Two Evils: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel (36 page)

‘Do I know you from somewhere?’ Sleet turns to the Shepherd. ‘You look familiar.’

‘Familiar? Your memory fails you now as your conscience failed you back then.’

‘Back when?’ Sleet staggers forward as the Shepherd pushes him. ‘You can’t do this without telling me what I’ve done, without establishing my guilt.’

‘The altar establishes the guilt. The guilty place themselves upon it and receive God’s punishment.’ The Shepherd pushes Sleet onward. When they reach the altar, he puts his hands out and touches the manacles. ‘These cuffs, they’re self-locking. The same with the foot irons. A penitent man can, should he so wish, secure himself to the altar.’

‘You’re crazy.’ Sleet stands upright now. ‘Why on earth would anyone wish to do that?’

‘Regrets, Perry. Atonement. Perhaps you don’t feel guilt for what you’ve done, but put yourself in the place of somebody who might. The altar offers a way to receive the punishment one feels one deserves. After you, I have two more guests; the final one will, I hope, comply with humility and without argument.’

‘And once this person is in place, you’re saying they can operate the machine?’

‘I set this up so it could be self-operated, yes.’ The Shepherd knows Sleet is stalling, but he’s happy to explain. After all, he took months constructing all this and is rather proud of his labours. ‘Just outside the door to this room there’s a button. Press the button and you have five minutes to get yourself locked in place. Once pressed, the altar is entirely automatic.’

‘And supposing you change your mind?’ Sleet looks at the Shepherd. ‘Is there some way of shutting everything down?’

‘Change your mind?’ The Shepherd laughs. He knows Sleet is trying to find out how to turn the altar off. ‘The whole point is you can’t change your mind. Once the altar has been started nothing can stop it.’

‘There’s no need to go through with this, you know?’ Sleet says. ‘Whatever I’ve done, I’m sorry for. I’ll make amends.’

‘Yes, you will. Climb up.’ The Shepherd waves the Taser. As with Benedict, the barbs are still in Sleet’s skin. For a second, Sleet pauses, but then he complies. ‘Lie facing the ceiling and click your hands into place.’

‘No.’ Sleet is up on the altar, but he’s sitting up, not lying down. ‘You can’t make me.’

‘There’s no escape, Perry. Not for the coward who didn’t tell.’

‘Hey?’ Sleet stares at the Shepherd. Finally there’s a hint of recognition in his eyes. ‘My God, no! Please, I’m sorry. Let me go. Please let me—’

The Shepherd shakes his head and squeezes the trigger on the Taser.

‘Aaarrrggghhh!’ Sleet’s body goes rigid and he cries out. As he does so, the Shepherd pushes him backwards until he is prone and then clicks the man’s wrists and ankles into place. ‘Noooooo!’

‘There, all done.’ The Shepherd places the Taser on the floor. ‘Now we begin.’

Chapter Thirty-Two

Soar Mill Cove, South Hams. Wednesday 28th October. 10.56 p.m.

Savage’s shout brought Hardin stumbling out of the darkness, his feet wet from where he’d waded through the stream. He flashed his torch in Savage’s face.

‘What is it, Charlotte?’ Hardin stood next to her, gasping for breath. ‘Found something?’

Savage didn’t answer. Instead she reached for Hardin’s hand and guided his torch beam up into the darkness.

‘Oh fuck!’ Hardin took several gulps of air. ‘Please, not Jason.’

‘No, sir.’ Savage played the beam of light on the woman’s face, now recognising the thin, haggard features. ‘This is an adult female. It’s Edith Parker, Frank Parker’s second wife.’

‘Thank God.’ Hardin reached out a hand and pushed Savage’s arm down. ‘I don’t need to see any more. This is sickening. To be honest, Charlotte, I’m not sure I can cope with it any longer. Those boys … this … I …’

‘Sir?’ Savage turned to face the DSupt, aware of a snuffling sound. Was Hardin crying? ‘I understand. You know I’ve had my own problems. You can talk to me.’

‘No.’ Hardin coughed, trying to cover his emotions. ‘We need to call this in. Get on top of the situation. Re-establish control. Understand? Just tell me what we need. Personnel. Agencies. Resources.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Savage said. She took a deep breath and tried to focus. ‘Andrew Nesbit, John Layton and his CSIs, a search advisor and additional officers to check the whole area. Gareth Collier to coordinate things from Crownhill. The coastguard clifftop rescue team to retrieve the body, the helicopter, the RNLI. Traffic officers to take care of road-blocking the lanes. The coroner and—’

‘Well get on it, woman. Now!’

