Copyright

AVON

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Copyright © Mark Sennen 2015

Cover image © Neil Robinson/Getty Images

Cover Design © Andrew Smith www.asmithcompany.co.uk

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

A catalogue record 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: 9780007587865

Ebook Edition © January 2015 ISBN: 9780007587872

Version: 2016-02-23

Dedication

For Gitte … again!

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

The DI Charlotte Savage Series

About the Publisher

Prologue

Stars. Pinpricks of light vaulted across the sky. Hundreds of them, thousands, more than he can count. Perhaps, he thinks, there are even as many stars in the sky as there are girls in the city. He licks his lips, the notion exciting him. That’s one hell of a lot of stars. A hell of a lot of girls.

You know what you do with stars, Chubber? Make a wish.

‘Oh yes, a wish!’ Chubber whispers to himself as he swings his eyes earthward, down from the heavens. ‘I wish, I wish … I wish I could find her!’

In front of him, the moor is a heaving landscape of shadows rolling towards the distant orange glow of civilisation. All around, tors rise from the scrub and heather, grey granite forms that watch and wait. Chubber is waiting too, crouched behind a prickly clump of gorse, well wrapped in a homemade sheepskin cloak. The night is cold and frosty. A lacework pattern of ice glitters amongst the bog plants. Chubber’s eyes follow the silver trail as frozen water winds up towards a spring. She’s up there. Hiding. If Chubber hadn’t slipped over he’d have caught her by now.

Silly Chubber!

Yes. Silly. She’d been safely locked away but he’d wanted to give her a chance. The game was more exciting when he gave them a chance.

Exciting, yes! The thrill of the chase. You love it.

Chubber scans the hillside hoping his wish will come true, but there’s nothing moving, nothing living out here. Not at this time of year.

December, Chubber. Nearly Christmas.

He should have waited for the big day, he thinks. Now he’ll have nothing to look forward to but a ready meal from the microwave and the chocolate orange he’s been saving. If only she would … there! His heart leaps as he spots her eyes sparkling green in a shaft of moonlight. He jumps up and starts to run. She runs too, but now Chubber’s grinning, he’s getting closer. Gaining. Soon he’ll catch up with her.

‘There, there,’ Chubber shouts out. ‘No need to run from Chubber, my little beauty. Chubber’ll be nice and gentle. Promise. Just a bit of gliding and sliding and then … and then …’

She lets out a little cry, the noise disappearing into the dark of the night, the moor sucking the sound down into the boggy ground, where centuries of secrets lie hidden in the peaty soil. Chubber stumbles after her, but then pauses. There she is, standing on a ridge in the distance, for a moment silhouetted against the starry sky. She’s found harder ground and now she darts away, across the moor and into the night; disappearing behind a tor, the hunks of granite sheer black against the sprinkling of stars.

Bugger.

Chubber stands and pants. Hard work, chasing. Bloody hard work. Especially when you don’t catch them. Air wheezes in and out of his lungs. A hand moves down to loosen the tie on his baggies. Slips inside. Touches himself and then scratches his bollocks.

Double bugger, he thinks. Waste of an evening. She’s well and truly gone. Disappeared behind that … Chubber feels a breeze glide across his exposed tummy. He shivers. Realises he’s chased his prey far over the moor.

Too far, Chubber. Much too far.

Yes, because he knows this place. The tor. What lies beyond.

Chubber moves slowly now, climbing to the ridge so he can see down into the valley beyond. A group of rocks stands in a circle, the hunks of granite clustering like sentinels, guarding a large, flat boulder at the centre. This place is bad, cursed, he thinks. An ancient place of witches and ghouls, spirits and will-o’-the-wisps. In the daytime you might sit and eat a picnic, but at night …

Ch … Ch … Chubber!

Chubber looks again. The rocks are moving, dancing, one with a towering headpiece of antlers.

Not rocks, Chubber – people!

Six standing stones and six people dancing in and out, weaving some sort of pattern. A soft wind carries a plaintive melody across the ground, a woman’s voice, as sweet and clear as the cold night air. Then other voices join in, a low hum providing a background drone. Chubber tries to understand the song, but the words mean nothing, the language foreign to him, alien.

He stares down and his lip quivers. He moves to the tor and slides behind a large boulder. His head peeks round as the six figures begin to move faster and faster, back and forth between the stones. The tall figure with the antlers starts to sing a different chant, the figures whirling until there almost seems to be more than six. As if the very stones have somehow come alive and are joining in.

Chubber, run!

But he can’t, he’s frozen to the spot, mesmerised. Seconds pass, minutes, hours maybe. He doesn’t know. The figures race round and round until their chants conflate to a single drone. Chubber blinks. Something has happened. The six figures have rushed away from the circle. They are pulling something from behind a stand of gorse. It’s a person. A man. He’s limp, not resisting. Now they shove him down next to the flat rock and push him into a shallow trench alongside it. The six figures position themselves around the huge slab and slowly push the boulder over the hole in the ground. The scraping echoes into the night and the rock moves the final few inches and seals the chamber.

Chubber turns from the tor and runs back down the hill. Twice he tumbles over and rolls in the bog, clothes soaking, body cold. When he’s put two ridges between himself and the stone circle, he finally pauses for breath. He thinks of the man, the one in the hole. Chubber looks to heaven, raises his hand and passes his palm across his eyes, recreating what happened back at the stone circle. The tapestry of moon and stars and galaxies soaring overhead are wiped away, replaced by the utter blackness of the tomb.

Chubber whimpers at the thought of it. He knows he’s a bad man, but what he’s just witnessed goes far, far beyond bad. Those people, they were …

Evil, Chubber, those people were evil.

Evil. He doesn’t like the sound of that. He quickens his pace again. Not long to the track where he’s parked his van. Just a few more steps and he’ll be there.

Chubber!

Oh God! There’s the track and there’s the van and …

And, Chubber, and?

And standing by the car is a hooded figure with a towering headpiece of antlers.

Chapter One
Sunday 24th August

‘Bee, Mummy, Bee.’ Jamie pointed at a blur of wings hovering over the food. ‘Buzzy bee.’

‘It’s a fly, sweetheart,’ she said, swatting the insect away with a hand and offering her son another Dairylea sandwich. ‘They’re like bees, only they don’t make honey.’

‘Bee,’ Jamie repeated before he took the sandwich and chomped it down. There was the tinkle of a bell and Jamie looked up. ‘Horse.’

She turned to follow his gaze. Samantha and Clarissa were riding up and down the narrow lane on their bicycles, every now and then one of them uttering a ‘trot on’ or a ‘woah’ to control their mounts.

‘Pretend horses.’ She turned and scanned the horizon until she picked out a group of Dartmoor ponies grazing near a clump of gorse. ‘There’re some real ones, darling.’

Jamie had by now lost interest in the local wildlife and turned his attention to his collection of chunky plastic cars. She cleared away the picnic things, then lay back on the woollen blanket, shielding her eyes from the light. The respite wouldn’t last long, she knew. Jamie would need attention or the girls would all of a sudden come over and profess extreme boredom. But for the moment she would enjoy the warmth of the sun, the sound of birds in the heather, the stillness of the surrounding wilderness.

‘Vroom,’ Jamie said. ‘Vroom, vroom, vroooooom.’

She felt something on her thigh. The wheels of a truck climbing the impossibly steep hill of her body. She worried about Jamie sometimes. His sisters were nine – seven years older – and they played with him only when it suited them, so he was, in effect, an only child. With her husband away for much of the time, Jamie only had her to spice up his life. Of course he went to nursery five days a week; she figured the girls there spent many more hours playing with Jamie than she did. Not for the first time she felt a pang of guilt, but then dismissed the thought. She wondered if her husband ever had the same doubts as he lay on his bunk at night.

‘Car, Mummy.’ The wheels rolled up and onto her stomach. ‘Vroom, vroom.’

‘Yes.’ She reached out a hand, keeping her eyes closed and groping for the toy. ‘Let me have a go.’

‘No, Mummy, car! Car!’ Jamie’s voice went up in pitch. ‘Car coming!’

She opened her eyes and sat up, hearing the revving of an engine, something like a racing car, a guttural exhaust spitting and crackling, the squeal of tyres on tarmac. Somewhere the tinkling of a bicycle bell and a shout. She turned her head towards the road and heard a scream silenced as metal screeched against metal. She pushed Jamie away and scrambled to her feet, aware of a flash of blue haring away down the lane, her daughter lying like a rag doll in the road next to the mangled frame of the bicycle, one wheel still spinning round. Even as she ran towards the accident she could hear the tick-tick-ticking as the wheel rotated, and as she reached Clarissa it was the only thing moving, the only thing still making a sound in the whole wide world.

Then she woke up.

Charlie Kinver cast out once again. He had no real expectation of another fish. Two nice ones in an hour was a good bag. Especially for Fernworthy. The reservoir’s surface dimpled with little wavelets as the earlier breeze died to a zephyr. A duck set out from the far bank and a dozen swallows skimmed the surface, sweeping up the last of the morning hatch. The heat of the late August sun warmed Charlie’s back. The bright light would be driving the trout deeper. Unlikely he’d get another bite now. But still …

He wound in, thinking he’d have one final cast. Behind him, in his fishing bag, the two brown trout almost shouted out to be taken home and placed in a pan. A knob of butter, a few minutes’ heat and then served atop a slice of toast made from the bread his wife had baked that very morning. They’d had an argument before she’d gone to church and he’d headed off fishing, so the catch would serve as a peace offering.

He cast out a final time, and almost as soon as the fly touched the water, a fish struck. Kinver raised his rod. The reaction was instinctive, but this time he was too late. The fly flew out of the water and caught in the low branch of a tree to his right. He could see the line had somehow wrapped itself around the branch. He pulled on it, hoping it would slip over the branch. It didn’t. Instead, the hook caught in the bark. Charlie put the rod down on the bank. Pointless getting cross. He had waders on, so he could simply wade along the bank a few metres and free the hook. Since this was his last cast he’d cut the line, pocket the fly and then reel in.

Charlie stepped into the water and began to make his way down the bank. He reached the tree, put a hand up and held the fly. With the other hand he took his knife, sliced the line and freed the hook. He pulled the line to make sure it would come round the tree and then began to wade back to the gravel beach.

A flash of white caught his eye. On the bankside, wedged in the crook of an old stump, was a plastic carrier bag. The carrier bulged, something within. He waded closer. The bag seemed to be filled with some kind of material. One of yesterday’s picnickers had forgotten their blanket or waterproofs. Charlie grabbed the bag and carried it to the beach. He’d walk round to the car park and leave the bag on the wall. First though, he’d take a look inside. There might be some personal item to identify who the bag belonged to.

He delved into the bag, finding a pullover, a flimsy top, a short skirt. Then a black bra, and some black, lacy knickers. He opened his mouth. There was something about finding a pair of knickers in the middle of nowhere. It meant somebody was going around without a pair. He thought of his wife. Perhaps after he’d wooed her with the trout he could persuade her to climb the stairs to their bedroom, to remove her own knickers.

At the bottom of the bag was a lightweight windcheater and beneath that a slim leather wallet. Charlie flipped the wallet open. Forty quid. A driving licence with a picture of a pretty girl bottom left. Was she the owner of the knickers? He stared down at her. Long hair, high cheekbones, a real babe.

On the top left of the licence there was a familiar circle of yellow stars on a blue background. An EU flag. In the centre of the stars sat the letter ‘H’. On the top right, in capitals, the word ‘MAGYAR’. Charlie looked at the pile of clothing again. Finding a bunch of women’s clothing had for a moment provided a frisson of excitement. Certainly the girl in the picture was one he’d like to see naked. But, as his eyes returned to scan the surface of the water where dark blues and browns and blacks shimmered in the sun, he thought of what might be hidden in the depths of the reservoir. He reached for his tackle bag and pulled out his phone, knowing it was now unlikely he’d be eating the brace of trout for lunch.

For DI Charlotte Savage, Sunday morning came around all too soon. A pale glow seeped past the edges of the curtains, the daylight intruding on a dream about her daughter, Clarissa. It was getting on for five years now. Savage stared up at the ceiling, trying to discern an image of Clarissa in the soft shadows. Nothing. She had to turn to the bedside table and the little picture frame on it to see her daughter smiling out from a face fringed with red hair. Savage reached up and touched her own red hair. She twirled a long length with her fingers until one by one the strands slipped from her grasp.

Ever since Clarissa had died, Savage’s sleep had been plagued with bad dreams. She was used to spending half the night tossing and turning, often waking in a sweat and a tangle of duvet. Recently though, the dreams had become more vivid, with the same scene repeated over and over. Savage knew why. It was because she’d discovered who was responsible for the death of her daughter. The official report had the death down as a road traffic collision, or RTC. In old money, an RTA: road traffic accident. But Savage had never seen what had happened as an accident. The hit-and-run driver had been travelling way too fast for the moorland lane – but it was the ‘run’ bit of ‘hit-and-run’ which had compounded Savage’s anger. The driver hadn’t hung around to see the consequences of his actions, and, having never been caught in the following investigation, he’d escaped punishment.

‘He’ being a young lad by the name of Owen Fox.

Savage sat up, her husband, Pete, stirring for a moment before settling back to sleep. She hadn’t told Pete about Owen Fox. Pete was a Royal Navy officer, had been for all his adult life. He’d been commander of a frigate until recently, when the ship had been scrapped. Now he was shore-based, training naval cadets while waiting for another command. On-board the ship everything was governed by rules and regulations. You did the right thing. You served your country. Even when you gave the order to fire a cruise missile, you knew the destruction you were about to wreak was backed up in law. What Savage wanted to do to Owen Fox was far, far from legal.

She climbed from the bed and headed to the kitchen. The kids wouldn’t rise for another couple of hours, but Pete would be up soon. With Stefan, their unofficial Swedish au pair, away racing yachts for the summer, Pete had to juggle his new duties with looking after the children. Often he’d wake early and come downstairs to read some document or other. Savage needed to be out of the house by then. She’d leave a hastily scribbled note explaining that a call had come in. Not the first time she’d have lied to her husband, but she told herself the deception was necessary. Pete simply wouldn’t understand or accept the truth – and what she intended to do about it. It didn’t make her feel any less guilty.

Breakfast was a bowl of cereal, a piece of fruit and a cup of black coffee. She slid the patio doors open and took her food onto the deck. An area of lawn spread from the deck to a hedge, beyond which cliffs fell sheer to the sea. It was still early but a couple of yachts had slipped their moorings and were cruising down the Sound. They’d be catching the tide, intent on getting a free lift westward to Fowey and beyond. If they’d set off a couple of hours later then they’d end their journey pushing against a foul current, getting nowhere fast.

Savage sat at the garden table, watching the yachts. Timing was the issue. Owen Fox wasn’t just another boy racer. When she’d found out the name she’d been shocked for the first few seconds, but then everything had become clear. How the lad had managed to remain under the radar and escape detection. Dozens of officers had gone well beyond the call of duty trying to find Clarissa’s killer, and yet they had failed. Not surprising really – for Owen Fox was the son of Simon Fox, the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police.

