Page 103 of Killing Mind

‘Sounds great,’ Tiff said, reaching for the clothes which she was not surprised to see were her size.

‘You weren’t talking to her, were you?’ Brit asked quietly.

Tiff stiffened. She could only be talking about one person.

‘Who?’ she asked, turning to her friend.

‘That police officer.’

Tiffany frowned. ‘You were there. She barely looked my way; never even spoke to me, bloody rude and…’

‘I mean afterwards, in the ladies’ toilets.’

Tiff continued to stare at her.

‘She was in there too,’ Brit continued.

So, Britney had seen them both leave the toilets. Damn it. Her only option was outright lying.

‘Brit, I didn’t even know she was in there but if I had what exactly would I have said?’

Brit shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe bad things about Jake and the—’

‘Hang on, you think I’d bad-mouth a place and people that have taken me in when I needed it, fed me, clothed me and made me feel good about myself?’

Tiff saw the tension start to drop from her face and tried to drive the point home.

‘If she’s after negative stuff she’s not gonna get it from me,’ Tiff said, nudging Brit in the ribs.

Britney laughed as she nudged her back.

‘So, you definitely didn’t speak to her?’

Tiff rolled her eyes.

‘Brit, I swear to you, I didn’t speak to anyone.’

Britney smiled widely back at her, and Tiff swallowed the guilt she now felt for lying to her friend.

Eighty-Three

‘Okay, folks, so we now know that Sheila Thorpe is alive and well and cooking up a storm at Unity Farm,’ Kim said to two thirds of her team; but by the looks of Stacey’s frown she hadn’t got the full attention of her reduced audience.

Bryant had dropped her at the door before heading over to Worcester. He had updated her on the developments with Peter Drake and for his own sanity she wanted him to see this thing out.

‘Do you mind if I go and tell Sheila’s daughter?’ Penn asked.

Kim briefly wondered if the woman would be relieved or dismayed to learn about her mother. But she deserved to know the truth.

‘Yeah, and if Stacey would like to join us in the conversation…’

‘Sorry, boss, but I was just checking a land registry entry, and I can now confirm that Unity Farm is definitely not Jake Black’s first cult.’

‘What?’ Kim asked, surprised. She’d never considered the possibility.

‘It was something Penny Hicks said in her message. She said she’d been with Jake for twelve years, and we know that Unity Farm has only been going for ten years. Turns out he started a group when he was twenty-eight years old. It was a religious group with only about twenty members. They clubbed together to buy a small holding in Somerset. Everything was fine until an eighteen-year-old kid named Graham Deavers died under suspicious circumstances when he fell off a roof, while doing repair work. The authorities weren’t convinced but could find no proof of murder. An accidental death was recorded by the coroner. Five months later there was a second death. A man in his late twenties named Christopher Brook committed suicide. Twenty people attested to the fact he’d been depressed and had spoken of ending his own life.’

‘Which could be true,’ Kim said, trying to remain objective.