Hardin swung around and stomped off across the beach, leaving Savage with the sound of the waves and the body of Edith Parker for company.

It was forty-five minutes later when the first groups began to arrive. The team leader for the coastguard rescue came down to the beach and stood alongside Savage. He guided his crew into position at the top of the cliff using a high-powered torch.

‘Ten minutes to get themselves anchored,’ the man said. ‘Then they’ll be able to descend.’

John Layton appeared before the ten minutes were up. He took one look at the sheer rock gliding up into the darkness and dismissed any chance of a detailed examination of the area at the top of the cliff until daylight.

‘You don’t often get to call me a jobsworth, Charlotte,’ Layton said, craning his neck to see what the rescue team were up to. ‘But in this instance health and safety take priority. Sorry.’

‘Fine, John,’ Savage said. ‘If you’re worried, then there’s something to be worried about.’

‘We’ll get a look at the body and the rope when they lower her down. Is Dr Nesbit on his way?’

‘Yes. Someone’s walking him in at the moment. Shouldn’t be more than a few minutes until he gets here.’

‘Looks like they’re ready.’ Layton nodded upwards to where one of the coastguard rescuers was dangling on a rope near the body. ‘We’ll need to hold them up until Nesbit arrives.’

Layton moved across to talk to the coastguard team leader as Savage watched the man on the rope tie a second line a little way above the noose.

‘They’ll cut it,’ Layton said returning to Savage’s side. ‘Let the whole thing down slowly. Nesbit will want to get a look at the body before the noose is removed. Talk of the devil.’

‘Charlotte. John.’ Nesbit’s silk-like voice slipped from the darkness as his lanky form emerged into view. In one hand he held his black bag, in the other a tiny penlight. ‘I left my chaperone at the edge of the beach. Told him I would have no trouble finding you. Somewhat foolhardy of me since I ended up wandering around in a stream.’

Nesbit shone his little light down at his feet. He was wearing a pair of brogues and white chinos. The trousers were sodden up to the knees.

‘Talk about sensible footwear, doc,’ Savage said. ‘Didn’t anyone tell you where the body was?’

‘Woodland Heights was the message I got. Nothing about walking half a mile along the coast and then descending a treacherous path to a beach where I’d have to ford a raging torrent to get to the scene.’

‘Sorry, Andrew. Can you make it over the rocks?’

‘Without braining myself and ending up on my own slab?’ Nesbit peered across to where Layton had erected some battery-operated lights to illuminate the area beneath the body. ‘Faint heart, Charlotte, faint heart.’

The three of them clambered across the rocks and stood at the entrance to the cave. Layton nodded across to the coastguard team leader and gave him the go-ahead. Savage looked upwards. The man dangling in mid-air said something into his lapel-mounted radio and then took a knife and began to cut the rope a metre or so above the noose. The rope parted and the strain was taken up on the second line which ran up into the darkness. The rescuer made a second comment into his radio and then the body began to descend as those above lowered the rope. He fended off from the cliff and then was in the open space of the cave mouth.

‘Stop half a metre from the ground please,’ Nesbit shouted. He turned to Savage and Layton. ‘I want to check the ligature and the body before the weight is taken off.’

The corpse slid down, spinning slowly until Layton was able to reach up and steady it. The coastguard rescuer abseiled down on a separate line and then unclipped himself and jumped clear.

‘Woah!’ Layton shouted out.

The body stopped descending, the feet just a few centimetres from the ground. Nesbit walked forward. Layton was still holding the body steady.

‘She didn’t die from being hanged,’ Nesbit said within seconds of examining the woman’s neck. ‘Look, there’s signs that a separate ligature was used. See the marks here, and here on the neck well below where the noose is.’ The pathologist reached up with one hand and gently lifted an eyelid. ‘Yes, petechiae are present. In addition, subconjunctival haemorrhaging. Blood-red eyes in layman’s terms. The capillaries have ruptured in the sclera.’

‘Meaning?’ Savage said.

‘There was a struggle.’ Nesbit lowered the eyelid and then moved his hand down to the neck again, where there were a series of red lines. ‘Look at these scratches. Not made by the killer, but by the victim in a vain effort to try to loosen the ligature. The poor woman put up a hell of a fight.’

