Copyright

Published by Avon

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2016

Copyright © Mark Sennen 2016

Cover illustration © Andrew Smith 2016

Mark Sennen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007241460

Ebook Edition © March 2016 ISBN: 9780007587896

Version: 2016-03-08

Dedication

For M

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One
Day One

Creepy, creepy, creepy-crawlies. Little black ticks running over my naked skin. Flies swarming in the air. I slide onto my front, burying my face in the softness of the pillow, but it’s no good, I’m awake now and can’t settle. I roll over. I realise there’s only one fly, not a swarm. Just one fly buzzing against the window. One too many. I don’t like flies. They give me nightmares. Flashbacks. I can recall every last detail. The smell of the sea. The sound of the surf. The blood on my hands.

I blink. The fly is still hurling itself against the window. I stare at the insect and wonder. Something isn’t right. I push myself up from the bed and swing my legs down onto the rough wooden floor. I walk out onto the landing and down the corridor. I knock on the door.

No answer.

I knock again and then turn the brass doorknob. The hinges creak as the door eases open. Inside, the window is unlatched, swung wide, the white net curtains billowing like waves breaking into a sea of foam. Sunbeams flicker in through the window and across the floor to the bed where she lies unmoving. I creep to the bed and where the sunlight strokes her face I bend and brush her cheek with my lips.

Nothing. I try again, this time pressing harder against the dry, cold skin. No reaction, not a twitch. Her eyes remain resolutely shut as if she is determined not to be disturbed by anyone ever again.

Day Two

This time the creepy-crawlies are real. A dozen flies swarming in the air. I open all the windows hoping they’ll go away. No such luck. More come, following their noses, the promise of decay drawing them in.

She’s begun to smell now, the weather warming, the summer heat growing by the day. Pieces of flesh lie loose on her face and her bare flabby arms and her room is full of insects. Droves. Swarms. Hordes. An odour of rotting cabbage, urine and meat gone bad permeates throughout the house. I sit at the foot of her bed and cry.

Day Three

The next day I rip up a dozen oak floorboards in her room. I fashion a coffin from the ancient planks. I’m good with tools. Woodworking. Metalworking. I kiss her on the lips one last time, aware as I do so of her cheek twitching and rippling. Maggots beneath the skin. Consuming her.

I roll her in a sheet and pull her from the bed and into the coffin. Slip, flop, thud. The coffin is heavy and I slide it from the room and down the stairs. Outside, I balance the coffin on a wheelbarrow and weave my way out to the orchard. Then I dig down into the soil and rock and bury her beneath the apple trees. A leaf flutters from above and falls into the grave like the first flake of snow in winter. Inside my chest my heart has turned to ice.

Day Four

Breakfast is a gruel of cold porridge served with a wooden spoon in a cracked bowl. A drop of honey sweetens the goo, but not the day. On the table beside the bowl is a notebook. My diary from years ago. I found the book in her room. Why she kept it I don’t know, but perhaps in some small way what was within helped her to understand where things went wrong.

I stare down at the book. I know I need to relive the events inside, but not now, not here.

Day Five

I knew I would return. The place has too many memories for me to stay away. I park my car and walk across fields, the notebook clasped tight in my right hand. There’s a copse in the distance. Green leaves in a sea of waving corn. I wade through the corn and reach an old fence which hangs between slanted posts. Within grows hazel and scrub and a huge tangle of laurel.

I step over the fence into another world, wandering the woodland until I find my secret place. As a young man I used to come here to meet my best friend. I’d talk to him about my problems, speak of my hopes and aspirations, tell him of my sorrows.

As I grew and matured I gradually weaned myself from my obsession. Life went on and I forgot about my secret place.

And yet here I am, looking for my friend, once more seeking help.

I kneel in the shadows, place the notebook on the ground, and begin to scrabble in the dirt. The brown covering of dead laurel leaves gives way to mulch and soil. My fingers reach down, pushing into the soft material and scraping away until I’ve dug a shallow hole. There it is, shining in the light. A hemisphere of bone, long ago cleaned of flesh and polished to a gleaming white. I pull the skull from the ground and hold it in front of me. In the right eye socket a large marble twinkles. A double cat’s eye whopper. There used to be a marble in each eye, but one dropped out and was lost.

‘Hello, Smirker,’ I say. ‘It’s been a long time.’

I kiss the wide bone of Smirker’s forehead and then I place him on a nearby brick so we can have a talk.

Smirker smiles at me with his perfect teeth and winks at me with his one good eye. I beam back at him. I can see he’s spotted the diary.

‘Ssshhh!’ I say, picking up the book and turning to the first page. ‘This was just a dream, right?’

Smirker smiles again, but I can see he doesn’t believe me.

To be honest, I’m not sure I do either.

The Shepherd sits in his rocking chair. He moves back and forth, the rocking soothing, almost as if he is once more a child in the arms of his mother. There’s a creak from the rockers on the bare boards of the floor. No carpet. The room is sparse with no floor covering except for a small hearth rug. Aside from the rocker there are a couple of wooden chairs with straight backs. A monk’s bench. A table, the surface much worn. To one side of the room stands a huge dresser, plain with no frills. There is a fireplace but no fire. Hasn’t been for years. Cold is something you get used to if you experience it for long enough.