She finished her breakfast as the yachts passed the breakwater and turned west. A puff of pink exploded from the lead yacht as the crew launched a colourful spinnaker, the huge sail filling and billowing as the breeze caught it. For a moment Savage felt an almost overwhelming sadness that she wasn’t aboard the boat. What joy it would be to have Plymouth at the stern, the bow forging through clear blue water, perhaps – if she was lucky – dolphins racing alongside.

Then she gathered her breakfast things and went back inside the house.

DC Jane Calter glanced at the clock on the dashboard and then out at the open moorland stretching away in all directions. Nothing moved in the bright summer sun, other than a heat haze rising from the undulating terrain. She thought for a moment of the man she’d left lying in her bed and wondered if he’d woken and seen the note she’d left on top of his clothes. Wondered if he’d be there when she got back.

Calter slumped sideways in the passenger seat, as next to her DC Patrick Enders swung the car round yet another sharp bend. Her stomach heaved and she hoped she’d be able to hold on to her breakfast – a slice of toast, plus half a Mars Bar, courtesy of Enders. Last night had been epic in more ways than one, but if she’d known she would be subject to an hour’s car journey with Enders at the wheel she’d have taken things a little easier. Enders was as chirpy as ever, prattling away as Calter tried to doze. The DC was the same age as her – mid-twenties – but already married with three kids. He was Irish and usually Calter found his accent soothing. Right now though she was so, so tired she wished he would shut the fuck up.

The call had come at eight, just a couple of hours after she’d fallen asleep.

‘That misper from last week,’ the voice had said. ‘Her clothes have turned up at Fernworthy Reservoir. Looks like she either topped herself or …’

It was the ‘or’, left hanging by the officer on the end of the line, that had pulled Calter from a state of half-slumber to wide awake. As the officer had given her the details she’d headed for the bathroom. In five minutes she was washed and dressed and in the kitchen, a slice of toast popping up as she gulped down a pint of water and tried to banish her hangover and focus on the task in hand.

The missing person was a twenty-two-year-old Hungarian by the name of Anasztáz Róka. She’d been in the UK for six months, working as a waitress in a coffee bar. A week ago a housemate had reported her missing. The report had been logged but other than a few preliminary enquiries, no action had yet been taken.

‘We’re here, Jane,’ Enders said as the car rumbled across a cattle grid, woodland closing in on both sides. ‘Fernworthy Reservoir. Been up here many a time with the kids. Lovely spot for a … you alright?’

Calter nodded and glanced at the Forestry Commission sign by the side of the road, interested in another nearby which said it was but three hundred yards to the car park and toilets. If she needed to be sick she’d prefer to do the business away from the gaze of other officers.

Enders turned off the road and was ushered into the car park by a couple of uniformed officers. Calter caught sight of the reservoir for the first time. The surface of the water was alive, little wavelets reflecting the sky, a tinge of brown in with the blue. Even on a hot day the water would be cool. Only the foolhardy would ignore the ‘no swimming’ signs.

‘D Section,’ Enders said. He stopped the car and pointed across the car park, where three men were unloading boxes of equipment from the back of a large van. ‘Hope they’ve packed their beach ball.’

D Section provided water-borne tactical support and had expertise in underwater search operations. The head of the section, Inspector Nigel Frey, stood next to one of two patrol cars, talking to another uniformed officer. Frey was dressed in black, military-style boots on his feet, only a peaked cap and a Heckler & Koch submachine gun missing from his usual attire. He waved when he saw Calter and Enders get out of their car. Calter sucked in a few mouthfuls of fresh air and tried to banish her hangover.

‘Morning, sir,’ Calter said as she crossed the car park to Frey. ‘What’s the story?’

‘You tell me,’ Frey said. ‘Thought we were coming out here on an emergency. But it looks like this could be more of a recovery operation. Am I right?’

‘The girl’s been missing for a week, so yes, unfortunately you might be.’ Calter turned to look at the lake. ‘What’s it like in there?’

‘Don’t know yet, I’ve only had a quick shufty. Cold and deep. The water clarity’s not too bad though. If she’s in there we’ll find her, but it will take a while. Going to work up a search grid now and then I’ll get the lads in the drink.’ Frey nodded over to where two of his men were struggling into drysuits, the third preparing an inflatable dinghy. ‘Got the light with us this time of year, but there’s no way we’ll complete today.’

Calter left Frey and moved over to the car park entrance where Enders was talking to one of the uniformed officers.

‘Found by a fisherman,’ Enders said, pointing down to a plastic carrier bag which sat on the road verge next to a small boulder. ‘Unfortunately the fisherman moved the bag and touched the contents, but they haven’t been touched since except to examine the driving licence to confirm ID.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t wear gloves.’ The officer Enders had been talking to shrugged his shoulders. ‘But I thought I was dealing with something either as simple as lost property or as tragic as a drowning. I never—’

‘Not a problem,’ Calter said. ‘Can you show us where the bag was found?’

The man nodded and then beckoned one of the other officers over to take his place at the car park entrance. Calter and Enders followed the man as he led them through a small gate and across a patch of neat grassland designated as a picnic area. At the water’s edge he headed along the foreshore, crunching over the exposed lake bed where the water level had dropped over the summer, dry for once in Devon. After a few minutes the officer pointed to a section of bank where a tree had fallen into the water.

‘There. Just to the right of the stump of the tree. The fisherman says he found the bag by the stump. You’d not see it unless you were wading or you’d pushed through the vegetation to get to the water’s edge.’

‘What the hell was she doing out here?’ Enders said. ‘We’re miles from her digs, in the middle of nowhere and she didn’t have any transport. Not even a bike. I suppose she could have hitched a lift, but why?’

‘Is all her clothing in the bag?’ Calter said to the officer.

‘Yes, everything.’ The officer blushed. ‘Even a pair of knickers and a bra.’

‘I don’t like it, Jane,’ Enders said. ‘I don’t like it one little bit.’

‘Neither do I,’ Calter said. ‘She either came here of her own free will, stripped off and went for a swim – possibly with the intention of killing herself, possibly she succumbed to cramp or the cold – or else …’

‘It’s that bit I don’t like. The “or else”.’

Five minutes later and they were back at the car park. Frey’s men were already in the water, the divers in the shallows, a man in the dinghy dropping weighted buoys to demarcate search areas.

‘I’d be surprised if she’s down there,’ Frey said, looking out across the lake. ‘If she’s been in the water any length of time she’d have been a floater. There’s a lot of people around here in the summer so somebody would have seen the body before it sunk again.’

‘And the water level’s lower than usual, isn’t it?’ Calter pointed to the strip of exposed lake bed around the edge. ‘So she couldn’t have been swept through the outflow.’

‘No. The underwater outlets will have grilles on too.’

‘But if this wasn’t an accident or a suicide then she could be on the bottom.’

‘Sorry, I don’t get you?’

‘If the body had been weighed down with rocks for instance, put in a sack. She could have been taken out in a boat and dumped in the deepest part of the reservoir.’

‘Possibly, but when? Middle of the night? We’re at the height of the tourist season, so any other time of day and there’d be witnesses. I suppose bad weather would keep the tourists away, but we haven’t had any recently.’ Frey paused. He glanced at the water and then back at the surrounding woodland. ‘It’s a big job, all this. Is Charlotte coming out?’

Calter felt put out for a moment. Frey plainly believed the situation merited the attendance of more than a couple of junior detectives.

‘No, sir,’ Calter said. ‘She isn’t. I’m sure she’s got better ways of spending her Sundays.’

Chapter Two

Savage slipped out of the house unnoticed. She drove from Plymouth to the outskirts of Newton Abbot and a large park and ride, slotting her car into a bay, the vehicle anonymous amongst hundreds of others. Being spotted here, being seen with the man she’d arranged to meet, was a definite no-no. She got out of her car and looked around until she saw the Range Rover. She walked over and opened the door.

Kenny Fallon turned and looked at Savage as she got in. ‘Unfinished business, Charlotte. Is that what this is?’ He reached for the ignition and started the car. ‘Or are we just going over to have a recce?’

Unfinished business.

Yes, you could call it that, Savage thought. Only the business was personal.

The Range Rover glided out of the car park and onto the main road heading for Paignton. Fallon’s hand went up and rubbed his goatee beard.

‘Well, Charlotte?’ He glanced at her and the hand moved from the beard to stroke his huge mane of white hair. The hair tumbled down to well beyond his shoulders. Plymouth’s premier gangster might have resembled a sort of cuddly Hell’s Angel, but in Fallon’s case appearances were definitely deceptive. More than one or two rivals had misjudged the man’s intelligence and guile and not all had lived to regret their mistakes.

‘I just want to see him, that’s all,’ Savage said. ‘I’ll decide what to do afterwards.’

‘Right.’ Fallon chuckled. ‘Ask him if he’ll say sorry and then kiss and make up? After that maybe send each other Christmas cards every year.’

Savage didn’t respond. She stared at the traffic rushing towards them on the other side of the road. Headlong. That’s what it felt like sometimes. Her family had been wronged, Clarissa killed. Nobody punished. How could that be right?

‘Whatever.’ Fallon spoke again. Took one hand off the steering wheel and patted her on the knee. ‘Uncle Kenny will sort things for you. Mind you, considering who the killer is, we’ll need to go careful. You don’t go messing with the Chief Constable’s son.’

When Savage had discovered the truth, it had at first seemed unbelievable. But then, turning things over in her mind, it had made more sense. How, for instance, the driver of the car which had hit Clarissa had managed to avoid detection. The police had known the make and model – a Subaru Impreza – yet they hadn’t been able to track down the owner. That Simon Fox was behind this failure to find and implicate Owen, was in no doubt in Savage’s mind. The trail must’ve been covered up, records obfuscated, perhaps even officers told to keep quiet.

A few minutes later and they were on the outskirts of Torquay, the Range Rover purring through a recently built estate. Neat little lawns with brick-paved driveways stood in front of two- and three-bedroomed houses. This was the preserve of newly formed families, the first or second step on the housing ladder. Owen lived here with his wife and young children. Did he sleep easy at night in the serenity of his suburban idyll? Or did he toss and turn with worry, Clarissa Savage haunting his dreams?

‘There,’ Fallon said, his head turning to the left as they drove past a house with a red door, a car sitting on the driveway. Not an Impreza; a Ford. ‘Happy families, hey?’

Fallon drove on and pulled up a short way along the road. Savage craned her neck to look back. As she did so the front door of the house swung open and a young woman appeared holding a baby in her arms, an older kid of four or five by her side. She stepped out of the house, closed the door, and went over to the car. Savage turned away as the woman busied herself with strapping the baby into a car seat, while the other child climbed in.

This wasn’t what she had been expecting at all. She needed to hate Owen, to see him as some sort of demon. Instead Savage was wondering how on earth she was going to go through with what she’d planned.

‘Can’t stop long, Charlotte,’ Fallon said, nodding through the windscreen to where a woman had raised her head from a flower bed and was paying them rather too much attention. ‘My motor. A bit flash for round here. Time to move on.’

Move on.

Could she? There had to be some sort of resolution, some settling of the score. Or did it go further than that – maybe stretching to something approaching vengeance? She wasn’t sure what she wanted any more.

‘Go,’ Savage said. ‘Just fucking go.’

Fallon raised his eyebrows, then put the vehicle into gear and eased forward. The road was a close, at the end a turning circle. Fallon manoeuvred round and headed back past the house. Owen’s wife had by now reversed into the road and she drove off, with the Range Rover following.

‘We could tail them,’ Fallon said. ‘Her and the kiddies. Find out where they’re going. Might be useful if we need to come back and give them a bit of a scare.’

‘No!’ Savage thumped the dash. ‘My argument is with Owen. We leave them alone, got it?’

‘OK, love. It was just a bloody suggestion.’

‘Look, Kenny, it’s not that I’m ungrateful for what you’ve done. Finding out who did it, tracing Owen, all that. But I’m the one who has to make the decision as to what to do.’

‘Sure.’ Up ahead the Ford indicated left. Fallon drove straight on. ‘But you’re going to make him pay, aren’t you? After all, it would be a shame to waste all the effort me and DS Riley put into finding him.’

DS Darius Riley.

Working off his own bat, he had followed a lead provided by Fallon. The lead had led to Owen via a breaker’s yard and a dodgy car body repair shop. Riley was part of the problem, part of the reason Savage had spent so many nights lying awake trying to decide what to do. If Riley hadn’t been involved she was pretty sure she’d have done something by now. Something stupid.

Savage watched the Ford disappear down the side street.

‘It won’t be wasted,’ she said. ‘And I do mean to make him pay. I do.’

‘Well then, let’s go and find the lad shall we?’ Fallon slowed the Range Rover and pulled in at the entrance to a brown-field site where the gates to a half-completed development hung shut for the weekend. Savage stared at a big yellow digger and then at Fallon as he reached across and opened the glove compartment. ‘But first …’

‘What are you doing?’

‘This.’ Fallon pulled out something wrapped in an oily towel and plonked the parcel on Savage’s lap. ‘A present from Uncle Kenny. Birthday, Christmas, whatever.’

Savage felt the weight of the object on her legs. Knew what was inside the towel without looking. ‘Kenny?’

‘Untraceable. A full clip. More if you need them but one is all it takes.’

‘Shit. I don’t know if—’

‘Think on it.’ Fallon engaged first gear and eased the car back onto the road. ‘My old man always told me regrets are for losers. He was right. Winners don’t have doubts, do they?’

‘No,’ Savage said as she folded back the rag to reveal the automatic pistol. ‘I guess they don’t.’

Then she picked up the weapon and slipped the cold steel into her jacket pocket.

DS Darius Riley stood on a desolate stretch of moorland some five miles to the west of Fernworthy Reservoir. Apart from the track he’d driven down and the dark granite of a couple of nearby tors there was nothing but grass, low scrub and heather in all directions. Not for the first time since his arrival in Devon some two years ago, he reflected on the way his life had changed since then. South London seemed a very long way away, his Caribbean heritage even further.

For a moment Riley looked east where, far away, something hung in the air above the moor, hovering like a kestrel. But he knew the object wasn’t a bird. The smudge was a helicopter. Call sign NPAS-44. Air Operations. The helicopter was looking for the missing Hungarian girl, and there’d be people on the ground too. He shook his head. That’s where the action was. Officers hunting for clues, piecing the evidence together, coming up with theories. He gave a silent curse and turned back to the job in hand.

‘Crap.’ That from DI Phil Davies. Pissed-off too. He articulated Riley’s thoughts. ‘Call this police work? I don’t. We should be over at the reservoir or knocking on a few doors and unsettling some of the local nonces. Sort it, Darius, because I want to get back home in time for Sunday lunch.’

Davies turned and strolled away, hands reaching into his pocket for lighter and fags. Davies was something of an enigma. With his lack of respect for regulations, a well-worn face with a more-than-once broken nose, cheap shirts and aftershave and even cheaper jokes, the DI appeared to be a dinosaur from a previous age of policing. Davies was known to associate with various members of Plymouth’s criminal classes. ‘In the line of duty’ was his excuse. ‘Lining his pocket’ was how Riley saw it. But there was another side to Davies. He was the main carer for his wife, disabled after a riding accident. Riley rated her as one of the most attractive and graceful women he’d met. The contrast with Davies was unsettling.

