CUT DEAD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

by Mark Sennen

  ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ Mikey laughs. Grins. Dribbles. ‘Apple?’

  ‘No idea,’ you say. And to be honest you don’t care. Apple, Samsung, Nokia. Once you’ve seen one slim biscuit packed with those incy-wincy bits of circuit board, you’ve seen them all.

  You stare down at the thing in your hand. It’s not a phone, although the device looks awfully like one. The wording on the box says ‘GPS tracker’ and that’s what it does. You’re in the big Go Outdoors store, the assistant demonstrating what the unit can do. He starts talking about satellites and text messages, WGS-84 and IPX7. You begin to move back, almost knocking over a display of aluminium water bottles.

  ‘Tracking,’ you say, ‘does it do tracking?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Updates on a map. Sends your location to Facebook or Twitter or by text to a phone. All sorts. You’ll need a service plan.’

  Jesus, you think. Facebook. Twitter. This thing is evil. All those bits of information flying through the air. Still, you need to side with the devil. Just this once.

  ‘Battery life?’ you hear yourself say, as if you knew what the fuck you were talking about.

  ‘You should get several days’ continuous use from one set. But you can always carry spares.’

  You’re sold. You reach into your coat pocket, pull out a bundle of notes and thrust them into the man’s hands. There’s a couple of hundred pounds at least. A twenty breaks free and flutters down to the floor.

  ‘Is this enough? For everything?’

  The assistant looks at you and then bends and picks up the twenty. ‘Sure,’ he says.

  You buy the thing and not long afterwards you’re at her place again, Mikey keeping watch in the lane. They’re out now, all of them, but you have no idea when they might return. The sports car is on the front drive. The husband washed it earlier and the paintwork gleams in the sunlight. The car’s an old one, nothing fancy and certainly no electronics. Not yet.

  You approach the car and examine the front wheel arch. You run your hand underneath. All clean thanks to the wash. You take the GPS tracker from one coat pocket, a roll of gaffer tape from the other. You pull off a strip of tape and use it to attach the tracker under the wheel arch. The thing won’t have a clear view of the sky, but you’ve read the instruction booklet several times and you think it will work well enough.

  You peer up at the heavens for a moment, thinking on the kind of madness needed to keep those infernal satellites hanging up there.

  Beep.

  You reach into your pocket and bring out the phone. It’s an ancient model, but it works. You peer down. There’s a text message. A load of numbers. Latitude longitude. To most people they’d be meaningless without a map but you can visualise a picture in your head. The contours, the spot heights, the terrain. Those roads, all different colours, connecting towns and villages and houses together. The text message means the tracker is working, sending coordinates into the sky where a satellite beams the data back to earth and the mobile network sends the numbers to you. All you need to do is wait until the woman goes somewhere quiet and then you’ll have her.

  ‘Whoooarrrhhh!’

  A noise like a gorilla comes from near the front gate and you see Mikey waving his arms. You sprint to the gate and take his arm.

  ‘Walk, Mikey. This way. Slowly.’ You wheel Mikey round and begin to stroll down the lane. There’s an engine noise and then a red van is turning into the driveway. A man jumping out, slipping letters through the door as you and Mikey begin to hum the tune to Postman Pat.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Bovisand, Plymouth. Saturday 5th July. 6.30 p.m.

  The call Savage had almost given up waiting for came as she was sitting at home alone late Saturday afternoon. Pete, Stefan and the kids were out on the boat and were then going for a pizza. She’d cried off, wanting simply to relax for a few hours, not have to think about anything.

  ‘Charlotte?’ The voice was coarse. ‘Been a while, but we’re getting there.’

  Fallon. Kenny Fallon. Plymouth’s high-flying, down-in-the-dirt crime boss.

  ‘Jesus, Kenny. It’s been months.’

  ‘Yes, love. Sorry. Took time. Time and help.’

  There was a pause, Savage feeling Fallon was going to say something else. Nothing came.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, we meet. You free today? Now?’

  ‘Of course,’ she heard herself say, only half listening as Fallon told her where and when. She felt her heart begin to race. All these years and now, in just an hour or two, she’d know who’d killed Clarissa.

