She and Bryant pushed through the crowd to a small, detached property on the tree-lined street. Officers were in the process of pushing back the crowds to cordon it off. Stragglers kept getting through, wanting just one more look.
It took them less than a minute to get suited up, by which time Keats was at the front door.
‘Details would be appreciated,’ Kim snapped.
‘And you would have had them if you’d answered your phone.’
‘Interviewing a suspect,’ she bit back.
‘Hmm… I’m not so sure about that, but we’ll see,’ he said, walking back into the house.
She followed him past a lounge on the left to a second living room.
She stood at the door for a minute, taking in the scene.
It was chaos.
A woman in her early fifties lay on the floor at the foot of some kind of treatment table. Strewn around her were crystals and jars, some broken, some still intact. The photos of landscapes on the wall had been knocked so they hung at different angles. Books had fallen from a shelf in the far corner.
‘Karen Felton. Reiki master,’ Keats said, standing beside her.
Although there had been defensive wounds present on both Ashley’s and Nadine’s bodies, this woman had fought hard for her life. Her hair had broken free from the elastic band that now hung limply on the end of a dishevelled ponytail. Her arms and hands were covered in cuts and scrapes. Two nails had been broken down to the nail bed.
The manner of death was the same, one single stab wound to the chest, but this lady had fought to her last breath. The struggle had travelled all the way around the room.
‘Who found her?’
‘Her lodger. A college kid with a room upstairs.’
Automatically, Bryant disappeared to get more details.
‘He got back at six and found her, but she was already dead,’ Keats said.
‘What time did he leave?’
‘Lunchtime. He only had one lesson today.’
‘Anything?’ she asked, knowing Keats would understand exactly what she meant.
He shook his head. ‘He’s not your man. Could barely even remember his own name.’
Kim took a walk around the body, careful to stay out of the photographer’s way. She wondered how many years this woman had been welcoming people into her home for treatment until the day she lost her life.
‘Any idea of time?’ Kim asked without looking up.
‘Two to four hours ago,’ he said, confirming her worst fears.
This woman had been murdered sometime after two o’clock.
Joe Butler had been in custody since this morning.
As despicable a human as he was, he wasn’t their killer.
How was that even possible? she asked herself. The man had links to both Ashley and Nadine. He was angry with both of them. They’d wronged him. In his mind, one had cost him his kids and the other had cost him his pride. She’d seen people murdered for far less. But there was no escaping the fact that he had not killed their third victim. She couldn’t help hoping that Stacey would miraculously find some kind of link from Gemma Ross to both Nadine and Karen. After her foul messages to Ashley, she’d love nothing more than to haul in the hateful woman, but any opportunity to do that was looking less and less likely.
She turned away and texted instructions to Penn to process the man out and then stand down. It was already gone eight o’clock.
She turned back to the victim. Her eye was drawn to the woman’s left hand. Just inches away from her fingertips was a jagged-edged purple crystal the size of a tennis ball. She bent down to look closer and frowned.
