She had explained to Eric that she was using the DNA sample provided to run against the DNA of Sarah Laing’s child. The news that Sarah had borne a child had stunned him into opening his mouth, leaving Kim in no doubt that it would come back a positive match. She had taken advantage of his confusion and had shot rapid-fire questions at him until he tripped himself up.
He blamed his sister for starting it all, and she blamed him. After silence came self-preservation. Eric wouldn’t admit to the rape of Sarah and there was no way they could prove it. Kim had her own thoughts on the subject, but as it was her opinion, she chose not to share it with Sarah’s parents. The child never needed to carry that baggage.
The hardest house call of the previous day had been to Liam Sachs’s wife, Monica, who hadn’t known a thing about his double life.
While cross-referencing the dates, they had found that Liam’s stay at the clinic had been at the same time he was supposed to have been on an unavoidable work trip around Asia. It had happened suddenly when their child was seven months old.
Monica understood that Liam had wanted to be the best husband and father he could be and that he had loved them both very much. Monica had collapsed with a mixture of grief and pride when Kim had explained that even during his last few minutes alive, he had tried to point them in the right direction. As Penn had spotted in the suicide note, Liam had used two capital letters where they shouldn’t have been. He’d capitalised a J and an E, trying to communicate that the killers were Jess and Eric.
Kim had asked Woody to get the legal team to look over the NDAs signed by the patients. She hoped they could find a way to break the imposed silence, so that every person who had spent time there was free to tell their story. She hoped that one day even John Dermot would be able to accept Jack’s story as his own, recover from that knowledge and find the strength to be the person he wanted to be.
Surprisingly, the person that had the biggest slice of her sympathy was Victor Gardner, a confused, broken man who had apologised to her in the police station reception the day before. She hadn’t known why he was sitting there: not one member of his family was going to be coming home any time soon. Bryant had called him a taxi just before midnight.
Her thoughts went to Celia and Megan. Oh, what a waste. They had killed to be together and then thrown it all away because Megan had missed her train. Celia had spent her whole life running away from what they’d done, and Megan had spent her life trying to make up for it. Both had offered a full confession. Without Megan’s help, they had called on every psychologist and counsellor they had worked with to offer support to the current patients at the clinic. The place had been closed, and Kim hoped it never opened again.
A full search had been conducted of the patients’ floor once the building was empty. There was one room at the end of the hallway, a guest suite not being used because of a plumbing problem. That was where they’d found the real chair used for aversion therapy as well as the restraints used for a multitude of treatment methods. Other equipment found had included leather belts and whips and bottles filled with noxious substances also used in the so-called aversion therapy. It appeared that even though they’d given nothing away during their guided tour, the family had decided to play it safe and the torture equipment had been removed within two hours of them leaving the premises. It was no surprise that they’d been so accommodating during the execution of the search warrant once they’d seen that patients’ quarters were out of bounds.
Her employee of the week had to go to Stacey. No question. Without her keen observation and intuition, Gabriel Denton would still be tied up on his cellar floor. Kim shuddered at the thought. Stacey had taken the liberty of ringing both Gabriel’s brother and his colleague. Wendy had arrived at the hospital within minutes, and although he’d not been able to say much due to an infection from the filthy gag, his eyes said he was pleased to see her.
Stacey had stayed with him long enough to see Craig arrive and to witness the emotional reunion that had taken place between them. Once he was out of hospital and had made his statement, he was going to Bristol to stay with his brother for a while.
And herself? Yes, the week had been exhausting, but it had also been exhilarating. She had been back amongst her team doing the job she loved. Of course she wasn’t fully recovered. She wasn’t that stupid. The fact had been made clear to her when Eric had tried to tie her up, but there was progress. She’d done as Frost suggested, although that admission would never leave her mouth. There was no improvement yet, but it was early days and she’d give it a fair chance.
There would be times when the ordeal came back to haunt her, but she had to start putting it behind her, which she would do once she’d spoken to the man who was currently parking his Astra Estate beside her Ninja.
He stepped out of the car and locked it.
She looked around the cemetery. ‘Who the bloody hell is gonna nick it?’
‘Habit,’ he said, coming to stand beside her. He nodded to the headstone. ‘Hey, Mikey, she been bending your ear again?’
‘Yep,’ she answered. ‘I talk to him. I tell him what a nightmare my partner is. And other stuff. I ask him one question every week.’
‘Tell me,’ he urged.
She took a breath. It wasn’t easy trusting another person with the innermost workings of her mind. She wouldn’t have shared with a therapist, definitely not Frost and not even Ted. Only her one true friend. ‘You’d think the nightmares would be about the pain, the beating, the fear, wouldn’t you?’ she asked him. ‘You’d think they’d be about Symes?’
‘Of course,’ Bryant answered. ‘I’d be surprised if that face didn’t haunt your dreams every night.’
‘Never. Not once has it been about Symes,’ Kim said, nodding towards Mikey’s grave. ‘It’s about him. I died, Bryant, and he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there,’ she said, looking away.
‘He will be,’ Bryant said firmly. ‘It wasn’t your time. If he’d been there, you would have gone towards him. He knows that, but it wasn’t your time. When it is your time, he’ll be there.’
‘Do you think so?’ she asked, wanting to believe him.
‘I absolutely think so but not yet. You’ve still got criminals to catch.’
Kim hoped he was right, and she was pleased to have finally said the words aloud, but that wasn’t why she’d asked him to meet her.
She moved away from the grave and stood at the back of his car.
‘Remember the other day when we stopped and had that chat in the lay-by?’
‘For the record, may I clarify that we’re talking about the time when you actually apologised to me?’
‘Yep, but don’t get too smug about it cos there was something I had to say that day as well but decided it could wait.’
‘Okay.’