‘If he says he is, we’ve got to respect that,’ she said as they reached the bottom of the stairs, running into Jack, the desk sergeant, with an armful of sweet packets from the vending machine.
‘Bloody hell, Jack, low blood sugar?’ Kim asked.
‘Got a little visitor with PC Monaghan. Girl got separated from her mum earlier at—’
‘Still not reunited?’ Kim asked, meeting the concerned gaze of her colleague.
Jack shook his head.
Kim paused. She was tempted to go back there and see if the little girl was okay, but she forced herself out of the building.
It really didn’t have anything to do with her.
Four
Stacey regarded her colleague for a minute before speaking.
‘Hey, Penn, listen if you want—’
‘I’m fine, Stace,’ he said without looking up from the neat piles of paperwork he was forming on his desk.
It was the same response she’d received every time she’d asked.
From what she knew, he had few friends, probably due to moving forces a couple of times coupled with using up the majority of his free time looking after Jasper, though one of his old colleagues, Lynne, from West Mercia, had attended his mother’s funeral. She just hoped he’d opened up to her about his grief more than he had to any of them.
‘How’s Jasper?’ she asked, looking longingly at the empty space where the cookies or muffins normally sat.
‘Fine.’
‘I could pop round and—’
‘So, what you got in the shuffles?’ he asked, cutting her off in more ways than one.
Stacey already knew her colleague kept his emotions close; his terse replies told her he was getting annoyed but didn’t want to snap at her.
She took the hint.
‘Okay, listen up; I’ve got an armed robbery from Wolverhampton, happened two years ago. The team suspected it was gang-related due to a known gang member being spotted in the area half an hour before the incident. It was their typical MO, but the team couldn’t find any eyewitnesses.’
Penn shook his head. ‘Don’t waste your time on that one. Wolvo knows their gang culture better than you, so if their informants gave them nothing you’ve got no chance.’
She’d already read the file and come to the same conclusion herself. If Wolvo officers with their local knowledge couldn’t get anyone to point the finger, she was stuffed before she’d even started. No one had been physically hurt, and the service station was still in business, so there was no burning desire in her stomach to get involved. She closed the file and put it to one side.
‘Okay, next one. Almost two years ago, an eighteen-year-old lad was jumped outside a chip shop by three unknown assailants. Cuts and bruises but no broken bones, and the offenders were never caught.’ She flicked back to the front of the file. ‘And this one is from Dudley.’
‘What was the final action logged?’
Stacey leafed to the end of the file and read the last few activity entries.
‘A visit and phone call from the mother asking for an update.’
Penn shook his head. ‘You’d be wasting your—’
‘You can’t write them all off cos they might be hard work. If they were easy, they’d be solved already,’ Stacey protested. There was a simmering heat in her stomach for this one. The boy had been hurt quite badly.
‘Agreed, but the lad is now twenty. Two years to a teenager is half a lifetime. If it’s his parents doing the chasing instead of him, he’s likely moved on and he’s your best source of information.’
Stacey could see his point. Reopening any cold investigation in the hope of unearthing information that would solve the case, she would not only be reliant on the victim’s memory but also their commitment and enthusiasm.
She put the file aside and reached for another from two years ago. ‘Okay, this one is a sexual assault. Similar to another sexual assault case which brought a conviction, but Brierley Hill couldn’t get enough for the CPS to charge the second victim.’
‘Yep, that one,’ Penn said, finally lifting his head.
‘I haven’t told you anything about it yet,’ she replied, pleased to see his face instead of the top of his head.
He shrugged. ‘It’s rape and no rapist should go unpunished.’
She had to agree, and her initial perusal of the files confirmed it was the case she wanted to solve first. But on closer inspection, she could see that the case for the second victim had never even been put to the Crown Prosecution Service. She read the details again.
Lesley Skipton had been raped on her way home after a party in the park at Himley Hall, organised by Dudley Council. The event had finished at 1 a.m. The twenty-two-year-old had been rendered unconscious from a strike to the back of the head. When she’d come to, a male had been on top of her, sexually assaulting her from behind with a foreign object. Her face had been pushed into the ground, and he had not spoken a word to her.
Stacey took a moment to appreciate just how terrified the girl must have been.
The Brierley Hill team had suspected a local builder whom they’d been investigating for a sexual assault a few days earlier, but they had been unable to find any physical evidence against him.
The first assault had made it to court: Sean Fellows had been convicted of the rape of Gemma Hornley. Lesley Skipton was still waiting for justice.
On paper, there was no question that Sean Fellows had also attacked Lesley. The investigating team had thought so and so did Stacey.
The only question remaining in her mind was: could she prove it and give Lesley Skipton the justice she deserved?
Five
Bryant pulled up at the front door of the Copthorne Hotel at two minutes to four.
‘You know, Bryant, for once you could have taken your time,’ she moaned, freeing herself from the seatbelt. His notoriously steady driving style frustrated the life out of her when travelling to a crime scene or to interview a key witness. Every second counted. But she wouldn’t have minded being a bit late for this.
‘Have fun and be nice to the other kiddies,’ he said, smirking.
She slammed the car door on his words and headed towards the entrance.
The hotel had been built at the edge of The Waterfront complex in the eighties. Then, it had been all shiny and new, with its indoor pool and conference facilities.
But after three decades, its fatigue was beginning to show. The foyer seemed dimmer than it once had, the magnolia paint chipped and darkened with age that no level of cleaning could prevent.
A middle-aged woman at the concierge desk glanced up expectantly.
Kim held up her ID. ‘EPT meeting.’
The woman pointed towards a set of double glass and wood doors. Kim nodded. She’d used the conference facilities many times before.
The Hackett Suite was the smallest of the nine meeting rooms, and the door was wide open when she reached it.
A few people stood around the room, self-consciously holding small white cups from the stack beside the silver tea urn. A couple of people smiled or nodded in her direction as her eyes rested on the hastily written place cards folded in front of chairs at the table. Beside the name cards were briefing packs.