Two Evils: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel. Mark Sennen

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СКАЧАТЬ don’t know, but perhaps in some small way what was within helped her to understand where things went wrong.

       I stare down at the book. I know I need to relive the events inside, but not now, not here.

       Day Five

       I knew I would return. The place has too many memories for me to stay away. I park my car and walk across fields, the notebook clasped tight in my right hand. There’s a copse in the distance. Green leaves in a sea of waving corn. I wade through the corn and reach an old fence which hangs between slanted posts. Within grows hazel and scrub and a huge tangle of laurel.

       I step over the fence into another world, wandering the woodland until I find my secret place. As a young man I used to come here to meet my best friend. I’d talk to him about my problems, speak of my hopes and aspirations, tell him of my sorrows.

       As I grew and matured I gradually weaned myself from my obsession. Life went on and I forgot about my secret place.

       And yet here I am, looking for my friend, once more seeking help.

       I kneel in the shadows, place the notebook on the ground, and begin to scrabble in the dirt. The brown covering of dead laurel leaves gives way to mulch and soil. My fingers reach down, pushing into the soft material and scraping away until I’ve dug a shallow hole. There it is, shining in the light. A hemisphere of bone, long ago cleaned of flesh and polished to a gleaming white. I pull the skull from the ground and hold it in front of me. In the right eye socket a large marble twinkles. A double cat’s eye whopper. There used to be a marble in each eye, but one dropped out and was lost.

       ‘Hello, Smirker,’ I say. ‘It’s been a long time.’

       I kiss the wide bone of Smirker’s forehead and then I place him on a nearby brick so we can have a talk.

       Smirker smiles at me with his perfect teeth and winks at me with his one good eye. I beam back at him. I can see he’s spotted the diary.

       ‘Ssshhh!’ I say, picking up the book and turning to the first page. ‘This was just a dream, right?’

       Smirker smiles again, but I can see he doesn’t believe me.

       To be honest, I’m not sure I do either.

      The Shepherd sits in his rocking chair. He moves back and forth, the rocking soothing, almost as if he is once more a child in the arms of his mother. There’s a creak from the rockers on the bare boards of the floor. No carpet. The room is sparse with no floor covering except for a small hearth rug. Aside from the rocker there are a couple of wooden chairs with straight backs. A monk’s bench. A table, the surface much worn. To one side of the room stands a huge dresser, plain with no frills. There is a fireplace but no fire. Hasn’t been for years. Cold is something you get used to if you experience it for long enough.

      From somewhere across the fields a bell chimes. Twelve strokes. Midnight. A new day beckoning.

      The Shepherd nods to himself, the movement of his head matching the rhythm of the rocking chair. There is something mechanical about the action. Purposeful. Like the clock in the church ticking off the seconds. God marking the time until the sinners must face their day of judgement. The final toll of the bell fades and he realises that in the moment between yesterday and today something has changed. There’s been a subtle alteration in the ether. Perhaps the change is merely something physical, meteorological. Then again, perhaps the slight ripple in the air is something quite different. Perhaps it is the voice of God.

      He puts his feet out to steady himself, to stop the movement of the chair. He sits in the silence of the night and listens.

      God, he knows, doesn’t always announce Himself with a bang. His voice is sometimes not much more than a whisper. Only those prepared to listen can detect His presence.

      The Shepherd pushes himself up from the chair and stands. He walks across to where the velvet curtains hang heavy. He draws one back and peers out into the small hours which lie like a suffocating blanket of silence across the valley. The air is still, not a branch or a leaf moving, the treetops reaching for a sky filled with crystal lights.

      Just on the edge of perception he can hear singing. Two young boys performing a duet, their voices as clear as the night.

       Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove

       Far away, far away would I rove …

      He closes the curtains, returns to the rocker and eases himself down into the chair. The music continues to play in his head until the final line.

       And remain there forever at rest …

      The last note hangs in the darkness before the terrible black of the night snuffs the sound out.

      The Shepherd blinks. He knows the truth of it now. He realises that God has spoken directly to him. Those who have abased the pure of heart must be judged. Memories may fade but crimes are not lessened by the passage of time. The evidence must be weighed and the sinners must be punished.

      And, the Shepherd thinks, the punishment must fit the crime.

       Chapter Two

       Derriford Business Park, Plymouth. Monday 19th October. 3.30 p.m.

      A throng of reporters clustered round the entrance to the coroner’s court as Detective Inspector Charlotte Savage emerged. Rob Anshore, Devon and Cornwall Police Force’s PR guru, drew the reporters’ attention to the person following close behind and ushered Savage away.

      ‘Let the Hatchet deal with this, Charlotte,’ Anshore said. ‘She’s prepared a statement in response to the inquest verdict with the official line. You know, sadness, condolences, and all that crap to start with, moving on to the utmost confidence in her officers bit to finish.’

      The Hatchet. Otherwise known as Chief Constable Maria Heldon.

      Heldon was a replacement for the previous Chief Constable, Simon Fox. The late Simon Fox. Fox had killed himself using a vacuum cleaner hose, his fifty-thousand-pound Jaguar, and a one-pound roll of gaffer tape. Savage had been the one to find him sitting there stone dead, a cricket commentary playing on the car radio an unlikely eulogy for a man whose idea of fair play had been to try to kill her.

      Inside the courtroom she’d presented her own account of the events leading up to Fox’s death and her testimony had, thankfully, been accepted at face value. The coroner had listened to all the witnesses and weighed the evidence and after due consideration he’d arrived at a verdict of suicide. Summing up, he’d said Fox had been living a tangle of lies and deceit which had included friendship with a corrupt Member of Parliament who himself was involved with a group of Satanists. Ultimately Fox’s precarious mental state had led him to believe there was no way out other than to top himself.

      Savage and Anshore stopped СКАЧАТЬ