LITMIR.BIZ

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car park and stood next to her, shoulders down. ‘It’s the boy, ma’am. A body. Sorry.’

      ‘Oh.’ Savage put out a hand and steadied herself against her car. For a moment anger welled inside, but she was surprised how quickly the feeling was replaced with resignation. As if, deep down, she’d known the probable outcome all along. She stared past Calter towards the concrete monstrosity of the station. ‘Sometimes I wonder why we do this job.’

      ‘Me too.’

      Savage shook her head. Focused on Calter. ‘Where?’

      ‘On the Drake’s Trail cycle path. The Shaugh Prior tunnel. In there.’

      ‘Get back inside the station,’ Savage said as she opened the car door. She ducked in. ‘Find Gareth Collier and start setting things in motion. I want Ned Stone brought in and questioned too. Oh, and if no one else has, then you’d better call the DSupt as well.’

      ‘In hand, ma’am. Apparently he’s heading out to the crime scene himself.’

      ‘Hardin? Great, that’s all we need.’

      Savage slammed the door, started up, and swung the car out of the station car park. She headed north up the Tavistock Road, swept along in the dwindling traffic of the rush hour. She then turned right down past Bickleigh Barracks. After passing the entrance to the army base, the road narrowed and turned left and then right before crossing over the disused railway line, now a cycle trail. The lane followed a strip of woodland and then crossed back over the line at the entrance to the Shaugh Prior tunnel. She pulled over to the left-hand side of the road and parked behind a marked police car. The lights on top flashed, each flash painting the surroundings with a blue-grey streak. As she got out, the door to the car opened and a uniformed officer emerged.

      ‘Evening,’ he said. He nodded into the car where a woman officer sat in the passenger seat half turned so she could watch the middle-aged man slumped in the rear. ‘PC Dawson, ma’am. I’ll take you down to the scene while Lisa here stays with the gentleman who found him.’

      ‘No one remained with the body then?’ Savage said.

      ‘Er, no.’ The officer reached up and scratched the back of his neck. ‘Bit nippy. Plus somebody had to stay up here with this fella.’

      ‘Both of you?’

      ‘Yes. Backup in case he got nasty or tried to do a runner.’

      ‘I see.’ Savage peered in the window again at the man in the back. He appeared too shell-shocked to do anything much. She gestured to where a narrow path led from the road down to the cycle track. ‘Shall we?’

      PC Dawson nodded and then tramped along the road and down the path. Savage followed. The path curled round and down into the railway cutting. As they reached the bottom a cyclist swished past, the taillight on the bike blinking into the distance in the near dusk.

      ‘Jesus!’ Savage said. ‘We need to close this as soon as possible. Where’s the body?’

      ‘Way up in the tunnel,’ Dawson said, pulling out a penlight torch and handing it to Savage. ‘Our witness says he found it when he stopped halfway to take a leak. I left a fluorescent safety vest next to the boy.’

      Savage moved forward, Dawson just behind her. Deep in the cutting the light was fading and Savage wanted to get her bearings before night came. She’d been up and down the cycle path many times with her children. On most of the route the gradient was easy and with several tunnels and viaducts there was always something for the kids to get excited about.

      A graceful horseshoe curve of granite blocks marked the entrance to the tunnel, the surface of the stones covered with moss and ivy. Inside the mouth, a strip of concrete stretched into the darkness, ballast to either side. Water dripped from the ceiling and splashed on the floor.

      ‘Looks as if the lights are out,’ Savage said. When she’d been in the tunnel before, there’d been lights every fifty metres or so. The lights had been strong enough to dispel the slight sense of unease as she’d ridden through. Now there was nothing but inky black. Savage made a mental note to check whether the failure had been reported and then pushed on, the torchlight swathed in the darkness, picking out the rough walls. They’d gone a hundred metres when something glowed bright in the beam.

      ‘There,’ Savage said. ‘The reflective tape on the safety vest. You stay put.’

      ‘On my own?’ Dawson said.

      ‘Stop wittering. I’ll only be a few steps away.’

      ‘Yeah, but you’ve got the torch.’

      Savage stayed in the centre of the tunnel and walked on, leaving Dawson trying to get some illumination from his phone. Beyond the flare of light from the fluorescent jacket something lay up against the wall, seemingly half buried in the stonework. As she got closer she could see whatever it was had been pulled into a small recess. A few more steps and she stood next to the safety vest. Now when she flashed the torch into the recess she could see the tumbled form of a body. A boy, naked apart from Y-fronts and a pair of wellington boots on his feet. The body lay face down, dark fluid glistening on the ballast beneath the boy’s right hand.

      ‘Shit,’ Savage whispered to herself. She’d seen many bodies, some in the most appalling of states and circumstances, but she’d never become immunised to the shock. Here was somebody who a day or so ago had been walking and talking, feeling happy or sad. They’d been laughing or crying. Taking in the world through their eyes, nose, ears and fingertips. For the short time this boy had lived he’d been different from the soil and the rocks and the inanimate objects which were no more than a collection of atoms. Now he was just that. A bunch of decaying cells. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. A life gone, the poor kid’s consciousness extinguished forever.

      ‘You found the body then?’ Dawson’s voice brought her back to the tunnel. His words echoed off the stonework for a moment before being choked to nothing by the mass of rock around them.

      ‘Yes.’ Savage remembered to breathe. She slowly exhaled. She tried to suppress her anger and emotion and instead focused on the scene around her.

      ‘Why here?’ Dawson said. ‘They must have known the body would have been discovered fairly quickly.’

      ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Other cyclists must have passed through the tunnel today. It was just fortuitous that ours decided to stop and relieve himself next to this hole.’

      ‘It’s a refuge for railway workers,’ Dawson said knowledgeably. ‘If a train came, they could shelter as it passed.’

      ‘Don’t tell me you’re a railway nut, PC Dawson.’

      ‘No, ma’am. There’s an information board on the cycle route. Tells you all about the old line. Did you know that—’

      ‘No, and I don’t want to know either.’ Savage stepped away from the body and then turned and walked back to the PC. ‘Get along to the far side of the tunnel and stop any more cyclists coming through.’

      ‘Hey? Must be a couple of hundred metres and it’s pitch black, ma’am. I’ll probably brain myself. That’s if the killer is not waiting for me. I’d rather not.’

      ‘Don’t be stupid. Here, take this.’ Savage handed Dawson the torch. ‘I’ll make my way out and secure this end. I don’t want to think about what our chief CSI is going to say when he arrives.’

      Dawson huffed but reached out and took the torch. ‘You’ll be OK, ma’am?’

      ‘Yes, now go before anyone else comes through.’

      The PC shuffled off, his shadow dancing away in a circle of light. Savage turned to where a faint glimmer marked the edge of the tunnel. She took tentative steps on the concrete surface as utter blackness folded in around her. As the sounds of Dawson walking off grew fainter, she heard the drip, drip, drip of water falling from the ceiling. She tried not to think about the killer nor about the hundreds of tonnes of rock balancing overhead.

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