Page 126 of Twisted Lies
Kim glanced out of her window of the Bowl at her team working at varying speeds with the promise of an afternoon off ahead of them. And by God how they deserved it.
Penn had promised Jasper a mammoth baking session to make up for the long hours he’d worked this week. Bryant had arranged to take Jenny for a surprise weekend away. Only Stacey seemed to be lagging behind with occasional glances her way.
Due to his injuries, Jacob wouldn’t be fit for questioning for a few days, but with police officers guarding his room and two broken legs, he wasn’t going anywhere.
Kim turned away from her team and looked out of the window. Despite the things he’d done, Kim couldn’t bring herself to hate Jacob Powell. She was confident that justice would prevail and that Jacob would never see the outside world again, but damn it, she understood his motivation. The pictures that had warped his mind of the suffering his cousin had endured were horrific. That in itself was bad enough to live with, but compounding the rage and inability to do anything about it had been the knowledge that the person responsible had suffered very little for what he’d done and was now even protected by the same people who had worked so hard to put him away.
Kim knew there was no room for him to offer an insanity plea. Each crime had taken intricate and diligent planning and faultless execution. His job as a supply teacher had enabled him to move around locations with the freedom of not being tied to one school.
A conversation with Anna Lennox had cleared up that it was Liam Docherty who had hastily left the school that day, resurfacing only to throw himself from the Stambermill Viaduct. Liam was prone to bouts of depression, but what no one knew, not even Anna, was that he’d made an anonymous complaint to the school board about Jacob’s seemingly unhealthy interest in one of his students: Tommy Phipps.
Kim surmised that when he’d seen them at the school, he’d assumed it was something to do with that and had fled.
Anna had also revealed that the argument she’d been having with Jacob outside the school had been about his unreliability. Leaving classes he’d been booked for and not turning up for others. Outside of work he’d been a very busy man.
Kim couldn’t help but wonder what might have been the outcome if Jacob had known that Leanne was the woman he’d been looking for when she collected the boys from school that day.
At that point, Leanne had still known the location of Boy X because he hadn’t yet been moved. Would she have cracked and told him? Would Sarah Lessiter still be alive? Would Dennis Burke have escaped the rack? Would Dean Mullins have avoided the rat torture? Would two other lives have been better than three?
It wasn’t for Kim to dwell on the quality of lives taken or spared, but one thing she did know was that Leanne King had done her job and she had done it well.
It was fair to say the two of them were never going to be friends, but Kim couldn’t ignore a grudging respect for the woman who worked as part of no team doing a job that she couldn’t really talk about. In some ways, she was in no better position than the people she protected. Only she did it by choice.
Her earlier enquires to the hospital had told her Leanne had already been transferred elsewhere. The force had moved her for her own protection. She knew that despite everything, Leanne would heal and move on to another family that needed her protection.
‘Boss?’ Penn said from the doorway, disturbing her thoughts.
‘Yep, if you’re done, get lost,’ she said with a nod towards the door.
He grabbed his coat and two carrier bags of cooking supplies from underneath his desk.
Her thoughts returned to the week they’d all had and inevitably the image of Frost popped into her mind.
Few people surprised her, but Frost certainly had over the last few days. Meeting the family of Trisha Morley had ignited a passion in the woman and unleashed her investigative skills in the right direction.
She’d heard that Ariane Debegorski had come forward to testify, strengthening the case against the man, but the real nugget had been the medical report from the Italian hospital. A key defence of Nick Morley’s last trial had been his wife’s failure to report. But the bloodhound had found it.
She reached for her phone and pressed the reporter’s number.
‘Hey, Stone,’ Frost answered. ‘How’s my favourite boy doing? Is he missing his aunty?’
‘You’ve been easily replaced by a lizard chew toy I gave him after you’d gone. He’s struggling to tell the difference.’
Frost burst out laughing.
‘Look, Frost,’ she said, realising that the two of them were never going to graduate to first name terms.
‘There’s no need, Stone. I know you’re calling me to tell me I did a great job and that you’re pleased that on this occasion I used my powers to do good and that you’re impressed with my tenacity and—’
‘Actually, Frost, I’m ringing to say you left a pair of dirty knickers in my laundry basket, and I ain’t touching ’em with a full-on Hazmat suit.’
Silence.
‘Yeah, you were closer the first time, but let’s not get carried away.’
‘Seriously, you really are ringing me for that?’ she asked, shocked.
‘Well, I’m quick enough to ring you when you’ve pissed me off, so…’
