In the Moors (28 page)

I felt myself shudder, just once—from cold or from fear of where I was about to go. Just once. And then I was gone.

TWENTY-TWO

My mind was far
from the dankness of the moors. I'd slipped into a deep trance and moved into someone else's world on a shamanic quest that might have taken me minutes or more than an hour. I'm not sure how long I had been away when into my spirit world came the sound of drumming. I thought I was in my therapy room. I thought this was the call-back sign on my CD. I kept my eyes shut for a moment, so that all the images I'd encountered between the worlds would be imprinted on my brain. I tried to recall who my client was and why I'd journeyed for them, until I realized I was shivering with damp and bitter cold and that my journey had been to the grave of a child.

I opened my eyes. I was sitting in a hard vortex of light that came directly from above. It wasn't drumming that had brought me back; it was the guttural sound of helicopter blades.

I sat on the tarp, my gloved hands over my ears, unable to block out the manic, brutal clatter of the chopper. I stayed absolutely still, legs crossed, my chest pounding through my double layer of jackets. It was probably the same protective impulse a rabbit has when caught in headlights, but it saved me from darting away and sinking into the nearest water.

I was only half out of my trance, and the battering of sound and light leached into my dream state. I could feel the beam behind my orange eyelids as if extra-terrestrials were trying to lift me into their spacecraft. But the first voice I heard didn't come from above.

“Stand and place your hands wide of your body. Stand and place your hands …”

The words were standard procedure, the tone aggressive. I opened my eyes a slit and saw a man in uniform outlined against a beam of light.

I stumbled onto my senseless legs. The officer came forward like a dream creature. Some way beyond us, ethereal colours floated in the night sky, a brilliant, moving sequence of blues that my still-dreaming brain connected to the fen-spirits who inhabited these watery places. I dreamily shoved my feet into my boots and pocketed my socks. I followed the officer out of the peat bog until both of us became more upright as we reached solid ground.

The helicopter took off, and the silence sang in my ears as we strode forward without watching our feet. Suddenly the fairy lights were in front of me.

“A police car!” It was the first thing I'd said, the shock finally bringing me out of my dream world.

“Move on, miss,” said the officer.

The car door opened, and a woman stepped out. Although she was in standard cop gear of trousers and jacket, I could tell she was a woman by the fine lines of her cheeks and the way she moved.

My overwhelming feeling was relief. I don't think I could have crossed the marsh again, not until dawn, and I might have been frozen solid by then. The whole expedition was badly planned—
laughable really—and I was sure that the officers involved in my rescue were chortling silently at my stupidity. I looked at the officer who bundled me into the back seat. He was thin-faced, his hair springy beneath his cap.

“I can't thank you enough,” I said, my voice hollow. “I know I've put you to a lot of trouble.”

“Don't thank us,” said the woman officer, glancing round at me from the driver's seat. Her eyes were like ball bearings. “We're not a rescue team. You are under arrest.”

“Sorry?”

“Didn't you hear me caution you, miss?” said the other officer.

“I—no—what have I done?”

“That's what we'd like to know, miss. What you were doing in a police-cordoned area without permission.”

The driver completed a proficient three-point turn and eased the car along a narrow lane. I could sense her looking at me through the rear-view mirror. “Just remember that anything you say can be used in evidence.”

An idiotic scene passed though my head. I was standing up in a court of law. The judge was placing a black cap on his head.
The evidence against you is of your own making …
I shook myself. I wasn't fully out of the dark and terrible place I had visited in my trance. It takes me a while to come round, but usually I'm alone in my therapy room, not under police escort.

“I don't know how this works,” I said, half to myself.

“You'll be offered legal representation, don't worry.”

Outside the car, dark bushes waved in the night wind. I rested my head back and fought a sudden, desperate need to sleep, blinking awake as a house loomed into view, alone on a dark lane. I felt every muscle in my body tense. We were passing Brokeltuft. Forensics had shrouded it in a white garment, protecting their intimate work in its bowels. I closed my eyes against the sight and Trendle's words came into my mind:
The path to the north is for another time.
Had he always planned that I would find the graves under the willows?