Davies trudged away with a cigarette in his mouth, leaving Riley to continue.

‘Are you sure this wasn’t natural causes?’ Riley said to DC Carl Denton, walking in a circle around the body so he could view it from all angles. ‘Something getting at the corpse? A stray dog or a fox?’

‘Sorry, sir. The pony was slaughtered.’ Denton’s eyes moved to the rear of the animal. He reached up and scratched the pronounced scar on his cheek. ‘And worse.’

‘Tell me you’re joking?’ Riley said, wondering what his old friends on the Met would say if they could see him now. The sick jokes would be coming thick and fast.

‘No, sir. He’s been interfered with, something shoved up his rectum and the genitals cut off. No way a dog did that. Anyway, what about those burn marks on the ground?’

The burn marks were apparent in several places, piles of white ash surrounded by black earth and scorched grass. Boy racers up on the moor for a party, Riley had thought at first. But the positioning of the fires was too uniform. Five of them. Straight lines had been scratched in the earth from each fire to the ones opposite and a circle had been drawn through all the points too. The result was a pentagram with the dead animal in the centre.

‘Jesus,’ Riley said, shaking his head and then laughing at his use of the word. ‘Or not.’

‘Not, sir.’ Denton seemed unamused at Riley’s quip. The lad knelt at the head of the pony and peered at the neck, where the jugular vein had been severed. A pool of red-brown earth showed where the animal had bled out. Flies buzzed, flitting from the blood to the neck. There was already a whiff of something bad in the air. ‘Not Jesus by a long way.’

‘We’ve had this before though, yes? Animals being tortured?’

‘Sort of.’ Denton looked up at Riley and then stood. ‘But not like this. We had that deer with a crossbow bolt through the head in Plymbridge woods a while back. There was a horse shot with an air gun last year. Then there was a pony slashed in the genitals over on Bodmin Moor. The animal survived though. Not like this one.’

Denton stared past Riley, his eyes roaming the vista of moorland, farther away, a tor rising to pierce the blue sky. The poor lad looked shell-shocked, Riley thought. He knew Denton had been off sick for a couple of months. ‘Gone mental’ was the squad room gossip, but as one of the few people Denton confided in, Riley knew better. Denton had become infatuated with DC Calter but she’d been having none of it. A bunch of flowers bought as a Valentine’s present had been returned with a polite ‘no thank you’. An invitation to dinner had been rejected. Riley reckoned poor old Denton would have been OK, had a close relative not died soon after. Rejection followed by loss had pushed him over the edge and into full-blown clinical depression. On his return to duty he’d gone on various training courses and had come back to a new position working as a Wildlife and Countryside officer in DI Maynard’s newly formed Agricultural Crime Squad. The role was a largely solitary one and Riley wondered if Denton was coping with the isolation. At least Denton was his own boss. Riley and Davies came under the direct control of Maynard, and the DI never failed to let them know he was in charge. Thankfully Maynard was off on his annual birdwatching holiday, and for a couple of weeks at least Riley had a little more freedom.

‘So is this of interest to the ACS or not?’ Riley said. ‘Only we’ve got some sheep rustlers to catch.’

Denton turned back to Riley, not catching the irony. ‘Could be if we want it. Those other incidents were down to kids or bored city folk. “Having a laugh”, they’d call it. This is something different. I wouldn’t have thought the pentagram was the kind of thing some kids would think up. I reckon we’ve got something much more disturbing.’

‘You’re talking about the occult? Animal sacrifice? I thought that sort of stuff belonged in movies.’

‘That’s your job to find out, sir. If the ACS’s remit extends that far.’

‘Shit.’ Riley shook his head again. He and Davies had been stuck with Maynard for the best part of six months. The sheep rustling case the pair of them were working on was to be their last one, Detective Superintendent Conrad Hardin having belatedly decided Riley’s talents were wasted in the ACS. ‘I guess it does, although I’m not sure what Maynard’s going to make of all this. Especially if it means a bit of covert ops watching a bunch of gothic types frolicking naked under a full moon.’

Denton didn’t smile. ‘The animal’s been brutally slaughtered, sir. You’ve seen what they did to the rear end. It’s not a joke.’

‘Sorry, of course not,’ Riley said. ‘We’ll get on it. You’ll give me a written report and let me know if you find anything else, OK?’

Denton nodded, then Riley turned and walked away, leaving the lad staring down at the corpse. Davies stood over by their car. He dropped his fag and stubbed the butt out on the ground.

‘Any good? I know I was moaning earlier but if this case can get us away from those bloody sheep for the rest of the month I’ll bite.’

‘Carl reckons some kind of ritual took place. Not sure it’s our bag or one for the RSPCA. Depends on whether it goes any further than this I guess.’

‘Ritual?’ Davies grinned as he opened the door to the car. ‘You mean orgies and nude chicks on altars? Right up my street.’

‘Don’t mention that to Carl, sir.’ Riley went round to the driver’s side and got in. ‘He’s a wee bit sensitive on the issue.’

Half an hour later, Savage stood staring out across Brixham. A jumble of white houses tumbled down the hillside to the harbour while seagulls wheeled above fishing boats unloading their catch. Tourists thronged the harbour walls, many with ice creams or chips in hand, even though it was still only mid-morning; Brixham was a downmarket version of Dartmouth, not quite as picturesque and strictly for the kiss-me-quick brigade.

Savage turned from the view and eyed a row of shops on the quayside. At the far end of the row stood an estate agency, one belonging to a local firm with a sprinkling of offices in South Devon. There were branches in Exeter, Sidmouth, Teignmouth and here, in Brixham. Inside the tiny waterfront box a shape moved. Somebody fiddling with the window display.

Owen Fox.

Owen resembled his father, the Chief Constable, only in the fact that he had jet-black hair. His facial features were much softer, a cherub-like face reminding Savage that the lad was only in his early twenties. He already had a wife, two children, a mortgage to pay. He’d already killed someone.

Fallon had dropped her at the harbour a little while earlier, giving her directions and another pep talk.

‘Take a look, Charlotte. See what you think. The lad took away something you loved and in my book that makes what you’ve planned legit. I’ll park up and grab myself some breakfast. Call me when you’re done.’

Now, her eyes still on Owen, Savage let her hand go to her pocket. Her fingers closed around the grip. Killing Owen, or even just hurting him, wouldn’t bring Clarissa back, but only a fool would say it wouldn’t make things a whole lot better. Savage had never had a liberal view of punishment. Too often the bad guys served a few years while the victims and the families received a life sentence. If that was what justice was then the whole system needed ripping up.

Owen Fox, of course, had never even been caught. He’d escaped punishment entirely.

Savage blinked as the door to the estate agency opened. Owen strode out and wheeled to the left, a set of keys in his hand. Brixham was all steep hills and tiny streets and suffered from a lack of parking. Owen was walking to an appointment.

Her heart rate rose and she moved away from the quay wall and followed as Owen strolled along the edge of the marina and then turned left. He headed up a steep hill and turned left again. A couple of hundred yards later he swung right into the driveway of a large detached house. On the opposite side of the road there was only a stone wall. The house had an amazing view over the harbour, was right in the centre of the town and yet the location was secluded. Perfect, Savage thought, just perfect. Owen’s clients would arrive. He’d show them around and then they’d leave. He’d go back into the house to check it over. Savage could slip inside and confront him. No one would see her. No one would know.

She put her hand in her pocket and touched the gun. Fallon said one bullet was all it took and he was right. One bullet to end all her worries. She carried on walking and went past the house without looking up. At the end of the street a bench on the pavement faced the sea. She went over and sat down and stared across the harbour. Barely a minute went by before something vibrated in her pocket. Not the gun, her phone.

Shit. Her phone. All of a sudden she realised her mistake. The phone could be tracked, her location pinpointed. If anything happened to Owen Fox in Brixham today she’d be the first person his father suspected.

Savage pulled the phone out and glanced at the display. DC Calter. She answered, then rose from the bench and began to walk back down the hill towards the town.

Chapter Three

Savage arrived at Fernworthy Reservoir shortly before midday. The drive up from Brixham had given her time to ponder. What would she have done if her phone hadn’t gone off? If she’d come face-to-face with Owen Fox today? As her car climbed onto the moor her mood darkened to match the black of the granite tors. Up here was where Clarissa was killed and where a sort of living hell had started for Savage. By the time the road wound up towards Fernworthy she knew she had to do something. One day soon she’d return to Brixham with Fallon and confront Owen. Hurt him over and over. Maybe, if he begged, she’d stop. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t.

The car thrummed across a cattle grid and a minute later she was turning into the car park at the reservoir. On the far side of the car park a young female DC sat behind the wheel of her car with the door wide open and the seat reclined. The woman’s eyes were shut, the officer enjoying forty winks in the sunshine. A blonde bob curled round her cheeks and the short-sleeved shirt revealed healthy biceps.

DC Calter.

Savage got out and strolled over. Her shadow fell across Calter’s body.

‘Don’t tell me, Patrick,’ Calter said, her eyes still closed. ‘You’ve just wet yourself because you’ve found some fucking geocache.’

‘Is that what he’s up to then?’ Savage said.

‘Ma’am!’ Calter opened her eyes and sat up. ‘Sorry, just taking a break.’

‘And DC Enders?’

‘He’s off somewhere with his precious GPS. Something about search parameters.’

‘That’s the PolSA’s job, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, but the search adviser hasn’t turned up yet. Inspector Frey’s taken control of the lake but we’re at sixes and sevens about the rest.’ Calter climbed out of the car and Savage listened as Calter explained about the discovery of the bag of clothes. The PC who’d first attended the scene had found the driving licence and called the details in, flagging up Ana’s name on the missing person list.

‘Remember her passport was missing?’ Calter said. ‘We concluded she’d probably returned to Hungary. Seems unlikely now.’

‘Yes,’ Savage said. ‘The driving licence changes everything.’

‘She’s got to be here somewhere.’ Calter swung her arms wide to encompass the water, the forest, and the surrounding moorland. ‘But to be honest I don’t think she’ll be alive when we find her.’

Savage followed Calter’s gesture. The lake was cold and deep, the forest a vast area criss-crossed with tracks and paths. And then there was the moorland, an upland wilderness of tors and bogs stretching for miles in three directions. Only to the east was there the comfort of civilisation. A few farms and hamlets and then the town of Chagford. Was it possible the girl had gone that way? Or maybe that’s where she’d come from. Chagford was a little bit of London on the moor. Hideaways for the rich and famous. Perhaps Ana had been at a house party which had turned sour. Drugs or sex, she’d overdosed or been raped. Either way, the hosts had ended the night with a body on their hands. In London you’d struggle to dispose of the evidence, but up here?

Savage kept silent, not wanting to confirm Calter’s suspicions. Then she nodded towards the entrance to the car park as a vehicle swung in past the two uniformed officers.

‘About bloody time. The PolSA. Let’s see what he has to say.’

The police search adviser turned out to be new in the job. He’d done half a dozen courses and knew a string of buzzwords, but by the end of the conversation with him Savage wasn’t convinced by his proposed strategy. And neither was Calter.

‘He couldn’t locate a burger in a bun,’ Calter said, as the PolSA went to find Frey. ‘Search the lake and five hundred metres around where the bag of clothes were found? I could have told you that. But where else?’

‘He doesn’t want to squander resources, Jane,’ Savage said. She pointed up at the forest rising from the far side of the lake. ‘And you can see his point. It would take hundreds of officers to search the woodland, and with the density of the trees and scrub you could pass within a couple of metres of a body without seeing anything. On the other hand you’re right; what he’s come up with is hardly rocket science. I’d have liked something else.’

Savage left Calter at the car park and strolled along the road which bordered the reservoir. To the left the woodland was a mixture of new plantings, half-grown trees, and full-grown pines. Beneath the mature trees light scrub hugged the ground, but the canopy high above prevented much of it from growing. Searching those areas would be easy. Likewise with the sections of forest which had been clear felled. It was the areas with half-grown trees that would prove a problem for the search teams. The pines were five to ten metres high and their branches reached down to near ground level. The result was a mass of almost impenetrable greenery. Anything other than a cursory search would prove near impossible. In its entirety Fernworthy comprised several square kilometres and the terrain was by no means flat. There was steep hillside, streams and gullies, and here and there rocks pushed up from the peaty ground. Although there were a few forest tracks, access along those would need to be in four-wheel-drive vehicles and the majority of the searching would have to be done on foot.

Savage paused and felt the warmth of the sun. With the water and the forest this place was as perfect a beauty spot as one could imagine. And yet there was something unsettling about the place. She looked into the tree line on the other side of the reservoir. Beyond the first few trunks there was nothing but shadow, thick, black and impenetrable. She blinked and turned away, her eyes drawn to a movement on the water. For a second her heart skipped a beat as a monster-like hump rose from the reservoir near the centre. But the black bump was no beast, rather, it was one of Frey’s men. The man raised his arm and made a signal. At once a whine from an outboard filled the air as the officer in charge of the dinghy gunned the engine and surged towards the diver. It looked, to Savage’s uneducated eye, as if the diver had found something.

The sunken treasure lay on the bank side, stretched out on a blue tarp. A long strip of green webbing with a loop and a ratchet mechanism at one end and a big hook at the other.

‘A tie-down,’ Frey said. ‘Not been in the water long. No weed or slime and no tarnishing of the metal.’

‘What makes you think this has anything to do with the girl?’ Savage said as she knelt at the edge of the tarp. ‘Looks like a piece of rubbish to me.’

‘Maybe. But if so then it’s expensive rubbish. Do you know how much a set of good quality tie-downs cost?’

‘Tell me.’

‘A lot. Certainly enough that you don’t chuck one away without good reason.’

‘So what would that “good reason” be?’

‘Say if it’s broken. Which this one isn’t. Or if the material has some sort of incriminating evidence on it.’ Frey knelt alongside Savage and pointed to the end of the tie-down with the hook. ‘There, take a look.’

‘There’s a stain.’ Savage could see a discoloration where some sort of liquid had worked its way into the webbing. ‘Blood?’

‘Could be.’ Frey stood. ‘But I think it looks more like oil. Examine the material near to the hook. What do you see?’

‘Not a lot.’ Savage leaned in closer and shielded her eyes from the sun. Now she could see some fraying on one side of the webbing. A wisp of material like fine fishing line. No, not fishing line. ‘A hair?’

‘Yes.’ Frey stared across the water. ‘If we can find a matching one amongst the girl’s clothing or maybe at her lodgings, then we’ve got our first major lead.’

‘So she’s tied up with the webbing and brought out here.’ Savage followed Frey’s gaze and then looked back to the bank to where the bag of clothes had been found. ‘He strips her, kills her and throws the webbing out into the lake.’

‘Which leads me to think she’s not out there.’ Frey turned from the water and looked towards the forest. ‘If she was then surely she would be with the webbing. But my diver says there’s nothing else down there.’

‘Unless the perp forgot about the webbing until the last minute and then had to dispose of it in a hurry. Either way we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. I guess we’ll need to wait to see if the CSIs can get some sort of match on the hair.’

‘And then?’

‘Then I’ll get onto that idiot PolSA and get him to widen the search.’

