by Simon Hall
The search teams headed off in their assigned directions, black shapes slipping quickly across the moor, flashlights flitting between them.
Dan leaned against a granite boulder by the tent and pulled his coat tighter. The cold was penetrating. He’d lost all feeling in his hands and feet, but not his ankle. It was still throbbing angrily. He had an odd memory of how much heat was lost from the head and wished he owned a hat.
The memory of Gibson’s death rose again in his mind. The gunshots echoing, the instantaneous transition from life to death, the fresh corpse pitching forwards in the darkness. He stared down at his notebook, the copy of Gibson’s last message scrawled in capitals. Dan tried to force his brain to think, to see the answer, but he was so tired, so very tired. He longed just to lie down on the ground and close his eyes, let the comfort of sleep carry him away from this place of death and despair.
‘Come on Dan. Come on … come on … you got the last one.’ Adam stumbled alongside him. His voice was so broken now it was difficult to hear. ‘Work on that note … work on it. If ever I needed your help it’s now.’
Dan looked down at his notebook again, black letters on silver paper in the dappled moonlight. His eyes could hardly focus. ‘I’m doing my best Adam, but I can’t see anything. I’ll keep trying, don’t worry.’
‘Don’t worry? There’s a little girl out there, alone in the freezing cold, about to die, and you say don’t worry?’
Dan was too tired to bite back. He felt as though the entire world was watching him, expecting him to solve the riddle, relying on him. His eyes stung and he wondered if tears were gathering. ‘I’m sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. I’ll keep looking at it, I promise you that.’
Adam paused, looked at him. His tone changed, a moment of realisation. ‘You think she’s dead?’
It was the first time Dan had heard his friend raise the possibility. They’d all been thinking it, the fear lurked everywhere here, but no one had mentioned it. No one could. They had to hope.
‘No, I don’t,’ he replied as forcefully as he could. ‘I don’t think Gibson’s a killer. I think he wanted to end his own life and decided to do it in a way that would make some sort of statement. But I don’t think he’s a killer. I think she’s alive somewhere.’
‘But if we don’t find her soon …’
Adam’s words tailed off. He looked up at the sky. ‘Is there a clue in that last letter?’ he rasped.
‘I’m sure there is. It’s all part of his game. It’s not just to taunt you. I know it sounds bizarre with him being dead, but I think it’s partly to cover him. It’s so he could say that if you don’t find Nicola it’s because you weren’t clever enough to do it, not that he didn’t give you every chance.’
‘He’s been ahead of us so far,’ said Adam quietly. ‘All the bloody way. He’s led us a merry dance. He’s taken the piss out of me, that’s for certain. He planned the whole thing, right up to his death at the hands of our marksmen. He knew we couldn’t risk using a baton gun at that range. He knew we’d have to shoot him if we thought there was a threat to Nicola. Now he’s got what he wants and he’s out of it, leaving us with the torment of trying to find her. Game, set and bloody match to him.’
‘Then let’s try and win the final battle and the war,’ said Dan, pulling himself up from his rock and trying to dig out an enthusiasm he didn’t know how to feel. ‘Let’s find Nicola. I’ll look at the last note again and keep going until I come up with something.’
He was almost real now. She thought if she could just stretch out far enough into the darkness, she could stroke his sleek coat. But the ropes held her ankles tight, wouldn’t allow her the freedom to go to him.
She didn’t know why she had to do it, just that she did. She kept thinking of the pony. Jet-black he was, tall and strong to carry her around like a princess. A Black Beauty, just like the book Mummy had read to her in bed, back in the summer when the sunlight slipping into her bedroom had made it difficult to sleep. She’d brush him every day and enter him in shows. He’d always win. All the other girls would be jealous of her and Beauty. She couldn’t wait to see their faces. And Mum would be so proud.
She’d stopped crying. There was no one to hear, no one to help. She understood that now. It was dark and cold and she shivered in her duffle coat. She had been frightened of the dark, but now she was almost used to it. Back at home she’d been scared of the monsters that lived under her bed. She knew that if she put a foot onto the floor they’d grab for her ankle, pull her down into their world. The thought would keep her awake until Mummy came to scare them away by cuddling her and stroking her hair.
