FORTY

7.50 P.M.

‘Well, he ain’t getting any fame if I have anything to do with it,’ Kim said, once she’d been updated by the team. She glanced longingly at the coffee pot that was still brewing courtesy of Penn. Would she even have a chance for a drink before tearing off to the next location?

She was surprised it had taken Frost almost twelve hours to work out that was why she’d been chosen. If she worked at that speed all the time, she’d never succeed on this team.

Kim had resolved to go easier on the reporter. After telling Bryant that she wasn’t enjoying having Frost in their squad room, she had been reminded by her colleague that the woman was risking her job to work with them, and she knew that situation was growing worse from the text updates she was getting from Stacey. One of those messages had said that Frost had gone to use the ladies’ room and the constable wanted to know if she should follow.

Kim had let that one go unanswered.

‘Okay, recap from us first,’ Kim said after taking a sip of her coffee. ‘To start with, this whole puzzling geocaching thing is a lot more serious than we thought. It is hugely competitive for the players and pretty lucrative for the site. Ryan Douglas was in no rush to hand over any personal details to us.’

‘Not sure they’d be any good, boss. This guy is posting under the name of Jester674 so I reckon he’s found a way to hide his real identity.’

Kim supposed Stacey was right, but she was still narked that the site owner had chosen to be unco-operative. She really wanted a reason to go shove a warrant in his face.

‘Next, we met the Lane family. Eric, his wife Helen and mini-me son Boyce appear to have been lifted from the pages of a fifties’ magazine. Derren, the younger son, is most definitely a child of today.

‘The other half of that ongoing rivalry is a guy who wants to make headlines. Jared Truss enjoys the glory and the attention. He likes to shock, and it seems he’ll do pretty much anything to increase his followers on YouTube.’

‘Subscribers,’ Frost corrected.

‘Whatever,’ Kim said before continuing. ‘They’re both pretty serious about this trailing and tracking and gameplay, and they both seem to want something different from it. Jared wants nothing more than his own TV show, and Eric wants nothing more than for Jared to be gone so that he can be King of the Seekers.’

‘But it’s a hobby,’ Penn said, shaking his head.

‘That led to someone getting sexually assaulted,’ Kim reminded him.

He nodded his agreement.

‘One thing is clear, guys. Even though we’ve got no choice but to follow the clues, we can’t rely on them to solve this case for us. We’ve got to keep thinking and digging and searching and analysing everything and everyone like we do on every other case we work. I think that Joanne Deary, the woman who moved the box at the zoo, is a single mother doing her best to entertain her kids on a budget. But no one’s name comes off the list yet.’ She paused to pour herself a coffee. ‘Mitch is doing more tests on the nails and teeth tomorrow when the lab is back in action.’

Everyone nodded they were up to date, but the detective constable appeared to want to offer something.

‘Stace?’

‘He’s playing with us,’ Stacey said.

‘That’s hardly news.’

‘I mean, he’s changing the rules as he goes along. The time difference between the first clue and the second was three hours. Now it looks like it’s gone to six hours. He’s trying to time everything to the exact minute, and if we fail, he’s throwing the clue out there to cause chaos, almost like he’s annoyed with us if we don’t make it.’

Kim wasn’t sure about that. She wondered if Stacey was giving too much thought to the workings of the sicko’s mind. Right now, all she saw was a monster who enjoyed torturing someone who had trusted him, and wanted to make the papers.

‘If you want more good news,’ Frost added, ‘my articles are getting a lot of attention.’

‘Go on,’ Kim said, giving her permission to speak.

‘We have people travelling from miles around to follow the game. My last article has been shared hundreds of times, and the comments are approaching a thousand. Normally this would be great news, but these people are just gonna get in the way.’

‘It’s Sunday evening. Don’t any of them have jobs?’

Frost shrugged.

‘We have got to find the boxes before anyone else does. We need to solve the clues before Hiccup?—’

‘Oh, I wondered when he was going to get a mention,’ Penn said, speaking for the first time.

It was rare to hear an edge to Penn’s voice. His affable, good-natured personality meant that it took a lot to get him worked up.

She glanced at Stacey, who offered a pensive expression and a shrug.

Kim folded her arms and waited.

‘I mean, it’s not like he’s the priority here. We’re talking more about some sicko than we are about the victim, a man who has literally nothing.’

Kim wanted to reassure him that Hiccup was at the front and centre of her mind. If he wasn’t, they’d all be at home finishing off their weekend. But she held her tongue. Penn wasn’t in the mood for listening.

‘We can’t even imagine what these souls go through on a daily basis. None of us has ever been hungry enough to consider eating someone else’s rubbish. I mean actually taking it out of a bin that’s full of cigarette ends and dog shit.’ Penn paused to look around the room.

‘Anyone here ever do that?’

Kim’s silence was a signal to her colleagues to stay quiet too.

‘I’m not saying they’re all angels, but some of them, like Hiccup, have just had a shit time, and now some bastard thinks they can just cut him up into small pieces and send them to us. He’s an accessory, a puzzle piece, like a die or a counter.’

He looked again for a reaction.

Silence.

‘It’s a fucking joke,’ he said, combing his fingers through his curly hair. ‘How are the rest of you not incensed?—’

‘Penn, Bowl,’ Kim interrupted. She was happy to let him rant at the injustice of the situation, but he was probably only a couple of sentences away from saying something he’d regret.

She closed the door behind him.

‘Vent at me, not them,’ she said, pointing for him to take a seat.

‘I just don’t get it, boss. No one seems to give a shit about?—’

‘What are we all doing here, Penn?’ she asked, waving towards the rest of the team. ‘We’re over twelve hours into this thing and it’s not ending any time soon. You heard any one of them mention the word home? Anybody planning on leaving their post?’

He said nothing, just wiped at already sore eyes.

‘The only thing keeping us all here is the hope of finding Hiccup before getting any more bits of him. Even Frost is risking her job to do the right thing.’

He took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘I know. You’re right, and I’m…’

‘Exhausted and emotionally involved,’ Kim finished for him.

They had all spent time amongst the homeless community but Penn more than most. It didn’t help that his default position in life was wanting everyone to be happy. His lifelong experience of protecting Jasper had given him an affinity for anyone less fortunate. All reasons why she couldn’t even be angry at his outburst.

‘It’s ten past eight. I want you to take some time to decompress. Take a nap, meditate, deep breathe, anything, but if you leave this office in the next couple of hours, I’ll have you removed from the station, got it?’

‘I’m fine, boss. I need to work on the clue. We need?—’

‘Two hours, Penn. I mean it,’ she said, stepping out of the Bowl back into the squad room.

She didn’t like benching anyone, but she sensed that Penn’s frustration had been growing all afternoon after his morning out and about. His mind needed a reset, and much as she couldn’t afford to lose anyone for even a minute, it was her job to make sure they were functioning.

He was right about the clue though. They had less than an hour to solve this one and find the next. None of them wanted to learn the repercussions if they failed.