Touch (DI Charlotte Savage)

by Mark Sennen

  ‘Me and the wife, we are into a bit of letterboxing.’

  ‘I am assuming this letterboxing is not some sex game involving post office uniforms and boxing gloves?’

  ‘No,’ Enders laughed. ‘All over Dartmoor are little boxes hidden in out of the way places and the idea is to visit them all. A bit like Munroe bagging.’

  Savage had heard of Munroe bagging. It was something to do with trying to climb as many Scottish mountains as possible.

  ‘We do the modern version of letterboxing, called geocaching. The kids love the adventure and anticipation. We use a GPS to navigate our way to a spot where something has been hidden. Doesn’t take long before those numbers, the lat long coordinates, become real in your mind. I couldn’t tell you exactly where they point to, but the location is somewhere on the northern part of the moor, well away from civilisation.’ Enders stopped, as if aware of the implications of what he was saying.

  ‘He’s right, ma’am!’ Calter was at the computer. She had brought up a satellite image of Dartmoor and a little icon marked the position she had plotted into the search box.

  Savage checked the coordinates Calter had entered with the ones she had written down. They matched.

  ‘It is in the middle of nowhere,’ she said.

  ‘Not only in the middle of nowhere, ma’am,’ Enders said, ‘there is nothing there.’

  Calter clicked the mouse and the image zoomed in. Now they could see open moor. A couple of rock outcrops, some bog, a leat weaving along the contours, clumps of heather, patterns in the ground caused by winter run off; nothing else. No road, no buildings, no trees, just empty and desolate moorland.

  No one said anything and Savage shivered again, aware of the rain and hail that had begun to spatter on the windows. Calter broke the silence in her own inimitable way.

  ‘What the fuck would anybody in their right mind be doing out there?’

  *

  The street lamps burned orange against a sky darker than it should have been at four o’clock in the afternoon and heavy rain slashed from the clouds. Their vehicle ripped through the floods and even before leaving the outskirts of the city Savage had decided that commandeering one of Traffic’s Landrover Discoverys, complete with an experienced driver, had been a good move. Rivers of water poured across the roads creating huge puddles everywhere and daylight seemed almost a memory. Cars ahead of them moved into the gutters, diving out of the way of the strobing lights and siren. Savage gripped the armrests, eyes front watching the road. Calter and Enders larked around in the back, the two of them behaving like children on a day out.

  ‘Be falling as sleet up on the moor,’ Enders said, sounding excited. ‘If not snow.’

  ‘Like this sort of weather, do you?’ Savage asked.

  ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, ma’am, only the wrong sort of clothing. Something like that.’

  It took twenty minutes to get out of Plymouth, along the A386 and onto the B3212 that led across the moor towards Princetown. Sleet was falling now, reducing visibility to a few car lengths and slowing their speed to little more than a crawl. The sleet swirled around in the wind and every now and then the Landrover would be bludgeoned by an extra strong gust that threatened to overturn them. The driver peered forward, concentrating hard and fighting to keep the vehicle on the road.

  At Princetown their headlights reflected on the fluorescent strip on an otherwise invisible white Defender parked by the side of the road. The vehicle’s siren blooped out a greeting and Savage spotted the Dartmoor Rescue Group logo on the side. She had phoned ahead and requested their services to guide them onto the remote part of the moor. Enders seemed offended, insisting he knew about search and rescue, but Savage pointed out he wasn’t leading a summer letterboxing expedition with the family and they needed all the help they could get. Besides which the team had search dogs that might prove extremely useful.

  ‘Are we looking for a body, ma’am?’ Enders had gone serious and stopped larking about.

  ‘No idea. But who in their right minds would be up on the moor in this kind of weather?’

  ‘Unless they had a death wish.’ Calter, the fun gone out of her too.

  ‘That’s what I am worried about.’

  They pulled up and Savage got out, battling to open the door against the gale. She struggled into her waterproof jacket, cursing as a hank of hair blew across her face and got caught in the zip. A big man, the sort you would want on your side in a drug’s bust, climbed down from the rescue team’s Landrover and strode over to Savage. The wind flattened his waterproof gear against his body, but he seemed unaffected by the weather. He offered his hand.

