Page 29 of Deadly Cry

‘And then?’

‘He was gone. I was lying in some fucker’s flowerbed trying to find the strength to move.’

The second cigarette, barely smoked, was ground into the ashtray.

Stacey hated prolonging the woman’s pain, but she had to be sure.

‘Was he tender with you at any time?’ Stacey asked, hating the words as they came out her mouth, but needing to say them anyway.

Gemma’s eyes widened. ‘You are fucking joking?’

Stacey shook her head.

‘Did anything I just say sound as though he was being tender? Five stitches down there and a game of noughts and crosses on my arse?’

Stacey could feel the woman’s rage rising, and she was sorry she was the cause of it, but she didn’t want to leave with questions still in her mind.

‘I’m really sorry to push you, Gemma, but was there anything at all that he did to suggest that he didn’t want to do what he was doing?’

Gemma stood. ‘Bitch; I don’t care who you are, you can get the fuck—’

‘Gemma, I’m not doubting your story. I know you were sexually assaulted and scarred for life and—’

‘And you’re trying to turn the bastard into some kind of poor, misguided soul. Not off the back of me you’re not. He was brutal, he was sadistic and appeared to enjoy every fucking minute of it. Now get the fuck out of my house.’

Stacey obliged, the nausea at the harm she’d caused swirling around her stomach, aggravating the pit that lived there and growing by the hour.

Twenty-Five

Kim was pleased to see that Stacey was in her seat by the time she returned from briefing Woody. Kim could also see the tension hunching her shoulders and decided to give her a minute to settle down.

‘Okay, Penn?’ Kim asked as Bryant handed out the drinks from the canteen. ‘Learn anything at the post-mortem?’

‘Keats is a knob.’

‘Anything I didn’t already know?’ she asked. This was not news to anyone.

‘But a bloody good pathologist,’ Bryant defended, seeing as he’d been in a bromance with the guy for years.

‘Also, true,’ Kim admitted. The latter being the reason he got away with the former.

‘Nothing we weren’t expecting about the cause or manner of death. But…’

‘Go on,’ Kim urged.

‘There were scratches on her wrist.’

‘Caused during the struggle?’ Kim asked. She could certainly see how that could happen.

Penn shook his head.

‘Inflicted after death. I’ve enlarged the photo and put it up,’ he said, pointing to the wipe board. ‘No evidence of bleeding, so the heart had stopped.’

Kim took a closer look. It wasn’t a symbol or anything legible, just a collection of scratches.

‘Hmm… okay,’ she said, stepping back to the spare desk. She picked up the post as Penn continued.

‘Been through the CCTV and there is nothing out of the ordinary. Katrina changed things up a bit and went to the ball park first, but she went everywhere she told her husband she was going. Boss, I just want to say one thing.’