Page 75 of Deadly Cry
‘Not now, Stace,’ Kim snapped. Her rage had been building as she’d mounted the stairs.
Alison closed the door behind her.
‘What the fuck did you think you were doing?’
‘I got it wrong. I’m sorry. I realised as soon as you’d left—’
‘But you didn’t get it wrong, did you, Alison? I could almost forgive you that because people make mistakes, but you read that statement and you knew it was the wrong way to go. You, who have been studying the crimes, the methodology as well as the letters, knew I was being steered wrong and you said nothing.’
The miserable expression on the woman’s face did nothing to soften Kim’s rage. ‘What do you think could have happened to Archie if I’d read that bloody statement? I’m pretty damn certain he’d be coming back in a fucking body bag, and I also know that you knew that. You wanna come with me to tell his family, cos that’s my job, Alison. That’s my consequence when I get it wrong.’
‘I’m sorry. I tried to—’
‘Too fucking late, Alison. I need your opinion when I bloody well ask for it, not once the damage has been done. I didn’t ask for your help here because you’re shit at what you do. I asked for your help because you’ve always had the balls to tell me when I’m wrong. I rarely listen, but at least you’ve got the courage of your convictions. Or at least you did have.’ Kim paused for breath as the face grew even more miserable.
‘Look, I know you’re not being paid to do this. You agreed to help and that makes this conversation all the harder, but free service or not, if I can’t trust you to use and share your expertise then there’s no point—’
‘If anything happens to that little boy, I’ll never—’
‘I didn’t use it,’ Kim said, relieving her of some of her misery.
‘You didn’t?’
‘I didn’t agree with it, so I’ve taken another route. The onus is now on me, but seriously, Alison, dipping your toe in this thing is no good to us. Either get back on the horse or get out of the fucking stable. Your choice,’ Kim said, opening the door back into the squad room.
She’d said all she needed to say and right now she had to go suffer an arse-chewing of her own.
Sixty-Two
Kim had barely swallowed down her own anger by the time she walked into the full force of someone else’s. Her own was rooted in a person’s inability to make a decision, but the rage she faced was because she had.
‘Do not let my calm exterior fool you that I am anything less than furious right now,’ Woody said as she walked in the door.
‘Sir, if you’ll just let—’
‘Let you what, Stone? Get away with bloody murder? Deliberately disobey a direct instruction from your superior? Decide your own course of action regardless of expert advice? Let you think you know better than everyone you meet despite their education, experience and credentials? What exactly do you think I should let you do?’
Oh, this was a tricky one. Should she try and insert her point of view and reasoning into the centre of his rage or let him shout it out and explain herself later?
She knew which was the safer option. Just let him get it all out, remain quiet and non-confrontational. That’s what she should do.
‘If you want the truth, I’m just as pissed off at you, sir,’ she shot back. Waiting her turn had never been her strong point.
His head reared backwards, and his eyes burned even brighter. ‘And what exactly do you have to be pissed off at?’
‘Being given the wrong tools for the fight. I listened and I understood, and I disagreed. There were many things I shouldn’t have done as a kid and I can tell you now that a hard, swift slap across the face wouldn’t have prevented me from doing any one of them again. In fact, it would have just made me worse.’
‘This is not about your childhood, Stone. It is about you taking accountability for your actions, which may well result in—’
‘But we are talking about that, sir, because you three all assumed that this could only go one way. That he would be cowed by my anger and judgement. You never gave any thought to it having the opposite effect. Saying nothing would have been preferable to an outright bollocking.’
‘Well, you got your own way then, didn’t you? You ignored a direct instruction and missed a perfect opportunity to connect—’
‘I didn’t ignore your instructions recklessly without a plan of my own. I’ve tried to reach him another way, low-key, non-judgemental and through Frost.’
His face hardened more. ‘Stone, are you trying to incite me to violence? Why on earth would you trust Frost with any part of this? She’s already responsible for two internal investigations and won’t divulge—’
‘There is no leak,’ she said. ‘Frost saw the letter through the evidence bag that Mitch was carrying away from the scene and told me so. It was a shot at you for cutting her off.’
