Sixty

Simon.

I am not going to try to speak to you, to see you or even to leave messages on your various machines. It is much the best for me if I write this and if it is not best for you, then forgive me, but I don’t intend to take that into account. However, it would be churlish not to tell you what is happening after the good times we had together, churlish and unkind. Whether it will even be of interest to you is not for me to know, and whether you respond or not is up to you.

As you know, I sold the restaurants and have been casting about for a new investment. Casting about for a future, too, as I had for a long time hoped there would be one for me with you. But I’m pretty clear now that you at least never intended any such thing.

Through a company in the City I met someone who has properties in France and through him I have bought a pair of hotels in a hilltop area beyond Moissac. One is inside the walls of a medieval village, one in a wonderful situation nearby. They are run-down and need a lot of investment as well as time and loving attention. I have bought a cottage between them, in a small market town, from where I will organise the complete refurbishment of both hotels over the course of the next year. The plan is to open the one in the walled village first, and the second in the following season.

I have sold the flat. I have burned my boats, Simon.

The friend through whom I found the hotels, Robert Cairns, will come with me and will take over some of the business side of the venture. At present that is all he is—a friend. I like him, I enjoy his company. So who knows? But he is a good deal older than me and, besides, I am not ready for anyone else yet and will not be for some time. It is all too raw. For that I blame you. I blame you for a lot of things but I hope I can come to stop blaming you in time and to remember the pleasure and the fun and none of the pain.

I am determined to make this venture work and I am very excited about it. I know the hotels will be a success. I am good at my job. It is a completely fresh start. Please wish me well. There is no reason for you not to. There’s every reason why I should wish you ill but that would be petty and small-minded and so I do the very opposite.

All love, still,

Diana

When I am settled, cards with addresses etc. will wing their way to you.

Sixty-one

The sun hit the surface of the sea and broke it into a million gold splinters. The beach shone like glass. It was seven o’clock.

The teams clambered out of three police Land Rovers which had driven up as near to the cliff as they could get. Serrailler and Nathan Coates were in the front with Jim Chapman. The third vehicle had brought the forensics team.

“Right—this is some distance from where you followed Sleightholme, Simon c couple of miles. The cliffs all along this bit of the coast are riddled with caves and we’ve concentrated on those nearer to the scene of the arrest. But the plan has always been a painstaking search of as many as possible, though some are so inaccessible there would be no point—if we can’t reach them, she couldn’t—and of course we’re hampered by access being only at low tide.”

The area of the caves for half a mile along the cliff was cordoned off with black-and-yellow tape. Chapman turned and began to walk steadily towards one on the left, the others following. Behind them, the forensics team were putting on what Simon always thought of as the suits of death.

At the entrance, Chapman stopped. “Prior, the man walking his dog, had chucked the ball hard and it must have bounced several times off the rocks into here and then again up on to the ledge. Blind chance. The dog scuttled in after it, tried to jump up and started whining and fussing c not sure whether it was because of the lost ball or because of what else it was sensing. By the time a local team got down here it was getting dark and the tide had turned, but we managed to get lights in and the cordon, and take a quick look. Today we’ve got scaffolding and platforms so forensics can work until the tide gets too close. Then they have to retreat and wait. It’s frustrating but they’ll need to scour this place and it could take days. Longer. Depends. Right, let’s get in.”

They had flashlights and the team would set up a generator and cables but, because the sea half filled the cave twice in every twenty-four hours, equipment had to be hauled above the water level and would take some time to be up and running. For now, they had to rely on half a dozen high-powered beams carried by hand.

Jim Chapman went to the back of the cave, ducking his head. He flashed his torch along the wall for a second or two, then held it steady.

“There. The dog was crouching just where you’re standing, Simon.”

“I’ll climb up,” Serrailler said.

“Thought you might. We’ll light you.”

The cave had filled up with the forensics team and their gear, but now they stood watching the DCI as he hauled himself up on to the wooden platform wedged into the scaffolding. There was a muffled echo round the dank walls every time anyone moved or spoke.

The cold and seaweed smell came off the rock into his face as he edged his way, bent almost double, along the ledge. To his surprise he found that it went quite far back. He pulled his flashlight out of his belt and switched it on. The hollow black mouth flared in front of him.

“There’s the space of half a room going back into the cliff,” he shouted down. “Not sure I can get into it though, I’m too tall.”

“Sleightholme’s not tall,” Chapman said.

It was not only the smell of the salt seaweed and the cold that came into Simon’s face now. The sense of what had happened here overcame him in a wave. Anger. Nausea. An immense sadness.

He moved along towards the mouth of the cave at the back, until he could let the beam from his torch light up the interior.

There were four on the ledge, and more, he was sure, further back in the hollow in the rock, the cave within the cave. Four small skeletons, four silent, pale groups of bones. He closed his eyes for a moment. He was not like his sister. He didn’t feel moved to pray every time he came upon a dead body, someone murdered, someone who had suffered an appalling end. But now, the only response he had was some sort of prayer.

“Four here that I can see,” he called down. “I think there’ll be others further back. No, hang on c there’s another ledge c just suspended above this one. I’m going to climb up a bit further, see if I can see.”

No one told him to be careful. No one said anything. His light wavered and swerved against the black rock as he got a foothold and then hauled himself a few feet higher. He moved the torch. Reached out his hand and felt forward carefully.

“Dear God,” he said. “This is a deep ledge. Goes way back.”

He saw more skeletons, lying close together. The arms of one were folded, the arms of another up over the face.

His lamp went out suddenly, leaving him staring into blackness.

They came out into the brilliant sunlight and blue skies of a perfect morning and stood in silence, looking at the sea. Then, after a moment, they began to walk away from the cave and the blackness and the heaps of small bones, towards the waterline at the far end of the flat, shining sand. Simon took deep breaths of air as if he were pumping life itself into his lungs and veins, along with the oxygen. Behind, the men in the death suits were taking in equipment. They had a few hours in which to work before they had to abandon the caves to the tide again.

“The stench of evil,” Jim Chapman said.

Simon nodded, remembering the last time he had been in a confined space with it, when he and Nathan Coates had broken into the unit used as a morgue by the Lafferton serial killer. He had had the same desperate need to get out, into the air, into the light, and the world of normality.