TOUCH: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel. Mark Sennen
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glided over the dance floor to Savage and Calter in a pale imitation of John Travolta. ‘You coming out clubbing with us Saturday?’
‘Don’t be daft. Those days are over. At least in this sort of place. I’ll be attending tea dances before too long. Us oldies, and by that I mean anyone over thirty, will be walking the streets while you’re busy enjoying yourselves.’
‘Well, what about a quick one now, right here, you and me?’
‘Message in a Bottle’, the Police number, had ended and ‘I Shot the Sheriff’ echoed from the speakers. Savage smiled, another joke from the manager.
‘A quick what, Constable?’
Savage never got an answer because her mobile rang. Hardin. He wanted her to return to the station. No explanation. Just get back. Fast.
Savage left Calter and Enders to scout the rest of the clubs on their list and returned to Crownhill. Hardin was waiting in his office, impatient but wearing a mood of quiet seriousness instead of anger. The frown creasing his forehead and narrowing his eyes made her suspect the worst and she was right.
The body of another girl had been found at Malstead Down, a village on the edge of Dartmoor, some twenty-five miles east of Plymouth. She was naked and had been left in a small wood and the corpse showed signs of sexual interference. Hardin had recounted the facts as if he was telling her about a stolen vehicle.
‘Malstead Down. Not right in the village, but nearby. Close enough to make me worried.’
‘Worried?’
‘The Chief Constable’s mother-in-law lives in the area.’
‘Not Jean Sotherwell, the dog mess woman?’
‘Yes.’
Hardin’s mouth drooped, but Savage couldn’t stifle a half-smile. The Dog Shit Bitch, as she had become known, had provided the lower ranks with much amusement a couple of years ago. She had managed to manipulate the local papers and TV stations and mobilise what, at times, seemed like half the force on a crackdown on dog fouling in Devon beauty spots. Simon Fox – the CC – and his immediate subordinates had jumped on command. It had been quite a sight. This was altogether more serious, but Hardin was taking no chances.
‘I don’t want the media stirred up on this one if it turns out to be a murder. Lord knows where it may lead. They are going to link the killing with the Plymouth rapes and that will cause us all sorts of problems.’ Hardin gnawed on his liquorice stick. ‘I want you out at the scene pronto. My eyes and ears. You’ve got sensitivity. Some of the others think the word means a type of high-grade cannabis.’
Savage didn’t know whether to be offended or pleased.
‘What about Leash?’ Savage asked. ‘With the Olivárez body turning up I feel we are getting somewhere.’
Hardin shook his head. Leash would continue, of course, and he would need everybody come Saturday night, but a third of the team were going to be seconded to the new inquiry.
‘Zebo is the name. I will be pressing to get this ramped up, especially if it does turn out it is a sexual crime. We will be drafting in some of the local boys who have a better knowledge of the area, but the inquiry is to be based here at Major Crimes.’
Savage nodded. Hardin was under a lot of pressure, and if the Malstead body proved to be yet another sex crime he was right, the media would have a field day.
The morning had started out fine, but the rain soon pushed in from the west and by the time Savage set off for Malstead it was torrential. The journey took her to the east, first crossing the Plym where the estuary sliced through acres of mud, a few lonely bait diggers braving the elements in search of lug. Then up onto the A38 where the spray from the heavy lorries made the weather seem all the worse. As she headed along the dual carriageway, Dartmoor rose to her left, a foreboding presence at the best of times. Now, with low cloud scudding over the tors and shadows coalescing in the valleys, the moor appeared as dank and dismal as ever. Savage had history with the place and the two of them had never made up. Never would either.
The little village lay up in the hills not far from Widecombe in the Moor. At Buckfastleigh Savage turned off the A38 and negotiated a maze of lanes that became smaller and more winding as she climbed onto the edge of the moor. Only a few patches of the purple heather bloom remained and the procession of cars, to be found clogging roads all over Devon during the tourist season, was absent. For that reason Savage was driving a little too fast, a fact she had cause to regret when at one T-junction she turned left and had to drive into the hedge as a tractor bounced past, its driver laughing at her as he went by. The car had a couple of fresh scratches, but no other damage and Savage resumed her journey at a slower pace. Half a mile farther on a sign on a neat and well-trimmed verge announced she had arrived. A collection of houses you would be hard pushed to call a hamlet, let alone a village, hugged a small green with a single tree in its centre. At the far end a church lay nestled up against the open hillside. A noticeboard with the name St Michael’s on proclaimed ‘Jesus Loves You’. That was as maybe, but in the wet the building loomed grey and grim; the last sort of place you would go for solace. To the right of the church a uniformed officer stood blocking a narrow lane that wound its way along the edge of the moor. Savage slowed the car, lowered the window and showed her warrant card. The officer bent over.
‘Carry on along here, ma’am. After a mile or so you’ll get to a lay-by where you can park.’
Savage thanked the officer and drove on. To the left the moor towered upward, disappearing into mist and cloud. To the right a patchwork of fields cascaded downward to meet a line of trees marking a river. Beyond the trees the fields grew larger and Savage guessed the river marked the boundary between a small farm and a bigger one. A mile farther on several vehicles were pulled off the road on a grassy verge. She parked the car and struggled into her waterproof jacket, recalling Hardin’s parting words to her.
‘Charlotte, I don’t need to tell you these are disturbing times. With these rapes, the Olivárez murder and now this. I want you to go softly softly on this one because believe me we are already up to our necks in the brown stuff. One wrong step and we might slip under. All of us.’
Hardin’s words seemed appropriate as she stepped out of the car into a squelch of mud. The rain poured down and the cloud seemed even lower, threatening to engulf her in its chilly grip. All around, the hedgerows and trees were fading to brown and up on the moor the bracken had turned a light tan colour. Winter was coming, a cold and harsh one, if you believed the forecasters. Savage shivered at the thought. She didn’t like the winter with its short days and long, dark nights. With Pete away life became difficult. The children went stir-crazy if they couldn’t be outside, and even with Stefan to help out they were a handful. After they had gone to bed for the night Savage should have been able to relax, but she rarely could. She either had stacks of paperwork to complete or, worse, nothing to do but think. And that wasn’t relaxing at all. In a month or so though life would change for the better: In December Stefan would be returning to his family in Sweden for Christmas, like he always did. But Pete was due back end of November. Touch wood.
The door of the car parked in front opened and a young man in his late twenties got out. Tall and athletic with gelled blond hair that shook off the rain like a duck’s back, he stuck out a hand, his big, friendly smile concealing the reason they were both here.
‘DC Craig Newlyn, ma’am. Totnes. I think you’ll find the whole thing a little confusing.’
‘Morning, Constable. Who discovered the body?’
‘Found by a local farmer,’ Newlyn said. ‘He spotted the tracks in his field, figured they belonged to poachers or vandals, went down to investigate and bingo. Name of Gordon Isaacs. He owns the land around here. His farm is along the road a bit, up on the left.’
‘What time?’ asked Savage.
‘Last night. Only he didn’t alert us until this morning, said he had work to do.’
‘What? Well that’s not a good