Devils way, p.19
Devil's Way, page 19
‘Okay. This is the view we have of the sand right now,’ said Lewis, showing them a graph on the iPad screen. Along the top, the distance was marked out in metres, and then down the left-hand side, it showed the depth marked out in half metres. The land was represented by colours, starting with green at the deepest and then morphing into yellow and orange and then red near the surface. ‘What do you know about ground penetrating radar?’
‘Nothing,’ said Tristan.
‘I know a little, but remind me,’ said Kate as they huddled around the screen.
‘Okay, so, ground penetrating radar or GPR consists of an electromagnetic sender,’ he said, pointing to the unit on wheels, ‘and a receiver.’ He held up the iPad. ‘The sender emits high-frequency radio pulses down into the ground. It does this continually, and if the frequency reflects on any objects in the soil, they show up on this screen.’
‘How deep can it detect things?’ asked Kate.
‘The depth of GPR penetration depends on the kind of ground it’s on. Right now, we’re on sand, and sand will return a very clear image. But GPR will penetrate concrete, fresh water, seawater, rock, ice and asphalt differently due to their electromagnetic make-up. Clay or clay soil is particularly shitty. When my mate has to look for pipes buried in clay, the penetration depth is only a couple of metres or less. Here, you take the iPad.’ He handed it to Kate.
She looked back at where they’d been digging in the sand. It was already hot, and the damp sand they’d churned up was already dry.
‘Tristan, if you roll the GPR slowly over the stuff we’ve buried, I’ll show Kate.’
Kate watched as Tristan pushed the unit towards the first hole where the length of copper piping was buried. The coloured bands on the iPad screen warped and bent, showing a thin outline of the object.
‘Remember, sand is an excellent conductor, so you can see the thin pipe clearly,’ said Lewis. ‘Tris, come and look.’
Tristan joined them to peer at the screen and nodded, then moved back to the GPR and pushed it along the sand to the second hole. The Tiny Tears doll had been buried deeper. As he moved closer with the GPR, Kate saw the coloured bands shift, and then they bulged out to reflect the size of the doll buried in the blanket.
‘The material of the blanket reflects the radio pulses,’ said Lewis as they stared at the round bulge at a depth of two metres.
Kate suddenly felt sick at the thought of what they were planning. Tristan joined them to look at the screen again.
‘The doll shows up bigger than the thin length of pipe,’ he said.
They were silent for a moment.
‘But obviously, you’re just looking for pipes in the ground, and if anyone asks me, that’s what I loaned you the equipment for,’ said Lewis.
‘Pipes in the ground,’ repeated Kate.
‘Yes. Pipes in the ground,’ said Tristan. Lewis looked at them both, and he looked uncomfortable.
‘Listen. Guys. I was a good copper, but I was drinking a lot more and drugging back then. I’ve got things under control now,’ he said insistently. ‘I have.’
Later, when Lewis was packing up his van, and Tristan had gone to the office to get some cash, Kate handed him a piece of paper with her phone number. He looked at it and then raised an eyebrow.
‘I’m not asking you out!’ she said. ‘I’m in recovery, in Alcoholics Anonymous. That’s my number, if you ever need to talk.’
Lewis looked at the piece of paper again. He went to say something, but Tristan appeared with the money. Lewis quickly pocketed the paper.
‘Here you go,’ said Tristan handing him an envelope.
‘Thanks,’ said Lewis. ‘And remember. I loaned you that equipment to look at pipes in the ground.’
‘We’ll get the equipment back to you tomorrow,’ said Tristan.
As they watched Lewis drive away, Kate wondered if he would ever need her number, or if he would just carry on drinking.
40
As the day progressed and the sun sank in the sky, Kate had severe reservations about what they planned to do, and when they set off for Dartmoor at 11pm, it felt too real and reckless.
The GPR unit folded up and fitted into a large backpack, which Tristan offered to carry. It was a warm night, but they wore walking shoes, black jeans, and dark, long-sleeved T-shirts.
