her face had a red ring around it. Her heart rate started to rev up. Copies of the letters to the press were stuck underneath. She spotted a few old articles in the local papers that involved the cases she’d worked on in the past and the one of her receiving an award while in uniform. Lucy had been delving deeply into her life. A map was stuck to another board, a pin in the woods, a pin in the building site and one more pin. ‘Where’s this? Anyone know this location?’
O’Connor pointed his torch at the board and squinted as he looked a little closer. ‘It’s about a mile from the park, off the edge of a housing estate. The woodland here is sandwiched between an estate and the bus route. It’s quite the danger spot really. It should have been fenced off years ago. There’s a pond, a dirty old pond there.’
‘Brilliant, O’Connor. Look at that last pin.’ She grabbed a ruler from the desk. Each line, equal in length, the angles looked to be the same too. Something Christian Brown had said to her clicked. It was an equilateral triangle – not an isosceles or right-angled. These locations had been chosen with precision. ‘We had the burial sites under our noses all this time – simple maths. Wyre, stay and wait for forensics. Get a search up and running of the grounds just in case we’re wrong about the pond. Cherie could still be buried here and I want you to take the lead on it. Get some dogs in too; it’s a large area to search. We have to go. Now!’
Her phone rang. It was Briggs. ‘We know where the body is, sir.’
‘The old pond off Cobble Lane?’
‘How did you know?’ Gina shrugged her shoulders at the team.
‘Isaac Slater just decided to tell us on the advice of his solicitor. He said you asked about a ghost in the interview. The kids used to call it the haunted pond, something about a lady in the lake.’
‘We’re heading straight there now.’ She ended the call.
Wyre turned to leave the attic room. ‘Stay safe, all of you. I’ve got this.’
‘Right, what are we all waiting for? A life is at stake!’ Gina raced down the stairs and back to her car, hoping it wasn’t too late to save Cherie.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Gina glanced at the message that flashed up on her phone. ‘Sally Stevens now remembers who mentioned the passage to her. We already know it was Lucy but at least she’s confirmed that.’ She rolled her eyes as she passed Cherie Brown’s car, heading along the thin path. As she pushed the spindly branches from her face, she spotted the old pond. ‘Here it is. Cherie,’ she called.
A branch flicked back, striking Jacob across the cheek. ‘Ouch.’
‘Sorry.’
He dismissed it and smiled. ‘I think I can cope.’
‘It’s as revolting as I remember it, guv.’ O’Connor caught up, his jacket done up to the neck. ‘We used to play here as kids, gather jars of tadpoles, things like that. It was always horrible. I doubt anything could live in it now looking at the state of it.’
‘Look.’ Gina hurried to the weather-beaten bench and saw an empty vodka bottle. ‘Cherie?’ she called again, louder. ‘Search the area. Search everything. Smith, you head around the pond, see if you can safely get to the other side.’
‘Wait for me.’ Kapoor caught up with Smith who was doubled up and panting.
‘Both of you start searching along here.’ She pointed to another little path. ‘The road runs along this way.’
O’Connor looked up. ‘Yes, there’s a stile at the road so people can cross. Lucy Manders may have parked there and came this way.’
Gina glared at the ground with its sprigs of brown grass poking through the dense mud. ‘Wait, Lucy came the way we came. Those are trolley wheel prints. There’s no way she’d get a coffin on a trolley over a stile.’ She stood to the side of the line and followed its direction. ‘Stay back.’ Gina crept along the bank, almost sliding towards the edge of the pond. Her heart rate sped as she almost slid into the frothy scum that had gathered over one end of the pond. ‘Tread carefully. We don’t want to disturb the imprints and I don’t want any of you to end up in this pond.’
As she took a few more steps, she continued along the woodland covered pathway, pushing through more trees and shrubs until she bumped