Gina took the right-hand turn into the estate on Bromsgrove as O’Connor played with his phone. It was an area she’d passed only a couple of weeks ago when she’d visited the High Street. She’d brought Gracie and sat outside, enjoying a coffee in the sun while her granddaughter played with her milkshake before tipping half into her lap. Gina almost grimaced at seeing the look on Hannah’s face when she returned the little girl. Her yellow-coloured dress had been splattered with chocolate milk and by the time she pulled up, given the heat, the milk had begun to take on a rancid smell that still lingered in her car. This time, though, she wasn’t going over the brow of the hill and into the centre for a leisurely morning, she was visiting the Smiths. Foster family of Simone Duxford.

The closely set houses followed the neat windy road, until they got closer. Gina paused and pulled up outside the Smith residence. ‘I hate these types of visit.’

‘Me too, guv,’ he said as he wiped the beads of sweat from his bald head with a crumpled tissue. ‘I hope they have a fan. I’m melting.’

The grass on the garden had dried out and the frontage looked like it could do with a clean and de-weed – a bit like her own.

‘This is where Simone was placed in 2011 and had been her home until she left.’ She checked her notes. Mr Josh Smith, teacher of maths at a higher educational institute in Kidderminster. Mrs Angela Smith, currently working at Asda in Bromsgrove as a shop floor manager. They had two children of their own, twelve-year-old Chloe and fourteen-year-old Emily. The door opened as she went to knock.

‘Come in.’ Mr Smith stepped aside so that they could enter. ‘Can we get you a drink?’

‘Water would be lovely, thank you,’ Gina replied. O’Connor politely refused. Mr Smith took a seat at the head of the kitchen table. Mrs Smith placed a jug of water with a few slices of lemon in it on the table and placed a glass in front of her husband and Gina, before pouring it out. As Mrs Smith settled, Gina noticed the slight tremor of her fingers that lay on the table. Her eyes looked puffy and her face was pale and blotchy.

‘We’re finding this hard to take in, as you can see,’ Mrs Smith said.

Mr Smith looked into his lap and took a deep breath. ‘I know she wasn’t our biological daughter but we loved her like she was. Things had been far from easy but we never gave up on her, however hard she pushed us, and she did test us to our limits, didn’t she?’

Mrs Smith rubbed her eyes.

Mr Smith nodded. ‘I’d be lying if I said it was easy but that’s what we signed up for. We knew about her background and we wanted to make a difference. I tried to help her with homework, with career direction, but the anger and upset that she carried, well it was hard to break through. It’s not like she went without, living here, with us. I know I’m only a maths tutor and my wife works at the supermarket, but we work hard. We earn a decent enough living. We keep a nice roof over our heads and don’t get into debt. We don’t go out drinking, we don’t smoke and we love our children.’

‘We don’t know what we did wrong with Simone and now we’ll never be able to fix things.’ Mrs Smith looked up as if trying to hold back tears of loss, guilt and confusion as to where it all went wrong.

Gina could see the painstaking thoughts that were going through both of their minds. Mrs Smith hugged her large frame, her scrunched up shoulders and arms providing a protective barrier between her and the feelings she was trying so hard to supress. Her shoulder-length brown hair, bronzed skin tone and dark eyes, gave her a Mediterranean look. Mr Smith cupped the one side of his stubbly chin with his hand, elbow on the table. He had a full head of grey hair, parted to one side.

‘Can you tell us a little about the relationship you had with Simone?’ Gina asked. She watched as O’Connor began searching in his pockets for a pen. She pulled hers from her bag and placed it on his notepad.

‘When she first came to stay with us, she was a quiet kid, really underweight and not in the best of places. She’d been through so much, so many things a child should never have to go through.’ Gina had read her files but she let Mr Smith continue as she wanted to hear what he had to say and get a fuller picture of their victim. ‘They told us that her mother was an addict and had invited a string of men to be a part of their life. The last one was the worst. Our poor girl had endured a lot at his hand. She was found in a skinny, sorry state. She’d been abused sexually but we never knew the extent of how much. Simone would never say. She never told the social worker, the police or anyone else. We always told her she could talk to either of us at any time, day or night – that we were always here. We do know the last man her biological mother was with beat her. Poor girl was covered in bruises. She came to us in a state; battered, bruised, riddled with head lice and scabies.’

‘We just can’t believe this has happened to her. We knew she couldn’t settle and she was an almighty handful but we were hopeful. I know the girls found it harder over the last year Simone was with us…’ Mrs Smith paused.

‘How did your girls find it harder? Gina asked.

