Mark Sennen - Touch

The wind seemed to be slicing through Savage’s waterproofs and Campbell’s remarks didn’t make her feel any warmer.

‘Jeff will stay in our vehicle and your traffic officer will stay here too. I will lead the way with Carole and her dog. Next you guys,’ Campbell indicated Savage and her two DCs. ‘Then Adrian will bring up the rear with his dog. Adrian and I have radios as does Jeff so we have contact with each other and with our base. If we need to casevac there is no chance of a helicopter in this weather so Adrian has got the stretcher packed up. If we find a dead one I suggest we wait until daylight. OK, any questions?’

No one said anything so he muttered a ‘let’s go’ and with a deliberate, methodical stride began to pick his way out across the open moor.

Savage and the others followed, not moving much beyond a slow walk. Within a couple of minutes they lost all sight of the two Landrovers and the track. Savage became disorientated to such a degree that she had no idea in which direction they were heading. Picked out in the torchlight Campbell was just a lumbering shadow up ahead, beyond him the sleet reflected the light for a few metres and beyond that was total blackness. Campbell had been right, step away from the group and you were a goner.

There was no path, only the occasional sheep track criss-crossing their route, and the terrain was typical Dartmoor: one minute the ground would be firm underfoot, the next you would be squelching through mud and bog.

Every so often Campbell stopped and a pale light flashed on his face as he peered at the GPS screen and used a tiny penlight to cross check with a compass and a map encased in a plastic holdall. Check complete he would stride forward, his steady gait eating up the ground with ease. He might have been a volunteer, but he practiced his art like a professional.

After about twenty minutes the shape of a rocky outcrop loomed ahead in the torchlight. The craggy granite, cold and rough, was incongruous after the softness of the boggy moorland.

‘Caglin Tor,’ Campbell shouted against the roaring wind. ‘This is it!’

They moved closer and stopped in the lee of the towering rock where the wind was somewhat lessened. Savage stood with her hands on her hips taking deep breaths. Campbell breathed easy though, not fazed by the weather or the terrain.

‘The exact coordinates are over on the west side, but sometimes the GPS can be out by quite a bit compared to the map and we have got no idea if the position given is accurate anyway. I suggest we split and skirt the tor in two teams, each with a dog. Keep close to the rock, and if you lose sight of each other for God’s sake stay put.’

The sleet had turned to snow now and even with the powerful torches visibility was down to no more than a few metres. Savage followed the dog handler and Campbell as they skirted the rocks anti-clockwise. A strange howling whistle filled the air as the wind lashed round the rocks, driving the sleet and snow with a force that stung her exposed skin. Savage was glad she was with Campbell.

Up ahead the dog zipped back and forth, disappearing into each rock cleft and running out again to scamper about. Every now and then it would stop and raise a wet nose into the air and whine and race off again. Then a startled sheep shot out from one fissure, the creature’s eyes flashing green in the torchlight. The collie span around and around and barked for all it was worth, the excitement in the dog’s eyes a counterpoint to the fear in the ewe’s.

‘Was it the sheep?’ Savage asked the handler.

‘No. She’s trained to ignore them. It’s something else.’ The handler bent down, grabbed the dog by the scruff and shouted an order. The dog yapped once and looked up at the tor where a sheer rock face rose into the darkness. The dog gave a whine and shot across to a crack in the face, bounding upwards in a huge leap until it was a couple of metres from the ground on a small ledge. Short, sharp barks echoed for a moment before being snatched away by the wind.

‘We’ll not get up there,’ Campbell said. ‘Let’s walk round to the side of this little crag and we might be able to find an easier route.’

Sure enough Campbell was right. Twenty metres farther on a grassy slope led up the side, and they scrambled up and round until they stood atop the rock. A metre or so below them the dog perched on the ledge. She had found Forester. He wasn’t alive. In fact, as Savage would recall later, he didn’t even look human.

St Ives, Cornwall. Saturday 30th October. 10.51 am

It took Tatershall a few days to get round to returning to St Ives. The missing couple didn’t figure high on the list of priorities and if DI Peters hadn’t badgered him he might not have bothered. However, a break in the weather at last brought a beautiful clear day and the prospect of a nice drive, a spot of lunch and the sun falling on Kate Simbeck’s perfect face was too much to resist.

Now he and Simbeck were leafing through the couple’s papers, trying to sort them in some meaningful fashion, Tatershall wearing his new glasses and trying not to feel self-conscious with them on. A few weeks back his wife had noticed him squinting at the evening paper and insisted he went for an eye test. The result had been a pair of the least biddyish looking reading glasses he could find and a feeling of age catching up with him. Simbeck had said the grey of the wire-framed glasses matched his hair and made him look distinguished, which hadn’t helped a whole lot.

Finding the big cardboard box in the back of a cupboard in the flat’s utility room had been a bonus because it seemed to contain the only solid evidence that the couple existed at all. The rest of the flat had been devoid of anything much personal. As if they didn’t want to be reminded of who they were or where they had come from. The box contained a number of manila folders, each stuffed with documents. From share certificates to a car registration, from a manual for the microwave to old utility bills.

‘It’s like everything else in the flat, sir,’ Simbeck said. ‘All practical stuff. Nothing emotional. No letters, no postcards, no birthday cards, no memories. A couple who didn’t want to remember anything from their past.’

‘Very poetic, but I am not sure it is the basis for a case against them.’

‘I wasn’t trying to say that. I just don’t understand how anyone’s life can be so sterile.’

‘Like her paintings?’ The gallery below the flat displayed several examples of the woman’s work, hyperrealistic watercolours of the harbour at St Ives with every detail painstakingly copied. You may as well have used a camera, Tatershall thought, though even a photograph would have had more warmth.

‘Exactly.’

They carried on the work, ploughing deeper into the box, making a note or two, but finding nothing to give them a handle on the couple’s life.

‘Remember, we are trying to find something to connect them with Devon, with Dartmouth maybe,’ Tatershall said.

They didn’t find anything. Tatershall even tried ringing Dartmouth police to see if they knew of the couple, but they didn’t. In fact the officer on the end of the line seemed to think he was a bit of a joker for even suggesting they might have. She asked if Tatershall realised how many hundreds of thousands of tourists visited Dartmouth each year. Tatershall didn’t know and didn’t want to know either, but the woman on the end of the phone proceeded to tell him anyway. The place sounded like St Ives, only with more boats. Feeling admonished Tatershall hung up.

‘Fucking idiots!’

‘Dartmouth?’

‘FootInMouth. No help at all. Bloody English tossers.’

‘Never mind.’ Simbeck stood smiling, mischief on her face. ‘Why don’t you come down and peruse my etchings instead, sir.’