SIXTY-FOUR

6.40 A.M.

‘We’re fucking nowhere, Bryant,’ Kim snapped.

Her colleague had dared to suggest they were going to find the bastard who had done this.

‘He’s one step ahead of us at every turn. He knows what we’re going to do and sets us up to fail every time. There’s no winning this game.’

Bryant backed off, knowing that her rage came from her inability to prevent what she’d just seen.

She’d been the closest to Hiccup when the train had hit, and she already knew the image would never leave her mind.

Minutes, not even a lot of them, and she would have had him away from danger.

‘You couldn’t have gone any faster if you’d known that train was coming, guv,’ Bryant offered before moving away from her.

That was something she’d never know for sure.

And the train, the damn train. Penn had called with the news that the train line had received a text message warning of a prank call that would ask to stop a train. They had assumed Penn’s call to be that prank and had ignored it. Lives had changed forever due to that decision.

The passengers had all been removed from the train by Inspector Plant and his team, and the driver was being treated by paramedics for shock. Despite the horror of his ordeal, her sympathy was in short supply for anyone other than the man on the tracks, who had never stood a chance.

‘Oh fucking splendid,’ she whispered to herself as Keats approached.

He took one look at her face and just nodded in her direction.

‘I’ll let you know if I find anything that will help,’ he said as he passed.

‘Thank you,’ she said, satisfied that Hiccup would be in safe hands.

One thing she’d always appreciated about the pathologist was that he knew when to leave her alone. As did her colleague, who walked silently beside her.

What neither of them could sense was the rage building inside her. Not only because a poor, defenceless man had been treated like a piece of meat, his life taken without a thought of its value. Hiccup had been disposable to their killer, a tool used to play the game. That thought alone sickened her to the core.

On top of that was the anger that no action was their own. Everything was being orchestrated, and they were just following his orders. He always knew exactly what they were going to do.

Kim was unsure if she’d ever had a case that had frustrated her more.