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‘Whoa, easy tiger,’ Bryant said. ‘Scrub that last instruction, Stace, and send us all the information you’ve got.’
Silence fell while Stacey waited for that command to come from her.
‘Send the stuff and I’ll call you back,’ Kim said, taking her phone back and ending the call.
‘What the hell, Bryant?’ she asked as he moved the extra-strong coffee away from her. ‘We know where Leyton Parks is. The Sentinel might have tracked him too. We need to warn him.’
‘Of course we do. But did you hear what Stacey said? He’s not exactly rolling out the welcome mat. The man has chosen to live off-grid, isolated, without basic services. You send squad cars rolling in, you don’t know how he’s going to react. He may have weapons; there may be other people there. You just don’t know how it’s going to end.’
‘Jesus, Bryant, it ain’t Waco.’
‘Guv, this guy lives this way out of choice. Either he’s hiding from someone, in which case he’s not going to be pleased to see us, or he’s done something wrong and he’s not going to be pleased to see us. Either way, he’s not going to be offering us tea and crumpets. There’s also the possibility he has mental-health issues. Not one of these scenarios is helped by a load of squad cars turning up. We’re not always the first bunch of folks people want to see.’
‘Okay, maybe you’ve got a point,’ she said as both their phones tinged receipt of a message. ‘But if the Sentinel gets there first, we’re fucked.’
‘Think about it, guv. If there’s any truth to Stacey’sMinority Reporttheory that the Sentinel is targeting people who are about to re-offend, surely he’s more likely to go for Newton. There’s no evidence that Leyton has put a foot wrong since being at Welton.’
She saw his point, but then why wasn’t Newton already dead? He re-offended constantly.
She knew they were missing something. The revenge motive wasn’t adding up. But right now the priority had to be Leyton Parks.
They silently viewed the information Stacey had sent them.
‘Fair enough. For once you actually do have a point,’ she admitted. Because the detail would be hard to decipher on the small screens of their phones, Stacey had added arrows and descriptions. ‘Sure doesn’t want any visitors.’
‘We have to be as low-key and non-threatening as possible,’ Bryant said. ‘We need to appear friendly. It might be best if you stay in the car.’
She offered him the look.
‘Look, ultimately we’re strangers, and he’s not going to—’
‘Ooh, I have an idea,’ she said, picking up her phone.
‘Do not send in the SAS,’ Bryant joked.
‘I’ve got better,’ she said, waiting for the call to be answered.
She thought it was going to voicemail, but Ryan West answered in the nick of time.
‘Hello.’
His voice was barely a whisper.
‘Are you free?’
‘Not right now. I’m teaching an English class to a group of foreign exchange students.’
‘When do you finish?’
‘Half an hour. Why?’
‘We’ve found Leyton Parks. He’s going to need to see a friendly face.’
‘I don’t know. It’s been a long time. He probably wouldn’t even remember me.’
‘Everyone says you two got on. We need to let him know that we’re no threat.’
‘Erm…is it dangerous?’ he asked. ‘I’m an English teacher.’
