by Mark Sennen
The yard hand who’d accompanied them coughed and Riley brought his mind back to the job. He pointed at the pile of wood stacked up against a rusting shipping container.
‘Is that the lot?’ Riley said.
‘Yup. Apart from the barrels.’ The yard hand gestured over to a skip. ‘I opened one up and didn’t like the smell of what was inside. I was going to wash them out but then thought better of it.’
‘Why?’
‘Contamination.’ The man turned and looked towards the estuary. ‘Doesn’t bear thinking about. We put anything in the river which causes problems and we’d have all sorts of environmental fines slapped on us.’
‘And the stuff in the barrels, any ideas?’
‘Some chemical. None of the barrels had any labels, so it wasn’t worth taking the risk.’
‘We’ll need to take a look at them and get a sample for the lab.’ Riley pointed at the pile of wood. ‘And all this, it’s not to be touched, understood?’
The man nodded and then stared at Enders. The DC had pulled a roll of blue and white police tape from his pocket and was draping great streams of the stuff over the remains of the raft.
‘Crime scene?’ the yard hand said, reading the words printed on the tape. ‘What crime’s that then?’
Riley thought for a moment. He wanted to make sure the man knew this wasn’t a trivial issue, but he didn’t want to give anything away.
‘A serious one,’ he said.
After lunch and another skim through the Curlew summary file, Savage headed to Woodland Heights. The children’s home sat in an isolated position on the coast between Salcombe and Hope Cove, some fifteen miles east of Plymouth. A long driveway passed a static caravan park and ambled down across several fields, curling round to arrive at the big old house. Savage drove along the track, pausing to open and close a gate on the way. As her car bumped the final quarter of a mile down the pothole-strewn drive, the coastal panorama opened out and she could see the home stood close to a jagged outcrop a little to the west of Soar Mill Cove. Farther to the east, cliffs staggered round and into the Salcombe estuary in a series of dramatic rock abutments.
She pulled her car onto a large gravel area to one side of the building and got out. Situated just a few hundred metres from the high cliffs, the house had a commanding view to the south, where Savage could see several huge ships riding the horizon. Closer in, the strong breeze disturbed the sea, and the sunlight made the surface sparkle like a million blue diamonds.
She walked round to the front of the house, where a grand stairway led up to the entrance porch. Looking at the facade, she guessed the place must be Victorian, although later additions to the house had been cobbled onto the side and rear. Now there was an air of decay about the structure. Plywood panels had been nailed over the lower windows, ‘Keep Out’ stencilled on each in spray paint. The first-floor windows had no such protection and several had been broken. Above that there were a number of dormers poking from the slate roof. Considering the size of the house, she was surprised the place hadn’t been snapped up by developers.
The property sat plumb in the centre of a large field and, aside from a small patch which looked like it had once been a vegetable garden, the area was down to grass. In the summer this would have been a great place to be. She closed her eyes for a moment and imagined groups of boys running free, playing football, making their way down to the nearby beach and swimming in the sea. Perhaps she was painting too idyllic a picture. Perhaps the freedom this place offered had turned into something else. There were no other dwellings in the vicinity, nobody to see anything untoward, no one to hear the screams.
Savage opened her eyes and shook her head. She was jumping to conclusions. Possibly nothing had happened here and the two boys had just run away. But if so, where had they been for the past two and a half decades?
She climbed the steps. White paint peeled away from the surface of the front door, revealing dark oak beneath, while a huge brass knob in the centre had tarnished green in the sea air. On the floor of the porch lay a plastic estate agent’s sign: Marchand Petit, Salcombe. There were marks on the surface of the front door where the sign had been stapled to the wood. Somebody had torn it down.
She knew the home had closed the year after the boys had gone missing. The building had already been in quite a state and the council had sold it for a song. Over the intervening years there’d been talk of the place being turned into a hotel. The property was an eyesore, but Savage could imagine a developer reworking the inside into a number of luxury apartments. Second-homers would fall over themselves to buy a slice of seaside living. So far though, it didn’t look like any sale had taken place.
