Page 89 of Stolen Ones

Stacey watched the girl for any signs of isolation, sadness, of Grace appearing withdrawn or uncomfortable. She saw nothing as the girl bobbed around amongst her peers.

Stacey continued to watch her until the moment they were allowed to resume normal activities. Grace stepped out of the shadow of the shed and into the sunlight as she headed back to the planting spot out of sight.

Stacey’s smile turned to a frown as she rewound the footage by just ten seconds to where Grace stepped out of the shade and into the sun.

She watched it again and the frown stayed on her face.

‘What’s up?’ Alison asked from across the room.

‘Maybe nothing but give me a minute. There’s something I need to check.’

Stacey went back to the first file of footage to see if her suspicion was correct.

Fifty-Three

‘Wait here,’ Kim said as Bryant parked the car in front of an end terrace less than a mile away from The Dog in Tipton. Gum’s registered address was within staggering distance of his favourite watering hole.

The exterior of the property appeared to be a visual representation of the man himself: neglected, worn out, unkempt, derelict. No one else needed to see what his life had become.

Bryant took no offence as he undid his seat belt and sat back in his chair.

She got out of the car and waded through the weeds and moss-covered path to get to the house. Four bin liners of rubbish were attracting a colony of flies outside his front door. The stench was overpowering.

She knocked the door, already wondering if she really wanted to enter, but those thoughts were pushed aside by the knowledge that this man had once been a great detective and many families owed him for achieving justice on their behalf.

‘What the fuck do you want?’ he asked, opening the door.

‘A minute of your time,’ she said, keeping his arrest and conviction record in her mind.

‘You can buy it at The Dog at seveno’clock,’ he said, attempting to close the door, but her foot was already in the way.

‘Just a minute, Gum – that’s all I want.’

He swore and stepped aside. His foot brushed another bin liner that was waiting to be put outside.

‘Some little shit has nicked my wheelie bin again, and the council won’t collect black bags anymore.’ He shook his head as Kim walked past the bag that was starting to smell as bad as its buddies just outside the front door.

He guided her into the kitchen and picked up a can of beer from a collection on the kitchen work surface. He’d brought her into a room where there was nowhere to sit, and she wasn’t sure she would have wanted to anyway. The smell in the kitchen was a mixture of old frying fat and alcohol.

‘I remember when we had real bin men, the ones that picked up your tin bin, chucked it over their shoulder and tossed the contents into the back of the truck before putting it back outside your front door.’

‘Gum, why did you question Jenson Butler in connection with Melody’s disappearance?’

‘Because we knew him?’ he answered quickly, with no pauses for recollection. Despite the abuse to his body, his brain was still sharp, and it appeared that every memory associated with Melody’s disappearance was still fresh in his mind.

She leaned back against the countertop and folded her arms. ‘How?’

He swigged the last of his budget beer and tossed the can towards the bin. It missed. He reached behind and opened another.

‘One of my first jobs as a detective back in ’89 was to take the statement of a girl and her parents claiming she’d been raped by Jenson Butler.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ she asked.

‘Her name was Sylvie and she was thirteen years old.’

‘Oh, shit,’ she said, pushing her hands into her pockets.

‘Obviously, he claimed it was consensual, and they’d met after a pub crawl to celebrate something or other to do with his education.’