At home the darkness was never complete, not even in the cold winter time. There was always a light under the door, or from the street outside. Here there was no light, and for the first few hours she’d been so scared of the monsters it hid. She’d heard them, the creaks and groans they made and she’d panted in fear, her eyes wide, scanning the blackness for the attack. She sobbed and squirmed and cried out until she understood there were no monsters here. There was nothing apart from her. The darkness was her only companion.
Where had Ed gone? Why had he tied her ankles? He’d said it was to keep her safe, stop her wandering and getting lost. Some of his friends would be back very soon to get her and they had to know exactly where she was. This was the last part of their adventure. When Ed’s friends came, he said, they would bring her birthday pony. Mummy would come too and cuddle her for being so brave and clever in her adventure.
Thoughts she hardly dared to face kept coming to her. Did she still trust Ed? The adventure had been strange, and not always fun. But if she didn’t trust him, what would happen to her now?
Somehow, she knew she couldn’t think it. She focused on the pony, cantering around a beautiful green paddock.
She was thirsty, so thirsty. And she was hungry too. She’d finished the water and bread Ed had left. She thought she’d heard voices and a noise, like a helicopter thundering above, but it had gone away. She’d shouted and cried but no one had come. She’d picked and pulled at the ropes, but they hadn’t moved and she’d sat back in the blackness and waited. There was nothing else to do.
There were no monsters, no Ed, no Mummy, no friends, no pony, no one. It was just her.
Another loud creak split the darkness. Before, she’d thought it was one of Ed’s friends coming to get her and she sat up, waiting eagerly. But now she’d lost that hope. There were always creaks here, but never a smiling face afterwards to pick her up, wipe the dirt from her cheeks and take her to the pony.
When she got back to school she would beat Vicky at hopscotch. She’d ask Mummy if they could have a grid on the patio in the back garden so she could practice. Mum wouldn’t mind. She’d probably want to play too. She liked joining in her games. She loved her mum. She missed her, missed her so much. When she saw Mummy, she could have her hair brushed. It felt tangled. Mum never liked her hair to be tangled. A girl’s got to make the best of herself, she always said, got to look good for the world.
She started crying again at the thought, couldn’t help it. She wanted Mummy here now, to make the darkness and the cold and the hunger and thirst go away. Tears trickled down her cheeks. It was so dark here. So dark and quiet and scary. Her ankles hurt where they were tied together and her fingers too from picking at the plastic ropes.
She leant over to try again, pulling at the tight knots, trying to find a free end. She thought the ropes were a little looser now, wriggled her feet, found a new inch of freedom. She pulled at the knot, pushed her ankles against the constricting pressure. They were sore where the plastic had rubbed at her skin, but the rope was looser now. A little more and she could free her feet, run to Mummy and her pony. Her ankles wriggled again.
There was another groaning creak in the darkness, and she sat still, listening, waiting, hoping. The long seconds passed, but no one came. No one. It was just her. Alone. In the darkness.
She shivered in
the cold and rubbed her head against her shoulder to dry the tickling tear. But another followed it, then another, far too many to dry.
Chapter Twenty-two
ZAC PULLED THE CAR up on the road by the black metal railings. He chose a long space, was too nervous to try to park. Claire was out before he’d even stopped moving, on tiptoe, peering over the fence. He locked the car and jogged over to join her.
The allotment must have been half a mile long, an oasis of tiny plots of farmland in the concrete city. There were rows of beans and cabbages and carrots, all neat and lovingly tended, shaded silver in the moonlight. And there were wooden sheds too, lots of them, at least seven or eight with dull lights glowing. Zac could hardly believe it. Did so many people really come here at night? Why? To escape their miserable homes? They couldn’t do much gardening in the dark, surely.
