Хилари Боннер - A Kind Of Wild Justice

At Knack Mine the soldier who had raised his binoculars scanned the distant hillside. Something had caught his eye, a flash of reflected light. More than likely the glint of the evening sun reflected on binoculars, or perhaps even a gun. He studied the bracken-covered hill carefully. In the sky above, a buzzard drifted gracefully, soaring up and up on a current of warm air. There were some sheep near the spot where he thought he had seen the reflection and they continued to graze undisturbed. Nothing else moved. After a few minutes the soldier lowered his binoculars. But he was an experienced hand for a Territorial. He was quite sure he had seen something up there. He called out to the police sergeant in charge, and explained it to him.

‘Let’s take a look, then,’ said the policeman and promptly led his team away from Knack Mine and off in the direction of the suspicious sighting.

Police dog handler Brad Davis tugged impatiently at the long leash of the young Alsatian he was still training. Prince was going to be a credit to him one of these days, Brad was quite sure, but the young dog was still inclined to be wayward and had a yet to be controlled passion for chasing rabbits. He had been driving Brad mad all day.

Prince suddenly lurched away from his handler, nearly pulling Brad over, and began to bark in a frenzied fashion, the focus of his attention apparently a rather large granite boulder. Almost at once a pair of startled rabbits emerged from behind the boulder and took off in a frantic dash. Brad swore, pulled with all his might on Prince’s leash and half dragged the dog away, breaking into a trot to catch up with his colleagues who had already moved on up the hill.

The old mine shaft that lay behind that boulder, the one-time Territorial hideaway so well concealed, remained undisturbed. But the man who had lain in the bracken up on the hill half a mile away had not stayed long enough to know that.

The days passed, then a week, two weeks, three. The Phillips family had made it quite clear by then that they no longer had any confidence in the police. Everyone seemed to be blaming everyone else. Todd Mallett reckoned they were in just the kind of mess fancy tricks always got you into. The word was that Parsons was about to be replaced as senior investigating officer. Fielding was keeping as low a profile as possible. Lillian Philips had indeed turned against her only son, as the young man had feared she would, and Rob didn’t have much time for himself either.

Then, just two days short of a full month after Angela Phillips’ disappearance, a body was discovered by a hunting spaniel dog, taking its owner for a walk in the area of Knack Mine.

It was still high summer, or what passed for it on Dartmoor. The spaniel began to howl and bark, and scratched furiously at a large granite boulder nestling beneath a rocky overhang, eventually managing to stick its nose into the small hole produced by its scratching. It began to whimper pitifully then, and neither threats nor gentle coaxing could persuade the creature to continue with its walk.

Eventually the spaniel’s owner was obliged to investigate. He could not see anything amiss and had yet to be alerted by a sense of smell, which was, of course, far less acute than that of his dog, but when he leaned against the boulder as he tried to look behind it, he found to his surprise that it rocked very easily. And once he had discovered the correct leverage, the big hunk of granite rolled freely to one side. Behind the boulder was a foliage-framed hole in the earth, just big enough for a man to crawl through. The spaniel continued to whimper, but cowered back, leaving its owner to lean into the hole and peer within. The smell that had alerted his dog overwhelmed him then. The man gagged but carried on peering into the hole, as if compelled by a kind of morbid fascination. It took a moment or two for his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. Then suddenly he threw himself backwards, almost as if he had been attacked, out of what was of course the opening to the old mine shaft the Territorials had used as a hideout, and was promptly sick on the grass.

Later he said he feared he would remember for the rest of his life the dreadful sight that had confronted him. Which was something he and Mike Fielding, the first police officer on the scene, had in common.

Mike was in his car on his way into Okehampton police station when Parsons radioed him with the news. The detective sergeant carried straight on to the call box on the edge of town where he was told the distraught dog owner was waiting, having used the phone to dial 999. He got there even before the team he knew Parsons was despatching. Fielding picked the man up and asked him to take him to the spot where he and his dog had found the body. The army-built loop road which cuts into the heart of the moor just above Okehampton leads almost to Knack Mine. Then a rough track runs most of the way down into Steeperton Gorge before finally disintegrating. Mike hurtled his car over the uneven ground, showing a complete disregard for its well-being, then, when finally forced to pull to a halt, he continued on foot, grabbing the torch he kept in the glove compartment, and half ran the remaining hundred yards to the old mine shaft the dog owner had pointed out to him.

The other man hung back. He said he had no wish for a second look. A few minutes later Mike did not blame him at all.

The smell, as he peered in through the narrow opening, was horribly unmistakable. The bile rose in Mike’s throat. For a moment he thought he also was going to be sick. But he had a job to do and he did not allow himself even to hesitate.

He lowered himself into the shaft, getting mud and grass stains all over his nearly new suit, for once neither caring nor even realising, and scratching his hands and face on brambles. He knew he should wait for the SOCOs, that he should not barge in. But he had to look at her properly. Mike had studied photographs of Angela Phillips so often he felt sure there was no question that he would recognise her, even allowing for the inevitable deterioration of her body. He could see quite enough from above to be as horrified as the dog walker had been. But he wanted more. He wanted to be sure this was Angela Phillips, lying like a dead animal in a hole. And he wanted to see for himself exactly the state she was in.

Mike Fielding was a hard cop, but the sight which greeted him when he shone his flashlight fully on the murdered girl really would haunt him always. And the stench, of course, even more overpowering once he was in the shaft alongside her.

It was her all right, he was quite certain — even though her face was discoloured and distorted. It was not just death and decay that had caused that. Her nose was badly swollen and he thought it had probably been broken. There was dried blood and bruising around her mouth. She had been viciously gagged with a nylon stocking or tights, which may well have been her own, but her lower jaw hung loose beneath the gag, displaying several smashed teeth. She was completely naked, lying in her own filth and blood. Her hands and feet were tied with electric flex so tightly that it had cut deeply into her flesh. It looked as if wild animals of some kind had begun to eat her. Probably rats. Foxes would have done more substantial damage by now, he thought, regarding her quite clinically for just a moment or two. There were small lumps of flesh missing from her body — and she had no nipples.

Fielding gagged again. But he forced himself to lean forward for a closer look. There didn’t appear to be any teeth marks or signs of tearing around the breast area.

He didn’t need a pathologist to tell him that Angela Phillips’s nipples had almost certainly been sliced off with a knife.