Mace shakes his head. They have come to an old stone building in the corner of the field. It is the tumbledown shepherd’s bothy. They pause for a moment to catch their breath.
So should we be worried that Muncy has gone AWOL? says the journalist.
Brindle turns around. They are above the hamlet’s tight cowering cluster of houses and the whole of the valley is stretched out beneath them and snaking off to their left like a giant drained riverbed.
The amount of enemies he has and given the state he has left his wife in I’d say we should be says Brindle. Something has happened. You’ll see.
In what way?
In the way that I can feel things accelerating towards a conclusion that is beyond all of our grasps.
What does that mean? says Mace. That sounds like a riddle.
It means we need to get up this hill and find Steve Rutter.
Are you saying you think Rutter has done Muncy?
I’m saying that anything is possible and nothing is impossible and just when you think you have completed the jigsaw you notice a great glaring hole in the middle of it.
HE HAD PRETENDED she was a deer. It made it easier that way. That same morning or perhaps the one before he had stalked and killed and butchered a deer at daybreak. He had cached its parts and had not yet returned to collect them when he put himself back in the mind of a hunter and stalked her in the early morning snow keeping low. Staying downwind. Leopard-crawling through the brittle heather.
He saw her as a deer hind. Made his mind believe her to be a creature of the woods and moors. A thing of fur and muscle. All instinct. Prey.
The dog had sensed his presence but the girl had had headphones on and ignored its yaps and tugs.
He watched from a distance. Then he followed.
He watched as she walked the hill up to the old stone sheep shed. He had hunkered down and waited for a few moments as she sat and smoked and played with her phone. Oblivious she was.
He thought of Ray Muncy’s face. He thought of the sound of Skelton’s breathing down the phone line. He thought of Larry Lister in the newspaper. He tried to picture Mr Hood.
When she had left he had left too. He followed her in parallel using the copse as cover. He was glad when she left the valley behind and strode onto the moors. The moors were open but they were not flat. All Rutter needed was a quarry or a scar or anywhere out of sight. Somewhere secret. And then the hunt was on.
But still it was a surprise to him too. He had lost sight of her in the hollows and when the dog appeared from nowhere it went for him. It grabbed a hold of his sleeve but when he unsheathed the knife the simple thing to do was to take that knife and put it in the girl just as he would a fallen deer still writhing with ebbing life and then take it out the girl and then put it in again and keep putting it in the girl until her hands stopped grabbing at his face and the earphones fell from her ears and things fell from her pockets and her screams became a gurgle and then the gurgle became silence but her eyes were still blinking up at him and her fingers were flexing so he had to use his fists and he had to use his feet and it was tiring and in a strange way it felt like a surprise to him too that the girl was just meat – and some of the snow went from white to red and his quick kill was far from quick but in time the heartbeat of this hunted creature began to slow.
The mind plays tricks and the memory plays tricks and life is just a series of cruel tricks and everyone is just meat with a heartbeat but he had done just as Skelton and Hood had told him to do and more than that he had done it with love. The love of a hunter that respects its prey.
Yes.
With love from Rutter.
THEY ARE CUTTING through a dense patch of early summer ferns just off the Corpse Road above Rutter’s farm when they hear something. Something close by. The sound of rustling and panting and stems being snapped and flattened. There is movement in the undergrowth; something is proceeding through the ferns. They freeze.
Then that something is there and then that something is upon him in the clearing and Brindle makes a noise like a sharp inward gasp and he tumbles backwards and he falls but it is just a dog – a small curious dog – and it is trying to lick his face and nuzzle his ear and then another one appears and then another and then there are three dogs on Brindle and he can smell their short excited breaths
Mace laughs and then bends down to stroke them as Brindle says get these things off me.
Bent double the detective stands and brushes himself down and that is when he stops and slowly stands.
These dogs he says. They’re running loose.
Yes says Mace.
They’re Rutter’s dogs.
Are they?
Yes.
Are you sure?
Yes.
Do you think they’ve escaped?
No. It’s impossible. One maybe but not all of them. He usually has them tied up with great clanking chains all hours. These dogs have been turned loose.
Mace scratches one behind its ears.
Terriers he says. They look thin. Can you be certain?
Look – they don’t even have their collars on.
Mace is still squatting and stroking the dogs. He looks up at Brindle.
What does that mean?