‘Jesus.’ Savage cast her mind back to when she herself had been attacked in the copse, thinking how lucky she’d been. ‘It makes sense she wasn’t killed here. Any kind of a struggle up at the top of the cliff would have been very dangerous.’

‘And in the dark as well,’ Layton said. ‘I wouldn’t have fancied dancing around up there whether the victim was alive or dead.’

‘No,’ Savage said. She looked up into the darkness once more, thinking of the man she’d seen on her first visit to the cove. ‘He knew the area. He certainly would have had to reconnoitre before he lowered the body down. From up there, you’d never know the location of the cave. To my mind the fact the body was hanging in the entrance wasn’t a coincidence.’

‘A message?’ Nesbit turned to Savage. ‘Using the body as some kind of marker?’

‘Jason Caldwell was murdered at the entrance to the cave by Frank Parker. Parker’s son, Brenden, was obviously so affected by what happened here at Soar Mill Cove that he is now driven to leave this kind of signature. That could also point to the boy being dumped in the tunnel as being significant, the tunnel doubling for the cave.’

‘I thought you didn’t have much time for this kind of psychological mumbo-jumbo?’ Nesbit said. ‘Not that I’m saying you’re wrong. Sounds highly plausible to me.’ Nesbit moved back to the body. ‘However, for the moment we must deal with the facts as we have them here. Let’s have the body down.’

Two of Layton’s officers had laid a body bag on the floor. The coastguard gave another order into his radio and the body slipped down some more. The CSIs manoeuvred the corpse and gently laid it atop the bag. Nesbit bent over and spent a couple of minutes examining the body.

The pathologist shook his head. ‘I think I’ve seen enough for the moment. We’ll examine her more fully at the mortuary. For now, let’s get the bag closed up and give this poor woman some dignity.’

Chapter Thirty-Three

Sleet is lying in the altar room, secured to the altar. Everything is ready to go. The Shepherd says a final few words to him, but he’s screaming, not listening at all. The Shepherd walks from the room and slides the heavy metal door shut. The latch clicks and self-locks. There. Sleet is safe now, ready to be delivered to God and absolved of all his sins.

The Shepherd moves to the control room. He walks across and slumps down in the seat. On one of the monitors there’s a close-up of the altar, Sleet’s head and shoulders filling the frame. The man is frothing at the mouth, drool spilling down his cheek and accumulating on the shiny surface beneath him. The Shepherd watches for a couple of minutes and checks everything is OK. Sleet is babbling now, begging for his life and crying like a baby.

Time to begin.

The Shepherd stands and makes his way from the control room. He stops in the corridor. Brenden Parker is talking. The Shepherd can’t believe what he is hearing. The man is asking to be pardoned.

‘This isn’t right,’ Parker says. ‘Your plan is flawed. It’s based on inaccuracies.’

The Shepherd stands rigid and stares at Parker. This won’t do. He hasn’t time to listen to pathetic excuses. He needs to get on and deal with Sleet.

‘You watched the abuse and did nothing,’ the Shepherd says. ‘Down at the cove you killed Jason Caldwell. You must suffer the consequences in the same way that Tim Benedict did. In the same way that shortly Perry Sleet will.’

‘I didn’t kill Caldwell,’ Parker says. ‘The police have arrested my father for the crime. You’ve got the wrong man.’

‘I see.’ The Shepherd considers Parker’s words. All these years he’d assumed Brenden was guilty. This is something he needs to think about. He can’t just dismantle the edifice he’s built and throw away decades of hatred. ‘You must understand you remain accused of saying nothing, of being a coward like the others. If you’d stood up to be counted, things might have been very different.’

‘No. The minister would still have got away with it. Those type of people always do and they always will. I would have been beaten. I may even have ended up buried in the cellar like Jason. Besides, I was just a child. A kid. You can’t blame kids for the actions of adults. Kids can’t stop wars or stuff like that.’

‘Right.’ The Shepherd shakes his head. He can see where this is going. ‘I must say you’ve changed your tune since the last time we spoke.’

‘Yes. Since the police visited me I’ve been reconsidering. They made me see that I’m innocent in all of this. I’m as much a victim as Jason was, as Liam and the others.’

‘A victim?’ The Shepherd nods and bows his head for a moment. ‘And these others, you mean the boys, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course. The boys weren’t to blame. Suffer the little children.’

‘Suffer the little …’ Parker is taking the biscuit now, the Shepherd thinks. Who’s the religious expert around here? He shakes his head. ‘No, they weren’t to blame. But Tim Benedict? Did you approve of what happened to him?’