Page 84 of Twisted Lies
‘Dean was an ex-gang member. He was part of The Deltas.’
Kim knew the gang well. It was a multi-racial gang that operated out of Hollytree Estate and was so named because of its Dudley postcode. She’d been responsible for putting one of their ring leaders, Kai Lord, behind bars for a good few years to come.
‘Dean had been with them since he was thirteen years old. He was twenty-six when he decided he wanted out, but you know how that goes.’
In Kim’s experience, there was only one way out of a gang like The Deltas and that was in a wooden box. They liked to brag that they had no ex-gang members.
‘The only way out he could see was to use the information he had and offer it to police in exchange for protection.’
‘And?’
‘His knowledge got a few people put away for minor offences, but it got one guy sent down for attempted murder and kidnap. Apparently, that was enough to guarantee safe passage.’
Kim could hear the bitterness in her voice and decided to keep her talking. For now, she was distracted from the death of her husband and Kim didn’t know what she might learn.
‘What was the scheme like for you?’
‘Fucking awful. We had no idea what we were getting into or how drastically our lives would change. You lot care only about a conviction.’
Kim tried not to react. Dean had been a man who had lived on the wrong side of the law for years but had used that same resource for his own benefit when it had suited him, and then had the gall to throw it away when it hadn’t panned out how he’d expected.
‘They took all our phones and stuff away and put us in a B&B while investigating. Once the trial was over, they handed us a Lidl map and told us to choose an area we wanted to live. Dean had been to Blackpool once, so we chose there. Police said they’d try and create an equivalent lifestyle and that was bollocks. Every answer to any question is delayed until after the trial,’ she said, using her fingers to frame the last three words.
‘We had thirty minutes to gather our stuff. I mean, even bailiffs give you an hour. And if folks think all police officers are polite and helpful, they can think again. Those in plain clothes get away with murder. They can treat you however they like and you can’t tell a soul.’
‘Were you mistreated by…?’
‘Forget it,’ she said, waving the question away.
‘What happened next?’ Kim asked. She was guessing the officers involved had been less than enthusiastic about providing protection for a man that had flouted the law for years.
‘Eventually, we were taken in a van to a safe house in Shropshire, with nothing more than cows and sheep and a daily allowance. We didn’t know that was when they were getting rid of all our paperwork. Killing us off, deleting our lives. We could have died and no one would have known. When your life is dead, where do you go for help?
‘You then get to choose a new name, but how can you behave normally in society? You’re given no back story so anything you invent you’ve got to stick to, all of you.’
She shook her head. ‘One time we went round for a cuppa with the neighbours, simple enough, you’d think. Just a quick polite coffee, but there’s always questions. Harmless ones like “So where did you get married?”, and we both answered at the same time with different responses. You can’t make friends in case you slip up. We were bloody miserable.’
‘Couldn’t you request a move?’ Bryant asked.
‘To where? You just take the exact same problems with you. You get paranoid that everyone is a threat. You view every question as suspicious. You just can’t remember every detail of your new identity, places, people, memories – cos they never happened. It’s like watching a TV box set and trying to remember everything that happened to who, on what day. It’s bad enough for adults, never mind kids. Our daughter couldn’t mix; she was constantly tempted to tell her best friend the truth. You can’t build any kind of relationship through fear you’re gonna fuck up. You even hesitate before signing your own name cos it’s not your name, but that’s not even the worst of it.’
She’d painted a pretty grim picture of it so far, so Kim wondered what the worst of it actually was.
‘You can’t tell your family where you’re going. For their sake, you have to cut off completely. You worry about them; they definitely worry about you. You cause all this by doing the right thing.’
For your own reasons, Kim couldn’t help but think.
‘But you had support, help to adapt and adjust?’ Bryant asked.
‘Oh yeah,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘We had a psychologist who told us to do breathing exercises to alleviate the stress, and our protection officer up north was as clueless as we were. And protection? A light wind or a deep breath would have blown him over.’
‘So you left?’ Kim asked.
Her expression changed as she was brought back to the present, back to her current nightmare. A tear spilled over and rolled down her cheek.
‘Dean knew how unhappy me and Lexi were. He knew the risks in coming back, but he insisted. He knew he was the one in danger, and he was right.’
Kim chose not to clarify. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt this was not the work of anyone from Hollytree.
