Page 111 of Twisted Lies

‘Didn’t have you down as a dog person, Stone.’

‘Ditto, sir.’

‘Before we proceed, we are contacting Leanne to make her aware of the danger.’

She nodded. His job not hers, although Kim had tried to make a quick call to her as they’d travelled away from Sarah Lessiter’s home. She hadn’t received an answer but she hadn’t expected one. She’d left a message despite the fact they couldn’t stand the sight of each other. The woman had rushed out of the office almost five hours ago, taking her secrets with her. Secrets Kim hoped she was going to learn right now.

‘I know I don’t have to remind you of the sensitivity and secrecy of—’

‘You’re right, sir, you don’t.’

‘Let me preface this by stating that Leanne is a very good protection officer. She has nerves of steel and takes her work very seriously. She is one of our best.’

Kim nodded her understanding. She wasn’t interviewing the woman for a job.

‘Leanne, or Karen as she was back then, was assigned to Boy X,’ he said, as though that was enough.

Kim frowned and shook her head.

‘Nineteen years ago, the canal tunnel murder in Wakefield.’

She nodded as the memories came back to her.

Boy X had been a thirteen-year-old boy who had abducted a girl aged seven from a play centre. He had raped, tortured and mutilated the little girl, who had eventually died of blood loss from her wounds.

‘A little girl named Emily.’

‘Let me finish. It was dubbed the most horrific murder Wakefield had ever seen. The injuries sustained to that poor little girl were enough to make grown men cry, and it did. Officers wept openly at the damage inflicted on her body. There were burn marks; joint dislocations; skin peeled from her flesh; insects and rodents had feasted on her. Two of the attending officers left the force within a month, and a third eventually had a full-on nervous breakdown.’

It was a state Kim could empathise with. No crime scene could be rewound.

‘Boy X was caught within twenty-four hours of the body being found. He bragged about it to his friend, who didn’t believe him until he showed him the pink sock missing from her body. Terrified by what he’d heard, the friend told his mother, who called the police immediately.’

The superintendent took a deep breath.

‘Although he was tried as an adult, Boy X never saw the inside of a real prison. Well, not then anyway. He was incarcerated in a youth offenders facility, where he learned certain lessons slowly.’

‘What kind of lessons?’ Kim asked.

‘That you don’t tell the truth about being beaten up by other kids. In fact, you just get it worse. My understanding is that in his first seven months, he was beaten nine times and the officers were hardly rushing to get in front of him.’

Kim realised that her empathy muscle appeared to have taken the day off.

Wexford continued. ‘He was free before his eighteenth birthday. There was no question he had to be admitted to the witness protection programme under the conditions of a select few, most of whom you know about. Obviously, the public outcry against him was a threat to his life. He was placed in the West Midlands, and he got a job. Eventually he married but divulged nothing of his past to his wife. Leanne took over his protection eight years ago when his protection officer retired.

‘There was friction immediately. He’d had the same PO for years, had reached the point where he treated the officer as staff. Gerald was nearing retirement and wasn’t as attentive as he might have been. He wanted to charter a smooth sailing lane to his retirement date.’

Kim could imagine the shock Boy X had felt in getting Leanne, and not one ounce of her felt sorry for him.

‘They clashed. He requested another officer, we refused and they ambled along for about nine months, until Leanne did her first audit.’ He paused. ‘Officers are required to carry out—’

‘I know,’ Kim interrupted. Mona had told her already.

‘Leanne did the usual: followed him to work, lunchtime, etc., and all was good until he left work early. He drove fifteen miles out of his way to a primary school in Stourport. He sat in his car for twenty minutes watching and photographing little girls.’

‘Shit,’ Kim said.

‘Exactly. It was enough for her to seize his computer. The images she found were sickening, beyond anything we’ve seen before. Always involving little girls and always involving violence.’