Page 138 of Killing Mind
‘Well, she doesn’t need to be scared any more. He’ll never see the light of day again.’
‘Thank God,’ Damon breathed into the hands that covered his face.
‘Be prepared for a serious bollocking at the station but just tell them the truth. They’re expecting it.’
Bryant looked at the empty space.
‘And then it’s time to go and fetch Tina home.’
Damon Crossley stood and offered his hand.
‘You’re all right you,’ he said. ‘Not like the other bastards.’
That was high praise indeed.
The decision he’d made would always stick in his craw. He’d stepped into the grey area of justice and he consoled himself that for everyone around him he’d done the right thing.
And for him that would have to do.
One Hundred Thirteen
Kim had found herself thinking about Britney long after she’d charged her with the murder of her father, Tyler Short, Samantha Brown and Jake Black.
Britney had waived the right to legal counsel during questioning, and Kim had felt like insisting, but that wasn’t her place. She surmised that the girl wouldn’t trust anyone who was appointed to represent her. Everyone was a stranger, a zombie, and zombies weren’t to be trusted. Britney had looked so much younger, sitting across from her in the interview room as she had freely added detail to her crimes.
She explained how her father had reached out to her and it was only once she met him at Himley Park that the rage overtook her and she pushed him into the water and held him down. Seeing him again had brought back the abandonment of both her mother and her father, the loneliness, the despair she had felt as a child. Feelings she’d buried for years while she simply survived. Kim had compared Britney’s rage to the man’s slight build and understood how she had physically outmatched him.
She had recited how easy it had been to get to Samantha with a housewarming gift. Her old friend had pretended to be pleased to see her. But she’d known it was just an act. Jake had explained that Sammy was just another person who had used her and then left her. They had talked and laughed and caught up, and Britney had persuaded Sammy to lie on the bed for a foot massage, something they’d done for each other after a long day standing on the college car park. Once Sammy’s eyes had closed she had taken the knife and slit her throat.
Tyler had been easy enough to find. Britney knew from their time together that before he’d followed Sammy to Unity Farm he’d cadged the occasional free meal from the Subway in Dudley. He’d left the Farm with no money and no place to live. She’d only had to wait a couple of days before he showed up. She’d persuaded him to meet her at the lake to talk. At first she’d tried to coax him to return, but he’d refused and in doing so had sealed his own fate. She’d admitted to borrowing Sheila’s shoes that day, as was the culture at Unity Farm, after her own had become sodden in a thunderstorm the day before.
Britney would now be living in a prison cell, though Kim couldn’t help feeling that she really needed to spend some time with Kane. How the hell could she unravel all this on her own? Had she really seen Jake for what he was before she’d killed him? If so, how would she come to terms with that? Had it been a momentary lapse of anger that she would later regret when he returned to the godlike status in her mind? Same question. How would she come to terms with the fact she was responsible for the death of her idol?
There had been no joy in the process of charging her. Kim had even lacked the sense of achievement she normally felt. She only knew that she had done her job. In an ideal world, she would hate every person she put away; she would despise them and never think of them again.
But that wasn’t the case with Britney Murray. The girl had been damaged at an early age, which had prompted her to look for a place to belong, a group of people that would not let her down. But they had let her down. Jake Black had used her to punish people he felt had wronged him. He had massaged her insecurities and her weaknesses until she was powerless to resist his subtle guidance. She had believed him when he said he’d never instructed her to kill anyone. He hadn’t needed to but she had no doubt that the man himself was just as much to blame as Britney. He was dead and they would never prove it. Her case would be for the prosecution, but she hoped her defence lawyer called someone like Kane Drummond to testify.
Kim looked down at her hands. Three showers later she could still feel the warm stickiness of Jake Black’s blood on her hands. Although she had tried her hardest to save him there was not one bone in her body that was sorry he was dead. She knew they would have struggled to link him directly to the crimes, and he would have remained free to continue the shaping and warping of young minds.
There would be further questioning at Unity Farm but as Kim saw it no serious offences had been committed by anyone else there. She knew of no accomplices, there were no accessories and it appeared that no one was being held there by force. Hilda would be informed about Britney’s true motivations and efforts would be made to uncover any other elderly, vulnerable targets of the Farm. Recent events had catapulted Unity Farm from obscurity and into her cross hairs. From this point on they would be watched closely. She understood that Lorna had taken over the day-to-day running of the Farm while they all came to terms with Britney’s crimes and Jake’s death.
Penn had received a call from Josie to say that her mother had returned safe and well and after emotional apologies on both sides they had simply fallen into each other’s arms and cried. Maybe that’s all some of the folks at Unity Farm needed, a reminder of the people who loved them. If Kane intended to continue his current business, he would need to recruit someone else for the informant role.
She had called him late the previous evening, once Britney was in custody, to update him. Although he’d said little she could sense the sadness for the girl stretching along the line between them. He had shown no such sadness for the demise of Jake Black and she had understood why.
‘Graham Deavers was your brother, wasn’t he?’ she’d asked, gently.
Stacey had made the connection when she’d come face to face with Kane for the first time in the warehouse.
‘Half,’ Kane answered.
‘That’s why you know so much about cults. Did Graham want to leave?’
Kim knew the silence was filled with his indecision in opening up to her.
‘Graham was one of the group’s beggars,’ Kane said, surprising her. ‘He’d dropped out of school and was unskilled but still useful. He was an inexpensive body that survived on rice and beans and was sent out every day to beg as much money as he could. The only advantage was that it meant I could get to him. I could see him. While I was learning about how cults work I was talking to him, almost daily. He was starting to believe me.’
‘Until?’ Kim asked, feeling her breath gather in her chest even though she knew the outcome to this story.
