properly, but I could take a quick peek now …’
‘How would you get in?’
‘These.’ Layton held up a bunch of keys and jangled them. ‘The landlord gave me his master set. What do you say?’
‘Absolutely not.’ Savage bit her lip, then nodded at the camera and winked at Layton. Then she went towards the door and stepped out onto the landing. Layton followed and Savage lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Thirty seconds in each room, wear gloves, and don’t touch any of the girls’ stuff. Oh, and it never happened, OK?’
‘Sure.’ Layton chuckled. ‘But the subterfuge isn’t necessary because I’ve unplugged the internet router and bagged it for evidence. The camera is dead.’
Layton was still laughing to himself five minutes later as he came down from the second floor.
‘Well?’ Savage said. ‘Any more?’
‘All four rooms. There’s a big full-length mirror in the shared bathroom too, but I can’t remove that without a major DIY job. We’ve got the router though, so we can call Hi-Tech Crimes out here. They can plug the router back in and see all the devices that are connected wirelessly. If we find more than Ana’s camera, which of course we will, then we can ask the other girls for permission to look inside their rooms and make the discovery official.’
‘How’s the landlord viewing the material?’
‘Remotely. He could log on from anywhere as long as he had a connection.’
‘Nice work if you can get it.’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment, Charlotte. Not without finding myself in front of the Professional Standards Department, keen to know about my attitude to women. But four nubile Eastern European girls? Well, that’s a lot of flesh to get excited about.’
‘And it went further than that, didn’t it? Voyeurism to violence. It’s not the first time and I doubt it will be the last.’
Savage thanked Layton and went downstairs and out onto the street, where she phoned through to the station to set up interviews with the other tenants and the landlord. There’d need to be considerable tact involved in speaking to Ana’s housemates, but from what she had seen inside tact was the last thing she’d be using when she interviewed the landlord.
Police. On the moor. In the wood. In the big dark wood.
Police, Chubber?
Yes, police. Poo lice. Chubber doesn’t much like poo, nor lice for that matter. He once had lice, down there. Caught them from some dirty whore. Itchy they were, the little buggers. He should’ve gone to the doctor, but the doctor would have asked too many questions. Difficult questions. So instead he squirted on neat bleach. The liquid burned and turned his pubic hair white. Killed the lice though.
Get to the point, Chubber.
The point is the police have found the missing girl. They’ve been down near the reservoir looking for secrets. Chubber’s got secrets, but luckily they’re not down near the reservoir. No, they’re in the wood, the big dark wood, and at home too.
Right now Chubber is sitting on his sofa in his living room watching TV. The police haven’t come visiting. Not yet. Chubber doesn’t think they know where he lives. They couldn’t. But he’s already decided he should be a bit more careful.
The blue of the lake flashes on the screen. A presenter explains about the girl. Asks how did she get there? Was this some crime of passion, something to do with the Eastern European mafia, or was she abducted, raped, killed and butchered by some mad chocolate-drinking psychopath?
Chubber! The presenter didn’t say that.
No.
Chubber shifts on the sofa and the springs protest beneath him. He can’t get comfortable because something isn’t right.
Not right, Chubber?
No.
The TV picture has moved on to another story. Still Dartmoor, still about butchery. There’s a pony at a stone circle and someone’s been at it with a knife. Slicing and dicing. Chopping off the poor animal’s knackers. Nasty. Painful. Chubber feels a loosening in his bowels, a queasy sensation of gas rising in his stomach. Uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable what, Chubber?
Uncomfortable truths. Things that happen in stone circles at night when Chubber’s been watching.
Chubber pushes himself up from the sofa, stumbles across the room, fast-food packaging rustling like autumn leaves as he wades through the detritus. All of a sudden he needs the toilet, needs to take a crap, thinks he’s going to be sick. The two actions are essentially incompatible. He rushes down the hallway, clumps up the narrow stairs, bile rising in his throat. He lurches into the bathroom, his face over the sink, vomit exploding from his mouth. He grasps and reaches for the tap, water splashes out as he retches again.
Chubber rubs water on his face, spits into the sink, and then releases the buttons on his trousers. They drop to the floor and he lowers his boxers and turns to sit on the toilet. His bowels open and a long heavy mass of shit drops out. He breathes out a huge sigh of relief, but while the sick and the shit and the stale air have been expelled from his body there’s still something remaining inside. As he reaches for the toilet paper he sees his hand shaking.
Yes, Chubber. Consequences. Haven’t you heard the word?
Of course he’s heard the word, it’s just up until now he’s never thought it would apply to him. Consequences happen to other people. People who piss him off. Kids who tease him on the street. Girls who wear push-up bras in cafes.
Chubber rips off a length of tissue paper, wipes himself, repeats the action, then gets up from the toilet. He washes his hands in cold water and thinks about the cold night up on the moor just before Christmas. The man with the antlers standing by the car. About the next day, when he went back in daylight.
‘Help me!’
The voice had come from the rock. The one in the centre of the circle.
Chubber moved forward, padding across the ground. He scanned the horizon. Nothing. The weather had turned from cold to wet and on this part of the moor there wasn’t a soul to be seen.
‘Is somebody there? Please! Help me!’
The voice was muffled. Like a rock would sound if it could talk.
Didn’t like that, did you Chubber?
No. Voices in head, OK. Voices from a rock, not good. But Chubber had to see, to check. He’d moved even closer. The rock was still talking, crying, sobbing. Screaming.
‘HELP ME!’
Chubber had stopped right next
