Page 41 of Stolen Ones
‘Excavating,’ he said, folding his arms.
‘Oh, you’re funny. You here all week?’
‘Well, if you’re gonna ask questions as dumb—’
‘Not sure where your attitude is coming from, fella, but do us both a favour and drop it before we take this down the station. We like to get a detailed report from the person who discovered the bones.’
She held his gaze for a few seconds, appraising him. She’d met this type before. Middle-aged with a decent job but with a shady past and brushes with the law. The resentment for the police would accompany him to his grave. Not her problem.
‘You need me to repeat the question?’
‘Digging out footings for a wall, nothing major.’
‘On whose instruction?’
‘My boss,’ he answered.
‘And who instructed your boss?’ Kim asked, trying to hold on to her patience. Petty arguments and power struggles were not going to help her. She’d learned from Bryant when to hold her tongue in check.
‘And where is your boss?’ Kim asked, looking around.
‘Had to go. Urgent meeting.’
Kim stifled her irritation. She was pretty sure she’d told him to stay put. She had to admit that it took some neck to deliberately defy an instruction from a police officer. But she’d catch up with him later.
‘Bryant, will you please find me someone I can speak to about—’
‘Er…excuse me. I’m Roy Barber, chairman of the residents’ association.’
Bryant offered her a satisfied look, as though he’d just made the man appear upon her instruction.
‘Ah, Mr Barber, can you confirm what works were going on here?’
‘Yes, we’re building a small seating area for the residents to gather.’
‘You couldn’t use benches?’ Bryant asked.
‘Keep getting nicked, Officer. We put up a temporary camera. Well it was Sandra’s old babycam; caught the buggers but your lot didn’t pursue it. No justice and no bench.’
It wasn’t a case that the CPS would entertain taking to court.
‘We don’t have a lot of money and we wanted something permanent. These guys gave us a good quote, dead cheap really. They did some work here about twenty years ago, so we were happy to use them again.’
‘And does the name Steven Harte mean anything to you?’
His smile was wide on hearing the name.
‘Of course. Most of the improvements we’ve made are because of him. He started helping us out some time in the nineties. If it wasn’t for him our modest park would still be a forgotten piece of land covered in dog shit and used condoms.’ The man frowned. ‘Is he in some kind of trouble?’
Kim chose to leave the question unanswered. ‘And recently?’
‘We’ve not heard from him for a while, but he still makes a small donation annually to our committee funds.’
‘When was he last involved in any major project works, Mr Barber?’
‘Well, it would have been back in ’95.’
Damn, that was a whole year before Melody Jones had been abducted.
