Mark Sennen - CUT DEAD - A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

Joanne looked back into the hole to see if there might be anything else down there.

The arm had pushed up through the mud, as if reaching out and upwards, trying to escape from entombment or perhaps trying to cling on to the piece of clothing, the last vestiges of their dignity. Slimy water sloshed around the limb and nearby the round curve of a breast stuck out like a white sandy island on an ocean of grey. Joanne stared into the abyss, for all of a sudden that’s what the hole had become, at the same time groping in her coat pocket for her mobile. She dialled 999 and when a man with a calm voice answered, she was surprised to find she responded in the same manner.

‘Police,’ she said.

And then she began to scream.

DI Charlotte Savage carried yet another plastic crate from the car into the house and through to the kitchen where her husband, Pete, stood unpacking. She dumped the crate on the floor and he looked over at her and shook his head.

‘One more and that’s the lot,’ Savage said, before turning and heading back outside.

The summer half-term holiday had turned sour after the weather had delivered nearly a week of blustery conditions. Sunshine and showers would have been OK had they remained at home, but instead they’d opted to have a week sailing. Their little boat was cosy with two, but cramped with four – and if you added in a good measure of rain, a moody teenage daughter and a bored six-year-old son the situation became more of an ordeal than anything approaching fun.

Pete had insisted on sailing east from Plymouth rather than begin the holiday with a beat into the wind, saying the weather was forecast to change, giving them an easy run home. They had stopped overnight at Salcombe and Dartmouth, ending their journey at Brixham. But the promised north-easterlies never developed. Instead the weather worsened as two lows in quick succession came from out of the west, the second developing into a nasty gale. Because of time constraints they’d set out from Brixham as soon as the second low passed, intending to do the journey back to Plymouth in one hop. Once they’d rounded Berry Head though the weather deteriorated further and they put into Dartmouth again. A phone call home and Stefan came out in their car and swapped places with Savage and the kids, the idea being that Pete and Stefan would bring the boat back, whatever the conditions, while she took the kids home. Stefan was the family’s unofficial Swedish au pair and a semi-professional sailor. With Pete having been twenty years in the Royal Navy – the last five as commander of a frigate – the two of them thought nothing of bringing the boat back to Plymouth in a near gale.

At home she waited for hours until at last a call came through from Pete saying they were passing the breakwater at the edge of Plymouth Sound. Twenty minutes later Savage stood on the marina pontoon and took their lines, Samantha, her daughter, shouting to her dad that he didn’t look so clever. Stefan was grinning.

‘Remind me never to go to sea with him again.’ Pete pointed at Stefan. ‘He’s crazy.’

‘The trouble with you, you old softy,’ Stefan said, ‘is you’re used to wearing your carpet slippers when you helm a boat.’

‘The forecast said seven decreasing five or six,’ Pete said, as he repositioned a fender. ‘But it was a full gale force eight and the waves came up from the south out of nowhere.’

‘They look a bit bigger when you’re looking up at them instead of down, don’t they?’ Stefan said, still smiling as he threw Savage another rope.

The phone rang at around seven in the evening as she was clearing the last of an enormous spaghetti bolognese from her plate. The brusque tone of Detective Superintendent Conrad Hardin rumbled down the line, his voice breaking up as he tried to find a signal for his mobile.

‘Three of them, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘Three. Understand? Never seen anything like … don’t know how … need to try and …’

‘Sir?’

‘Bere Peninsula, Charlotte.’ The signal strong for a moment, Hardin’s voice clear. ‘Tavy View Farm. Nesbit is there, John Layton too, a whole contingent descending on the place, media as well. Bloody nightmare. Meet you in an hour, OK?’

Savage eased the car down the lane past a BBC outside broadcast vehicle and a white van, nudged into a space behind the familiar shape of John Layton’s Volvo, and killed the engine. The car settled into the soft verge, the rain glittering in the headlights before she switched them off too. She sat still for a moment, a tingle of excitement creeping down her spine. Breathing slowly in and out, she let the memories of the past week with Pete and the kids slip away, clearing her thoughts for the task in hand. Her mind had to become a blank canvas, ready for the first wash of colour, the broad brush strokes, the intricate detailing.

A bang on the roof startled her, and she squinted through the window to see the bulky figure of DSupt Hardin standing alongside. He tapped on the glass and she lowered the window.

‘Sorry for calling you out, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘But you know how it is. Thing like this needs quality officers on board. Can’t afford to muck this one up, because the case is going to be something big. And I don’t mean in a good way, get my drift?’

‘Sir?’ Savage felt her heart rate rise. Was this the case which would dispel the boredom of the last few months? She hoped so, because since early in the new year she’d been on what she classed as menial duties; Hardin’s punishment for straying from the straight and narrow.

‘Best see for yourself. Across the field. Hope you brought your wellies.’

Hardin stood and walked away, disappearing into the dark for a moment before he reached a circle of light where a uniformed officer in a yellow waterproof was arguing with a woman. Savage noted the little black on white letters on the woman’s jacket: BBC. Seemed like even the Beeb didn’t respect the right for privacy these days.

Savage got out of the car, put on waterproofs, a white coverall over the top. A pair of boots completed the outfit and she trudged down the lane to where the uniformed officer guarded the gate to a farmyard. Through the gate and Savage approached a police Transit, one of the rear doors of the van standing open. Inside, the interior resembled a mini-office and John Layton, their senior Crime Scene Investigator, sat at a desk with another officer. Layton’s trademark Tilley hat was perched on his head and little globules of water glistened where they had beaded on the canvas material. Below the hat was a thin face with a Roman nose and intense eyes which took in everything. Right now those eyes were scanning the screen of a laptop which displayed a schematic drawing of some kind, overlaying a large-scale map of the area.

‘Charlotte,’ he said, noticing her for the first time. ‘Go and take a look.’

‘You sure?’

‘Sure I’m sure. The place is a complete mess already, nothing left to preserve. Besides, we’ve established a safe entry route. The field is too wet for my stepping plates – stupid little things are sinking right down into the mud – but we nicked a load of pallets from up in the farmyard and laid them down. Looks bloody stupid, but it was all I could think of. Got some proper walkways coming later, if we need them, but doing any type of fingertip search in this quagmire is going to be nigh on impossible. Here, sign yourself in. You’ll need this too.’

Layton handed her a torch and an electronic pad and she scrawled her name before turning away and walking past the van to another gateway. A second uniformed officer in bright waterproofs stood in the gateway, water running down off the peak of his hood and dripping onto his nose.

‘Evening, ma’am,’ he sniffed. ‘One week until midsummer, so I heard. Reckon my calendar must have been printed wrong.’