“There is not much true evil in this world,” Bren had said to me once. “Mostly, what we think of as wrongdoing is just nature taking its course.” But I was sure that everything Brokeltuft
stood for was true evil in its darkest form. Out in the moors, I'd stepped into a mist of suffering. I'd experienced the hurt of a kidnapped child so profound it had scored tears down my cheeks without my knowing it. The horror of capture and captivity, the fear of an unknown future, the longing for home and loved ones, and the unfairness, the confusion of it all were implanted on my mind. This mist had encircled me, pulled me down, tied me in. Truly, I had been rescued by the 'copter's beating wings.

Josh had left me one single, recognisable image, along with those sensations. And I had no idea what it could mean.

By the time we'd reached the station, I was anaesthetized from cold and shock. They took my backpack from me and listed its sad contents, down to the screw of clingfilm I'd wrapped around the crust of pies, and my mobile deep at the bottom. It was still on silent, of course, which meant I wouldn't have heard it while it was in my backpack. The officer swiped it from my uncooperative hands.

“It's my duty to ask you if you want a solicitor with you during your interview,” the sergeant said as he bagged up my property. “If you don't have one, we can supply you with the duty solicitor.”

My brain was still fogged. Linnet had become my friend and I knew she'd want to help me, but did I need help? I was in a state, all right, but there was only one person I wanted to hear my story. His face had not left my mind since he'd left my house. I was desperate to see him one last time.

“I believe I can make a phone call.”

“Who d'you want to ring?”

“DS Reynard Buckley.”

It is impossible to sleep in police cells, I have now discovered. I'm not good with hard, narrow, or confined spaces. They fairly terrify me, truth be told. The sounds from outside the cell kept my eyelids wrenched wide open and the smell within it was on a par with playground toilets, along with the scrubbed-off graffiti. The hours went more slowly than a snail trail across a carpet, and I feared the walls were just as slowly closing in on me. I couldn't even tell what the time was. I'd been interviewed for what had seemed like hours. I told them about my connection with Cliff. I told them why I went to the site. Then I shut up.

As the two arresting officers prodded at my story, I saw them exchange cautious glances with each other, probably their shorthand for
this one's a got a leak in the think tank
. Even though it must have been clear to them that I was telling the truth, albeit a pixilated version, they weren't going to release me. And hours later, here in my cosy little cell, I was still beating myself up. Thoughts tumbled round in my head all night, like clothes caught in an everlasting wash cycle. I drifted into sleep while kneeling in front of a washing machine, pulling each item from it, stained and grubby. The T-shirts bore slogans that crushed my heart.
For Sale: Useless Shaman—Stupid and Reckless.
I kept thrusting the laundry back in the drum, but there was something wrong with the cycle; the controls were complicated, I couldn't see how to set the thing going again. The door of the machine suddenly screeched wide and a vise gripped my shoulder.

“Sabbie?”

“I can't get the marks off.”

“Sabbie? Wake up.”

My body trembled from lack of sleep. My head was burning, but my feet and my back were freezing. I opened my eyes. The light was full on in the cell, and Rey was standing beside me. The one blanket they'd allowed, previous owner a horse, had fallen to the floor. I rubbed my eyes and cheeks with the flat of my hands and groaned. The smell of the cell pressed in on me.

“Sabbie,” said Rey, again. “What's going on?”

I struggled into a sitting position. “I ache all over.”

Rey picked up the blanket and arranged it around my shoulders, dapping at it as if trying to keep it in place. The touch was so gentle, I had to stare hard at the concrete floor to keep my composure. I badly wanted to cry, and I kept the tears away by barking at Rey.

“Are you here to grill me? Because I'll let you in on a secret: I'm not up to it.”

Rey turned to where a uniformed officer hovered by the cell door. “Give us five.” The door clanged shut, and we were alone.

“You look appalling.”

