Mo Hayder - Gone

She nodded, didn’t meet his eye. Truth was, the HSE would have kittens if they knew what she intended doing. But the only way they’d find out was when the bastard press hounds got the news out there, and by that time the search would be over. And they’d have found Martha. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’m sure.’

She kept her eyes just south of his as she spoke. Thought that if he saw inside them he’d know she was following that ineffable thing. A hunch. And straining at the leash to do it. Because now finding Martha wasn’t just about putting a pretty feather in the unit’s cap. It meant more to her. It meant making amends for not being stronger earlier.

‘I don’t know.’ Caffery shook his head. ‘A maybe match on the cast and that’s all? It’s kind of a flimsy justification to be putting officers through this.’

‘We know what we’re doing. I won’t be putting either of us at risk.’

‘I believe you when you say that.’

‘Good. Nice to be trusted.’

The journey into the canal was slow. They pushed the boat carefully, guiding it past obstacles, past broken barges. Shopping trolleys stuck up out of the muck like skeletons. She and Wellard wore the dry suits they used for swift water rescues, with red hard hats and the wellies that had built-in steel toecaps and shanks. Each carried a small escape set: rebreathers mounted on their chests that would give them thirty minutes of clean air if they ran into a bad pocket of gas. They went in silence, using the beams from their head torches to scan the sides and bottom of the tunnel.

It had been designed for the canal lightermen to ‘leg’ the barges through: lying on their backs, pushing with their feet against the ceiling to move the tons of coal and wood and iron along the two miles of darkness. In those days the tunnel roof would have been claustrophobically close to the water surface and there would have been no towpath: Flea and Wellard could only walk upright now because the canal level had dropped so much that it had revealed a narrow ledge of sorts on one side that they could use.

It was warm down here – the biting cold on the surface couldn’t penetrate so deep. The water wasn’t frozen. In places it was so shallow it was little more than a thick black sludge around their ankles.

‘It’s just fuller’s earth.’ They were five hundred yards inside when she spoke. ‘The stuff they make cat litter out of.’

Wellard stopped pushing the Zodiac and shone his torch up at the roof. ‘This isn’t kitty litter, Sarge. Not with the pressure it’s under. See those cracks? Those strata are massive. And I mean massive. One of them came down it wouldn’t be like cat litter, it’d be like having a Transit van fall on you. Could seriously ruin your day.’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve got a problem with this?’

‘No.’

‘Come on.’ She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. ‘Tell me. Are you sure?’

‘What?’ he said irritably. ‘Of course I’m sure. The Health and Safety Exec hasn’t got its rod shoved that far up my arse. Not yet.’

‘There aren’t any guarantees.’

‘I hate guarantees. Why do you think I’m in this unit?’

She gave him a grim smile and they looped their gloved hands into the handles on the Zodiac, leaning against the inertia of the boat until it loosened from its spot. It lurched forward, rocking from side to side in the black water. When it was settled between them they resumed the slow march into the tunnel. The only sounds were the slosh of their boots in the water, their breathing and the tiny ping of the gas detectors strapped to their chests, a comfort signal that the air was clean.

Parts of the roof were brick-lined, others had been left exposed. Their head torches played over strange plants bursting through crevices. From time to time they had to pick their way over falls of clay and fuller’s earth. Every few hundred yards they came to an air shaft: a six-foot-wide hole sunk more than a hundred feet from the surface to allow air in. The first hint they’d get of an approaching shaft would be a strange silver glow in the distance. Slowly, as they progressed, the light would get brighter and brighter, until they could switch off their torches and stand under the holes looking upwards, their faces bathed in the white sunlight slicing down through the plants that clung to the walls of the shaft.

It would have been easier to explore the tunnel by dropping in through these air shafts, if each hadn’t been protected by a vast rusting grille at the bottom. Debris had been able to fall through the grilles. Huge piles of ancient rotting leaves, branches and rubbish sat under each. One had been used by a livestock farmer to dump animal carcasses. The weight of the dead meat had caused the grille to give way and tip a pile of stinking animal bones into the canal. Flea stopped the boat next to it.

‘Nice.’ Wellard covered his nose and mouth. ‘Do we have to stop here?’

She ran the beam across the water. Saw bones and flesh and half-eaten animal faces. She thought about the jacker’s letters: I’ve rearranged her a little . . . Slowly she stirred the mess using the steel toecap. Her foot touched rocks and old tins: she hit something big. Reached in and pulled it out. It was the blade from an old-fashioned plough. Probably been there for years. She discarded it.

‘God forbid we find the poor little kid down among all this.’ She wiped her gloved hands on the side of the boat, getting rid of the slime, and peered into the darkness ahead. Felt the same slow bleed of sadness and terror she’d felt the day before yesterday, imagining what it would be like for Martha. ‘I wouldn’t want to endure this. Not at eleven, not at any age. It’s just not right.’

She checked the meter on her gas detector: the air was clean. It was safe to fire up a bigger lamp. She hauled the huge HID light out of the boat, held it up and flicked the switch. There was a loud whoomp as the unit came to life, then a few moments of crackling as the light grew stronger and stronger. Flooded in blue-white light the tunnel was even more eerie, the shadows bouncing around as she tried to steady the lamp. Next to her, Wellard’s face was sombre, pale, as he took in what lay in front of them.

‘Is that it?’

The light glinted on the canal stretching away from where they stood. Nothing to see except the water and the sides and, about fifty metres ahead, an impassable wall. So much fuller’s earth had detached itself from the ceiling and dropped into the canal that the ground level had risen to the ceiling, blocking the canal.

‘Is it the rockfall?’ Wellard said. ‘Have we reached it already?’

‘I dunno.’ She caught up the measuring tape and studied it. The trust’s engineers reckoned the rockfall extended about a quarter of a mile from the eastern entrance. They were a little short, but this could just about be the other end of it. She leaned into the Zodiac, pushed it along, wading through the gloopy water. When she got to the scree she shone the light up to where it met the ceiling. Let the beam trail along the juncture.

‘No probe,’ she murmured.

‘So? We knew the probe probably wouldn’t come all the way through. I think this is the other end. Come on. ‘ He began to push the Zodiac back the way they’d come. He’d gone a few paces before he realized she wasn’t with him. She was rooted where she stood, gripping the torch, staring at the top of the fall.

He let all his breath out. ‘Oh, no, Sarge. I don’t know what you’re thinking but let’s just get the hell out of here.’

‘Come on. It’s worth a try. Isn’t it?’

‘No. This is the end of the fall. There’s nothing on the other side. Now, can we just go—’