Page 102 of Little Children

Bryant had told her about the dressing-down Roy had received from his boss for attending the crime scene, but what if Roy was doing his boss’s dirty work and it had all been a very convincing show for the crowd? If Red did have his finger in all these pies, it would explain why he’d blocked her at every turn.

Just the thought that their conversation with Jasmine had somehow contributed to her rape and murder was too awful to contemplate.

Her thoughts and her guilt were interrupted by the ringing of her phone.

‘Go ahead, Stace,’ Kim said, putting her on speaker.

‘Noah’s family had a break-in too, boss, just a few weeks ago. Mainly electronics taken from Noah’s room and a bit of jewellery. TV was too big to bother with.’

‘Shit, so that’s the link between the two families. Don’t tell me – Red and Roy attended?’

‘No, boss. Adil and Dickinson.’

‘Okay, thanks, Stace,’ Kim said, ending the call.

‘Guv, this is turning into a bit of a fish market,’ Bryant observed.

‘What?’

‘The deeper you go, the more it stinks.’

Kim didn’t disagree. Red’s name was cropping up all over the place. Even if the detective inspector hadn’t attended both incidents, he would have known about them as head of department. The focus of the incident report must have been on the boy’s belongings, so his name would have come up a lot. Another young boy in the right age range that had floated onto the radar.

With so much new information to make sense of, she remained silent until Bryant pulled up outside the morgue.

‘I’ll follow your lead,’ Kim said. Bryant had already met the pathologist twice.

Her colleague rang the bell, and a woman appeared wearing scrubs and a plastic apron.

Bryant showed his identification and introduced himself. ‘Any chance I could have a quick word with Mr Wade?’

She frowned. ‘He is rather busy. Would you like to…?’

‘Just a minute of his time would be helpful,’ he said assertively but maintaining his good manners. A skill that, despite all her time working with Bryant, she still hadn’t mastered. Instead, she was fighting the urge to physically remove this woman so Bryant could make a run for it.

The woman huffed but agreed to see if he was free.

They took the opportunity to inch further into the anteroom. Bryant took another step forward in time for the man in the next room to see him. The pathologist hesitated before nodding and removing his mask.

Richard Wade stepped into the room, removing his cap and making no effort to conceal his irritation.

‘Would someone like to tell me what’s going on over at that station? First, I’ve got Moss, then I get Crawford and now I get an officer that doesn’t even work here.’

‘Thanks for sparing me a minute,’ Bryant said, immediately taking the wind out of his sails. ‘This is my boss, DI Stone.’

The man nodded in her direction before turning his attention back to Bryant.

‘I know you’re not obliged to tell me, but was there some kind of major discovery during the post-mortem of Jasmine Swift?’

‘We did find something that we passed along.’

‘May I ask what it was?’

‘A hair. One single long blonde hair.’

‘And you passed this to?’

‘The person I thought was running the case at the time, Roy Moss, who seemed to know who it might belong to. I’m assuming he passed the information straight to Crawford.’