Page 59 of 36 Hours

Using their phones for light, they traversed the path back to the car, choosing to concentrate instead of speaking.

‘Put the light on,’ she said once they were back in the car. ‘And shine your phone torch here.’

Bryant did as she asked.

She opened the box and almost gagged as Bryant let out a small groan.

Lolling around the box with no effort to even package it was a dirty severed thumb, with no nail.

‘And a video camera this time,’ Bryant noted.

‘No prizes for guessing what that’s gonna show.’

‘Do we need to?—’

‘Yes, Bryant, we do,’ she said, taking the old-fashioned Sony camcorder from the box. She already knew the envelope would contain the next clue.

She took a breath before pressingPlay.

The sound registered before the visual. Hiccup was already screaming.

From his position, he must have known what was about to happen.

The camera was positioned above his hand, which had been secured to keep the thumb as far apart as possible from the rest of the fingers.

‘No…no…please don’t…I’m begging…’

Kim didn’t want to watch, but she had to. More than anything, she wanted to cover her ears against the undiluted fear in Hiccup’s voice.

The screen was obscured by metal as a cleaver chopped down and severed the thumb. It jumped away from the rest of the hand as though a current had been shot through it.

Nausea hit her as the screams changed from terror to agony.

The camera remained on the trembling hand for a few seconds before the screen went blank.

Kim knew there was no purpose to watching it again for clues. At no time had she seen who was holding the cleaver. Not even his hand had appeared in the frame.

‘Read the clue, Bryant,’ she instructed, eager to put something else in her mind.

‘“Find my next by 3a.m. or…”’

‘Or fucking what?’ she said, turning her face towards her colleague. ‘Where’s the damn clue?’

‘That’s it, guv. Nothing else,’ he said, turning the card over.

With each new communication, she could understand Penn’s rage more. The injustice of what was being done to Hiccup was gnawing a hole in her stomach, and she was growing to hate their sicko more with every passing hour.

FORTY-SIX

9.30P.M.

Penn wasn’t sure there was ever a time they’d had so many names on the board.

The boss had just called through another name and three more registration numbers. Given the volume of potential suspects, he was doing little more than checking them for convictions before moving on to the next name.

His gaze kept returning to the board, considering his options.

There had to be front runners. He agreed that their guy could be amongst the names on the board, but didn’t it make more sense to focus on someone who had been actively involved? On someone who had actually moved one of the boxes?