“Kate. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I think I just need some sleep,” she said. “Go ahead and message this guy, and I’ll call you early tomorrow. I’ll be back on form after a kip. Good work,” she said, and she left.
Kate left Tristan’s house and drove along the seafront. The wind was blowing hard off the sea, and she had to put the windscreen wipers on to combat the spray.
To get home, she would normally carry along the seafront promenade, which then turned into the main road out of town. When she reached the end of the promenade, she found herself signaling right. The road turned back around into the high street, and she slowed as she drove past the student bars and clubs. It was Friday night, and the clubs and bars were lit up, the colored lights reflecting in the sea spray on the edges of her windscreen. The thump of the music drifted into the car, and she saw groups of laughing students moving up and down the high street, dressed up for a fun night out.
The list of names had set her off or triggered something in Kate. It made her wonder what the hell she was doing. Kate thought back to the promise she’d made to Kirstie, that she would find Magdalena. Why had she made that promise? Was she growing soft in the head? As a police officer she would never have made such a promise.
Kate reached a set of traffic lights, and they were green, but a group of young girls was waiting to cross. She stopped and watched as they skipped over the crossing in front of the car, tottering on high heels. One of the girls had long dark hair, parted in the center. Another had short blonde hair, and another, red hair. Kate envied how carefree they were.
The dark-haired girl turned to look at Kate as they crossed, and she waved her thanks. Kate nodded and smiled.
A car behind her honked, and she set off again. She shouldn’t have stopped at Tristan’s house. She had been exhausted after talking to Kirstie. The list and all those crates of alcohol had triggered her.
Who do you think you are? a voice said in her head. You’re past it. You’re not a police officer. You didn’t have the guts to make a go of it as a private detective two years ago when the time was right . . . Jake is grown up. You missed that boat. A senior police officer has just been named by a victim. You remember how that turned out, the last time you tried to bring in a bent copper . . .
It’s half term.
You don’t have to get up in the morning, Kate. Or the next morning, or the next.
Go on, have a real drink. You deserve some pleasure in your life.
You tried to be a good mother. You tried to work hard and be successful, but it didn’t work out.
At least you tried.
Go on, just have a bloody drink.
And before she knew it, Kate was turning into the small car park next to the Oak Cask, one of the older pubs at the top of the high street.
There was an inner door of cracked safety glass through the main entrance. The bar inside was fairly grotty with a sticky carpet and faded wooden tables. It was half-full, mainly locals and serious drinkers, and Kate went to the bar. It was as if her body were on autopilot. The Oak Cask wasn’t popular with students, so there was space at the bar. She took a seat.
“What can I get you?” asked the barmaid, a young woman with a pierced nose and a short scrub of green hair. Kate opened her mouth and took a deep breath. “I said, what can I get you?” she repeated, now impatient. An older man at the other end of the bar was whistling and holding up a ten-pound note.
“Jack Daniel’s neat. A double, please, with lots of ice and a slice of lime,” Kate heard herself saying.
The small tumbler of caramel liquid was in front of her on the bar before she could think about it. The ice clinked. The old man whistled again.
“Come on, love, get your tits in gear,” he said to the barmaid.
Kate let out a long breath, put her hands around the tumbler full of whiskey, and picked it up.
31
Magdalena slept. It felt as if she were deep underwater, where it was warm and she was tucked away, while the storm, the reality of her captivity, raged above her on the surface.
She dreamed of home in Italy, the small village near Lake Como, where her tight-knit family lived. What were her mother and father doing? Her younger sister.
She kept reliving the last night before she came to England and the argument between her mother and grandmother over her open suitcase. Her nonna was insisting that she pack in her suitcase a heavy wooden rolling pin and a wooden frame for drying pasta. The best Italian cooks didn’t use a pasta machine; they used a rolling pin.
Magdalena watched the memory play out again, like it was on a screen in front of her.
