The Reservoir Tapes

by Jon McGregor

  He needed to get a move on. He’d be late finishing the paper round. His mum would have kittens. The man was still talking. He wanted to look at Deepak’s hands. He told him to scrub them a bit harder. Deepak said it was fine, and he should probably be getting on. The man came and leant over him and turned the tap back on.

  You just need to scrub a bit harder, he said.

  Deepak let the water pour over his hands, and looked through the kitchen window. It was light outside, and in the small garden a blackbird was rooting around under a bush. The search party he’d heard people talking about would probably be setting out from the visitor centre around now. The girl would be found, if she was still up there on the hill. He wondered what it might have been like, spending the night up there. He wondered what she might have been hiding from. If that was what had happened.

  He had met her, back in the summer. They all had. She’d been all right. He hadn’t told his parents this, before, but now he thought he probably should. The police had said any little detail might help.

  He wanted to go home and tell them now.

  The water poured over his hands, and he kept scrubbing, and the man said he was nearly done.

  He hoped his bike would be okay. He hadn’t locked it or anything.

  4: Graham

  The important thing to remember, Graham always said afterwards, was that no one had actually died.

  There were questions to answer, and lessons would be learnt; of that there was no doubt. But those people who had made so much fuss about what had happened would do well to bear in mind the lack of fatalities.

  Vijay wasn’t immediately reassured by this. Shouldn’t they have taken more precautions, he said; shouldn’t they have cut the walk short as soon as the weather turned?

  Everyone had signed consent forms, Graham reminded him. They knew what they were letting themselves in for.

  Graham and Vijay had led these walks for several years without incident. This was another overlooked factor in the subsequent hullabaloo: the number of miles they’d covered without mishap of any kind. In fact, if you were to calculate the average length of walk, and the average number of walkers, you’d be talking about many thousands of miles of incident-free walking.

  But, no. People preferred to accentuate the negative.

  The buck stopped with Graham, unfortunately. He was employed by the Park Authority, and had completed the risk assessment. He had written up the incident report. Vijay had been there in a strictly voluntary capacity, and his liability was limited. Not that there was anything to be liable for, as Graham was able to make clear.

  They operated well as a team, but it would be fair to say that Vijay was the more cautious of the two, the more inclined to worry. This perhaps had to do with his day job, as an insurance broker. Plenty of the old crunching numbers, double-checking the paperwork. Graham had always been more of a seat-of-the-pants man, by contrast; stick a finger in the air and see which way the wind’s blowing, was his approach.

  Not that Vijay wasn’t an outdoors man. Far from it. He was a very keen walker. He had all the gear. This was one of their few differences. Graham was of the opinion that good shoes were all that counted; everything else was just the leisure industries taking you for a ride. Whereas Vijay always had the latest piece of gear, the technical fabrics and spring-heeled shoes and GPS what-have-yous. And walking poles. They’d had some lively discussions about the need for walking poles. Vijay had a lot to say about hip alignment and cartilage impact. Graham’s point of view tended towards the fact that they weren’t in the ruddy Himalayas.

  *

  The walk that day was a Butterfly Safari, which was always popular. A full seventeen people turned up, including a party of Girl Guides and their leader. The forecast was good, and the weather when they set off from the visitor centre was still and fair.

  The first part of the walk was straightforward enough, although as always there were those who struggled. The climb up the track towards Black Bull Rocks could be thought steepish if you weren’t used to it, and the Girl Guides were carrying a full set of camping gear each, for some reason. They swayed as they walked, with the weight. The chatter and giggles soon died down, and they were left with the tapping of Vijay’s walking poles. The ground was hard – it had been dry for weeks, after a month of heavy rains, which turned out to be relevant, later – and the dust kicked up around their boots.

  Graham took the opportunity to tell the group a little more about where they’d be walking and which species they might see. The heather beds they would pass were good feeding grounds for Common Blues and Small Coppers, and the knapweeds around the old mine workings were regular haunts for Painted Ladies. He told them a little about the industrial heritage: mines, quarries, the modern cement works. It’s important not to see this as any kind of unspoilt, ‘natural’ environment, he said. There’s plenty of nature here, but there’s nothing natural about the landscape.

  As always, people’s attention started to drift.

  They came over the top of the hill and set out along the ridge, and the noise level rose again. The Girl Guides lagged behind quite early on, stooping under their heavy loads.

  Graham and Vijay fell into conversation, which Graham didn’t always welcome. Vijay sometimes took an excessive interest in Graham’s personal life. There was a colleague he’d been working closely with, and Vijay had found it hard to believe there was no romantic involvement. There had been a lot of speculation, mostly wide of the mark. But he was less interested in it that day, thankfully. He had a new pair of walking trousers and was keen to discuss them. Graham said he didn’t need to know about the wicking properties, and had no interest at all in the problem of chafing. He was a little sharp, perhaps, and Vijay took the lead for a while, opening up quite a distance between them. The two of them had these fallings-out from time to time, but they never lasted long.

