She knows she’ll die here. She knew it early on. Alone. In the dark. In a damp London cellar with a century and a half of coal dust weeping from every brick. How long does it take to realise the truth, to accept it? Bound tightly, round and round, the heavy-duty plastic tape biting into the flesh of her calves, her thighs, her arms, pinching her face.
Hours slide into days. She loses track.
He didn’t blindfold her and she knows why. He wants her to see the rats. They come and go. Always scurrying, the scratch of their claws as they scamper along the beams above her head. Moving ever closer, whiskers twitching. She kicks them away. She knows they’re biding their time. Waiting for her to lose consciousness. To become meat.
She always knew a time would come when she’d be waiting for death but didn’t expect it to be so soon. She’s stopped being thirsty. Dying from dehydration can take ten days or more. It might not be so bad – or is she fooling herself?
She waits. There’s no choice. Random memories float into her head. Jumping out of a taxi and trying to run in stupid shoes when she was late for her sister’s wedding. That one little teddy bear with a torn ear she had as a child.
He won’t come back, she’s sure of that. So the grate of the door bolt startles her. He comes thumping down the wooden stairs, which creak under his weight. The coal cellar is narrow and low-ceilinged, forcing him to stoop. Her eyes are adjusted to the gloom; the brightness exploding from the open door above is blinding. He squats in front of her. She hears his breath, feels the warmth of his body.
‘I still can’t get my head round it,’ he says. ‘Was it always just a pack of lies?’
Her mouth is sealed shut, there’s no way of replying.
The light from the hallway above falls across his face. He seems more sorrowful than angry.
‘I’ve got to kill you, you know that, don’t you? I got no choice. You left me no choice.’
Her jaw is tightly taped. The only sound she can manage is a low pleading growl in her throat.
He shakes his head. ‘Nah, the gag stays on. I know you. You’re not going to fool me again with your she-devil stuff.’
In his hand he has a small kitchen knife. The blade will be razor sharp. Men like him don’t go in for zombie knives or machetes. It’s a question of professional pride.
Her arms are pinioned at her side, the tape goes round her elbows and torso. He grabs her hand, twists it round to expose the wrist. So that’s his plan: slash her wrists, let her bleed out. There’s a kindness in that.
But he lays the steel tip on her forearm in the soft flesh above the wrist. He’s toying with her, teasing. Perhaps he thinks she deserves no better.
The blade is as keen as she predicted. There’s a small sting as it breaks the skin. She imagines the blood bubbling up although she can’t see it. He lifts the knife and makes a second cut at right angles. He’s carved a cross on her forearm.
With a sour chuckle, he says, ‘X marks the spot.’
Maybe it’s his idea of humour. Or torture. He wants to ramp up the fear. But she’s curiously calm.
As he raises the knife, light from the hallway above glints on the metal. Now she knows she’ll never be returning to the world above, to the light.
She feels the honed point against the side of her neck just below the ear. If he slashes her carotid artery it will be quick.
‘You broke my heart, you bitch. You know that, don’t you?’ His voice cracks.
Yes, she knows. He’s right. She broke her own heart too. If only she could tell him that.
Grey dawn light seeps through the veil of mist over the bay. There’s an offshore breeze which sends a ripple back across the crest of each small wave. The gulls are roosting in gaggles on a shoulder of hard sand. The adults, heads and beaks nestled in their folded wings, hardly stir as Megan passes. The season’s babies, now gangly teenagers, as large as their parents but with mottled brown feathers, strut and squawk in hope of food.
As she reaches the edge of the lapping water her bare feet sink into the sand. The first touch of the sea is icy as she wades in. The green seaweed tickles her ankles but she doesn’t care. She’d resisted at first – it seemed a crazy idea – but now this is her essential morning ritual. Her skin gooses up as she ploughs in and, thigh deep, she throws herself forward in a gentle splash and starts to swim.
The shock of it is the thrill. She’s so far ignored the advice to get a wetsuit, although she does wear a cap to protect her hair. Swimming an easy breaststroke, she heads out into the bay. The tide is ebbing, exposing browny-green seaweed-encrusted rocks to her left below the imposing red cliffs.
Some mornings the tide is high, leaving only the narrowest ribbon of beach. These are the days she prefers. If it’s not rough, the fullness of the bay, the shimmering depth of water, creates an eerie serenity. She rarely sees another soul – the odd dog-walker, but she’s usually too early even for them.
As her body glides along, her mind empties. Her face dips in and out of the water. She tastes brine and glimpses the mysterious world below, then the vast sky, looming cliffs and tree-lined shore above. The sea cradles her, reminding some ancient part of her brain that this is where we all began.