Kate felt okay on the short stretch of floodlit motorway between Ashdean and Exmoor, amongst the other traffic and the bright lights, but when they came off the Exeter junction and started down the unlit country roads, she felt exposed.
The map showed that Danvers Farm was a couple of square miles wide, and they parked in a small lay-by a few hundred metres from the main gate.
One of their extensive discussions that afternoon was: did the farm have CCTV? Kate had to assume they did have it in their yard and the fields immediately surrounding the house, but she didn’t think so in the area next to the road, which led into the woodland.
When they parked, Tristan switched off the car engine. They sat in the darkness for a minute, listening to the sound of their breathing. Only a tiny amount of light pollution emanated from Exeter, far off across the moors and below the skyline, and Kate could only see the outline of Tristan’s profile. Their midnight trespass suddenly felt like a foolish whim.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ asked Kate.
‘Not really, but you’ve made me curious enough not to want to bail,’ said Tristan. ‘What if they have dogs?’ he added.
‘There won’t be dogs out loose on their land. There are too many sheep all over Dartmoor, and we’re crossing a field that the farm doesn’t have directly connected to their house. There’s the woodland in between.’
‘You sound sure,’ said Tristan.
‘Do I? Good,’ said Kate. A set of headlights burst around the corner, dazzling them.
‘Shit,’ said Kate. Tristan went to duck down, but she put out her hand to stop him. ‘No. Act normal.’
‘How do we act normal, sitting in a dark lay-by at midnight?’
Kate leant over and put her head on his shoulder.
‘Let them think we’re here for sex, and we’ve been caught,’ said Kate. Tristan winced and stared at Kate as she sat up again, and adjusted her top. The lights seemed to advance on them slowly, growing brighter and making Kate’s retinas ache, and then the car was gone, thankfully, without stopping.
‘That’s blinded me,’ said Tristan.
‘Come on, we need to move,’ said Kate, opening her car door.
Tristan followed her, and they retrieved the GPR unit from the back seat. He shrugged on the backpack. Kate had a smaller bag with the iPad, gloves, and a couple of crowbars if they needed to move boulders. They hadn’t brought shovels. Kate hadn’t wanted to contemplate digging anything up.
The drystone wall of Danvers Farm began a few metres from where they’d parked. They’d both brought tiny black-light torches with them, which emitted a meagre purple glow. The light from them was barely sufficient, and when they climbed up on the drystone wall, Kate was suddenly terrified when she couldn’t see the ground on the other side.
They switched off their torches. Kate figured that a glow on the road might not be questioned, but if someone from the farm saw a faint light moving across their field, it might make them come and investigate.
Tristan took off the backpack, balancing it on the wall, and he jumped down first.
‘It’s not a big drop, only waist-high on me,’ he said in a low voice. They could see the farmhouse on the top of the slope beyond the woodland, and two lights were burning in the upstairs windows. Kate slid over the wall and landed on the other side.
They kept along the boundary wall as they crossed the field. Kate was relieved when they reached the edge of the woodland, and the farmhouse was obscured by the black mass of trees.
They stopped. Kate felt out of breath, and she was sweating in the warm night. She heard a thud and a quiet groan.
‘Tris? Are you okay?’ she asked. She moved closer to the line of trees, switched on her black-light, and almost stumbled over Tristan lying on the ground.
‘I tripped on a tree root, watch out,’ he said. He was still wearing the backpack, and it must have landed on him when he went down, thought Kate. She helped him up, and they stepped into the line of trees and started walking into the wood. Kate thought Tristan’s idea to bring a compass was rash, but amongst the thick trees and the almost pitch black, they quickly lost their bearings. She held onto the backpack as he moved slowly, keeping them headed north.
There were so many noises in the dark, the crackling of bracken and twigs underfoot and strange rustles in the darkness. Kate was glad to have Tristan and the bulk of the backpack to cling onto. Finally, they emerged out the other side of the wood. The horizon was glowing, and they couldn’t see the Devil’s Way, but the light pollution seemed brighter after their walk through the pitch black.
The farm buildings seemed much closer on the other side than Kate remembered. It took another twenty minutes of walking up and down the tree line to find the boulders and the ear tree. When they finally found it, they were hot and bothered, and Kate’s nerves were hanging out.
