Page 80 of Little Children (Detective Kim Stone #22)

Seventy-Nine

‘Shit,’ Bryant said, taking a left turn and letting the grey van drive away, out of sight.

The guv’s instructions had been clear. They were to do nothing that would jeopardise her getting to the location where the boys were being held.

‘Now what?’ Penn asked, still holding Bryant’s phone.

He pulled over to the side of the road. ‘All we have is possibly a thirty-to-forty-minute drive and maybe close to a train station,’ Bryant said, referring to the clues the boss had sent.

Penn took out his own phone, but Bryant knew they were too far away to start narrowing down locations. They were only a quarter of an hour into the possible thirty to forty minutes.

‘Shit, too many,’ Penn said, looking at a map of the area.

‘How the hell are we going to?—?’

He stopped speaking as his phone lit up. It was a text message from the guv.

One word.

Left

He smiled as they pulled away. There was now space between them, and the guv was dropping them breadcrumbs as to her direction of travel. He backtracked onto the road they’d left and continued forward. Just out of sight was a left turn. He took it.

‘Left again,’ Penn said.

Bryant didn’t take the next left. That would have taken them around in a circle. He had to try and gauge the time between messages to figure out which turning she might mean.

He took the following left turn and kept to the prescribed speed limits, feeling sure the van would be doing the same. They couldn’t afford any attention.

‘Nothing else yet,’ Penn said, both phones in his lap.

‘Must mean just keep going,’ Bryant said, assuming the guv would only text when there was something he could use.

‘This road lasts for a good seven miles and takes us through a small town called Mereclough.’

‘Train stations?’ Bryant asked, taking care not to exceed the speed limit. The last thing he wanted was to catch them up. He also didn’t want them getting too far ahead.

Penn shook his head.

They drove in silence for the next few miles. Bryant calculated the time on the road to be approaching twenty-five minutes.

‘Right,’ Penn said as the phone lit up.

Bryant tried to estimate the time ahead and ignored the next right turn.

His next option to turn right was at a set of traffic lights in the centre of the town of Todmorden.

He took it.

Penn continued to keep track on his own phone. ‘This road leads to a village called Walsden.’

‘Train station?’ Bryant asked, repeating his earlier question.

‘Yes, just on the other side of the village.’

Bryant hoped they were on the right track.

‘What’s beyond?’ he asked.

‘Stopped,’ Penn called out.

He had no idea if that meant they’d reached the destination or whether they were stopping for fuel or some other reason.

‘Beyond is another village with a train station.’

‘They can’t be too near to the villages,’ Bryant said. ‘Folks in small villages know each other and each other’s business.’

‘The stretch between the two villages is four miles long,’ Penn said.

Four miles of countryside, having to search properties on both sides of the road.

He prayed that the guv would manage to drop one more crumb before she was completely on her own.