She rolls on to her back to gaze up at the whited-out sky. Rain is forecast but that doesn’t bother her. She slides into a relaxed sidestroke and slips along without too much effort.
Suddenly, bobbing in the water ahead of her, she sees a large object. A plastic bin bag? My God, a floating corpse? The front portion of it rises and she finds herself staring into two mournful black eyes. A huge Atlantic grey bull seal. He leans his head back to consider her. His nostrils flare, whiskers twitching. He seems to be wondering if she’s a competitor for his breakfast, decides she’s not and sinks away out of sight.
Her heart soars with sheer joy. She swims back to shore, wades out of the water and runs up the beach.
Detective Sergeant Megan Thomas sits in the low-slung armchair, arms folded, legs crossed. She’s well aware the posture is defensive but she doesn’t care. In the opposite chair Doctor Diane Moretti smooths her checked jersey pencil skirt with both palms and smiles.
‘Well then,’ she says, ‘how’s it all been going?’
Megan considers the stupidity of the question. Moretti has a slew of qualifications and whatever she charges for exactly fifty-five minutes of her time is not going to be cheap. But at least Megan isn’t paying. Devon and Cornwall Police are footing the bill. And Moretti is definitely not a run-of-the-mill therapist dispensing a few cognitive behavioural tricks to burnt-out cops. She’s a full-blown shrink, or consultant psychiatrist, as it says on the door. Megan doesn’t know whether to be flattered or worried. Her new boss, Detective Superintendent Rob Barker, has made it a condition of her transfer from the Met that she ‘sees someone’.
So she returns Moretti’s smile and says, ‘Fine.’
The doctor tilts her head. ‘And how’s the swimming going?’
‘Yeah, it’s okay.’
Okay. When Moretti had suggested to her that she take up swimming as a way to manage her moods, she’d thought it was a joke. Wild swimming, a pastime for weirdos, she’d read about it in the Sunday supplements. The shrink had thrown some statistics at her; its efficacy in the treatment of depression is well-documented. But Megan didn’t think she was depressed.
She’d started in the summer when she first arrived in Devon, which made it easier. Now she was a total addict but she wasn’t about to admit it to Moretti.
‘And how are you sleeping? Any better?’
‘Bloody seagulls still keep me awake.’
‘They take some getting used to. Your sister’s place is in Berrycombe?’
Megan nods. ‘Overlooks the harbour. Nice view.’
Moretti grins. ‘And lots of gulls.’
Polite foreplay. The first ten minutes of every session are like this. Then they lapse into silence.
Megan scans Moretti’s expression. If she encountered it in an interview room she’d say the woman was over-confident bordering on smug. Aged around fifty. Expensive haircut but no attempt to eradicate the grey. Her clothes are the usual professional woman’s kit in fifty shades of beige. Sensible shoes.
‘Where do you live?’ Megan asks.
‘As I’ve said before, Megan, this is not about me.’
‘Yeah, yeah, you ask the questions.’
‘If that’s all right.’
‘Do I have a choice?’
Moretti laces her fingers, this time her head tilts the other way.
‘Post-traumatic stress disorder is a serious diagnosis,’ she says.
‘Tell me about it. Isn’t that why you’ve got me up at the crack of dawn every day freezing my arse off in the sea?’
‘If you don’t want to take medication it’s a good alternative.’
‘You don’t have to do it.’
The doctor smiles. ‘The notes I have from your London doctor suggest that you don’t accept PTSD is an accurate diagnosis in your case.’
‘No, I accept it. I just don’t see the point of labels. I don’t think they help.’
Moretti keeps on smiling. She has the kind of fey, one-sided lip curl that could become really annoying really quickly. Megan reminds herself that she wasn’t going to let this get to her. Show up, sit there, go through the motions, box ticked. And swim. That was the plan. She takes a deep breath to calm herself.
‘Well, in your view, what would help?’ Moretti asks.
‘Who the hell knows?’ It comes out with a huff which is not Megan’s intention. ‘You get on with it, don’t you? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and all that crap.’
‘That’s not necessarily crap. A sense that you’ve survived against the odds can be life-enhancing.’
‘Good. I’ll take that.’
‘I get the impression that you resent having to come here, Megan. You regard it as an imposition.’
‘That’s because it is. I told you, my old London boss and Superintendent Barker are mates. And they made a deal. Barker would take a chance on me if I agreed to continue seeing a shrink. It was that or retirement on medical grounds. And I’m forty-two. I’ve been a police officer since I was nineteen. I don’t know what the hell else I’d do.’
