She shook her head. ‘Not yet established.’
Kim was surprised she had not been asked about the activity at the site. She had hope that this was, as yet, undiscovered. If Tracy knew of it that would definitely have been her first question.
‘Is there…?’
‘No more, Tracy,’ she said, pushing back her chair for the final time. ‘I’ve offered more than I should have already.’
‘I know,’ Tracy said, raising an eyebrow. ‘That’s what’s worrying me.’
Kim’s phone began to vibrate in her pocket. Tracy caught the subtle noise.
‘Your phone is ringing,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Kim answered.
‘Not going to answer it?’
‘In front of you? Yeah, right.’ Kim placed her hand on her pocket and shrugged. ‘Run the story or don’t. Your call – but I’m not going to be talking to anyone else.’
Tracy licked her lips. A body-language expert would explain that as a ‘tell’ that she was excited.
The article would be at least half a page. Tracy would be able to turn what she’d said into some serious column inches.
‘I need a name,’ Tracy said, as her pen hovered above the pad. ‘If the first victim has been identified and next of kin informed, you can give me that.’
Damn this woman. Kim had been hoping to keep Jemima’s family out of it for a little while yet, but it would look more suspicious if the identity continued to be hidden.
‘Okay, Frost, her name was Jemima. Her full name was Jemima Lowe.’
The pen dropped from Tracy’s hand as Kim rose to her feet. She leaned down and picked it up.
Tracy took it without speaking, but Kim noted a slight tremble to Tracy’s hand that she hadn’t seen before.
She stepped outside as her phone stopped ringing. It started again before she had a chance to remove it from her pocket.
She saw immediately that it was Bryant, who was now back at the site.
He didn’t wait for her to speak.
‘Guv, we need you back here now. It looks like there’s another body.’
Thirty-Six
Tracy sat still for a minute and allowed her face to arrange itself into the expression it wanted to form. Confusion.
Damn it – Jemima Lowe was not a name she wanted to hear. Not ever.
She tried to tell herself that the vague trembling in her legs was because of exhaustion. She would take just a few moments to rest her legs. It had been a hard day. She’d been chasing a story around the Black Country all day about a vicious assault on an elderly woman in Bilston.
Right now she wanted to kick off her heels and hurry back to the safety of the car barefoot, but of course she wouldn’t. Her feet had been encased in five-inch stilettos since she was old enough to get a Saturday job and buy a cheap pair from the market. But the minute she had, her life had changed.
Yes, people still pointed and laughed, thinking she’d chosen heels way too high to master. And that was fine. Because they were no longer calling her a spastic.
Just the memory of the word brought colour to her cheeks and a rolling anxiety to her stomach.
No matter how you tried to outrun your past there were memories that refused to go away. And with the memories came the rush of emotions, as though it was yesterday.
Suddenly her breath seemed unable to get down her throat. The room before her was beginning to spin. The nausea was rising in her stomach. Not now, she silently begged. Please don’t do this to me now.
Tracy tried to stem the panic and get her breath. She tried to remember the coaching. First she must try to get her breathing under control, but the palpitations were vibrating within her chest cavity. She closed her eyes against the onslaught of dizziness.
‘Please no, please no,’ she whispered through dry lips.
The first episode had happened when she was seven years old. Her mother had thought she was experiencing a heart attack and she’d called for an ambulance. The diagnosis of panic attack did not do justice to the severity of the symptoms.
In the years since the first one she’d read that it was her body protecting itself following the shot of adrenaline launched through her system, but it sure as hell didn’t feel as though her body was on her side right now.
It will pass, it will pass, she told herself. The symptoms would peak in a few minutes. But as a fresh wave of perspiration broke out on her forehead and the nausea rolled in her stomach, she realised how long those ten minutes could last.
Her hands had wound themselves into the shoulder strap of her handbag. Her fingertips were turning white but she couldn’t unclench them.
‘Yow all right, love?’ asked the woman who had thrown filthy looks her way earlier.
Tracy tried to smile and nod her head, but she could feel that the expression on her face was a lopsided grimace.
Tracy sensed the woman slip into the chair beside her, but the stars in her eyes were threatening to consume her.
‘Here yow am, love,’ said the woman, unclenching her hands from the strap. ‘Hang on to me and squeeze as ’ard as yow con.’
Tracy did as she was told, as she was in no position to argue.
She squeezed her palms around the woman’s fingers and told herself over and over that she wasn’t going to die. That her breath would continue to come and that her heart would not explode right out of her body.
‘Goo on, love,’ the woman said. ‘I can teck it.’
Another good squeeze and Tracy could feel the tension starting to fall from her fingers. The uncontrollable trembling in her legs was beginning to subside. The stars were receding to the back of her head. Her body felt battered and exhausted.
‘All right now, love?’ the woman asked.
Tracy nodded gratefully. A few people were looking their way but nothing Tracy couldn’t cope with.
‘Thank you,’ Tracy said, giving her hand one last squeeze.
The woman stood and reached for her shopping bag. ‘You’re welcome, now teck care, eh?’
Tracy nodded and thanked her again.
Only when she’d gone did Tracy allow the tears to pierce her eyes. An episode was always followed by fatigue and emotion.
She probably had about twenty minutes to get home before the exhaustion claimed her completely.
The shame of her condition was as humiliating today as it had been back then. If she turned she was sure she would see the group of girls and boys who had screamed it as she’d passed.
There had been many other names throughout her school days but spastic had been their favourite.
Unequal leg length was the common term for it these days, or leg-length inequality. All very nice names but not ones you can get kids to shout while they’re pointing and laughing.
The discrepancy in her own legs was due to the femur in her left thigh being shorter than the one in the right. The frequent back pain was the result of a now tilted pelvis.
She had tried the heel lifts and the ugly shoes that had been available and none had worked.
They’d just made her feel even more clunky and ugly.
And that was why she wore the shoes.
Tracy took a deep breath and reached for her handbag. Her legs faltered for a moment as she pushed herself to a standing position, but a couple of breaths and she was ready to walk.
The fatigue pulling at her eyelids told her she was already on borrowed time, but she would have to fight it for a little bit longer.
She had to get her jumbled thoughts in order. Her legs were not responsible for the panic attack.
It was due to the mention of Jemima Lowe.
Thirty-Seven
As Kim pulled up at the gate that separated Westerley from civilisation, she wondered how long it would be until this entrance was besieged by reporters and the placard brigade.
The press knew that a body had been found on ‘farmland bordering Wall Heath’, but as yet the exact details had been hidden. With the arrival of equipment and specialists, they were on borrowed time before the secret was out.
The gate began its slow journey. The CCTV camera had alerted her arrival.
The gravel parking area held three vehicles Kim didn’t recognise.