He wasn’t waiting for her at all. He was waiting by the front door.
Kim laughed out loud. Even her dog was developing a sixth sense about the arrival of visitors.
She moved to the coffee machine and took down two mugs. Plain black liquid for her and milk and sweetener in the other.
The front door tapped as she was pouring the second cup.
‘Enter at your own risk,’ she called.
Her colleague pushed the door open and walked straight into the furry welcoming committee.
He was holding up his identification.
‘The name’s Bryant. You might not recognise me but…’
‘Jesus, I only saw you this morning,’ she laughed, pushing his drink across the breakfast bar towards him.
‘How do you do that?’ he asked, handing Barney a tripe strip. ‘I didn’t call; I didn’t text; I didn’t send a pigeon, so how?…’
‘Bryant, you visit me unannounced for one of two reasons. Normally it’s either to see if I’m okay or because you’re being nosey.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Today, I’ve been forced to work alongside a man I despise on a case that you know nothing about. You turning up tonight was a pretty safe bet. Even the bloody dog knew you were coming.’
‘Fair point,’ he conceded. ‘So, how was it?’ he asked, wasting no more time.
‘Like watching a game of cricket in slow motion. He is methodical to the point of laborious. There’s no fire in him unless he’s arguing with me. He writes everything down and his greatest act of impulsiveness so far has been to add a caramel shot to his skinny latte.’
Bryant almost spat out his drink.
She sighed. ‘Oh, all right, it wasn’t a skinny latte but you get the picture. Around his own team he’s personable, amusing, just as I remember him but with me, well…’
‘Didn’t you two get on once?’ Bryant asked, quietly.
‘A long time ago,’ she replied.
He looked at her. ‘What was it – four or five years ago? There were a lot of rumours, back then about…’
Kim crossed her arms in front of her. Yeah, she’d heard the rumours too, and she hadn’t responded to a single one of them. She opened her mouth to explain to Bryant the type of police officer Tom had been, but she couldn’t. The very example she’d been about to use was the thing of which she’d promised never to speak. And she never would.
‘He wasn’t always like this,’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘Some people just work differently more er… organised than…’
‘Are you saying I’m not organised?’ she asked.
‘In your own way, eh? Let’s just leave it at that.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘That’s one of those things you’d only dare say to me as Kim, right?’
‘Hell yeah. Now tell me about the case.’
‘Doctor A suspects three separate victims, buried elsewhere first. We have a fibre and a bullet wound.’
‘Guns?’ Bryant asked.
She nodded. Any crime concerning firearms was still an exception in their neck of the woods.
‘We have a possible description of our first victim. We still have no clue how old the bones are or how long they’ve been buried. She’s briefed her colleague, Marina, who will continue the excavation at site, now that Dr A’s transferred to the morgue to start putting it all together.’
‘Oh, Keats will be pleased,’ Bryant observed.
‘No less pleased than Doctor A. She contacted the HTA but they wouldn’t issue—’
‘Back up,’ Bryant interrupted. ‘What’s the HTA?’
‘Human Tissue Authority. They issue licenses for morgues, even temporary ones. But there’s no building on-site with running water, one of the basic requirements, so the remains have to be transported back to the morgue. Trust me, she would have preferred to stay on-site.’
Kim knew that Doctor A was very much like herself and would have preferred all aspects of the forensic operation in the same place. Where she could better control it.
‘Anything interesting about the site?’
‘Actually, yes. The farm is leased by the Cowley family. Father, son and daughter. I have no idea about the mother yet. The daughter is a terrier who refused permission to search the property, and her brother was involved in a shooting incident earlier today.’
Bryant’s eyes were wide.
‘Exactly that,’ she exclaimed, pointing to his face. ‘That’s exactly what I’m not getting from Travis.’
‘And with all that you’re home and showered before half seven?’
‘Precisely,’ she said.
Armed with so much information, her team would have been investigating, researching, prodding and probing until either they or the options available to them were exhausted.
‘Oh, and I get the feeling there’s no love lost between the Cowley family and the Preece family who own the land.’
‘Bloody hell, Kim. It’s even got me excited. Are you sure you can’t wrestle this case away from West Mercia?’
Kim had thought it a hundred times. If only she’d had a pound for every time she’d been tempted to call Stacey or wished that Bryant was in the car beside her.
Only her respect for her boss had stopped her.
‘I gave Woody my word that I would try to make it work,’ she said.
He nodded his understanding. ‘Must be killing you not being in total control, though,’ he said, with mild amusement.
‘You have no idea. Anyway, enough about me. How are the kids? You and Dawson bonding?’
‘Oh yeah, he’s coming for a sleepover at the weekend,’ he offered, drolly.
‘How about Stacey?’
‘What do you think?’
Yeah, Kim had thought as much. Stacey was a detective that worked better under pressure. When pushed, her brain created magical friction that transferred to her fingers.
‘Can’t you two involve her more?’ she asked.
Bryant sipped his coffee. ‘Trying to but we need to give her a starting point and we haven’t got that yet.’
‘I heard that Henryk guy was beaten pretty bad,’ she said.
Bryant nodded. ‘His family has been threatened. Wife and three young children. Text messages are beyond vile and clearly from a total sicko. There have been threatening letters, vandalism and insults scratched into their door.’
‘Is the family safe?’ she asked.
He coloured slightly. ‘Yeah, they’re safe,’ he said, pushing himself off the stool. ‘Anyways, I’d better…’
‘What have you done?’ she asked. ‘I know that look.’
Bryant shook his head, and started to back away.
She joined the dots together. A woman on her own with young children, receiving vile and violent threats and a husband incapacitated in hospital.
‘They’re at your house, aren’t they?’
‘On the basis of plausible deniability for you, I’m going to choose not to answer that.’
He didn’t need to. She was tempted to remind him of protocols and rules and witness distance, but that would have been hypocritical and it wouldn’t have changed a thing. Nothing Kim said about his career would have trumped children in danger.
‘Just be careful,’ she warned.
‘Of course,’ he said, as he got to the door.