Page 88 of Child's Play

‘Forget the book, Bryant, what I really want is the author.’

Sixty-One

For the second time in one day Penn felt as though he was doing something wrong. Only this time he was.

Earlier he’d had the permission of Travis to visit Gregor Nuryef in prison despite it being highly irregular. But this time he did not have the guv’s permission or even his knowledge. It was best that none of his colleagues knew what he was doing and could not be held accountable. Any shit would be his alone.

‘Hey, Mitch,’ he greeted, entering the techie’s half lab next to the morgue.

‘Yo,’ he said, chewing on a chicken salad sandwich. ‘Missed lunch,’ he said, putting the rest of the sandwich back into the triangular packet.

‘Thanks for seeing me,’ Penn said, placing an evidence bag on the counter.

‘Don’t thank me yet. I don’t even know what you want.’

‘I’ve been—’

‘I’m off, Mitch, I’ll see you… oh, what do we have here?’ Keats asked, coming into the room. ‘Other than the most intelligent member of Detective Inspector Stone’s team.’

‘Sorry?’ Penn asked.

‘Well, I understand you’ve already hotfooted it back to West Mercia, so that’s a lucky escape you…’

‘It’s temporary,’ Penn said, laughing. As the pathologist was fully aware.

‘Ah, not so intelligent, then?’ he said, looking at the bag on the counter. ‘What’s this?’

‘I was just about to find out,’ Mitch said, taking another bite of his sandwich.

Realising that Keats wasn’t moving he opened the evidence bag and laid out the tee shirt recovered from Gregor’s garden shed.

They both looked down and then up at him questioningly.

‘There’s a man currently on trial for murder. The case is falling apart and this is the only concrete evidence left against him.’

‘Your case?’ Keats asked, peering over the top of his glasses.

Penn nodded.

‘And all you want is the truth regardless of the consequences?’

‘Absolutely,’ he said, without hesitation.

Keats began to remove his jacket and glanced sideways at Mitch.

‘Well, then, I suppose we’d better get to work.’

Sixty-Two

‘Do remind me why I’ve just driven over ninety miles to Manchester when you’ve been reading the book on your phone the whole time?’ Bryant asked. ‘Surely you know it all by now.’

Stacey had worked her magic to track down the psychology professor through his social media channels and requested an urgent meeting. He had refused until Kim had taken the number, called him and offered a little more insight. He had agreed to meet them at fiveo’clock at Manchester University.

She had waited until Bryant had driven fifty miles before ringing Woody and letting him know their plans. Not much point instructing her to turn around when she was already halfway there.

Kim put down her phone and began to look around.

‘Do you have any idea of the research that goes into writing a book like this?’ she asked.