THIRTY

3.50 P.M.

‘So, Mitch is on his way to the lab with the teeth,’ Stacey said after ending the call from the boss. ‘And I’m thinking the boss is currently apologising to Bryant over the whole Hiccup thing.’

‘Most likely not,’ Frost muttered under her breath without even taking her eyes from the computer.

Clearly the woman was always listening, and although she was supposed to be scouring all her articles to find out why their sicko had chosen her as the messenger, for all Stacey knew, the reporter was making notes on every conversation she overheard to use at some later date.

It reminded Stacey of those people who kept wild exotic animals as pets. It was never a good idea to trust them completely.

Thinking of animals, she checked her inbox. It was twenty minutes since she’d spoken to the security guy at Dudley Zoo, and that had been quite the trial.

After explaining that she had no interest in their webcams of the Sumatran tigers or the lemurs in their woodland home, he had finally understood that she wanted to access any CCTV they had around the reptile house.

He had explained that they had a static on the entrance and another static at the fork in the road that led to the building. She’d asked for both sets of footage from opening time up to 2.30 p.m. when the boss had been in the area. The fact that the box had been dry and there’d been a heavy shower around ten told her the box had been planted that day. Could Ryan Douglas have made it over from Telford in time after speaking to the boss? Could Eric Lane have planted it and been back home in time for their visit at lunchtime? Both were definitely doable, but she’d keep an open mind while viewing the footage.

As if wishing made it so, her inbox sounded the receipt of a media file with a short note of

More to follow.

She clicked it open to find she’d been sent the footage from the fork in the road. As requested, the time frame stretched from 10 a.m. to 2.30 p.m.

Stacey blew out air as she realised the task ahead of her, and most likely it would garner no result. Anyone carrying a backpack could have the box concealed and she’d never spot it. And it was going to take her four and a half hours in real time to watch the whole thing so she didn’t miss any possibility of catching their guy in the act.

Within seconds of the footage starting, the customers began to pass by the camera. Families paused, deciding which direction to take. Kids pulled on hands, jackets, anything within reach to guide the adults the way they wanted to go, and every parent seemed to do exactly as they were being told. Except one. A woman on her own with a pushchair and a child of about seven years of age stopped right in front of the camera to give the boy a good telling-off for trying to pull her left when she was determined to go right.

Stacey smiled as they went out of view and a family with more kids than she could count passed by.

She examined the belongings of everyone who came into the frame but paid more attention to men who were alone. There weren’t many of those, and very few were carrying anything big enough to hold the tin. As the initial surge thinned, she sped up the footage and stopped it only when a person of interest or a family with bags crossed the lens.

She couldn’t help but marvel at the number of parents that simply followed the lead of their children. When she’d been a child, she’d been attached to her mother’s hand and went wherever she was told.

The clock on the footage was now heading towards 1 p.m. and Stacey had the feeling she’d missed it. Their sicko couldn’t have known how long it would take them to solve the previous clue, so he had to have made sure the box was there in plenty of time.

She went back to the beginning of the footage. There had to be something to give her a place to start.

She watched the same people pass by the camera again, but this time she scoured their facial expressions, their ease of movement, their posture, their demeanour.

The woman with the pushchair and child came into view, and she slowed the footage down. The boy was already pointing to the left when they came into shot, and his mother was shaking her head. The boy was growing more and more truculent, but her expression was determined.

Why was she so keen to head towards the reptile house when her son clearly wanted to go the other way?

The woman stepped away from the pushchair to scold the child, and Stacey zoomed in on the shelf that ran under the seat.

There was a bag, a folded blanket and beneath it what looked like a shiny metal box.