From somewhere across the fields a bell chimes. Twelve strokes. Midnight. A new day beckoning.

The Shepherd nods to himself, the movement of his head matching the rhythm of the rocking chair. There is something mechanical about the action. Purposeful. Like the clock in the church ticking off the seconds. God marking the time until the sinners must face their day of judgement. The final toll of the bell fades and he realises that in the moment between yesterday and today something has changed. There’s been a subtle alteration in the ether. Perhaps the change is merely something physical, meteorological. Then again, perhaps the slight ripple in the air is something quite different. Perhaps it is the voice of God.

He puts his feet out to steady himself, to stop the movement of the chair. He sits in the silence of the night and listens.

God, he knows, doesn’t always announce Himself with a bang. His voice is sometimes not much more than a whisper. Only those prepared to listen can detect His presence.

The Shepherd pushes himself up from the chair and stands. He walks across to where the velvet curtains hang heavy. He draws one back and peers out into the small hours which lie like a suffocating blanket of silence across the valley. The air is still, not a branch or a leaf moving, the treetops reaching for a sky filled with crystal lights.

Just on the edge of perception he can hear singing. Two young boys performing a duet, their voices as clear as the night.

Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove

Far away, far away would I rove …

He closes the curtains, returns to the rocker and eases himself down into the chair. The music continues to play in his head until the final line.

And remain there forever at rest …

The last note hangs in the darkness before the terrible black of the night snuffs the sound out.

The Shepherd blinks. He knows the truth of it now. He realises that God has spoken directly to him. Those who have abased the pure of heart must be judged. Memories may fade but crimes are not lessened by the passage of time. The evidence must be weighed and the sinners must be punished.

And, the Shepherd thinks, the punishment must fit the crime.

Chapter Two
Derriford Business Park, Plymouth. Monday 19th October. 3.30 p.m.

A throng of reporters clustered round the entrance to the coroner’s court as Detective Inspector Charlotte Savage emerged. Rob Anshore, Devon and Cornwall Police Force’s PR guru, drew the reporters’ attention to the person following close behind and ushered Savage away.

‘Let the Hatchet deal with this, Charlotte,’ Anshore said. ‘She’s prepared a statement in response to the inquest verdict with the official line. You know, sadness, condolences, and all that crap to start with, moving on to the utmost confidence in her officers bit to finish.’

The Hatchet. Otherwise known as Chief Constable Maria Heldon.

Heldon was a replacement for the previous Chief Constable, Simon Fox. The late Simon Fox. Fox had killed himself using a vacuum cleaner hose, his fifty-thousand-pound Jaguar, and a one-pound roll of gaffer tape. Savage had been the one to find him sitting there stone dead, a cricket commentary playing on the car radio an unlikely eulogy for a man whose idea of fair play had been to try to kill her.

Inside the courtroom she’d presented her own account of the events leading up to Fox’s death and her testimony had, thankfully, been accepted at face value. The coroner had listened to all the witnesses and weighed the evidence and after due consideration he’d arrived at a verdict of suicide. Summing up, he’d said Fox had been living a tangle of lies and deceit which had included friendship with a corrupt Member of Parliament who himself was involved with a group of Satanists. Ultimately Fox’s precarious mental state had led him to believe there was no way out other than to top himself.

Savage and Anshore stopped a few metres to one side of the entrance and they turned to watch as Maria Heldon dispatched the reporters’ questions with curt, defensive replies.

‘Chalk and cheese,’ Anshore said, gesturing at Heldon. ‘Simon Fox was a media charmer. Knew how to play the game. He was a decent man. Pity he’s gone.’

Crap, Savage thought. The real reason for Fox’s troubles was that he’d been prepared to break the rules, ostensibly to shield his son, Owen, from prosecution. Some years ago Owen had been involved in a hit-and-run accident which had killed Savage’s daughter, Clarissa. Fox had used his position as Chief Constable to obscure his son’s tracks, but Savage reckoned he’d done it more out of concern for his own career than any love for his son. She’d discovered the truth thanks to help from a local felon by the name of Kenny Fallon and some out-of-hours work by DS Darius Riley. She’d confronted Owen Fox and foolishly put a gun to his head. The lad had confessed it hadn’t been him driving the car, but rather his girlfriend – now wife – Lauren. Owen had also told Savage it had been his dad who’d decided to cover up the accident in the first place.

‘Simon Fox was a disgrace to the force,’ Savage said, trying to remain calm. ‘He let power go to his head.’

‘Really, Charlotte, I’m surprised.’ Anshore wagged a finger. ‘Don’t you have any sympathy for the man’s mental condition?’

