SEVENTY-FIVE

11.10 A.M.

‘Is this guy having a laugh?’ Stacey said, bringing the last of the four boxes into the squad room.

‘He wasn’t too joyful when he was picking the gravel out of his palms,’ Bryant offered.

‘Huh?’

‘Never mind,’ the boss said, offering Bryant a look. ‘He’s got no interest in seeing this goose chase end. He’s doing pretty well out of it.’

‘Even if people are dying?’ Penn asked.

The boss shrugged to indicate the man couldn’t care less.

It would take them weeks to go through this lot, and they couldn’t even do it efficiently. If the information had been sent electronically, there were all kinds of searches she could run, but with this, every sheet had to be looked at and analysed.

For a second, she thought of the little girl whose life depended on the safe return of Nazeera Khan. The hours left for them to make that happen were now in single figures. That was assuming they found her able to function. After what the Jester had done to Hiccup, who knew what state she was in?

She shook away the negative thoughts. She had to believe that Nazeera was being kept safe.

She turned her attention back to the boxes of documents.

She looked up again to find the boss watching her.

‘Only when you’ve got nothing better to do, Stace,’ Kim told her.

‘Talking of which, I’ve got an address for Melissa Keene if you think it’s worth pursuing,’ Stacey said, handing her a Post-it note.

Kim put it in her back pocket. ‘Focus on the clues. That’s how we’re going to find Nazeera.’

Stacey nodded her understanding. ‘We can’t get anything from this one. There aren’t even enough words to go on. Very tall but almost little. We’ve been looking up everything tall in a ten-mile radius, but there’s nothing with any reference to being little or almost little.’

‘Almost little,’ the boss said, pondering. ‘That’s the bit that means everything.’

‘But surely if it’s tall it can’t be almost little,’ Bryant said.

‘Exactly. So he’s telling us something else.’

Those had been Stacey’s thoughts exactly, but she just hadn’t been able to work it out.

‘Almost little, almost little, almost?—’

Kim stopped speaking, paused and then turned to Bryant.

‘Look lively, partner. I know exactly where we need to go.’