Page 76 of First Blood

‘Of course,’ she said, as though it was a no-brainer. ‘She’s a child. A sad, damaged, confused child. None of this is her fault. Whatever’s happened to her is not…’

‘And do you know what’s happened to her?’ Kim asked, remembering the photos on Fenton’s computer.

‘We have a good idea and there are many reasons to hate her mother except one.’

‘Many reasons?’

‘Not taking proper care of her, allowing her to fall behind, moving her from one unstable situation to another. I’m sorry she’s dead but I can’t forgive her for what she’s done to this child.’

Kim heard the emotion gathering in her throat.

Regardless, Kim felt she had to give it another shot.

‘But, Mrs Roberts, Mia might be able to help—’

‘Last night, Inspector, out of nowhere Mia walked over to me, silently, and got onto my lap. She said nothing and stayed only for a few minutes, but if that child is beginning to put even an ounce of trust in me to protect her, there is not one thing you can say to convince me to let you anywhere near her. You are not what she needs right now and that is my one and only priority.’

Kim knew this battle was lost. The woman could not have been more protective if Mia had been her own child. Another pang shot through her. She had known this kind of love, for a short time, but she had known it.

Kim knew there was nothing she could say that would convince her to change her mind.

But she suddenly remembered something Mrs Roberts had said earlier.

‘You said there were many reasons to hate Hayley Smart except for one. What did you mean?’

‘That the woman had finally had the good grace to do the right thing.’

‘Which was?’

‘This time she had given Mia up for good.’

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Stacey had made a mental list for interrogating the phone of Hayley Smart. First, she would tackle the call register, then the text messages and then look for any deleted data.

But first she took a moment to absorb her current surroundings and situation. She could almost feel guilty for calling what she was doing work, when she was feeling for the first time in her life that she’d found her purpose.

Not that she’d hand back her pay at the end of the month. She had bills to pay like everyone else, but right now she was contributing towards the efforts to find a serial killer and she couldn’t help feeling she was finally where she was meant to be.

Yeah, it got a bit quiet and lonely in the office sometimes but she was beginning to realise this was where her skill-set lay.

She felt immensely proud that the boss had seen fit to trust her with Hayley’s phone instead of sending it to the lab and they were only on day three.

She rolled her eyes and decided it was time to stop congratulating herself, but oh, if those girls that had called her names and bullied her throughout her school years could see her now.

Enough, she told herself as she began to scroll through the actual contact list, which was painfully short.

Stacey had few friends but her contact list at least held a few friends and family.

There was a contact for ‘school’, ‘Pro Officer’ and ‘Taxi’.

She moved straight on to the call register and was surprised to see that pretty much every call Hayley had received in the last few weeks had been missed and very few people had been called.

‘Where the hell were you, Hayley?’ she said out loud. ‘And why day yer want to speak?’

Stacey knew that the only way to find anything out was to start calling these numbers and try to find out who they were. She hoped the boss wasn’t expecting a quick result on this one.

She decided to start with the number that had called Hayley the most, but as she reached for the phone her eyes caught one of the numbers further down the list. It was a number she had seen before.