Page 31 of Deadly Cry

‘Correction, guv, he’s trying to communicate withyoudirectly,’ Bryant pointed out, glancing again at the envelope.

Another reason she hated giving press conferences. It caused all the crazies to look in her direction. She’d given a brief statement with no names at teatime after briefing Woody and now she was the focus of attention. She had to consider all options, and the letter could easily be from someone messing about.

‘You think it’s really from him?’ Penn asked, as though reading her thoughts.

‘There are no specifics, so it’s hard to say and I’d bet Bryant’s new car his name isn’t Noah, but…’ she turned towards Stacey.

‘Already started looking, boss,’ she answered.

Kim read the letter again. ‘If it is him, he really wants us to stop him from…’

Kim stopped speaking as her phone rang.

It was Keats.

It appeared they were already too late.

Twenty-Seven

‘You know she’s pissed off with us, don’t you?’ Stacey asked once Mitch had zoomed in and collected the letter. She’d taken time to wave in his direction, even though she was on an urgent call from her mother, who never rang her during the day.

‘What do you mean Aunt Abebi can’t make the cake?’ Stacey had asked in response to her mother’s panic-stricken words.

Aunt Abebi was her father’s sister; she had come to the UK at the same time as her parents thirty-four years ago. She’d forged a place making authentic African cakes for the local Nigerian community. Over time, she had developed new recipes and tried them out on friends and neighbours. Now, few events took place in the Dudley Nigerian community without one of Aunt Abebi’s cakes. There had never been any question that Aunt Abebi would make her wedding cake.

‘She has to leave for Lagos tomorrow. Uncle Egbo is very poorly. She is in tears for letting you down.’

Stacey immediately felt sorry for her selfish response to the news.

‘Mum, please ring her and tell her it’s fine. She can’t leave feeling bad, but what are we going to do?’ she’d asked, hoping her mum would magically have the answer.

‘I could try…’

‘No, Mum, that’s not going to work,’ she cut in quickly. By her own admission, her mother was not a good baker. She was a demon with jollof rice and pounded yam, but cakes were not her forte.

‘We’ll sort something out, sweetie,’ her mother had soothed before Stacey had ended the call.

And that was exactly what she needed to be thinking about when her priority had to be making up ground with the boss.

Stacey had printed off more copies of the letter and put them on every desk.

‘Yeah, I can see her point. It was just sitting there for hours,’ Penn said.

‘But to be fair to us both,’ Stacey defended, ‘nothing interesting ever comes into the office by post.’

‘Agreed, but in future…’

‘We’ll open the bloody post earlier,’ Stacey finished for him.

She paused and then caught his eye.

‘Does this mean we’re officially on the naughty step?’

Penn laughed out loud and it was a good sound to hear.

‘Yeah, stop pulling my pigtails,’ he said.

‘You think the letter really is from our killer?’ Stacey asked.