‘Is he taking a chance?’
Megan shrugs. ‘Okay, look, I’m not very good at spilling my guts to order. But I’m not stupid. And I’m not a child. I know it’s your job to help me. And I’m taking your advice, doing the swimming. I don’t know what else you expect.’ She heaves a sigh, uncrosses and recrosses her legs. Spiteful thoughts niggle at her. ‘This is not about me.’ Patronising cow.
‘I do understand,’ says Moretti. ‘You think that to need this kind of help is weak. But if you’d broken your leg, say, would you have objected to a surgeon fixing it?’
‘Well, yeah, that would be easier. And it doesn’t make sense. I get it. But head stuff is different, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t think body and mind are separate. Trauma affects the whole person. I’ve treated combat veterans and I can tell you that the guy who gets his leg blown off often copes better than the one without a scratch on him.’
Megan inhales. ‘Yeah, but it’s obvious what’s happened to him.’
‘Do you feel a fraud because there’s no visible proof of your injury?’
Unfolding her arms, Megan considers this. What she feels she can’t describe. Shame? The shame of failure? The embarrassment of success. The secret fear of being found out. These conflicting emotions writhe in her brain like snakes.
Moretti seems to read her mind. ‘You were awarded the Queen’s Police Medal. That’s pretty impressive.’
‘A gong is a gong. I just did my job. It’s no big deal.’
Megan breaks eye contact and stares out of the window. There’s not much to see. Brick wall, grey sky, a ragged buddleia. The ceremony was a big deal. Togged up in a brand new dress uniform, she received her medal from the Commissioner in person. It felt uncomfortable and surreal; out of the whole team she was singled out. She hated that. She wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. Afterwards they all went out and got roaring drunk.
The A38 Devon Expressway down to Plymouth scoots round the southern flank of Dartmoor. As a Londoner born and bred, Megan’s still getting used to the landscape. She’s also getting used to driving a hybrid car. It’s small and bright blue – not her choice – and cruises along like an electric lawnmower. The petrolhead in Megan hates it. The last car she owned before this was a growler, an old Subaru with a top speed that was totally illegal. She loved it, the risk, the rush. But this is her new, healthier, country life. It’s better for the planet. And it’s better for me, she tells herself, even though she doesn’t believe it.
The moors rise up and disappear into a curtain of mist. The autumn fields are a patchwork of muted greens and ochres with occasional farm tracks, tramlines of raw red earth wandering over the hillside. Sheep and trees haven’t really featured that much in Megan’s life, now they’re everywhere. Holidays are one thing, but actually living in a place where nature seems more in charge is unnerving. It’s hard to take it all in. Her eyes flick from the road ahead to the sweep of hills. She knows it’s going to take some getting used to. But that’s the least of it.
The office is still in the temporary accommodation that the CID detectives moved into five years ago in response to the cuts. Police stations in prime locations had to be sold off to balance the budget. The Major Crime Team for South Devon operates from an upstairs suite in a small industrial park on the outskirts of Plymouth. Megan weaves her way round lorries unloading pallets and double-parked delivery vans to find a tiny slot in the pocked concrete car park assigned to the MCT. It’s about the only advantage of having a toy car, as far as she can see.
As she walks in, the morning briefing is already in progress. Detective Chief Inspector Laura Slater pauses mid-sentence, registers her new sergeant’s late arrival, and continues. ‘And that means I’ll need all outstanding documents for the file which will go to the Crown Prosecution Service on Friday.’
Megan has met Laura Slater twice, at the interview and during her three-day induction the previous week. Quiet but expensive clothes, blonde hair pulled back in a neat coil, Slater looks more like a lawyer than a cop and rumour has it she thinks like one.
The briefing room is too small for its purpose and contains a random selection of chairs and spare desks. Eight officers are variously sitting and perching in a semi-circle around the DCI at the front.
Vish Prasad, one of two detective constables recently promoted from uniform, jumps up and offers Megan his chair. Tall, with his jet-black hair shaved at the back and sides and a neat Van Dyke beard, he looks like a prince in a Bollywood movie. He smiles at Megan, she smiles back and accepts the seat. He’s so young and unscathed and beautiful; she feels a pang of envy.
‘Next up,’ says Slater, ‘everyone’s favourite. A body has been discovered in a septic tank.’
A collective groan rolls round the room.
‘For the benefit of our new colleague Megan,’ –Slater gives her a nod – ‘I should explain that in the more rural parts of our patch, mains drainage is rare and septic tanks are common. Bodies found in them are—’
‘Covered in shit, yeah I get it, boss.’ Megan folds her arms and gives Slater a tepid smile.
