Page 54 of Deadly Cry

‘Touché,’ Bryant said, nodding his understanding.

‘Thank you for—’ her words were cut off by the ringing of her phone.

‘Excuse me,’ she said as Reg started to pour his coffee into one of the plants.

She turned away and took out her phone.

It was Penn at the search site.

Please God, let Archie be found, she thought, mentally crossing her fingers.

She answered the call and listened as she worked her way back to the front of the house.

She paused at the front door to ask the question that was playing on her lips.

‘What the hell is she doing there?’

Forty-Three

It was almost eleven when Bryant pulled up at Stevens Park. A light drizzle had just started to smatter against the windscreen.

Kim headed straight for Penn, who was to the left of an open-booted squad car.

‘Are you sure it’s her?’ Kim asked, continuing the conversation they’d started as she’d been leaving the graphologist’s home.

Penn reached into the boot and took out a sheet of paper.

‘Says here Ella Nock arrived at 8.55 a.m. and was paired with a woman called Dorothy Birch to search down to the traffic island, along Caledonia and back up the other side.’

‘Has she been back yet?’ Kim asked.

Penn shook his head as the drizzle turned to heavy rain.

‘Here come a batch of volunteers now,’ Penn noted, nodding towards the walkway to the main gates.

A group of four women and two men were approaching the co-ordination point at speed, driven by the rain no doubt.

Kim picked out Ella pulling up her jacket collar around her neck.

Inspector Plant appeared at the car as the group approached.

‘Thank you all for coming out to help,’ he said as the three sets of two offered their names and declared their area searched.

‘Ella,’ Kim said, stepping forward, ‘I’m surprised to see you here.’

Ella shrugged as the others headed back to their cars. ‘It’s the least I could do, Inspector. I saw the news report that a child was missing. We were lucky. We got Mia back but…’

‘And we’ll get Archie back too,’ Kim said with more confidence than she felt. ‘I’d just have thought your brother needed you more.’

‘He wanted to come, but I insisted he stay home with Mia. She’s now realised that mummy isn’t coming home.’

Kim wondered if Andrew Nock always did what his sister told him to do.

‘And how is your brother doing?’

Ella raised an eyebrow as if there was little point offering an answer to that question.

‘Well, if that’s all, Inspector, I’d like to get—’