Page 39 of 36 Hours
It did not work. The woman looked to her husband to take swift and decisive action.
‘Inspector, you have got to be?—’
‘There’s been a development,’ Kim said, dragging a stool from the next table, which had just emptied. ‘I tried to call, but the reception here must be terrible.’
‘No, I intentionally cut you off.’
‘No matter.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m here now.’
‘I can’t even imagine how you found me here, but you’re wasting your time, Inspector. I’ll take a look at whatever you have tomorrow. Now please leave us to enjoy the rest of our weekend.’
His wife’s glare signalled that she would have liked much stronger action than that.
‘We have teeth,’ Kim said, taking the envelope from her jacket pocket in its plastic evidence bag. ‘Wanna see?’ she asked, thrusting the blood-soaked envelope towards his wife.
Her nose wrinkled in distaste before she fixed her husband with another hard stare.
Kim handed the bag to Mitch, who, despite his thunderous expression, took a look inside the envelope.
He cringed as though an image had formed of the actions needed to get those teeth.
‘We have the recording,’ Kim said. ‘It was horrific.’
Mitch shook his head. ‘I’m just not sure what you want from me.’
‘Firstly, I want to know if they’re from the same person as the nails. Then I want to know what was used to extract them, and thirdly whether there are any clues on the box, the envelope or tape that might help us find this bastard before we start getting body parts the victim can’t live without.’
She offered a quick smile to his wife before turning back to Mitch. ‘Not much really. You could be home by teatime.’
‘Mitch, it’s the weekend,’ the woman whined.
‘I know, sweetie, but it’s?—’
‘You do this, Mitch, and you needn’t bother coming home.’
Kim could see the man was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Time to give the guy a helping hand and smooth these troubled waters.
She turned to his wife. ‘We don’t know each other, Mrs Mitch, but here’s what’s happening. A desperate, vulnerable person has been lifted from the streets on the promise of a warm meal.’ She paused to look around the pub. ‘We have been engaged in a race against time to try and save this man’s life. He appears to be suffering in real time having now had fingernails and teeth forcibly and crudely removed. Your husband has both the skills and technology to help us find this poor soul and end his suffering, and if you can’t understand that, lady, shame on you.’
THIRTY
3.50P.M.
‘So, Mitch is on his way to the lab with the teeth,’ Stacey said after ending the call from the boss. ‘And I’m thinking the boss is currently apologising to Bryant over the whole Hiccup thing.’
‘Most likely not,’ Frost muttered under her breath without even taking her eyes from the computer.
Clearly the woman was always listening, and although she was supposed to be scouring all her articles to find out why their sicko had chosen her as the messenger, for all Stacey knew, the reporter was making notes on every conversation she overheard to use at some later date.
It reminded Stacey of those people who kept wild exotic animals as pets. It was never a good idea to trust them completely.
Thinking of animals, she checked her inbox. It was twenty minutes since she’d spoken to the security guy at Dudley Zoo, and that had been quite the trial.
After explaining that she had no interest in their webcams of the Sumatran tigers or the lemurs in their woodland home, he had finally understood that she wanted to access any CCTV they had around the reptile house.
He had explained that they had a static on the entrance and another static at the fork in the road that led to the building. She’d asked for both sets of footage from opening time up to 2.30p.m. when the boss had been in the area. The fact that the box had been dry and there’d been a heavy shower around ten told her the box had been planted that day. Could Ryan Douglas have made it over from Telford in time after speaking to the boss? Could Eric Lane have planted it and been back home in time for their visit at lunchtime? Both were definitely doable, but she’d keep an open mind while viewing the footage.
As if wishing made it so, her inbox sounded the receipt of a media file with a short note of