She looked again at the door. There was splintering around the lock. The door had been forced. She grasped the brass knob and pushed. The door opened.
Inside, a long hallway led to the rear. On the floor, dust and debris lay scattered across red quarry tiles. A pile of bird droppings sat against one wall, black and white streaks leading up to a light fitting where a bundle of sticks marked an old nest. The air was damp, the scent heavy with mildew and mould. Savage stepped in, avoiding a large lump of plaster which had fallen from the ceiling. Both to the right and the left, huge portals opened to large reception rooms where there were more signs of decay. In one room, great swathes of wallpaper had peeled away from the walls, while in the other, part of the floor was missing, a dark, dank hole revealing some sort of cellar beneath.
She moved down the hallway to the rear of the house where she found another set of rooms: a kitchen, a dining room complete with several tables and benches, and a number of smaller rooms obviously once used for storage. She also found the door to the cellar, steps leading downward, a faint light from the hole in the floor of the room above.
Savage thought about going down there but then changed her mind. She had a torch in the car. She’d do the rest of the house first and then get the torch. Now she was inside though she couldn’t imagine what she might find which could help the investigation. In fact, she began to wonder what on earth she was doing here at all. There wasn’t going to be any evidence, not after all this time. Anyway, the police had presumably been through the property back when the boys had gone missing.
She returned to the hallway and climbed the stairs, placing each foot tentatively on the steps, worried about rotten floorboards. At the top, a landing ran in two directions, a number of corridors leading off the landing. She took a look in several of the rooms. Two had one or more bunk beds in. The others were empty. There was also a separate suite of rooms which looked as if it could be living accommodation for the staff. Although she was getting a sense of what the place must have been like, so far nothing struck her as out of the ordinary.
At one end of the landing a narrow staircase climbed to the attic rooms. Savage tested the stairs and then went up. The stairs curled round and ended at another landing, several doors opening into three small box rooms. Who slept up here? Savage wondered. Was it a privilege to be placed high under the rafters or possibly a punishment? She went into each room in turn. In the first two there was nothing of interest and the rooms seemed to have been recently inhabited by pigeons. There were droppings everywhere, feathers too. On one of the windowsills the skeleton of a bird sat next to a broken pane. In the third room there were two single beds, barely space to walk between them. Each had an old mattress, but mice or rats had been at the material and not much remained other than torn-up shreds. Savage stepped over to one of the beds. On the headboard she could see the boys had carved their names into the wood. When the mattress had been in place the carvings would have been hidden. Now the mattress had rotted away the list was a roll call of boys who’d slept in this room. Savage bent and looked at the names. There amongst them was Jason Caldwell.
The boy had been up here, but presumably the police had known that. When the boy had run away they’d have examined the attic rooms and questioned his roommate. There couldn’t be any evidence here
to help her now, could there?
She knelt by the bed and peered underneath the frame. There didn’t seem to be anything under the bed. She put her hand beneath the bed and ran her fingers around the underside of the frame. There was nothing concealed there but she did feel a rough patch of wood on one of the legs. She lowered her head further. There, carved in the bed leg, were some more words. Not names this time but a sentence.
Savage let out a long breath and bit her lip. She quickly examined the rest of the frame and then moved to the second bed. Nothing. She crawled back across the floor and looked at the words again. There was something wrong here, she thought. She peered at the bed for a moment and then she had it. The wood of the frame was dirty, covered in dust and here and there smeared with bird droppings. However, the leg with the writing was clear, as if it had been cleaned, possibly prior to the name being carved into the wood.
Savage stood, not knowing if this was evidence or not. She moved to one of the dormer windows and stared out at the view. Was it possible somebody had got wind of the case review and had come here to leave her a clue? She didn’t know but, since Hardin had only decided to investigate not more than a couple of hours ago, it seemed unlikely.