  Fallon hung up and Savage tidied away her simple dinner. She wrote a note for Pete, locked the house and then went and backed the MG out into the lane. Fallon wanted to meet on the moor, near to the spot where Clarissa had been hit by the car. Over the top, she thought, but then again, perhaps hearing the name out there would bring the events full circle.

  An hour’s drive took her deep into the wilderness of Dartmoor, tors closing in all around as the route twisted into a valley. She pulled the car off the road and onto a patch of gravel, just enough room for two cars to park. A few hundred metres down the lane was the place where she’d picnicked with the kids, where Clarissa had been knocked off her bike by the hit and run driver. Savage clenched her fists and then released them. She breathed in and tried to stay calm as she waited. July had seen the weather return to more changeable conditions and low swirling cloud enveloped the moor around her, bringing a persistent drizzle which hung in the air. Earlier she’d driven past walkers, but the rain had sent them scurrying for the pubs or back to their campsites.

  Fifteen minutes later, there was still no sign of Fallon. Savage pulled out her mobile, unsurprised when she saw there was no signal. A small tor rose from behind the car park and the top would offer a three hundred and sixty-degree panorama. If there wasn’t a signal up there then at least she’d be able to spot Fallon coming into the valley. Savage climbed out of the car. She didn’t have the right footwear but she’d brought along a waterproof. She set off for the top of the tor, following an easy path up through clumps of bracken and before long she was looking down at her car, looking down at her mobile too, cursing as there was still no signal.

  Across the other side of the valley she could see somebody atop a similar tor. He or she was prostrate on a large rock, almost as if they were sunbathing in the rain. Then there was a ping from close to Savage’s feet, a piece of granite flying up, somehow dislodged from the rock. She glanced down and saw dust drift away from a small hole next to her right foot. She began to bend down and it was as she did so she heard the retort. A crack, like a whip. She looked again towards the figure on the rock. He had a beard and scraggy hair, but there was something familiar about him. The spindly limbs, a strange angular head …

  Dr Wilson! How the hell …? No, of course not Savage thought. The man must be Wilson’s twin brother, Ronald. Then the ground exploded a metre to her left and she understood what the dust at her feet had meant: a gunshot.

  The crack from the second shot came as she dived off the top of the tor and rolled down a slab. She slammed against a boulder, bruising her leg and elbow, and couldn’t stop herself letting out a gasp when she saw her bloodied knee poking from beneath the ripped material of her trousers. She moved her leg, flinching at the pain.

  Ronald Wilson. He had a high-powered rifle. The gun was probably the rifle which had belonged to his brother. Savage moved a metre to her left, where a line of sky showed in a fissure between two boulders. She peered through. Ronald lay atop the tor, the rifle visible, the barrel on some kind of mini-tripod. The weapon would be difficult to aim without some sort of support, Savage thought, impossible to do so while the shooter was moving or standing on rough ground. She just had to wait because unless Ronald had a night-vision scope she’d be able to slip away come dark.

  She took out her mobile. Eight o’clock. With the cloud dusk would fall in an hour or so. If Ronald moved she could make a run for the car, otherwise
she’d stay put. She sighed, breathed out, tried to relax. Easy to say when a sniper was on a ridge a hundred and fifty metres away. She squinted through the crack again. Ronald was still there, but now he was waving at something or someone. Savage tried to follow his line of sight down the valley. There seemed to be nothing down there but bracken and sheep. And then she saw him. A man lumbering across the boulder field, hunched over, arms swinging, mouth set in a grimace. Even from a couple of hundred metres Savage could see the round face and the nose like a button mushroom.

  Savage felt a wave of panic. It was the nutter from the farm. Mikey, Ronald had called him. Not right in the head. She looked again and saw the light glint off something in his right hand. A knife! She weighed her options. Run and risk getting shot by the one man. Wait and get gutted by the other one. Some choice.

  She turned her back to the rock and scanned the landscape. Nothing but empty moor. To her right was another tor, higher than the one she was on. Could she find a mobile signal there? She peered through the crack again. Mikey was climbing her side of the valley, every now and then looking up, still with a demented grin on his face. A few more minutes and he’d be at the top and Savage would be forced to move anyway.