Savage didn’t answer. Clarissa’s death had badly affected her and her family. Jamie, her son, had been little more than a baby at the time, but Samantha – Clarissa’s twin – continued to feel Clarissa’s absence as much as Savage and her husband, Pete, did. Fox’s actions had compounded the misery. His death had brought about a resolution of sorts, but nothing would bring Clarissa back. The moment when Savage had seen her child lying broken in the road would stay with her forever. The worst of it was that Savage had had to keep everything bottled up. Aside from herself, Fallon and Riley, no one knew the real truth behind Fox’s downfall or Savage’s unorthodox investigative approach. Nevertheless, Maria Heldon could smell a rat.

‘You know what they’ll say,’ she’d said when she’d questioned Savage about Fox’s death. ‘No smoke without fire.’

Well, there was fire, plenty of it, but Savage wasn’t about to tell Heldon anything of the spark which had set the flames alight.

‘Anyway, bet you’re glad the whole thing is over,’ Anshore said, sounding conciliatory. ‘Can’t have been pleasant finding Foxy in the car like that. All gassed up and turning blue.’

Anshore was a media guy, so he could be forgiven for not knowing about the finer details of carbon monoxide poisoning. Fox hadn’t been blue, in fact he hadn’t even looked dead. Just a trail of drool trickling from his mouth alerted Savage to the fact something was wrong.

As for pleasant? Well, worse things had happened.

They walked away from the court towards the car park and as they approached her car Savage turned back for a moment. Maria Heldon had finished speaking and the reporters had shifted their attention to the next group to emerge: Owen Fox, his wife, Lauren, and their solicitor. Owen had jet-black hair like his dad, but his facial features were softer. Lauren was blonde, her hair matching the curly locks of the baby in her arms. Both parents were early twenties, not far off the age Savage had been when she’d had the twins.

‘A difficult time, hey?’ Anshore said, following Savage’s gaze. ‘Tough for the family.’

‘Tough?’ Savage held herself stock-still, bristling inside once again. She wished Anshore would shut up, wished she was away from here. ‘I guess you could fucking say so.’

With that she wheeled about and headed for her car, leaving Anshore standing open-mouthed.

Detective Superintendent Conrad Hardin had been at the inquest too. He’d listened to three days of evidence replete with a myriad of unwholesome revelations about Simon Fox. Now, back in his office at Crownhill Police Station with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits, he could finally relax. The past few weeks had been a nightmare, but at least, he thought, his own officers had come through with flying colours. DI Savage in particular had handled the situation with a coolness he’d rarely seen in a woman.

Hardin reached for his tea and slurped down a mouthful. A stack of mail formed an ominous pile next to the plate of biscuits. He took the first piece of mail from the pile, promising himself a biscuit once he’d dealt with three items. The white envelope had been addressed in block capitals, with his full name – without rank – at the head. A first-class stamp sat in the top right corner and was franked with yesterday’s date. The letter had been posted in Plymouth.

He noted the details without really thinking about them, the result of half a lifetime as a detective, but when he opened the envelope his interest was piqued. The letter inside had been handwritten in a Gothic script with eloquent curls and flowing lines. The Fs, Ps, Qs and Ys were nothing less than calligraphic perfection. This, Hardin thought, was somebody who thought presentation was as important as content.

Having read the first few lines, he was swiftly disabused of the notion. The content was waffle and he’d barely skimmed through half the letter before dismissing the message as the mad ramblings of somebody who needed psychiatric help.

Hardin stuck his tongue out over his bottom lip, as he always did when he was deep in thought. The letter had been addressed to him personally and began in an overly familiar fashion.

Dear Conrad …

He paused and started from the beginning again, once more struggling to make any sense of most of the content. However, towards the bottom of the page a line stood out.

How about your sense of duty, PC Hardin? What about your sense of respect? Do you have any left? Are you ready to repent?

PC Hardin?

It was a long time since he’d been a police constable. For a moment Hardin smiled to himself, memories flooding back. He looked up from the letter, his eyes drawn to the map of Devon on the wall. He’d started out at Kingsbridge nick, what – twenty-five, thirty years ago? Things had been very different then. He’d patrolled the town on foot, the lanes and nearby villages on a bicycle. If he was lucky he went out with a colleague two up in a squad car. Stopped for lunch in a sunny layby with a view of the sea. Back in the eighties the area had hardly entered the twentieth century. A few drunks, the occasional burglary, some Saturday night argy-bargy after closing time. So different from the inner-city problems he had to deal with now.

He stifled the smile and bent to the letter again.

You probably won’t recall me, but you must remember what happened all those years ago. When you were just a bobby on the beat. Before you became a DETECTIVE. Who could forget that face in the photograph?

Of course he remembered. The event was imprinted on his memory. He’d pushed the details as far back into the recesses of his mind as he could, but every now and then an echo came sliding to the surface, like a body rising bloated from the depths of a lake.

How about your sense of duty, PC Hardin?

Duty? He’d done his duty back then. Ever since, too. What was this joker hinting at? Were they trying to scare him? Was this some kind of blackmail scam or a threat, even? He’d put away dozens of criminals in his career, many of them dangerous, and yet it seemed unlikely the letter was from one of them. No professional felon would act in such a way.

A prank then. A prank or a madman.

