Page 32 of Child's Play
Twenty-Two
Kim knew what Bryant was going to say before he said it. She was only surprised he managed to keep it in until they were walking towards the morgue.
‘You saw Stacey, right? You know she’s miserable being sent home at five each night?’
Of course she’d seen her colleague. ‘It’s an adjustment period. She’ll get used to it. With all this extra time you’ll make new friends, too, take up cake decorating; now get off my back. There’s nothing I can do.’
‘And what time do you call this?’ Keats asked, as they entered the cold, sterile area.
‘Don’t even start,’ she advised.
‘Working half days, now?’
And of course, asking him to stop doing something only encouraged him more.
‘So, what you got?’ she asked, placing her hands onto the metal dish.
‘Hands off,’ he said, wrapping her knuckles with the ruler in his hand.
‘Oww,’ she said, rubbing at her hand.
‘I’ve just cleaned it,’ he said, reaching for his clipboard.
She looked to Bryant and silently asked him if that gave her permission to haul him over the dish by his lapels.
Bryant’s brief shake of the head said no.
As the ruler was still in his hands she placed her own into her pocket, not least to protect them from the ruler but also from tightening around the pathologist’s throat.
‘So, Belinda and I have been chatting some more and she seemed to have a little more to say. I can confirm that she was sexually active and—’
‘Blimey, Keats, how the devil do you deduce such a thing?’ Kim asked, wondering about the physicality of such a discovery.
‘Because of these,’ he said, placing a photo on the metal dish between them.
She looked down to see raised bobbles of pink skin.
‘Genital warts, Inspector,’ Keats explained. ‘HPV: human papillomavirus. These little terrors are sore, painful and very easily transferred by sexual contact.’
Kim took a moment to digest the information, trying to compute the image of the professional, educated middle-aged lady, well dressed, well presented, appearing to be highly sexed.
‘And that’s not all,’ he said, placing two more photographs on the table.
She reached out, placed them side by side and then shuffled them, unsure exactly what she was looking at.
‘Hands,’ Keats said, again cracking her fingers with the ruler.
‘Keats, I swear if you do that one more time, I’ll…’
‘What you’re seeing here,’ he said, pointing to the first photo with the ruler, ‘is a magnified image of the corners of Belinda’s mouth. Here,’ he said pointing to his own mouth where the lower lip met the upper lip. ‘There are minute tears to the skin on both sides. And this’, he said, turning the second photo around to face her, ‘is the imprint of a circle close to her ears on both sides, cleverly concealed with make-up.’
Kim shook her head.
‘A ball gag, Inspector. Commonly associated with sado-masochism. The ball is placed in the mouth and a leather strap is buckled around the back of the head.’
‘I still have no idea…’
‘Bryant, google it for her, will you?’
