Calter explained the details and then hung up.
‘A pound in the cop box then?’ Pete said, referring to a piggy bank Jamie had plonked on the kitchen table one evening when Savage had been out. The fund, added to whenever Savage was called away, provided Jamie with crisps and sweets, a consolation – albeit a poor one – for the absence of his mother.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Savage said, nodding at her husband before knocking back her glass of wine and walking from the room.
The girl had been found at Combestone Tor, a lone set of rocks standing high above the steep-sided River Dart valley. Savage drove at speed along the A38 to Buckfastleigh and then turned off and negotiated the narrow lanes up onto the moor. Forty minutes after leaving home she was driving across the dam of the Avon reservoir and following a winding road which climbed towards the tor. As she neared the top, the last rays of sunlight were caressing the tip of the tor as the day took its leave. It was as if rocks were being devoured by a great black shadow, the warmth and brilliance of life being slowly extinguished. She knew photographers called this time of day the golden hour, a time when the light was warmer and redder. For police officers the term had a quite different meaning. The golden hour referred to the period immediately following the discovery of a crime. During this time information was available to the police in high volume and every effort had to be made to secure that information. Decisions made now would have consequences for the investigation later. Savage wondered about her own role and whether she would make the right choices.
The odd jumble of rocks which comprised the tor lay just a short walk from a gravel car park, but she could see that John Layton, their senior Crime Scene Investigator, was taking no chances. The road had been blocked off some two hundred metres from the tor where a couple of laybys provided parking for police vehicles. Hundreds of metres of blue and white tape lay pegged to the ground, the tape extending in a rough circle around the tor. Savage stopped the car and got out. DC Jane Calter was standing next to one of Layton’s white vans flirting with a young-looking CSI. The CSI had pulled his mask away from his face, but was otherwise fully clad in a white protective suit. He laughed at something Calter said, the laugh curtailed as Savage walked across.
‘Evening, ma’am,’ DC Calter said, her strong South-West accent somehow at one with the rural surroundings. She nodded a greeting, her blonde bob curling round the edges of her face. Calter was late twenties but highly experienced. An old head on young shoulders. She gestured towards the tor where the rocks were now almost devoid of sunlight, the shadow line moving across the moor on the other side of the valley. ‘Just waiting to be allowed up there. They’re finger-tipping a route in and once they’ve done that we can go through.’
Savage nodded and then turned to the CSI. ‘Anything for me?’
‘A female,’ the CSI said. ‘Late teens or early twenties and she’s in a sparkly dress. Not the kind of thing you’d be wearing up here. No ID or anything like that. No obvious signs of trauma, but she’s wedged down in a deep crevice so we won’t know much about cause of death until we get her out.’ The CSI waved at a colleague a hundred metres away. ‘Look, you can go over there now. Keep between the strips of tape.’
Savage thanked the CSI and she and Calter went to get kitted up. Ten minutes later and they ambled up between the two lines of tape towards the distinct clusters of rock, the tallest twice the height of a man. Over by one, several white-suited figures worked in a line, circumnavigating the rocks like a giant clock hand. At the tor, an aluminium ladder leaned against a pillar of granite. Savage’s eyes followed the ladder upward to the top of the rock where another man stood surveying the view. Like the other CSIs he wore a white suit with bootlets and blue gloves. Unlike them he had a grubby Tilley hat perched on his head. As he turned his head he spotted Savage and raised a hand and tipped the hat.
‘Charlotte!’ John Layton’s voice boomed out across the hillside. ‘Come on over.’
Savage and Calter continued between the parallel tapes until they reached the ladder. Layton stood at the top looking down, his angular face silhouetted against the pale sky.
‘I’m pretty sure they didn’t come this way,’ he said. ‘So it’s safe for you to come up. But be careful, hey?’
Savage moved to the ladder and began climbing. At the top Layton offered a hand, but she scowled at him and stepped onto the rock.
‘I’m a woman, not a bloody invalid. What’s got into you?’
‘Sorry, I was only trying to help.’
‘Well don’t.’ Savage looked past Layton to a tripod arrangement with a pulley and a rope. The tripod straddled a crack in the rocks. ‘She’s down there?’
‘Self-evidently.’
Savage narrowed her gaze, trying to penetrate the gloom in the crack. Two metres or so down, a shelf of granite overhung a patch of bare earth. Sticking out from beneath the rock was a bare foot, mud and dirt on the sole, bright-red varnish on a toenail. Savage moved her head to try to see more. Sparkles came from a silver dress, another flash of light from something clutched in an outstretched fist.
‘A nail file,’ Layton said as Calter joined Savage at the crack. ‘Only I don’t think she was up here for a spot of manicuring.’
‘Self-defence, ma’am,’ Calter said. ‘Which means this was no accident. And she’s not exactly dressed for a day on the hills, is she? Not dressed for anything much, to be honest.’
‘No.’ Savage glanced back to the car park, just a stone’s throw away. ‘What about a lovers’ tiff which got out of hand? They drove here for a smooch up on the rocks and something went wrong.’
‘A smooch?’ Calter smiled. ‘You’re showing your age, ma’am. I think people go in for more than smooching these days.’
Savage ignored Calter’s jibe. ‘This is surely too close to the road and too public a place to try and conceal a body.’
‘Might have looked different in the dark.’
‘True. But would anyone come here if they hadn’t already visited?’ Savage stood and turned to Layton. The crack was so narrow a full-grown man couldn’t fit down. ‘How are you going to get her out?’
‘Barbara.’ Layton pointed to where a petite woman in a white PPE suit was cresting the top of the ladder. ‘She’s small enough. The only question is, whether she’s brave enough?’
It took the best part of half an hour to extract the body. DC Barbara Hooper was lowered into the gap and managed to attach a harness round the girl which enabled the body to be winched out. The process was painstaking, Layton keen not to cause unnecessary damage to the corpse. He signalled to Savage as the girl was carried down to ground level and laid on a body bag.
‘She’s not been here long,’ Layton said as Savage came over. ‘Twenty-four hours max.’
‘Rigor mortis?’ Savage said as she stared down at the girl’s right hand where the nail file lay in a tight grip. A sparkly dress woven from silver thread had split down one side, the round of a breast partially exposed. Long blonde hair framed a face which wore bright red lipstick and heavy eyeshadow and eyeliner. The make-up looked odd on the now-sallow skin. The girl’s right thigh had a graze down one side, rivulets of dried blood visible on the pale surface.
‘Yes.’ Layton gestured at the car park. ‘But I was thinking more along the lines that this is a popular place, especially at the weekend. During the day,
