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8.35 A.M.

‘Nothing,’ Penn said, putting down the phone. He’d decided to shelve the clue for a while and turn his attention to something concrete he could investigate.

‘You will not miss the first’, the email had read. The most serious thing that could be missing was a person, but after searching the database he’d established that there were no new reports of missing people.

A quick call to Jack on the desk had confirmed that no recent reports had been filed that hadn’t yet made it onto the database.

‘Maybe it’s not a person,’ Stacey offered, breaking her focus on trying to work out the clue.

‘He’s already told us that if we don’t perform, someone is going to get hurt,’ Penn pushed back.

‘Doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to abduct someone.’ She paused. ‘If we’re being totally honest, we don’t even know for sure that this guy isn’t yanking our chain and just messing with us for some Sunday morning entertainment.’

Although she shouldn’t have been listening, Penn saw a nod of agreement from Frost, which was ironic given that she had brought it to them in the first place.

‘Could even be some kind of team-building exercise, elaborate admittedly, but possible,’ Stacey added.

He considered her point. Yes, there were organisations that sprang incidents on their teams and then assessed their performance, but wouldn’t the police force more likely invent a major investigation instead of some kind of treasure hunt? Even though he doubted it at this point, he couldn’t rule it out.

‘If so, I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes when the boss gets hold of them.’

Even Frost snickered at that.

‘We’ve agreed to play along so we all think there’s a chance this might be real,’ Penn said, picturing what he should have been doing. That image led straight into the vision of Lynne still snuggled in his bed. He quickly pushed that thought away.

‘So, if we’re to assume that every word means something, then the words “you won’t miss the first” have to contain the answer. How will we not miss something important?’

‘If you didn’t even notice you had it?’ Stacey said.

Penn nodded his agreement. ‘That’s one way.’

‘Low value,’ Frost offered without raising her head.

They both glared at her.

‘Sorry,’ she said, holding up her hand.

‘She’s right though,’ Penn conceded. ‘We don’t miss what we class as low-value items if they suddenly disappear.’

‘But it has to be something he knows is of high value to us or we wouldn’t even entertain the chase,’ Stacey insisted. ‘I love a bag of chicken crisps, but I ain’t gonna spend my day off running round the Black Country for them.’

‘Okay, so we’re looking for something we know we have which we don’t necessarily notice and is of low value to him but high value to us that is now missing.’

‘Yep, so whatever the item…’

‘Not an item, Stace. It has to be a person.’

‘We’ve been through that,’ Stacey argued as the puzzle turned to a theory in his mind.

‘Not totally.’

‘No missing person reports.’

‘Low value, unnoticed but important to us…’

‘Oh shit,’ she said as Penn reached for his coat.

The bastard was talking about the homeless.