Page 42 of Deadly Cry

She was amused at his reaction to their late-night morgue visit, but even she had to admit that there was an eeriness without Keats’s assistants milling around in the background or the sound of the cleaning staff mopping and wiping every surface.

‘Relax, Bryant, they don’t come out to play until after midnight,’ Keats said, nodding to the fridges across the corridor.

Much as Kim would have loved to enjoy Keats prodding her colleague instead of her, both of them had been at work for almost fifteen hours.

‘Come on, Keats, show and tell.’

‘Oh, Inspector, I remember when you were so much more fun.’

‘Grow up, Keats, I’ve never been any fun.’

He looked up and to the left. ‘Yes, actually, you’re right.’

He stepped over to the desk and picked up an evidence bag.

‘This fell out of her trousers as we were putting her to bed.’

Kim’s stomach lurched.

In the bag was a single sheet of paper.

The killer had written to her again.

Thirty-Six

Kim leaned against the kitchen counter and took out her phone.

On the journey back from the hospital, she’d checked in with the search co-ordinator who had officers already combing the immediate area and was working up a grid system ready for first light.

There was something that felt inherently wrong in being at home when there was a child unaccounted for, and if staying in the office would have made Archie reappear safe and sound in his bed, she’d be there with her sleeping bag right now.

Find the killer, find the child, was the phrase that kept going around in her mind.

A ground search was being carried out, but in her mind the child was not going to be found hiding in a bush somewhere. The dual part of the search was to look for clues: anything the killer might have left behind.

Kim’s heart went out to Robyn Webb-Harvey who had not only lost her partner but whose child was nowhere to be found either.

A quick call to the FLO had confirmed that Robyn alternated between grief and restless pacing as her varying emotions all demanded space in her mind. The grief wanted to close her body down, but the fear for her son kept it on high alert. She just prayed the woman would manage to get some kind of rest.

The FLO had also informed her that every neighbour in the cul-de-sac was out searching the immediate area, checking garages and gardens, even though they were a few miles away from where Archie had last been seen. But that was what people did. Friends and neighbours had to do something, had to feel as though they were contributing and trying to help.

Kim closed the back door behind Barney, who now sat before her waiting patiently for his late-night walk.

‘Just a sec, boy,’ she said, scrolling to the top email on her phone.

She opened the attachment from Keats, which was the letter he had photographed and sent to them all.

She had read it at the morgue, but now she wanted to study the words. Before she had a chance to, though, her phone switched to display an incoming call.

‘Hope you’ve got good news, Dobbie.’For both me and my colleagues, she thought to herself.

‘Well, yeah and no,’ he said.

‘Explain.’

‘Well, there’s bin an err… development on yer request.’

Kim’s radar reacted to two things: Dobbie trying to sound like a businessman and the note of coyness in his voice telling her the problem was for her but not him.