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7.15 P.M.

‘Too easy,’ Kim said, shaking her head as Penn, Stacey and Nazeera disappeared from view. ‘He wanted us to find her so that we’d be late finding him. He’s forcing us to break his rules so that he can enact the consequences.’

Kim admired Nazeera’s grit. The woman had been kidnapped and held hostage for twelve hours. She must have feared for her own safety, for her life at times, and after asking about her mother’s well-being, the first thing on her mind was saving the life of a little girl.

Kim turned to Bryant, who was looking both relieved and exhausted.

‘She’s not the prize,’ Kim said, watching his face fall with disappointment. ‘He didn’t get us all the way up here, mess us around the way he has to end it so easily. If we want him, we’re gonna have to find him.’

Kim thought about Peter Harris and realised she hadn’t given him enough credit. She’d thought Jared had been the whole brains behind the puzzle, but he’d had nothing to do with the endgame.

That had been the sole work of the ex-bouncer who hated his wife and daughter enough to attach this stigma to their names.

‘Where haven’t we tried?’ she asked.

‘Makes sense to head that way,’ Bryant said, pointing east. ‘Puts him at the furthest point away from Nazeera to make our job as hard as it can be.’

‘What’s over there?’

‘Coal mining section, I think.’

They retraced their steps back along the road and turned right, crossing a tram line.

The first thing Kim saw beyond the buildings was a set of railings guarding an open mine shaft. To the right was mine head winding gear. A ninety-foot-tall wooden contraption with beams crisscrossing it.

Pegs protruded either side of one of the beams to form a ladder reaching to the top of the machine and the big wheel once used to bring the coal to the surface.

There was a slim platform alongside the wheel.

Her gaze rested on the figure on the platform, and everything fell into place.