Page 14

10.20 A.M.

‘We’re almost back with you, Stace,’ Kim said, answering the phone. An accident and a tractor had slowed down their return trip.

‘No, don’t come back. Head to Dudley Wood.’

‘Why?’

‘Cos I think that’s where you’ll find the next clue. It’s human nature to spring your food well. Season your food, salt food well.’

‘Saltwells Nature Reserve,’ Kim said. ‘You sure?’

‘No, but it’s all I’ve got.’

Sounded good to her. ‘Thanks, Stace.’

She shook her head as Bryant changed direction. Puzzles were so bloody simple once you knew the answer.

‘Come on, Bryant – speed her up a bit. We have a location.’

‘I know, guv, the Saltwells pub and nature reserve. It’s a decent size, and we don’t even know what we’re looking for. I don’t know what’s gonna happen at eleven, but I’m pretty sure we’re gonna find out.’

Kim already knew the numbers. The whole site was almost one hundred hectares in total and was two and a half miles long.

She was still thinking about how to divide that area equally between the two of them as Bryant pulled into the car park, which in itself was a reasonable size.

She jumped out of the car and approached the information board which displayed a map of the nature reserve. She couldn’t help wondering at the significance of 11 a.m. She knew the pub didn’t open until twelve so she’d ruled out finding anything inside the premises.

‘Jesus, guv, there’s only two of us,’ Bryant said, casting his gaze over the total area.

‘No shit,’ she said, trying to work out a route for both of them so they could cover the largest amount of ground in the shortest time.

It was impossible. The site was a mixture of rough terrain with trees, open ground, impenetrable vegetation, undergrowth and areas of water.

‘The best we can do is stick to the paths and hope we spot something,’ Kim said, tracing the lines with her fingers.

‘You take this one,’ she said, pointing to the main path. Although it wound off at different spots, it did cover much of the western side of the reserve.

‘I’ll try and follow this one,’ she said, tracing the line of a smaller path, a lot less obvious but still used by many people. There was a marker for a third indistinct path they had no chance of searching with just the two of them.

‘Okay, we’ve got half an hour. Make it count,’ Kim said as they went in opposite directions.

Twenty minutes later, Kim had worked her way through woods, along paths, over bridges, alongside streams and had come up empty.

She was about to head to the lake when something caught her attention, but it was nothing on the ground.

She took out her phone and called Bryant. He answered on the second ring.

‘You hear that?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, what is it?’

‘Vehicles. Quite a few of them, heading towards the car park.’

‘Why? The pub isn’t open yet,’ Bryant said before cursing at something.

‘I know,’ she said, checking her watch. It was ten minutes to the deadline. ‘What the hell is happening at eleven o’clock?’

‘Not sure, guv, but we’d best find out,’ he said, ending the call.

She made her way back the way she’d come, half sprinting and still half searching.

She and Bryant reached the car park at the same time.

The space looked very different to when they’d left it. There were now fifteen or twenty cars and small groups of people congregating.

With Bryant not far behind, Kim headed for the largest group that was closest to the Saltwells pub. As she got closer, she saw there was a table holding name badges, refuse sacks, hi-vis vests and grabber tools.

The man standing behind the table appraised her and frowned.

‘What’s happening?’ Kim asked, showing her identification.

His frown deepened as he reached for a label and patted it on to his sweatshirt.

‘I’m Fred Guest, chairman of the Saltwells Friends Association. It’s our bi-annual litter-pick.’

She looked around as more people came closer.

Great, around thirty people traipsing across the whole area and destroying every possibility of preserving anything of interest.

She had no idea what there was to find, but she knew there was something.

‘You need to cancel it,’ she said.

‘Why? These people have given up their free time. The date has been planned for months.’

‘You’ll have to rearrange it.’

He looked horrified. ‘Do you have any idea what it takes to arrange this? We have to protect the wildlife.’

‘Yeah, great, you just can’t do it today.’

‘Why not?’ he asked as the crowd closed in, everyone eager to hear.

‘Err… because I said so,’ she answered, wondering why being a police officer wasn’t enough for anyone today.

Bolstered by the appearance of his fellow volunteers, Fred’s chest expanded right in front of her.

He looked past her, towards the reserve. ‘Clearly there’s no ongoing incident, and it doesn’t appear to be a crime scene, so on what grounds do you want me to cancel?’

Jesus, Fred was serious about protecting his litter-pick.

‘There’s an item in there that’s of interest to us,’ she said, giving him as much information as she had herself.

He waited for more.

There was no more.

He shook his head. ‘Sorry, Inspector, but that wasn’t a compelling argument. We’re going to carry on unless you have some kind of paperwork.’

His unspoken words were that there was nothing she could do to stop it.

And he wasn’t wrong. She had no authority to close down his event based on the information she had.

For just a minute, Kim wondered what the hell they were doing.

She had no body, no missing person and she was looking for the first clue in what had been threatened as a thirty-six hour game. She was standing here arguing with the organiser of a bloody litter-pick, and she was half expecting someone to charge out of the bushes and announce she’d been pranked.

Part of her wanted to throw her hands in the air and go home. She could still salvage the rest of her weekend and pretend Frost had never come to her door. But she had to weigh up her gut feeling that bad things would happen if she did that.

Standing before her was Fred, an immovable force who was sending his litter-pickers in whether she liked it or not.

She sighed heavily. ‘Okay, Fred, let’s look at this another way.’