  Mind made up, she jumped out from behind the rock and began to run at an angle down the valley. She was shortening the distance between herself and Mikey, but hopefully he’d not notice for a minute or two.

  ‘Miiikeeey!’ The shout from Ronnie echoed off the rocks. Mikey looked back over his shoulder. Ronald was on his feet, gesturing. Mikey turned, saw Savage and then let out a howl. He began to run again.

  Savage cursed and went faster. Downhill, going fast wasn’t a problem. Tripping over and twisting an ankle was. She bounced from boulder to boulder, slipping on a patch of scree, but regaining her balance. At the bottom of the valley was a small stream. She jumped the water, squelched across a patch of mossy bog and then was climbing to the next tor.

  At any second she expected to hear another shot, but none came. Perhaps Ronald wasn’t so stupid. Hitting a moving target with a long-range rifle was almost impossible. The climb sapped her energy and halfway up the tor she ducked behind a rock. Mikey was still coming, but for a moment she was protected from Ronald by several tonnes of granite. Savage looked farther away, back towards her car. With every step she was moving away from her means of escape. Then she saw something coming down the lane. Fallon’s Range Rover. Thank God!

  The vehicle slowed at the entrance to the car park and pulled in. Fallon got out of the Range Rover, paused next to Savage’s car and then took something from his pocket.

  Mikey was only a hundred metres away now, but Savage stood out from the rock and shouted at Fallon. She put her arms above her head and waved. Fallon turned, as if he’d heard her, and then he was slumping onto the bonnet of the MG, sliding down to the ground. A second later came the retort of the rifle.

  That was why Ronald hadn’t been shooting at her. He’d seen Fallon’s car approaching and lined up his shot.

  Mikey was just thirty metres away now. Savage could hear the grunts he was making as he sucked air in and out. She turned away and continued to climb to the next tor.

  ‘Guuurrrlll!’ came the cry from Mikey. ‘You killed Peter!’

  Strictly speaking, Savage thought, that wasn’t true, but she didn’t want to stop and argue the point. She reached the top of the tor and clambered round to one side, making sure to keep plenty of rock between herself and Ronald. She took out her phone again. Yes! Three bars on the signal indicator. She touched the screen to bring up the number pad. Nothing. She tapped again. Still the phone didn’t respond, the display frozen. She turned the phone over in her hand. The back plate had a long scourge down one side. It must have been damaged when she fell over.

  ‘Fuck!’ Savage said the word aloud and then stumbled away, wondering what lay to the north, other than miles of open moorland.

  She almost tripped over the walker sitting in the lee of the tor. He’d spread a mat out to sit on and was eating the last of his sandwiches leaning against his rucksack.

  ‘Hey?’ The man pushed himself to his feet. He stared at Savage and then looked at her knee. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Police.’ Savage fumbled in her coat and pulled out her warrant card. The man looked bemused. ‘Have you got a phone?’

  ‘What? I don’t—’ He stared past Savage, mouth dropping open.

  ‘Guuurrrlll!’ Mikey lumbered into view, the knife held forwards. ‘You killed Peter!’

  ‘Jesus!’ The man was on his feet now and he grabbed his hiking pole and thrust it towards Mikey. ‘Get away, you awful man, get away.’

  The action was ineffectual and Mikey’s free hand shot forwards and snatched the pole. For a second the walker held on and the two of them were engaged in a mad comedy tug of war. Then the pole buckled and snapped and the man was left holding a short piece of aluminium about twenty centimetres long.

  ‘Come on!’ Savage grabbed the man’s arm to pull him away. ‘Run!’

  The man stared down at the useless piece of metal in his hand and then Mikey was lunging in at the man’s neck with the knife. The man clutched at the weapon, hands shredding on the blade. Next he was falling backwards, Mikey on top of him, twisting the knife in at the man’s throat, blood splashing out onto the ancient granite.

  Savage stepped back and stumbled on the man’s rucksack. Mikey was sitting astride the man now, sweeping the knife up and down, slicing through the poor guy’s clothing. Swish, swish, swish. The knife moved in a definite rhythm, as if Mikey was repeating some sort of pattern. For a moment he seemed to have forgotten about Savage and was absorbed in his new task. Beneath him the man’s chest was now a mess of ripped clothing and blood. Then Mikey stopped cutting and looked up.

