Mark Sennen - Touch

‘He’s right, ma’am!’ Calter was at the computer. She had brought up a satellite image of Dartmoor and a little icon marked the position she had plotted into the search box.

Savage checked the coordinates Calter had entered with the ones she had written down. They matched.

‘It is in the middle of nowhere,’ she said.

‘Not only in the middle of nowhere, ma’am,’ Enders said, ‘there is nothing there.’

Calter clicked the mouse and the image zoomed in. Now they could see open moor. A couple of rock outcrops, some bog, a leat weaving along the contours, clumps of heather, patterns in the ground caused by winter run off; nothing else. No road, no buildings, no trees, just empty and desolate moorland.

No one said anything and Savage shivered again, aware of the rain and hail that had begun to spatter on the windows. Calter broke the silence in her own inimitable way.

‘What the fuck would anybody in their right mind be doing out there?’

The street lamps burned orange against a sky darker than it should have been at four o’clock in the afternoon and heavy rain slashed from the clouds. Their vehicle ripped through the floods and even before leaving the outskirts of the city Savage had decided that commandeering one of Traffic’s Landrover Discoverys, complete with an experienced driver, had been a good move. Rivers of water poured across the roads creating huge puddles everywhere and daylight seemed almost a memory. Cars ahead of them moved into the gutters, diving out of the way of the strobing lights and siren. Savage gripped the armrests, eyes front watching the road. Calter and Enders larked around in the back, the two of them behaving like children on a day out.

‘Be falling as sleet up on the moor,’ Enders said, sounding excited. ‘If not snow.’

‘Like this sort of weather, do you?’ Savage asked.

‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, ma’am, only the wrong sort of clothing. Something like that.’

It took twenty minutes to get out of Plymouth, along the A386 and onto the B3212 that led across the moor towards Princetown. Sleet was falling now, reducing visibility to a few car lengths and slowing their speed to little more than a crawl. The sleet swirled around in the wind and every now and then the Landrover would be bludgeoned by an extra strong gust that threatened to overturn them. The driver peered forward, concentrating hard and fighting to keep the vehicle on the road.

At Princetown their headlights reflected on the fluorescent strip on an otherwise invisible white Defender parked by the side of the road. The vehicle’s siren blooped out a greeting and Savage spotted the Dartmoor Rescue Group logo on the side. She had phoned ahead and requested their services to guide them onto the remote part of the moor. Enders seemed offended, insisting he knew about search and rescue, but Savage pointed out he wasn’t leading a summer letterboxing expedition with the family and they needed all the help they could get. Besides which the team had search dogs that might prove extremely useful.

‘Are we looking for a body, ma’am?’ Enders had gone serious and stopped larking about.

‘No idea. But who in their right minds would be up on the moor in this kind of weather?’

‘Unless they had a death wish.’ Calter, the fun gone out of her too.

‘That’s what I am worried about.’

They pulled up and Savage got out, battling to open the door against the gale. She struggled into her waterproof jacket, cursing as a hank of hair blew across her face and got caught in the zip. A big man, the sort you would want on your side in a drug’s bust, climbed down from the rescue team’s Landrover and strode over to Savage. The wind flattened his waterproof gear against his body, but he seemed unaffected by the weather. He offered his hand.

‘Callum Campbell,’ he said in a Scottish accent, his clear blue eyes holding her gaze a split second longer than was comfortable.

‘Thanks for meeting us.’ Savage handed him the GPS coordinates. ‘We are looking for someone at this location.’

Campbell returned to his vehicle and retrieved a handheld GPS. The unit had a little screen with a map, and once he had entered the coordinates he tapped the display and shook his head.

‘Nothing out there but lousy weather and a few stupid sheep.’

‘We know. Why do you think we called you?’

‘Aye. Best get moving before this lot turns to snow.’ He gestured at the sleet, turned to walk back to his vehicle, but then stopped and shouted over his shoulder.

‘Are we looking for a live one?’

Savage hesitated, the informant hadn’t specified anything, only that the information concerned Forester. The whole thing could turn out to be a wild goose chase.

‘We are not even sure what we are looking for.’

‘No problem, I’ll alert the guys and gals. No sense in busting our guts or risking our limbs if there isn’t someone alive out there.’

They left Princetown in convoy with the rescue team leading the way. Sunset had long gone and the weather showed no sign of letting up. Warm air blew from the car’s heater ducts and Savage stared through the side window and wondered what it would be like to be lost out on the moor in the blackness.

Five miles north east of Princetown Campbell’s Landrover turned off the road and onto a rough track. Savage’s driver muttered a ‘bloody hell’ and followed. The vehicles lurched along, bouncing over exposed rock and crashing into potholes, progress slowed to not much more than walking pace, limited now by the terrain rather than the visibility. Through the windscreen in the headlights Savage caught a glimpse of a few clumps of heather and scrub and beyond the nothingness of the whiteout.

She estimated that they were averaging only about ten miles an hour and after some thirty minutes the rescue vehicle stopped. Campbell got out and came back to speak to them. Savage sat on the sheltered side of the Landrover so she rolled her window down. Campbell poked his head into the fug.

‘Nice in here, isn’t it?’ He grinned. ‘Did you bring a picnic?’

Savage could see the funny side, but didn’t feel much like laughing.

‘Are we there?’

‘The waypoint is about a thousand metres due north.’ Campbell pointed off into the dark. ‘No chance of using the vehicles so get yourselves kitted up.’

Enders had retrieved his mountain gear from his car back at the station and he looked the business in a matching Karimor jacket and trousers and solid-looking climbing boots, like he was about to try for the final push for the summit of Everest. His round face beamed out from under the peak of his hood, eager to get started. The rest of them pulled on the high-vis waterproofs they’d snatched from traffic. Looking at the sleet whipping through the beams of the headlights Savage was beginning to think they would be useless.

Three more of the rescue team clambered out of the back of the Landrover. Two guys and a girl, all decked out in waterproofs and equipped with head torches and a big handheld searchlight. A couple of border collies jumped down as well and the dogs began scampering around, snapping at the sleet and spinning in circles with excitement, their eyes bright and missing nothing. Like Campbell they seemed oblivious to the weather.

‘OK, listen up!’ Campbell sounded serious now, balling his orders out against the howling gale. ‘We are only going about one kilometre from the vehicles but in these conditions you can lose sight of someone in ten metres, so everyone stay close. Slip over and sprain your ankle and get left behind and you are in trouble. The wind will carry your cry for help away and the same wind will be sapping your core temperature. The dogs might find you but then again they might not. By first light you will be dead.’