‘Is that legal?’ Bryant asked.
She nodded. ‘Oh yeah, home education is legal in all parts of the UK and always has been. It’s as simple as deregistering your child, normally a simple letter, and then a proposal to the local authority of how you intend to educate your child.’
‘But surely there are checks that the national curriculum is being met?’ he pushed.
‘It’s not the responsibility of the state to educate your child, only to provide a suitable facility, should you require one. A parent is obliged to provide a suitable education for their child during compulsory school age. Schools are available to be used, but if a parent thinks they can do a better job they are within their rights to do so.’
‘You’re telling me that Graham’s mother was able to remove him from the school system with no supervision at all?’ Kim asked incredulously.
‘Absolutely. The law is clear that there is no legal duty for a local authority to monitor the education provision and would only conduct a home visit in rare or extreme circumstances.’
Kim took a moment to digest this information.
Valerie continued. ‘You know his mother was feeding him hormones from the age of three?’
Kim shook her head. No, she hadn’t known that, but something else was confusing her. If neither the uncovering of his true sex or his absence from school had prompted the intervention of social services, then what the hell had?
‘So how did the two of you meet?’ she asked.
‘I was the social worker that collected him from the home after the death of his mother. It was Graham that called the ambulance and the police.’
‘Police?’ Bryant asked.
Valerie nodded. ‘Thank God he was never charged with the offence. After what his mother did to him, the kid had been through enough. He needed help, not punishment.’
Kim glanced at Bryant.
‘I don’t understand. Charged with what offence?’
Valerie stubbed out the cigarette on the top of the bin. ‘Good grief, Inspector, you really don’t know very much about him. The offence would have been murder. Graham Studwick admitted immediately that he was the one who had killed his mother.’
Seventy-Six
Bryant showed more patience than she would have as he negotiated the rush-hour traffic building on a busy Friday afternoon. She caught the occasional disbelieving shake of his head.
‘What?’ Kim asked.
‘I can’t believe the kid wasn’t even charged.’
Kim had no trouble believing it at all. Valerie had happily given them the detail of what had followed that day.
Eleven-year-old Graham had admitted to holding the pillow over his mother’s face until she could breathe no more. But he had admitted it without the guidance of a responsible adult. The young constable who had walked him from the house to the car had asked a couple of questions that would have made the whole confession inadmissible.
Graham had been lucky enough to secure a brief who had known what he was doing and had got him admitted to Bromley immediately.
The police investigation was further hampered by two independent psychiatric reports stating that Graham’s ‘fitness to plead’ in Crown Court was not adequate.
Kim knew the decision of the CPS to prosecute was based on a number of factors. Was it in the public interest? Past history, probability of causing harm to others, need for treatment and if that need was being provided. And the unspoken factor – the likelihood of conviction.
Kim could understand why the CPS had chosen not to prosecute.
Bryant pulled the car straight onto the drive of the two-bed mid-terrace. The property sat back from the road in the Lyde Green area of Halesowen where it met Cradley Heath.
Only two windows were visible and both were suffocated by heavy net curtains.
Kim tried to peer through and could just make out that there were heavy draw curtains inside. Closed.
A covered entryway led to the back of the house. She headed that way and tried the gate. As it opened, Kim felt her heart sinking. Stacey had checked this was the correct address for a man named Graham Studwick, but her gut told her that the gate should have been locked if they were in the right place.
The gate opened onto a flat, long, thin garden that disappeared into a row of oak trees behind.
A decrepit shed was on her right. A quick glance inside revealed no garden tools, lawnmower or boy toys. There was no plant, bush or square foot of lawn to break up the slabbing that stretched from fence line to fence line.
‘Bryant, I’m going in,’ she said and tried the door. It was locked.
She tried the door to the shed. It opened. The only thing in there on the second shelf down was an upturned plant pot. She moved it and revealed a key.
‘I’m just gonna check there’s nothing hiding behind those trees,’ Bryant said.
Kim tried the key in the door and, after a little force, it unlocked.
The back door led into a kitchen. A blackout blind held the room in total darkness.
She reached along the walls and found the light switch.
The room was empty. The counter tops were free of kettle, mugs, tea and coffee, the usual staples of a lived-in kitchen.
As she checked the cupboards each one revealed more and more empty space. The fridge and freezer were empty and switched off.
She stepped through a door to the front of her house. Again the space was dark but not dense. Two shafts of sunlight peeped around the edges of the heavy brown velour curtain, offering the minimum of light. But it was enough for Kim to see that the only thing the room contained was a carpet.
‘About as homely as yours, guv,’ Bryant offered.
Kim ignored him as she felt the claustrophobia of the room now it contained two of them.
She headed for the only other door, which revealed the stairs.
She took them two at a time, and after checking both bedrooms and the bathroom she found more of what she’d seen downstairs.
Nothing.
She headed back down to Bryant.
‘This might be his address, but it’s not where he lives.’
Kim knew that to move this case any further along she had to get a better comprehension of what she was up against.
She had to crawl inside the mind of their killer and understand how he thought. She couldn’t even comprehend the mindset of a person like Graham.
Kim knew there was only one person she could ask.
Seventy-Seven
‘Just there,’ Kim said, pointing to a terraced house with a freshly painted door.
‘Is this the guy you mentioned?’
Kim nodded.
‘Want me to stay in the car?’
She took a moment to answer.
They were sitting outside the house of a man named Ted Knowles.
Throughout her childhood, periodically, she’d been sent to see Ted. She was supposed to talk to him so that he could help her come to terms with her pain. And she had steadfastly refused to utter a word about her life.
But he had not been like all the others.
If she’d chosen to open up to anyone it would have been Ted. More recently he had helped her get into the mind of a sociopath. And it had pretty much saved her life.
She took a deep breath. ‘No, you can come in,’ she answered.
Bryant gave her a long look before getting out of the car.
The twelve-year-old Citro?n confirmed that the man was at home.
Two short knocks and the door was opened by a short, portly male whose head was hanging on to the last bit of hair around his ears. What he had left stuck out in a ‘mad professor’ kind of style. Unbelievably, in Kim’s head this was exactly how he had looked twenty-eight years ago, when she was six years old.
His face broke into a smile at the sight of her and widened when his gaze rested on Bryant.
‘Kim, how lovely to see you,’ he said, stepping aside.
‘This is Bryant, my colleague,’ she said.
Ted offered his hand as Bryant passed.
‘Not a social visit then?’ he asked.
Despite the absence of reproach in his voice, Kim still felt a pang of guilt. She had only ever visited him when she needed something and today was no different.