by Cari Hunter
*
The blackbird singing down the open chimney sounded a lot more chipper than Meg felt as she cancelled the alarm clock seconds before it was due to go off.
Half-sprawled above the quilt, with a leg thrown over Meg’s thighs, Sanne scratched her nose, mumbled something inaudible, and smacked her lips together as if she’d eaten a bug. She didn’t wake, though, and Meg’s hand on her forehead was all it took to settle her back into a deeper sleep. It was barely light outside. Meg made a unilateral decision that another half hour would make no difference to Sanne’s schedule and all the difference to her general health.
“And I am sort of your doctor, so I know what’s best,” Meg whispered, smiling as Sanne snuffled softly in response.
It hadn’t been a good night. At Sanne’s insistence, Meg had cleared a small mountain of textbooks, journals, and un-ironed clothes off her spare bed and let her sleep there. It had seemed easier not to argue, but less than an hour later, Sanne’s screams had brought Meg running into the room, and the only way to stop them had been to get into bed with her.
“I’m making a mess of you now,” Sanne had sobbed, still mainly asleep, her face sticky with snot and tears. Then, undeterred by her own protests, she had tucked her head onto Meg’s chest and started to snore through her blocked nose.
Meg knew from long experience that Sanne’s sleep was the first thing to suffer when she was stressed. Her legs would jump, she would talk or cry out, and occasionally she wandered, waking up in random rooms with no memory of how she had got there. Meg hadn’t heard her scream like that in years, though. The last time, they had been in secondary school, just turned thirteen, and squashed together in a single bed, after their respective parents had finally allowed them to sleep over. Remembering the way she had quieted Sanne on that occasion made her smile broaden. She kissed Sanne’s brow, feeling the crease of frown lines ease away beneath her lips.
They were both idiots, Meg decided, as she listened to the blackbird choosing another tune and watched sunlight brighten the pattern on the curtains. They were inseparable, they knew every secret that was worth telling, and they had seen each other through their lowest moments. If they fought, they reconciled the next day. They made each other laugh, shared enough of the same interests that they always had something to chat about, and could even tolerate each other’s families.
Given that they were absolutely not in a relationship and hadn’t been since those first teenaged fumblings, the sex was no doubt ill-advised, but, Meg thought, as she sighed and inched over onto her back, putting some distance between herself and Sanne’s sleep-warmed curves, it was always bloody good sex. So why didn’t they just agree they were made for each other? Why did they continue seeing other people, when swapping stories of their bad dates was more fun than the dates themselves? Maybe because they were a pair of cowards, so comfortable with what had become routine that they were scared of messing it up.
“Fuck me sideways!” Sanne sat up so suddenly that she almost punched Meg in the face. “Look at the time! Why did you let me oversleep?”
Meg rubbed her cheek where Sanne’s elbow had glanced off her, grateful for the change of subject, even if it came with a bruise. “Because I knew how charming you’d be upon waking?” she offered. She watched Sanne launch herself out of bed and start searching for clothes. “Do you feel any better for it?”
Sanne held up two pairs of knickers from Meg’s laundry pile. “Yeah, a little. Are either of these mine?”
“No, but you wore the spotted ones the last time you stayed over.”
“Oh.” She looked sheepish. “Sorry. Can I steal them again?”
“Be my guest. Bras are—oh, you know where they are. Help yourself.”
That prompted a moment of obvious befuddlement as Sanne spun around, trying to find Meg’s chest of drawers and then noticing for the first time that she was in the wrong room.
“Hey, why…?” She inclined her head toward Meg’s bedroom. “Uh, what did I miss? Because I can’t…Did we…?”
Meg put her out of her misery. “No, we didn’t. You had a nightmare, and I played pillow, that’s all.”
“Oh God, sorry. You must be knackered.”
“I’m fine. I was tired enough to sleep through your snoring.”
“I was snoring?” Sanne slapped a hand over her mouth.
“Just a little. You turned over if I poked you in the ribs.”
“I don’t remember any of that.”