He read the final paragraph.

Last time you failed them and you failed me too. Back then you obeyed your superiors and followed orders, but now we’re going to start afresh. We’re going to play a game, PC Hardin, and this time we’re going to play by my rules.

Hardin shook his head and then refolded the letter and placed the piece of paper back in the envelope. Really he should report this, get John Layton and his CSIs up here to examine the thing. By the book was Hardin’s motto. He tapped the envelope with a fingertip and stared at his name, wondering how he could possibly explain the circumstances to Layton. He shook his head once more and sighed. Then he opened one of his desk drawers, popped the letter in, and slid the drawer closed.

As a young kid, Jason Hobb had liked playing out on the mud next to the old hulk. His grandad had told him the wreck was a pirate vessel which, one dark night, had foundered in the shallows as the crew argued with the captain about the division of their loot. While they bickered, the falling tide left them stranded and by the time dawn broke the game was up. They were arrested by customs officers and, after a quick trial, five of the crew were hanged and the rest thrown into prison.

Now, eleven and a half years old and somewhat wiser, Jason realised the story was entirely made up. After all, according to his grandad, the pirates had been hanged from the Tamar Bridge, their bodies dangling for days until the seagulls had picked the corpses down to the bone. By the time Jason had discovered the bridge had been built in the 1960s, his grandad had passed away, the little wink the old man gave whenever he told Jason something outlandish just about the only thing he could remember about his face.

Right now, Jason leant on his spade near the wreck. He didn’t play so much nowadays, not since his dad had gone away. The area around the old ship was no longer a place of adventure. More often than not he came to the mud to dig for bait. He sold the ragworms to the local fishing shop in nearby Torpoint, the few quid he earned clattering down on the kitchen table and bringing a hint of a smile to his mother’s face.

‘You’re a good boy, Jason,’ she’d say, pocketing the coins and sometimes handing a couple back to him. ‘If only your old man had been as thoughtful.’

While he was sad he no longer got to see his grandad, he couldn’t care less about his old man. His father, Jason had come to realise about the same time he began to doubt his grandad’s stories, was nothing more than a lazy, drunken fuckwit.

Water began to slosh around Jason’s boots, the incoming tide sweeping over the mudflats. If he wasn’t careful he’d be getting wet. He pulled the spade from the mud and picked up his bait bucket. A dozen raggies wriggled in amongst the silt, no more. Hardly enough to make a journey round to the fishing shop worthwhile. Jason scanned the shoreline. Usually around this time there’d be a couple of fishermen setting up their gear in advance of the rising tide. Today there was no one. Jason sighed, wondered about tipping the bucket’s contents back into the sea. Then he caught sight of the old houseboat moored a couple of hundred metres along the shoreline. Larry the lobster fisherman lived there. As dusk fell, Larry liked to hunt for young boys. He’d capture them, keep them overnight in a huge crabbing pot, and then in the morning he’d slice them thinly and fry them in a pan with a few langoustines for his breakfast. At least that’s the story Jason’s grandad had spun him.

Jason squelched towards the shoreline. In Torpoint the streetlights had begun to pop into life. This time of year, night fell quickly and in a few minutes it would be dark. As he reached the harder ground where the mud mixed with shingle, a car pulled up. Two men got out and sprung the boot of the hatchback. They began to unload fishing gear. Jason quickened his pace and arrived just as one of the men was lighting a cigarette. He nodded at the man and pointed at his bucket. Did they by any chance need some bait?

‘No, lad,’ the man said. ‘We’re sorted, ta.’

Jason trudged away along the shoreline. Another hundred metres and he’d cut up into town and head home. Over at the old houseboat a light flickered in one of the windows. Looked as if Larry was in. The lobster man wouldn’t pay him anything, but perhaps Jason could swap the worms for a brace of crab. Despite his grandfather’s tales, Jason figured the man was worth a visit. It was the only way he might get a reward for his hard work. In another couple of minutes he was at the narrow gangplank which led from the shoreline to the boat. On one side of the gangplank a rope hung from a series of rickety posts. Jason stepped onto the wooden slats and walked out to the boat. Larry’s accommodation was a jumble of marine plywood nailed onto uprights and resembled a floating cowshed. Jason reached the end of the gangplank. He edged around the side deck of the boat until he found what he guessed must be the front door. He knocked. There was no reply. Either Larry was asleep or he wasn’t in. Jason shivered in the damp night air and turned away. He hurried across the gangplank and back to the shore, strangely grateful Larry hadn’t answered.

‘I’ve been looking for a boy like you, Jason.’ The voice hissed in the darkness as a shadow stepped from behind a concrete groyne. ‘Want to come along with me?’

The shadow jumped forward and Jason felt a hand across his mouth. Then there was a grunt and something slid around his throat, a thin strip of leather tightening across his windpipe. Jason slipped to the ground, aware as he did so he’d let go of his bucket, the worms slithering free and disappearing into the soft mud.

Chapter Three
Near Bovisand, Devon. Tuesday 20th October. 6.47 a.m.

