by Andrew Lowe
The man took a step onto the porch. ‘Arthur Morton. Are you going down to the mine?’ He sounded high born but slurred; he was holding a stemmed glass filled with something transparent.
‘Yes. Is this your car?’
The man leaned over to get a view of the Fiesta. ‘Certainly not! I assumed it belonged to one of the people from the Trust.’
Sawyer nodded. The man’s body language seemed relaxed. ‘Have you seen anyone you don’t recognise in the last few days?’
Morton took a sip of his drink, shook his head. ‘No. My wife hasn’t been well enough to walk recently. We’ve been rather housebound.’
‘Quite a house to be bound in.’
He smiled, another sip. More of a slurp. ‘Quite.’
‘And you’re the owner?’
‘Indeed.’
Shepherd sidled up to Sawyer and spoke into his ear. ‘Stolen. Registered to Lorene Black. Brandside. ANPR caught it on the A515 on the night of Luca’s abduction. Then the Longnor to Warslow road. Then nothing.’
‘It’s the car he switched to. Probably pre-stolen. Prepared it. Dumped it here. You got your notepad?’
Shepherd took out the pad and tactical pen, and handed it over.
Sawyer opened the front gate and approached the door. ‘Mr Morton. If you see anything suspicious, please call me on this number. And could you write a number we could reach you on?’
Sawyer wrote on the top sheet.
IS THERE ANYONE INSIDE HOLDING YOU?
IF YES, WRITE HERE AND GIVE BACK
He tore it off and handed it to Morton, who held it close to his face, squinting at the letters.
He lowered it and met Sawyer’s eyes. His mouth widened into a smile, displaying a rickety rack of brown teeth. He held up a wavering finger. ‘Clever! No. Sorry to disappoint you, but there’s just me and my wife here. And I would very much like to get back inside now, if you please. Good luck with your…’ He waved a tipsy hand. ‘With your endeavours.’
He closed the front door. Sawyer walked back to the Fiesta. Walden and Shepherd sheltered beneath the tiled roof of the outbuilding. He gave the pen and pad back to Shepherd.
‘Mr Walden, where is the mine entrance?’
‘We’ll need to walk up Ecton Hill. The shaft openings are over the other side. Like I said, it was all padlocked the last time I was here. But there might be a few open shafts.’ He took out a piece of paper with side-on and top-down diagrams, and shielded it from the rain. ‘This is the survey. Three main entrances from here and various exit points. This won’t include all the shafts, though. And in this weather, there’ll be some flooding. You’d have to be crazy to go in there without a specialist guide.’
Sawyer took out his phone and tapped in a number. ‘We don’t have time to not be crazy. Mr Crawley... Sorry to disturb you. This is DI Sawyer.’
Walden caught Shepherd’s eye.
Shepherd smiled. ‘Uncle.’
Sawyer turned away with the phone. ‘Could I ask you to take a look in Dennis’s room, at the box of survey maps?’
Walden and Shepherd stood there in silence, backs pressed against the saturated wall of the outbuilding. Rainwater cascaded down the roof and showered the ground around their wellies, scattering the mud in concentric ripples.
‘Thank you,’ Sawyer shouted into the phone, over the crackle of the rain. ‘Could you check, are there any survey maps in the E section? Specifically, for Ecton Mine?’
While he was waiting, he looked down across the Manifold Valley below. The distant rain hung beneath the low clouds like an insect swarm.
‘Thank you for your time.’ He disconnected the call and turned back to Shepherd and Walden. ‘The Ecton Mine survey map isn’t in Dennis’s box. The car he stole to abduct Luka is here, near the mine. Luka’s glasses were wrapped in a piece of linen that contained traces of copper mineral.’
Sawyer dialled another number. He stepped around the corner of the building, out of Walden and Shepherd’s earshot.
Walden swiped rainwater from his chin. ‘Mr Shepherd, are you saying that Dennis has taken that young lad down to the mine with him?’
Shepherd turned to him. ‘It looks that way, yes. Mr Walden, we appreciate your help, but I just want to make sure you’re clear about what we’re proposing. There’s no guarantee about what we might find in there.’