“Probably for the best.” Meg wriggled out of bed and went to check Sanne’s dressings. The rough start to the night had left them speckled with blood in numerous places. “I’ll change these after you’ve had a shower.”
“It feels much better,” Sanne said, flexing her arm. “Actually, I feel much better.” She trotted into Meg’s room, where Meg heard her set the shower running and begin rummaging for underwear.
Meg wandered onto the landing so she didn’t need to shout over the splash of the water. “You’ve got a bit more colour in your cheeks.”
“Most of that’s probably dirt,” Sanne called back cheerfully.
Her lack of self-consciousness made Meg laugh. “Don’t block my bloody drains up. I don’t have time to fix them again.”
The boiler whirring into life drowned out Sanne’s reply. Meg checked her phone for messages, found none, and concluded that no news was good news. She pulled on an old sweater and carried the first aid kit down into the kitchen. As the kettle boiled, she found bacon, eggs, and bread that wasn’t yet visibly mouldy, and set them all by the stove ready for Sanne. The last time Meg had attempted a fry-up, she had wandered off to find a book she thought Sanne might like and had become distracted by a bee trying to get out of her living room window. Oil had set itself on fire, smoke alarms had screeched, and Sanne had saved the day with a wet tea towel. The book had been a success, though, and the bee had flown off into the sunshine, so it hadn’t been an unmitigated disaster.
“This got a bit soggy.” Sanne walked into the kitchen, holding up her arm, displaying her sagging bandages like a bargain basement mummy.
“Come out here, and I’ll look at it.” Meg unlocked her patio doors, opened them wide, and beckoned Sanne into the garden. The patio was directly south facing, and she could feel the warmth of its stone flags begin to chase the chill from her bare feet. Catching the scent of the rose trained across the trellis, she tilted one of its flowers upward to smell it properly.
“I love this. It’s gorgeous.” She held the rose for Sanne. “Which one is it again?”
“It’s ‘The Pilgrim.’”
Like most of the plants in Meg’s garden, Sanne had chosen and planted it herself, and often returned to prune it. Among many things, she had inherited her green fingers from her mum. In a stroke of good fortune, the majority of her paternal genes seemed to have been recessive.
It was too early for any of Meg’s elderly neighbours to be awake, and the middle-aged couple at the far end of the terraced row were away on holiday, so birdsong and the steady play of water over rocks were the only sounds to break the stillness. Neither Meg nor Sanne spoke as Meg took the scissors from the first aid kit to snip away the dressings. They both craved peace and quiet, in the way that newly paroled junkies craved a fix.
At times, when the doubts crept in, Meg would come out here regardless of the weather, just to reassure herself that the past sixteen years of hard graft had paid off, that she really was a doctor who owned a house that didn’t stink of cigarette smoke and cheap microwave meals, and didn’t have its windows smashed every other month. These days, the only police she encountered were the ones who came to the hospital, where they spoke to her as a professional and not because her brother was one of their prime suspects. The thought gave her pause as she stuck down a flap of bandage and tapped the back of Sanne’s hand to let her know she was finished. There was, of course, one police officer she saw on a very regular basis, but then Sanne was an exception. She had always been an except
ion.
“It’s beautiful out here,” Sanne said. Still suffused with heat from the shower, she looked healthy and content, but there was a sadness underscoring her words. Meg suspected she was contemplating the day ahead.
“There was nothing on my phone.” Meg displayed its blank screen.
Sanne nodded. She had probably been afraid to ask. The news, or rather the lack of it, seemed to lighten her mood. “You up for bacon and eggs, then?” she asked.
“Yep. Do you need a hand?”
Sanne pretended to give the offer due consideration. “Think you’d be safe making the toast?”
Meg followed her into the kitchen. “Oh, I don’t know. That’s an awfully big responsibility.”
“So long as you shout for me if it starts smoking, I think we’ll be okay.”
“Smoke. Shout,” Meg said slowly. “I can do that.”