  ‘Callum Campbell,’ he said in a Scottish accent, his clear blue eyes holding her gaze a split second longer than was comfortable.

  ‘Thanks for meeting us.’ Savage handed him the GPS coordinates. ‘We are looking for someone at this location.’

  Campbell returned to his vehicle and retrieved a handheld GPS. The unit had a little screen with a map, and once he had entered the coordinates he tapped the display and shook his head.

  ‘Nothing out there but lousy weather and a few stupid sheep.’

  ‘We know. Why do you think we called you?’

  ‘Aye. Best get moving before this lot turns to snow.’ He gestured at the sleet, turned to walk back to his vehicle, but then stopped and shouted over his shoulder.

  ‘Are we looking for a live one?’

  Savage hesitated, the informant hadn’t specified anything, only that the information concerned Forester. The whole thing could turn out to be a wild goose chase.

  ‘We are not even sure what we are looking for.’

  ‘No problem, I’ll alert the guys and gals. No sense in busting our guts or risking our limbs if there isn’t someone alive out there.’

  They left Princetown in convoy with the rescue team leading the way. Sunset had long gone and the weather showed no sign of letting up. Warm air blew from the car’s heater ducts and Savage stared through the side window and wondered what it would be like to be lost out on the moor in the blackness.

  Five miles north east of Princetown Campbell’s Landrover turned off the road and onto a rough track. Savage’s driver muttered a ‘bloody hell’ and followed. The vehicles lurched along, bouncing over exposed rock and crashing into potholes, progress slowed to not much more than walking pace, limited now by the terrain rather than the visibility. Through the windscreen in the headlights Savage caught a glimpse of a few clumps of heather and scrub and beyond the nothingness of the whiteout.

  She estimated that they were averaging only about ten miles an hour and after some thirty minutes the rescue vehicle stopped. Campbell got out and came back to speak to them. Savage sat on the sheltered side of the Landrover so she rolled her window down. Campbell poked his head into the fug.

  ‘Nice in here, isn’t it?’ He grinned. ‘Did you bring a picnic?’

  Savage could see the funny side, but didn’t feel much like laughing.

  ‘Are we there?’

  ‘The waypoint is about a thousand metres due north.’ Campbell pointed off into the dark. ‘No chance of using the vehicles so get yourselves kitted up.’

  Enders had retrieved his mountain gear from his car back at the station and he looked the business in a matching Karimor jacket and trousers and solid-looking climbing boots, like he was about to try for the final push for the summit of Everest. His round face beamed out from under the peak of his hood, eager to get started. The rest of them pulled on the high-vis waterproofs they’d snatched from traffic. Looking at the sleet whipping through the beams of the headlights Savage was beginning to think they would be useless.

  Three more of the rescue team clambered out of the back of the Landrover. Two guys and a girl, all decked out in waterproofs and equipped with head torches and a big handheld searchlight. A couple of border collies jumped down as well and the dogs began scampering around, snapping at the sleet and spinning in circles with excitement
, their eyes bright and missing nothing. Like Campbell they seemed oblivious to the weather.

  ‘OK, listen up!’ Campbell sounded serious now, balling his orders out against the howling gale. ‘We are only going about one kilometre from the vehicles but in these conditions you can lose sight of someone in ten metres, so everyone stay close. Slip over and sprain your ankle and get left behind and you are in trouble. The wind will carry your cry for help away and the same wind will be sapping your core temperature. The dogs might find you but then again they might not. By first light you will be dead.’

  The wind seemed to be slicing through Savage’s waterproofs and Campbell’s remarks didn’t make her feel any warmer.

  ‘Jeff will stay in our vehicle and your traffic officer will stay here too. I will lead the way with Carole and her dog. Next you guys,’ Campbell indicated Savage and her two DCs. ‘Then Adrian will bring up the rear with his dog. Adrian and I have radios as does Jeff so we have contact with each other and with our base. If we need to casevac there is no chance of a helicopter in this weather so Adrian has got the stretcher packed up. If we find a dead one I suggest we wait until daylight. OK, any questions?’

