She took the rope from the carrier bag.
‘Okay, now do it like you’re going to hang yourself.’
He raised an eyebrow as he doubled the rope and placed it loosely around his neck.
She reached into the bag again. ‘Oh and put this on first.’
He took the knee brace from her and took a good look at it.
‘Right knee,’ she added.
He pulled the brace around his knee and pulled the Velcro strips tightly over the top of his trousers.
He approached the tree again, throwing out his right leg due to the sudden straightness of it.
As before he took a moment to plan his ascent. He raised his left leg first and then dragged his right leg up after it. He hit an immediate problem with there being not enough room on any of the stubs for both feet. He needed to place each foot higher than the other in a stepping-up motion.
He jumped down from the first stub and tried again but same problem. He tried for a third time by trying to jump and grab a branch to swing up, but to jump he needed to bend both knees.
He made his way back and stood beside her, scratching his head.
‘Don’t think I can do it with this brace on, boss. My leg won’t bend.’
‘Yes, Penn, my thoughts exactly,’ she said, heading back towards her bike.
ELEVEN
It was after 3p.m. when Kim pressed the buzzer on the doors to the morgue at Russells Hall Hospital.
Jimmy, Keats’s assistant, buzzed her in and greeted her with a smile. ‘Good to see you, Insp—’
‘Where is he?’ she asked, slamming her helmet on the work surface.
He pointed to the washroom where the pathologist usually prepared for the post-mortem procedure.
She stepped inside. The diminutive man was washing his hands at the metal sink.
‘Keats, what the hell were you thinking?’ she asked, placing her hands on her hips.
‘Well, just now I was thinking about how tranquil my life has been for the last two months and I was trying to find the reason why.’ He grabbed a towel and turned her way. ‘And the reason has just come to me.’
‘Funny, but have you seriously lost your mind?’
‘Not according to my last check-up but with you back in the picture it may be imminent.’
‘Jamie Mills did not take his own life, and how you could have agreed this with Burns is totally beyond me.’
He put down the towel and leaned against the counter. He folded his arms. ‘Please continue to shout at me as though we don’t have a long history of working together filled with mutual respect for each other’s skills and abilities, masked by a charade of sarcastic humour.’
Kim paused. That was the closest Keats had ever come to admitting a grudging respect for her.
Her anger turned to frustration.
‘He couldn’t have done it, Keats. He couldn’t even have climbed the bloody tree.’
‘I’ll take your revised tone as an apology, now follow me.’
He brushed past her and headed along the corridor to his office. He picked up a report and handed it to her.