  They’d been crossing the flat stretch of moor-top known as Black Bull Bottoms, beyond Black Bull Rocks. It was always a bit of a slog. There was no real path as such, just a rutted cutting through the peat, waymarked by piles of gritstone slabs every few hundred yards. Vijay had stretched the distance between them to two waymarks when the hazy heat of the afternoon thickened quite suddenly to a rolling milky mist. Graham waited for the party to regroup. Once they’d caught up he did a quick headcount and carried on, asking the group to remain within sight. He had to slow his pace considerably, and it took longer than might have been hoped to reach the fence-line, where Vijay was waiting for them with news of an Essex Skipper which had only just moved on. Graham hadn’t seen an Essex Skipper up here for two years, and asked Vijay if it was a confirmed sighting.

  Confirmed in what way, do you mean? Vijay asked.

  Confirmed as in you’re confident of the identification, Graham said.

  Vijay looked at him steadily. Yes, Graham, that’s confirmed, he said.

  At this point it became clear that the party of Girl Guides was one short. There was quite a flurry of reaction. The Guide leader was not as calm as could have been hoped, and the other girls became hysterical. One of them went running off into the mist, and had to be caught and brought back.

  Later it was realised that the girl had already been missing when Graham had done his first headcount. He may have skated over this fact in the incident report. It didn’t seem important, in the run of things.

  One of the positives that Graham chose to take from the events of that day was the calm and methodical way with which he and Vijay responded to the crisis. Vijay led the rest of the group down to the road to contact Mountain Rescue, while Graham and some of the other adults retraced their steps.

  They fanned out on either side of the track, keeping within sight of each other, and called the girl’s name at regular intervals. Graham’s assumption was that she’d simply lagged behind and drifted away from the route. It seemed unlikely that she could have got far, with the weight she was carrying. But the visibility was still very poor. It was hard
walking, away from the track. There were unexpected ditches and holes, and despite the dry period there were still areas of sodden ground which could suck a boot right off. In the mist the girl’s name sounded muffled and thin. Graham could hear little more than his own footsteps, and his ragged breathing.

  It was important not to panic.

  He heard a whistle, and told the others to stop. The silence was lengthy and the mist seemed to thicken while they waited.

  He heard the whistle again. They all did, and the Guide leader called the girl’s name.

  When they found her it wasn’t where Graham would have expected. As it was they walked straight past her twice, calling her name and pausing to listen again, and by the time they got to her she was in some distress.

  Graham left the Guide leader with her for reassurance, and went to fetch help. Keep talking to her, he said; keep her awake. It was pleasing how easily he remembered the material from his training course. He made swift progress to the fence-line, and then down to the road where Vijay had already made the necessary calls.

  *

  When the Mountain Rescue people arrived they were brisk. They had all manner of equipment with them and they moved quickly up the hill. The Jackson boys were among them. Graham considered himself fit but he had trouble keeping up. They asked questions about the location and condition of the casualty. They expressed surprise that he had brought a group across the top in this weather, and he said it had been clear when they’d set out. It’s always clear when you set out, Will Jackson said.

  Graham felt the sharpness was uncalled for, but he let it go. It doesn’t matter how much training or experience you have; if people have lived here longer they always think they know better. And no one had lived here longer than the Jackson family.

  He led them along the path. After ten minutes they saw the torchlight he’d asked the Guide leader to flash, and they tacked off across the heather. Graham warned them to watch their step. One of them rather sarcastically thanked him for the advice. Graham took umbrage at the sarcasm, and perhaps this was why he hadn’t yet explained the danger when the team leader came very close to falling twenty feet into the sinkhole where the girl was lying. One of his colleagues more or less pulled him back out of thin air.

  Graham was no geologist, but it seemed that the prolonged dry spell, following months of rain, had caused a sort of rupture between different layers of peat, those layers shifting and opening up a deep crevasse, hidden by the tussocks of bog-grass. The girl had wandered away from the main path and simply stepped straight into the hole. She didn’t appear to be injured. It seemed likely that her backpack had absorbed some of the fall.

  It was never clear, later, how long she’d been down there when they found her. It was believed she’d lost consciousness for a time, coming round in the pitch dark on a bed of soft wet peat. If she hadn’t had the presence of mind to start blowing the emergency whistle it was hard to believe they would have found her at all. She would have still been down there now.

  The mist started to clear, the sun burning suddenly through the last of it and the views opening up all around them. Graham was reminded why he loved walking in this landscape so much. The flat heather moorland was featureless to the untrained eye, but in fact was teeming with detail: the bilberries and bog-grasses, the mosses and moths and butterflies, the birds nesting in scoops and scrapes, the bog water shining in the late-afternoon sun. The warmth was rising from the ground already, the sky a rich blue above the reservoirs in the distance. A hundred yards away, a mountain hare broke from cover and thundered across the heather.