Her mother kept taking the rolling pin out, saying that Magdalena had only a certain amount of space and a weight limit for her suitcase. Nonna kept putting it back in. Magdalena didn’t want to say that she bought dried pasta when she was in England.
Her things were laid out on the bedspread with the cornflower pattern, next to the suitcase and ready to pack: her clothes, Wellington boots for walking on the beach, her books, computer, packets of her favorite Baci chocolates. They were similar in shape to Hershey’s Kisses—baci meant kisses in Italian—but the chocolate was better, soft centered with hazelnuts, and in each blue-and-silver foil-wrapped chocolate there was always a little piece of paper with a “love note” printed by the chocolate company.
As she watched the memories on the screen, Magdalena felt the throbbing pain in her head from where she’d hit the side of the bed. It had sliced open her forehead at the hairline. She also heard the sound of breathing. The throbbing pain and the breathing were separate from the memories playing out in her dream. The throbbing was like a hammer being used to tap in a nail, but she stayed deep under the surface, watching her mother and Nonna bickering over the suitcase, gesturing and waving their hands. The rolling pin kept going back in the suitcase and coming out again. Magdalena’s little sister, Chiara, sat next to her on the end of the bed, her small legs dangling with white sandals on her feet. Chiara was six years old, and her bright-yellow sundress was beautiful against her olive skin. As the rolling pin battle continued, Chiara smiled and walked her small fingers across the bedspread to the pack of Baci chocolates and pulled it back toward her. She slid off the end of the bed to the carpet, out of sight. Magdalena moved to the end of the bed and looked down at Chiara sitting on the carpet, tugging at the wrapper. The bag suddenly split, scattering the chocolates all over the floor.
Their mother and Nonna saw the mess and started to pick up the chocolates. There was no sound; Magdalena couldn’t hear their voices, just the sound of the heavy breathing.
Chiara was sitting on the carpet. She peeled the foil off one of the Baci chocolates, and she held it out to Magdalena. She could see the small strip of paper nestling in the foil under the small chocolate. She plucked it out. In small, black letters was written:
DO YOU WANT TO TOUCH THE STARS?
Magdalena was pulled out of the dream, back to consciousness. She heard herself take a deep breath, as if coming up for air. She was back in the cold darkness, lying on the bed. Her head was in pain. The scrape of a foot made her stop breathing. She could feel a presence in the darkness.
There was a ragged breath above her. He was in the room, standing over her.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Closed her legs and hunched her shoulders. Trying to close herself off.
He carried on breathing.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she said. Her voice sounded so weak and feeble.
The breathing came closer down to her level on the bed.
“Do you want to touch the stars?” came the voice. It was educated, smooth. Oily. Her head was gripped from the back.
“No, no,” she said and tried to roll herself in a ball, but a strong chemical smell was under her nose, and the glass of a small bottle. It took only a small inhale and she felt the drug hit her. It was more terrifying in the darkness than it had been when the man had put the bottle up under her nose by his c
ar.
It was as if her body started to travel at high speed, and she was unable to move. She felt him climb on top of her, and as her head spun and the blood roared in her ears, a pair of cold, clammy hands started to unbutton her jeans.
32
Kate’s phone rang in her bag, just as the glass of whiskey was about to touch her lips. The sound of it startled her out of her trance. She put the glass down and fished her phone from her bag.
It was Tristan.
“Can you talk?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, still staring at the whiskey glass.
“That old guy, Ted Clough, messaged me back on Facebook. He says he can talk to us . . .”
“Yes?”
“He wants to meet now. He said he’s ill and he’s a night owl. I know it’s late, but he says he has some pretty damning information about the Baker family.”
Kate took a deep breath and pushed the whiskey glass away.
“Do you want to meet him now?” she said.
“I’m stuck in an empty flat, and my mind is running away with me, so yes, but I know you’re tired.”
“No. I could do with a distraction too,” said Kate. “I’ll come and pick you up.”
