Shadow Sands

by Robert Bryndza

  “The food’s ready,” said Tristan.

  “It smells wonderful,” said Kate, seeming grateful that he’d changed the subject.

  “I found Ulrich and Sally-Ann,” said Tristan, indicating his laptop as he dished the stir-fry out into bowls. Kate studied the photos.

  “It really gets me, the photos they use for missing people,” said Kate. “They never think the police will use it for an appeal or in memoriam . . .” She stared at the photos on the screen for a moment. “I was sure Rachel was telling the truth, but here they are, officially.”

  They sat down to eat at the table.

  “Do you still want to talk to that woman, Kirstie?” asked Tristan.

  “Yeah. I’m going to try and call her again after dinner. It would be interesting to get her to open up and see what other details she comes out with, presuming she’s not lying . . . I know tomorrow is a half day, and then we’re on reading week. Do you want to do some digging around about Shadow Sands reservoir and Hedley House nightclub online? I also want to see if there are more stories of missing people. And I want to find out who that woman is with the shotgun-toting driver.”

  27

  Magdalena had drifted in and out of consciousness on the floor of the concrete tiled room. Her nose and head throbbed with pain intermittently, but she was able to sleep for a time.

  Time was reduced to her heartbeats. She would get to twenty and the hunger and exhaustion would cause her to lose count. A time later, the pain became more acute in her head, and she couldn’t breathe through her nose. She sat up, leaning on the edge of the concrete bed. Her feet and legs were numb, and it took a few painful minutes of shifting and moving, panicking that she was paralyzed, before the feeling came back into her legs.

  The sensation of pins and needles as a dead limb comes back to life always made her feel sick, but for once she was glad of it. She got to her feet and washed in the sink, gently swishing water over her face and unblocking one of her nostrils. She also drank and drank, the delicious cold water sharpening her mind. When she turned off the tap, the room was silent again. She strained to hear any noise from above her. Trying to hear past the thud of her heart beating and the sound of her breathing through her mouth.

  A couple of times a breeze seemed to waft over her wet face, and she flinched and reached out, imagining that he was still there in the room with her.

  Magdalena groped around the room, clawing at the air in front of her, beside her, but felt nothing. She went back out into the corridor, feeling the walls and the space around, checking the small toilet, and then she came back out to the lift doors. They were cold to the touch, and she put her ear to them and listened.

  Nothing.

  She pushed her fingernails into the gap between the doors and pulled and prized so hard that one of her nails tore off, far down into the quick.

  She squealed in pain and put the finger into her mouth. The nail was half hanging off; the sharp edge curled away from the nail bed and was starting to bleed.

  Magdalena started to cry. What she wouldn’t give for a nail file. She chewed at the nail and managed to bite half of it away, but she was still left with a hangnail. She slid down the steel doors and sat on the concrete floor.

  A horrible story came back to her, told by her friend Gabriela from university. Gabriela had been attacked one night on the way home from the library. She’d been walking through a pleasant, leafy neighborhood, when an older man dressed in running gear had stopped to ask directions. He’d been polite and ordinary, quite handsome, but when he gained her attention, he’d pounced and bundled her down a thin alley between houses.

  Magdalena had never understood why Gabriela hadn’t fought back, and if she was honest, she’d judged her friend for saying that she went limp and let the man rape her.

  Let him. Let. Him. Those two words had been so chilling to Magdalena. Now she was in a terrifying situation, one she knew she wouldn’t survive. If this man was going to take her life, would she let him do whatever he wanted before he killed her? Would he hurt her less?

  Magdalena and her sister had always been told by their father to defend themselves if they were ever in a fight. But her father had been brought up with brothers. He was thinking like a man. Her father had always wished for a son to complete the family. Boys are taught to fight, but should girls be taught to play dead? Magdalena had always been a fighter, but this terrible, terrifying situation she found herself in was making her think differently. How could she have judged Gabriela when all she did was try to survive?