Charlie Kinver was the fisherman who’d found the bag of clothes and yet, apart from his initial statement to the PC, he’d not been questioned. Savage berated Calter and went off to do the job herself.

The man’s place lay about three miles from Fernworthy. A narrow lane ducked into a tunnel of trees and emerged after a quarter of a mile into a tiny valley where a stone cottage sat beside a brook. Ducks muddied the shallows as they probed beds of watercress and as Savage slowed the car, a heron rose from the water and flapped away. The house was from a postcard, honeysuckle climbing over a wooden porch, flowers in bright window boxes, a vegetable garden with rows of produce bursting from the neatly tended beds. To one side a number of chickens scratched bare earth in a pen, while a cat watched from the shade of a nearby fruit tree.

Savage got out of the car and went across to the front door. The door stood open and she knocked and called out a ‘hello’. Someone answered from the gloom inside and a figure stooped forward down the hall and held out a hand.

‘Charlie Kinver,’ the man said. The hand was dinner plate-sized and felt rough and calloused as Savage shook it. Kinver was in his forties but with a weathered face, short hair prematurely greying. ‘You must be the police, right?’

Savage nodded and introduced herself as Kinver led her through to the back of the house. The kitchen had oak units and wooden worktops with a deep sink and an old Rayburn stove. Very rustic, Savage thought, wondering if rustic wasn’t exactly the right word to describe Kinver too.

‘Made them myself, I did,’ Kinver said, noting Savage’s interest. ‘Carpentry. About all I’m good for. At least that’s what the wife says.’

‘They’re beautiful,’ Savage said. Kinver’s eyes had wandered to the window and she followed his gaze. In the back garden a woman lay on a sun lounger positioned beneath the shade of a tree, a book in one hand. ‘Is that your wife?’

‘Yes. She’s had a hard morning baking bread and then singing in the choir. Not like me, off for a spot of fishing, catching our food.’

Savage looked back into the room. On the kitchen table a hunk of bread smeared with butter and layered with cheese lay half-uneaten, while a salad had wilted in the heat. Kinver, for some reason, hadn’t been able to finish his meal.

‘Can you go through it again for me? What happened this morning?’ Since Kinver didn’t offer, Savage pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. ‘It must have been a shock, finding the girl’s clothes.’

‘Sorry.’ Kinver appeared to realise he’d neglected to be a good host and now he moved to pick the kettle up and fill it at the sink. ‘No, not a shock. At least not at first. I didn’t think much of it until I saw the underwear. Then the logic sunk in. She was either in the lake or lying naked and dead somewhere in the woods.’

‘Why did you think that?’

‘Well, there weren’t any other possibilities which came to mind. I could see she wasn’t close by sunbathing. Anyway it was too early for that.’

‘How often do you go fishing, Charlie?’

‘This time of year it’d be a couple of times a week, sometimes three. I don’t catch something every trip, but when I do it’s nice to have a piece of fresh fish for lunch. Only today I didn’t feel hungry. I cut off their heads, gutted them, gave the scraps to the cat and put them in the freezer for another day.’

‘When you were last at Fernworthy did you fish the same spot?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact I did. Usually I’ll try to vary which swims I fish from, but this was only a short trip and I couldn’t be bothered to walk round the lake.’

‘And that was when?’

‘Day before yesterday. I had no luck but I spotted a couple of nice fish. That’s partly why I returned to the same place. And no, the bag definitely wasn’t there.’

‘And in your recent trips you haven’t noticed anybody acting suspiciously?’

‘I’m usually there too early to notice anyone. The tourists don’t start arriving until mid-morning. There’ll be some walkers, of course, but it’s rare I see anybody before eight. Once the kids start splashing in the shallows you can say goodbye to any chance of a bite so I usually try to do morning or evening sessions. This morning I didn’t see anyone and if I recall t’was the same the day before yesterday.’

‘You said you sometimes do evening sessions?’ Kinver nodded. ‘Do you ever get people at the reservoir then? Couples maybe?’

Kinver smiled. ‘Sometimes. They’ll turn up at dusk usually. They might take a walk but if they were thinking of a spot of alfresco the mossies usually put them off. All that bare flesh? – supper time for the little vampires, isn’t it?’

‘You’ve seen them though?’

‘Sure. Stood and watched a few times.’ Kinver held up his hands. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m no perv, but when I’m stalking fish round the edge of the lake I’m invisible, hardly make a sound. Once, late evening, I came across two guys and a woman. She were being spit-roasted, I think that’s what they call it. Me and the wife had a good laugh about it when I came home. Spit-roasted the brace of brownies I caught too.’

Savage shifted in her chair, aware that Kinver was leering. The man was a little free and easy with his descriptions for her liking. She was glad his wife was out in the back garden.

‘And apart from that one time, have you ever seen anything dodgy?’

‘The occasional couple in a car. With the lights on you can see everything. I’ve reported a vehicle that’s been broken into a couple of times. Once I rang the rangers to alert them to a bunch of teens who were camping and had lit a big fire. The camping was fine, but I reckoned the fire was a bad idea considering the dry weather we were having. I’d have had words myself but I didn’t want no trouble.’

‘And that’s the extent of it?’

‘As far as I know. I’ve never seen a guy in an old mac, hands down his trousers, leering after young girls.’ Kinver looked up from his tea-making duties and leered himself. ‘Young, pretty girls, know what I mean?’

‘I’m not sure I do, Mr Kinver,’ Savage said, thinking Kinver was again giving her way too much information. He seemed keen to show her the extent of his lasciviousness. Was it an act? – or maybe he was trying to flirt, even though his wife was but steps away. ‘Anyway, what makes you think this girl was young and pretty?’

‘Hey?’ Kinver cocked his head, nonplussed. Then he returned his attention to the kettle and poured water into two mugs, adding teabags to each afterwards. ‘Her picture, of course. On the driving licence. Cute little thing, I thought.’

Shit, Savage had forgotten about the licence. For a moment she’d thought Kinver had let slip something. Kinver was squeezing the teabags with a spoon while gazing out the window at his wife. He was mumbling about how he was very much in favour of the EU if the migrants were all like Ana.

‘Send ’em over, I say,’ he said as he turned and deposited the mugs on the table. ‘The more the merrier.’

‘But you’ve never seen her before?’

‘No.’ Kinver grimaced. ‘And I don’t reckon I’m likely to get the chance now, am I?’

‘You’re jumping to conclusions. Most missing persons turn up at some point. Fingers crossed this girl does too.’

‘Oh she’ll turn up all right.’ Kinver pulled out a chair and sat down. He raised a finger to his mouth, licked the tip and then lowered his hand and ran his finger along the smooth edge of the tabletop. ‘But she won’t be winning any beauty contests when she does, will she?’

Irina Kryukov sat on a bench on the Hoe and cried. The sun shone down from a clear blue sky and out to sea the water sparkled. Yachts crawled back and forth, wallowing in the light airs. A rib loaded with divers carved a foamy white trail in the water as it sped towards the breakwater. Close at hand, on the huge grassy expanse of the Hoe, people lounged around with ice creams or a beer or two. A family had just unpacked a substantial picnic and a young kid of three or four was grasping for the bottle of Coke. Nobody seemed to be taking any notice of Irina, everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves. But they hadn’t had to find out what she just had.

The knock on the door had come first thing in the morning. A uniformed female police officer stood on the step outside, reluctance written all over her face.

‘It’s about your housemate, love,’ the officer said. ‘Anasztáz Róka? We’ve found some of her things on Dartmoor. Somebody will be round to take a statement later, OK?’

Job done, the woman had turned and walked away.

Irina sniffed and used a paper tissue to wipe away some of her tears. The little boy with the picnicking family looked up and pointed at Irina, but his mother grabbed his arm and wheeled him round. Irina felt completely alone, as if nobody cared.

It was a feeling she’d had when she’d first come to the UK from Russia a couple of years ago. She’d arrived in London pretty much penniless, planning to spend a few days there before heading off to start her course at Plymouth University. After seeing the sights of London, which – truth be told – were pretty poor fare compared to Moscow, she’d hitch-hiked west. A lorry driver had offered her a lift and then halfway down the M4 he’d pulled off at Membury services and asked for payment. ‘I’m going as far as Bristol. A blow job’ll get you there. Or you could let me fuck you and I’ll bung you twenty quid so you can get a train the rest of the way.’

Irina had wrenched the door of the cab open and tumbled out into the drizzle. The man had cursed and asked her what the problem was? After all, weren’t all Russian girls whores? Then he’d chucked her rucksack down, started the truck and roared off. Irina had lain on the wet tarmac, nursing a bruise and a bunch of shattered illusions. Maybe, after all, England wasn’t the Promised Land. Maybe people were pretty much the same wherever you went.

She remembered her father’s reaction on hearing the news she intended to leave Russia. ‘Different seas,’ he’d said. ‘Different salt in the water. You either like the taste or you don’t.’ Certainly her first taste had been sour, but after a nightmare few weeks things had improved, and over time some of her faith had been restored. She had a nice room in a shared house and a part-time job in a cafe. The winters were warmer, if wetter, than Moscow, and this year the British summer had been a scorcher. She’d had a brief fling with a lifeguard who’d taught her how to surf and although the relationship had ended she’d enjoyed herself while it lasted. The UK, all in all, wasn’t so bad.

Until now.

Although Ana Róka had only come to Devon half a year or so ago, the Hungarian girl had quickly become Irina’s best friend. She guessed it was because they shared a common experience in making the physical and psychological journey from East to West. When Ana had gone missing, Irina had been distraught. But the police had seemed uninterested. They had carried out a few checks and then told her they could do nothing more. People went missing all the time, they had said. Especially foreign immigrants. She’ll likely as not turn up. That story seemed to have changed now.

Irina screwed up the paper tissue and lobbed it into a nearby bin. She stood and weaved her way across the Hoe, dodging the picnickers. Perhaps in the UK people did go missing all the time, she thought. But in Russia, when somebody went missing you knew something very, very bad had happened to them.

Chapter Four

Colours whirl on the huge outdoor screen, most people on the plaza paying little attention as the soundless pictures flash by. Chubber’s paying attention though. Chubber’s interested. The newsy news is always interesting, but today’s is especially so.

The screen shows a presenter talking to the camera. Behind him cars and vans. People in uniform. The blue of water. Trees and granite tors. Moorland.

Moorland, Chubber? We don’t like the moor, do we?

That’s not right, Chubber thinks. The moor is fine – as long as it’s not dark and you avoid stone circles and the man with the antlers on his head. That’s when things get scary. When the man starts talking and Chubber starts listening and the man tells Chubber things he doesn’t want to hear about demons and ghosts and the devil and people who get hurt if they open their mouths to tell stories to anyone who might listen only they won’t listen because the stories are just stories so it’s better to keep quiet and do what they say than be caught and suffer for ever in the fires of h … h … h …

Don’t think about it, Chubber, don’t!

Chubber opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water. A rush of panic fills his chest. He checks the sky for the sun. The big ball of fire is up there, hot and yellow and high and a long, long way from the horizon. Chubber breathes deep. No need to worry. He’s done exactly as Antler Man asked. Everything is OK. He focuses once again on the huge screen and the subtitles that scroll along the bottom.

Breaking news: police searching Dartmoor reservoir after clothing of missing waitress found …

Chubber stares. Reads the words. Feels excitement tingle across the back of his hands. Feels a swelling down there.

Chubber! That’s naughty! Down there is very bad.

‘Hot chocolate?’

Black and white blocks Chubber’s view for a moment. The black of a dress, the white of an apron, more black flows like liquid down legs cosseted in sheer hosiery. He looks up, smiles, and meets the eyes of the girl as she places the drink in front of him.

‘Thank you,’ he says. Nice girl. Lovely girl. Beautiful girl. ‘Thank you very much.’

The girl half smiles back but there’s a sadness behind her expression. Chubber wonders if the girl has been crying. Wonders if she needs comforting. Maybe the smile is an invitation. Does she want him to reach out and touch her thigh? Her leg is so close, clad in shimmering nylon, the inner part not thin, but fleshy, soft, succulent.

Succulent, Chubber?

Yes. The word reminds him of ripe fruit, a plum or a nectarine perhaps. Sink your teeth into a plum and the goodness flows out. Forget touching, maybe he should bend his head and bite her down there. Where she’s juicy.

No Chubber! This place is much too public for that! Too many people.

Chubber stares around. Tables lie scattered outside the cafe. People are walking back and forth across the plaza. Yes, much too public; far too many people. Instead of bending and biting he lets his eyes follow the waitress as she moves away, glides and slides between the tables and heads back inside the cafe. The uniform suits her, he thinks. The way the material flares out from the waist, accentuating her shapeliness. Making the most of her curves, her hourglass figure.

Hourglass. Like an egg-timer, Chubber. Sand. Trickling downward. Marking time while the eggs boil dry.

Chubber shakes his head. He doesn’t like time. The way the seconds slip past. Clocks tick. Hours go by and Chubber finds things haven’t changed much. He needs to do something about that. He needs to act.

‘Oh well,’ Chubber says aloud. ‘Faint heart never won fair maiden.’

‘Pardon?’ An elderly woman sitting at the next table looks across. ‘Did you say something?’

‘Huh?’ Chubber says and then crunches his nose in a sneer. ‘My business. Not your business. You mind yours and I’ll mind mine, OK?’

He scrapes his chair around so he won’t have to look at the crone. Concentrates instead on the waitress. He can see her in the cafe, talking to a customer. Then she slips behind the counter. Uses a pair of tongs to retrieve a cream éclair from the cake cabinet. The tongs squeeze the cake, the cake lets out a long sigh and the cream oozes out.

‘Ah!’ Chubber says. ‘Lovely. What a lovely, lovely girly girl.’

A snuffle comes from behind him. Chubber hopes the old dear is choking on her dentures. He pauses. He really shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t even be here. If Antler Man knew, he’d be angry. Very angry. Still, he can’t know, can he? Chubber reaches into his pocket and pulls out his pencil. Licks the tip. Takes a napkin and flattens it. Bends to the table and writes a note to the waitress. She’ll read the note and maybe next time he comes into the coffee shop she’ll ask him out.

He slips a ten-pound note on top of the napkin and moves back his chair. The girl looks over from another table, mouths a ‘thank you’ and starts to move towards him.

‘Oh Chubber-Chub-Chubs,’ Chubber says as he hurries away. ‘Chubber’s been a bad boy. Naughty Chubber. Bad Chubber.’

He doesn’t look back as he pushes across the plaza. He kicks the side of a pushchair as a young mum comes by. Barges past an elderly man who is as slow as a snail on coarse-grit sandpaper.

Sand again, Chubber? It’s slip, slip, slipping away. Marking time. Hours rushing past.

‘Busy, busy, busy,’ Chubber says as he skitters away and turns off the plaza, heading down Royal Parade. ‘Got things to do today. At home. Best get back. Kettle on the boil. Things on the go. Deary, deary, deary me my Chubber-Chub-Chubs.’

Major Crimes operated out of Crownhill Police Station, located on the north side of the city, away from the centre. The building was a modernist brute of a structure in brown concrete, the colour choice not lost on the officers within or on a number of the more quick-witted of their clients. Savage arrived back from the moor mid-afternoon and went straight to the crime suite, where a DC informed her that DSupt Hardin wanted to see her.