It means that without their jangling collars on Rutter has given them a sporting chance to hunt and catch their food.
Mace stands.
But why would he do that?
Because he has gone.
Gone where?
Just gone says Brindle.
Shouldn’t we—?
No. It’s over.
Over?
It’s over says Brindle. All of it is over. He has gone.
And that is when they hear the gunshot far off in the distance.
HE HAS HER teeth in an old metal tobacco tin. It is in his breast pocket. It is just above his heart.
Rutter pulled the rest of them out by hand down in the storm drain a few days back and they came out easy. Yes. Like nails from rotten wood. Yes.
The teeth will span centuries. They will survive the water for a long long time. They will outlast every living creature that dwells in the deepest darkest depths of the reservoir. They’ll sink to the floor and they will settle in the dirt there and the dirt will take them it will consume them and hold them and the matter of all other plants and animals will fall and form a sediment on top of the girl’s teeth – layer upon layer of it – and maybe they will begin to fossilise and maybe a piece of her will be preserved in stone for the future to find.
And the future will mine her and examine her and worship her just as he has.
Hours he has waited for night to fall and now it is upon him he emerges. Another nocturnal creature of the Yorkshire moorlands.
He walks on. He can see it now. The water.
The moon on it. The boat.
It sits low in the water. Perhaps it is the weight of the breeze blocks he has loaded in. It takes some time for Rutter to find his rhythm with the oars. He seems to be pulling on one harder than the other and this sends him along the shoreline rather than out into the middle. He stops to smoke for a minute and then he tries again and it is better this time. He leans and pulls and leans and pulls. He uses the full force of his arms and aching shoulders. The water is slapping the side of the little row boat and there is a shallow pool of water in the bottom that makes him wonder if there is a leak and whether he will sink and for a fleeting moment he panics but then he remembers that it doesn’t matter anyway.
But it sort of does. Because he wants to get this right.
Rutter keeps going until he feels as if he is in the centre of the reservoir. The rhythm he has reached is hypnotic and he has to force himself to focus. There are things he has to do so he does them. Those things are: feed the chains through the holes in the centre of the two breeze blocks and then tie them tight – make sure they cannot come free – and then check that the tarpaulin is sealed as well as he can seal it and then that is it. That is
all he needs to do.
All except say goodbye.
Rutter sits for a minute and Rutter sits for two minutes. Three. He is cradling the mushed remains of a girl called Melanie Muncy. He is holding her tight to his chest and a sob sits there inside of him. Trapped. It is unable to escape. He squeezes the mushy molested remains of a girl called Melanie Muncy one more time and he bends and the teeth rattle in the tin in his pockets then he tips it – tips her – over the side of the boat and watches as she silently falls and the water closes in over her. The blackness of it shot through with silver. Scraps of the moon on the surface like an oxygen-starved shoal floating belly up. The slow rock and tip and the slap of the water on the side of the boat.
Then Rutter is reaching for the remaining chain. Then Rutter is reaching for the remaining breeze blocks.
Then Rutter is ready to join her.
YOU’RE RIGHT. CHRIST. It does look like the mouth of hell.
Roddy Mace murmurs this through an intake of cigarette smoke. He says it as much to himself as to James Brindle.
What?
He raises his voice to be heard over the rush of water.
The mouth of hell he says again as curlews dart and dip overhead. You weren’t joking.
They birds circle as the reservoir drains down the tiered circular concrete steps of the overflow’s spillway. Confused by the unexpected swirling aperture and the atmospheric disturbances it is causing above it the birds depart.
The way the water drops is sculptural says Mace. And fucking scary.
Brindle stands with his hands in his coat pockets.
It has to be done now he says. In summer when the levels are low.
Mace scrapes the sole of his shoe on the shale that sits between the copper-coloured soil of the moor and the foam that has gathered on the shore. He spits and then draws on his cigarette. He inhales deeply.
It’s actually pretty nice up here. When the sun’s out. The Yorkshire riviera.
Brindle glances at him and then shakes his head.
You’ve lost weight says Mace. You look fucking ill. How did you even pull this off anyway?
What do you mean?
The draining of the reservoir.
Partial draining says Brindle. And I didn’t. It came from up above.
From Cold Storage?
Brindle shakes his head.
Further.
From who then?
The top.
Nearby there are vans parked haphazardly and various representatives of the water board and North Yorkshire Police are standing around. From the back of a minibus men are checking oxygen tanks and adjusting face masks. Some have slowly begun to change into their wetsuits.