  The adrenaline had been surging through her veins, and suddenly it seemed to drop away, and she was exhausted. She had never felt so tired. She lay back against the wall, tucking herself into the part where it met the floor.

  Don’t sleep! You mustn’t sleep! cried an urgent voice in her head, but she breathed in and out, and a warm feeling washed over her.

  She woke cold and alert. Swallowing and feeling drool in the side of her mouth. A faint sound made her stop breathing. It was coming from inside the room. She put her hands out. She was lying on the bed . . . How had she got to the bed?

  There was a scuffing sound of a shoe on the floor. A small intake of breath. The sound of someone swallowing. Did she just swallow? No. It was someone. Was he standing over her? Or was he farther away, watching her from the corner of the room?

  In her mind, she saw her father’s face. The darkness was so absolute that she was able to see things in her mind when her eyes were open. Her eyes flapped uselessly in the dark.

  Never tuck your thumb into your first when you punch someone! he said.

  Then she saw Gabriela, lying limp in the alleyway, as she’d often imagined it. The man on top of her. Her eyes wide open and a pool of blood spreading underneath her as he thrusted.

  Magdalena closed her useless flapping eyes and braced herself on the bed to fight. She didn’t feel him come close to her, and she smelled that faint chemical smell again.

  “Do you want to touch the stars?” said a voice right beside her ear. As she gasped in shock, she breathed in the chemical and felt the bottle under her nose. The bed seemed to swallow her whole, and she was gone.

  28

  After the morning’s lectures, Kate and Tristan took some lunch up to her office, and they started to research the Shadow Sands reservoir online. They discovered it was part of a larger estate of land and buildings owned by the aristocratic Baker family. When the family got into debt in the 1940s, their solution was to dam the River Fowey, which ran through the estate, and build a hydroelectric dam. In 1953, six villages and the surrounding farmland were flooded to build the dam and the power plant.

  They also discovered that the woman who’d rocked up at the campsite the previous day was Silvia Baker, and at eighty-two she was the oldest living descendant of the Baker family. She owned the Shadow Sands corporation with her nephews Thomas, fifty-one, and Stephen, forty-two, and her niece, Dana, forty. They hadn’t been able to find out the name of the man who had the shotgun.

  They had googled “Ulrich Mazur” and “Sally-Ann Cobbs” with “Shadow Sands reservoir,” but nothing came up to link them with the reservoir. But Kate had found a lot of stuff online about a local protest group called the Right to Roam Alliance, and for the past hour they’d been looking through the search results.

  “This alliance seems to have it in for the Baker family,” said Kate. “There’s loads of stuff, protests and petitions about how the hydroelectric plant damages the environment, and there seems to be a long-running dispute about several public footpaths which run across the estate and beside the reservoir. Two years ago, Silvia Baker apparently let her rottweilers savage a couple of ramblers on the footpath which runs past her house, Allways Manor. She got a fine in court, and the dogs had to be put down.”

  “Poor dogs,” said Tristan. “The Right to Roam Alliance have a YouTube account. There’s a news report from 1991 about bodies being found in the water.”

  Kate came over
to sit with him on the sofa. Tristan clicked on a video titled THIRD BODY FOUND IN SHADOW SANDS RESERVOIR 3/3/1991.

  It was a local news report. PENNY LAYTON, REPORTING was written at the top of the screen, and a young journalist wearing a blue waterproof coat stood in the grass of the campsite next to the reservoir. To her left was the toilet block, looking much newer and cleaner in 1991. Clouds hung low, and a little way out on the water, a forensics recovery team in a boat was winching a body bag out of the water.

  “The body of a young woman was discovered during a routine patrol by one of the maintenance men who regularly check the reservoir,” said Penny. “The Shadow Sands corporation has been under pressure for some months to fence off the north side of the reservoir. This is the third body found in as many years—a young woman was found two years ago, and last summer nine-year-old boy Peter Fishwick drowned while camping here with his family.”

