like mirrors, reflecting a sombre sky where the moon plays hide and seek with the clouds.
In the distance a glow hugs the horizon almost as if the sun is about to rise. But the glow doesn’t belong to the sun, the light comes from the city where people bustle back and forth living their insignificant lives. He thinks about the thousands of morons sitting in their living rooms, their eyes glued to a rectangular screen with flickering pixels, absorbing the drivel pumped out for them to lap up. Others are clustered in pubs and bars, talking rubbish to friends, to colleagues, to any fucking idiot who will listen. And then there are those who interest him. Not the morons stuck in front of their televisions. Not the wasters out on the piss. The others. The quiet ones. Demure and lying still in their beds. Hands by their sides, legs together, eyes tightly shut. Almost as if they were dead.
He knows he’s not right in the head. Who walks the moorland after dark? Who stalks graveyards, delighting in the quietness of the stones, aroused by the presence of those who have passed beyond the physical? Nobody normal, that’s for sure.
Fuck it!
He clenches his fists in anger for a moment but then relaxes. He’s close now. Close to where he can get relief. Close to where they lie waiting for him. Where they’ve lain for all these years. He walks on and arrives at the gate. He pulls a key from his pocket and fits it into the padlock. Unlocks it and removes the heavy chain. He pushes the gate open and slips through. Shadows loom like welcoming friends. They’re here. All around him. He steps up to where a silver lake glistens in the moonlight. He begins to undress, stripping off his clothes until he stands naked. He bends to the water and takes a handful. He splashes the cool liquid on his chest, the chill shocking him, exciting him. And then he thinks of the girls. His girls. His heart beats faster and his breath rushes in and out. Yes, he cries in the dark. Yes! Yes! Yes!
He stands there, spent. His breathing slows, his heart calms and now he is disgusted with himself. Disgusted it took such a fetish to turn him on. He shakes his head. What’s done is done. He reaches for his clothes and dresses hurriedly. He tries to reconcile what has happened. What harm is there in it? None. Not this time. But tomorrow? Next week? Next month?
He plods down to the gate, goes through and refastens the chain. The harm is safely in his head, he thinks. His darkest thoughts nothing but swirls in his imagination. Soon, however, he knows the desire will build to a level where he can no longer be satiated by mere fantasy. He needs the exquisite feeling of flesh against his naked body. Flesh which is soft and cool and quite, quite dead.
Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Friday 21st April. 10.52 a.m.
Back at work, Savage tried to forget about Malcolm Kendwick. Hardin had arranged for a twenty-four-seven surveillance on the man, but she wasn’t involved. Other than that she was aware there’d been an incident in Chagford involving a reporter and a smashed camera and had seen a lurid headline in one of the tabloids. Thankfully, in the week that followed, more pressing matters arose to distract her, including a woman who’d fallen from the eighth floor of a block of flats in Devonport. Suspicion was pointing to her boyfriend, ‘a right scrote,’ according to DC Enders who’d had dealings with the guy. Savage was reminded of her conversation with Riley about men being arseholes. They certainly weren’t all arseholes but Plymouth seemed to have more than its fair share of them.
On Friday, five days after Kendwick had arrived in Devon, DSupt Hardin summoned Savage to his office. He told her he was axing the surveillance op, citing manpower and budgetary constraints.
‘Nothing I can do about it, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘Besides, we can’t keep watching him indefinitely. At least the bugger will have got an idea of how serious we are about keeping tabs.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Savage said. ‘But he’s done nothing and gone nowhere, right?’
‘Hmmm.’ Hardin stared down at a log sheet detailing Kendwick’s movements. ‘Yesterday he went to the local shop, then to the pub for lunch, took a short walk, went back home, visited the pub again in the evening, went to bed. Not much of a life. He’s got a rental car, but doesn’t appear to have gone anywhere in it aside from a couple of jaunts on the moor.’
‘If you ask me he’s playing a game with us. He knows we’re watching him.’
‘Which was my intention. From now on he’ll be looking over his shoulder, wondering if we’re there.’
No, Savage thought. Kendwick was too canny for that. He’d be well aware the surveillance had stopped. He’d only let himself be followed so closely because he had nothing to lose. Now they were no longer keeping an eye on him he could come and go as he pleased.
‘So that’s it then? We’re done with him?’
‘Not quite.’ Hardin picked up the log sheet and flicked the surface with a finger. ‘I want you to pay Mr Kendwick a visit. Give him a bit of a talking to. Perhaps you can warn him off, maybe even scare him away. If he upped sticks and moved to another area it would be a weight off our backs.’
‘And what am I supposed to say to him?’ Savage sighed, exasperated. She’d spent five hours stuck in a car with Kendwick and wasn’t sure what another hour’s conversation would accomplish. ‘Please bugger off?’
‘I don’t know, Charlotte. You’re the one with the interpersonal skills. Be his friend. Tell him Devon’s no place for him. If he doesn’t buy that then make it clear we’re going to catch up with him eventually. He’ll get the message, I’m sure he will.’
Savage took an early lunch and then drove north from Plymouth. At Yelverton she headed up onto the moor, following the twisting road to the town of Princetown. A strong sun beamed down, flattening the landscape and obliterating the shadows. The tors stood a uniform grey, almost formless in the harsh light, their dark foreboding temporarily banished.
She drove across the moor and arrived at Kendwick’s place in Chagford at a little after two o’clock. A knock on the front door of the cottage brought no response, so she moved to a window and peered in. She could see through the open plan living area to the kitchen where the back door stood open. She turned and walked along the street and went down a passage which led to the rear of the terrace. A path bisected the long, narrow gardens. Kendwick’s was the one at the end and she found him lying in a teak reclining chair next to a small table. He wore a pair of shorts and a light shirt and a jug of something resembling Pimm’s sat on the table beside a half-empty glass. He hadn’t tied his hair up and his black mane cascaded across the back of the chair. Kendwick held a book in his hands. He closed the book as Savage approached.
‘Charlotte!’ Kendwick pushed himself up from the chair and stuck out his hand. ‘How nice of you to visit!’
‘Hello, Mr Kendwick,’ Savage said. She shook hands, once again noticing how dry and cool the man’s palm was. ‘Just a courtesy visit.’
‘Courtesy? Well that makes a nice change from the cops in the US. Manners are something which don’t seem to have been invented over there. They’re likely to pull a gun and cuff you just to tell you your stop light isn’t working.’ Kendwick nodded at the jug on the table. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
Savage shook her head. ‘Cut the false bonhomie, Mr Kendwick. I’m here to warn