Walden wrinkled his nose. ‘Look. I know Dennis. You’ve got this wrong. I’ll help you find him, then you’ll see. Don’t worry about me, Mr Shepherd. I could use the excitement. Biggest thrill I get, these days, is attending public meetings with the National Park Authority. Shouting matches over vehicular access.’
Sawyer reappeared. He slipped his phone back into the waterproof bag and sealed it inside the Velcro pocket. ‘I’ve briefed Keating. Let’s go find Luka.’
60
They pushed on, through the thickening sludge, up and over the top of Ecton Hill, down towards the shaft entrances.
Walden stopped to wipe his glasses clean; Sawyer and Shepherd slowed to wait. ‘This place is deep, you know. They call it the hollow hill. It’s as deep as the Empire State Building is tall. You might not like the sound of water-filled tunnels, but if you go the wrong way in here, especially on a day like this, you might end up in a sump shaft. Some of them are three hundred feet deep. We’ve had specialist cave divers not come back from that. Before they closed off the entrances, they put a sign up with a picture of the grim reaper. Still didn’t stop ’em.’
Sawyer turned. ‘What’s the draw, then? Why do people do it?’
Walden nodded and thought for a while. ‘I read a good thing in this caving book once. Summed it up for me. It said that it’s like “moving through the veins of Mother Earth”. Almost spiritual. We know more about outer space than we do about the inner world of these caves and mines. It boggles my mind. There’s just so much in there we don’t know about.’
They moved on, passing the mine’s old winding house at the ridge top. As the hill levelled off, they edged down a liquefied scree, skidding and squelching through deep folds of sucking mud. The rain intensified, clattering against their oversuits, drumming at their helmets.
As they reached the base of the other side, Shepherd looked up at the dimming sky. ‘We can’t have more than half an hour of light left.’
Sawyer tapped his headtorch. ‘Good job we’ve got these, then.’
A number of entrances had been blasted into the rock at the base of the hill, all sealed by padlocked grilles. Most of the entry passages looked barely big enough to accommodate one person crawling, but there were two larger holes that led through into tunnels tall enough to walk through at a stoop.
‘See?’ said Walden. ‘We’re going to need the Trust’s help to get in.’
Sawyer walked from entrance to entrance, studying the padlocks. ‘They’re all pretty old. And they’re all the same make. Abloy.’ He looked up and flashed a smile, looking from Shepherd to Walden. ‘Apart from this one.’ He rattled the lock on the grille that covered the largest entrance. ‘Best Access Systems. And looks relatively new. He’s chopped off the old lock and replaced it with this one. Easy to reach through the bars and lock from the inside. Or lock up if he wants to leave for supplies.’
‘Or to send a package,’ said Shepherd.
Sawyer nodded. He unfastened the Velcro pocket and pulled out the waterproof bag. ‘I bought along a couple of helpful items.’ He held up a pair of kirby grip hairpins.
Walden pointed at the oblong black case, also inside the bag. ‘What’s in there?’
Sawyer stashed the bag back in his pocket. ‘A few bits and pieces.’
Walden looked at Shepherd and angled his head towards Sawyer. ‘He’s quite the boy scout, isn’t he?’
Sawyer pulled apart one of the pins until the ends were at a ninety-degree angle. He inserted it into the keyhole and bent it slightly to the side, creating a kink, then coiled the other part of the pin around the kinked section, fashioning a makeshift handle.
‘Shepherd. Take the lock. Lift it up so I can access the keyhole.’
Shepherd stepped in and held the padlock firm. Sawyer inserted the kinked pin into the bottom part of the keyhole and slid the other inside the top. ‘You use one as a tension wrench, and the other as a pick. The trick is to feel your way into the pins that keep the lock closed. When you feel the plug that holds the pins move, you apply more force with the wrench.’
Walden watched, with a horrified squint. ‘Is this legal?’
Shepherd looked up. ‘Depends on whether you see a big hole in the earth as private property or not. I’d say it’s a grey area.’
‘The Trust might see it another way.’
Sawyer pulled and tweaked at the pins. ‘We’ll worry about the Trust’s delicate egos once we’ve got the boy out.’
