable.’
‘Three hundred quid, right?’ she said, confirming the price they’d agreed.
‘Yeah, yeah, now f—’
Kim ended the call before he could swear at her again.
She smiled hopefully as she reached for Barney’s leash. Having a restoration project kept her sane. It kept her occupied. It channelled her thoughts. It was where she directed her stress at the end of the day. It helped keep her bad temper and natural aggression at bay.
She hoped Dobbie came through for her soon.
Everyone preferred it when she had a project.
Seventeen
‘Okay, kiddies, let’s get to it,’ Kim said, placing her coffee beside her as she took her spot on the edge of the spare desk.
She was pleased to see that Katrina’s details had made it onto the wipe board. Her team knew how she felt about victim identification. This time yesterday, Katrina Nock had been a stranger to them all, but now she was their top priority. Their relationship with her was now paramount. They knew where she lived, they knew her family and by the time they were finished they would know her killer. Every victim had an identity and a story.
‘Thanks, Bryant, but why have you put the little circle above the “i” in Katrina’s name?’ she asked.
He smirked. ‘I was trying to do Stacey’s writing to confuse you.’
Kim raised an eyebrow. ‘If I’m that easily deceived, we’re all fucked! So, anyone had any thoughts on our victim’s murder or murderer?’ she asked, crossing her arms.
‘Not getting it, boss,’ Stacey said, shaking her head. ‘She was a young mother out shopping with her kid. She wasn’t showy or part of any bad crowd. She had no enemies we know of and the method was clean.’
Kim agreed. The absence of blood or rage or obvious violence was puzzling.
‘It’s almost like it wasn’t personal,’ Penn observed.
‘But why her, then?’ Bryant asked. ‘If the object was only to kill, there were easier subjects out and about in Brierley Hill yesterday lunchtime.’
‘And what about that?’ Kim asked. ‘Time of day she was murdered?’ In her experience most murders happened in the dark.
‘Strange time to kill someone,’ Stacey offered. ‘Busy time of day, shoppers around, potential witnesses. Maybe a thrill-seeker?’
Kim shook her head. ‘The murder wasn’t ostentatious enough for that.’
‘So maybe it was about Katrina,’ Penn answered. ‘Perhaps it was just about her, and all the murderer wanted was this particular woman gone.’
‘Maybe,’ Kim answered.
Between them her team had put into words the thoughts and confusion that had been swirling around her head all night. Why take the unnecessary risk of luring away a young mother in the middle of the day if that wasn’t the specific person you wanted?
‘Okay, Penn, you’re on post-mortem duty, which is first thing.’
‘Yay,’ he said, rubbing his hands.
Kim had long ago become used to Penn’s enthusiasm for the grisliest part of their work. It wasn’t a thirst for macabre entertainment. He genuinely enjoyed the science behind the process. He relished a puzzle and seeing what the body could reveal.
‘Stace, check on Katrina’s health records. She suffered with depression. We need to know if she’s spent any time away and how bad her problems were. Also liaise with Inspector Plant on witness statements.’
A team of PCs had been tasked with talking to the stores and potential witnesses.
Both of those jobs Stacey could do while still working on the rape case from the day before. She was confident the constable knew how to prioritise her work.
‘And us?’ Bryant asked.
There was still so much about the events of the murder that she didn’t understand.
‘We, Bryant, are going back to the scene of the crime.’
Eighteen
Stacey set about completing the tasks issued by the boss before continuing her investigation into the rape of Lesley Skipton, who had been on her mind for most of the night.
She couldn’t get her head around Lesley’s feelings towards her rapist. She’d read enough about Stockholm syndrome to understand the psychology of how a victim can grow attached to their captor.
Famous cases of the syndrome had been documented, most notably the infamous Patty Hearst, granddaughter of American publishing magnate, William Randolph Hearst. Patty had been kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. After nineteen months in captivity, the woman was arrested for committing serious crimes along with her captors.
Even more startling had been the case of Colleen Stan, who was abducted by a husband and wife, Cameron and Janice Hooker, while hitch-hiking in 1977. The woman had been kept as a domestic/sex slave in a box beneath the couple’s bed for seven years and did not attempt to escape. When freed by Janice, Colleen remained silent about the abuse, as requested by her captors.
But any case of Stockholm syndrome that Stacey knew of involved the victim spending time with their captor, and the attachment growing over a period of years, months, even weeks. She’d never heard of it with a rape victim.
She put the thoughts aside as a constable appeared at the door.
‘First statements will be up in a couple of hours,’ he said, throwing the post on the spare desk.
‘Cheers, John,’ she said as he went out of view.
She typed up an email to Katrina’s doctor and hit the send button. Gone were the days she could get medical information over the phone.
Okay, jobs done, she reached for the file of Lesley Skipton, and yet what she really wanted was the file of Gemma Hornley. That hadn’t been sent to her, as the case was solved and Sean Fellows was doing the time.
She searched for the case electronically. If Sean Fellows had raped both of them, why hadn’t his first victim had similar feelings to Lesley?
She read through the initial statement given by Gemma on the night of the attack.
She had been leaving a pub in Hagley, again with only a short walk home. Just like Lesley, she’d been hit on the back of the head, rendered unconscious and dragged into someone’s property. She’d regained consciousness to find her head being held into the dirt by a hand and a foreign object being inserted savagely into her vagina.
Stacey skipped forward to the medical report which bore out Gemma’s description. The bruising and cuts to her vagina and thighs had indeed been the result of a brutal attack.
There had been no words spoken, just like Lesley’s attack, but there was one significant difference. After the sexual assault, Sean Fellows had taken a knife and cut into the flesh of Gemma’s buttock. The wound was only an inch or so, made up of a few small cut marks. Why had Sean Fellows not done the same to Lesley?
The more she read about Gemma’s attack, the more confused she became. The cases were so similar yet different.