Slater turns to the other DS on the squad. Ted Jennings is munching his way through a large squidgy apricot Danish. ‘Ted,’ she says. ‘Are you with us?’
Dusting pastry flakes and glaze from his chin, he beams. ‘Yes, ma’am. Of course.’
Ted looks like a clone of all the paunchy, balding, middle-aged white blokes who have occupied every squad room Megan has entered in the course of her career. Some turn out to be ultra-smart geniuses behind the façade of a badly pressed suit. Others are just lazy sods sitting it out for their pension. Megan knows that the answer to the DCI’s next question will clarify which species Ted belongs to.
‘Could you go and take a look.’
‘I would, boss,’ he replies. ‘But my tooth’s been playing up again and I’ve finally got an appointment for a root canal this morning. Pain’s been awful.’
‘Luckily it doesn’t stop you eating,’ says the DCI drily.
‘I try and chew on the other side,’ he replies.
Megan scans the room. Vish and the other new DC, Brittney Saric, are alert and waiting for action like two puppies. A civilian analyst is checking her phone under the desk. Three uniforms on secondment are trying to look interested and another middle-aged, balding DC, sitting at the back, is taking copious notes. Or doodling. Hard to tell.
The team is missing its DI, who is on long term sick leave, Slater explained during Megan’s induction. No one has been brought in to cover.
The DCI turns to Megan and sighs. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘in at the deep end, I suppose. Hope you don’t mind.’
The DCs smirk. The boss is a little too buttoned-up to do humour but Megan realises this is her attempt at a joke.
Megan smiles. ‘Yeah, no problem. You want me to look first then call CSI or give them a heads-up now?’
‘Probably make them aware,’ Slater replies. ‘People rarely end up in septic tanks by accident.’
‘Okay.’ Megan stands up and heads for the door.
‘Vish or Brittney can go with you.’
This stops Megan in her tracks. Yet another thing she’s not used to any more, working with a team.
The two DCs scramble to their feet. Brittney grabs her bag, Vish drops his phone. The new DS is from the Met and therefore they are in total awe.
Slater gives them a sardonic look, sighs and turns to Megan. ‘Which one do you want?’
The pool car is a new Škoda. Vish drives, Megan sits beside him. Brittney is crammed in the back. Choosing between the two eager beavers proved impossible. Megan simply shrugged, it was Slater who decided that both the rookie DCs would benefit from the experience. Megan isn’t sure she will. She prefers to work alone.
Vish drives like many twenty-somethings, foot hard on the gas pedal, braking sharply, then back on the gas as he taps out some interior tune on the steering wheel.
Megan glances at him, she finds his pent-up energy wearing. ‘You’re not on response now,’ she says. ‘Let’s get there in one piece.’
‘Sorry, skip,’ he replies.
‘Skip? What am I, your dog?’
‘Isn’t that what you call a sergeant in the Met? Skipper?’
‘Not any time in the last fifty years.’
‘Sorry, boss.’
‘The DCI’s the boss, I’m Megan. Okay?’
In the back, Brittney appears to be enjoying the exchange. She’s a tubby girl with glasses that make her look like an owl. She’s older than him, around thirty; she clearly assumes this gives her seniority.
‘His actual name’s Vishwajeet,’ she says.
Megan smiles. ‘Bet that was fun at school.’
He shrugs. ‘Nah, mostly they just called me “Paki”. They found it easier.’
‘Better than “Miss Piggy”,’ says Brittney with some feeling.
They turn off the main road up a narrow lane and a steep hill running on to the moor. The hedgerows are set on high banks, known as Devon banks, which turn the road almost into a tunnel. It’s mainly single track with passing places and the hedges make it impossible to see anything of the surrounding countryside.
A soft haze of rain is falling and as they emerge from the tunnel and on to the open moor the hillside disappears in a blanket of white. The car clanks over a cattle grid.
‘Do you know where you’re going?’ Megan asks.
‘Not really,’ Vish replies. ‘I just put the postcode in the satnav.’
‘Postcodes are crap round here,’ says Brittney. ‘Same one can cover miles.’
‘That’s encouraging,’ says Megan. She clicks her phone on and stares at it. ‘I don’t appear to have a signal.’
‘You won’t. Not up here.’ Brittney seems to enjoy being the prophet of doom.
Megan sighs. ‘Do either one of you actually know the patch?’
Vish shakes his head. ‘I’m from Bristol. Only been down here two weeks.’