She switched on her black-light and shone it over the ear growing out of the wood. It looked grotesque in the half-light and had the shine of real skin and cartilage. Tristan shrugged off the backpack and placed it on the ground. He took out the GPR box. They hadn’t brought the handle. When Tristan switched it on, two tiny red lights on the side blinked and lit up their surroundings with an eerie glow.
‘That’s bright,’ said Tristan. Kate felt around inside her bag and took out the iPad. The screen light activated, and it seemed to blaze out, lighting up the woodland and the canopy of branches above. She quickly turned it and pressed the screen to her chest, plunging them back into darkness.
‘We’re so close to the edge,’ said Kate. She could see through the branches to the farm buildings from where they stood.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ said Tristan. They’d re-read Maureen’s short story a few times during the day, writing down everything they could to find the precise point where the woman could have buried her child. The story stated it was under the smallest boulder between the two larger ones. When Kate shone the black-light on the spot, it was precisely as described in the story. They each took a crowbar and tried to prise up the boulder, so they could roll it to one side.
It felt like it was fixed in place with concrete, and for a moment, as they heaved and sweated, Kate thought it wasn’t going to budge. Then the boulder rolled over and moved a few feet down the ground sloping away.
‘How did the woman in the story move this on her own?’ said Kate. Tristan didn’t answer. He lifted the GPR unit onto the ground next to the depression made by the boulder. She could see the sweat on his face, and it was dripping down his nose.
‘Can you check if it’s connecting to the iPad?’ he said. Kate crouched behind the largest boulder and, clutching the iPad to her chest, she turned the screen brightness right down. Then she opened the app. Tristan came round to join her. Even turned down to a dim glow, the iPad screen still seemed so bright, and their shadows were cast on the canopy of the trees above like two huge giants.
The bands of colours were more uneven than they’d been when they were on the beach, and Kate could already see there was some distortion at the edge of the screen.
‘It’s connecting,’ said Kate in a low voice. Tristan moved off around the boulder and gripped the GPR unit. As he rolled it forward, Kate saw the bands of colour bulge and distort. Was she reading this right? There was something under the ground buried at a depth of two metres.
‘What can you see—’ Tristan started to say, and then there was a crackle of undergrowth and a hissing sound. She heard Tristan yell, and they were plunged into darkness. The air around her seemed to fill with a cloud of noxious gas, and she couldn’t breathe; her eyes were streaming and as she tried to stand up, she knew that they had been pepper-sprayed.
‘Tristan?’ she said, groping around on the grass. Her elbow hit the large boulder. She heard feet scuffing on the earth, and then the spray hit her again. Her eyes were closed but she took in a gulp and gagged.
‘Who are you?’ screamed a voice. It was the voice of a child, a young boy.
‘We’re not here to hurt you,’ Kate heard Tristan say. She heard the hiss of the spray again and she instinctively put up her hands to cover her face.
‘Stop it!’ she tried to say. She had lost her bearings completely and she staggered forward and tripped on something. She fell hard on her front, her head hit a rock and she blacked out.
41
Kate was sitting on a long bench by the back door of the farmhouse kitchen. Her head was throbbing, and she could feel a large bruise under her hair. The kitchen was lit by a single light over the table and chairs in the centre, which gave the room a cave-like appearance.
A paramedic was leaning over Tristan, who was slumped on a chair at the kitchen table. His face was swollen and red. Dawn Grey, the landlady of the farm who they’d met earlier, was standing next to the paramedic wearing a dressing gown. She dipped a cloth into a bowl, wrung it out and dabbed at Tristan’s swollen face.
‘It’s alright, this is only mild soapy water,’ she said with concern in her voice.
The paramedic gently tipped Tristan’s head back and Kate winced when she saw his face was so swollen that his eyes were just small slits. When Dawn pressed the cloth on his skin, he grimaced.
‘It’s okay, love. This will cool everything down. Try not to touch your skin,’ she said, holding his arm with her free hand. ‘Can you hold this for me?’ she said, putting his hands onto the cloth. He held it and gritted his teeth.