‘We haven’t got long,’ whispered Claire. ‘He might get suspicious and give up in a few minutes. Besides, I want to know what’s happening on Dartmoor. We’ll have to split up to check the sheds.’ She pointed to the right-hand side of the allotment. ‘You do the four down there. You know what he looks like, don’t you?’
‘Vaguely,’ answered Zac, wondering what he’d got himself into. He’d never been on an operation before and this was a police marksman they were hunting. What if he had a gun? He thought of Claire’s flat, those little white lacy knickers hanging up invitingly. He couldn’t let her down now.
‘Well hopefully he’ll still be on a computer,’ she said. ‘That’ll give him away. Keep looking over at me occasionally and I’ll do the same for you. If you see him, turn your mobile phone’s light on and wave it.’
Zac was going to protest but she was up on the fence, over it, away, striding alongside a line of runner beans, down towards the first shed. He didn’t have time to admire her athleticism. He took a deep breath and hoisted himself up on the fence, making sure he didn’t catch the new designer jeans he’d bought that afternoon. Zac dropped heavily onto the soft earth and walked fast towards the first shed.
He could hear a radio coming from inside, sneaked slowly up, bent double, alongside a bramble bush. There was a rhythmic wooden thudding in the shed, then a mumbled oath. He slipped up to the grimy, square window, raised his head, peeked carefully in.
A middle-aged man was standing over a replica of what looked like HMS Victory, trying to force a mast into the hull. Zac stared in amazement, then ducked back down and started off towards the next shed.
Claire stumbled over some long dead roots protruding from a compost heap, righted herself. Her first shed was just ahead. She checked the ground, slid towards the thin window. There were old and faded blue curtains drawn, but just a chink of light at the bottom. She lifted her head, looked in.
An old man was leaning hungrily over a workbench, his toothless mouth open, a pornographic magazine spread out before him. She blinked hard, ducked back down, moved quickly towards the next hut.
‘Where is she?’ moaned Adam, pacing back and forth in a gap between two granite boulders, rubbing his hand through his hair. ‘Where the hell is she?’
They’d been searching for two hours and found no trace of Nicola. Adam hadn’t stopped moving, his eyes wild, manic, always pacing, continually barking into the radio, demanding reports, updates, any hint of progress.
The moor’s ominous quiet had returned, the helicopter completing its thunderous sweeps. The search teams were moving out, further away. Every extra step from here took more time and lessened the chance of finding Nicola alive. But they had to keep trying. Dan checked his watch. It said midnight. His brain registered that meant it was later, but he couldn’t focus on the simple sum to work out what the time was.
He leaned against his rock, shivering hard in the vicious cold. A slight wind had slipped in off the sea, waving the moorgrass and gorse and penetrating his coat. His ankle throbbed worse than ever. In his frozen hand he held his notebook, kept staring at it, willing the words to make sense, to tell him where Nicola was, but nothing came. The cold and his tiredness had built a layer of muffling thickness around his mind.
He closed his eyes, then opened them again, knew he couldn’t afford the risk of even fantasising about sleep.
‘Have you come up with anything yet?’ barked Adam.
‘No,’ Dan managed. He didn’t have the strength to say anything else.
‘Breen to base,’ said Adam into his radio. ‘Any news on the efforts to crack the code?’
There was a pause, then the speaker crackled into life. ‘Nothing yet, sir. They’re still working on it.’
Adam breathed out hard, swore. ‘She’s dying out there Dan. Dying.’
He didn’t know what to say, just stared back down at his notebook and Gibson’s final clue. He tried to stop his mind longing for his bed and a cuddle from his dog. He shifted his weight and found his feet unsteady, uncertain how to hold him.
Dan wondered where Claire was. Would she come round to the flat when this was over, hold him, comfort him? He ached for that. He longed for someone to cuddle and warm him, chase away the memory of Gibson’s death and the thought of a little girl, frightened and all alone, dying on the freezing moor. He lusted for sleep, but feared the dreams it would bring.