Something woke Savage early. There’d been a bang from outside, a splintering noise. She reached out to prod Pete into consciousness. He stirred, mumbled something, but then turned over. He’d been out at an official Navy dinner the night before and the meal had turned into a serious drinking session. Disappointed Pete hadn’t been around to discuss the inquest, she’d opened a bottle of wine for herself. Half a glass had been enough to make her realise alcohol wasn’t going to help and, after she’d put Jamie to bed and checked on Samantha’s progress with a history project, she’d read for a while and then called it a day.

Savage got out of bed, strode to the window and peeled the curtain back to reveal an ethereal predawn, a mass of dark clouds tinged on their undersides with a violent red. In the garden below, a fence panel had launched itself across the lawn and smashed into the corner of the house. The previous evening there’d been a strange calm with barely a breath of wind, but now a full gale blew.

September had seen something of an Indian summer and the warm weather had lingered well into October. While most people had been glad the onset of autumn had been delayed, Savage had been eager for the first storm. She wanted a break in the seasons, something to mark the end of the events concerning Simon Fox. Today, she supposed, signalled that. Now it was time to move on.

Once dressed, Savage headed outside. Their house stood in an isolated position on the east side of Plymouth Sound, clinging to a sloping garden at the far end of which cliffs tumbled to the sea. The place wasn’t much to look at. A succession of owners had added their mark, leaving a hotchpotch of building styles, the whole lot covered in white stucco and resembling a multi-tiered wedding cake. The location made up for any architectural failings though, and the view across the Sound and out to sea lifted Savage’s spirit, no matter the weather conditions.

She stepped away from the house and into the full force of the gale. The wind howled across the lawn, buffeting her clothing and snagging her long red hair. At the end of the grass a hedge marked the boundary of the garden and on the other side lay an area of scrub. A rhythmic boom came from beyond the hedge every few seconds, accompanied by a wall of spray as waves smashed into the base of the cliffs. She stood for a moment and looked across the Sound, tasting the salt in the air. Then she got to work. She pulled the broken fence panel away from the house and weighed it down with several old bricks. Next she moved over and examined the rest of the fence. The remaining panels had adopted a forty-five-degree angle to the wind, but they wouldn’t remain standing for long. The storm had broken several of the posts which had held them up, the posts having rotted in the ground. The whole lot would need renewing.

Savage returned to the house to fix breakfast. Being out in the wind had been exhilarating. Usually, something like the broken fence would have depressed her, the destruction a sign of decay, of change. Today she had a different feeling. That area of the garden had always been a bit of a mess. Having to replace the fence meant she could clear away some of the old shrubs and start afresh.

‘All right, love?’ Pete came into the kitchen. He tousled his hair and shook his head. ‘The kids won’t get out of bed and I’ve got one heck of a hangover.’

‘The fence is bust. We’ll need to replace the whole thing.’

‘Great.’ Pete opened a cupboard and fumbled inside for painkillers. ‘Any more bad news?’

‘No,’ Savage said. She moved across to Pete and reached past him into the cupboard. Extracted some ibuprofen tablets from the top shelf. Kissed him on the shoulder. ‘None at all.’

Savage was snug in her tiny office at Crownhill Police Station by eight thirty, leaving Pete to do the school run. Since the frigate he’d commanded had been decommissioned, he’d had much more time to be a proper parent. She remembered when, a dozen years before, he’d been away for great chunks of the year. As a newly qualified detective constable she’d somehow managed to juggle the day-to-day family routines and the demands of the job. With toddler twins the task had involved running on little sleep and copious amounts of black coffee. These days she got more sleep, but hadn’t kicked the caffeine addiction and a full cup sat on the desk beside her keyboard. She reached for it and took a sip before getting down to work. This morning she had to prepare for a presentation. A management meeting had been scheduled for later and DSupt Hardin wanted her to come up with some pointers for, in his words, ‘adding value’ to their detection strategy. An hour into the task, the coffee long gone, she was starting to make real headway when there was a knock at the door.

‘Ma’am?’ The voice had a strong South-West accent and came from a young woman who’d peered into the room. Twenties. Blonde bob. Big smile. DC Jane Calter.

Calter was a junior detective but enthusiastic. While DS Darius Riley was the closest thing Savage had to a confidante, it was Calter whom she often worked alongside. The DC’s quick thinking and have-a-go attitude had saved Savage’s bacon on more than one occasion.

‘Yes, Jane?’ Savage glanced up from her notes.

‘Misper,’ Calter said. ‘A kid from over Torpoint way.’

‘And?’ Savage wasn’t usually so curt, but she needed to finish her work for the meeting. A missing child surely wasn’t anything to do with Major Crimes. Uniformed officers and other agencies should be dealing with the issue. She said as much to Calter.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Calter said, holding out a sheet of paper, a mugshot of the missing boy top right. ‘But the mother’s got a new squeeze. The guy has previous for assault. We informed the woman, but she went with the man anyway.’

Calter went on to explain that the woman’s own mother – the kid’s grandmother – had contacted the police requesting information regarding the new boyfriend. When the police had alerted the woman, she’d taken the warning as interference from her mother and ignored the advice.