  ‘Arrrggghhh!’ He leapt to his feet. ‘You killed Peter!’

  Savage turned and began to run away from the tor and into the depths of the moor where the light was disappearing fast, the mist and rain adding to the gloom. She came to a small grassy col and then descended to a stretch of terrain with nothing but tall bracken and rock. Behind her she could hear Mikey roaring in anger.

  Savage ran on, following a little sheep track through the dense bracken, the fronds reaching to neck height. Then she was slipping over, grasping at the bracken stems as her feet fell away from under her, some sort of chasm opening up beneath. She stuck out a foot and braced on the edge of the hole, felt the bracken cut her hands, but hung on.

  Black gaped beneath her feet, the darkness below absolute.

  A mineshaft.

  She scrambled back up the side and rolled away, crawling into the undergrowth and lying still. From down the sheep path came the sound of voices. Mikey and Ronald. Savage groped around in the dead bracken and moss and uncovered a fist-sized lump of rock.

  ‘Where gurl?’ Mikey said, lumbering into view. ‘She killed Peter.’

  ‘I know, Mikey, I know. We’ll get her, don’t worry.’ Ronald followed a few paces behind, the rifle slung over his shoulder. He stopped alongside Mikey at the hole. ‘There, look. She’s gone down the bloody mineshaft!’

  Savage peeked from behind a frond. Ronald pointed down at the mess her feet had made at the edge of the hole.

  ‘Haaalooo!’ Ronald cupped his hands and shouted down, leaning over to peer into the dark.

  ‘Guuurrrlll!’ Mikey roared.

  ‘Careful, Mikey. Not too close. You know how dangerous mines can be.’

  ‘Gurl down there?’ Mikey said.

  ‘I wonder …’ Ronald turned half away from the shaft, his eyes scanning the bracken.

  Savage leapt up and at the same time threw the rock. It arced through the air and struck Ronald on the cheek. He thrust an arm up and flailed, knocking Mikey. The giant staggered for a moment and then lost his footing, slipping over the edge of the hole and sliding from view.

  ‘You bitch!’ Ronald turned, unhitched the rifle from his shoulder. ‘You’re going to pay for that!’


  ‘Ronnie!’ A hand scrabbled at the top of the hole, fingers clawing at the loose rock and earth. ‘Help me!’

  Ronald turned back, for a moment unsure. Then he was kneeling, lowering the rifle so Mikey could grab hold of it. Mikey’s fingers grasped the barrel and Ronald pulled back, both hands on the stock, straining with the weight, all his will concentrated on the task in hand.

  Savage crept forward just as Mikey’s head popped over the edge, black eyes meeting Savage’s.

  ‘Behind you!’ Mikey screamed. ‘Guuurrrlll!’

  Ronald began to turn and as he did so he lost his balance, the weight of Mikey pulling him over. He toppled sideways and down, Mikey slipping away too, the sound of the pair of them crashing into the side of the shaft some way down. Then silence for a moment, before a thud and a long, low wail of a roar from Mikey. Nothing from Ronald, but the shouting from Mikey going on and on, his voice echoing into the still Dartmoor air.

  ‘Guuurrrlll! You killed Peter! You killed Ronnie! You killed my brothers!’

  Savage backed away from the hole, heart beating. She was aware in the now near-dark of torchlight sweeping back and forth, people shouting, figures approaching. Emerging from the gloom came a tall, handsome man, his voice floating out, the Scottish accent one of the most beautiful sounds she’d ever heard.

  ‘DI Charlotte Savage,’ Callum Campbell said, pointing down at her flats as he approached. ‘What have I told you lot about wearing proper footwear?’

  Epilogue

  Two weeks later

  Riley’s call had come on a Sunday morning, cryptic, but when he’d mentioned Kenny Fallon she’d known what it was all about. Now she waited for Riley by the ruined building at the top of Burgh Island. There were tourists everywhere on the little lump of green, hundreds of them, but their presence didn’t detract from the panoramic view. To seaward a blue-green canvas dotted with white sails; in the other direction the stretch of sand separating the island from the coast; beyond the sand Bigbury-on-Sea, the car park there rammed with cars, the beaches packed.