Page 113 of 36 Hours
She paused for a second. ‘Dickie, how many people come in here on a daily basis?’
‘Dunno. Ten, twenty.’
‘Let’s give you the benefit of the doubt and say ten. I came in here a few times six years ago and you remembered me. I can’t be bothered to do the maths but…’
‘It was twenty-one thousand, nine hundred days ago,’ Bryant interjected. ‘Roughly.’
Kim ignored him and continued. ‘But you can’t recall if you bought an ugly old Citroën van just six months ago?’
‘Yeah, weird, eh?’
Kim continued to hold his gaze, but although he coloured, he only shrugged in response.
She turned and left the building.
Peter Harris said he no longer had the van, and Dickie the scrap man said he’d never taken ownership of it. One of them was lying. She just didn’t know which one.
And that was the sound of her one promising lead smacking into a brick wall.
Or was it?
She turned to her colleague. ‘Hey, Bryant, do you remember that time a few years back when I asked your advice?’
‘Yeah, I think so, but it was so long ago that I?—’
‘Well brace yourself cos I’m going to ask again.’
‘I think I know what’s coming. There’s an address burning a hole in your pocket and you want to ask if we should pursue it.’
‘Gold star for you. Do we go and see her and ask her to rake it all up again when it’s not even our case, with very little chance of being able to get justice for her, or do we leave it alone and assume that it has nothing to do with our sicko?’
‘Dangerous to make assumptions, guv,’ he said, demonstrating a change of heart from his earlier opinion.
She nodded her agreement. ‘Oh, Bryant, I do like when you offer good advice.’
He chuckled. ‘Especially if it agrees with what you were going to do anyway.’
For once, he wasn’t wrong.
EIGHTY-FIVE
2.15P.M.
The house was a mid-terrace set back from the road, just six feet away from the sign announcing your arrival in Stourport-on-Severn.
Kim checked her watch before getting out of the car. Only forty-five minutes until the next deadline. Not for the first time she found herself praying that the rest of her team were going to come up with something soon. In the meantime, this was a lead she couldn’t afford to ignore.
The door was answered by a man in his mid-thirties wearing jeans and a tee shirt with the logo of an electrical company on it.
‘Mr Keene?’ Kim asked. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the man was at home.
He nodded.
‘Can we speak to Mrs Keene?’
‘About what?’ he asked, looking them over.
They produced their identifications. He took a good look.