  “Look. This is before they put the fence up by the water,” said Kate.

  The camera then cut to Penny Layton outside a country pub as she hurried toward a younger-looking Silvia Baker getting into a Land Rover. Silvia wore a burgundy coat with a matching fur trim. Her chestnut-brown hair was pulled into a sleek bun. The door was being held open for her by the same beefy-looking man who had threatened Kate and Tristan with the shotgun.

  Silvia looked uncomfortable as Penny pushed a microphone under her nose.

  “Silvia Baker, can you comment on the body found in the reservoir?”

  “I extend my deep regret that this young woman drowned,” she said.

  “The police haven’t yet confirmed cause of death,” said Penny.

  “Yes. Of course, but I can only imagine . . .”

  “This is the third body found in the reservoir in three years . . .”

  “We are cooperating, where appropriate, with the authorities on every level. I’m not at liberty to say any more.”

  “The Right to Roam Alliance have lobbied repeatedly for the north side of the reservoir to be fenced off. Will the corporation take responsibility for this girl’s death if it’s ruled as a drowning?”

  Silvia’s nostrils flared.

  “We have fought for many years to have the campsite moved to a safer locale, but it is a public right of way which the public seem to insist on using. If they will insist on using it, then they have to take responsibility for their own safety. There is very clear signage stating that the water should not be entered . . .”

  “She’s losing her temper there,” said Tristan.

  “People must take responsibility for their own safety!” cried Silvia on the video.

  “So, what you’re saying is it’s their fault? It’s Peter Fishwick’s fault he drowned? He was nine years old.”

  The driver with the dyed-black hair guided Silvia into the back of the car and then put his hand over the camera lens.

  The video abruptly ended.

  “Hang on,” said Kate, grabbing her computer and googling. “Here we go, Peter Fishwick . . . His death was subsequently ruled as accidental drowning. Poor little thing.”

  “There’s another video here dated two years later,” said Tristan, indicating it in the YouTube search results. It was called SHADOW SANDS RESERVOIR COURT CASE—6/7/1993. Kate clicked on the link.

  The video started from outside Exeter magistrates’ court. Silvia Baker was emerging from the court and stomping down the steps to her car. The same man with the dyed-black hair opened the door for her. The camera caught up with her as she sat in the back of the car. She reached out, pushed the lens away, and slammed the door.

  The driver then hurried inside, and the car drove away with a squeal of rubber, and past a smattering of protesters holding homemade signs saying: MAKE SHADOW SANDS SAFE! PROTECT OUR RIGHT OF WAY! RIGHT TO ROAM!

  Penny Layton was pictured outside the courthouse in front of the protesters.

  “After a lengthy court case, the Shadow Sands corporation lost its final appeal and was ordered to erect a two-mile fence around the north side of the reservoir,” she said. “Legal and construction costs are expected to be in the region of three million pounds. BBC Spotlight was today given access to the project, to see the heavy-duty fencing being put up along the north side of the reservoir. The Baker siblings were even pitching in today with the fence building!”

  The camera cut to Penny Layton standing with two men and a woman. They looked in their twenties and all wore jeans, heavy boots, and suspiciously clean-looking high-visibility jackets.

  “Lord Baker, if I can start with you,” said Penny Layton to the first young man. He was tall and thin with dark hair parted to the side.

  “Please, call me Thomas,” he said awkwardly. He was very well spoken.

  “Thomas. In the past five years, three people have drowned in the reservoir. Why has it taken so long to put this fence up?”

  “We’ve long been campaigning for this side of the reservoir to be closed off to the public,” said Thomas. “It’s rarely used, but there are a small number of people who insist that it remain open as a right of way . . . ,” he said. He was a serious young man, who looked down at the ground, awkward in the gaze of the camera.