‘Pronto, ma’am,’ the DC added. ‘As in, now.’

Savage about-turned, headed to Hardin’s office and rapped on the door. Hardin’s ‘enter’ came with a splutter and when Savage pushed the door open she found him attempting to pat himself on the back with one hand while wiping up a pool of coffee on the desk with a bunch of tissues held in the other. The DSupt’s bulk filled his chair and most of the space behind the desk. He was a big man, often mistaken for an ex-rugby player. However, Savage reckoned Hardin would never have had the dexterity for ball games; tug-of-war would have been much more his thing.

‘Just had a phone call, Charlotte,’ Hardin said, screwing up the tissue paper and chucking the soggy mess in the bin. ‘Dan-bloody-Phillips, the crime reporter on the Herald. He tells me they’re going to town with this one. “Moorland Killer on the Rampage” is to be the headline. Nightmare.’

‘“Killer”? Where did he get that from? I’m still hoping the girl is alive and there’s some rational explanation for her disappearance.’

‘Hey?’ Hardin raised one eyebrow. ‘Come on. You and I both know it’s only a matter of time.’

Savage sighed. ‘Yes, sir. You’re right. But how does Phillips know that?’

‘That photographer of his. He’s been up at the reservoir. Got some shots of Frey retrieving the webbing strap. Phillips reckons lorry driver. Only he’s made the leap from there to killer. He tells me the Yorkshire Ripper was a truck driver. That right, Charlotte?’

‘Yes, but it’s a stretch isn’t it?’

‘Not really.’ Hardin leant over the desk, careful to avoid the damp patch. ‘You see, Phillips reckons the presence of a certain female officer lends credence to his argument. DI Charlotte Savage is, apparently, Devon’s hotshot detective. When she turns up, you know the bodies can’t be far behind.’

‘Fiction, sir. Headlines to sell newspapers.’

‘Of course,’ Hardin clucked. ‘Anyway, he wants an interview with you. A feature with pictures and everything. He told me he’s already come up with some taglines. “Killer Thriller”. “Red Handed”. “Juliet Bravo”. I’m thinking of passing this one to the PR guys. They love this sort of stuff. If you’re up for it?’

Savage cocked her head on one side and tried to read the grin that had appeared on Hardin’s face. ‘Respectfully, sir, I’d rather resign from the Force than do that sort of publicity shit.’

‘Ha!’ Hardin laughed. ‘That’s what I told him you’d say. Now, about this lorry driver business. Phillips may have something there. I’ve got the preliminary report on the webbing from John Layton. It’s a heavy-duty tie-down most often used by hauliers to secure loads. The hair is still being analysed, but the stain is most likely a commercial oil of some type. That does say lorry driver to me.’

‘Possibly. But he didn’t drive up to Fernworthy Reservoir in his vehicle, did he? The roads on that part of the moor are way too narrow. If you did somehow get up there you’d struggle to turn around. And whoever dumped Ana’s clothing up at Fernworthy Reservoir knows the area well. I think they’re local.’

‘What about these boys on North Hill? Reckon it could be something to do with them?’

Hardin was referring to an as-yet unidentified group of men who were targeting female students walking home from the centre of town. The police suspected that the men were using mobile phones to communicate information about women who looked so drunk they could barely walk. They’d identify those women as easy targets and one of the gang would home in and persuade – or force – the victim to have sex with them.

‘There have been a number of rapes, but nothing like this.’

‘Maybe something went wrong. The girl banged her head or choked on her own vomit. Somebody decided to hide the body.’

‘Possible, but there’s no evidence to suggest she was out on that night. True, if she was she would have walked home along North Hill, but Fernworthy is a heck of a long way to go to dispose of a body. If, of course, a body is what we are looking for. But then the clothes by the lake are pretty conclusive. She had no transport of her own so I can’t see how she could have got there without someone else’s involvement. This doesn’t look like suicide to me, nor do I think she’s gone back home to Hungary.’

‘So where the hell do you think she is?’

‘Well, Inspector Frey is almost positive she’s not in the reservoir. Which just leaves the woods, the rest of the moor and anywhere else that might have taken the killer’s fancy. I understand the search and rescue teams are out today and the helicopter is going to be taking a second look too, but to be honest, sir, Frey is right when he says searching for her without a better idea of where to focus is a complete waste of time.’

‘Bloody gun-touting idiot. I’ll decide whether it’s a waste of time or not. The man’s not happy unless he’s steaming in somewhere with a machine gun nestled under one arm and an Andy McNab paperback under the other.’

Savage tried not to smile. Hardin’s view of the tactical support group was that they were a bunch of trigger-happy nutters.

‘The police search adviser pretty much concurs, sir,’ she said. ‘Until we get some more information, we are better off not spreading our resources.’

‘The PolSA? Right.’ Hardin drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘Well if we’re not going to look for the girl just what the heck should we be doing? Appealing to the killer’s better nature and asking him to turn himself in?’

‘An appeal is a good idea. Finding the clothes means we might be able to put together some form of reconstruction. Fernworthy is a busy place this time of year, so if anybody saw Ana there an appeal will jog their memories.’

‘Relying on the public. You know I don’t like that, Charlotte.’ Hardin nodded over at his phone. ‘All we ever get are hoax calls, dreamers and people with nothing better to do than waste our time. Sure, we’ll go with an appeal, but have you got any better ideas?’

Savage almost snapped back, ‘have you?’ But instead she said: ‘We need the usual pulling-in of known sex offenders and then I think we should conduct a full-scale search of Ana’s house, forensics and everything. When the initial misper report came in there was a cursory examination of her room but that was the extent of it. Now we can ratchet up the investigation a level or two.’

‘Three or four I think,’ Hardin said. ‘We just so happen to have the honour of the Crime Commissioner visiting us for a tour tomorrow. And he’s bringing some other dignitaries with him. Charles Milner for one.’

‘The MP?’

‘Yes. Milner’s local, of course, but he’s also on the bloody Home Office Select Committee. He can pull strings and raise budgets. Conversely, he can cut them. So for the moment, this case is a priority, right? I want officers redeployed from the stabbing on Union Street and see if you can draft people from some other lesser investigations too. We need to sort this fast – and establish Anasztáz Róka’s disappearance has nothing to do with any kind of serial killing. That should wipe the smile from Dan Phillips’ face and hopefully put this station in the Crime Commissioner’s good books.’

Simon Fox, the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police, sat inside his car in his garage. He wore his full uniform, the silver buttons reflecting the sterile light from a fluorescent tube mounted on the wall above a workbench. On the bench an array of tools lay in neat rows, the light glittering off them too. He’d spent many happy hours in here, the bonnet up on whichever car he happened to own at the time, tools clinking on metal, an oily rag to wipe his hands on. In the end though, he couldn’t kid himself he was doing much more than tinkering. These days modern cars were so complicated that tinkering was all you could really do.

Fox reached over to the passenger seat for the bottle of whiskey. He’d drunk half the contents but he needed more. Dutch courage. Hell, any sort of courage. He unscrewed the cap and took a deep draught. He’d long ago passed the drunk stage and now every extra gulp added clarity to the situation. And the clearer things became, the clearer the solution to his problems.

He peered over his shoulder into the rear of the Jaguar. The car was an estate, an XF Sportbrake. Perhaps it was a bit of a cliché for a senior officer to have such a vehicle, but Fox didn’t care. His grandfather had owned an XK150 from new. Fox wondered what might have happened to the car, where it was now, how much it would be worth. There was of course nothing to say the car was still around. It could have rusted away, crashed, or been crushed.

In the rear of the car a vacuum cleaner hose tumbled over the back seat. Fox had attached the hose to the exhaust pipe using gaffer tape and then led the tube up through the hatchback. He’d pulled the hatch shut as best he could and secured it with a bungee cord. Then he’d stuffed a couple of blankets in the gap. Not airtight, perhaps a bit of a bodge job, but good enough.

Tinkering.

The word summed up his career, his life. Fox wondered whether fiddling around was all anyone could hope to do. You tried to make a difference, to change people’s lives for the better. In the end though, whatever you did, you ended as dust. Atoms spinning in the infinite void, never again to experience anything. Fox wallowed in a growing feeling of despair. Many years ago he’d been faced with depression, but he hadn’t let it get the better of him; he’d beaten it and come out stronger. This time, he knew it was different. This sort of depression couldn’t be beaten. This time he couldn’t win.

Fox took a final swig from the bottle and then screwed the cap back on. He placed the bottle carefully on the passenger seat and then his hand strayed to the keys in the ignition. He turned them a notch. The lights on the dash lit up, the aircon began to hum and the navigation system came on. A blinking icon indicated that the sat-nav couldn’t lock onto any satellites to fix its position. Lost, Fox thought. Completely and utterly lost.

The wrong turn had come miles back, an error of judgement undoubtedly, but one made with what at the time had seemed the best of intentions. Covering up his son Owen’s involvement in a hit-and-run accident in which a young girl had died had been a remarkably easy decision to make. Owen had been high on drink and drugs, and the effect on Fox’s career had the truth come out would have been cataclysmic. At the time Fox had told himself he’d done it for Owen and his young fiancée – Lauren, pregnant with the couple’s first child – and not for his own selfish reasons, but deep down he now wondered at the veracity of that. Sure, Owen had reformed. Fox had forced him into a boring job, forced him to begin to accept the responsibilities that came with fatherhood. The lad had abandoned his old friends and was now a model citizen. Still, there’d been a heavy price to pay. Fox had had to call in favours and make promises to keep the truth from coming out. The problem was corruption had a stink about it and however hard you tried to keep things airtight, sooner or later there was always a leak.

There was the human cost as well, not just to his own sense of psychological wellbeing but to the parents of the victim. And that the mother should be one of his own workforce compounded the situation. Every time he met her he worried that she could read the guilt on his face. He, in turn, could see the pain on hers. She’d never got justice, never found peace. The latter, Fox reckoned, would never come, but justice? Well, some sort of resolution to the whole stinking mess lay just around the corner, the next turn on his journey.

Fox lay back in the seat and closed his eyes. Imagined the classic XK150 with his grandfather at the wheel. Soon, perhaps, he’d be sitting beside him, rolling through countryside bathed in the sunlight of an endless childhood summer. They’d park up somewhere on a village green where they could watch a game of cricket. His grandfather would reach into the glove compartment and pull out two tins and his pipe. The first tin contained boiled sweets, and Fox was allowed one every time a four or a six was scored or a wicket went down. His grandfather would take the other tin and tap his pipe on the lid three times, open it and fill the pipe with tobacco. Then he’d light up and they’d talk about the game in front of them or football or rugger. Whether Simon would like to come fishing with him. The same life but another time, a simpler time. A better time.

Fox felt tears welling in his eyes. Disgusted with himself for his lack of courage he blinked the moisture away. Then he turned the keys another notch. The engine started and exhaust fumes began to pump into the car.

Chapter Five

When Savage pulled the car into her driveway, the sun hovered low above the Cornish coast; Plymouth Sound bathed in light. Sunday was all but gone. Back at Fernworthy the search teams had given up for the day, the latest report from Frey stating there was a high probability Anasztáz Róka wasn’t in the reservoir. The bankside and woodland area designated by the PolSA had been scoured inch by inch and nothing had been found. Results from the search and rescue groups engaged in a wider sweep of the moor were equally disappointing.

Savage paused at the front door, taking a moment to switch off and leave the day’s events behind. Her kids didn’t need to know that a girl was probably lying naked and dead in a shallow grave somewhere on Dartmoor. Her husband wouldn’t want to be filled in on the minutiae of misper procedures. Her role as a police officer ended at the threshold to the house. And yet she couldn’t leave behind everything that had happened today. Seeing Owen Fox, holding the pistol in her hand as she’d watched him go about his business, unfettered by guilt, had made her realise she couldn’t let things go on as they had. She owed it to herself, to her family and most of all to Clarissa, to find a way to make Owen pay for what he’d done. She just needed to think of a way to do it without endangering everything she loved. Savage took a deep breath and then went inside.

In the house she found Pete in the kitchen tossing a salad, an apron tied round his waist. Pete was the epitome of a good-looking, clean-cut naval officer, but he still looked ridiculous wearing the apron.

‘From absent husband to househusband in just a few months,’ Savage teased. ‘I might just be the only person in Plymouth grateful for the defence cuts.’

‘Careful,’ Pete said, waving a wooden salad spoon at her. ‘I still hold a high rank in the Navy and as such am in charge of an array of formidable weapons.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ Savage ducked as Pete used the spoon to launch a cherry tomato across the room. ‘Mind you, I might be in need of some gunnery practice.’

Savage laughed and then picked the tomato up and lobbed it back at Pete, running from the kitchen before he had a chance to retaliate. In the living room, Jamie and Samantha were arguing over which movie the family were going to watch for their regular Sunday film night. Jamie wanted something with cartoon animals while Samantha was keen on anything with vampires and pale, unhealthy-looking males. By dinner time they’d plumped for some Disney movie and they sat with bowls of pasta on their laps, pigging out.

An hour and a half later, with the end titles streaming up the screen, Savage’s mobile rang. She pushed herself up from the sofa, reached for the phone and stumbled out of the darkened room and into the hallway.

‘Ma’am, it’s me.’ It was DC Enders, his Irish accent providing all the introduction needed.

‘Yes, Patrick?’ Savage said, closing the door to the living room to shut out the kids’ conversation as they played out the funnier bits of the movie.

‘The Hungarian girl.’ Enders paused, but Savage knew what was coming next. ‘We’ve found her.’

Savage sighed, the laughter coming from the children suddenly grating. She walked into the kitchen, opened the back door and went out into the garden. Pete had set a sprinkler to water the lawn and as she walked across the grass a fine mist caressed her face.

‘Tell me.’

‘At the reservoir. Not far from where the fisherman found her clothes. In fact, he was the one who found the body. Dodgy, if you ask me, ma’am.’

‘Right. Are you up there now?’

‘No, I’m at the station. John Layton and Inspector Frey are there though. The pathologist has been called.’

‘Thanks, Patrick. I’m leaving now, tell them I’ll be there in an hour.’

Savage hung up and stared across Plymouth Sound towards the lights of the city where, despite it being a Sunday, the night would be getting into full swing. A wash of tiredness swept over her. A fitful night had been followed by a long day. The stress of seeing Owen Fox had worn her out and the news about the Hungarian girl was the last straw. She felt as if she barely had the energy to climb the stairs to bed. For a moment she considered phoning Enders back and telling him she couldn’t make it, that a family crisis had intervened. Then she remembered the passport photograph of Anasztáz Róka. A blonde girl far from home. Lost and now dead. She was somebody’s daughter too.

‘You selfish cow,’ Savage said to herself.

Then she wiped the moisture from her face and went back inside.

Darkness had enveloped the moor when Savage arrived at Fernworthy. A patrol car guarded the lane to the reservoir, its blue strobing light casting pale fingers into the trees. An officer waved Savage through and she drove to the car park. Then she was directed to where the body lay, some two hundred metres west of the reservoir in dense woodland, in an area that had supposedly been searched at least once.

