The Descent (Detective Louise Blackwell)

by Matt Brolly

  Jay stood to thank everyone else for speaking. From his bag he took out the cloth drawstring bag, and prepared the syringe. One time he’d shown the group how the shaman he’d met in Peru had taught him to smoke the vine; and how he’d discovered through trial and error how the dose could be controlled better with the syringe.

  The chanting began as Jay walked behind them, touching their shoulders as if testing they were ready. Amy joined in with the recital, the words ‘death is not the end’ falling from her lips, but for the first time ever she began to question the ritual. If Jay had already picked Sally, then why all the pretence?

  Twice he stopped by a different member of the group and lingered, only to move on as the chants increased in tempo until the words stopped making sense, becoming simply a rhythmic noise.

  And then he stood behind Sally and the chanting stopped.

  Sally was remarkably poised, almost devoid of emotion, as she unrolled her sleeve. Like Amy, she would have taken DMT before with Jay. Even so, there was something sordid about using a needle. It reminded Amy of the portrayal of addicts on-screen, but Jay was so precise it was like watching a doctor in action. Sally took a quick glance at the assembled group and nodded to Jay.

  She was gone within seconds.

  Amy knew what the other woman was experiencing. It was incomparable to the tea. Amy had enjoyed glimpses of what DMT offered before she’d taken that first proper hit but she hadn’t been prepared for what had followed. She’d heard stories of DMT – the disassociation of mind and body, the confidence many users shared that what they experienced was real and not a trick of the mind – but had doubted the validity of such statements. She’d learnt over the years that drink and drugs could make you believe in anything. She’d made so many resolutions while high, thought she’d come to some form of understanding, but her resolution changed after that first full dose of DMT.

  With Jay’s assistance, the DMT had guided her to something beyond her comprehension. More importantly, the impact hadn’t faded after time. It hadn’t been an effect, it had happened. Like so many people who’d used the drug, it was almost impossible to put what happened into words. To say she’d travelled to another reality was inadequate. She’d experienced something. She wanted to call it love but that too was insufficient. It was more complete than that. And although she didn’t have the words to express the feeling she’d experienced, Jay had been right. She’d had a glimpse of eternity and within that eternity she’d sensed Aiden waiting for her. From that moment onwards it was all she could think about.

  It was thirty minutes before Sally came round. The group took turns embracing her. The vibrations from her body shook through Amy as she briefly held the woman in her arms. She saw certainty in her eyes as Jay led her off into the thicket at the back of the camp.

  The drop was steeper than in Uphill. Jagged rocks pointed upwards at the foot of the cliff surrounded by dense woodland. As Jay walked Sally further away from them, the group started chanting ‘Death is not end’ – only this time Amy held back.

  Sally didn’t hesitate. Smiling, she stepped into the void. Amy turned away as the crash of her landing caused a flock of birds to rise into the air. Silence ripped through the congregation, the chanting cut off mid-sentence. They stood, motionless, contemplating Sally’s departure, until one of the group, Beatrice, shone her torch down into the valley and broke the calm with a loud shriek.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Amy.

  Beatrice handed her the torch. Shaking, she said, ‘I don’t think she’s dead.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The school playground was awash with tired parents and hyperactive children. When Emily saw Louise she broke into a full sprint. ‘Aunty Louise,’ she said, jumping into her outstretched arms.

  ‘As it’s the last day of term we thought we’d surprise you,’ said Louise’s mother, who was standing next to her father.

  Emily hugged Louise but her smile faded. The hurt and confusion Louise saw in the girl’s eyes was unbearable. ‘Daddy is coming to see you tomorrow,’ she said.

  Emily studied her as if confused, as if searching for a hint that Louise wasn’t telling the truth. Louise maintained her smile, internally cursing her brother once more, and involuntarily let out a sigh when eventually Emily nodded, seemingly satisfied with her statement.

