‘You’ll never see our child again,’ he said, kicking the back of her head.
Barry closed the lounge door behind him and shouted up the stairs. ‘It’s okay, Amelia. You can come down now. Come on, come down to Daddy.’
THIRTY-FOUR
The flat was situated on a snatch of land on the periphery of the Merry Hill shopping complex. The third-storey property was blessed with views of the entrance to the Food Court to the west and the busy Pedmore Road dual carriageway to the east.
Kim couldn’t help her curiosity at the marketing strategy.
‘Better than some blocks we’ve been in, eh?’ Bryant said.
Anything without daubed obscenities and the smell of urine was a step up from most blocks of flats they visited.
Bryant knocked on the door and waited.
Kim heard the clatter of something hitting a wall and a curse.
A chain was pulled across and the door was opened by a man she barely recognised.
Chris Jenks was dressed in sludge-coloured tracksuit bottoms. A university t-shirt was stained to the right of the logo. His growing stubble was dark and dense.
His face registered surprise at their presence.
Bryant leaned forward. ‘May we …’
‘Of course … of course …’ Jenks said, stepping back and opening the door wide.
Kim stepped into a narrow hallway where two people couldn’t pass without touching. The absence of a window was not helped by the dim light of an energy saving bulb. Two closed doors isolated the small space entirely.
Kim stepped carefully around the toys that appeared to be out of proportion with the size of the property. She headed towards a brightly lit room at the end of the tunnel which she guessed was the lounge.
‘Please … sit down …’ Jenks said, moving two colouring books and a box of felt pens.
Kim took the seat that had been cleared. Bryant took the other end of the sofa but shifted uncomfortably before removing a remote control from somewhere beneath him.
Jenks took the remote and remained standing.
‘Can I get you anything … coffee … tea …?’
Kim shook her head.
‘Is this about the hearing?’ he asked, wringing his hands.
‘No, there’s something else,’ Bryant said.
They would have no involvement with the disciplinary hearing. Both Jenks and Whiley had been suspended pending a formal investigation and that was being handled by their superiors.
‘You visited the home of Leonard Dunn for a domestic abuse complaint?’ Bryant asked.
Jenks sat in the single chair but remained on the edge. He nodded, still holding the remote control.
‘Yeah, just a couple of months ago. Why?’
Kim was happy to let Bryant lead. She glanced around the room.
It was a home that had been taken by surprise by the arrival of children. The pebble detail fire was now obscured by a mesh guard. Floor vases that probably used to adorn the fire display now looked cumbersome on a recessed bookshelf. A collection of books and music discs were now interspersed with Calpol bottles, a nappy bag pack and two rattles.
‘There was someone else involved in the abuse of the Dunn girls.’
Jenks’s mouth fell open as he looked from Bryant to her and back again.
Bryant continued. ‘We don’t know the extent of the involvement yet, but we do know that another person was present during the filming of the abuse.’
Jenks ran a hand through his hair and rubbed at his forehead. ‘Shit.’
‘We need to know if there’s anything you picked up that night, anything at all that might help us find out who was there.’
Jenks’s eyes fell to the floor and he started to shake his head. ‘There’s nothing. I mean, it was just routine … it was …’
‘Tell us about the incident,’ Kim suggested.
He nodded. ‘We got the call about seven thirty-ish, complaint from a neighbour concerned about the noise. When we got there we could hear Dunn shouting from the gate. We knocked …’
‘What was he shouting about?’ Kim asked.
Jenks thought. ‘Couldn’t make it out from the gate but I think it was something about a school teacher.’
Kim nodded and motioned for him to continue. It must have been the teacher’s first attempt at speaking to the parents about Daisy’s behaviour. From Kim’s recollection the woman had tried on three separate occasions before making the call. The resulting investigation had been carried out with the assistance of Social Services but had still taken almost two months until an arrest could be made.
‘Dunn let us in. You could see he was still raging. Mrs Dunn was on the phone at the time.’
‘Do you know who she was speaking to?’
Jenks nodded. ‘Robin something. Her brother, I think. Whiley shuffled Dunn through to the kitchen and I went into the lounge with Mrs Dunn. I got her to hang up the phone and talk to me.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Just that her husband was upset at the actions of an overzealous teacher. She didn’t elaborate further.’
Textbook response so far. The officers had separated the parties to defuse the situation.
‘Once we got there it all calmed down very quickly. I asked Mrs Dunn if there’d been any violence and she insisted not. I asked if she wanted to make any complaint against her husband and she refused. She maintained it was just an argument that had got out of hand.’
Kim recalled the witness statement of the teacher. Kim knew this must have been the first time she’d tried to speak to the Dunns. She’d had little opportunity to voice her concerns about the child before being asked to leave the house by Leonard Dunn who must have been incensed by the woman bringing the girls home.
Jenks continued. ‘Whiley was having the same conversation in the other room with Leonard Dunn. We were there no more than fifteen minutes. Everything was quiet when we left.’
‘Were the girls there?’
For the first time Jenks looked pained as he nodded. ‘They were sat together on the sofa. Daisy had her arm around the little one.’
She heard Bryant’s phone vibrate in his pocket. He placed a hand over it. Her own signalled the receipt of a message. Damn it, her team knew where she was.
Bryant’s sounded again. She tipped her head to the hallway.
Bryant left the room.
‘So, is there anything else …?’
‘You know, Marm. There’s a picture in my head that I just can’t shift,’ he said. His eyes were still fixed on a teddy bear in the middle of the room. ‘When I think back now, that girl just stared at me. Daisy. It was intense … like she was trying to tell me something. And I don’t even know if I’m right or if I just imagined it because of what I know now.’
For a second Kim was tempted to tell him he was right. She had been on the business end of that stare.
But Jenks was fighting for his job, his career and his method of providing support for a young family. Paid suspension was no holiday. He had struck a suspect and there would be consequences. Kicking the shit out of him when he was down would not change anything. He already knew that he should have read the situation better and Kim could not advise him otherwise.
She heard Bryant curse from the hallway. He appeared in her peripheral vision and motioned for her to join him.
She nodded at Jenks and stood.
‘What?’
‘We gotta go.’
‘What the …?’
‘Incident at the multi storey car park in Brierley Hill.’
Kim took out her phone. What the hell was dispatch thinking, calling her and Bryant?
Bryant put a hand on hers. ‘Entire force is caught up on the demonstration in Dudley.’
Recently, there had been many outbreaks of violence between the English Defence League and Islamic residents of Dudley, over plans to build a new mosque.
‘Pretty bad. It’s all over social media. Both sides calling supporters to join the riot. Seven injured so far.’