The rest of her team had been delighted with the idea of a weekend away, sleeping rough and living off the land. Not exactly true; they’d been supplied with a state-of-the-art tent, basic cooking facilities and enough tins to feed a family for a week.
Woody didn’t know what he was talking about, she’d thought as they’d pulled up into the car park. Her team was tight.
The first activity had been a hike up Black Mountain. The camaraderie and good humour between the four teams had been eviscerated once Jock had explained there were prizes for the fastest and consequences for the slowest. Each team had slinked away from each other. Kim’s team had arrived at the finish line a minute and a half before the second team and had earned themselves four sleeping bags.
Since then they’d built a rock pile to the required height before anyone else, thanks to Bryant’s dogged determination and motivation. They’d transcribed a coded message from enemy forces ten minutes before the other teams, thanks to Penn. Last night they’d been given a logic problem to ponder overnight and, thanks to Stacey, they’d had the answer before any of the other teams were awake.
Each member of her team had performed out of their skin. They had all excelled in areas that she expected – Bryant’s stability, Penn’s statistical brain and Stacey’s logical application to a complex problem.
She’d seen it all, and she’d also seen something else.
Woody was right.
There was a disconnect between two members of her team that she hadn’t noticed before. It didn’t present as open hostility, which was one of the reasons it had stayed hidden for a while now. It displayed itself as indifference, dismissal, a frown, a shake of the head, an eye-roll.
On a daily basis, while sifting clues and following leads, Bryant’s impatience with Penn had been hidden by long days, warped minds, challenging crime scenes and a need to get the job done. Away from the familiar, she had seen the frustration in Bryant’s face when Penn had detailed how he was going to have to unlock the code of his own task, and she’d listened as Bryant had snapped at Penn when Penn had offered himself as a listening post to Stacey, who’d wanted to talk through her logic problem.
Kim hadn’t seen Bryant slap him on the back when he’d done a good job or have a private laugh with him about something either she or Stacey had said. There was not one ounce of man banter between them.
It narked her no end that her boss had seen something she hadn’t, so she’d endured every activity in the hope some common ground might be found.
Right now, the three of them were on the bank of Llangorse Lake, trying to make a raft formed from four empty drums, four planks of wood and about a mile length of string.
And she could hardly bear the pain of watching them quietly working separately as the three other teams appeared to be communicating effectively and working on one joint at a time.
Her team was going to lose.
She spat the gag out of her mouth for the second time.
‘Bryant, Penn’s right. Your knot is going to—’
‘Okay, West Mids is disqualified,’ Jock shouted from behind.
She and her team turned to look.
He wasn’t joking.
‘Bloody hell, I was only—’
‘Telling them what to do,’ he said, reaching her. ‘Which wasn’t the object of the exercise. I gave you the benefit of the doubt once, but you just couldn’t help—’
‘Don’t punish them for my—’
‘You were warned.’
‘I want to lodge an appeal,’ she said, seeing the annoyance on the faces of her colleagues.
‘Go ahead, appeal,’ he invited.
‘To who?’
‘Me.’
‘Well that’s not gonna work, is it? You’re the one who—’
‘Appeal heard and decision upheld. Still DQ’d,’ he said as team Cheshire launched their raft into the water.
‘Damn it,’ she said.