‘How did he interact with the girls?’

‘Who, Arthur? Not at all. He hated every single one of them. Because of his nature he was an easy target. They would play tricks on him, hide his tools, that kind of thing.’

‘Did they play tricks on William?’

Victor thought for a moment. Something crossed his face but he shook his head.

‘Not really, because William worked the night shift so his contact with the girls was minimal.’

Kim sat forward. There was something he was not telling them.

‘What can you tell us about the girls there?’

He sat back. ‘They weren’t a bad bunch. Some of them were there only temporarily due to some kind of family situation. Some were placed in care following accusations of child abuse. Others stayed until another family member claimed them and a few had no family members at all.’

‘Do you remember twin girls; Nicola and Bethany?’

A smile came to his eyes. ‘Oh yes. They were beautiful little girls. If I remember correctly, Nicola was the more outgoing of the two. Bethany often hid behind her sister and let her do the talking.

‘They didn’t mix much with the other girls. I suppose because they had each other.’

‘So, there were no problem girls?’ Kim asked. It didn’t sound like any of the children’s homes she’d been in.

‘Of course there were tougher girls. Young ladies that could not be reached. There were three girls in particular ... I’m sorry, I don’t remember their names. They were bad enough separately but once they came together they became a tight little group. They fed off each other and caused all kinds of trouble; stealing, smoking, boys. He looked away. ‘And other things.’

‘What other things?’ Bryant asked.

‘It’s not really for me to say.’

‘Did they hurt someone?’ Kim interjected.

Victor got up and stood at the window. ‘Not so much physically, Detective.’

‘How then?’ she asked, looking towards Bryant.

Victor sighed heavily. ‘They were crueller than most, especially together.’

‘What did they do?’ Kim pushed.

Victor remained at the window. ‘One of the girls lived locally and knew of Lucy. One day the three of them offered to play with the child while William ran some errands.

‘Being a completely trusting person, William took the opportunity to go to the supermarket. When he returned barely an hour later the girls were nowhere to be found and neither was Lucy.

‘He searched the house from top to bottom.’

Victor turned and walked back towards them. ‘Do you know where he found her?’

Kim felt her jaw begin to tighten.

‘They had stripped her naked and forced her small body into the rubbish bin. She didn’t have the muscle strength to get out.’ He swallowed. ‘She was stuck in there for over an hour, covered in rubbish and food and her own dirty nappies. The poor little girl was only three years old.’

Kim felt the nausea rise within her. However far they tried to stretch the fabric of this case it sprang right back to the doorstep of William and Lucy Payne.

It was time for another chat.

Forty-Eight

‘What the hell is going on here?’ Kim cried as the car pulled up outside the Payne house. Both a responder and an ambulance were parked outside. The rear doors to the ambulance were wide open.

As she ran around the vehicles two paramedics exited the property with a stretcher.

The small, fragile figure of Lucy hardly filled the narrow makeshift bed. They carried her as though she were a baby. The atrophy of her limbs was clearer out of the chair. An oxygen mask covered her small face but Kim could see her eyes and the fear that radiated out.

Kim touched her arm lightly but the paramedics were moving with a sense of urgency to place her in the back of the ambulance.

William Payne rushed out of the house. His face had been stripped of colour. His eyes were wide and frightened.

‘What happened?’ Kim asked.

‘She was breathless in the night but she seemed better this morning. I was upstairs changing the beds and she must have had difficulty again but she couldn’t make a sound. She couldn’t alert me.’

They both stood at the rear of the ambulance as the paramedics fixed the stretcher into position.

William’s eyes reddened as he fought back the tears. ‘She managed to press the button on the pendant and I heard the sirens in the distance. When I came back down she was turning blue.’ He shook his head as the tears began to fall. His voice was hoarse and terrified. ‘She might die because I couldn’t hear her cry for help.’

Kim opened her mouth to offer him reassurance but one of the paramedics jumped out of the vehicle.

‘Sir, we need to ...’

‘I have to go. Please excuse ...’

Kim nudged him towards the back of the waiting ambulance.

The doors closed behind him and the ambulance sped away with sirens and lights.

Kim felt an ache in her throat as she watched the vehicle disappear from view.

‘Didn’t look good, eh, Guv?’

Kim shook her head and crossed the road to the dig site.

She entered the tent of victim number two. Cerys was on her knees in the pit. She turned and smiled.

Kim offered her hand. Cerys removed a latex glove and held onto Kim as she stepped out of the pit.

The hand was warm and soft and coated with the talcum powder from inside the glove.

Cerys stepped to the head of the pit. ‘I heard sirens. Everything okay?’

Kim shrugged. There was little point explaining about Lucy. Cerys had no part in that area of the investigation and her own emotional reaction to the young girl did not make sense to Kim herself, never mind trying to explain it to someone else.

‘Site one's done, then?’ Kim asked. The first grave had been refilled and pieces of grass placed on top. It looked like a bad hair transplant. That tent had been removed but another had been erected.

‘Anything up there?’

‘Getting close. Readings indicate that the mass is less than two feet down.’

Unlike Cerys who, as a scientist, would not assume it to be a body until she saw bone, Kim already knew in her gut that it was the third girl. Now it was just a case of which one was which.

‘This one will be signed off later and filled in this afternoon.’

‘Anything further?’

‘We have the beads,’ she said, moving towards a fold-up trestle table. ‘Eleven of them. And this.’ Cerys held up a plastic bag.

Kim took it from her and felt the thickness of the fabric.

‘I’m guessing flannel,’ Cerys offered.

‘Pyjamas?’

‘Possibly, but only the top.’

‘No bottoms?’

Cerys shook her head.

Kim said nothing. The absence of a lower garment put a picture in her head that made her teeth grind together.

‘Could have been a different fabric, mismatched nightwear, the material may already have decomposed.’

Kim nodded. She could hope.

‘Nothing else?’

Cerys handed her a Tupperware dish full of mud-encrusted fragments.

‘Small pieces of metal but nothing that I think is linked to her murder.’

‘What next?’

Cerys wiped her hands on her jeans. ‘Up to site three, coming?’

Kim followed to the latest tent.

‘Just in time, Guv,’ Dawson said as she entered.

She looked down at the unmistakeable shape of a foot protruding from the dark earth.

Seven people within the tent stared down into the shallow grave. It didn’t matter that it was what most of them had expected to find. Each body deserved a moment of respect, a silent declaration of unity when all parties vowed to do their part in bringing the perpetrator to justice.