Page 88 of Silent Scream

Cerys shook her head and turned away.

Kim appreciated the woman’s tenacity. She accepted that her own drive grew from something more than the need to solve this case. Try as she might to convince herself that it was no different; it was. She knew the pain of these girls’ past. Not one of them had woken up one day and chosen the future mapped out for them. Their behaviour could not be traced back to an absolute year, month, day and time. It was a progressive journey of peaks and troughs until circumstances eventually stifled hope.

It was never the big things. Kim remembered only ever being called 'child'. All of them had been called 'child' so the staff didn't have to remember their names.

Kim understood that her own motivation came out of a need to seek justice for these forgotten kids; that her pace would not slow until she had.

And she appreciated anyone that tried to keep up with her.

‘Hey,’ Kim said, as she reached the exit. ‘Thanks.’

Cerys smiled.

Kim headed to the utility tent. Daniel had his back to her but she could see that he and two others were busy labelling plastic bags.

‘Hey, Doc, what you got?’

‘What – no insults, no abuse?’

‘Look, I’m tired but I’m sure I could muster ...’

‘No, it’s fine. Today I could live without it.’

Kim noted that the doctor was more sullen than usual. His shoulders were slightly hunched as he sealed the plastic bag containing the skull. White strips of tape bearing black marker pen listed the site and the bone within.

His assistant reached for the lid to the storage box but Daniel shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

Kim was confused. She’d seen bodies packed before with the heaviest bones at the bottom of the box and ascending so that the lighter, more fragile bones lay at the top.

Normally the skull was the last item to be packed.

She stood beside him as he reached for a container the size of a sandwich box, already lined with tissue paper. A collection of small bones was piled to the far right of the table. His hand trembled slightly.

‘Adult or non-adult?’ Kim asked.

‘Definitely non-adult. I can’t give you any idea of how she died at the moment. On first inspection there are no obvious areas of trauma to her body.’

His voice was quiet and controlled.

Kim was momentarily confused. ‘Hang on, Doc. Because our first victim was juvenile I couldn’t threaten you into sexing it but all of a sudden you’re referring to this one as a female before you’ve even taken the bones back to the lab?’

He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘That’s right. I have no hesitation in sexing victim number two, Detective.’ He looked back at the sandwich box.

‘Because this young lady was pregnant.’

Forty-Four

‘What a bloody day,’ Bryant said, parking the car at the rear of the station. They were the first words spoken since leaving the site. ‘Dawson was pretty quiet up there.’

‘Are you surprised?’

Dawson had been unable to take his eyes from the small container until the bones were loaded into the larger box, beside the bones of the mother.

‘Get off home, Bryant. I’ll go see Woody and then I’ll be heading home myself.’

It was just after seven and they were entering the thirteenth hour of the sixth working day. Bryant would keep at it right beside her. But he had a family. She did not.

Her last burst of energy was used as she mounted the steps to the third floor. She knocked and waited.