Sanne sparked up the gas ring and slid the pan into place. The bacon rashers sizzled and shrank as they hit the hot pan. Busy slicing bread, Meg took a deep, appreciative breath. Fresh roses and greasy bacon: was there any more perfect start to a day?
Chapter Seven
A thin, early morning mist rose lazily from the valleys. Beads of dew made the grass and moss glisten beneath Sanne’s boots, giving the hills an otherworldly atmosphere that was at once enchanting and sinister. The height her team had gained since abandoning the Mountain Rescue trucks had left the air cool, and she pulled her shirt closed, trying not to shiver. Nelson must have heard how ragged her breathing was, but he said nothing, merely staying close during their slog uphill and insisting that she eat half of his muesli bar. Having left Meg’s place in good spirits, she was annoyed at how difficult the hike was proving. Her legs felt stiff and clumsy, and her rucksack dragged on her back. Her fitness level was above average, but the events of yesterday, followed by a disturbed night, had taken an unanticipated toll on her.
Ahead of them, Carlyle marched with the Mountain Rescue team and two National Trust rangers. His partner, Chris O’Brien, trailed a little behind, chatting to a uniformed officer and a small group of local volunteers. More officers and volunteers brought up the rear, their excited voices carrying easily across the open terrain and allowing Sanne to catch odd snippets of speculation: “Found naked,” “That lady copper there with the short hair,” and a confident announcement from an older male that he’d “stick the bastard’s balls” in his thresher if he was the one to apprehend him. She glanced over her shoulder to see whether she recognised the speaker. Grundy, she thought, though she couldn’t remember his first name. He ran the corner shop in Rowlee with his wife Doreen. A number of the other faces were familiar, too, but she had no names to go with them. During the day, a register would be taken of all the search participants, along with surreptitious photographs to record their identities. Even if background checks on the volunteers failed to yield anything useful, it would begin the process of elimination. Of the local villages, Rowlee was the closest to the scene, but numerous isolated farms, cottages, and small businesses would make the investigation’s door-to-door enquiries a challenge, to say the least.
Threads of mist curled around the lower reaches of the cliffs at Laddaw Ridge, making them loom in and out of the landscape. Sanne couldn’t believe she had managed to climb down them without breaking her neck. With hindsight, her efforts had been almost suicidal. Nelson was obviously thinking along the same lines, because he halted and whistled.
“Jesus, San.”
She rubbed her sore arm, reassuring herself that that was the only damage done. “Yeah. I wouldn’t even know where to start now, but at the time I just didn’t think about it.”
“No, I don’t imagine you did.”
They continued walking in silence, until Carlyle called a halt midway along the ridge. Before setting off from the rendezvous, he had split the group into two: a small number had taken a track leading below the ridge, to liaise with SOCO, while the bulk of the party had followed him onto the upper moors to scour for any evidence of the woman’s route or that of her assailant, and for any structure in which she might have been held.
The instant everyone was assembled, Carlyle whipped out his map and proceeded to re-divide the remaining group.
“You, you, and you.”
The three men he’d indicated looked across at him, bottles of water and half-eaten snacks poised at their lips.
“I want you to cover this sector,” he told them. “See? I’ve marked it A1 on your plan.”
They nodded slowly, one of them mopping his face with his T-shirt. They were all in their fifties and looked worn out before they had even started.
Nelson bowed his head and whispered directly into Sanne’s ear. “It’s no wonder he’s so loved. His people skills are second to none.” Carlyle was still pointing his finger at officers and volunteers, getting them to shuffle into an order based on their designated grid references.
Sanne smiled, but her focus was on her own map. “Sensible thing to do would be to head over here, to Gillot Tor.” She kept her voice quiet, so that only Nelson could hear her. “It’s a little beyond our boundary, but there are caves marked all along its lower section, on the same elevation as us. There are caves here at Laddaw, too, but they’re down at the base of the cliffs, and Meg said the woman’s injuries were consistent with a fall from height. If she was trying to get to safety, why would she run up onto the ridge?”
