‘Excuse me,’ Tracy said.
‘Found it,’ she said, reaching for the tool.
‘This poor guy has no identity, no name. I mean, imagine if that was one of your family members, eh? He wouldn’t have been dismissed quite so—’
‘No victim is dismissed,’ Kim snapped and realised too late that she had given this woman exactly what she’d been seeking. A reaction. ‘I’m hanging up now, Frost,’ she said, reaching for the phone.
‘And just to let you know I’ve bought new shoes for your commendation cere—’
Kim switched off the phone and enjoyed the sudden peace that entered the room. It had been no less invaded than if the woman had marched right in and sat down.
She reached over and brought Bach once more into her special place.
What had Tracy Frost been thinking? Like Kim really needed to take on cases unsolved by other teams in the borough. Her own local policing unit kept her busy enough.
And yet, as she tried to fit the connecting rod to the piston, Kim found herself thinking about a man named Bob.
Ten
Tracy Frost let herself into the small rented house at the bottom of Quarry Bank high street. Although it didn’t fall under the postcode for the more affluent area of Amblecote she used it in her postal address anyway.
Before doing anything else she stepped over to the laptop on the dining table and hit the space bar. The computer hummed to life and revealed that the white Audi TT, her most prized possession, filled the centre screen.
In Quarry Bank high street a car like hers could attract negative attention. Groups heading to one of the chip shops further up the hill sometimes stopped and admired it. Kids looking in the window of the motorcycle shop opposite might pop across the road to take a peek. Jealous neighbours might flatten a tyre or two. A regular occurrence before she’d had the camera installed.
It was almost one in the morning, and there’d be very few people passing her car tonight.
She left the screen open as she removed her five-inch heels. She hated the damn things, but she wouldn’t be without them for anything. She loved her car more than anything, but, given a choice, she would keep her heels. Her sanity depended on it.
All day she’d been plagued by a feeling of unease. She’d done all the things that normally quieted any anxiety within her. She had checked her online bills and found nothing outstanding. Her bank balance was hovering exactly where it always did, just below her overdraft limit.
She had gone backwards and forwards in her diary to make sure there were no birthdays or anniversaries forgotten or imminent.
She had phoned her mother and listened to the minor details on just about everything since her last phone call. As usual she had pretended that everything was fine and that she really would try to go round to see them both sometime in the coming week. She hated that both statements were lies and hated even more that her mother knew it.
She’d hoped that a bit of goading of her least favourite police officer would help lift her mood, but it hadn’t.
What she hadn’t admitted to Kim Stone was an element of guilt that accompanied any thought of Bob. Two years ago, when she’d watched his body being loaded into the ambulance, Tracy had vowed to expose whoever had done this to him. She had fully intended to speak to her editor about a human-interest piece focussed on finding out who he was.
Two days later she’d been covering the story of a local footballer whose cocaine addiction had been leaked by one of his mistresses. She had been unable to resist a sex and drugs piece, and her story had amassed the second highest circulation of the Dudley Star, beaten only by a commemoration edition for Princess Diana.
When she’d spoken to her editor the following week about Bob he’d had trouble recalling the man pulled from the lake and had denied her request. She wasn’t part of the police force tasked with investigating his murder, but she felt some kind of responsibility that his murderer still walked free. It was one of the things that periodically jumped into her consciousness and slapped her around a little. The news that West Mercia had been successful in clearing a few old cases had brought Bob back to the forefront of her mind.
During the course of the day she had tried everything she could think of, yet the feeling had not cleared.
Maybe she just needed some sleep. These feelings rarely accompanied her into the next day.
She carried the pair of Jimmy Choos up to the bedroom and opened the door. She placed them behind the other pointy-toed stilettos in the Anouk range. So far she had six pairs. And every one of them had a support in the left shoe.
She knew people laughed behind her back as she tottered around on them, and that was fine because what they didn’t know was that the shoes helped her hide the real problem.
The one that had plagued her for most of her life.
Eleven
Oh, Mummy, I miss you every single day.
I have trudged through the sludge of years since you left me.
How strange that I always phrase it that way in my mind. You left me. You didn’t leave me. You fucking died.
Sorry, Mummy, you don’t like swearing and neither do I. It is a sign of a limited vocabulary, you said.
I always agree with you, Mummy. Eventually.
I remember one time when I didn’t. I woke up and my clothes were laid out at the bottom of the bed.
It was a brown pinafore dress that buttoned up the front. It was dark brown. The colour of mud. It was a rectangle that fell at a no man’s land between my knees and my ankles. A long, shapeless block of dirt with two flaps as mock pockets on the front. Not even real pockets.
I liked pockets.
I hated it. I didn’t want to wear it, and I told you I wouldn’t.
You asked me if I would reconsider.
I said no.
You gave me that sad smile, and I knew I’d made a mistake. But I couldn’t go back.
And neither would you.
Without speaking you marched to my room. You brought down all my favourite clothes. You took the scissors, the sharp ones you used to cut my hair. I knew they were sharp because one time you nicked my neck while giving me a trim.
You sat at the kitchen table, a smile playing across your mouth, and I was happy to see any expression at all.
Cut. Cut. Cut.
I watched as you began to snip them to smithereens – like streamers, slivers of material fell to the ground, intertwining with each other like a pit of snakes.
The pinafore lay folded on the table between us.
You didn’t cut along seams. You cut so they could never be repaired. The damage was done.
A lesson to be learned.
I started to undress and the scissors slowed but they didn’t stop. I looked at you, but you didn’t look at me because you knew.
You had won.
I slipped on the yellow T-shirt and then the slab of brown. It hung like a block of unyielding chocolate.
You placed the scissors on the kitchen table, gently and without speaking, and stood at the sink.
I stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring at your back. The only sound was your hand swishing the warm water as you turned the washing-up liquid into bubbles.
But still you didn’t speak. What else had I done wrong? I had done what you asked but still that wall of silence and a spine bent with displeasure.
‘Mummy…’
You turned. Your face was impenetrable, but somewhere beneath was the promise of a smile.
This was my moment, my opportunity to make our world right again.
If only I said the right thing.
‘Mummy, play with me.’
And, finally, you smiled.
But you’re not here to play with me any more, are you, Mummy? But my other friends are.
I must go now.
My next best friend is waiting.
Twelve