Fiona protested again. Just as Kim’s phone began to ring.
Damn it, she’d been on the verge of getting something out of him. Now her momentum had been broken he would have time to recover.
‘Doctor A,’ she said, sharply.
‘Untwist your knickers, Inspector. I have something you might wanting to know.’
Kim excused herself and stepped back into the kitchen.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘I thought you should know that the bullet is a match,’ she said.
‘So the bullet from Billy Cowley’s neck definitely came from the gun at the scene?’ she clarified.
‘Absolutely not, Inspector. The bullet did not come from the gun at the scene.’
Kim was momentarily confused.
‘So what is a match?’
‘The bullet that came from Mr Cowley and the bullet that came from the grave.’
Kim gripped the phone harder. The incidents were almost three decades apart.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked.
‘I will try not to be insulted as I assume you ask me that out of shock.’
Kim apologised, thanked her and ended the call.
There was only one person who could have been present for both.
Kim strode back into the lounge and stood before Jeff Cowley.
‘Mr Cowley, I am arresting you for the murder of Jacob James and for the attempted murder of your son William Cowley. You do not—’
Fiona Cowley’s screams drowned out the rest of her words.
FIFTY-TWO
Stacey felt the disgust crawling all over her.
She had read Justin’s posts from six months ago. A few selfies, a couple of meal photos, Justin at a few pubs and clubs in Stourbridge.
And then the posts had begun to change.
The first few were from Britain First. Particular stories exploited from a sensationalist point of view. Stacey often saw these posts floating around her own Facebook timeline and tried to ignore them. And yet she still took note of the people who shared them.
A few of Justin’s friends began commenting about the ‘rubbish’ he was sharing.
Eventually, the comical clips from places like UNILAD died out altogether, and the posts from Britain First gave way to posts from the EDL and then onto posts so offensive to minority groups she could barely calm her stomach enough to read them.
But she had read on and by the time she reached the top of his feed, she saw the final post which had caused most of Justin’s friends to abuse him.
Justin had shared a video clip of a young mixed-race couple being terrorised and eventually beaten by a group of masked youths while their toddler had screamed and cried in the background. Stacey remembered seeing the clip on Crimewatch and the wails of the child had stayed with her for days. Justin’s header had stated ‘wish I’d been able to join in with this’.
That last offensive post had been placed on the twelfth, two weeks ago.
Something stirred in her stomach.
A date that had stuck in her mind.
She clicked back into his activity log and saw why the date had mattered.
It was on the twelfth that Floda had sent Justin a friend request.
Stacey had a sudden idea.
She grabbed her phone and set to work.
FIFTY-THREE
Kim watched as a West Mercia squad car left the Cowley property with Jeff Cowley on board.
‘Hopefully our time together is almost at an end,’ Travis said.
‘Do you think?’ she said, ruefully. ‘We don’t have a confession, and two bodies are not yet identified.’
She started the car and headed to the narrow track that led away from the property.
Fiona continued to watch her from the doorway.
Kim entered the main road traffic and drove slowly, before she pulled into a petrol station and killed the engine.
‘What the hell are we doing now?’ Travis asked.
‘Waiting,’ she said, simply.
She stared into her side mirror until the red Jaguar passed behind.
‘Bingo,’ she said, starting the engine. Fiona had wasted no time in leaving the family home.
‘I don’t get it,’ Travis said, as she pulled into traffic two cars behind Fiona. ‘She’s probably heading to the station to be near her dad or to the hospital to see her brother.’
‘Maybe,’ Kim replied, but Fiona Cowley was rattled. And people thought differently in heightened states of emotion. They took risks.
At every opportunity she had acted like a human gag around her father, attempting to silence every word. Any involvement or control from her was impossible now that Jeff was in police hands, but Kim was curious to know what the woman would do next.
‘You know this is some form of harassment, don’t you?’
‘Absolutely. But I still want to know where she’s going,’ Kim said, simply.
‘Yeah, I’m quite interested too,’ he admitted.
‘So, which one of them pulled the trigger on Jacob James?’ she asked as a third car pulled in behind Fiona. ‘Jeff or his father?’
‘We don’t know that either of them did.’
‘Tom, have you forgotten how police work is? You’re given dots and you have to join them up. Jacob James disappeared over twenty-seven years ago. His skeleton is found on Cowley land with a bullet hole and a bullet that matches the same one removed from Jeff’s son. You don’t think these dots are begging to be joined up?’
‘Not until we’ve got the gun that fired both bullets,’ he said.
‘But who else could it be?’ she asked.
‘The person that has the gun.’
Kim gave up. She wasn’t sure they could agree on the time of day even if they were smack bang in the centre of Greenwich.
‘Well, that’s the hospital out,’ Travis said as Fiona ignored the left turn that would have taken her towards Russells Hall.
‘Not too concerned about her dear brother, then?’ Kim observed.
Even Travis was watching the car intently now.
‘And we should have taken the first exit to head towards Kidderminster,’ Kim said as two cars exited left at the island.
Only a Land Rover Discovery separated them now.
They continued to follow Fiona in silence until she indicated a turn to the right.
Kim continued driving past.
‘Well, I wasn’t expecting that,’ she said, as the car disappeared from view.
FIFTY-FOUR
‘So what was that in there?’ Bryant asked, as he directed the car away from Hollytree. ‘You reacted to the scar that Aisha mentioned?’
Dawson shook his head. ‘Not sure yet. It might be something or nothing. Let me think on it.’
Bryant shrugged.
They saw the sign for club Nexus being erected as Dawson pulled in opposite a car dealership on the Hagley Road. Two vans were parked right outside the premises which had once been a high street bank.
‘Left, left, up, more,’ shouted a man wearing black trousers, purple polo neck jumper and high-visibility vest.
‘Nigel Townsend?’ Dawson asked as they approached.
The man turned and scrutinised them. It took just a second for him to register they were police officers.
He nodded and removed his hard hat, revealing thick black hair that tumbled down on to a handsome face.