Page 99 of First Blood

And she wasn’t surprised at the answer.

Chapter Eighty-Nine

It was almost seven when they were allowed access through the gate back into the shelter.

They had spoken little during the journey as they had both considered the ramifications of Wendy’s friendship with Carl.

The ringing of her phone appeared to startle them both.

Her stomach turned when she saw that it was Keats. Surely not another.

‘Inspector Stone, I thought you might like to know something curious that happened prior to the post-mortem of Charles Lockwood.’

Other than the victim coming alive in the back of the pathologist’s vehicle, she couldn’t imagine what had happened since they’d parted.

‘Not sure it means anything but as we were lifting him into the body bag a curious item fell to the floor.’

Kim wondered if the man got a bonus for each time he used the word curious.

‘Go on.’

‘It was a sixpence, Inspector. Bent slightly but still identifiable, and if you don’t know what…’

‘I know what a sixpence is, Keats,’ she said as her face creased into a frown.

It had been the equivalent of two and a half pence until 1980.

‘Okay, Keats, thanks,’ she said, ending the call.

It was curious indeed. But given what Dawson had uncovered it may be not all that surprising. Perhaps she should have listened more closely to what Dawson had to say. Had she dismissed the theory so quickly because it had come from the least productive member of her team, the one who had given her the most trouble all week or had she genuinely felt there was no substance to the idea? It was a question she would need to ask herself later and she wasn’t sure she was going to like the answer.

She turned to her colleague. ‘Looks like Dawson might have had something with the nursery rhyme thing after all,’ she said, pressing the call button.

‘Oh great, now the guy will be totally insuff—’

‘Dawson,’ she said when he answered, cutting off Bryant. ‘I need you to stay on your nursery rhymes. We have a bent sixpence. See if there’s any connection.’

He answered in the affirmative as Bryant parked next to Carl Wickes’s Transit van.

Oh yes, after her conversation with Wendy Lockwood she was even more eager to speak to this particular handyman.

Chapter Ninety

Dawson replaced the receiver and beamed at his colleague. ‘Looks like I might have been onto something after all.’

‘Well, I suppose it had to happen at least…’

‘Ooh, not bitter eh, Stacey, cos I might have done something to impress the boss?’

She ignored him and continued working.

Yeah, maybe it was his turn to be star pupil.

He wasted no more time and entered a Google search for sixpence in nursery rhymes.

His first hit was for ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’.

He read through the first verse. The original was only one verse long.