She left the pub, frightened at how close she’d come to falling off the wagon.
Ted Clough lived a short distance from Ashdean, along the coastal road west, out in the countryside on a small farm. Thick fog began to descend as Kate and Tristan drew close, and the country lane was lined with impenetrable woodland.
As they rounded a sharp turn, Kate had to slam on the brakes when the whirling fog parted and the figure of a wild-haired old man was standing on the grass shoulder. He wore a long coat and a flat cap and was holding an oxygen canister, and an oxygen pipe was wrapped around his face and under his nose. Kate wound down her window.
“Hello? Are you Mr. Clough?”
“Yes; please, call me Ted,” he said with shallow breaths.
“Hi. I was the one who messaged on Facebook,” said Tristan, leaning over. Ted rolled his tongue over yellowing teeth, and he wheezed breathlessly. Kate couldn’t work out how old he was, perhaps in his sixties.
“Go through the gate,” he said, pointing. “I’ve got my car. Follow me up.”
“Thanks,” said Kate. The car lurched and bumped as they left the road and went through the gate onto a densely wooded track around where mist hung in pockets. The gate made an ominous keening sound as it was closed behind them.
“He looks on his last legs,” said Tristan, peering through the window as Ted walked slowly with his canister to a small, red, mud-splattered car and got in.
He set off, and they followed him up the long, winding track until a small house with a light on in the downstairs window came into view. They parked next to the back door, which led into a boot room and a small, cluttered kitchen, lit by a dim overhead light. There were cats on every surface—the fridge, kitchen table, chairs—and several half-finished bowls of graying cat food dotted around the floor.
“Would you like a cuppa?” asked Ted.
“Please,” said Kate. She still craved a proper drink, but the craving was receding.
Ted placed his oxygen canister on the floor. The pipe was long enough to let him move between the fridge and the kettle. Tristan gave Kate a look when he opened the fridge and they saw it contained nothing but milk and cans of cat food.
“Thank you for meeting us at such an odd time,” said Kate.
“I can’t sleep at night. Time is everything and nothing to me,” he said, stopping to catch his breath as he took a bottle of milk from the fridge.
“Are you sure we can’t help?” asked Kate.
“I’m very particular about my tea, and if I’ve only got a little time left, I want every cup to be just right,” he said. He saw them looking at him. “Lung cancer. I’ve been given a month, maybe less.”
“Sorry,” said Kate.
Tristan nodded. “Sorry.”
“I don’t want your pity. I need to tell you things,” he said. Kate wanted to press him further, but they let him make the tea.
When it was made, they followed Ted down a cramped, book-lined corridor. Clocks ticked in the silence. It was damp, and everything seemed to be covered in a layer of dust. There were more bookshelves and filing cabinets in his study. Ted lifted a cat off an armchair by the desk. He clicked his fingers at the sofa, where two other mangy cats jumped down, leaving copious amounts of hair behind. Kate and Tristan sat down.
“Where do you want me to start?” he said when he’d caught his breath.
“We found you online because you were part of the Right to Roam Alliance?” asked Kate.
“Yes. I’m a local lad. The reservoir project, back in the 1950s, was controversial. Six villages were flooded, villages that had been there for hundreds of years. The Baker family had people forcibly removed from their homes. Public rights of way vanished overnight, and around the reservoir they had to be redrawn. I got involved years later, when the Bakers tried to ban people walking within half a mile of the reservoir. That’s ancient moorland that people have enjoyed for centuries. It was a land grab, pure and simple. We’d already lost so much to the reservoir, so we had to fight it.”
“But you also worked for the Bakers at the power plant? Wasn’t that a conflict of interest?” asked Kate.
“Not when the Right to Roam Alliance was a peaceful campaign. It was only in the last few years it turned nasty, and that’s when I resigned.”
“You were sacked from your job at the reservoir?”