  The local pizza restaurant was already filling up with families by the time they finished the short walk from the school gates. Louise was exhausted just being there, the excited energy from the schoolchildren palpable. It made her wonder if she would ever be ready to have children of her own. She loved Emily with every inch of her being but that love was made easier by knowing she wasn’t ultimately responsible for her. Her father had used to joke with Paul and Dianne that the joy of being a grandparent was being able to give the children back at the end of the day. It wasn’t a joke he’d made recently.

  Back at her parents’ house, with Emily up in her room drawing, Louise asked after her brother. She hadn’t spoken to him since their argument on the phone.

  ‘I really don’t know,’ said her mum. ‘I thought things were going fine, then on Tuesday he didn’t come over as he was supposed to. We called and called but no response. Dad didn’t even go round to see if he was okay, we just presumed he was either out drinking or at home drinking. He sent us a text message yesterday lunchtime apologising. Said he would take Emily out for the day tomorrow. I’m worrying we made a mistake taking Emily from him. Instead of getting him to buck his ideas up it looks like we’ve been giving him the freedom he wanted.’

  ‘Paul loves Emily, Mum.’

  ‘No one is saying he doesn’t, Louise.’ There was a hint of ice in her mother’s words, as if Louise was to blame for her brother’s actions.

  ‘Has he asked when he can have Emily back?’

  ‘He hasn’t asked since last week and that concerns me.’

  ‘I’ll come over tomorrow and speak to him, how’s that?’

  ‘That would be good, thank you.’

  Louise had technically finished work for the day but checked her emails as she walked with Emily to the park. The week had been a bust. The extended blood tests had come back negative save for some traces of cocaine found in Claire Smedley, and the specialised IT division in the Met hadn’t been back in contact with her about the laptops.

  She took Emily to the playground. Watching her dart from activity to activity helped keep Louise’s mind off her worries for a brief time. It was difficult to accept she’d just finished her first year in school. She remembered the day she was born, how fragile Emily had felt when she held her for the first time. So much had happened since then. They’d lost Dianne, Louise had lost her job, and now Paul was changing into something he might never recover from. The only constant was Emily. Louise felt a surge of such profound love for the girl that she almost started crying thinking about everything she’d endured in her short life.

  ‘Come on,’ she said as Emily jumped from the swings, landing awkwardly.

  They walked back hand in hand. ‘I’m going on holiday,’ said Emily, as a message pinged on Louise’s phone.

  ‘I know. You’re on holiday,’ said Louise, distracted by the urgent message.

  She called the office as Emily knocked on her grandparents’ front door. Louise’s mother opened the door, Louise pointing to her phone as she headed towards her car. ‘Simone, it’s DI Blackwell.’

  ‘Hi, Louise. There’s been another body, I’m afraid.’

  Louise made the mistake of taking the M5, fearing the back roads would be busy. The motorway was gridlocked with motorists thinking they’d head to their holiday spots in Devon and Cornwall a day early. Outside Nailsea, Louise activated the lights on her unmarked car and pulled into the hard shoulder.

  The details Simone had given her were minimal but were enough to suggest a possible link to the other deaths. The body of a young woman had been washed up at the foot of the rocks by the Kewstoke toll road. A small party of touris
ts had discovered her that afternoon, her body close to shore. The tide was due to reach its highest point at 9.13 p.m. and Louise didn’t know at this stage if the water would reach the body. The SOCOs had been despatched but she wanted to see the body before it was moved.

  She left the motorway at Worle and took the back roads. The toll road had been cordoned off just after the turning for Kewstoke. She wound down her window and spoke to one of the uniformed officers, PC Hughes. ‘Where should I be heading?’ she asked.

  ‘We have two camps set up, ma’am. One at the top of the road and one down by the shore. The body is proving hard to reach,’ said Hughes.

