Page 89 of First Blood

Kim tried to fight her growing dislike for Curt Wickes but there was something lazily aggressive in his posture as he threw himself down into the other metal seat opposite.

‘So, Curt, I assume you know that Hayley Smart has been murdered.’

He shrugged. ‘Yeah, we all know.’

‘Did you know her well?’

He shook his head immediately.

‘Don’t really know any of the ladies here very well. We’re not encouraged to be too friendly with the residents for obvious reasons.’

‘Which are?’

He shrugged. ‘You know. They’ve all had bad experiences with men either beating them up, abusing them or the kids. We come in, follow our work sheet and go home again. Mind our own business and get on with the job.’

From what she’d seen on camera his brother Carl didn’t take the guidelines quite as seriously. It had taken him an awfully long time to change a plug.

‘You worked for the shelter for long?’

‘Two years and seven months. Since we qualified as electricians and started up our own business.’

‘How’d it come about?’ she asked.

‘Marianne gave us a chance to prove ourselves. She’s a generous woman.’

Kim didn’t doubt it. Not one person that she could think of had done more for abused women in the area.

‘You work at all the shelters?’

He nodded.

‘Anywhere else?’ she asked.

‘Not too much. We’re kept pretty busy by Marianne. Always something that needs doing, decorating a room, electrical problems, shelving, well everything really.’

Kim couldn’t help herself thinking that was an awful lot of vulnerable women these guys had access to.

‘Did you ever notice anything particular about Hayley? Any good friends or particular enemies. I mean surely not all the women here get on.’

He looked up and to the left.

‘To be honest I don’t remember her having any of either. I just don’t know what to tell you. I don’t mean to be rude but she wasn’t all that memorable. She came for a few months and left again, like all the rest of them.’

Kim found that hard to believe bearing in mind the birthmark which immediately made her hard to forget.

‘So, there were no incidents here with her at all?’

Another shrug and a shake of the head.

‘I was told that Luke Fenton turned up here one day; made a bit of a nuisance of himself and that you went outside to check that he’d gone.’

‘Nah, not me. Must have been Carl.’

As her phone began to ring Kim had the distinct feeling she was talking to the wrong brother.

Chapter Eighty-Two

‘What the hell was that all about?’ Bryant asked.