Page 18 of 36 Hours

‘I’ll try and follow this one,’ she said, tracing the line of a smaller path, a lot less obvious but still used by many people. There was a marker for a third indistinct path they had no chance of searching with just the two of them.

‘Okay, we’ve got half an hour. Make it count,’ Kim said as they went in opposite directions.

Twenty minutes later, Kim had worked her way through woods, along paths, over bridges, alongside streams and had come up empty.

She was about to head to the lake when something caught her attention, but it was nothing on the ground.

She took out her phone and called Bryant. He answered on the second ring.

‘You hear that?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, what is it?’

‘Vehicles. Quite a few of them, heading towards the car park.’

‘Why? The pub isn’t open yet,’ Bryant said before cursing at something.

‘I know,’ she said, checking her watch. It was ten minutes to the deadline. ‘What the hell is happening at eleven o’clock?’

‘Not sure, guv, but we’d best find out,’ he said, ending the call.

She made her way back the way she’d come, half sprinting and still half searching.

She and Bryant reached the car park at the same time.

The space looked very different to when they’d left it. There were now fifteen or twenty cars and small groups of people congregating.

With Bryant not far behind, Kim headed for the largest group that was closest to the Saltwells pub. As she got closer, she saw there was a table holding name badges, refuse sacks, hi-vis vests and grabber tools.

The man standing behind the table appraised her and frowned.

‘What’s happening?’ Kim asked, showing her identification.

His frown deepened as he reached for a label and patted it on to his sweatshirt.

‘I’m Fred Guest, chairman of the Saltwells Friends Association. It’s our bi-annual litter-pick.’

She looked around as more people came closer.

Great, around thirty people traipsing across the whole area and destroying every possibility of preserving anything of interest.

She had no idea what there was to find, but she knew there was something.

‘You need to cancel it,’ she said.

‘Why? These people have given up their free time. The date has been planned for months.’

‘You’ll have to rearrange it.’

He looked horrified. ‘Do you have any idea what it takes to arrange this? We have to protect the wildlife.’

‘Yeah, great, you just can’t do it today.’

‘Why not?’ he asked as the crowd closed in, everyone eager to hear.

‘Err…because I said so,’ she answered, wondering why being a police officer wasn’t enough for anyone today.

Bolstered by the appearance of his fellow volunteers, Fred’s chest expanded right in front of her.