She was about to step back from the window and head for the stairs when something caught her eye. A car coming along the track. The car pulled into the car park and stopped next to Savage’s vehicle. The driver’s door opened and a man got out. Early fifties, cropped brown hair and rough-shaven, an old jacket over a lumberjack shirt, a muscular builder’s physique bulging beneath the clothing. The man stood by Savage’s car for a moment before spitting on the ground. He went to the rear of his own car, sprang the boot and pulled something out. Then he turned towards the house and glanced up at the attic windows. Savage jumped back, her heart pounding. She moved her head slowly forward and looked out again. The man was heading for the front door, a long metal bar in his right hand.
After visiting the boatyard, Riley and Enders headed across the Plym and round to Jennycliff for another recce. It was a little after two thirty when Enders pulled the pool Focus into the car park. A dozen other vehicles sat in a line on one side of the gravel expanse, windscreens glinting in the low winter sun. Several of the occupants were having a late lunch break. Fish and chips in a cardboard tray. Cheap junk food bought for a few quid. But, Riley thought, the view across Plymouth Sound was priceless.
‘We could grab a bacon butty while we’re here,’ Enders said as they got out. He pointed at the cafe which stood at the bottom of the grassy slope below the car park. ‘A cup of tea would be nice too.’
Riley shook his head. ‘Is there ever a time when you don’t think about food, Patrick?’
‘When I’m asleep,’ Enders said. Then he grinned. ‘No, scratch that. I dream of food too.’
‘Well, if you could spare a minute or two for this investigation I’d be very grateful, as I’m sure would the taxpayer.’
They strolled down past the cafe and Enders made to head for the path which led down the cliffs to the beach. Riley tapped him on the shoulder.
‘No.’ He gestured over to a concrete area with a couple of benches and a coin-operated telescope. ‘Let’s take a gander over there. We’ll get a better view of the Sound from up here.’
Riley walked across to where a large piece of polished granite stood at one end of the concrete. The stone was engraved with a representation of the horizon, interesting points shown with distances to each.
‘What are you thinking, sir?’ Enders said.
‘I’m trying to get a handle on where the hell the raft came from. Here.’ Riley pulled a little booklet from his pocket. ‘Tide tables. Layton told me the wind was from the south-west on Tuesday. His theory is that the raft was launched from somewhere around the Sound or upriver. The tide ebbed and the south-westerly blew the raft across to this side of the Sound. It was pushed up the beach on the incoming tide and stranded.’
‘From over there then?’ Enders said, pointing across the water to where a patch of green sat surrounded by sea. ‘Down the Tamar, past Drake’s Island and across to here. Seems an unlikely journey.’
‘Whatever.’ Riley ran his hand over the piece of granite, looking at the points of interest marked on the surface. ‘The question is, what is the purpose of the raft and, of course, where the hell do the finger bone and skin come from?’
‘I think the question,’ Enders said, nodding his head to where the path went down to the beach, ‘is what the hell is he doing here?’
Riley turned and followed Enders’ gaze to where a tall man in a beige raincoat stood gazing out across the Sound.
‘Dan bloody Phillips.’ Riley shook his head. Phillips was the Plymouth Herald’s crime reporter and he had an uncanny knack of sniffing out a story using his rat-like nose to detect even the tiniest thread of evidence. ‘You’re right, what the hell is he doing here?’
At that moment the reporter paused. His head moved from left to right as he scanned the seascape.
‘I swear I can see him sniffing,’ Riley said. ‘Uh-oh. He’s spotted us.’
Sure enough, Phillips turned around on the path and began to walk towards them, a huge grin on his face.
‘So, I am on to something,’ Phillips said as he reached them. ‘Good to see you, Darius.’
‘On to what?’ Riley said.
‘Well.’ Phillips smiled again and then gestured to the cafe. ‘You don’t appear to be here for lunch, there’s no sign of a pooch, and as for that other canine-inspired pastime – dogging – I think you’d be better off once darkness sets in. And I’d lose your sidekick, he just doesn’t hack it.’