  Louise took the turning towards the shore. She reached the beach area to see the surreal sight of the white-suited SOCOs trailing across the jagged rocks. The pathologist, Dempsey, was changing into the protective outfit as she left the car. Louise looked at her watch. It was 7.15 p.m. ‘We haven’t got long, Stephen,’ she said.

  ‘Tell me about it. You coming over? I could do with a hand,’ he said, looking at the two bags on the ground.

  Louise nodded and changed into the suit she always carried with her. Despite the hour and covering of cloud, the air was humid. ‘Lead the way,’ she said, through her mask, as Dempsey headed towards the rock where the body waited for them.

  The sea was ominously close. Without the sun’s reflection, it was a blanket of brown getting nearer with every passing second. Louise’s footing slipped as she looked outwards, her knee jarring on one of the slick grey rocks.

  ‘You okay?’ asked Dempsey.

  ‘Fine. Keep going.’

  The journey was harder than she’d anticipated. It took them over ten minutes to reach the rudimentary boundary set up by the SOCOs. Her former colleague from Bristol, Janice Sutton, was waiting at the foot of jagged rocks where the woman had fallen. ‘I know. What are the chances?’ said Janice, as Dempsey moved past her to where the team of forensic experts were working.

  ‘What are we looking at?’ said Louise.

  Janice handed her an evidence bag. ‘Young woman again. We’ve actually got a photo ID this time.’

  Although she had her gloves on, Louise didn’t open the bag. She could see the woman’s driving licence through the plastic. Sally Kennedy aged twenty-eight.

  ‘We’ll need to verify that naturally. Unfortunately there has been a lot of damage to her face. The hair is quite distinctive though so I think it’s a match.’

  Louise glanced at the photograph of a smiling woman with thick, wiry black hair. ‘You know we’re up against time?’

  ‘I think we were lucky actually. Depending on how long she’s been there, she would have only missed the low tide this morning by a few metres.’

  To Louise’s left, two bodies dressed in white scrambled down the cliff side. ‘There’s a ledge at the top where she fell from,’ said Janice. ‘We have a team up there now.’

  Louise followed the path taken by Dempsey. A pair of officers were photographing and videoing the scene. Louise didn’t want to impose but it felt necessary to see the body in situ.

  She glanced around the side of Dempsey, who was now examining the corpse, his work expedited by the oncoming tide. A twist of Sally’s thick hair was slicked back against the rock, matted with blood. She was turned on to her left side but the right side must have impacted with something on her descent as its features were all but missing.

  ‘Another jumper,’ said Dempsey, through his mask.

  Louise’s opinion of Dempsey was complicated, her feelings clouded by the drunken one-night stand she’d had with the man when she’d first moved to Weston. For a period, everything he’d said had antagonised her. It was only after she’d come to realise that he possibly had feelings for her, and that she hadn’t treated him as kindly as she could have, that her thoughts had softened. Yet, she was annoyed by his certainty, his hand still in contact with the young dead woman.

  He turned to look at her, his brow furrowing.

  ‘What is it, Stephen?’

  ‘It would appear the time of death may have been some minutes after she fell.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  From the beach in Sand Bay, Amy and Megan watched the white uniforms swarm across the beach to Sally’s body. They’d come close to calling the police earlier, knowing the sea would probably reach Sally’s body at high tide. It had been a relief of sorts when they’d spotted the group of tourists finding the body earlier that afternoon.

  Beatrice had been correct, the fall hadn’t immediately killed Sally. When Amy had shone the torch on her last night, they’d seen the smallest of movements – Sally’s final shallow breaths. Amy had kept the torch steady as others in the group began to panic. It had felt right to keep the light on her, to watch her depart. There had been no way to help beyond jumping into the void after her. Amy had glanced at Jay and the indecision in his eyes had unnerved her.

  ‘Everyone needs to go. Go straight home and do not talk to anyone,’ he said eventually.

  He’d taken the torch from Amy then. ‘She’s gone,’ he said, under his breath. Amy had taken a last look at Sally and it had looked as if she’d finally stopped breathing.

