Mark Sennen - Touch

The information was coming, but was taking an age to arrive. Calter wriggled on the edge of her seat, itching to ask the obvious question, but Savage didn’t give her a chance.

‘Where did they get married, Mrs Harbersher?’

‘Oh, same place as I did. Right here. In the church.’ The old woman’s face wore a saddened expression and she looked much older as her eyes shifted their focus from Savage and stared out the window and across the green to the church. ‘I don’t suppose anyone else will want to do so now, will they?’

Savage didn’t think so either, but she didn’t want to get into a prolonged discussion.

‘What did you mean when you said you thought the way they met was romantic at the time?’

‘Well, history changes things, doesn’t it? When you look back with hindsight you bring the truth to bear on distant events. Everything comes out in the wash in the end.’

‘I am sorry, Mrs Harbersher, but I don’t understand.’

‘Don’t you lot know anything? It happened over thirty years ago, but you do keep records, don’t you? Richard Harrison went down, convicted of rape and child abuse. The girl he raped was only seventeen and poor Matthew, what? Nine, ten, eleven? A disgusting business, he should have been hanged, Lizzy as well, if you want my opinion.’

*

After they left the cottage Savage strolled over to the church, leaving Calter and Enders next to the car. In fifty years time what had happened here and the sordid story Mrs Harbersher had told them about the Harrison family would have become just another Dartmoor legend. Visitors would talk in hushed whispers while they viewed the altar where the body of Simone Ashton had lain and a printed booklet, selling for a few quid, would tell the whole sorry tale, proceeds to the church roof repair fund.

Then all of a sudden Calter was waving across at Savage and shouting something about Riley being on the phone. It was a crap signal and she didn’t understand half of what he said, but it concerned a lead from a detective in Cornwall and a location for Harrison’s bolt hole.

‘Ten minutes drive, ma’am,’ Calter screamed. ‘Come on!’

Enders revved the engine as Savage ran across the green and jumped into the back of the car. He hit the accelerator and the car swung sideways tearing great chunks of grass out from under its wheels before they bounced onto the tarmac and screeched away.

‘Where to?’ Savage said.

‘Somewhere near Gara Bridge,’ Calter said. ‘Approximately five miles south of the A38. Riley’s coming from town with a bunch of cars. Blues and twos, ARVs, the lot.’

A few minutes of driving and the country lane had become like a tunnel, cutting through the land with the trees at the top of the steep banks curving overhead and almost blocking out the light. The speed of the car gave a sort of rushing sensation like they were playing in some giant video game. Objects by the roadside shot past in a blur, only sharpening for a frozen moment, a blink of an eye, before they vanished; green moss on a tree stump, a herd of cows waiting by a gate, a startled rabbit. There was a roaring noise in Savage’s ears too, but she didn’t think anyone else in the car could hear the sound.

In the front Enders was driving like a maniac and Calter sat beside him, eyes glued to the road, hands gripping the seat. The car ripped through the deep puddles that were everywhere, the spray blinding their vision forward until the wipers cleared the windscreen. Fast, too fast, Savage thought, but she had too many other things on her mind to worry about that, and the queasy sensation in her stomach had nothing to do with the style of Enders’s driving.

Another village went by in a flash of twee cottages and parked cars and then they slid sideways across the road leaving tyre marks and flattening a ‘Keep Off the Grass’ sign on a neat corner as Enders swerved to avoid a man on a bike. Savage muttered a ‘steady’ from the back of the car, but otherwise left him to it. She wanted to get to their destination as quickly as he did.

‘We are here!’ Calter jabbed her finger at the Sat Nav and pointed ahead. ‘Into the wood.’

A forestry track curled up away from the road and disappeared behind a cluster of pine. The muddy track had deep ruts and a 4x4 would have been more suited to the task than the Ford Focus they were in.

‘Do you think we can manage it?’ Savage asked Enders.

‘Of course we can, ma’am.’ Enders seemed offended, as if Savage’s question was a personal affront to his driving ability.

They left the road and headed up the track, the car yawing to the side for a moment before Enders turned into the skid and they lurched onward. They crested a rise and headed down into a small valley, soon leaving the wood behind and bouncing along between stone walls behind which the occasional sheep could be seen nibbling at the poor pasture. Up ahead a little cottage sat on the far side of the valley, nestled under a vast conifer plantation.

‘Shit!’ Enders brought the car to a halt.

In front of them the track forded a fast-flowing stream, bank full thanks to the rain. The depth was hard to estimate, but Savage thought it could be anything up to a couple of feet.

‘We ain’t going through the water, ma’am. Too deep for us, I am afraid.’

Savage could see the cottage standing about half a mile away, no problem to walk to, but they would get wet crossing the stream.

‘Calter and I will go on. You reverse the car back until you can find a place where you won’t block the track. The others will be here by then, but if not come after us.’

‘I’m not sure I like this, ma’am.’ Enders hesitated. ‘I mean-’

‘You mean we’re both women?’ Savage glared at him. ‘I am aware of that. I am also aware Jane could have you for breakfast and still eat three Shredded Wheat afterwards.’

Enders looked sheepish, but said nothing.

Savage and Calter got out of the car and tried to find a shallow place to cross the stream, Calter peering down at her already mud splattered shoes.

‘I’m glad I am not wearing one of my many pairs of Jimmy Choos today.’

Savage took a double take at Calter before she realised she was joking.

They waded across the shallowest part of the stream, the freezing water coming up to knee height. Across the ford the mud was even worse and Savage realised they must look a right pair of clowns slipping and sliding towards the cottage. She wondered if anybody was watching them.

Enders had reversed out of sight and Savage thought he’d need to go all the way back to the edge of the valley where she had seen a gateway.

To one side of the cottage a large and newish looking black Shogun stood under a dilapidated car port, the modern shape of the vehicle out of place against the cottage’s lumpy walls and rotting window sills.

‘Forester’s car, ma’am,’ Calter said. ‘And look at those tyres. Call me a trainspotter type but I bet they are Bridgestone D689s, size 265/70S15. The same as the ones in the field at Malstead Down.’

‘Do you have a life, Jane?’

‘Yes, but I spent half a day phoning tyre fitters so the type is stuck in my brain forever now.’

The cottage itself appeared neglected. Savage followed the mass of ivy on one gable end upward to where the dark green leaves spilled out onto the roof. Several tiles were missing and the chimney stack crumbled over at an alarming angle.

They approached the front door, a low portal with a huge stone as its lintel. The door itself was wooden and white paint flaked off revealing the dark oak behind. There was no doorbell or knocker so Savage rapped with her knuckles.

Seconds later came the sound of movement from within and they heard a bolt being drawn top and bottom. Following that a screeching and clanking which grated Savage’s teeth before the door opened a crack, a safety chain stopping it from going farther.