‘No,’ Penn and Stacey said together.
Lynne hesitated as though waiting for Stacey to offer to leave. He could see the discomfort on his colleague’s face. She couldn’t offer to leave, and he wouldn’t have let her go.
Lynne gave a small nod as she pushed her chair back from the table.
‘Thanks for the thought, Penn,’ she said, handing her napkin to him as she passed. ‘It really was lovely.’
Penn felt something drop inside him as he followed her to the door.
‘Lynne, let’s do this another—’
‘Penn, we’re good mates. We’ll always be good mates. Let’s not try and take this anywhere else. It doesn’t work.’
He opened his mouth to argue but she shook her head.
They were done.
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘Okay, guys,’ Kim said, after her first swig of coffee, ‘it’s official. It’s murder. Helen Daynes did not kill her family.’
‘Shiiit,’ Stacey said.
‘Bloody hell,’ Penn agreed.
‘With that in mind, it’s back to the drawing board. Go over every statement, check all CCTV in the area for the night before and up until 10a.m. the next morning.’
‘But weren’t the shots heard around 3a.m.?’ Stacey asked.
‘We think our guy hid in the house and slipped out when the fire service broke the door down.’
‘Clever but risky,’ Penn said.
Yes, it was clever, Kim conceded. One single fact of there being no clear way of exiting the building had been enough to rule out other inconsistencies. Almost but not quite.
‘We found something else back at the house last night,’ Kim said, swigging more of her coffee. ‘We found Reece Porter hiding under Rozzie’s bed.’
‘For what reason?’ Penn asked.
‘That’s what you’re going to find out. His clothes were bagged, and he was escorted home with his ears ringing, and he’ll be here for interview at 8a.m. Sticking with you, Penn, Mitch will be getting the diaries and fire remains over here later. See what you can piece together.’
Stacey frowned. ‘So was the fire to destroy the diaries or to raise the alarm?’
‘That is a very good question,’ Kim answered. It was one of the things that had been on her mind all night. But it wasn’t what had kept her awake. That award went to the visions of what Symes was doing to a seven-year-old girl. She knew she had to trust in her fellow police officers at Dudley. They would want to recover Emma Bunting as quickly and as safely as possible. She just hoped they knew what kind of psychopath they were dealing with.
Woody couldn’t have been clearer in his instruction to stay away, and she had to respect that. She could understand that the team working the case would treat it like any other missing child. Every process would be followed diligently. Any intrusion from her was just going to consume their time and energy, which was better spent trying to find the little girl. Being told to stay away from it didn’t stop her asking about it. His response to her 6a.m. call had been short and terse, with the news that the little girl hadn’t yet been found and that if that should change, he would let her know. Short of camping out in front of his office door, she was going to have to beg for scraps of information as and when she could get them.
She forced her attention back to what was now a quadruple murder investigation. She was pleased to see that the boards had been updated to include the bruise to Helen’s wrist and Rozzie’s pregnancy.
‘Usual for you, Stace,’ Kim continued. ‘Phone records, social media, background, gossip.’
‘Yummy,’ she said, rubbing her hands.
‘In other news, Woody paid me a late-night visit to inform me that yesterday Symes abducted a seven-year-old girl from a park on the edge of Wollaston.’
Stacey and Penn looked at each other in horror. Bryant had already been briefed in the car.
Penn’s back straightened, and Stacey reached for her pen. She was sure they were both wondering why this was ‘other news’ instead of the main headline.