“Thanks.” I showed him my tearless eyes. “You should try a night in police custody. Works wonders if you need an ego reduction.”

“You didn't listen to me. I asked you to remain detached. Actually, I told you to detach yourself entirely. The next thing I know, you're crawling over a murder site. Since Cliff became our prime suspect, we've been keeping a careful eye on the place. He could have an accomplice, after all.”

“But it wasn't like that, and you all know it. I was only trying to help. Why did I get banged up in here?”

“You're a civilian, Sabbie. One of those damn dumb civvies who think they're of more service than they actually are. They get in the way—knock our enquiries off course—become a danger to us, not to mention to themselves.” He scratched at his thigh, as if the cell's infestations had jumped ship and started biting him. “I've known members of the public to obstruct us so badly, we've lost our chance of getting a suspect to trial.”

“You're mad at me,” I ventured. “You told me to keep out of the investigation, but I just couldn't do it.”

“That's clear.” Rey laid a hand on the bunk for a moment, as if testing the paltry mattress.

I couldn't help looking at the back of his hand. It had a worn, veteran appearance, as if it had seen many a thing. I wondered how many women that hand had caressed.

“I guess you are my millstone.” Rey hooked a smile onto his face. “But you kept quiet about the Slamblaster
.
I should thank you for that.”

“Can you tell me about Cliff?” I asked. “Did he see the profiler?”

“He did.” Rey frowned and remained silent. A flutter of optimism rose in me.

“He didn't confess, did he?” Rey pouted like a small boy refused candy. “The profiler isn't sure about Cliff's guilt—that's what's happened, hasn't it?”

Rey paced round the cell. It didn't take him long, but I could see he spent the short time thinking. He came to a halt in front of me. “If I tell you something now, can you keep it to yourself until the press release the details?” I nodded violently. “We're going to bow to pressure from Cliff's legal team and let him out on bail.”

“Oh! Rey, that is the most wonderful news.” I punched the air. “It was his one bit of good luck, getting Linnet as duty solicitor.”

He frowned at me. “Luck? Duty? She's his family's solicitor.”

“I'm sure Cliff told me she was allocated—”

“Ah, but you see, Sabbie, you shouldn't believe everything a murder suspect tells you.”

“So Cliff's family is paying for legal representation?”

“Through the nose, I should think.”

“Good. Caroline can afford it. Does she know he's being released? She'll be so relieved.”

“Don't get carried away. We've agreed to release him only on the strictest conditions.”

I didn't need to be told what those conditions were. I could see exactly what the plan was. “You're hoping he'll lead you to Aidan.”

“He's not uttered a word to help us find that child. Letting him go is worth a try.”

I shook my head. “He's not going to lead you anywhere.”

“Got any better ideas? Something call to you out there?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I don't suppose you want to hear it.”

Rey eased himself onto the hard bunk, choosing his spot with care—an arm's length of don't-touch space between us. “I hardly know what to make of the things you say.”

“You will never believe in what I do, not after what happened with the Slamblaster. I'm sorry there were false leads with that one. I do understand that I blew it.”

“Shut up, Sabbie.” His face was screwed with emotion. It wasn't hate or contempt, as I'd feared. It was sorrow, and around its edges was guilt. I had begun to think of Rey as one of a kind—a bit of a rebel, but the sort of guy people could rely on. Old ladies who'd lost their cat, young women in police cells. But something was driving him at the moment that had nothing to do with his policeman persona.

“Rey?”

“The picture of Josh's house. It was a false lead, you're right.” He stared at the thick, strong-bolted door, as if hopeful someone would come and rescue him. “We tricked each other, I guess.”

“No,” I said, “that's not so—”

“I didn't give you Josh's toy. D'you really think forensics would sanction that? Not in a million years. I bought a Slamblaster from Toys ‘R' Us and bagged it up.” He turned half away from me, as if in shame. “It was necessary. I needed to prove to myself that you really are a damn dumb civvie.” I could hear Rey's breath, a fast noisy rate that suggested a rise in blood pressure.