‘It’s not good enough, Nigel,’ Savage said, trying to contain her anger as she walked up to Frey in the near blackness beneath the canopy of trees. ‘The girl should have been found at the first attempt. Your search pattern was mucked up or somebody boobed.’

‘No,’ Frey said. ‘I won’t have that. You can see the paperwork if you like. The quadrants the PolSA laid out were dealt with methodically. I’ll stake my job on it.’

‘Well, you may have to.’

John Layton had insisted on a fifty-metre perimeter around the scene, and from where she stood Savage could see a patch of bright light in which several suited figures worked. The CSIs were moving away from the body, trying to establish a safe route back and forth. It was another thirty minutes before Layton came across to Savage and Frey. The senior CSI had abandoned the Tilley hat he was usually seen in because it wouldn’t fit beneath the hood of his white suit. As he approached, he pulled the hood down. Layton was mid-thirties, maybe a little older. He had dark hair and a slim face, beady eyes that missed nothing. The eyes flicked back and forth between Savage and Frey. Then he scratched his pointed nose and nodded at Frey.

‘You’re off the hook,’ he said. ‘She’s not been there long. An hour or two at the most. She’s lying on several fronds of bracken that have only been crushed recently. There’s no way she was here this morning.’

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Savage said. ‘Are you saying she was dumped after the initial search?’

‘Yes. Right under our noses. Sense and science can sometimes contradict each other, however difficult that makes things for us.’

‘Nigel,’ Savage said, turning to Frey. ‘I guess I owe you an apology.’

‘Accepted, Charlotte,’ Frey said.

‘How long has she been dead?’ Savage turned back to Layton.

‘You’ll have to wait for Nesbit for an estimate, but nothing like a week for sure. The body’s in a bit of a state though. Little cuts and scratches all over her. Something like she was running through the woods naked and the branches and brambles scoured her skin.’

‘Cause of death?’

‘Haven’t got a whiskers. There don’t seem to be any major external injuries. I guess she could have been strangled. Do you want to take a look?’

Savage nodded and went to find a suit and all the other paraphernalia. Suitably attired, she followed Layton down the little trail he had prepared. Festoon lights had been hung between the trees, creating a corridor of luminance which wound through the woodland, almost as if the path was leading to a fairy grotto. At the end of the path the burning glare of several halogen bulbs turned night into day. Beyond the circle of light the surrounding forest disappeared into utter blackness. As they approached the CSIs, Layton put out a hand.

‘Close enough, Charlotte,’ Layton said. ‘We haven’t completed our detailed search of the immediate area yet.’

Savage nodded and stared through the undergrowth to where white skin contrasted with black peat. The body lay half in a drainage ditch, the face partially submerged in the dirty water. The right eye was open and gazed out across a film of scum and forest detritus, while the left was below the surface. The girl’s peroxide-blonde hair floated in a fan-like pattern, individual strands moving as a slight current washed past. A blob of dark mud had splattered one cheek and several pine needles had drifted into a nostril. Savage looked closer. The girl’s body was tumbled in an odd way. The right leg came out at a weird angle to the body while the right arm was twisted underneath her head. A contortionist would have struggled to adopt such a pose.

‘It’s a strange position,’ Savage said. ‘Whatever the killer meant by posing her like that is beyond me. If she was posed.’

‘I can’t see how she fell with the arm behind her head,’ Layton said. He gestured at the trees and the undergrowth. ‘It would take some effort to force it into that position. I don’t think it could have happened by accident.’

Savage noticed the scratches Layton had mentioned. They were shallow enough to have been caused by brambles or cat’s claws or fingernails. They certainly weren’t terminal. Her eyes followed the outstretched leg from the toe up to the thigh to the dark triangle of pubic hair.

‘Any sign of sexual assault?’

‘No.’ Layton shook his head. ‘Nothing I can see from an external examination. Small blessing that it is.’

Savage moved her attention to where the woodland encroached on the circle of light. There were no paths and the scrub was dense. Layton was right, Ana couldn’t have run fast enough to cause her limbs to twist round in the way they lay. Yet the scratches suggested she had been running. Savage tried to imagine her last moments. How long had Ana been stumbling around the woodland naked? Had she managed to avoid the killer for hours and then somehow come across him again? She’d fallen and the killer had pounced on her. As his hands had closed around her delicate neck she’d screamed and thrashed. The killer had hit her and then pinned her leg with his body. In the struggle her arm had been twisted behind her neck. Maybe the killer had used his forearm to crush the girl’s windpipe while the other hand held her arm. And yet, Savage reminded herself, none of that had happened here. If Layton was correct the body had been dumped recently. It was even possible Ana had been alive as the teams had searched for her that very morning.

‘Any sign of which way the killer came?’

‘No,’ Layton said. The CSI sighed. ‘In fact I can’t find any meaningful footprints. That could be because he – or she – came up the drainage ditch. I’m thinking of damming the ditch and draining the water to see if I can find any footprints. The only other conclusion would be that she’d flown here by magic, right?’

Savage nodded. ‘Where’s Nesbit got to? The sooner we can get the time of death the better.’

‘On his way,’ Layton said. He turned and padded back towards the body to join the other CSIs. Savage stood for a moment and then made her way down the avenue of lights back to the perimeter and from there to the car park. She stood next to her car and gazed across the ink-black water, where pinpricks of starlight speckled the surface. After dark, there was no reason for anybody to come here, but in the day Fernworthy Reservoir was a popular place. There would be families picnicking, fishermen fishing, walkers and mountain bikers exploring the woodland. It was inconceivable Ana had been attacked anywhere near here in the daytime – or even been moved here – without somebody noticing. Unless, as Layton had suggested, magic was involved.

Savage stood next to the mobile incident room van and watched Dr Andrew Nesbit, the pathologist, climb out of his car in the gloom. He put his black bag on top of the car and began to put on a protective suit, pulling the outfit up over a tweed jacket and tie. She guessed he’d be unimpressed with John Layton’s hypothesis concerning magic. The methodical way he put on the suit, gloves, hat and mask said it all. When it came to performing his job, scientific method was everything. There was no room for spirituality. His gangly form had been compared by many to a spider, but Savage wondered if a robot might be a more apposite choice. His matchstick-like limbs moved efficiently to ensure the gear went on with the minimum of fuss, although Savage was surprised when he performed a small flourish as he snapped the latex gloves in place. Perhaps the pathologist didn’t realise anybody was watching.

‘Charlotte,’ Nesbit said, as he walked over to the van. He looked up at the clear sky above, and as he did so, starlight glinted on his half-moon glasses. ‘Beautiful evening. I must admit I don’t get up on the moor as much as I’d like. Then again, I don’t get anywhere as much as I’d like these days. And to be honest, you guys don’t help. Catching them, Charlotte, that’s the thing, hey?’

‘We do try, you know?’ Savage gestured towards the woodland. ‘Sometimes we need help though.’

‘She’s in there, then?’ Nesbit followed Savage’s gaze. ‘Not in the lake?’

‘No, but it was an easy mistake to make. Her clothes were found by the water’s edge.’

‘And nobody thought to search the woodland just to make sure?’

Savage sighed. ‘Moot point. The entire area was searched but somehow they either missed the body or it wasn’t there.’

‘So the clothes were dumped first and then the killer returned with the body?’

‘I’m hoping you might be able to explain that.’ Savage pointed at the wood once more. ‘Shall we?’

As they reached the scene, Savage paused, and let Nesbit continue on his own to where Layton was bent over a nearby bush, torch in hand.

‘Finger tipped ten metres all around and found nothing,’ the CSI said, straightening. ‘Not even a footprint. Got a pump coming to drain the ditch.’

Nesbit nodded and peered at the corpse of Anasztáz Róka, the girl’s flesh white as porcelain in the light from the floods. ‘I can see why you wanted me out here. She’s in a strange position, isn’t she? Let’s see …’

Nesbit dropped his bag down onto a nearby tree stump and then stepped over to the body. He moved his head in small movements, taking in every aspect. Then he reached down and took the girl’s lower leg in both hands. He flexed the leg back and forth and then mumbled to himself. Next, he reached for the arm and did the same.

‘Andrew?’ Savage said. ‘Anything interesting?’

‘Dislocated.’ Nesbit looked over at Savage and then at the ground surrounding the body. ‘The knee and the shoulder. Difficult to see how this happened here. A considerable amount of force must have been used and there’s no sign of a struggle. Am I right, John?’

‘Yes. As I said there’s nothing on the ground. No indentations, no scuffing, no footprints. There are some small marks to one side of the body, possibly made when she fell or was placed.’

‘There’s some bruising on the arms and legs and also the torso.’ Nesbit bent and examined the legs again. ‘Some marks on her ankles too. Indentations, as if something has been wrapped around them. Rope or chain maybe. The dislocations happened while she was alive. Painful as they would have been, they aren’t what killed her.’

‘Any idea what did?’ Savage said. ‘Strangulation, possibly?’

Nesbit bent to the body again. His fingers moved to the girl’s forehead and he lifted each eyelid in turn. Then he examined the neck, spidery fingers creeping across the pale skin.

‘No signs of petechiae in the eyes, no marks on the neck, no sign a ligature was used.’ Nesbit looked across at Savage and shook his head. ‘I’ll know more when I get her on the table back home.’

Savage forced herself to suppress a smile. She assumed Nesbit was talking about the mortuary rather than where he lived.

‘What about the time of death, anything you can tell me?’

‘If you give me a moment I’ll take a temperature reading, but the rigor stage has passed. Looking at the appearance of the body I would think something between twenty-four and forty-eight hours, no longer.’

‘The bag containing Ana’s clothing was found this morning. The fisherman who found the bag had been in the same spot two days before and swore it wasn’t there then. So we’re looking at some time in the night before last.’

‘That would work, yes. But there’s still some explaining to do about the body. How it got here and why it was moved.’

Savage said nothing as Nesbit continued to work on the corpse. He removed a thermometer from his bag and inserted its remote probe into the girl’s rectum. He spoke into a small dictation device as he went over the body again, concentrating on the process of pulling apart the evidence, everyone else all but forgotten.

She left him to his work and headed back to the incident room vehicle in search of Inspector Frey. She found him inside the van, staring at a laptop screen.

‘Can’t fathom it, Charlotte.’ Frey’s finger hovered over a map of the reservoir and surrounding woodland. ‘The area where the body was found was searched not once, but twice. She definitely wasn’t there. But how did the bugger manage to enter the area with the body when the place was swarming with us lot?’

‘Maybe he didn’t arrive with the body.’ Savage pointed at the screen. ‘The boundary to your search grid is only a hundred metres from the dump site. My hunch is the body was somewhere beyond the boundary. The killer returned sans body, picked up the corpse from the initial hiding place, and carried the body back to where we found it.’

‘To what purpose?’

‘To prevent the body being found.’

‘Because we’d already searched the area.’ Frey nodded as if in agreement, but then shook his head. ‘But who would be stupid enough or bold enough to do that?’

‘Kinver?’

‘The fisherman?’

‘Yes. Seems a bit too much of a coincidence that he found the clothes and the body, don’t you think?’

‘He said he was walking back from his fishing position along a woodland path. He claims he heard something, went to investigate, and found the body.’ Frey smiled and then jabbed a finger at Savage. ‘He’s seen too many detective shows on TV too. Knew he shouldn’t approach the body, so he never went within ten metres. Layton pointed out the man’s footprints to me. There’s a distinct trail coming and going.’

‘Could he have thrown the girl that distance?’

‘Be sensible, Charlotte. Kinver’s telling the truth.’

‘You believed him?’ Savage wondered what Frey was on. Kinver, in her book, should at least have been arrested and brought in for questioning. ‘Nigel, I don’t want to—’

‘No, of course not. But I believed his wife. She and a friend were with him. Unless they’re in it together, Kinver’s in the clear.’

‘Shit.’

‘Yeah. We’re back to Layton’s version. Hocus pocus and witchcraft.’

Chapter Six
Monday 25th August

Some time later Fox heard the tap, tap, tapping of the pipe on the tobacco tin. Then a faint acrid aroma caressed his nostrils. His grandfather. Fox kept his eyes closed, not wanting to believe. He waited for the old man to say something.

Again: tap, tap, tap.

‘Simon?’ His grandfather’s voice sounded muffled, as if the sound was coming from far off in the distance. ‘Simon, wake up.’

He’d been dozing, the warmth of the sun soporific, the slowness of the game of cricket lulling him to sleep. He’d open his eyes now and his grandfather would suggest they drove off to a pub where the old man would buy a pint of Guinness for himself and water with a splash of lime for Fox. Maybe, if he was lucky, a lemonade. Now he did believe. This wasn’t the ending, it was the beginning. Whatever had gone before was done. He could start all over again, full circle.

Tap, tap, tap.

Fox opened his eyes. He was still sitting in his car, the tools still gleaming on the rack in front of him. His eyes flashed to the rear-view mirror. The garage door stood open now and the early morning light streamed in, pale, cold and unwelcome.

Tap, tap, tap.

‘Simon, what on earth are you doing? I woke up and didn’t know where you’d gone. Thought you’d been called out.’

Fox turned his head to see Jennifer, his wife, bent to the window. She clicked the door open and looked to the rear of the car where the hose curled across the back seat. Wafted her hand in front of her face to disperse the exhaust fumes.

‘Oh God, Simon. Why?’ Jennifer reached in and turned the key to the off position. She collapsed to her knees, her hands grasping at the door sill, her head bowed. When she looked up, tears were streaming down her face. ‘Whatever’s happened?’

‘The air-conditioning,’ Fox said. ‘Positive pressure.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Kept me alive. Despite everything. I fucked up. Again. I should have known better than to even try and make things right.’

‘Simon. Please.’

‘I tried, didn’t I? Made sure the reports got mixed around. The teams checked the wrong cars. They never found out. Until now.’

‘I don’t understand. What are you on about, darling? Tell me.’

‘Tinkering, bloody tinkering.’ Fox moved a hand to the top of his wife’s head and stroked her hair. Then he reached for the ignition and pulled out the keys. ‘Let’s go inside.’

In the living room, Fox bade his wife to sit. He stumbled across to the drinks cabinet and took out an unopened bottle of premium malt and two tumblers. The glasses clunked down on the occasional table and he unscrewed the whiskey and poured a generous measure into each.

‘No,’ Jennifer said. ‘You had enough last night and it’s not even breakfast time.’

‘Drink up, you’re going to need it.’ Fox considered his own glass for a moment and then returned to the drinks cabinet. He selected a fistful of mixers: bitter lemon, ginger ale, tonic water. With an opener in one hand and the bottles in the other he went and sat on the sofa. The bitter lemon fizzed open and he took a gulp straight from the bottle. Three more gulps and he’d drained the contents.

‘Simon, I—’

‘You remember a few years ago that lass was killed up on the moor? A hit-and-run accident?’

‘No, I can’t—’

‘DI Charlotte Savage’s kid. Nine years old. We never caught the driver, never traced the vehicle.’

‘Oh yes, of course, I remember now. The poor woman. Losing a daughter must be awful. I can’t imagine what I’d have done had anything like that happened to our children.’

‘No, I dare say you can’t.’ Fox pointed to Jennifer’s glass. She’d drunk a mouthful. ‘More.’

