Stuart Pawson - The Mushroom Man

Everything inside was the same colour a greyish-red amalgam of a hundred years of oxidised iron and carbon. I swung the torch round.

Along the far wall were four big hearths, where the blacksmiths had heated the metal, and next to each was an anvil. I remembered something I'd read somewhere. The gist of it was that to the man who can work steel it can become anything he wants; to the man who can't, it will become everything except what he wants.

I found some ancient light switches, but the cables were chopped off just above them. The beam from the torch was feeble, and a thick layer of dust over everything softened the outlines, blurring shadows and making shapes indistinct. The door slammed shut and something inside me did a five-point-nine somersault.

I steered a course gingerly across the floor, which was littered with bits of metal, heavy pieces of chain and a variety of blacksmiths' tongs that looked like instruments of torture. Once the place would have rung with the sound of hammers on iron, illuminated by dancing fires and showers of sparks. Now it smelt of corruption.

The workshop was alive with ghosts, but there was nothing there to interest the policeman in me. Except the door in the end wall. I walked towards it and shone the torch. Stencilled neatly in the middle was the word Office. Someone with a black felt-tip had added a few additional comments. He'd also had a go at the page-three girls who adorned the wall. He wasn't very good at spelling. Or anatomy. Well, I hope he wasn't.

The door pushed open against a spring. The office was about six feet wide and ten feet long. A high desk that looked as if it belonged in a Dickensian orphanage ran the full length of the long wall, with a bench beside it for sitting on. I let the door close behind me and shone the torch around.

More big-busted ladies adorned the walls. Underneath the bench were four plastic bin-liners, fastened round the tops with string. I pulled the bench out of the way and dragged the first bag into the open. There was a movement and a rustle near my feet. I pointed the torch down and saw a rat run over my shoe. I let out a yell and jumped on to the bench, like a woman in a cartoon. Two rats were scurrying round the bottom of the wall. I'd heard people say they could be dangerous when cornered, but it was me that felt cornered. I reached down and pulled the door handle. It would only open a few inches, because the bench was now in the way, but it was enough. The rats ran out to terrorise someone else. This time the gymnast inside me scored straight sixes, right across the board.

When the door was firmly closed again I stepped down and repeated my deep-breathing exercises for a few seconds. There were no stabbing pains in my chest or pins and needles in my left arm, so I decided I'd survive. I shone the torch back on the bag.

The small blade on my Swiss army knife is the one I don't use much, to keep it nice and sharp. I placed the torch on the bench so I had two free hands to work with, and sliced through the plastic.

The bag was full of books. I pulled one out. It was soft-backed and damp, with a characteristic musty smell, but more powerful than I'd ever experienced before. The title on the cover read: Mines and Quarries Form no. 277; Reports of Examinations of Winding Ropes. Each page was a separate certificate, filled in at about monthly intervals in an immaculate script, saying that everything was in safe working order. They were done with a fountain pen and proudly signed. A lesser penman had countersigned each page. All the books were the same, and must have represented countless years of conscientious endeavour. I pulled the bag to one side and dragged the next one out.

It contained more books. So did the third one. I grabbed the final bag and immediately knew it was different. For a start it was made from much less substantial plastic than the other three household grade rather than industrial and the contents were less angular. I held the top with my left hand, the knife poised and the shadow of the blade dancing from side to side in the torchlight. As soon as the blade was steady for a second I plunged it through the thin plastic and drew it downwards.

To this day I thank God that she was facing the other way. I widened the slit with my fingers and a mop of dull black hair tumbled out. I'd found Georgina.

Holding the torch again I could see the curve of her cheek, as lifeless as alabaster. I stretched out my reluctant hand and touched it. The skin yielded under my fingers, but didn't spring back when I removed them. I let my hand fall on to her bony little shoulder and squeezed it. It was like holding a paper bag with a few dry twigs inside. I wanted her to know that not all hands were as evil as the last ones that had held her. Or as callous as the next ones would seem.

Outside, I retraced my steps to the car as best I could and reversed it about fifty yards back down the lane. I leaned on the car boot, waiting for Nigel and Sparky to arrive. The water on it soaked through the seat of my pants and the drizzle ran off my face and down my neck, but I hardly noticed it. I wanted to curse the moon and the heavens and any so-called omnipotent being who lived up there, but I didn't have the energy. It's just another body, I told myself. Another kid whose luck ran out. Just another job. And you're a bloody liar, Charlie Priest, I thought.

For the next day or so only the experts would be allowed anywhere near.

We'd hit the scene with every scientific aid known to us. Photographs, plaster casts and samples would be taken, followed by a fingertip search of the blacksmiths' shop and the approaches to it. Everything found would be labelled, catalogued, analysed, dissected and turned inside out. Then we'd have the results of the post-mortem on little Georgina. Somewhere amongst all this there would be, hopefully, a tiny atom of evidence that would lead us to her killer.

The headlights came creeping unsurely down the lane. As they swung round the last turn and shone on me, Nigel switched them to dipped beam and then off. He's very considerate about things like that. They drew right up to me, stopped and got out.

"Hi, boss. Find anything?" Sparky asked.

I gestured behind me with a jerk of the head. "She's in there," I told them. They were both stunned to silence.

"Georgina?" Nigel asked, very quietly.

I nodded.

"Poor kid. What's happened to her?"

"She's in a bin-liner. Probably been there since May."

"Jesus."

"You're soaked to the skin, Charlie," Sparky declared. "Go sit in our car with the heater on. We'll do the necessary."

"I'm OK. Did you bring the Almanac?"

The Almanac is the Who's Who of the police force, listing everybody down to the rank of inspector. Strictly speaking we should have let someone know that we were coming into their area. Apologies were due.

"Right here, boss," Nigel replied.

"Good. Then let's ruin the Regional DCS's lodge meeting tell him we've found a body on his patch and he's going to be on telly in the morning, explaining it to the nation."

Thirty minutes later the clouds above the colliery were pulsing like the intestines of a living creature, reflecting the blue lights of the police vehicles lined up in the lane. The whole area was cordoned off except for a path leading to the position of the body, and a constable was appointed to log all visitors. When the local detective superintendent was convinced that we weren't a trio of loonies, he sent for the police surgeon. The doc confirmed what we already knew and told his favourite pathologist to scrub-up for a rush job.

We were drinking tea at Divisional HQ when the message came that the coroner had given permission for Georgina to be removed to the mortuary at the local teaching hospital, where the PM would take place. I rang Gilbert to bring him up to date, and suggested that Miles Dewhurst be organised to identify his daughter's body. It was broad daylight outside and the rain had stopped. Looked as if it might be sunny, later.