‘They were all clashing, especially when it comes to the bathroom. We have one family bathroom and had two teens and a preteen competing to use it, that’s without adding us to the equation. They argued every morning. Things even got nasty a couple of times. Emily had purposely left the shower running and locked herself in the bathroom, using all the hot water. Simone had lost her rag and shouted at her. It had ended with Emily throwing the fact that they weren’t real sisters at her, and because of that she deserved more bathroom time. It had been a bad spell and yet, despite their differences, Emily was so upset when Simone left, blamed herself for driving her away, said she didn’t mean what she said.

‘There was more to it though. Simone used to hang around with a load of losers from town, just kids but kids that smoked and drank a lot. I could sometimes smell weed on her and, of course, the confrontations over this just made everything worse. She started going into nightclubs and pubs, not coming home. As I said, we’ve always provided for our family. I don’t know why she was the way she was. She basically told us where to go, said she’d had it with the girls and us trying to dictate rules to her when she was now eighteen. It wasn’t like that. We just cared for her. She’d been offered a place at a hostel and she was determined to take it. I wanted to go with her to see it but she said it was something she had to do alone. She never checked in to the hostel.’

‘What happened after that? Did you hear from her or see her?’

‘She called us a couple of times, normally after she’d been drinking. She said she was doing fine and had found somewhere to live. Around then, the police turned up to tell us that she’d been arrested for stealing wallets in nightclubs. She’d given them our address.’ Mrs Smith remained in thought. Gina spotted a tear welling up in the corner of her eye. She’d held it together well, Gina didn’t quite know how, but the woman was now beginning to crack. ‘That was the last time she called. I offered to go to court with her, help her, offered her bedroom back to her but she said she needed to do things on her own for a while. Said she’d call again soon and that she could handle it all. She then thanked me for being there. That was the last I, or indeed we, ever heard of her. I should have insisted. I should have turned up whether she wanted me there or not but I didn’t. I thought I was respecting her wishes and I suppose I thought she’d come back to us in her own time, when she’d got everything out of her system. We failed her!’ The woman wiped the trailing tear from her face. Her husband moved his chair closer to her and placed his arm around his wife.

‘You didn’t fail her, Mrs Smith. We are going to find out what happened to Simone. This is not your fault at all.’ However much she told Mrs Smith she was in no way to blame, she knew she’d always still blame herself. She would never see Simone again and never be able to make things right. However, Gina could get justice for Mrs Smith. She could find out who put Simone in that shallow grave, hoping she would never be found. She could find out how she got there and what she’d been through. She felt her knuckles clench under the table as she thought of the system, the underfunding and how it was letting vulnerable youngsters like Simone down. The girl had left with barely any support in place.

‘Can you please just find out what happened to her? We loved Simone and when her body is released, we are going to have a proper family funeral for her. Does her mother know?’ Mr Smith asked.

Gina nodded. ‘She has been informed. You may need to speak with her about any arrangements.’

‘That bitch caused all of this. Had she been a good mother not a raving junkie, this would never have happened. That woman didn’t deserve Simone. I wish she’d been our daughter from the start. She was ours.’ The man hugged his wife as she sobbed into his shoulders.

Mrs Smith pulled away from her husband and rubbed her eyes. ‘I still haven’t told our daughter, Emily. I don’t know how to tell her after all the bad feelings and arguing. She hated herself for what she’d said after Simone had left. This is going to destroy her.’

Gina was fully aware at how guilt could destroy a person. Ultimately, Emily would need help in forgiving herself. Families argued, that was normal. Families said hurtful things to each other. Hannah had hurt her on many occasions. If something had happened to Gina, would Hannah be that wracked with guilt? She’d hope not. As someone who loved her, she’d simply hope that Hannah would grieve and move on. That’s what true love was, not controlling someone with guilt. Her mind flashed back to Terry and how he had always made her feel guilty at never loving him enough, controlling her as she constantly tried to prove him wrong. He’d left her with the ultimate guilt trip. She’d killed him and never paid the price. She was the real murderer in all this. If anyone should feel guilty, it should be her, and she did. Always guilty.

‘It will be hard but you need to be there for her.’ Gina said to the Smiths. ‘People always say things in the heat of the moment. We can be mean to each other, we all can, but Simone’s death was not Emily’s fault. Someone did this to her and I’m going to find out who it was.’ The only way she could help this family was to catch whoever did this and she would. They said their goodbyes. For now, she had what she needed.

---

The door closed behind them and Gina’s phone beeped. A message came through from Jacob.

‘That’s good news. We need to hurry back. Also, when we get back, can you make a note to contact Miss Duxford, Simone’s biological mother? I know Wyre was unable to get hold of her after giving her the news. We need to speak to her.’

‘Will do, guv.’

Her heartbeat sped up with excitement, a partial print was just what they needed.