Jennifer took another sip. ‘What’s this got to do with you, Simon? Have you caught the driver?’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’ Fox fizzed open another mixer. Tonic. He downed the bottle, the bubbles catching at his throat. He swallowed a burp. ‘Owen was up on the moor on the day of the accident. He’d camped out the night before, somewhere north of Princetown, with a few friends. They’d had a party way off in the wilds. Plenty of beer, a couple of bottles of spirits, other stuff as well. Lauren was with him too.’

‘Other stuff?’

‘I’ll come to that. Back then Owen drove that Impreza, didn’t he? All souped-up like a rally car. The important thing is, Owen’s route back the next day took him past the spot where DI Savage and her family were picnicking.’

‘He was a witness to the accident? He saw the hit-and-run car?’

‘Oh yes, he saw the car alright. Owen and Lauren were in the car. Owen was the driver.’

‘What?’ Jennifer’s hand went to her mouth. ‘Our son? He killed the young girl?’

‘Yes.’ Fox paused. His wife’s eyes glistened as they filled with tears. Fox wanted to move across and hug her, but he couldn’t. He had more to say. Much more. ‘Owen drove off. He panicked. He called me and I went round to his place. He showed me the damage to his car, confessed everything. He wanted me to bring him in. He was a complete mess, blubbering and ranting. Crying like he was a baby again.’

‘So what happened?’

‘The other stuff I mentioned along with the drink? Drugs. Amphetamines, cocaine, cannabis.’

‘Owen was taking all those?’

‘He was on speed, yes. The other drugs, he was selling. That night on Dartmoor he’d shifted a load to his friends. Wouldn’t have looked good on the news, would it? Chief Constable’s son arrested on drug and murder charges.’

‘Murder?’

‘I don’t know what the CPS would have come up with but you can be sure it wouldn’t have been a speeding ticket.’

‘But you said Owen wanted to turn himself in?’

‘Yes, but I told him I’d handle it. And I did.’

Jennifer put her hands to her face. Fox rose and walked across to her. He knelt in front of the chair and reached out for her.

‘We’d have lost all this. Our son, my job, this beautiful house. For God’s sake, Lauren was pregnant with our grandson, I had to do something to protect my family. The child was dead. It was a terrible accident, but why compound the situation by bringing Owen, Lauren and the other kids into it?’

‘So you covered it up?’ Jennifer stared at Fox, her mouth half-open, as if she didn’t believe he was capable of such a thing.

‘Owen sorted out the car with a new front wing. He got a rush job done. The place I sent him to was suspect and dealt in stolen motors, dodgy insurance, that sort of thing. Besides, they didn’t know who he was and he paid cash. The police team investigating the accident began to trace Imprezas and I made sure Owen knew when to expect a visit. The car remained in his garage and when an officer came round and inspected the Impreza nothing was spotted. The officer knew I was Owen’s dad. No way was he going to press things any further.’

‘And after that?’

‘The team worked on, but got nowhere. Using contacts I’ve got with Special Branch I had a flag put on the registration number of the car. If anybody did a search for the details on the DVLA system I’d know about it. I told Owen to wait a few months and then sell the car, which he did. A year went past, then another. Apart from a parking infraction for the new owner, the car fell off the radar. It changed hands again and ended up somewhere in the Midlands. I thought that was the end of the matter. It was hell for a while, but I believed it was for the best, that the past could stay that way. Then a couple of months ago we had another hit-and-run on Dartmoor. You’ll remember a prison officer was killed? That got me worried, as I knew old accidents would be investigated. Yesterday I get an email from my Special Branch contact. He’d been away on holiday and had returned to find that the flag on the vehicle registration database had been triggered. An officer from Devon and Cornwall Police had requested the full details of the Impreza. He’d viewed all the records, going back years. The officer was a detective in the same squad as DI Savage. I knew then the game was up.’ Fox sighed and then went on. ‘Last night was stupid though. I drank way too much. All I could see was how my life was going to be destroyed, piece by piece. The newspaper stories, the media circus. Imagine me – a senior police officer – serving a long prison sentence. To be honest, I was a coward. Ending it seemed like the only way out.’

‘Oh, love.’ Fox bowed his head and let Jennifer stroke his hair. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? We could have worked through this together.’

‘The fewer people who knew, the better. Now of course there are others. What I can’t understand is why I’ve heard nothing from this officer or Savage.’

‘Perhaps he hasn’t told her.’

‘Possibly. More likely he’s got plans to blackmail us or, worse, DI Savage does know, but she’s got plans too.’

‘So if neither of them has made this official, what does that mean?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Fox shook his head. ‘But I know what I have to do now. It’s time to stop digging myself deeper into a hole. It’s time to face the music. I’m going to turn myself in, admit to what happened, plead for leniency.’

‘No, Simon. The man I married all those years ago would never give in so easily and he certainly wouldn’t plead.’

‘What?’ Fox felt his wife’s hand under his chin. She lifted his head and met his eyes. ‘What else can we do?’

‘We’re going to fight this. What about Owen, his wife and children? We can’t let this destroy everything. There must be friends who can help us.’

Fox stared at Jennifer. All these years she’d stood at his side; doing the little wifely things he’d always dismissed as largely irrelevant. She cleaned the house, raised the kids – a life on the sidelines done well, but a life anonymous and largely meaningless. Now he realised just what she was made of. How hard she was willing to fight for them and their family. She was stronger than him, no doubt about that.

‘Yes,’ Fox said, thinking his wife was correct. On Sunday night he’d given in too easily to the feelings of self-pity and guilt. Now the effects of the alcohol had worn off, he could see that. He smiled at Jennifer. ‘You’re right as ever, darling. There are friends who can help us.’

Savage was woken by Jamie at a little after nine on Monday morning.

‘Mummy?’ he said, bouncing on the bed. ‘Daddy says it’s time to get up.’

Savage glanced at the clock and groaned. She hadn’t arrived back until four a.m. and it seemed mere seconds ago she’d collapsed on the bed. She reached out and pulled Jamie to her and gave him a hug.

‘No huggles, Mummy!’ Jamie wriggled free, slid off the bed and ran to the door. ‘Breakfast time!’

A couple of minutes later Jamie returned with Pete, her son holding a glass of orange juice, Pete a tray with toast and tea.

‘What’s this?’ Savage said as Jamie plonked the glass down on the bedside table while Pete placed the tray on the bed. ‘Room service?’

‘You were working all day yesterday and had a late one last night,’ Pete said. ‘Thought you might need a lie-in and then a pick-me-up.’

‘Thanks. Both of you.’

Jamie grinned and then scampered off.

‘It’s all over the news,’ Pete said. ‘Sounds horrible.’

‘They always are. Especially close up.’

‘Look …’ Pete sat on the edge of the bed. He said nothing for a few seconds and then touched Savage on the shoulder. ‘I’ve been thinking. This break I’ve been having since I’ve been ashore … well, it’s done me the world of good. Training the cadets, spending more time with you and the kids, getting out on our boat. Perhaps you—’

‘No.’ Savage shook her head and then, aware she had snapped, smiled. ‘I’m fine. Really.’

‘But seeing this sort of thing week in, week out. Can’t be good for you. And this latest one. Another girl. I mean …’

Savage knew what Pete meant and there was an element of truth in what he’d said. ‘The girl isn’t the problem, is she?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘I’ll get over it. I am getting over it. It takes time.’

‘It’s been years, Charlotte. None of us find it easy, but lately I’ve been wondering if time’s moved on for you at all. You haven’t slept well for months. You’re tired, grumpy. The last few weeks—’

‘I’m sorry,’ Savage said. ‘I’ve had things on my mind.’

‘You need to talk to me, love. Tell me what’s going on. I know I haven’t always been here, but now I am … I want to help.’

‘You are helping,’ Savage said. She indicated the toast and then reached for the cup of tea, wanting to bring the conversation to a close. ‘And everything will be OK, I promise.’

Pete leant over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Sure?’

‘Yes.’ Savage blinked. Saw Clarissa tumbling over the bonnet and hitting the road. Imagined putting the gun Fallon had given her to Owen’s head. ‘I’m sure.’

Despite the grand name, the Agricultural Crime Squad had been allotted but a small corner of the crime suite. The ‘pigsty’, as Davies called it. Three tables in a ‘U’ shape were home to several terminals and monitors and beneath the tables there was room for a few file boxes. DI Maynard had gone all proprietorial over the area and pulled a couple of freestanding whiteboards to act as a wall between the space and the rest of the room.

‘So we can’t see them sniggering,’ Davies had said, adding, ‘and they can’t see us crying.’

There was, Riley thought, as he walked into the crime suite armed with breakfast for himself and Davies, an element of truth in the DI’s statement. Tracking down a missing tractor or arresting a bunch of sheep rustlers was never going to be as glamorous as working on the Major Crimes Investigation Team. Still, just a few more weeks and hopefully he’d be right back where he belonged on the MCIT, penance for his past sins well and truly served. Riley believed the punishment had been unfair; it was Davies and Savage who’d delved into the murky elements of Plymouth’s underworld and got a little too close to Kenny Fallon. He’d been guilty only by association.

He paused halfway across the room. There’d been a vicious racially motivated killing in the city centre and several detectives were poring over a set of CCTV stills showing the last moments of the victim. This was real crime. Put the guys who did this away and you were removing scum from the streets, helping the family, proving a moral point. Lord knows what good tracking down a bunch of pony perverts would do.

Davies seemed to be thinking along similar lines, because when Riley plonked the sandwich down in front of the DI he contemplated the food for a moment, then smiled.

‘They eat horses in France, don’t they?’ He shook his head and began to unwrap the sandwich. ‘So quite what we’re getting so excited about, I don’t know. Still, at least the case is a little more interesting than trying to catch these sheep rustlers.’

Riley nodded and glanced up at one of the whiteboards where a map of South Devon was dotted with yellow stars. Each star represented a farm where sheep had been stolen from. Mostly it was single animals, leaving the farmer concerned unsure as to whether the sheep had simply escaped. By tracking all the reports of missing animals, Riley and Davies had ascertained there were too many for that to be the case. So far they’d identified over one hundred. At the top of the board a wag from MCIT had stuck a printed message: Devon’s most prolific cereal killer. Have ewe seen him?

Riley had wanted to take the message down, but Davies had stopped him. ‘We take it down and they put up something else. We leave it and they’ll get bored.’ Davies was right. The banter they’d endured at the beginning had now all but ceased and they’d been left to get on with their work. Clear up the rustling case and figure out what was going on with the pony on the moor and they’d be done with Maynard for good.

‘Where to start?’ Davies said. ‘The internet?’

‘Not sure, sir,’ Riley said. ‘Type “devil worshippers” into Google and I reckon you’ll get all sorts of rubbish. I think we need some sort of expert, although where we’ll find one I have no idea. First I’m going to look on the PNC and see if there are any similar incidents in the area.’

‘Good idea.’ Davies unfolded his newspaper and began to eat his sandwich. He mumbled through his BLT. ‘Let me know if you find anything, OK?’

An hour later, showered, dressed and at least partially refreshed, Savage drove to Crownhill. On the way in she took a call from John Layton. The CSI was round at Anasztáz Róka’s digs in Mannamead, turning the room upside down. The team had nearly finished, so if she wanted to come across for a gander she was more than welcome.

The Mannamead area of the city was home to wealthy middle-class professionals. Solicitors, lecturers, junior consultants, maybe even middle-ranking police officers, jostled for the best double-fronted Victorian and Edwardian houses, pushing prices up and up. Ana’s place was on Fernleigh Road, and usual student fare it wasn’t. Savage parked behind John Layton’s crusty old Volvo and got out, wondering why the landlord would decide to rent to students and low-paid youngsters rather than tenants who might be able to afford more money.

A fence of iron railings sat atop a stone wall with a gate leading to a flagstone path. The path ran through a low-maintenance gravel garden to the front of the period property, which had bay windows and an imposing porch. Savage walked up the path to the front door, where a CSI stood trying a Yale key in the front lock.

‘Found this on her bedside table,’ the CSI said. ‘It doesn’t seem to fit this door though.’

‘It could be for her home in Hungary,’ Savage said.

‘Don’t think so, ma’am. Says Timpson on the key. Unless they’ve got branches in Europe, this is for a property in the UK.’

Savage nodded and went through the door. From behind her the CSI called out that Ana’s room was upstairs. Savage walked down the hallway and climbed the wide staircase, which had a decent carpet secured with polished brass stair rods. She once again wondered why the high-end property had been rented to Ana and her housemates. At the top of the stairs a door to the right stood open, a mess visible within. Layton stood next to the bed, arranging several evidence bags on the mattress.

‘Blitzed it, Charlotte,’ Layton said, indicating the upturned room where the doors to a wardrobe hung open, drawers had been removed from a chest, and the furniture moved away from the walls. ‘Take a look.’

On the bed several polythene packets held the girl’s clothing. A cardboard box contained some of her student work. Layton indicated the pillows at the head of the bed.

‘I’m pretty sure I’m going to get a match from the hair we found on the webbing at the reservoir. There are a number of blonde hairs on the pillow and a quick look with my big magnifier leads me to think they’re the same.’

‘Great,’ Savage said. She waved a hand around at the room and its furnishings. ‘This place is all a bit plush for a student.’

‘Prostitution, you mean?’ Layton smiled. ‘Well, since you’ve brought up the subject of sleaze, I’ve found something else of interest which might explain things.’

He moved across to the chest of drawers where a picture of Ana cuddling a small white dog sat to one side of an open jewellery box. The box contained trinkets, nothing of more than a few pounds value. Above the chest of drawers was a large mirror. Layton reached out and tapped the glass.

‘Sorry?’ Savage stared at the mirror and at her reflection. She needed a haircut.

‘Look.’ Layton moved alongside Savage and reached out. He lifted the mirror from the wall and put it to one side of the chest of drawers. ‘Smile, you’re on camera.’

On the wall, a little way below the hook the mirror had hung on was a hole the size of a penny. A flash of light came from a piece of glass set back in the hole.

‘The landlord?’

‘Got to be, hasn’t it?’ Layton smirked. ‘Dirty bastard’s been getting a peep show for free.’

‘How’s the camera connected up?’

‘Wireless I expect. He’ll have installed the camera when he redecorated the room. Hard-wired the power supply into the mains. Wouldn’t mind betting he’s got the other rooms covered too.’

‘That could explain a lot about the house. High-quality rooms, attracting high-quality girls. How many other tenants are there?’

‘Four. Girls only, and all of them are foreign.’

‘Do you think Ana knew?’

‘If she did then why hide the camera? I’ll need a warrant to search the other rooms properly, but I could take a quick peek now …’

‘How would you get in?’

‘These.’ Layton held up a bunch of keys and jangled them. ‘The landlord gave me his master set. What do you say?’

‘Absolutely not.’ Savage bit her lip, then nodded at the camera and winked at Layton. Then she went towards the door and stepped out onto the landing. Layton followed and Savage lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Thirty seconds in each room, wear gloves, and don’t touch any of the girls’ stuff. Oh, and it never happened, OK?’

‘Sure.’ Layton chuckled. ‘But the subterfuge isn’t necessary because I’ve unplugged the internet router and bagged it for evidence. The camera is dead.’