‘I grew up in Bournemouth,’ says Brittney. ‘Had a spell in uniform in Exeter but that’s different.’ She chuckles. ‘Bit of a change from London, eh, Megan?’
‘Somewhat.’
A complete change from life as she’s known it, Megan reflects. But is that a bad thing? The jury’s still out. She spent the last five years in a netherworld of lies and pretence. That’s what it means to be an undercover officer. And that’s one thing she won’t miss. She wants to return to normality, that’s what she said at the interview. But what that even looks like, she’s not sure she knows.
They drive on for half a mile into the veil of misty rain.
‘It should be round here somewhere,’ Vish announces. He points to the map on the satnav.
Suddenly two Greyface Dartmoor sheep skip out of the murk and make a dash for it across the road.
‘I think we’re lost,’ says Brittney.
Megan sighs again. ‘What’s this place called?’
‘Winterbrook Farm,’ Vish replies. ‘Maybe there’ll be a track and a sign.’
‘What if there isn’t?’ says Brittney.
‘Okay,’ says Megan. ‘Next person or house, stop.’
They continue in silence until an off-road car park looms into sight. The neat square of stone chippings is surrounded by large boulders with a National Park information board at the entrance.
Vish pulls in. There are several cars, a small cluster of Dartmoor ponies browsing the nearby grass and a lonely ice cream van.
Megan gets out. She pulls her hood up. The jacket is new, waterproof and outdoorsy. She can’t remember ever having owned such a garment before.
As she strolls over to the ice cream van, the driver gets up and opens the hatch. ‘Nice day for a walk,’ he says with a grin.
‘Not really,’ Megan replies.
‘Oh it’ll pick up. Sunny by lunchtime.’
‘I’m looking for Winterbrook Farm.’
‘You a fan then? Not sure I should say. She gets a lot of hassle.’
Megan gives him a quizzical look. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Georgia likes her privacy. Even though it’s a while since she was on the telly, people still come.’
Megan pulls out her warrant card and holds it up. ‘She’s expecting me.’
He raises his eyebrows. ‘Oh, I see. Well, there’s no sign. But there’s a track on your left. About a hundred yards down the road.’ He points back in the direction they’ve come. ‘Is it a stalker then?’
‘Something like that. Who on earth buys ice cream on a day like this?’
‘Loads of people. Walkers. Cyclists especially. Just had a minibus of Germans. Do you want one?’
The small dormer window is set into the sloping slate roof. Shirin has been staring out of it for most of the morning. The rain hasn’t let up and the hillside opposite remains shrouded in a pall of cloud.
Her eyes float back to the computer screen. Getting on with work seems the best distraction but it’s not going well. She stands up, interlocks her fingers behind her head and stretches.
The attic room is carpeted and cosy. It’s kitted out as an office but it’s also become her sanctuary. Being at the top of a narrow winding stairway gives her the privacy she craves. Mostly.
She looks out of the window again. Across the yard and down the hill the workmen are sheltering from the weather under a makeshift tarpaulin and sharing mugs of coffee from a flask. She wonders what she should do and concludes, for about the twentieth time that morning, the best thing is to do nothing. Until she can figure out what’s going on.
The farmhouse is old, with thick walls of stone like a castle. When Shirin first arrived it had felt a strange and alien place. But now it’s a second home, as far removed from the tower block in South London where she grew up as she could get.
As she’s about to go back to work she hears a footfall on the stairs. She feels her irritation rising. Now what?
The door is flung open and Georgia O’Brien appears on the threshold in full Valkyrie mode. She’s a large woman with a crinkly grey mane and an opera singer’s bust. She’s also Shirin’s employer.
‘This is bloody, bloody, bloody ridiculous!’ she says in a booming contralto. ‘Why is this happening? Why did we need anyone to look at the tank?’
Shirin shrugs her shoulders. ‘I had to call them. The tank’s fractured. It had to be dug out. There was no alternative.’
‘It’s been fine until now.’
‘Well, now it’s not fine. It’s leaking. Badly. Polluting the stream.’
‘You’ve done this deliberately, haven’t you? And you deliberately didn’t tell me. Yet another cunning little plan of yours to put the screws on me.’ The spiteful comment surprises Shirin.
‘Georgia, that is ridiculous and you know it. I just didn’t want to bother you. I had no idea about this. Obviously I didn’t. Calm down. Take a Xanax.’
The older woman stares at her, nostrils flaring, looking, Shirin thinks, remarkably like a horse. Or perhaps an angry donkey. She’s learnt from experience that reading too much into Georgia’s overblown manner is a mistake. It’s all a performance. Usually. But today she seems genuinely . . .
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