Deadly Cry (DI Kim Stone #13) - Angela Marsons Page 0,11
a gradual process as she’d retreated behind the safety of her front door, or had she never addressed the fear of leaving the house directly after the attack?
Stacey tried to comprehend that basic right of free movement being taken away from her.
For some reason, a memory played in her head. She remembered when she was thirteen years old and the school netball team had played another local school. Her team had won, and Stacey had netted the winning shot from her position as Goal Attack. Three girls from the other team had followed her home, chanting and calling her names. As she’d turned into her front gate, the lanky, redheaded one had told her they were going to wait until she came back out and beat her up. She remembered running upstairs and looking out the window every few minutes for the next two hours to see if they were still there. Eventually they’d grown bored and left and she’d never seen them again, but for those couple of hours she had felt helpless, scared and trapped, and yet no one had even laid a finger on her.
Stacey reached out a hand and touched the woman gently on the arm.
‘Please, Lesley, I really would like to try and help.’
Ten
‘Hey, guv, you’re not gonna question the little girl yet, are you?’ Bryant asked as he pulled up outside the narrow townhouse at the edge of Merry Hill Shopping Centre.
She’d been considering it, but the warning note in his voice convinced her otherwise.
‘Bloody hell, Bryant, what kind of monster do you think I am?’
He glanced sideways. ‘You were going to, weren’t you?’
She huffed in response as she got out the car. Sometimes he just knew her far too well.
It was almost six thirty, and the sun was setting on what had been a grey and humourless day. In the time since they’d left the squad room, Andrew Nock had called the station, identified his daughter and collected her. Jack, the desk sergeant, had overseen the collection, checked the man’s identification and, more importantly, witnessed the response of the little girl upon seeing her father. Without knowing the full details, Jack had informed the man that an officer would be along to speak with him later.
The man had left the station with no clue as to what had happened to his wife and was opening the front door before they’d reached it.
‘Have you found her?’ he asked hopefully.
Kim offered no answer to his question as she asked if they could come inside.
‘Please, come into the kitchen,’ he said quietly.
As she followed, she caught a glimpse of the little girl curled up asleep on the sofa, still clutching the teddy bear from the store.
‘Mia’s exhausted,’ he explained, pulling the door closed.
‘Oh, hello,’ Kim said to the woman, who was using kitchen towel to wipe down the work surface.
‘Ella, my sister,’ he explained. ‘I called to ask if she’d seen Kat, and she came straight over.’
Kim would not have needed the explanation of their relationship had the woman turned to face her a few seconds earlier.
The siblings had the same straw-blonde hair and square jaw. She guessed Ella to be maybe ten years older than her brother’s twenty-nine years.
‘Is Kat okay?’ Ella asked, but Kim could see in her clear blue eyes that she already knew she was not, whereas her brother’s expression was full of nervous hope.
‘Mr Nock, please, sit down,’ Kim said. All four of them standing in the cramped kitchen was overpowering.
‘Just tell me—’
‘Mr Nock, if you’ll just—’
‘Sit down, Andy,’ his sister said as though she knew what was coming.
He sat and Kim did the same. Bryant moved to the doorway to offer a little more space.
Ella dried her hands on a tartan tea towel.
‘Mr Nock, I’m sorry to have to tell you that your wife is not okay. She’s—’
‘I knew I should have said no,’ he claimed, running his hand through his hair. ‘I could tell by her mood that she wasn’t quite with it, but we did the usual checks and—’
‘What checks?’ Kim asked. She’d been about to tell him his wife was dead, and she knew that anything she could learn at this point may not be accessible after he received the news.
‘My wife has problems, officer. She suffers from anxiety and depression. She refuses to take medication and normally she’s fine and handles it well, but this morning I watched her take dirty plates out of the dishwasher for breakfast.’