FIFTY-EIGHT

4 A.M.

Penn listened patiently as Stacey read the next clue, which had been called in by the boss.

‘“The rails around the aged mound turn crimson one hour before sunrise. Find my next by 6 a.m. or…”’

‘Jeez, they’re getting harder,’ Penn observed. ‘And we’re off schedule. We haven’t got long to find the next… but I really think I’m onto something with this recording.’

Stacey came around the desk. ‘Let me listen.’

He passed her the headphones and played the clip.

‘I can hear it, but I don’t know what it is,’ she said. ‘It’s like two boom-boom noises in quick succession.’

Exactly what he’d thought.

‘Boom-boom?’ Frost asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘Is that a technical term?’

It was the first time she’d spoken in hours, and he’d almost forgot she was there.

‘I have no other way to describe it,’ Stacey said.

‘You could always let me have a listen,’ Frost said, shrugging.

Penn wasn’t sure what a defence lawyer would make of that, but he really had no choice. Neither he nor Stacey had a clue what the sound was.

He indicated for her to wheel across and then passed her the headphones.

She closed her eyes as she listened to the short clip.

‘Again,’ she said without opening them.

He did so.

He pressed Play a further four times on her instruction.

He was about to tell her to move when she took the headphones off.

‘I know what it is,’ she said with the smug expression they’d only ever heard about.

They waited.

‘Clay pigeon shooting.’

The second she said it, Penn knew she was right. Even Stacey was face-palming a shaking head.

‘Stuff’s always easy if you know the answer,’ Frost said, wheeling back to the spare desk.

Penn looked to Stacey. This recording was from the third box, which had been found at Clent around nine o’clock. ‘Our guy had to get the box there in plenty of time not to get caught. I’m thinking he must have chopped the thumb off sometime in the afternoon.’

Stacey began tapping on her computer.

Penn already knew she’d be asking Google for clay pigeon shooting locations in the Black Country.

‘Lichfield, Lea Marston, Coventry, Warwick, Nuneaton.’

‘All too far,’ Penn said. ‘Timing is everything to him. He needs a solid timeline with no chance of delays.’

‘He could be paying someone else to do it.’

Penn shook his head. ‘Too many people involved. If he was doing that, we’d be covering even more mileage than we are because he could get the boxes dropped further afield. Our guy likes to be in control. The more people who are involved, the more chance there is of something going wrong. There has to be a reason we’re in this local radius.’

‘Wolverhampton?’ Stacey asked.

‘Maybe,’ he said, although he was still doubtful. The core of the activity was more local.

‘No events yesterday anyway,’ Stacey said as her gaze continued to interrogate the Google results.

‘Wait a minute. What about Dunsley?’

‘That might work,’ Penn said as his insides reacted.

Although officially in the county of Staffordshire, Dunsley was only a few miles from some of the locations the boss had already visited. It was semi-rural with a lot of space between properties.

He looked up to see Stacey grinning at him.

‘What?’

‘Dunsley Hall had a private party clay pigeon shooting this afternoon between the hours of 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Photos have been posted in their gallery.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Frost said without looking up.

‘We’re not there yet,’ Penn said, wheeling his chair around to Stacey’s desk. ‘Can you get an aerial shot of Dunsley Hall?’

It appeared on the screen, and Penn could instantly see the acreage around the property.

To the north was the village of Stourton. To the east was Severn Trent Green Power Waste Facility. South was completely rural for miles. West was the village of Dunsley.

He rubbed at his forehead. ‘Jeez, Stace. There are a lot of properties in those villages.’

‘Yeah, and Hiccup can’t be in any of them. Did you hear those screams? If there were neighbours, we’d know about it. There was no gag, so our guy knew he could do what he wanted without fear of detection.’ Stacey tapped at the keyboard furiously. ‘It’s all about the numbers, Penn.’

He watched in awe as she talked while tapping.

‘Google says that the shotguns used for clay pigeon shooting register an average of one hundred and fifty-three decibels, which can be heard up to two miles away.’ She paused for a minute. ‘Assuming Hiccup is inside a building with doors and windows shut, we can assume it’s much closer given that we could hear it on a recording.’

‘Agreed,’ Penn said, moving closer.

‘It also says here that the sound can be lessened by direction of shot, environment, weather, cloud coverage and humidity.’ She sat back. ‘Given all those variables and the volume of the shots on the tape, I don’t see how he could be more than a mile away.’

‘Agreed,’ Penn repeated.

‘Okay, so if I do this,’ Stacey said, using the scale measurement to draw a perimeter line of one mile around the location of the shoot, ‘we should be able to find Hiccup within there somewhere.’

With what Stacey had just done, he could look individually at the properties and either dismiss or consider them as potential locations.

‘Stace…’

‘I know, but I’m gay and you’re attached, so it could never work.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said, wheeling himself back to his own desk.

‘Sent you the link.’

He blew her a kiss in response before looking more closely at the buildings within the search area.

He was hopeful that if he looked closely enough, he’d see an abandoned building or unused barn at a distance from every other property. He zoomed in until the image blurred but found nothing that matched what he was looking for. There were no outbuildings isolated enough for their sicko to have free rein and inflict the torture that he had.

The only buildings in the area were rural properties encircled by farmland.

What was he missing?

He didn’t doubt Stacey’s logic in defining the search area, but all he had were occupied homes.

‘Hang on a minute,’ he said and wasn’t surprised when neither Stacey nor Frost responded.

He opened a new tab on his computer and googled Rightmove.

He entered a search for properties for sale within a one-mile radius of Dunsley Hall.

There were four properties. Two were in the village of Dunsley so were quickly ruled out.

The third was a converted barn. He read the description, but it didn’t match his hunch.

The fourth property was an old farmhouse with a dated interior and a couple of run-down outbuildings.

He scoured the details with a growing excitement.

Words jumped out at him as though in capital letters.

Quick sale due to bereavement, vacant possession.

His head snapped up. ‘Stace, I think I know where Hiccup is.’