Page 43 of 36 Hours
She hadn’t yet mentioned her discovery to Penn, as unlike her colleague, she was hanging on to the hope they could save Hiccup before he suffered any more damage. As painful as the torture must have been, there was nothing yet that couldn’t be fixed.
She played the footage and found the exact time that the woman left the entrance lane.
She noted down the details and made another call to the zoo.
Travis, the security guy, answered the direct line he’d given her earlier.
‘Me again,’ Stacey said. ‘And I need more help. Not sure you’re the right person, but you haven’t done me wrong yet.’
‘Shoot,’ he said in the manner of someone who was having a slow day.
‘Got a female coming through the entrance lanes this morning. The exact time was nineteen minutes past ten. She came through kiosk A, and I need to know if she paid by cash or card. I completely understand if you can’t help me with that, but I need the information urgently.’
He hesitated.
‘You could be helping to save someone’s life.’
More hesitation. ‘Hang on,’ he said before the line went silent.
Penn had turned his attention from the clue to her.
She tapped her fingers while she waited.
And waited.
Five minutes later, he came back on the line.
‘Okay, the manager says I’m breaking no data protection laws by telling you that we did have a woman who used a debit card to enter the zoo at that exact time, but all I can give you is the name.’
‘That’s all I need, Travis, that’s all I need.’
THIRTY-THREE
4.50P.M.
‘I swear to God that if Stacey ever wanted to spend more time in the field, we’d be fucked,’ Kim said as they pulled up outside the first maisonette block on the Hollytree Estate.
Kim couldn’t enter the area without a shudder. Not just because it was a cesspit that had collected the worst of humanity or even because every ounce of hope in the place had been shot down by addiction, crime and gang-controlled activity. The shudder was an involuntary physical reaction to being back where the most important thing in her life had been taken from her. Never would she visit this place and not recall the sensation of her twin brother’s body against hers as he slowly starved to death.
But she was here right now because one of her team was an absolute star. Stacey had managed to take a seed of information and grow it into an entire garden which included the address of the woman who had left the box at Dudley Zoo.
She knocked on the door of the second property along.
As it opened, Kim saw the pushchair folded against the wall and the pink jacket from the CCTV frame Stacey had sent hanging above it.
‘Joanne Deary?’
The woman nodded, and Kim knew immediately that she hadn’t lived on Hollytree very long. The place bred a hatred of the police, and the expressions on the faces of most long-term dwellers were usually full of disgust.
‘May we come in?’ Kim asked as they both held up their IDs.
Joanne’s expression faltered, but she stood aside. Another indicator that she was new to the estate. Most residents wouldn’t let them over the threshold.
They squeezed in between the door and the pushchair and felt the instant oppression of the home.
This side of the maisonette had a covered concrete walkway outside to support the walkway on the floor above, rendering the space dark and claustrophobic.
‘Can we talk in here?’ Joanne asked, pushing open the kitchen door. ‘The kids are asleep.’