The top says Mace as he draws on his cigarette again. What does that mean?
It means what it means. That the command has come down from the top of the chain.
The top of the chain is the government. And the top of the government is the Prime Minister.
Brindle looks at him sideways.
Christ says Mace. Really?
Brindle shrugs.
There have been too many people left embarrassed. A case this big draws people in.
And sucks them under.
Yes. Yes. You’re right there.
The water board won’t be happy.
No one cares about that says Brindle. No one is happy. Why would you even mention that?
They watch the water fall away as laughter from the police divers echoes across the valley. They appear in no hurry as they continue to check their kit.
Where does it go anyway?
What? says Brindle. Mace can hear the irritation in the detective’s voice.
I just wondered where the water goes.
I don’t know. Underground.
I would like to know.
There’s an explanation for everything. I’m sure you could find it.
Probably down those weird concrete doorways we saw on the way up. I have another question for you.
Then keep it to yourself.
Mace ignores him.
I know what I’m doing here today. But what are you doing here?
Brindle looks at him. He stares at him until the reporter looks away. Says nothing.
You should use the opportunity to have a rest though says Mace. You don’t need to be here. Take a holiday.
You call being suspended on medical grounds an opportunity? Having people – your lot – say all sorts.
My lot?
You know who I mean. The press have nailed me. Nailed Cold Storage. I needed to come. Had to. I had to see it for myself.
This time it is Mace who is quiet.
I need to know what happened to her.
Brindle says this so quietly that his voice is drowned out by the flush of the water.
What?
Brindle shakes his head.
It doesn’t matter.
Go on says Mace.
Brindle sighs.
I need to know what happened to her. Where she ended up.
And Rutter?
Yes says Brindle. Of course. Him too.
That I understand.
The detective turns to the journalist.
You don’t understand. You don’t understand anything. You’re not the one they’re blaming. They all want blood from this. My boss. The press. The government. And you can be sure it’s mine they’re getting.
It’ll pass.
No. No it won’t.
Yes says Mace. Yes it will. It wasn’t you that killed the girls. It wasn’t you who made the films. You’re not the copper who was corrupt. The coppers. Plural. You’re not the Pied Piper who duped entire generations of TV viewers nor did you queue up to award him honours and accolades. That prick Lister used to dine at Number 10. He was about to be made a fucking knight.
Doesn’t matter says Brindle. Doesn’t matter. I was the one who failed. It was my shortcomings that allowed this –
Here he removes a hand from his pocket and gestures out across the dropping water.
– to happen.
They’ll have you back says Mace.
Brindle squints across the reservoir.
I doubt it.
The two men stand on the shore and watch as the scuba divers peel on their wetsuits now. They see a goose fly overhead.
A minute passes. Two. Then Mace speaks.
Maybe it just disappears into the centre of the earth. The water. Maybe it really is the mouth of hell. Maybe it just drops away and is drawn down to a place so dark it is beyond our understanding.
Brindle continues to squint at the spillway and the water curling over its edges.
Look says Mace. A rainbow.
He tosses his cigarette.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you: Claire Malcolm, Anna Disley and all at New Writing North. Stephen May and Arts Council England North. Carol Gorner, Phoebe Greenwood and all at the Gordon Burn Trust. Andrea Murphy and all at Moth Publishing. My agent Jessica Woollard at David Higham Associates. For their input in this book: my editor Will Atkins, and Jamie Coleman, Tony O’Neill, Max Porter and Nick Triplow, who all read extracts or early drafts. The Society Of Authors. Emma Marigliano and Lynne Allan at the Portico Library, Manchester. Ian Stripe for the farming stories. Kevin Duffy, Hetha Duffy, Leonora Rustasmova and everyone at Bluemoose Books. Sam Jordison and Eloise Millar at Galley Beggar Press. Michael Curran at Tangerine Press. For general writing support and advice: Nick Small. Rob St John. Jenni Fagan. Paul Kingsnorth. Helen Cadbury. Melissa Harrison. Robert Macfarlane. Kester Aspden. Nikesh Shukla. Jenn Ashworth. Rob Cowen. Jeff Barrett and everyone at Caught by the River.
Special thanks to my family and friends, and especially my wife, Adelle Stripe.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Cha
pter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Turning Blue Page 30