‘And this man, the boyfriend, where is he now?’

‘That’s just it, ma’am. He’s missing too.’

Savage sighed. She turned from the screen and reached for a pad and pencil. ‘From the top then, Jane.’

‘Jason Hobb. He’s eleven. According to his mother, Jason went digging for bait yesterday afternoon. He usually does that on the shore alongside Marine Drive.’

‘Time she last saw him?’

‘She says she gave him some lunch around oneish and then he went off.’

Savage raised her eyebrows. ‘Lunch? But it was Monday. Shouldn’t the lad have been in school?’

‘Yes.’ Calter looked down at her notes. ‘According to one of the local PCSOs, he’s a well-known truant.’

‘Right. Go on.’

‘When it began to get dark and Jason hadn’t returned home, the mother began to get worried.’

‘And she called us?’

Calter sighed. ‘No. She rang round a few of Jason’s friends but she didn’t report him missing until this morning.’

‘Jesus.’ Savage shook her head. In any investigation, but especially one involving the disappearance of a vulnerable individual, time was of the essence. ‘Other agencies?’

‘Mobilised first thing, as soon as we got word. PCs on the ground plus the lifeboat, coastguard and the MoD Police launch. So far the only sign of him is a blue bait bucket found at the high tideline next to Marine Drive.’

‘OK.’ Savage pushed back her chair and reached for her jacket. ‘Let’s organise a door-to-door and get over there. What’s the name of the boyfriend?’

‘Ned Stone. Thirty-nine. Originally from down near St Austell but living here now. Beat up his wife a dozen years ago. Ex-wife now, of course. Got three years inside for his troubles.’

‘Other offences?’

‘A couple more assaults.’

‘Right. So he’s a bit of a bad boy, but I’ve known worse.’

‘Yes, ma’am, but I’ve got a theory. This kid’s in the way, right? He’s a gooseberry in Stone’s tasty new pie. Say the kid does something to annoy Stone. He loses his rag with the kid, lashes out and accidentally kills him. Then he panics and takes the body somewhere.’

Savage cocked her head. She had to admire Calter’s keen-as-mustard attitude, but in this case the DC was wide of the mark. ‘Hang on, Jane, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. First, let’s get some officers doing the door-to-doors. Second, we find Stone.’ Savage paused. Computed what Calter had told her. Made a judgement. ‘Single mum with new boyfriend trying to muscle in and be the boy’s new dad? I reckon the lad’s probably just run away.’

As mornings off went, Tuesday, Detective Sergeant Darius Riley thought, was turning out to be pretty decent. Some time after eleven in the morning and here he was doing what he liked doing the best. A little R and R. In bed. With his girlfriend, Julie. Decadent, she’d said. The luxury of several hours between the sheets while the rest of the world was out earning an honest crust.

Decadent, maybe, Riley thought as he poured Julie another cup of coffee from the pot and then went back to massaging her feet. But what was wrong with enjoying yourself?

‘I could get used to this,’ Julie said, as she sipped her coffee and then lay back, her dark hair spreading across the fluffed-up pillows. ‘The goddess treatment.’

‘Fine by me,’ Riley said. ‘As long as the goddess dishes out a few favours now and then.’

‘Well, there’s no time like the present, is there?’ Julie smiled and placed her cup on the bedside table. She kicked her feet free from Riley’s grasp. ‘And, unless you’ve developed an overriding foot fetish, I’m sure there’s other parts of me which might interest you.’

Riley grinned, but before he had a chance to move up the bed his mobile rang. He stared across at the phone, willing the bloody thing to stop.

‘I thought you had the morning off?’ Julie said.

‘The morning, yeah, but I’m on call from twelve.’ Riley looked over to the bedside clock. Eleven twenty-seven. By rights he was off duty for the next thirty-three minutes, but as a sergeant on the Major Crimes Investigation Team he couldn’t simply ignore the call. He tumbled off the bed and padded across to where his phone sat on the windowsill. ‘Darius Riley,’ he said.

‘Sounds like one of my bad jokes, sir.’ The voice came with an Irish lilt and a couple of laughs. ‘There’s a coffin with a body in it on a beach. Oh, and an ice cream. A ninety-nine has a big part to play in all of this, I kid you not.’

‘Patrick,’ Riley said, recognising the caller as DC Patrick Enders. He stared out of the big floor-to-ceiling window. His flat had a good view of Plymouth Sound and the grey sea bristled with whitecaps. The October day didn’t look hot enough for ice creams. ‘Where’s this?’

‘Jennycliff. You know, the place over on the—’

‘I know where it is, Patrick.’ Riley shook his head. Enders was one for over-explaining. If something could be said in ten words where one would do, Enders would oblige. Riley looked to his left across the water. Lying on the east side of the Sound, Jennycliff was a small open area with sloping grassland and a path which led down a cliff face to a stony beach. ‘In fact I can see the cafe from here.’

‘I’m waving, sir. Can you eyeball me?’

