Cath Staincliffe - Bleed Like Me

‘Aw, no, man!’ he said. She wondered if it was a Welsh thing, the man , or if he was trying to be down with the kids (though round these parts they all said bro or bruv these days), or if his parents had been New Agers. ‘What’ve I done?’

‘Not you, sorry, not you,’ Rachel said. ‘Just a bad idea.’

He looked crestfallen, sat and sighed. ‘Get you a cab,’ he said.

A good bloke. She was surprised, had anticipated nasty words, prickteaser , slapper , maybe something physical.

‘Reception’ll get me one.’

He gave a little nod.

She pulled on her shoes, the earlier elation now a sour sort of misery, an ache in her guts.

‘Take care then,’ he said at the door, with no hint of hostility. Somehow it made her even sadder. It might have been easier if he’d bitched about being led on, let down. His understanding made her feel even lousier. Not only was she fucked off with her wastrel of a father and her posh knob of an ex-boyfriend but now she felt guilty for messing the Welsh bloke about.

She felt sober and sick when she got home but she was still stumbling about. She threw up in the lavatory, drank a pint of water with some painkillers. In bed the room swayed and there was a drone buzzing in her ears, but eventually she slept.

She dreamt of the lake, her bed floating on the lake and a dog barking at the water’s edge and her father fishing. She was looking for something but could not remember what it was. She knew that something terrible would happen if she didn’t find it but how could she find it if she didn’t know what it was? She kept pulling at the duvet and the sheet as the bed spun round and round, searching, hunting for a clue, anything to help her recall what was lost. But there was nothing there, just her bed turning and the wide black water.

Chris had spent the night at Gill’s again. Which meant she got even less sleep. It was his last night. He was moving on to spend the rest of his leave with friends who lived on Skye.

‘Oh, whisky and peat fires,’ she said, ‘windswept beaches. Take me with you.’

Before they’d gone to bed, she’d talked to him over a ridiculously late dinner about the deadlock in the case. ‘Janet’s the best we’ve got, but he’s withholding. It’s the only power he’s got left.’

‘Do you think he’d be any different with a male interviewer?’

‘No, or perhaps even more entrenched if that was possible,’ Gill said.

‘What’s the psychologist say?’

‘Same old. Be polite, stay calm, we’re playing all the right strokes.’

‘Can he keep it up indefinitely?’ Chris said.

‘I don’t know. I think the way she’s appealing to him as a man with a moral code, acting as though he’s still responsible for the family, I think that’s right. And I think if anything will break through the barrier that will, but so far – nowt.’ Gill shook her head.

She didn’t talk to Chris about Sammy, preferred to keep that quiet. Of course, Chris knew Sammy had moved to Dave’s and that Gill had been dismayed when he left so suddenly. But she didn’t want to share the latest developments, especially given the implicit criticism of their relationship by Dave, which was being aped by her son.

Chris got up in the morning when she did, wanting to start his journey north while the roads were quiet. She kissed him goodbye outside the house. It was still dark, the sky just beginning to lighten in the east, the air still and misty and everything drenched with dew.

‘It was great,’ she said, ‘even though I was at work most of the time.’

‘Quality,’ he said. ‘Good luck with it all.’ He kissed her again. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach him.

‘Do you know where you’ll be next?’ she asked him.

‘No idea. Soon as I do I’ll let you know.’

Gill felt a pang; she’d miss him. It could be weeks before they’d have a chance to meet again, especially if his next case was far from Manchester.

‘One for the road.’ He smiled. She could see his breath, a mist in the cold of the morning.

They kissed, a kiss to remember, one to savour. At last she drew away, said goodbye and got into her car. He followed her over the edge of the moors and down the hill to the main road, where they went their different ways.

And Gill wondered, as she did each time he left, if she would ever see him again.

It had been agreed the previous evening that while the search continued at Kittle Lake, an initial assessment visit would be made to the canal to consider the best approach to a search there. Rachel was due to meet Mark Tovey on site first thing.

Rachel suspected Her Maj was keeping her away from Cottam, away from the heart of the inquiry, but if that meant getting out into the field looking for some clue, something, anything, to lead them to the missing kids, then that was fine by Rachel. Way better than sitting on her arse wallowing in reports, which she might have been told to do.

Fog was forecast and Rachel set off early in case of delays. Idiots piling into each other on the motorway, ignoring the hazard warning signs, FOG SLOW DOWN. Still going at seventy and then bleating when it all went tits up. If they’d still breath to bleat with.

Her hands were scabbing over but any time she did anything the skin opened again, and she needed to use her hands for practically everything. The itching sensation was worse and her shoulders and knees and ribcage ached from the impact of slamming into the ground when she was trying to stop Owen Cottam. She’d dosed herself up with painkillers and coffee to deal with that and the residue of a hangover which lingered at the back of her skull as though someone had cuffed her too hard on the head.

The good news was that the bridge had been identified as Dobrun Lane on the Leeds & Liverpool canal between Wigan and Lundfell. The bad news was that the local angling association had fishing rights on extensive stretches of the canal and there were many other access points to the waterway in the area. A snapshot of Michael Milne and Owen Cottam’s reference to drowning were the only tenuous links to miles of water.

Rachel arrived half an hour early and parked as directed on a rough patch of land shy of the Dobrun Lane bridge. The site of a pub in times past, now razed to the ground.

She had brought maps of the area with her. North of the bridge there was a scattering of houses and farms on either side of the canal, the properties few and far between. To the south it was mostly farmland.

It was cold sitting in the car and Rachel did not want to put the heater on and risk the battery. She decided to make use of the time by having a walk along the canal. She took a torch with her, as it was still dark. She did not want to end up in the drink herself.

Sound was distorted, she noticed, as she walked up to the bridge: her footsteps were harsh against the gravel but sounds beyond that, birds and a distant motor, were muffled. She took the steps down to the towpath carefully. They looked worn, wet and slippery in the light from her torch. Once she was on the path she lit a cigarette and smoked as she walked along. The fog, thick yellow-grey, smothered the place.

Dead or alive? If the Cottam boys were dead, the police would have to try to find and recover the bodies. From the water somewhere if he’d drowned them. She didn’t know much about canals but she did get that they were still water so there was a limit to how far the bodies would travel with no currents or tide to move them further afield. Finding them in the canal should be relatively easy, then, if they only knew which part to look in. If they’d been killed some other way, strangled or suffocated, then buried, they could be in any of the surrounding fields or woods. And if they were still alive they must be contained somewhere.