Layton was still laughing to himself five minutes later as he came down from the second floor.

‘Well?’ Savage said. ‘Any more?’

‘All four rooms. There’s a big full-length mirror in the shared bathroom too, but I can’t remove that without a major DIY job. We’ve got the router though, so we can call Hi-Tech Crimes out here. They can plug the router back in and see all the devices that are connected wirelessly. If we find more than Ana’s camera, which of course we will, then we can ask the other girls for permission to look inside their rooms and make the discovery official.’

‘How’s the landlord viewing the material?’

‘Remotely. He could log on from anywhere as long as he had a connection.’

‘Nice work if you can get it.’

‘I couldn’t possibly comment, Charlotte. Not without finding myself in front of the Professional Standards Department, keen to know about my attitude to women. But four nubile Eastern European girls? Well, that’s a lot of flesh to get excited about.’

‘And it went further than that, didn’t it? Voyeurism to violence. It’s not the first time and I doubt it will be the last.’

Savage thanked Layton and went downstairs and out onto the street, where she phoned through to the station to set up interviews with the other tenants and the landlord. There’d need to be considerable tact involved in speaking to Ana’s housemates, but from what she had seen inside tact was the last thing she’d be using when she interviewed the landlord.

Chapter Seven

Police. On the moor. In the wood. In the big dark wood.

Police, Chubber?

Yes, police. Poo lice. Chubber doesn’t much like poo, nor lice for that matter. He once had lice, down there. Caught them from some dirty whore. Itchy they were, the little buggers. He should’ve gone to the doctor, but the doctor would have asked too many questions. Difficult questions. So instead he squirted on neat bleach. The liquid burned and turned his pubic hair white. Killed the lice though.

Get to the point, Chubber.

The point is the police have found the missing girl. They’ve been down near the reservoir looking for secrets. Chubber’s got secrets, but luckily they’re not down near the reservoir. No, they’re in the wood, the big dark wood, and at home too.

Right now Chubber is sitting on his sofa in his living room watching TV. The police haven’t come visiting. Not yet. Chubber doesn’t think they know where he lives. They couldn’t. But he’s already decided he should be a bit more careful.

The blue of the lake flashes on the screen. A presenter explains about the girl. Asks how did she get there? Was this some crime of passion, something to do with the Eastern European mafia, or was she abducted, raped, killed and butchered by some mad chocolate-drinking psychopath?

Chubber! The presenter didn’t say that.

No.

Chubber shifts on the sofa and the springs protest beneath him. He can’t get comfortable because something isn’t right.

Not right, Chubber?

No.

The TV picture has moved on to another story. Still Dartmoor, still about butchery. There’s a pony at a stone circle and someone’s been at it with a knife. Slicing and dicing. Chopping off the poor animal’s knackers. Nasty. Painful. Chubber feels a loosening in his bowels, a queasy sensation of gas rising in his stomach. Uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable what, Chubber?

Uncomfortable truths. Things that happen in stone circles at night when Chubber’s been watching.

Chubber pushes himself up from the sofa, stumbles across the room, fast-food packaging rustling like autumn leaves as he wades through the detritus. All of a sudden he needs the toilet, needs to take a crap, thinks he’s going to be sick. The two actions are essentially incompatible. He rushes down the hallway, clumps up the narrow stairs, bile rising in his throat. He lurches into the bathroom, his face over the sink, vomit exploding from his mouth. He grasps and reaches for the tap, water splashes out as he retches again.

Chubber rubs water on his face, spits into the sink, and then releases the buttons on his trousers. They drop to the floor and he lowers his boxers and turns to sit on the toilet. His bowels open and a long heavy mass of shit drops out. He breathes out a huge sigh of relief, but while the sick and the shit and the stale air have been expelled from his body there’s still something remaining inside. As he reaches for the toilet paper he sees his hand shaking.

Yes, Chubber. Consequences. Haven’t you heard the word?

Of course he’s heard the word, it’s just up until now he’s never thought it would apply to him. Consequences happen to other people. People who piss him off. Kids who tease him on the street. Girls who wear push-up bras in cafes.

Chubber rips off a length of tissue paper, wipes himself, repeats the action, then gets up from the toilet. He washes his hands in cold water and thinks about the cold night up on the moor just before Christmas. The man with the antlers standing by the car. About the next day, when he went back in daylight.

‘Help me!’

The voice had come from the rock. The one in the centre of the circle.

Chubber moved forward, padding across the ground. He scanned the horizon. Nothing. The weather had turned from cold to wet and on this part of the moor there wasn’t a soul to be seen.

‘Is somebody there? Please! Help me!’

The voice was muffled. Like a rock would sound if it could talk.

Didn’t like that, did you Chubber?

No. Voices in head, OK. Voices from a rock, not good. But Chubber had to see, to check. He’d moved even closer. The rock was still talking, crying, sobbing. Screaming.

‘HELP ME!’

Chubber had stopped right next to the big flat stone and put his ear down on the cool granite.

‘HELP ME! FOR GOD’S SAKE HELP ME!’

Silly Chubber. Not the rock. Somebody beneath the rock. Chubber shook his head. Trouble. Not his business. Won’t get involved. Antler Man said he’d be watching Chubber and he’d know if Chubber told tales.

Best keep quiet then, Chubber.

Exactly.

Riley had hunkered down at the computer but he’d hardly got into his work before there was a scraping of chairs and a few coughs. All around the crime suite officers were sitting up straight and clearing their desks of detritus.

‘Hey?’ Riley tapped Davies on the shoulder. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Bloody hell,’ Davies said, sweeping his sandwich wrapping into a nearby bin. ‘It’s our tour party. Didn’t you read the memo this morning? Half a dozen councillors, the Crime Commissioner and a bloody MP who sits on the Home Office committee. Lively, Darius, or you’ll be on dog poo collection duty for the rest of your days.’

Riley straightened and smoothed his shirt as DSupt Hardin showed several men into the room. He recognised two of them as the Commissioner and the local MP. Davies pulled a tie from a drawer and hurriedly put it on.

A little while later Riley wondered why they had bothered to make any effort at all. The visiting party had kept to the other side of the room where the real action was taking place. Sheep rustling didn’t interest them.

The excitement over, Riley resumed his search. After another hour he wasn’t any wiser. He went over to Davies and fanned a sheet of printouts in front of the DI.

‘Stuff from the PNC and some bits and pieces from the internet,’ Riley said. ‘Neither of much use.’

‘No?’ Davies eyed the sheets with suspicion.

‘No.’ Riley waited for a moment. Davies didn’t look interested. ‘The PNC flagged up various incidents countrywide, which at first sight appeared to be connected to devil worship. In reality, nearly all turn out to be animals killed by natural causes or kids pranking around.’

‘Nearly all?’

‘There was a case over in Norfolk connected with child abuse. A load of chickens seem to have been slaughtered ritually in a house where three children had to be taken into care. A man and a woman were convicted. Not ponies, and the rituals seemed to be a sham designed to indoctrinate other adults. Nothing like our situation.’

‘So we’re done?’ Davies appeared disappointed.

‘Well, I’ve found someone at the university – a Professor Falk – he’s an expert in cults and that sort of thing. I’m going to set up a meeting with him to see if he can suggest any new avenues of investigation.’

‘We’re back to orgies then?’ Davies perked up again.

‘Yes.’

‘Well? What are you waiting for, Sergeant?’ Davies pointed across to a phone. ‘Get onto this Falk pronto. As in now, OK?’

Riley nodded and moved back to his desk. Ten minutes later, with the appointment made, he turned back to Davies. Before he had a chance to call across his phone trilled out. DC Denton.

‘There’s a second pony,’ Denton said. ‘A DPA ranger just called it in.’

‘DPA?’ Riley said.

‘Dartmoor Park Authority. He said it’s pretty bad.’ There was a pause. ‘Look, I can’t make it up there until later. I’m working on something to do with the first killing. I said you’d go, OK?’

Riley glanced over to the next desk where Davies had started on his post-breakfast snack; a cup of coffee and a custard doughnut. ‘Sure, mate. Be my pleasure.’

The landlord lived three streets away in a similar period property to his tenants’. It took Savage five minutes to walk there, and when she arrived DC Jane Calter was waiting for her.

‘Ma’am?’ Calter said. ‘The desk sergeant said you wanted me over here, right?’

‘Yes.’ Savage nodded up towards the house. ‘I think this guy might be just your type.’

The big brass knocker reverberated through the street and a minute or so later the door swung open to reveal a man in his thirties with close-cropped hair. Kevin Foster wore a diamond stud in his left ear and a Bluetooth microphone hung from his right. He was speaking to a caller as he opened the door.

‘Sorted, mate.’ Foster made a quizzical expression with his eyebrows and looked at Savage and Calter in turn. ‘No. Three-fifty at least. I won’t go lower and if they piss me around any more you can tell them it’s off the fucking market, understand?’

Savage produced her warrant card and held the identification out for Foster to read.

‘Right then. Be seeing you.’ Foster reached up and unhooked the headset from his ear. ‘’bout the girl, isn’t it? Worried myself, to be honest. Good-looking lass like that goes missing you can only think one thing, can’t you? So when one of your lads came round earlier and told me the bad news I was only too pleased to help. Do anything to find her killer, I would.’

‘May we, Mr Foster?’ Savage gestured inside and Foster nodded and indicated they should come in. He showed them through to the front room, which was some kind of office. To one side of the room several computers, each with multiple screens, sat atop an array of glass tables. On the other side a large leather sofa was angled towards a wall-mounted screen on which a twenty-four-hour news channel played in silence. Foster pulled out a swivel chair and sat down while Savage and Calter plonked themselves down on the sofa.

‘Anasztáz Róka was a tenant of yours, correct?’

‘Yes,’ Foster said. ‘Although she was behind with the rent. She hadn’t paid for three months.’

‘I see. But you let her stay anyway for free.’

‘Well, I’m not an ogre. Bloody nightmare now though, isn’t it?’

Ana, he explained, had come to him pleading poverty. Money she’d been expecting from Hungary hadn’t come through and she’d begged for a grace period. One month became two and then three. Foster tutted to himself.

‘I was too soft, but the lass was foreign and I felt sorry for her.’

‘And was that all you felt?’

‘Hey? I don’t get your drift?’

‘What about her, Mr Foster?’ Calter said. ‘Did she get your drift?’

‘I—’

‘“Good-looking lass like her goes missing you can only think one thing.” Wasn’t that what you just said to us, Mr Foster? Sounded a little bit like a confession to me.’

‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous. As soon as Ana went missing I was concerned about her.’

Savage pointed at the office set-up. ‘What is it you do, Mr Foster?’

‘This and that. A bit of trading, a few properties, some other stuff.’

‘This other stuff, wouldn’t happen to involve the internet, would it?’

‘Sure. What doesn’t these days? I used to work up in London, but now I do everything from here. Some people moan about progress, but I say bring it on.’

‘So you know a bit about technology then?’ Savage looked across at the computers again. ‘You know how to set up networks and that sort of thing?’

‘Of course.’ Foster swivelled his chair from side to side, something like a nervous twitch. ‘What’s this got to do with Ana’s disappearance?’

‘We’ve found a hidden webcam in her room,’ Savage said. ‘Was that part of the deal? Is that the reason you were quite happy for her to stay, despite her being in arrears? Or maybe there were other reasons. Maybe you had something else in mind too.’

‘Web—’ Foster coughed and then swivelled back to face his desk. He reached for a bottle of spring water and unscrewed the top. Three gulps, and he’d composed himself. ‘Don’t know nothing about no webcam. Those girls, well they get up to all sorts, you know. Little minxes, the lot of them.’

‘Minxes, really? So if we were to examine the camera for fingerprints we wouldn’t find any of yours on there? If we took a look at your computers or phone there’d be nothing to indicate you’ve ever accessed this webcam?’

‘There … I …’ Foster raised the bottle to his lips again.

‘Yes?’

‘Accidental. Might have just taken a look when my laptop connected without me knowing.’

‘You take your laptop to the property, do you?’

‘Yes, I mean no. Not usually. Now and again maybe if I need to sort out the internet connection in the house.’

‘And you used the laptop to view this webcam which you knew nothing about?’

‘Yes, that’s about the gist of it.’

‘You watched Ana stripping off and you got excited, didn’t you? I don’t blame you. From the pictures I’ve seen of her she was a very attractive young woman. You must have found it hard to resist going inside and telling her how much you enjoyed watching her. Maybe you didn’t resist. Maybe she was the one who resisted. Maybe you didn’t like the way she repaid your kindness.’

‘You’re crazy. I never touched the girl.’

‘The camera, Mr Foster.’ Calter had stood. Full height, she cut an imposing figure. ‘The explanation of how it got there would go some way to getting you out of the sticky situation you’re in.’

‘The camera …?’

‘Don’t mess around with us,’ Savage said. She crossed to one of the desks and jabbed at a screen. ‘Because I’m jumping to conclusions and there’s only two of them. One, you’re a dirty little pervert who got off on watching Ana. Two, ditto the first conclusion, only – to coin a phrase – watching wasn’t enough. It’s your call, Mr Foster, which is it to be?’

‘This is a fucking stitch-up.’ Foster was on his feet now as well, his chair rotating round and round as he pushed it away. ‘Hobson’s bloody choice. Either way I’m in a whole heap of trouble.’

‘You said it. Best you tell us the truth then, hey? We’re going to be examining these computers, looking at your business receipts, checking to see if anybody else could have placed that camera in Ana’s room.’

‘Shit.’ Foster put his arm out to stop the chair revolving. Shook his head and then reached out for a nearby phone.

‘Put that down please,’ Savage said. ‘You’re coming with us.’

‘Sure. But I get to make a phone call first, right? My lawyer. I pay her enough – ’bout time she got off her fat arse and did some work.’

It was the best part of two hours later before they arrived at the scene. Davies had insisted on lunch. ‘Something warm inside us,’ he’d said. ‘Be cold up there.’

Riley had shaken his head, not much impressed. Now though, he was glad they’d eaten. He stood with his back to a strong breeze, his waterproof flapping wildly until he managed to zip up the front. The wind came from the east, scudding over a ridge and down a hill scattered with low bracken and gorse. Above them the sky was blue, nothing to obscure the sun’s rays, but Davies’ meteorological prediction was spot on. Unlike yesterday, the air temperature was struggling to get into the teens. In August.

Waterproof secured, Riley looked down at the pony again. The animal lay at the centre of a small stone circle, the circle on a plateau set into the hillside. A dozen jagged rocks poked above the heather and grass, the largest barely above knee height, the whole circle with a diameter of perhaps fifteen metres. Stonehenge, it wasn’t. This time though, Riley thought, there really wasn’t much doubt about the cause of death.

The animal lay on its back, a huge gash down the centre running from the base of the tail to the neck. The ribcage had been opened, all four legs forced back and down so the beast was spread-eagled. A mass of entrails lay on the ground to one side; heart, lungs, kidneys and other blobs of flesh Riley couldn’t identify. A little farther away some of the intestines had been laid in a rough circle, the remaining lengths criss-crossed in triangle shapes over the top. Another pentagram.