‘Don’t be stupid, I haven’t got binoculars. Get to the point, would you?’

‘I got a call that there was a body on the beach and that the circumstances were suspicious. I went over there and found the body down on the foreshore in some sort of coffin or box. The coffin’s on a raft. I reckon the whole thing must have floated in on the tide, pushed up by these strong winds.’

‘Male or female?’

‘Female, sir. But I only got a peek at the body for a second or two. There was a crowd of people and the PC with me slid the lid back on sharpish. Then we moved the lot of them back up the path and away from the beach. The PC is standing at the top of the path now, stopping anyone going down. I’ve—’

‘Fine.’ Riley turned away from the window. Julie shook her head and waved one finger in a playful manner. ‘I’ll be right there, Patrick. Thirty minutes, OK?’

‘Naughty boy,’ Julie said, as Riley hung up. ‘Just when things were getting interesting you’re off.’

‘Sorry,’ Riley said, as he watched Julie trace a line on her stomach. ‘But don’t do anything without me, OK?’

Savage and Calter boarded the car ferry for the journey over the Tamar to Torpoint. The trip only took five minutes or so, but every time she made the crossing Savage liked to get out of her car and climb the steps to one of the raised deck areas. Calter accompanied her. Half a mile away to the south, the wide expanse of the river turned east through the Narrows and ran into Plymouth Sound. Torpoint lay ahead, on the west bank of the river, cut off from Devon by the Tamar. To reach the town you had to use the ferry or take a twenty-mile detour via the Tamar Bridge.

‘Over there, is it?’ Savage pointed to the far shore. ‘Behind the ballast pound?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Marine Drive. Jason was out on the mud apparently, but the RNLI and the MoD boats haven’t found him.’

‘Christ, I can’t imagine what the mother’s going through. Let’s hope my theory’s correct and he’s just bunked off somewhere and ended up round a friend’s house.’

The rhythmic clanking of the chain slowed as the ferry neared the far side of the river and Savage indicated they should return to the car.

Ten minutes later and they’d parked up at the top of a slipway on Marine Drive. A row of houses stood on one side of the road, while on the other lay the estuary, a vista of Plymouth over the water. The tide was out, the beach a mixture of shingle, seaweed, rock and mud. A dozen officers – a mixture of detectives and uniforms – awaited Savage’s briefing. They’d been assigned a list of roads to work along and all Savage needed to do was gee them up a little. She gave her standard talk on the importance of procedure, on how seemingly tiny details could turn into major pieces of evidence, and sent them on their way.

After they’d gone, she decided to walk along the foreshore. The main part of the Tamar estuary turned to the east, leaving a vast area of mud to the west. The shoreline curled round to a little bay at the head of which was a boatyard. Before that, some fifty metres from the shore and half submerged in the mud, lay the hulk of an old wooden ship. The curving timbers of the frame resembled the skeleton of a whale and inside the whale stood a real life Jonah. Savage stared across. She couldn’t make out much about the figure poking in amongst the timbers except that he wore a Tilley hat.

John Layton, their Senior CSI.

She moved along the shoreline and then walked down to where the shingle turned to mud, watching Layton struggle across a patch of brown towards her. The CSI had an almost obsessive eye for detail and order which, when it came to crime scene management, proved invaluable. His obsession didn’t stretch to his appearance though. Sludge smeared his thigh-high waders and covered much of his clothing. There was even a splodge of sticky gloop atop his hat. Layton reached Savage and with one hand tilted the hat in greeting and then used his little finger to scratch his nose. The nose was Roman, shaped like a ski jump with the end chopped off, and the finger deposited a blob of muck right on the tip. Layton’s other hand held up a plastic evidence bag.

‘What the hell are you doing out there, John?’ Savage said. ‘If you’d slipped over you’d have been in a spot of bother.’

‘Going to do me for not running a risk assessment, are you?’ Layton said. ‘Only, if I hadn’t gone out there I might never have found this.’

Layton passed Savage the bag.

‘Right.’ Savage took the bag and peered at the contents. Water and mud sloshed around inside, but there was something else in there too, something wooden and bent in a J-shape. ‘What is it?’

‘Dirty habit. Mind you, somewhat out of fashion these days.’

‘A pipe.’ Savage could see now as she moved the object around in the bag. ‘But what’s it doing out there and how did you know to look?’

‘The boy’s mother said Jason used to play around the wreck.’ Layton waved a hand at the expanse of mud. ‘I knew he’d been digging bait down here, but to be quite honest I didn’t know where to start searching. It’s an impossible task, so I figured I’d just take a quick look at the old ship.’

‘And what could the pipe have to do with Jason’s disappearance?’

‘Somebody was digging out there. Although there’s been a couple of tides, the water hasn’t entirely removed the evidence. You can see spade marks.’

‘The pipe could belong to the bait digger.’

‘Or the pipe could belong to somebody who was out there when Jason was digging bait.’

‘And how the hell do we find out who that was?’

‘Our best bet might be over there.’ Layton pointed along the shore to where some sort of houseboat sat on the mud, a zigzagging gangway leading from the structure to the shore. ‘Whoever lives in that old thing would have a good view, wouldn’t they?’