  No one said anything so he muttered a ‘let’s go’ and with a deliberate, methodical stride began to pick his way out across the open moor.

  Savage and the others followed, not moving much beyond a slow walk. Within a couple of minutes they lost all sight of the two Landrovers and the track. Savage became disorientated to such a degree that she had no idea in which direction they were heading. Picked out in the torchlight Campbell was just a lumbering shadow up ahead, beyond him the sleet reflected the light for a few metres and beyond that was total blackness. Campbell had been right, step away from the group and you were a goner.

  There was no path, only the occasional sheep track criss-crossing their route, and the terrain was typical Dartmoor: one minute the ground would be firm underfoot, the next you would be squelching through mud and bog.

  Every so often Campbell stopped and a pale light flashed on his face as he peered at the GPS screen and used a tiny penlight to cross check with a compass and a map encased in a plastic holdall. Check complete he would stride forward, his steady gait eating up the ground with ease. He might have been a volunteer, but he practiced his art like a professional.

  After about twenty minutes the shape of a rocky outcrop loomed ahead in the torchlight. The craggy granite, cold and rough, was incongruous after the softness of the boggy moorland.

  ‘Caglin Tor,’ Campbell shouted against the roaring wind. ‘This is it!’

  They moved closer and stopped in the lee of the towering rock where the wind was somewhat lessened. Savage stood with her hands on her hips taking deep breaths. Campbell breathed easy though, not fazed by the weather or the terrain.

  ‘The exact coordinates are over on the west side, but sometimes the GPS can be out by quite a bit compared to the map and we have got no idea if the position given is accurate anyway. I suggest we split and skirt the tor in two teams, each with a dog. Keep close to the rock, and if you lose sight of each other for God’s sake stay put.’

  The sleet had turned to snow now and even with the powerful torches visibility was down to no more than a few metres. Savage followed the dog handler and Campbell as they skirted the rocks anti-clockwise. A strange howling whistle filled the air as the wind lashed round the rocks, driving the sleet and snow with a force that stung her exposed skin. Savage was glad she was with Campbell.

  Up ahead the dog zipped back and forth, disappearing into each rock cleft and running out again to scamper about. Every now and then it would stop and raise a wet nose into the air and whine and race off again. Then a startled sheep shot out from one fissure, the creature’s eyes flashing green in the torchlight. The collie span around and around and barked for all it was worth, the excitement in the dog’s eyes a counterpoint to the fear in the ewe’s.

  ‘Was it the sheep?’ Savage asked the handler.

  ‘No. She’s trained to ignore them. It’s something else.’ The handler bent down, grabbed the dog by the scruff and shouted an order. The dog yapped once and looked up at the tor where a sheer rock face rose into the darkness. The dog gave a whine and shot across to a crack in the face, bounding upwards in a huge leap until it was a couple of metres from the ground on a small ledge. Short, sharp barks echoed for a moment before being snatched away by the wind.

  ‘We’ll not get up there,’ Campbell said. ‘Let’s walk round to the side of this little crag and we might be able to find an easier route.’

  Sure enough Campbell was right. Twenty metres farther on a grassy slope led up the side, and they scrambled up and round until they stood atop the rock. A metre or so below them the dog perched on the ledge. She had found Forester. He wasn’t alive. In fact, as Savage would recall later, he didn’t even look human.

  Chapter 18

  St Ives, Cornwall. Saturday 30th October. 10.51 am

  It took Tatershall a few days to get round to returning to St Ives. The missing couple didn’t figure high on the list of priorities and if DI Peters hadn’t badgered him he might not have bothered. However, a break in the weather at last brought a beautiful clear day and the prospect of a nice drive, a spot of lunch and the sun falling on Kate Simbeck’s perfect face was too much to resist.