Ted sat back and took a gulp of his tea and caught his breath.
“Yes.” He looked between Kate and Tristan, and for the first time he seemed uneasy.
“What was your job?”
“Waterway maintenance. We’d go out in a boat and make sure the water was free of obstacles. Large trees, dead sheep and cows.”
“Dead bodies?”
He took a shallow breath and coughed.
“I was sacked after I refused to lie about a dead body we found in the water.”
“Who asked you to lie?”
“The manager, Robbie Huber. He’s now dead . . .”
“Old age?”
“No. Car accident. But I’ll come back to that in a minute. I was out in the boat one morning, early in March, when we found the body of a young woman. It was a beautiful day. One of those mornings when all is still and you can see the reflection of the daffodils at the edge of the reservoir in the water. We narrowly missed running her over. She was blown up huge with gases. I’ve never seen anything so shocking. Have you seen how large a human body can blow up with decay? I thought it was an animal. The body was naked. The legs were partially wrapped in bits of a sheet, fabric. The arms were tied with rope, and the legs were too. We could just about make out the cuts. There were cuts and slashes all over the face, belly, and the breasts.”
Kate and Tristan exchanged a glance.
“Did you run over the body in the boat?”
“No. It was there, floating in front of us, like a balloon poking up out of the water.”
“You said early March 1991?” asked Tristan.
“Yeah. I was working the maintenance crew with another bloke, Ivan Coomes, who’s since died.”
“Died?”
“Old age. Heart attack. Ivan was in charge of me. We were both leant on to report that we found this body at the mouth of the reservoir, two miles up. Where the River Fowey flows into the reservoir. There’s a sluice gate, which can be opened and closed. We were told to say we found the body up there.”
“Who told you to say that?” asked Kate.
“A man called . . . Dylan Robertson,” said Ted, shifting uncomfortably in his seat at the mention of the name.
“What’s his job at the reservoir?” asked Tristan.
“He’s everywhere and does everything he’s asked to by Silvia Baker. He also works as her driver.”
“We’ve already had a run-in with him
,” said Kate. She quickly explained how he threatened them with a shotgun.
“He would have used that shotgun on you, I’ve no doubt,” said Ted.
“Dylan asked you to say this body was found by the sluice gate. Where did you find it?”
“A few hundred meters from the sluice gates. Silvia Baker is the head of the family. She pulls the strings. Dylan is her eyes everywhere. He said we had to lie because the reservoir was having problems. The Bakers were in talks with a foreign investor about a buyout. A suspicious dead body in the water, that close to the turbines, would have closed everything down and ruined a deal. If we said it was by the sluice gates, that puts it in the River Fowey, and it meant the body could have been carried downriver. The River Fowey goes all the way up into the Cotswolds. We towed the body up the reservoir and pushed it to the other side of the sluice gates. It was disgusting. The body was so badly decayed, and the way it was tied up . . . The death was ruled as accidental . . . misadventure. Drowning.”
“Did they identify the body?”
“Yes. It took a few weeks for them to identify her, through dental records. I only saw it by chance, a tiny piece in the local paper where they named her . . . I’ve got it here.”
He went to a drawer and pulled out an old exercise book, having to pause to catch his breath. He searched through it and found a tiny piece of cut-out newspaper, dated May 16, 1991. He handed it to Kate.
A body found two months ago in the Shadow Sands reservoir, close to Ashdean, has been identified as Fiona Harvey, a young woman from the local area.
Police said her death was being treated as unexplained, but there were not believed to be any suspicious circumstances.
“Seeing the lie in print shook me up,” said Ted. “It made me question the world. No one at work wanted to talk about it. I tried to bring it up with Dylan, but he told me to keep quiet or I’d lose my job and he’d kill me . . . I kept quiet, to my guilt.”
“Do you remember the police officer who worked on the case?” asked Kate.
“Arron Ko.”
Tristan and Kate exchanged a look.
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