Page 95 of Twisted Lies

‘Oh, come on, Stone. Don’t humour me. The frustrating part of the whole thing is that the jury was just dying to convict him the first time around, but the defence made such a thing about Trisha never reporting her injuries or asking for help. No sane person would look at her list of injuries and be convinced that she was that accident prone. If she’d have said only once to someone, somewhere that Nick had beaten her, I think the jury would have felt vindicated in offering a guilty verdict. Instead, they were blinded by the picture of Trisha living in a nice big house, buying nice clothes and jewellery, going on fancy holidays and—’

‘Hmm…’ Kim interrupted.

‘You’re gonna have to translate that hmm… Stone, I don’t know you well enough.’

‘I’m not the most experienced at this, but don’t folks act the same when they’re away?’

Frost stopped pacing. ‘You think he might have continued to beat her on holiday?’

‘A leopard doesn’t change his spots if you put him in a different cage.’

‘And you think Trisha Morley might have told the truth to a foreign doctor?’

Kim shrugged. ‘You never know. Maybe she felt safe enough to tell the truth to someone if she was miles away.’

‘Shit, you’re right. Messing with this stuff does help you think better. You got a computer I can use?’

Frost’s own laptop was in a hundred pieces back at her home.

‘By the side of the sofa.’

Frost rushed out and there was peace again.

She glanced at Barney. ‘There we go. That’s how w—’

She stopped speaking as her phone began to ring.

It was Mitch at almost eleven o’clock.

Shit.

‘Stone,’ she answered.

‘Inspector, I’m at the site of our last victim and I need you here. Now.’

Eighty-Two

Kim pulled up at the cordon at Wren’s Nest to find it buzzing with activity. Even Keats’s van was back in place. What the hell was going on? Last she’d heard from Penn, Mitch had been on his way to do a final inspection and close the site down.

As she headed along the path, illuminated by officers with torches, she spared a thought for her dog left in the hands of Frost, who had been instructed that she would face a slow and painful death if anything happened to Barney in her absence. The reporter’s assurances that he would be fine with Aunty Frost had done little to quell her trepidation.

‘What the hell, Mitch?’ she asked, reaching the now cleared site where Dean Mullins’s naked body had lain with a rat embedded in his stomach.

‘Follow me,’ he said gravely, treading a path that now looked well worn.

‘You wanna give me any kind of clue?’ she asked, following closely.

‘You’ll see for yourself in a minute.’

Kim could make out activity in the distance between the tree branches, but what the hell could Mitch have found so far from the crime scene?

His pace quickened as the collective torch beams threw more light their way.

‘Mitch, I swear, if you don’t give me some kind of clue I’m gonna—’

He stepped out of the way as they reached the area.

Keats glanced her way before stepping to the side.