Chapter Four

I’m starting to write in my notebook again. Yes, again! The last time was way back in January and now it’s July. In June a cowboy president visited Britain and a concert for Nelson Mandela was held at Wembley Stadium. England were knocked out of the Euros after finishing bottom of their group. Still, the Seoul Olympics are just a couple of weeks away. Did I mention that I’m now thirteen years old?

Today is Saturday and the weather was fine so we all played football in the afternoon. Jason and Liam weren’t there though. Jason was sick in bed and Liam was doing extra work in the vegetable garden. I should say that Jason and Liam are my best friends. They’re both eleven and I’m thirteen. The age difference doesn’t bother me because the pair of them are bright and clever. Not like the other boys. To be honest, Father doesn’t like me to play with any of them, but given the situation there’s not much he can do about it. Mother doesn’t care one way or another. She’s usually too drunk to notice or off with one or another of the various men she likes to entertain.

When I say they’re my best friends, I suppose I mean my only friends. Although I go to school, the kids in my class don’t like me much. I guess I got off on the wrong foot when I busted this lad’s nose on the first day I was there. Ever since then most of them have steered clear. I’m not bothered and, besides, living out here I wouldn’t get to see any of them except in school time. I tend to keep my head down and try to stay out of trouble. Break times and lunchtimes I go to the library and study. At parents’ evening my form teacher told my mother and father she was concerned I was a bit of a loner, but other than that she said there was nothing to worry about.

Jason and Liam don’t go to school of course. They have their own private tutors who come in. There’s a psychologist too. Isobel. She’s supposedly an expert in child behaviour. She visits on a Wednesday and talks to the boys one-to-one. The older lads like her a lot. She’s very pretty and has long dark hair and a smile which makes them blush. Her breasts stick out and all the men apart from my father stare at her as if she’s Samantha Fox. I asked Jason what she does and he said she makes him look at abstract pictures and asks what he sees in the patterns. Gobbledygook, my father calls it. If he had his way he’d stop her from coming, but she’s part of some government scheme so he can’t do anything about her. Mother doesn’t like Isobel either, but that’s for different reasons. Recently Mother has been getting friendly with this man from the Home Office and I think she’s worried this man and Isobel might meet and hit it off. She needn’t fret. He comes on a Friday, usually in the evening, and I don’t think he’s interested in women like Isobel. To be honest, despite what he gets up to with Mother, I don’t think he’s much interested in women at all.

The Shepherd isn’t at home this morning. He’s in a high-ceilinged room in a barn on the moor. He rented the barn for a song and paid a year’s money in advance. The place is isolated. Nobody comes here. No one’s going to disturb him. For the Shepherd’s purpose the barn is perfect.

He breathes in, his nostrils assaulted by an odour of grease and oil. In front of him, on a workbench, an array of tools lie in neat rows. Pliers, hammers, wrenches, saws, screwdrivers, spanners, punches, clamps. Tools for making. Tools for breaking and holding. For cutting bits of metal, bending bits of metal, drilling bits of metal.

He stands back from the bench and turns to the centre of the room. There. A shiny creation of gleaming metal and stainless steel and cogs and wheels and rods which turn or slide round and round or back and forth.

God’s altar.

The Shepherd gasps. His creation is both beautiful and terrifying, the implications profoundly disturbing. Right now the sight is too much; he must escape the confines of the room. Fresh air is what he needs.

Outside he leans against a wall and slumps down, his shoulder snagging on the rough stone of the barn. He slips to the floor and sits there, exhausted. He lets out a long breath and the air clouds in front of him, the vapour drifting up into the brooding sky. Finally, after weeks of toil, his work is complete.

For a moment he lets his mind wander to the man with the skull. You see, he knows all about the man who buries things in the dirty earth.

The boy who digs in the grubby soil …

Yes, that’s what this is all about.

The Shepherd holds his hands out, clasping them together in prayer.

‘Please, God. Don’t forsake me now, give me the strength to carry out your wishes.’ As he says the words he feels a rush of adrenaline. There’s a part of him which fears what is to come, fears the eventual outcome, but he knows he has to fight against his demons in order to succeed.

And with God’s blessing he will.

He presses his back against the stone wall of the building and looks at the streaks of mist scudding low across the moor. Earlier, the dawn had been veined with skeins of vermilion, the undersides of the clouds patterned like the web of some giant spider.

‘Red sky in the morning,’ he mutters to himself, smiling. ‘Shepherd’s warning.’

He struggles to his feet, a gust tousling his hair. He turns and looks west to where a sheet of rain marches across the landscape. The first drops reach him, spattering in the mud at his feet and then wetting his face.

Soon the storm will sweep over the hills and the valleys and rush through the villages and the towns. The wind will scour the sinners until they are naked. Then the Shepherd will lead them to the altar and there they will prostrate themselves before God and beg for forgiveness. And at the end will come the boy who plays with the skull.

And he will be judged too. And he will not be forgiven.

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