Page 124 of Child's Play

‘Bryant, I think we just found our trigger.’

‘Slow down, guv, that’s a bit of a…’

‘Bryant, it’s too coincidental that Ryan Robinson took his own life around the time of our first murder. I’m sure it’s the trigger but I just don’t know what it was that was triggered,’ she said, tapping her phone absently. ‘Unless… oh shit…’

‘Oh no, where’s that mind of yours going now?’ he asked with dread in his voice.

Kim thought back over what she’d learned so far that day, initially from Veronica, from Ellie and indirectly from the dead boy.

‘Bryant, if you don’t like bad language, I’d cover your ears now.’

‘Why, who is gonna get it?’

‘It’s not going to be me that’s doing the swearing,’ she answered, scrolling down her contacts list.

‘Hey Stace,’ she said, grimacing. Bryant turned to listen with interest.

‘How’s it going with narrowing down the kids that came into contact with all of our victims?’

‘What do you need, boss?’ Stacey asked, perceptively. ‘Cos you only check on my progress with a task if you’re about to say something to throw a spanner in my works.’

Kim allowed the smile on to her face. ‘Yeah, well about that. I’m gonna need another list.’

‘Other than any kids that could have known all victims?’

Kim prepared to hold the phone away as Bryant looked on with amusement.

‘Yeah, I want to know which ones had brothers and sisters.’

Ninety-Two

‘Go on up,’ Kim said as they entered the hotel foyer.

‘Cannon fodder?’ Bryant asked. ‘You know Stacey’s gonna be raging.’

‘Tink will protect you,’ she said, heading for the café bar.

In truth she wanted just a few minutes to herself. She felt as though she hadn’t been in her own company for days.

She also knew that Bryant couldn’t understand her niggling feeling about the tutor she’d spoken to earlier. The scar, her guardedness, her deflection of any questions that even remotely bordered on personal.

Snippets of their earlier conversation kept flashing through her mind. But nothing more so than the woman herself. There was an aloofness there that hid a warmth that she didn’t want shown. She possessed the gift of sarcasm, which Kim appreciated, but there was a sense of caution draped around her that belied the person inside. And why the hell had she been private tutoring at such a young age?

She took a seat at the edge of the café area, fired up Google and entered the name ‘Ellie Lewis’. She scrolled down through nothing of interest.

‘Ah, hang on,’ she said out loud.

Three heads at the next table turned towards her.

She ignored them and retyped the name. Ellie was normally short for Eleanor. She tried the search again and Google offered her more than ten thousand results.

Her mouth dropped further open the more she read.

Eleanor Lewis had graduated from teaching college when she was twenty-four years old. A year later she’d found herself teaching English Language to teenagers in a particularly run-down area of Staffordshire. One evening when she was leaving she was jumped by three students who raped her, cut her face and left her for dead.

The horror in Kim’s stomach grew as she read each article. The assault, the recovery, the court case. It was all covered in minute, sordid detail.

It was no surprise that she’d been unable to return to the education system and now used her skills to tutor privately. One-on-one. Safe.