Silent Scream

Kim couldn’t help but wonder how long the girls would have remained lost had the professor not been so determined to find buried coins.

But because of his tenacity, three young girls who had lain beneath this unassuming piece of land would now be afforded proper burials. And Kim would attend every one.

She knew the case had touched them all. Cerys had removed the bodies from the ground. Daniel had examined the girls to indicate the ma

She looked over to the middle house. There was activity inside. Lucy and William were back from the hospital and their life together would continue as normal. For now.

Kim pulled her gaze away from the illuminated window. The time had come for her to have a very difficult conversation with William Payne; but he wasn’t going anywhere and there was one missing piece she had to find first.

The denture was here somewhere and somehow, it mattered. That it was not on the body and not in the grave meant that it was still in the building. The location would tell her everything. And this time Kim had come prepared.

She reached into her saddlebag and took out a hammer. She reckoned that by removing two fence panels she’d be able to climb through the gap.

Kim removed the black leather gloves and placed the pencil torch in her mouth. She used the claw of the hammer to remove the nails that held the rough wooden panels against the vertical stumps.

The first two dislodged easily. She tried to prise the panel away from the post but the two fixed to the other side held fast. The top one came loose easily but the bottom one wouldn’t budge. She was able to swing the panel down so that it hung vertically, still fixed with one stubborn nail.

It was clear that ten years ago the council budget for decent workmanship far outweighed the budget for quality materials.

Kim repeated the same process with the second panel, providing a space wide enough to climb through. Once on the other side she shook her hands and cupped them to her mouth. The raw wind on her exposed fingers had made the tips numb.

She had deliberately not informed Bryant or the rest of the team of her plans. She had no legal right to enter the building and a warrant would have taken far too long.

Woody’s message about the loyalty of her team had been received loud and clear.

Without the aid of daylight, she had to recall from memory the layout of the back of the building. She lit up the ground using her torch. The land was overgrown and littered with bricks and debris.

Kim shone the torch at the open window through which she’d entered the building previously. She tried to traverse a direct path from point A to point B but stumbled over a breeze block. She swore but carried on.

She reached the window and realised she had used the bin to get back over the fence. She travelled back, taking care to avoid the breeze block, then picked up the bin and placed it beneath the broken window.

She shone the torch around the outer edge of the opening to get an idea of where the shards were placed. Kim put the torch in her mouth and used both hands to ease herself through the broken window.

Yes, she was in.

Sixty-Six

I knew I'd been right when I first saw her. Her diligence and tenacity had served her well. Perhaps too well.

Because it had brought her back to me.

I had initially thought that we would not meet but that was no longer the case.

My insurance, my clever misdirection, had not been enough. For some it would have been. But not for her.

Here she was, alone, late at night, gaining entry to an abandoned building, searching for answers. She would not rest until she had uncovered the secrets.

All of them.

It was only a matter of time before her methodical reasoning brought her to me. I couldn't take that chance.

Had she not been so clever I would have allowed her to live. People have to take responsibility for their own actions.

I remember when I was twelve in the lunch hall. Robbie had a chicken salad sandwich. It looked so much tastier than my ham and cheese. I asked him to trade and he laughed in my face.

A broken rib, a black eye and two fractured fingers later, I had the sandwich and it tasted good.

See, it needn't have happened. If he'd just traded, he would have been fine. I tried to explain this to the teachers but they couldn't understand. They all made excuses for my lack of remorse.

I wasn't troubled. I wasn't seeking attention. I was not acting up because my grandma had died.

I just wanted the sandwich.

It was a shame that the detective had to die. The presence of her keen mind and unerring drive would be missed but she had brought it on herself.

It wasn't my fault.

My only fault lay in the mistake I made some years before, but it was one that I hadn't made since.

But then, even the greatest minds occasionally made errors.

And as I watched her climb in through the fence, I realised that the detective had just made her last.

Sixty-Seven

Kim’s feet landed on the Formica worktop and the glass crunched like gravel beneath her boots. In the dark silence, the sound seemed deafening.

She eased herself down onto the ground and cast the torch around the kitchen. Nothing had changed in the few days since her last trespass and this wasn’t the area that held her interest.

Still, she paused for a moment, visualising the girls sneaking in when no one was around for a packet of crisps or a drink. How many times had Melanie wandered in and out of this room before she was so brutally beheaded?

Kim headed forward through the room and jumped when something settled on her face. She clawed at her cheeks, dislodging the soft fibres and raised the light to a head-shaped hole in a cobweb at the doorway. She shook her head and rubbed at her face and hair. A single thread tickled at her ear.

As she stepped from the hallway to the corridor a gust of wind howled from above, entering the building through the broken windows. A beam creaked above her head.

For a second, Kim questioned the sensibility of her own choice to enter this building alone and at night, but she would not be frightened off by insects and wind.

She moved along the corridor, taking care to mute the torch as she passed open doorways of rooms that were on the front of the property.

Although the building was surrounded by fencing she couldn’t take a chance that the light would be seen from the road or the houses opposite.

On her left she passed a utility room and on her right was the common room. She pictured Louise in that room, holding court, rallying her troops as the group leader ‒ until some bastard tried to saw her in half.

Kim headed for the room at the bottom of the hallway. The room where the fire had been started. The manager’s office.

As she entered, she switched off the torch. A streetlight next to the bus stop cast a shadow into the room.

Did you stand in here and ask him for help? Kim silently asked Tracy. Did you come to Richard Croft and seek his advice before you were buried alive? Kim suspected not.