  Now he and Simbeck were leafing through the couple’s papers, trying to sort them in some meaningful fashion, Tatershall wearing his new glasses and trying not to feel self-conscious with them on. A few weeks back his wife had noticed him squinting at the evening paper and insisted he went for an eye test. The result had been a pair of the least biddyish looking reading glasses he could find and a feeling of age catching up with him. Simbeck had said the grey of the wire-framed glasses matched his hair and made him look distinguished, which hadn’t helped a whole lot.

  Finding the big cardboard box in the back of a cupboard in the flat’s utility room had been a bonus because it seemed to contain the only solid evidence that the couple existed at all. The rest of the flat had been devoid of anything much personal. As if they didn’t want to be reminded of who they were or where they had come from. The box contained a number of manila folders, each stuffed with documents. From share certificates to a car registration, from a manual for the microwave to old utility bills.

  ‘It’s like everything else in the flat, sir,’ Simbeck said. ‘All practical stuff. Nothing emotional. No letters, no postcards, no birthday cards, no memories. A couple who didn’t want to remember anything from their past.’

  ‘Very poetic, but I am not sure it is the basis for a case against them.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to say that. I just don’t understand how anyone’s life can be so sterile.’

  ‘Like her paintings?’ The gallery below the flat displayed several examples of the woman’s work, hyperrealistic watercolours of the harbour at St Ives with every detail painstakingly copied. You may as well have used a camera, Tatershall thought, though even a photograph would have had more warmth.

  ‘Exactly.’

  They carried on the work, ploughing deeper into the box, making a note or two, but finding nothing to give them a handle on the couple’s life.

  ‘Remember, we are trying to find something to connect them with Devon, with Dartmouth maybe,’ Tatershall said.

  They didn’t find anything. Tatershall even tried ringing Dartmouth police to see if they knew of the couple, but they didn’t. In fact the officer on the end of the line seemed to think he was a bit of a joker for even suggesting they might have. She asked if Tatershall realised how many hundreds of thousands of tourists visited Dartmouth each year. Tatershall didn’t know and didn’t want to know either, but the woman on the end of the phone proceeded to tell him anyway. The place sounded like St Ives, only with more boats. Feeling admonished Tatershall hung up.

  ‘Fucking idiots!’

  ‘Dartmouth?’

  ‘FootInMouth. No help at all. Bloody English tossers.�
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  ‘Never mind.’ Simbeck stood smiling, mischief on her face. ‘Why don’t you come down and peruse my etchings instead, sir.’

  She led him down the stairs and into the gallery where halogen light blazed from overhead. While he had been on the phone she had been having a nose around and from her expression she had discovered something.

  ‘There.’ She pointed at a picture on the wall. A little notice beneath said the painting was not for sale. Tatershall had to look twice to tell the image wasn’t a photograph.

  ‘And?’

  ‘The inscription.’

  Tatershall looked again. The artist had signed her name and just above the signature were some tiny printed words: Netherston Cottage, South Hams, Devon, 1983.

  ‘An address, sir. No idea where, but I bet your new friends at Dartmouth nick could find out for you.’

  *

  Saturday morning and Savage had woken to the bed in motion; Jamie bouncing up and down and imploring her to get up.

  ‘Daddy is calling today.’

  Jamie was right, Pete would call later. She had looked at the clock and noted the darkness behind the curtains. 6:30 am. Something like Christmas morning behaviour for Jamie. Nothing wrong with his enthusiasm, but considering her moorland excursion Thursday evening she could have done with a lie in.

  Now it was mid-afternoon and Jamie and Samantha jostled in front of Savage’s laptop, Pete’s voice gurgling through the speakers, the kids’ own words tumbling forth in a stream of questions while at the same time Samantha Googled ‘Panama Canal’ and found a live webcam situated at the Gatun Locks. Pete told them about the passage up the coast of Chile and the journey through the canal and sent through some pictures of the ship navigating one of the locks.

  Savage had spoken to him before calling the kids down and the only thing she could think of now were his opening words to her: ‘I’m coming home.’ Of course she had known already since the ship’s itinerary, barring unforeseen events, had been planned for months, but hearing the words had lifted her spirit and now she couldn’t stop smiling.