Stephen Booth - One Last Breath

Quinn grimaced. Because of the interruption, the sheep he’d killed had been found too soon. Anyone who took a close look at the carcass would be able to see that it hadn’t died by accident. Soon, the search parties would arrive in his dale.

Well, so be it. Quinn patted the crossbow in its bag across his shoulder. This meant the time was past for taking risks, for spreading fear among those who ought to be afraid. The time had arrived to finish the job.

‘You’re convinced he’s back in Castleton?’

‘Who?’

Alistair Page laughed. ‘Mansell Quinn. That’s who you’re looking for, isn’t it? It’s hardly a secret by now. It’s been all over the papers and TV.’

Ben Cooper nodded. ‘Yes, OK, you’re right.’

‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t really need to ask. I know somebody who works at the craft shop down the road there. They said he was in the shop, and he got caught on the security cameras.’

Cooper sighed. ‘There’s no point in trying to keep anything secret in a place like this, is there?’

‘Absolutely no point.’

Page’s mannerism of speech seemed more pronounced today. Perhaps it was a sign of excitement. He had certainly seemed agitated at the sight of the police officers entering the cavern, and the fact that it had been temporarily closed to the public.

‘And at the height of the season,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘They won’t like it.’

‘It’s routine,’ said Cooper. ‘We have to check all the possibilities.’

‘Do you really think he might come to Peak Cavern?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes.’

Some of the task force officers were returning from a trip down the Devil’s Staircase to the River Styx and into Five Arches. The knees and elbows of their overalls were covered in the brown silt that coated the floor and the walls down there. One of the last officers up was covered from head to foot, and the front of his overalls glistened with mud. Even his hands and face were liberally splashed with it.

‘It can be really difficult to keep your footing down there,’ said Page. ‘I wonder if anybody told them it would be easier to walk in the stream bed.’

‘Probably not,’ said Cooper.

The task force officers smelled, too. As they passed, Cooper got a whiff of the ancient sludge that had been sucked out of the nooks and crannies of the cavern system over many thousands of years and left in the passages to add to the fun for cavers.

‘They ought to have come with proper equipment,’ said Page. ‘I hope they’re not planning on trying to go any further than Five Arches.’

‘Would he be likely to get that far in?’

‘There are food dumps in Treasury Chamber and Picnic Dig for cavers who get trapped by flooding,’ said Page. ‘But there’s no way he could reach those unless he has diving equipment. There are sumps in the way.’

‘No matter. He could survive for days without food, provided he can get access to water.’

‘There’s plenty of that. In fact, there might be too much.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Cooper.

‘These thunderstorms we keep getting. They’re depositing a lot of water into the system. If we get another one like Thursday night, the cavern could flood.’

‘In July? I thought the floods happened in winter.’

‘Mostly. But it wouldn’t be the first time the system has flooded in summer. People don’t realize that July is one of the wettest months of the year in this area.’

‘Flooding. That’s all we need.’

A cave system like Peak-Speedwell must be the nearest anyone would ever see to Hell. Cooper felt full of admiration for the cavers and cave divers who had been mapping the system — let alone those who had first set out to explore it, with their primitive lamps and equipment. Some of them had free-dived through sumps and flooded chambers, not knowing how far they’d have to swim before they found the next pocket of air, blinded by zero visibility in the cold, silty water. There had been no diving suits and oxygen tanks in those days; the divers had found their way underwater on a single lungful of air. If they failed to reach the surface in time, they died.

‘He hasn’t killed anybody else, has he?’ said Page. ‘Do you think he’s planning to kill again?’

‘Sorry, Alistair, I can’t tell you things like that.’

‘Oh, right.’

Cooper supposed he shouldn’t be surprised at Page’s interest. Probably everybody in Castleton was agog by now. Some people would be looking suspiciously at every tourist who passed. Others would remember Mansell Quinn and the Carol Proctor killing. Memories were long in these parts.

‘I’m sure nobody’s in danger from Quinn unless they had some connection with him in the past,’ said Cooper.

‘Oh,’ said Page. He didn’t look entirely reassured.

‘Of course, we’re advising people not to approach him. They should just call us.’

‘Approach him? As if I would.’

‘Good.’

‘But do you mean he’s got a hit list of some kind? It wasn’t just his ex-wife he came looking for?’

‘A hit list? It’s one theory anyway. As a precaution, we’ve been warning anyone who might be on such a list.’

‘Like Ray Proctor and Will Thorpe?’

Cooper looked at him, openly surprised now. ‘You really are familiar with the details of the case, Alistair. Did you know Proctor and Thorpe, too?’

‘Oh, I looked the names up. I was interested.’

Cooper watched him polish the glass of his lamp on a corner of his jacket. He was going to ask Page why he was so interested in the case, other than morbid curiosity, when his mobile phone rang — a summons back to the office.

‘Yes, just about finished here,’ he said.

Page was watching him keenly. ‘What’s up?’

‘I’ve got to go,’ said Cooper. ‘But I’ll speak to you later.’

‘Do you think it’s safe here?’ said Page anxiously.

Cooper was already moving away. He stopped to look back at Alistair Page, and saw how anxious he was. It was strange that a man could venture willingly into those claustrophobic caves in pitch darkness, and yet still be the sort of person who worried unnecessarily about dangers that would never come his way.

‘As you long as you take care,’ said Cooper. ‘And remember — if you do see Mansell Quinn, stay clear of him.’

‘So,’ said Gavin Murfin when Ben Cooper got back to the office in Edendale. ‘I hear we’ve even got a Beast of Bradwell now. What’s the place coming to?’

‘A what?’

‘Beast of Bradwell. One of those mysterious giant cats that roam the countryside during the silly season. Apparently, it’s been savaging sheep. It’s in the bulletins.’

‘I haven’t seen them yet.’

Cooper read the reports. Predictably, a team of firearms officers had been called out to search the area where a sheep had been found with its throat ‘ripped out’, according to the report. The site was close to a path used by walkers and their dogs, so someone considered there might be a threat to the public. But as far as Cooper was concerned, sending coppers with guns into the woods was more of a risk to the public than any type of wildlife they were likely to encounter, real or imaginary.

‘It wasn’t in Bradwell,’ he said. ‘It was in Rakedale.’

‘That’s no good,’ said Murfin.

‘Why not?’

‘It doesn’t begin with a “B”. The Beast of Rakedale doesn’t have the same ring. No good for a newspaper headline.’

‘Accuracy was never your strongpoint, was it, Gavin?’

‘I’ve always thought I might make a good journalist. Anyway, it’s near enough, isn’t it?’

Cooper read through the report again. Rakedale was a narrow, meandering limestone valley on the other side of Bradwell Moor from the Castleton area. It joined the Eden Valley further south, passing within a mile of Bridge End Farm. Cooper was very familiar with its wooded sides and limestone cliffs, and the pure stream running through it. He also knew it had many small caves, and some old mine workings.