  “Penny. If I can interject . . . ,” said the young man standing next to him. Penny moved the microphone over to him. He was very handsome with blond, foppish hair. “I’m the younger Baker, Stephen. Spare to the heir, so to speak . . . We have the strongest fencing going up to make this area safe to the public. The Right to Roam Alliance have really behaved terribly. Our family has been the target of hateful threats and all kinds of nasty stuff. I thought walkers and ramblers were nice people, but they’re as bad as terrorists!”

  “We should concentrate on the positive,” said Dana Baker, leaning over to the microphone to stop her brother from saying more. She was small and blonde, with a pixie haircut. “We’re deeply troubled that the Right to Roam Alliance have tied this case up in court for so long. These accidents could have been avoided, but today is a positive step toward a safer place for the public to enjoy.”

  The news report cut to a series of clips showing various protesters with Right to Roam Alliance banners and T-shirts. In the first, the protesters were screaming and shouting at the horses on a local hunt. The second showed them protesting outside Exeter Crown Court, and in the final clip, a group of protesters was at the campsite, launching a huge wooden raft into the water, piled high with some kind of material. They whooped and cheered as they lit the material and the burning raft was pulled by the current toward the hydroelectric turbine, vanishing into the sluice gate.

  “We contacted the Right to Roam Alliance, but they were unavailable for comment,” said Penny Layton.

  Kate and Tristan were quiet for a moment.

  “We need to find out the names of the two women whose bodies were found in the reservoir,” said Kate. “The first woman would have been found in 1989, the boy drowned in the summer of 1990, and from the video it looks like the body of the woman was pulled out of the reservoir on the third of March, 1991.”

  “So, we have Magdalena, who has gone missing close to the reservoir,” said Tristan. “That was a quarter of a mile from the water, so not directly linked to the reservoir. Then Simon Kendal was found by you last August, Ulrich Mazur goes missing on his way home from Hedley House nightclub in October 2008, Sally-Ann Cobbs in November 2009.”

  “Seven people, with four bodies, or three. I have a feeling the nine-year-old’s death is something different. An accidental drowning. We need to find out,” said Kate.

  “Are they linked? Or are we wanting there to be a link?” asked Tristan.

  “Statistically, there could be accidents around a reservoir, especially if there’s fog,” agreed Kate. “People walking along the road could stray off and fall in and drown, but if the reservoir regularly has maintenance boats running, why wouldn’t they find the bodies? Unless it’s weighted down, a body will float . . .” Her phone began to ring on the desk, and she reached over and saw th
e screen. She looked up at Tristan. “It’s Kirstie, the girl from the bar who said she was abducted.”

  29

  Kate had arranged to meet Kirstie Newett on Friday evening at a Starbucks in Frome Crawford, a town on the outskirts of Exeter. When Kate arrived, Kirstie was already there, at a quiet table in the corner. She stood out from the students working at their laptops. Kate knew from talking to Rachel at the Wild Oak that Kirstie was in her midtwenties, but she looked older. She wore black leggings, grubby white trainers, and a pale-blue fleece with a fur-lined hood. Her blonde hair was scraped back from a large, high, shiny forehead and had a few inches of black roots.

  “Thank you for meeting with me,” said Kate when they were settled with their drinks. “What made you decide to talk to me?”

  “Rachel from the Wild Oak rung me. She told me what’s been going on . . . ,” said Kirstie. “And I looked you up. I saw the stuff about you online. How everyone turned against you when you found out your boss in the police was that serial killer. You’ve had it rough.”

  “I’m still better off than most people,” said Kate.

  “No one believed what happened to me. I thought if I talked to you, it might make me feel like I’m not crazy.”

  Kate nodded.

  “Are you like a proper private detective?”

  “I do this on the side. Do you mind if I take notes?”

  “No; I mean no, I don’t mind . . . ,” said Kirstie. She kept making eye contact and then looking away. She was also jiggling her leg nervously. Kate wondered if she was on any drugs, but Kirstie’s pupils were dilated, and she couldn’t smell alcohol. She was giving off a musty smell of stale body odor and cigarettes.