Page 75 of 36 Hours

Stacey began tapping on her computer.

Penn already knew she’d be asking Google for clay pigeon shooting locations in the Black Country.

‘Lichfield, Lea Marston, Coventry, Warwick, Nuneaton.’

‘All too far,’ Penn said. ‘Timing is everything to him. He needs a solid timeline with no chance of delays.’

‘He could be paying someone else to do it.’

Penn shook his head. ‘Too many people involved. If he was doing that, we’d be covering even more mileage than we are because he could get the boxes dropped further afield. Our guy likes to be in control. The more people who are involved, the more chance there is of something going wrong. There has to be a reason we’re in this local radius.’

‘Wolverhampton?’ Stacey asked.

‘Maybe,’ he said, although he was still doubtful. The core of the activity was more local.

‘No events yesterday anyway,’ Stacey said as her gaze continued to interrogate the Google results.

‘Wait a minute. What about Dunsley?’

‘That might work,’ Penn said as his insides reacted.

Although officially in the county of Staffordshire, Dunsley was only a few miles from some of the locations the boss had already visited. It was semi-rural with a lot of space between properties.

He looked up to see Stacey grinning at him.

‘What?’

‘Dunsley Hall had a private party clay pigeon shooting this afternoon between the hours of 2p.m. and 5p.m. Photos have been posted in their gallery.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Frost said without looking up.

‘We’re not there yet,’ Penn said, wheeling his chair around to Stacey’s desk. ‘Can you get an aerial shot of Dunsley Hall?’

It appeared on the screen, and Penn could instantly see the acreage around the property.

To the north was the village of Stourton. To the east was Severn Trent Green Power Waste Facility. South was completely rural for miles. West was the village of Dunsley.

He rubbed at his forehead. ‘Jeez, Stace. There are a lot of properties in those villages.’

‘Yeah, and Hiccup can’t be in any of them. Did you hear those screams? If there were neighbours, we’d know about it. There was no gag, so our guy knew he could do what he wanted without fear of detection.’ Stacey tapped at the keyboard furiously. ‘It’s all about the numbers, Penn.’

He watched in awe as she talked while tapping.

‘Google says that the shotguns used for clay pigeon shooting register an average of one hundred and fifty-three decibels, which can be heard up to two miles away.’ She paused for a minute. ‘Assuming Hiccup is inside a building with doors and windows shut, we can assume it’s much closer given that we could hear it on a recording.’

‘Agreed,’ Penn said, moving closer.

‘It also says here that the sound can be lessened by direction of shot, environment, weather, cloud coverage and humidity.’ She sat back. ‘Given all those variables and the volume of the shots on the tape, I don’t see how he could be more than a mile away.’

‘Agreed,’ Penn repeated.

‘Okay, so if I do this,’ Stacey said, using the scale measurement to draw a perimeter line of one mile around the location of the shoot, ‘we should be able to find Hiccup within there somewhere.’

With what Stacey had just done, he could look individually at the properties and either dismiss or consider them as potential locations.

‘Stace…’

‘I know, but I’m gay and you’re attached, so it could never work.’