Adam staggered over, put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Come on, Dan,’ he croaked, his eyes angry red and bloodshot. ‘Come on. All those other things we’ve done together have been games. Just bloody games. Catching a gang of murderers was just a game compared to this. It didn’t save anyone, did it? It was only about justice, and that’s just a game. Cracking McCluskey’s riddle was just a game. A big bloody game. But this isn’t. It’s about saving a little girl. Come on, mate. Give it one last try. Find her for me.’
Dan nodded, aching with tiredness. He looked back down at his notebook, trembling in his hands. He screwed up his eyes, forced the words into focus. What was here that could tell them where Nicola was? He knew there was a clue, was sure of it.
Something stirred his reluctant brain, something deep in his subconscious, frozen by the relentless cold and numbing fatigue. What was it? A memory of doing cryptic crosswords on trains, long journeys, bored with his book, time to kill. He still did them occasionally when he had the time, mainly on holidays, basking in the glorious sun, dangling his bare feet into a cool, welcoming pool.
He longed for the warmth of that sun now, a relaxing lounger and a pint of cold lager. Sun and warmth, as far from this place of darkness and despair as ever he could be. He gritted his teeth, forced the vision away. He had to concentrate. Adam’s imploring eyes were set on him. What was it in Gibson’s last note that was teasing him?
He dragged his eyes across the words. “Have you managed to add it all up yet? It was simply about making the law bee sorry.”
He nudged Adam. ‘There, look. There’s something there.’
Adam squinted down at the notepad. ‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s something odd. Look at the spelling. He’s written “bee” rather than be.’
‘So what? So bloody what?’ the detective spat. ‘So he’s an ignorant bastard and can’t spell, so bloody what? We’re talking about finding a dying girl here and you’re worrying about his spelling …’
Dan felt a fire of anger burst through him, clearing his brain with its burning energy.
‘For fuck’s sake Adam, I’m trying to help! He’s not bloody ignorant is he? That’s the last thing he is. He’s planned all this and led us a merry dance. So he’s hardly fucking ignorant, is he?’
Adam stared at him, quietened by the outburst. ‘OK then … what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying he deliberately spelt “bee” wrongly.’
‘Which means what?’
Dan forced his leaden brain to keep thinking, push away the desire to lie down and stop trying, abandon himself to the temptation of surrender.
‘It means,’ he said heavily, ‘that he had to fit an extra letter into that line. The “e” on
the end of be.’ He stopped to think again, stared at the notebook. ‘It means he’s telling us the answer is in there. He wants Nicola to be found, so he’s given us a bloody great hint how. Which means it’s either an acrostic, or an anagram. It must be. Radio to Eleanor back at base.’
Adam did, told her what Dan was thinking. ‘They were working along the same lines,’ he said. ‘Michael’s run the note through his computer programs but he hasn’t come up with anything.’
Dan leaned back against his boulder, tried not to let the feeling of defeat take him. But it was close now and strong, growing irresistible. How much longer could he go on, fighting this cold, stupefying fatigue and hopelessness? If a computer couldn’t crack it, with its power and vocabulary of hundreds of thousands of words, what chance did he have?
Another thought surfaced, a new hope, bringing unexpected strength. Dan didn’t know where it had come from, but he hung on to it. It was a chance, a possibility where before there was none. What if the word they were looking for wouldn’t be in a computer’s memory?
He forced himself to follow the idea. What could that mean? Only a bizarre place name, surely? The type that Dartmoor specialised in.
He felt a rush of adrenaline, took out a pen. ‘It’s an anagram,’ he whispered. ‘It has to be. And you know what? I hate anagrams.’
Dan calmed himself, focused his strength. An anagram … so, what letters was he looking for? What in the note could indicate where the anagram lay?
“Bee” had to be part of it, otherwise why would it be misspelt? He let his eyes run over that line. “Making the law bee sorry.” And making could mean “law bee sorry” would form the answer, couldn’t it? Spin the letters of “law bee sorry” and you had it.
He felt another surge of hope, invigorating his mind with its extraordinary power. It was here, he was sure of it. Dan did as he had so many times when faced by anagrams in crosswords. He took all the letters he thought could be involved and wrote them at random, stared at them.