Page 35 of 36 Hours

‘We gotta play the game at the same time, guv, so run that clue by me again,’ Bryant said as they neared their next location.

‘“Cubed chieftain slithers around Bonzo,”’ Kim answered. ‘And we have until three o’clock to find it.’

‘Oh yeah, so much clearer now. Can’t believe we didn’t get it the first time,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘And how the hell did Stacey link that to this place?’

‘Cubed is third, chieftain is another word for earl. Dudley Zoo was started by the third Earl of Dudley in the thirties. They had a gorilla named Bonzo until the mid-nineties.’

‘Whatever we pay Stacey, it ain’t enough,’ Bryant said, pulling into the crowded car park.

Mid-afternoon on a dry Sunday, the place would be heaving.

They headed for the turnstiles and showed their badges to a bored-looking teenager checking something on his phone. The peak time of entry would have happened hours ago, meaning thousands of people had already likely contaminated any box.

‘Where are we headed?’ Bryant asked.

‘Think about the clue,’ she said, walking towards the info board.

‘Ah, slithers, reptile house.’

‘Stands a chance,’ she said, locating attraction thirty-four on the map.

It came back to her that there was no way of getting anywhere around the zoo without climbing hills or negotiating steps.

She headed left, passing the fun fair and entrance to the chairlift. Next was a picnic area full of families sitting on both the benches and the grass. At least one child was screaming blue murder at the choice of sandwiches.

‘Long hill around or steep steps past the meerkats?’ she asked.

‘Steps,’ Bryant answered. ‘I love meerkats.’

She offered him a withering glance as she mounted the steps and took a left.

‘I’ll look inside, and you do out here,’ she said, marching into the reptile house.

The dark space was filled with people looking at the array of snakes, lizards and bigger, more frightening creatures. She was more interested in searching every inch of the floor, the corners that were being obscured by legs and feet.

She spotted something up ahead on the floor next to the enclosure of some kind of venomous creature. Short of physically pushing kids out of the way she had no choice but to join the throng of spectators and wait until she got to it.

Eventually, her foot made contact with the object and she bent down.

It was a Barbie lunch box, and she could tell by the weight it wasn’t empty.

She moved out of the stream of people to open it. Just because it wasn’t the same as the first one didn’t mean it wasn’t what she was after. Who knew how many different ways he was trying to mess with them? And who knew what would be inside this time?

She lifted the pink fasteners, silently readying herself for the contents.

She held her breath.

A tap on the shoulder startled her.

She turned.

A woman in a grey sweatshirt was looking from her to the open lunch box with her hand outstretched.

A little girl with a tearstained face visibly brightened on seeing the lunch box. The woman thrust her hand forward further.

‘Sorry,’ Kim said, handing back the box with its half-eaten sandwich and an apple.

The woman offered her a filthy look before grabbing her child with her free hand and exiting the building.