Page 109 of First Blood

‘Miss… it doesn’t matter. We really need to speak to him now.’

‘Well, you can’t. He’s not here.’

The exact words she did not want to hear.

‘Where is he?’

She shook her head in exasperation as Kim pictured this particular complaint making it on to two pages.

‘He’s a doctor, a GP, he gets called out. He left about half an hour ago.’

Chapter One Hundred

‘Please tell me you’ve got something, Kev, we are seriously running out of time.’

Kim could not rid herself of the feeling that someone was going to die tonight. And that it was going to be her fault.

‘I’m trying, boss. I’m looking at the “Doctor Foster” nursery rhyme.’

‘Put me on hands-free and read it out.’

She heard Stacey’s fingers tapping furiously as Dawson read out loud.

‘“Doctor Foster went to Gloucester, in a shower of rain; He stepped in a puddle, right up to his middle and never went there again.”’

‘Okay, Stace, you listening?’ she called out.

‘Yeah, boss.’

‘Search for places in the local area with Gloucester in them. I want roads, avenues, anything and then look for ones that are close to a body of water.’

‘Thing is, boss…’

‘Dawson, get on to the doctor’s call-out service to see if there were any emergencies funnelled through them.’

There was hesitation behind his silence until he eventually gave her the answer she wanted.

‘Okay, boss.’

Good. She would have hated giving him a dressing-down on loudspeaker in front of the whole team.

‘Got something,’ Stacey called in the background. ‘Just outside Romsley there’s a Gloucester Street with a fishing pond that backs on to some of the houses.’

‘Give me the post code,’ Kim said, feeling like they were finally getting somewhere.

She just hoped they weren’t already too late.

Chapter One Hundred One

Dawson could feel the excitement for the lead from the boss through the phone line.

When the call ended he saw his colleague’s eyes alight with achievement and pride that she was potentially sending the boss to a murder scene.

Except he wasn’t so sure they were following the right clues.

He had been in the process of researching the possible meanings behind the ‘Doctor Foster’ nursery rhyme when the boss had called in.

So far, he’d read that it was based on a story of Edward I of England travelling to Gloucester, falling off his horse into a puddle and refusing to return to the city again.