‘Dan,’ Riley said as Enders glowered. ‘We’re just taking a break. About to get something to eat. So if you don’t mind …’
‘Bacon butties all round?’ Phillips began to walk away. ‘My shout. And if you’re good I’ll tell you why I’m here. You’re going to be interested, I promise. Very interested.’
‘Sir?’ Enders whispered. ‘We really shouldn’t.’
‘You’re probably right, but he’s on to something,’ Riley said. He turned to follow Phillips. ‘And I want to know what it is.’
They strode up the slope and sat at a picnic table outside the cafe. Phillips appeared a few minutes later with a tray, three bacon baps and three cups of tea.
He plonked himself down and they tucked into their food.
‘Right then, to business,’ Phillips said after a few mouthfuls. He reached for a tissue and wiped some tomato sauce from the side of his mouth. ‘You’re here about that raft, aren’t you?’
Chapter Thirteen
Near Bolberry, South Hams, Devon. Thursday 22nd October. 2.45 p.m.
Savage moved from the box room to the little square of landing and peered down the stairway. Somebody was moving around two floors below. A door banged shut and a crash reverberated through the house. Then she heard the man on the stairs coming up to the first floor.
‘Where are you then?’ The voice had a rough quality to it and was full of menace. ‘Think you can come in here and do your drugs and your dirty business, do you?’
‘Hello?’ Savage hollered down the stairs. Better her presence didn’t come as a complete surprise. ‘Police officer up here.’
Footsteps shuffled on the first floor below. ‘You won’t trick me like that, you little bitch.’
The man came into view at the bottom of the stairs. He glanced up, a sneer across his round, pudgy face.
‘Detective Inspector Charlotte Savage,’ Savage said, taking out her warrant card. ‘Here on police business.’
‘Right, love. Sure you are. Now hold on there, I’m coming up to sort you out.’
‘If you look closely you’ll see I really am a police officer. My colleagues know exactly where I am and if anything happens to me it won’t be long before they track you down.’
‘Hey?’ The man ascended several stairs and then stopped and stared at Savage’s outstretched hand. ‘OK, suppos
e you are a police officer, what the hell are you doing here? This is private property.’
‘The door was open. Anyway I’m investigating a crime.’
‘What crime is that then? I’ve reported the vandalism many times and no one’s ever bothered to come out here.’
‘This is an old crime. From years ago. The missing boys.’
‘Hayskith and Caldwell?’ The man shook his head. ‘You’re wasting your time. There’s nothing here, nothing I tell you.’
The way the man had said the names sounded odd to Savage, almost institutional.
‘And you are, Mr …?’
‘Samuel. Elijah Samuel.’
‘Well, Mr Samuel, I have to warn you that, vandals or no vandals, you can’t go around attacking people with iron bars.’
‘This is my property and you’re trespassing. You need a warrant to search this place.’
‘There’s nothing to search, is there? I just wanted to get a feel for what the home was like.’
‘A feel?’ Samuel’s hand tightened around the iron bar. ‘You can’t imagine the hell this place was, sweetheart. Those boys didn’t run away. They were too scared to do that. They knew they’d eventually be caught and brought back here. No, Hayskith and Caldwell got up in the middle of the night and walked down to Soar Mill Cove. Then they paddled into the water and swam. Straight out. Even in summer it wouldn’t have been long before their bodies would have been numb. An hour or so and they’d have got hypothermia. Do you know what that does to you?’ Savage shook her head. ‘Ex-forces, me, and I saw it on training once. In the Cairngorms. We were in deep snow, six of us, whiteout conditions. Two lads became hypo and refused to go on. They were gone, in a dream-like state; we had to leave them or succumb ourselves. A week later, when the weather cleared through, we sent a helicopter to pick up the corpses. So, you see? For Hayskith and Caldwell the pain ended there in the water. They went to sleep rocked by the waves and woke in a better place.’