  ‘She might be in pain,’ said Amy.

  ‘She’s gone, no one could survive that,’ said Jay, as everyone began leaving.

  In the end, she’d believed him. Megan pulled at her arm, leading her back through the woods. Megan had stayed the night and they’d left first thing, catching the bus to Sand Bay.

  Jay would have been furious if he’d known. He’d always warned them never to return to the site of the departed. They’d avoided walking into the woods and hadn’t even seen Sally’s body, but Amy had determined Sally’s location from their vantage point in Sand Bay and together they’d watched the sea approaching that morning, the water not quite reaching the rocks, and had stayed there ever since.

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ said Megan, who was rocking on the spot, her thin arms wrapped around her legs. ‘I was going to give it to you last night but after everything . . .’

  Amy dragged her eyes away from the distant sight of the white-uniformed police officers. ‘A phone?’ she said, glancing at the old-style mobile phone in Megan’s hand.

  ‘Take it. I got it off one of the guys at the theme park. It’s completely wiped and I bought you a pay-as-you-go SIM card from the shop. Now we can stay in contact with each other.’

  Amy didn’t know what to say. She took the phone and hugged Megan.

  ‘Do you think we should go now?’ asked Megan, once Amy had let go of her.

  ‘Can we wait? I just want to see that they have her.’

  They hadn’t really spoken about what had happened last night. Amy had surprised herself by falling straight to sleep when they’d got back to hers and when she’d told Megan she wanted to see Sally that morning, her friend had agreed without comment. Amy couldn’t quite pinpoint what was troubling her. The only real difference between Sally’s death and Victoria’s and Claire’s was the fact that Sally hadn’t died instantly. No one had been prepared for such an eventuality. In retrospect, her panic had been the most natural response. She hated the thought of Sally being in pain, even if it had only been for a few minutes.

  The team of white-suited police officers recovered the body with seconds to spare. At one point, Amy thought they were going to pull the body by wires up the cliff side but if that had been the plan it was abandoned. Amy’s stomach rumbled in complaint as four of the officers carried the black body-bag back across the rocks. This last indignity was the hardest to bear. Amy hadn’t considered what happened to the bodies once they’d been discovered. She’d been contented with the knowledge that they’d moved on beyond the pain of this world. Watching Sally being carried like a bag of rubbish made her question everything, Jay included.

  Last night, she’d seen a side of his personality she’d never experienced before: the hint of jealousy as he’d watched her with Megan, and the indecision in his eyes at Sally still
being alive. Maybe it was paranoia, but until that point she’d seen Jay as being almost infallible. It was natural for her to feel doubtful after what had happened, but what if Jay wasn’t everything she’d made him out to be? It was selfish thinking this way, especially now as Sally was being hauled into the back of the ambulance, but Jay had promised her it would be painless. But it hadn’t been painless for Sally, and what if the same happened to her?

  Megan grabbed her hand as if in response to her thoughts. ‘I need to go,’ she said, gently. ‘I can’t miss another shift.’

  Amy had called in sick that morning. She’d left a message and although she’d face Keith’s vitriol tomorrow, she didn’t care. He would never be able to find someone like her to do the job, especially for such meagre pay. Her real concern had been leaving Nicole with him for the day.

  Hand in hand with Megan, Amy headed to the bus stop on the seafront in Sand Bay. It was so beautiful that for a second Amy forgot why they were there. She tried to hold on to the moment but visions of Sally alone at the foot of cliff destroyed it. Everything faded so fast and as the bus took them back to Weston – past the blinking lights of the emergency services on the toll road – Amy forced herself to cling on to her belief in Jay. He was human after all. How was he to know that Sally would survive the fall? It had only lasted seconds and his reaction had been a human one.

  Amy had seen what lay beyond. Jay had shown her and he would lead her there. If she had to endure a few moments of pain to get to that place, to be with Aiden again, then so be it.