“She wouldn’t,” Nelson said. Then, before she could stop him, he raised his hand and his voice. “Sarge?”
Carlyle looked over in irritation. “What is it, Turay?”
“Are the cavers going to Gillot Tor today?”
The question seemed to wrong-foot Carlyle. He fumbled with his notes, flicking the pages so quickly that they snagged on the wire spiral at the top. “No. They’ll be here around Laddaw, today and probably tomorrow. There’s a number of potholes leading into limestone caves, about half a mile back that way.” He pointed in the direction from which they had just approached. “I spoke with DI Stanhope last night, and she agreed that in all probability the perp took the woman up onto the ridge and pushed her over the edge. If the cavers find evidence to confirm she was held nearby, we can abandon the wider search.” He gave Nelson a look that a parent might give a particularly stupid child. “Besides which, as you can see, Gillot Tor is not within the specified parameters.”
“No,” Nelson said. “It’s all of a mile outside them.”
Carlyle misinterpreted the sarcastic response as acquiescence. “You and Jensen are to lead a small group through sectors C3, 4, and 5, and I think that will just about cover it.”
“What about you, Sarge?” one of the officers called out. “Your name on that list anywhere?”
Carlyle closed his notepad and slipped it back into his rucksack. “I’m going to lead the fingertip search at the cliff base where the woman was found. Apparently, there’s a path down from here that will save me from having to re-enact Detective Jensen’s heroic climb.”
His announcement was greeted with muted catcalls and a general air of disbelief, which he ignored as he settled his bag on his back and drank from a canteen of water. Sanne contemplated the vast area he had delegated to her and Nelson, and wondered at what point he had realised their task was insurmountable. Had he already been hatching a plot to abandon them as he walked up here? Or was it only on arriving at the ridge that he had decided to switch his own efforts to a search already half completed and with a far greater likelihood of finding something? She couldn’t bring herself to ask the questions, though. If he was going below the ridge, he would be nowhere near her, and that could only be a good thing.
He shouted across to her as the group began to break up. “You got your whistle, Jensen? I’d hate to have to tell the boss we lost the little one.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “No chance of losing you, is there?”
Several of her team sniggered as he jammed a cap over his conspicuous red hair and turned his bac
k on them. Nelson managed not to react, but when no one was looking he grinned and dropped a toffee into her palm.
She stuffed the sweet into her mouth and spoke around it. “Are we set then?” An urge to get started and see what was out there had replaced her earlier weariness.
Nelson opened his arms, encouraging her to take the lead. “Ready when you are, partner.”
*
Sanne took the tea from Nelson and sipped at it where she stood. Aching, sticky all over, and thoroughly disheartened, she felt like sinking onto the nearest peat hag instead.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
“Yep.” She swallowed the dregs from the plastic cup and gave it back to him. Other officers and volunteers were nearby, so she was reluctant to stop for long.
“You can take a break, you know. Most folk have already had a sandwich or something.”
“I’ll eat mine in a bit.”
Her tone ended the exchange. She didn’t want to tell him she was afraid that she would never get up again if she sat for any length of time.
It was late afternoon, and the haze had burned off hours ago, leaving the skies blue and the sun tempered only by a brisk but tepid wind. With nowhere for the team to shelter, energy levels were flagging. Nelson had already called up for fresh water supplies and then for a Mountain Rescue medic to treat two volunteers who were verging on heat exhaustion. The morale, so high at the outset, had been quashed by the enormity of the task: mile upon mile of inhospitable terrain, which had so far yielded no clues, but which was liable to snap ankles on a whim. Many of the volunteers were familiar with the moors and had known what they were letting themselves in for, but even they were stopping for more and more frequent breaks.
A perspiring young woman jogged over to present Nelson with an evidence bag containing a weather-faded crisp packet. As he nodded his thanks, the woman strode away, her head held high.
“I blame Gil Grissom,” he said, dropping the bag into his rucksack. He unwrapped a Twix and shared it with Sanne. “Everyone thinks a crime can be solved in forty-five minutes or less.”