The lock clasp clicked. Sawyer removed the padlock and slipped it into the waterproof bag with the hairpins.
Shepherd lifted the grille.
Sawyer leaned in close and lowered his voice. ‘You good with this?’
Shepherd drew in a long breath through his nostrils. ‘Let’s find out.’
Walden pushed past them and flicked on his headtorch. He studied the survey map. ‘Stay close, please. This isn’t the Blue John Cavern and Tea Room.’
61
It was a relief to be out of the rain, but now the water was underfoot, ankle deep. They sloshed through a long, low passageway, heads bowed. It was dark and dank, with a rich, peaty smell. Their breath vapours danced in the light from the headtorches. After only a minute of crouch walking, the gloomy dusk light from the entrance was extinguished by the distance. They were in double darkness; there was no light at this end of the tunnel.
Walden stopped and looked up, shining his torch against the slick rock walls. ‘The first miners would have chiselled holes in the rock and filled them with shot to blast it. You can still see some of the holes.’ He poked a finger into a smooth, tennis ball-sized hole in the roof.
They rounded a corner and had to stoop lower as the roof folded in over them, supported by metal bracing bars.
Walden held his hand out, palm up. ‘Come through here slowly and stay over to the far side. Have a look down there.’ He shone his torch onto the narrow opening of a vertical shaft.
‘How deep is that?’ said Sawyer.
‘Deep enough to not fall down. This is what I mean about the danger in here. Not everything is noted on the survey map. I’ve known people fall down shafts like that and not come back. The lucky ones die in the fall; the others get wedged in. They panic, suffocate.’
Sawyer nodded, impatient to press on. ‘Got it. Don’t fall down the holes.’ He turned to check on Shepherd. ‘You okay?’
Shepherd nodded, but he looked pale and clammy in the light of Sawyer’s headtorch.
They edged through into a tall, narrow passage. Walden shone his light ahead and down. The ground had collapsed to form another deep shaft: wider and more central than the last. There was a makeshift bridge of two rusty-looking iron tracks, packed close together near the rock wall.
Walden crouched. ‘Now that is interesting. It’s the old railway line. They used to have it down here to transport the ore.’
‘Is it safe to cross?’ said Shepherd.
‘Of course it isn’t “safe”. You might fall into the shaft.’ He smiled. ‘It’s fine. Wrought iron.’
They sidestepped across the chasm, over the tracks. There was plenty of room, and it was simple enough to keep steady by leaning on the rock wall. But they were a stumble away from disaster.
Walden went over first, then Shepherd. As Sawyer made his way across, Walden beckoned from the gloom at the other side. ‘If you do fall, there’s probably water down there, so you might be okay. Depends on how far the fall is, though.’
At the end of the passage, the ground dipped and fell away. They climbed down an iron ladder to a new tunnel, ten feet below, and found themselves in a vast, open chamber. Blasted rubble had been piled up at the edges of the space, dotted with rusted mining debris. They looked up; their torches picked out a high ceiling, glittering with dripping stalactites.
Walden whispered. ‘Listen to that.’
They stood in silence for a few seconds.
Sawyer frowned. ‘I can’t hear anything.’
‘Exactly. This is another reason why we do this. The peace, the isolation. It’s a crazy world out there. Down here, the pace is a lot slower. Those stalactites form at about four inches every thousand years. Anyway.’ He turned to them. ‘I’ve got some bad news. I’m not going any further.’
Sawyer stepped forward. ‘Why not?’
Walden shone his torch ahead. The only way forward was through a tight channel, just big enough to accommodate a medium-sized man, crawling. ‘Because I’m not suicidal. According to the survey, that passage connects to a larger section of mine about a hundred feet ahead. And that’s going to be a long hundred feet. A crawl through water most of the way. No turning around. Similar to the tunnel in Oxlow I told you about. And you’ll need to stick to the single passage, as there’ll be others that branch off. A few of them might be almost fully sumped.’
‘Apart from that,’ said Sawyer. ‘It’s all fine. Right?’
‘Oh. Also, as I mentioned, some of these passageways might have heavy CO2 build up. Which means restricted oxygen.’
