Page 55 of Little Children

The atmosphere in the room was charged.

Kim was guessing she wasn’t popular with any members of the local team right now and that was okay with her. As long as the rest of her team remained open and approachable, there was a chance they could finish what they’d come here to do.

‘Right, let’s call it a night,’ Red said as Iris walked in with her vacuum cleaner. ‘Temperatures are way too high. Dickinson is stopping by the Reids on the way home, and we’ll debrief about Noah first thing. I’ll consider your suggestion that the cases are linked, but for now I need to go and ask uniforms to keep an eye out for Kevin Stevens.’

‘Mind if Penn tags along to the Reids’?’ Kim shot out. ‘He’s very good with families.’

Red hesitated before shrugging. Good, she’d hoped he was done battling for one night. And it would be useful for one of her team to get a read on the other family while spending some time with one of the quietest members of the home team.

Dickinson stood, and Penn took his cue, following the Blackpool detective constable out the door.

The rest of the local team filed out with silence and dark looks.

* * *

‘And the Miss Congeniality award once more goes to Detective Inspector Stone,’ Bryant said, once they were alone. ‘What I don’t get is why you should have all the fun?’

‘Perks of the job,’ she said, checking the time on her watch. ‘Okay, guys, nothing more we can do until they let us into Noah’s case tomorrow. Back to the hotel, get a good meal and a good night’s sleep. The only question I’ve got left is what happened in the kitchen, Bryant?’

‘Crime scene photos on his phone. Young female, raped and murdered.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Stacey said, shaking her head.

Bryant was struggling to speak in full sentences, as though he wanted the filthy words out of his mouth as quickly as possible.

‘He didn’t even know her fucking name,’ he said as his voice rose. ‘What kind of man, never mind police officer, attends the scene of a girl raped and murdered and can’t even remember her fucking name?’

Stacey was busying herself with something on her screen. No one liked it when Bryant lost control of his anger.

‘Bryant, calm?—’

‘No offence, guv, but being told to calm down has never induced someone to actually calm down.’

Kim showed no reaction, but his language and his tone told her he was having an extreme reaction to Moss. Completely understandable, especially as he was father to a daughter himself.

She agreed that Moss’s actions were beyond despicable. No victim or their family deserved that kind of indignity. But if it was a single incident, it wasn’t going to get him thrown off the force, and that was exactly what they needed to do.

‘Stace, head down to the car,’ Kim instructed.

Stacey gathered her belongings in record time. Kim only spoke again once she’d left the room.

‘Bryant, if you haven’t got the stomach for this, tell me now. I won’t judge you, and I’ll send you back down to our patch.’

He didn’t answer immediately, and when he did it was barely more than a whisper.

‘Let me sleep on it, guv. You’ll have my answer in the morning,’ he said, heading towards the door.

She followed him silently down to the car.

She could ask no more of him than that.

Thirty-Three

Kevin backed into the shadows as the detectives who had visited his house a few times left the building. Even though they couldn’t see him, his heart was beating hard in his chest. He was sure they knew he was there.

He’d turned off his phone. His mum and Bobby had been blowing it up, wanting to know where he was.

He was making them nervous because he knew everything.