Kate looked over at Jack, the red Adidas tracksuit boy. He was standing in front of the fridge next to a door leading into the rest of the house. He looked very pale and scared. She felt so angry, but she didn’t know if it was with herself or this stupid kid. She’d escaped the worse of the pepper spray, but Tristan had received it full in the face. The paramedic moved over to Kate.
‘You seem better off than your friend,’ she said. She knelt down and examined Kate’s head, gently parting her hair. Kate looked around the room. It was a cosy farmhouse kitchen with Willow Pattern plates on a Welsh dresser, and the fridge was covered with children’s pictures curling up at the edges. The paramedic shone a pen torch in her eyes. ‘You seemed to have dodged the mace, but we should get you checked out at hospital, you may have concussion.’
Kate had no desire to go back to hospital. The back door opened, and two police officers came into the kitchen. She felt her stomach flip, and guilt came over her again. Tristan had his head on the table, pressing the damp cloth against his skin.
One of the police officers was a portly man in his late fifties with a grey beard. He was accompanied by a young lad who couldn’t have been more than nineteen. He had peachy smooth skin and jet-black hair. They both wore yellow high-visibility jackets over their uniforms and were sweating. One of their radios beeped, and a voice came blasting through. He reached up and turned it down.
‘We’ve checked the rest of the property. There’s no one else we can find,’ said the older officer. ‘There’s a blue Mini Cooper parked out on a lay-by close to the boundary of your property.’
Tristan sat up and looked at the police officers. His eyes were red, but Kate saw he could now open them a bit more.
‘That’s our car. We’re private detectives,’ said Kate, putting up her hand.
‘Are you now? Well, I’m a detective chief inspector. Detective Chief Inspector Ken Harris,’ he replied. ‘This is my colleague Detective Duncan West.’ He stood over Kate and looked down at her coldly. ‘Why were you trespassing on the property?’
‘We are private detectives—’
He shook his head and cut her off.
‘No, no, no. You are private citizens. And you were trespassing.’
‘Using pepper spray as a civilian is illegal,’ said Kate, looking over at Jack. She knew she had to defend herself and Tristan right away before the police decided what to do next, and she could sense they were confused by the situation.
‘Yes, we are aware of that,’ said Harris, following her gaze to Jack.
‘I didn’t know that Jack had mace,’ said Dawn.
‘And what’s your name, ma’am?’ asked Harris.
‘I’m Dawn Grey,’ she said. She didn’t look happy. She wrung out another flannel in the bowl of soapy water and handed it to Tristan, taking the used cloth back to the sink. Tristan dabbed at his burning face. Harris seemed to note that Dawn was helping the two trespassers.
‘Jack. How old are you?’
‘Thirteen,’ he said swallowing and shifting on his feet. He was trembling.
‘Why do you have mace?’ he asked.
‘My dad is away. I was looking after me mum and sister,’ he said. ‘I saw a light in the woods. I thought it was junkies!’
‘What do you mean, junkies? We don’t get junkies here,’ said Dawn.
‘I didn’t know it was them,’ said Jack, indicating Kate and Tristan. ‘They’d been here the other day to buy eggs!’ He now sounded terrified, and his teenage voice cracked. Harris put up his hands.
‘Jack. Have you got the pepper spray?’
The boy shifted on his feet.
‘Yes.’
‘Can I have it?’ Harris said, holding out his hand.
‘What’s going to happen to him?’ asked Dawn, stepping between her son and the police officer. Harris kept his hand out, and when Jack retrieved a small can from his pocket, he moved around her to take it.
‘Where is it from?’ asked Harris.
‘I got it online,’ said Jack. Harris looked around at everyone in the small kitchen and shook his head.
‘On this occasion, I will just give you a strong verbal warning that possessing and using mace is illegal. Do you understand, Jack? We’ll draw a line under it if you promise never to buy or use this again.’ Jack nodded. He put his trembling hands in his pockets. ‘Do you understand why it’s illegal? Look at what it did to these two people.’
