THIRTY-SIX

5.55 P.M.

‘Well, Penn, you’ve got three hours and six minutes to solve that clue,’ Stacey said, flicking through the puzzle boards on the Seekers site.

‘Jeez, Stace, no pressure,’ he said, rubbing his forehead.

‘All I know is that at one minute past nine that clue is going live, and anyone following the news stories and the boards will have exactly what we have.’

He shook his head in frustration and went back to it.

‘I, on the other hand, have been given the names of forty plus volunteer litter-pickers to check out.’

The fact that neither Penn nor Frost bothered to answer her made her feel that she was the only person in the room. ‘And a possible rape in Stourport.’

Penn raised his head and one eyebrow at the same time.

Stacey shrugged. ‘No, I don’t know either, but it’s what the boss wants.’

‘Don’t get the connection,’ Penn said before lowering his head again.

‘And for anyone who’s interested, the boss is going to the morgue to see Mitch.’

Two grunts were the only reply.

She rolled her eyes before printing out the names sent over by the boss. For a moment, she questioned her own career choices. What the hell was she doing on a Sunday evening carrying out background checks on a group of litter-pickers?

Before making a start, she decided to have a scan for any information on the rape in Stourport. The quicker she could put it out of the boss’s mind, the better for all of them.

‘Posted,’ Frost said, sitting back, and Stacey realised it was the first time the reporter had spoken in hours.

‘Let me look,’ Stacey said, refreshing the Dudley News tab. The article appeared immediately, and Stacey could see that there were already almost a hundred people reading it.

Stacey looked at Frost, who nodded.

‘Yep, it’s gaining interest.’

Stacey read the article and had to give props to the reporter. She had followed the instruction given to her without glorifying or sensationalising the case. She was recording the facts without mentioning the names of the police involved.

‘You gonna be in shit for this?’ Stacey asked.

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘How deep?’

‘I’ll find out tomorrow.’

Stacey waited.

‘On some days of the week, my boss is a prick. On other days of the week, he’s a decent guy, but on every day of the week he fears bad press and a wrongful dismissal lawsuit.’

‘Wrongful even though he’s warned you?’ Stacey asked.

‘There’s a process, and every part of that process must involve the HR department. Right now, he thinks he’s scared me by giving me a verbal warning… except he hasn’t really cos even that requires the process to be followed.’

As if on cue, Frost’s phone rang. Stacey considered the fact that even a sharp word from her boss was enough to get her to pull her socks up.

Frost answered the call on loudspeaker.

‘Hey, boss.’

‘Frost, what the hell do you think you’re doing? I expressly forbade you to post another article about this ridiculousness.’

‘Ah, my mistake. I thought your words were in an advisory capacity.’

‘You thought me threatening the loss of your job was a bit of friendly banter?’

‘Of course. It’s Sunday. You wouldn’t fire me on a Sunday.’

The line went silent, and then Stacey heard a low growl from the other end.

‘But it’ll be Monday tomorrow, Frost.’

‘Yeah, and we might have caught this guy by then and I’ll have an exclusive on how it happened.’

Stacey had heard about the carrot-and-stick method to get what you want. Seemed Frost’s version of that was to shove the carrot where the sun doesn’t shine and then poke it further with the stick.

‘Frost, don’t even think about trying to change my mind. I expect you in my office at nine o’clock. Feel free to bring a witness,’ he shouted before ending the call.

‘Jeez, he sounds like he means it,’ Stacey said. ‘What are you gonna do?’

‘Whatever I think is right. He’s got nothing left to threaten me with, so much as I’d love to chat, I’d best get working on the next article.’

Stacey wondered if Frost and her boss had any idea how truly alike they were.

Before returning to her own list, she took another look at the engagement with the article that Frost had posted.

Almost a hundred comments and over a thousand views in the space of a few short minutes.

She clicked on the previous article and gasped. The one posted at lunchtime had been viewed seventeen thousand times and had almost three hundred comments.

‘You read any of those comments from the first post?’ she asked Frost.

The reporter shook her head. ‘Why would I? I wrote it. It’s mainly trolls who comment anyway.’

Stacey began scrolling, and she could see that Frost was right. Many comments were insulting the police. Others were insulting the reporter. The majority were egging on the person making all their lives a misery.

‘Awww… shit,’ Stacey said, finding what she’d suspected but hoped she was wrong about. She wasn’t wrong, and it was even worse than she thought.

‘He’s posting on your earlier article,’ she said.

‘What?’ Frost asked, clicking a few keys on her laptop.

‘Oh, yeah. He’s having a great old time replying to the comments that are congratulating him. Only a few words here and there, thanking people for their support. Except for this one here where someone asks what the police looked like, running around the nature reserve carrying their coffee and donuts.’

‘What’s he say?’ Penn asked, looking up.

‘He says “they could move pretty quick when they wanted to”.’

Penn groaned, understanding her concern immediately.

He’d been there to witness it. He was watching their every move.