Page 134 of 36 Hours

Kim turned to Bryant, who was looking both relieved and exhausted.

‘She’s not the prize,’ Kim said, watching his face fall with disappointment. ‘He didn’t get us all the way up here, mess us around the way he has to end it so easily. If we want him, we’re gonna have to find him.’

Kim thought about Peter Harris and realised she hadn’t given him enough credit. She’d thought Jared had been the whole brains behind the puzzle, but he’d had nothing to do with the endgame.

That had been the sole work of the ex-bouncer who hated his wife and daughter enough to attach this stigma to their names.

‘Where haven’t we tried?’ she asked.

‘Makes sense to head that way,’ Bryant said, pointing east. ‘Puts him at the furthest point away from Nazeera to make our job as hard as it can be.’

‘What’s over there?’

‘Coal mining section, I think.’

They retraced their steps back along the road and turned right, crossing a tram line.

The first thing Kim saw beyond the buildings was a set of railings guarding an open mine shaft. To the right was mine head winding gear. A ninety-foot-tall wooden contraption with beams crisscrossing it.

Pegs protruded either side of one of the beams to form a ladder reaching to the top of the machine and the big wheel once used to bring the coal to the surface.

There was a slim platform alongside the wheel.

Her gaze rested on the figure on the platform, and everything fell into place.

ONE HUNDRED ONE

7.23P.M.

‘You’re late,’ Fred Guest called down from above.

How had she not seen that the man who had helped them from that very first day had inserted himself into the investigation? It had all started at the Saltwells Nature Reserve where Fred had been in charge. She’d given him the power to point them in any direction he chose.

He had been calm, helpful and co-operative while all the time causing them to chase their tails around the Black Country.

That same man was standing eighty feet in the air with a rope around his neck attached to a beam beneath his feet. If he took just one step forward, he would break his neck and he would never face the justice of a courtroom. For the sake of Hiccup and Frost, she wanted to see that day.

But how to make it happen? What could she appeal to?

She readied her voice to shout up to him. ‘Come down, Fred. Your dad…’

‘Dad died seven months ago,’ he called back down.

What a show he’d put on for them when they visited his home. Asking them to be quiet for the sake of his ill parent who’d already been dead for months.

Now the timeline made sense to her. Fred’s father had died, taking with him what had been Fred’s only reason for existing. Suddenly, the emptiness of his life had been staring him in the face and he’d decided to do something about it. One of his first actions was deciding who he was going to use to divert attention from himself. And that man had been Peter Harris.

One step and it would all be over. She had to get up to him. She needed to be able to stop him from breaking his own neck.

She put her feet on the first rung of the ladder, ignoring the warning sound from her colleague.

‘You went and bought Peter Harris’s van,’ she said, taking another step. ‘He told you on the last litter-pick that he was getting rid of it. You found out where he was taking it, didn’t you?’

Fred ignored her question. ‘You’re too late. It’s twenty-three minutes past seven.’

She continued climbing towards him. ‘And you used his debit card to set up the account on Seekers. What I don’t understand is why?’

‘Because I’m invisible. I’m sixty-one years old and all I’ve ever done is take care of a sick parent.’