but only a fool would say it wouldn’t make things a whole lot better. Savage had never had a liberal view of punishment. Too often the bad guys served a few years while the victims and the families received a life sentence. If that was what justice was then the whole system needed ripping up.
Owen Fox, of course, had never even been caught. He’d escaped punishment entirely.
Savage blinked as the door to the estate agency opened. Owen strode out and wheeled to the left, a set of keys in his hand. Brixham was all steep hills and tiny streets and suffered from a lack of parking. Owen was walking to an appointment.
Her heart rate rose and she moved away from the quay wall and followed as Owen strolled along the edge of the marina and then turned left. He headed up a steep hill and turned left again. A couple of hundred yards later he swung right into the driveway of a large detached house. On the opposite side of the road there was only a stone wall. The house had an amazing view over the harbour, was right in the centre of the town and yet the location was secluded. Perfect, Savage thought, just perfect. Owen’s clients would arrive. He’d show them around and then they’d leave. He’d go back into the house to check it over. Savage could slip inside and confront him. No one would see her. No one would know.
She put her hand in her pocket and touched the gun. Fallon said one bullet was all it took and he was right. One bullet to end all her worries. She carried on walking and went past the house without looking up. At the end of the street a bench on the pavement faced the sea. She went over and sat down and stared across the harbour. Barely a minute went by before something vibrated in her pocket. Not the gun, her phone.
Shit. Her phone. All of a sudden she realised her mistake. The phone could be tracked, her location pinpointed. If anything happened to Owen Fox in Brixham today she’d be the first person his father suspected.
Savage pulled the phone out and glanced at the display. DC Calter. She answered, then rose from the bench and began to walk back down the hill towards the town.
Savage arrived at Fernworthy Reservoir shortly before midday. The drive up from Brixham had given her time to ponder. What would she have done if her phone hadn’t gone off? If she’d come face-to-face with Owen Fox today? As her car climbed onto the moor her mood darkened to match the black of the granite tors. Up here was where Clarissa was killed and where a sort of living hell had started for Savage. By the time the road wound up towards Fernworthy she knew she had to do something. One day soon she’d return to Brixham with Fallon and confront Owen. Hurt him over and over. Maybe, if he begged, she’d stop. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t.
The car thrummed across a cattle grid and a minute later she was turning into the car park at the reservoir. On the far side of the car park a young female DC sat behind the wheel of her car with the door wide open and the seat reclined. The woman’s eyes were shut, the officer enjoying forty winks in the sunshine. A blonde bob curled round her cheeks and the short-sleeved shirt revealed healthy biceps.
DC Calter.
Savage got out and strolled over. Her shadow fell across Calter’s body.
‘Don’t tell me, Patrick,’ Calter said, her eyes still closed. ‘You’ve just wet yourself because you’ve found some fucking geocache.’
‘Is that what he’s up to then?’ Savage said.
‘Ma’am!’ Calter opened her eyes and sat up. ‘Sorry, just taking a break.’
‘And DC Enders?’
‘He’s off somewhere with his precious GPS. Something about search parameters.’
‘That’s the PolSA’s job, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, but the search adviser hasn’t turned up yet. Inspector Frey’s taken control of the lake but we’re at sixes and sevens about the rest.’ Calter climbed out of the car and Savage listened as Calter explained about the discovery of the bag of clothes. The PC who’d first attended the scene had found the driving licence and called the details in, flagging up Ana’s name on the missing person list.
‘Remember her passport was missing?’ Calter said. ‘We concluded she’d probably returned to Hungary. Seems unlikely now.’
‘Yes,’ Savage said. ‘The driving licence changes everything.’
‘She’s got to be here somewhere.’ Calter swung her arms wide to encompass the water, the forest, and the surrounding moorland. ‘But to be honest I don’t think she’ll be alive when we find her.’
Savage followed Calter’s gesture. The lake was cold and deep, the forest a vast area criss-crossed with tracks and paths. And then there was the moorland, an upland wilderness of tors and bogs stretching for miles in three directions. Only to the east was there the comfort of civilisation. A few farms and hamlets and then the town of Chagford. Was it possible the girl had gone that way? Or maybe that’s where she’d come from. Chagford was a little bit of London on the moor. Hideaways for the rich and famous. Perhaps Ana had been at a house party which had turned sour. Drugs or sex, she’d overdosed or been raped. Either way, the hosts had ended the night with a body on their hands. In London you’d struggle to dispose of the evidence, but up here?
Savage kept silent, not wanting to confirm Calter’s suspicions. Then she nodded towards the entrance to the car park as a vehicle swung in past the two uniformed officers.
‘About bloody time. The PolSA. Let’s see what he has to say.’
The police search adviser turned out to be new in the job. He’d done half a dozen courses and knew a string of buzzwords, but by the end of the conversation with him Savage wasn’t convinced by his proposed strategy. And neither was Calter.
‘He couldn’t locate a burger in a bun,’ Calter said, as the PolSA went to find Frey. ‘Search the lake and five hundred metres around where the bag of clothes were found? I could have told you that. But where else?’
‘He doesn’t want to squander resources, Jane,’ Savage said. She pointed up at the forest rising from the far side of the lake. ‘And you can see his point. It would take hundreds of officers to search the woodland, and with the density of the trees and scrub you could pass within a couple of metres of a body without seeing anything. On the other hand you’re right; what he’s come up with is hardly rocket science. I’d have liked something else.’
Savage left Calter at the car park and strolled along the road which bordered the reservoir. To the left the woodland was a mixture of new plantings, half-grown trees, and full-grown pines. Beneath the mature trees light scrub hugged the ground, but the canopy high above prevented much of it from growing. Searching those areas would be easy. Likewise with the sections of forest which had been clear felled. It was the areas with half-grown trees that would prove a problem for the search teams. The pines were five to ten metres high and their branches reached down to near ground level. The result was a mass of almost impenetrable greenery. Anything other than a cursory search would prove near impossible. In its entirety Fernworthy comprised several square kilometres and the terrain was by no means flat. There was steep hillside, streams and gullies, and here and there rocks pushed up from the peaty ground. Although there were a few forest tracks, access along those would need to be in four-wheel-drive vehicles and the majority of the searching would have to be done on foot.
Savage