Shepherd crouched and examined the passage. ‘I can’t physically get in there, sir, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t. We should go back. Check in with Keating’s back-up. Get a specialist team in here.’
Walden gave Sawyer the survey map. ‘If you want to carry on, it’s your funeral. Maybe literally. But I want it on record that I advised against it.’
Sawyer squinted at the map. ‘I’m going on.’
Shepherd stood upright. ‘We should just stake out the main entrance. Grab him when he comes out.’
‘No telling how long that will be. And we don’t know what state the boy is in. Make sure there’s back-up on the other side of the hill, and to the house by the car. Crawley might know another way out. We should be prepared if he sees me and spooks.’
Walden was already climbing back up the ladder. ‘I hope you’ve got a strong stomach, Mr Sawyer. That’s going to be no kind of fun. Nice meeting you. And if you don’t deviate from that single passage, we might meet again. I’m telling you, though, going in there by yourself? There’s something wrong with you.’
Shepherd moved in, close to Sawyer. ‘Take it easy, sir. And do as he says. Stick to the surveyed passages. Here. Take this.’
He handed over the tactical pen. Sawyer slipped it into the Velcro pocket. ‘Is this for when I need to write my name on the wall? Jake woz ’ere.’
Shepherd’s eyes drifted. ‘I did a bit of deeper reading.’
‘About?’
‘About the patch of hair. I read more about the attack. Your mother’s murder.’
‘Okay. Nice research. Can we save the heart-to-heart for a more convenient moment?’
Shepherd caught his eye. ‘I just wanted to say, I’m sorry. Sir.’
‘Thank you. It was a long time ago.’
‘And the guy who was convicted. He’s about to get out.’
Sawyer eyed him. ‘This is all a bit final. I am coming back, you know.’
Shepherd turned and headed for the ladder. ‘Yeah, I know.’
62
Sawyer ducked into the passage. He pushed his right elbow ahead, digging it into the rocky ground. He pulled himself forward, and repeated with his left. As the passage dipped, the ground grew wetter, and he was soon crawling through inches of freezing water, spitting and spluttering. His headtorch showed the seemingly endless path ahead, the light compressed into a tight circle by the enclosing rock.
He crawled for what seemed like hours, until the channel grew wider and taller and he was able to stand, at a crouch. His joints throbbed with the effort and he found it harder to catch his breath. He shivered as he stood: so
mething he had never experienced before. In one of the dryer sections of the channel, he had laid down his head and felt the tug of sleep, but jolted himself awake just in time.
He took out the survey map and saw that his current position was at the far end of a long tunnel with branching pathways behind, as Walden had described. Ahead, a smaller chamber, or ‘vault’ according to the map, led to two further passages that could be taken at a walking crouch. He pushed forward and emerged into the gaping black of the open chamber. As he fiddled in vain with the dial on his headtorch, hoping to find a brighter setting, he accidentally switched it off.
Sawyer crouched there, in silence, aghast at the nothingness. This was a terrible new pitch of dark: unpolluted, unfathomable.
And that’s when he heard it.
A voice, up ahead. Low pitched.
And the response. High pitched.
He switched the headtorch back on and moved forward, towards the sounds.
He shuffled through the right hand passage. There was light ahead now, too. Diffuse, but more than just a headtorch. He turned off his switch and inched forward, now able to navigate by the incoming light.
Staying close to the wall, Sawyer moved around into the larger chamber. Two lanterns burned at opposite ends of the space, casting fluttering shadows. There were buckets, backpacks. A large man was crouched down by a cooking stove, with his back to Sawyer. Luka Strickland lay on a thin sleeping bag, beneath one of the lanterns. He was wearing a leg manacle, chained to an outcrop of tall, thin rock.
As Sawyer shifted further into the chamber, he stepped down too hard into a pile of small rocks, and they fell apart with a clatter.
The man flinched and turned his head. ‘Who goes there?’ His tone was curious.
It was Dennis Crawley. The man from the hospital. The man in the CCTV pictures. His hair had grown out a little, and he was already stubbled, almost bearded. He wore a helmet with an unlit headtorch, and a black oversuit with a utility belt.
