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THIRTY-SEVEN
‘Ella…?’ Kim asked as a woman with short brown hair answered the door. Stacey’s notes had mentioned Charlotte’s sister, who visited her mum every day.
She nodded, and Kim produced her identification. ‘Have you got a minute?’
‘For what?’
Stacey’s notes had been spot on in relation to the woman’s hostility towards the police. Her view that the police had done little to help her sister, Charlotte, wasn’t too far from the truth.
She’d spent the last hour reading every detail about Stacey’s interactions with TerenceBirch and anyone involved with him.
Charlotte Danks had been pursued relentlessly by the man, forcing her to move home, change jobs and then move again after her mum had been tricked into revealing her new address. This family had suffered terribly, and they deserved to hear the news in person.
‘It’s about Terence Birch.’
‘Jesus Christ, if I’m not sick of that bloody name. Come in,’ she said grudgingly.
‘Is that our Charlotte?’ Kim heard called from the lounge.
‘’Fraid not, Mum, not today.’
‘Ella, they’re doing it again. Make them stop.’
‘It’s okay, Mum, I’ll sort them out.’
Kim watched as Ella entered the lounge and stood with her hands on her hips in front of the sofa.
‘I’ve already told you two to pack it in. Mum doesn’t like it, and if you don’t knock it off, you’re gonna have to go.’
A woman who appeared to be in her late fifties watched Ella shouting at the sofa. The empty sofa.
‘They’re going to stop whispering now, Mum. I’ll just finish the cuppa, but call me if they start again.’
‘Thanks, love. Is Charlotte coming for tea?’
‘Not today, Mum,’ Ella said with a catch in her voice.
Kim was beginning to understand the effect Terence Birch had had on this family.
Ella indicated for Kim to come through to the kitchen. She pushed the dividing door but didn’t close it fully.
‘Your Mum’s unwell?’
‘She has dementia. Her particular type is called Lewy body. It’s where Lewy bodies, abnormal protein deposits, affect chemicals in the brain. Symptoms started a couple of months ago – REM sleep disorder, restlessness, delusions, hallucinations. She sees things that aren’t there. At first, I tried to explain to her that the figures weren’t real but that scared her even more. She couldn’t understand why she could see them and I couldn’t. Now I tell ’em off and she’s happy. She phones me at home, and I have to tell her to put me on loudspeaker so I can shout at them for her. She doesn’t need full-time care yet, but eventually I’ll have some difficult decisions to make.’
‘Sounds like a lot.’
‘Not really. Not yet. She has good days. The worst thing is she knows exactly what’s happening when she’s lucid. She nursed her own father through it.’
‘You deal with this alone?’
‘Don’t have much choice, do I?’
‘You do now,’ Kim said.
Ella turned from the teapot she’d been stirring, and Kim couldn’t prolong her misery for another second.
‘Terence Birch is dead; Charlotte can come home.’
