DS Jessica Daniel series: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water – Books 4–6 by Kerry Wilkinson Page B

said.
    ‘That’s exactly what I thought and why I wanted to look it over.’
    Because of the intensity of the investigation, no one had actually had time to revisit the scenes from the old case. It was highly unlikely they would be able to find anything significant that
had been missed so many years ago but, having read the file to the point of almost memorising it, there was something concerning Jessica.
    With Reynolds navigating, they made their way through a series of lanes back towards the main road. It soon became clear that the wasteland where Toby Whittaker had last been seen was now
anything but. An industrial park had been erected on the site, with a dozen enormous warehouses spread out on their own plots and various interconnecting roads that had been built recently. Jessica
parked her car half on the pavement and the two officers got out before examining the map together.
    Reynolds pointed at a dark green building that had a large empty yard at the front. A sign bore the name of an electronics manufacturer. ‘I think he was taken from somewhere around
there,’ he said, before indicating towards the way they had already come. ‘The main road would have always been there but this bit we’ve parked on is new.’
    ‘Where are the woods in relation to here?’ Jessica asked. The two of them looked at the map again and turned around so they were facing in the opposite direction. Reynolds held his
arm out towards a second warehouse behind them but they both figured it out.
    ‘We’ve had to drive the long way around but it’s only going to be a few hundred yards over the back of there. Maybe half a mile at most?’ Jessica suggested.
    Reynolds nodded in agreement. ‘What is the significance, do you think?’ he asked. Jessica’s tone had clearly indicated something was on her mind. She walked the few paces back
to her car and leant on it facing where the woods would be. Reynolds joined her.
    ‘Something has bugged me about that map ever since we found it,’ she said. ‘I think we can both agree that you’d only need a map if you didn’t know where you were
going, right?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘We don’t know if our driver was looking to bury Isaac’s body, collect the clothes or do something else – but it’s logical to think that, whatever he was doing, he
hadn’t been to the site before.’
    ‘Either that or he hadn’t been in a while.’
    Jessica nodded, turning to face her colleague. ‘That might be true but I think this place is key. Say whoever took Toby all those years ago is our driver; maybe he was looking to bury
Isaac in the same place he’d left the first boy? The problem is that all these buildings have now appeared. Because of that, he was going to bury Isaac in the closest place to where
we’re standing. Somewhere it was unlikely to be found. We never would have found the spot in the woods if he hadn’t had that car crash.’
    ‘So do you think Toby is buried somewhere around here?’
    Jessica shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps. Maybe he is in the woods where we’re digging? I just think it’s a bit of a coincidence that we found one dead kidnapped child in
a car with a map leading us to a place so close to where Toby went missing from.’
    ‘Why would that person bury the clothes?’
    ‘I don’t know. Maybe it was some weird way of returning the clothes to Toby if that is where he was buried? Or perhaps he’s buried here like I said? It could explain the map.
Let’s say Toby was killed, and his body was buried somewhere around here before the warehouses went up. Whoever did it kept the clothes for whatever reason and then, fourteen years later,
kidnapped Isaac. At some point those clothes were buried in the closest spot to where Toby was, maybe as a sick goodbye? When Isaac was killed too, that person was going to bury his body in the
same place. It could explain why our guy needed the map because he made it when leaving the clothes after finding out all these