  The team hauled the girl back up to the surface on a stretcher, and as she came into the sharp light of the afternoon she squinted suddenly against the glare.

  The first-aiders gathered around her, checking her condition before the long trek down the hill. Graham watched them get on with their work.

  Welcome back, he said.

  5: Liam

  If he’d known the day was going to end with blood and fire, Liam would probably have got up earlier.

  As it was he’d stayed in bed until after lunch, and only joined the others later in the afternoon. They’d gone down to the swings by the edge of the cricket field, as always. It was hot and there was nothing to do. The summer holidays were always like this. James was on one of the swings, creaking it back and forth while he scuffed his feet along the ground. Liam was stretched out on the dry grass, trying to set fire to a small pyramid of sticks. There were bees buzzing fatly in the foxgloves by the wall. There were wood pigeons crashing about in the horse chestnut trees. The groundsman was mowing the outfield, and the mower kept cutting out.

  Then the girls turned up.

  Liam saw James spit on one of his trainers and rub at a grass stain. Deepak was doing something discreet to his hair. They were all pretending they hadn’t noticed the girls.

  One of the girls was Sophie, but the other one was new. They were walking all the way around the edge of the field, behind the pavilion and past the line of hawthorn trees at the top of the bank that dropped down to the river.

  Sophie Hunter was in their year at school. She lived in a big house on the edge of the village. There were barns and stables and some holiday lets, as well as the actual house. The actual house had five bathrooms; Liam had counted them once. There weren’t even five people living there. It was pure madness.

  They’d known Sophie all their lives, but lately she’d been ignoring them. She’d started wearing make-up on the school bus sometimes, and either her skirts had got shorter or her legs had got longer. Not that any of them had mentioned it, or even really noticed.

  Why she was heading their way now was almost as interesting a question as who the other girl might be.

  Liam’s skin was starting to itch from lying on the dry grass, but it was too late to move.

  What’s up, doughnuts? Sophie said.

  There’d been a reason she’d started calling them this, once. Now it had just stuck.

  They all muttered hello, and looked like they were waiting for the girls to move on. Sophie introduced the other girl: Becky. Becky Shaw. She was staying in one of the barn conversions, apparently, and her family were around for a fortnight.

  We were thinking about going swimming, Sophie said.

  The boys nodded.

  At the flooded quarry, in the woods, Becky said. I found a gap in the fence yesterday.

  Sweet, James said, standing up. That was all it took to make a decision. We’ll go and get our stuff.

  Liam gave up trying to light the fire, and got to his feet. Becky held out her hand to help him up. Her hand felt small but she was strong. He nodded thanks, ignoring the way James and Deepak were looking at him.

  What’s that? Becky asked, pointing to a buzzard which had been quartering overhead for a while.

  Golden eagle, said James.

  Millennium Falcon, Liam said.

  *

  They met up at the market square about ten minutes later and walked towards the meadow behind Top Lane. The heat coming off the tarmac was making Liam dizzy. The girls were ignoring them and talking to each other.

  The grass in the meadow was long but there was a flattened path running up the side. Thompson had brought his herd in for grazing and there was a deep smell of cowpat. And flies, lurching up from the ground in fat lazy clouds. They heard a pair of gunshots from high up on the moor.

  None of them had actually swum in the quarry before. That was something the older teenagers did. It had been fenced off for years, and there were warning signs about the danger. People talked about how deep the water was, and how cold. People said it would be impossible to find your body, if you drowned.

  People said a lot of things.

  This wasn’t something they were going to discuss, Liam realised. They were going to walk up through the meadow, on to the moor and then down into the woods to the quarry. They were going to find the gap in the fence and jump in, never mind how deep or how cold the w
ater might be. It had just been decided.

  They heard another pair of gunshots, and a baggy flock of crows lifted from the trees up ahead, spreading out in a line towards the church and the river.

  It was hard work getting up the hill. The air felt close, and when they climbed the stile out of the meadow and on to the moor there was a heat haze shimmering over the heather. Liam wanted to offer his hand to Becky as she climbed over the stile, but James had got there first. He wasn’t that bothered anyway. He waited. Beside the fence-line running towards the ridge, he saw a scarecrow that hadn’t been there before.

  The others had seen it too, and stopped. It looked like it was holding a shotgun.

  Liam wondered where Becky was from, and whether she’d seen anyone with a gun before. She had a look on her face as though she might not have done.

  It wasn’t a scarecrow. It was Clive, the man who ran the allotments and did pest control. He raised the gun in their direction. It was obviously meant as a joke. Becky screamed, and ran towards the woods, and the others ran with her. Liam started to run but soon slowed to a walk. He knew where they were going.

  *

  It was cooler in the woods but the air felt dry. Sticks cracked beneath his feet as he walked. When he caught up with the others, they were looking for the gap in the fence. You couldn’t see the water in the quarry from where they were standing, but there was a brightness through the bushes that Liam knew was the sunlight reflecting back from the hard surface.