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Back The Nursery Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. Prologue
  5. Part One
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Part Two
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Part Three
  17. Chapter Ten
  18. Chapter Eleven
  19. Chapter Twelve
  20. Chapter Thirteen
  21. Chapter Fourteen
  22. Chapter Fifteen
  23. Chapter Sixteen
  24. Part Four
  25. Chapter Seventeen
  26. Chapter Eighteen
  27. Chapter Nineteen
  28. Chapter Twenty
  29. Chapter Twenty-One
  30. Chapter Twenty-Two
  31. Part Five
  32. Chapter Twenty-Three
  33. Chapter Twenty-Four
  34. Chapter Twenty-Five
  35. Chapter Twenty-Six
  36. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  37. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  38. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  39. Chapter Thirty
  40. Chapter Thirty-One
  41. Chapter Thirty-Two
  42. Part Six
  43. Chapter Thirty-Three
  44. Acknowledgements
  45. About the Author

All Gigi’s books featuring clowns would be going in the bin as soon as we got home.

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

DOWN AT THE PLATFORM it was eerily quiet without the sounds of the other Rats scurrying around. I left the lift and walked down the corridor. There was no flickering of the lights as an interviewee was interrogated. No intermittent moans escaping from the soundproofed doors. No sounds of cutlery hitting plates from the canteen as the thirty-strong workforce fuelled up with fry-ups and caffeine. No howls from the gym as Rats pounded punchbags, or each other. No clinks from the weight machines as they pushed themselves to keep lifting.

It was too peaceful. Just the rumble of the tubes that passed alongside our network of offices and tunnels.

Only Geraint and Pixie were in our office; the others were all out watching Peng or tormenting hackers. Pixie seemed to be vigorously wiping at the ketchup stain on Geraint’s T-shirt as he typed. Geraint stood up as I walked in.

‘Babe, I hadn’t finished yet,’ complained Pixie.

‘It’s fine,’ he huffed. ‘Lex, I think we’ve found where Daddy Pig went when he claimed to be in Birmingham last week. I got this CCTV of him entering this block of flats.’

Geraint pressed a few buttons and grainy CCTV footage was projected up onto the whiteboard. ‘He enters at 7.43 p.m. Can’t see him exiting but there is an underground car park.’

‘Dammit. So he could’ve met anyone in there and left at any point. Anyone we know live in that building?’

‘Waiting to get the building tenancy records. Lots of these flats get sub-let on the cheap so hard to work out who’s actually living there.’

‘Start rolling the lobby footage of people arriving from six p.m. We might spot someone familiar.’

We all stared at the black and white footage of people walking into the lobby.

‘There are so many of them,’ complained Geraint, ‘it’s going to take ages to run them all through the system.’

We kept watching as another flood of people entered.

One woman in a suit was scratching her head as she waited for the lift. Something jogged in my mind.

I tapped the screen. ‘Run her through the system.’

Pixie zoomed in on her face and clicked a few buttons. ‘How did you know, darlin’? Vicki Forbes works for Six. Executive Assistant on the second floor.’

‘Marital status? Children?’

‘Single. No kids.’

‘She’s got nits,’ I announced.

All heads swivelled back to the screen. She kept scratching her head.

‘Daddy Pig and the whole family have just had nits.’ I remembered a circular from the school. Please be advised there have been several cases of nits reported in your child’s class. Please make sure the whole family follow the below instructions for treatment. Their Amazon history had also showed an order for an industrial-sized bottle of nit lotion and several combs.