Please, someone, help me, she cried. I’m in here. Please let me out. I don’t know how to leave.
The effort of trying to communicate with her mind brought about sudden exhaustion. But there were sensations. There was a tickle in her foot. Something cold being placed on her chest. I’m here, she wanted to scream but her body wouldn’t listen.
For a while she’d wondered if her body parts were scattered around her head but the sensations told her they were connected.
Her body was still whole and she might be alive, not stuck in this silent, eternal hell.
But if she allowed hope then she must also prepare for despair, and she didn’t know if she could take the disappointment of being wrong.
He heart cried with unshed tears as she prayed for the nightmare to end.
Being dead made much more sense and that’s why she had so readily accepted it. Being alive was far too complicated, exhausting.
If she was dead, she no longer had questions.
If she was alive, she had too many.
Forty-Seven
‘I still don’t see why you’re quite so, er… animated,’ Bryant said, as they exited the hospital.
Kim switched on her phone to see she’d missed a call from Stacey. Just the person she wanted to speak to.
She pressed to return the call and threw the car keys at Bryant. He’d suffered her driving enough.
‘What have you got, Stace?’ she asked.
‘Something I think you’re going to like.’
‘Go on.’
‘I have the address of the old head teacher from Jemima’s junior school. I’ve got a list of staff that were there when she would have been.’
‘Good work, Stace. Text the address to Bryant. Now find out from her parents which high school she went to and check to see if you can find anything on a teen pregnancy for any girl around the same time,’ she said as they got into the car.
‘On it, boss, and one more thing. There are seven warfarin clinics in the area. Spoke to them all and have a list of eleven men who stopped attending around the time Bob was found.’
‘Bloody hell, Stace. Are you on fire?’ Kim asked. ‘Just give me the first names,’ she said as Bryant exited the car park.
‘Alphabetically, they are Alan, Charlie, Edward, Geoffrey, Ivor, Jack, Lester, Malcolm, Norman, Philip, Walter.’
Kim shouted them out as Stacey said them.
‘Guv, you do know I’m driving and I can’t write anything down?’
‘Use your memory,’ she said, moving her mouth away from the phone.
Bryant shook his head and continued driving. He stopped at the Brierley Hill high-street lights.
‘Catch up later,’ Kim said, ending the call.
She looked to her left as Bryant was forced to brake sharply for a group of teenage boys who stepped into the road six feet shy of a crossing.
‘Jesus, sometimes…’
‘Pull over, Bryant,’ she said, her eyes fixed on one of the shopfronts.
He expertly claimed a space vacated by a white delivery van.
‘Guv… what are…?’
His words trailed away as he saw where they’d stopped.
Every high street had one. No matter how deprived the area or the rate of unemployment. There was always the market for an amusement arcade.
‘Wait here, Bryant,’ Kim said, jumping out of the car.
She pushed open the door and stepped in. Her eyes took a few seconds to adjust from the bright day outside to the false night-time environment of the premises.
Three slot machines along, a man wearing jeans and a white shirt was wiping at the glass display.
‘Excuse me,’ Kim said, allowing the door to close behind her.
His face was thin and pale but he smiled openly. ‘Whassup, love?’
Kim didn’t feel like taking the time to explain her position. Her question was a simple one.
‘Do you use raffle tickets here?’ she asked, looking around. ‘For bingo or for…’
She stopped speaking as he was already shaking his head.
Damn it, although it had been a long shot.
‘Nah, love…’
‘Okay, thanks for…’
‘We ain’t used ’em for years, five or more,’ he said.
Good news and bad news in one short sentence.
‘What did you use them for?’ Kim asked.
‘Prizes. There was a weekly raffle, but we stopped it when business dropped off.’
Kim nodded and began to back out of the claustrophobic space.
‘Appreciate your time…’
‘You might want to try the one over at Merry Hill. I think they still use ’em today.’
She offered him a warm smile and peered closer at his name badge.
‘Melvyn, you’ve been a great help, thank you,’ she said, before heading towards the door.
‘You’re smiling,’ Bryant observed as she got back into the car.
‘Down to Merry Hill,’ she instructed, securing her seatbelt. It was still a long shot but for the first time she felt like she at least had a field to play on.
It was a short drive from Brierley Hill down Level Street and onto the complex.
Bryant drove into a space that luckily opened up right in front of him. He parked and they cut through the bus station into the amusement arcade.
The dark space was lit by the fast, racing lights of the machines as they tempted with their promises of jackpots and prizes.
Two elderly women looked around sharply as the sound of pound coins falling was heard from the next aisle along. Kim could hear bingo numbers being called towards the back of the property.
‘Excuse me,’ Kim said, approaching a woman dressed in a light blue overall. A leather bag containing change was strapped around her waist.
Her hands automatically reached towards the bag and Kim couldn’t help but think the lady might need a short course in recognising your customer. There was no such thing as a ‘typical gambler’ look but neither she nor Bryant were dressed for anything of a leisurely nature.
Kim took out her badge. The woman squinted in the light and the wrinkles around her eyes deepened. She accepted the identification and immediately looked concerned.
‘How long have you worked here, Jean?’ Kim asked, reading the name badge.
‘Eight years,’ she said, as though she couldn’t quite believe it herself. But a job was a job as far as Kim was concerned, and anyone who had the gumption to stick at one instead of looking for easier options had her vote.
‘You use raffle tickets?’ Kim clarified.
The woman nodded slowly as though she was making some kind of guilty admission.
‘May I ask what for?’ Kim asked, praying there would be some kind of clue.
She shrugged. ‘Many things. Grocery hampers, meat joints, shopping vouchers, free bingo games.’
Each item punched a bit of excitement out of her stomach.
Bryant stepped forwards. ‘All these items every week?’ he asked.
Jean nodded.
‘How do you keep track of which raffle ticket is for which item?’
‘The colour,’ she said simply.
Kim shot Bryant a grateful look.
‘What’s blue for?’
Jean smiled. ‘Blue is for a bottle of Bell’s whisky.’
The hope was being rebuilt in her gut. ‘Always?’
‘For as long as I can remember,’ she said. And Kim already knew that was over eight years. It was a very simple system but one that had worked.
‘Do you keep records?’ Kim asked hopefully. The normal form of identification for a raffle ticket was an address or phone number. Yes, there’d be one a week for the last three years but that totalled less than two hundred and worth the work to give Bob a name.
Jean shook her head. ‘Only for a few months and then we give the unclaimed prizes to Mary Stevens Hospice. We tell people that when they buy the tickets,’ she added defensively.
‘We want to ask you about a man who may have been a customer here a few years ago. I think he had one of your whisky raffle tickets.’
Just the words leaving her mouth was enough to convince Kim of the futility of this exercise. The woman’s expression only confirmed her thoughts. Jean must see hundreds of faces every day. Multiply that by two or three years and Kim was looking for one face out of more than a hundred thousand. But the pound coins had to mean something.
‘Love, I’m not being funny but—’