CUT DEAD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel. Mark Sennen

delighted the prison is associated with the work they do. There’s been some great publicity and the scheme shows prisoners are simply human beings like the rest of us.’

      ‘Devlyn Corran.’

      ‘Ah, yes. To business.’ Rose took a sip from his cup of coffee before continuing. ‘I can’t tell you how concerned I am about Devlyn. I mean, how can he go missing on a Sunday morning when there is only open moorland between here and his home?’

      ‘That’s what we need to discover,’ Riley said. ‘But perhaps we could start with the basics.’

      ‘Of course. What do you want to know?’

      ‘Let’s get the facts around Sunday morning down first. Mr Corran had been on a night shift, right?’

      ‘Yes. He started at nine on Saturday and clocked off at eight the next morning. He cycles to work when the weather is fine and someone saw him unlocking his bike and leaving sometime soon after eight. You know it was his daughter’s fifth birthday party Sunday afternoon? The previous evening he’d joked he needed a quiet shift because he’d only be able to grab a few hours of sleep before the party started.’

      ‘And was it? A quiet shift, I mean.’

      ‘Oh yes. Rarely anything other. You shouldn’t believe everything you read or see. Prisons these days are about training and education, not rioting. Especially not here at Dartmoor.’

      ‘You’re Category C, correct?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Meaning there aren’t any dangerous prisoners here? Ones who might bear a grudge, who might be able to arrange for something nasty to happen to a prison officer?’

      ‘I don’t think that’s likely.’ Rose paused and then leant forwards, took the coffee pot and poured himself a top-up. ‘But anyway Devlyn has only been here for a year or so. He transferred from somewhere up north, I believe. If you give me a moment I’ll check.’ Rose got up and went over to his desk where he sat down. He clicked the mouse a couple of times and then stared at the monitor screen for a few seconds. ‘Full Sutton, Yorkshire.’

      ‘Can you tell us anything about the reason for his transfer?’

      ‘No, his record just says the move was due to personal circumstances. His time at Full Sutton was exemplary. He worked with long-term prisoners and sex offenders. Still does, as a matter of fact, few days a month over at the Vulnerable Offenders Unit at Channings Wood in Newton Abbot.’

      ‘And the prison, Full Sutton? What’s that like?’

      ‘Nothing like here.’ Rose stood and returned to the sofa. He picked up his cup, took a gulp of coffee and then ran his tongue over his teeth, as if trying to remove something unpleasant or bitter. ‘HMP Full Sutton is a Category A prison and houses some of the most dangerous men in the system.’

      After working through a number of administrative details with Hardin, Savage left the station and headed back to Tavy View Farm, intent on catching up with John Layton. In the lane outside the farm a Sky TV van straddled the verge, in front of the van a BBC outside broadcast car. Satellite dishes on their roofs pointed heavenward, ready to supply up-to-the-minute reporting.

      She parked behind the Sky van, went into the farmyard past a watchful PC, and headed for the field. The temporary aluminium tracks remained in place but the big yellow digger had gone, a huge water bowser in its place. Nearby, the crime scene tent stood in an area of devastation, three new exploratory trenches carving through a landscape of mud and spoil heaps. The pump unit stood idle and the trenches had backfilled with a thin layer of grey sludge. Two CSIs, their white suits plastered with mud, were washing debris through sieves and the resulting discharge trickled down across the field. Savage tracked the stream to where it reached the boundary fence and the railway embankment. Then she went to find John Layton.

      When Savage explained her intentions he wasn’t happy.

      ‘Your call, ma’am,’ he said, ‘but the DSupt won’t like it.’

      Layton shook his head and followed Savage down across the field. Two strands of slack barbed wire marked the edge, beyond a hedge in need of attention, the hawthorn trunks thick and ineffective as a barrier. She climbed over the barbed wire, slipped through a break in the hedge and pushed up through some scrub before stepping onto the railway line. The ballast was wide enough for two tracks but only one remained. To the right the track curved back towards the village and the station; to the left the lines of steel headed across the Tavy Bridge and seemed to converge in the distance, pointing almost, Savage thought.

      ‘That way,’ she said, ‘and I’ll take the rap for any Health and Safety issues.’

      Savage knew DSupt Hardin would want things done by the book, in this case meaning getting permission from Network Rail before venturing onto the line. The result being half a dozen men in fluorescent vests tramping along the tracks with them, leaving her no room to think.

      ‘Over the bridge?’ Layton came through the scrub and then looked up the track away from the crossing. ‘Not back towards Bere Ferrers station?’

      ‘We’re on a peninsula. It’s a long way to get here from anywhere. Plus the village is tiny. A car parked in a lane would be noticed as being unusual. I reckon the killer came from the Plymouth side.’

      ‘He dragged the bodies across the bridge?’

      ‘There are no trains in the middle of the night and in darkness no chance of being spotted. The burial site is only a short way from the end of the bridge.’

      Layton shrugged his shoulders and they started walking. The bridge began as a stone structure but after a couple of spans became steel, a series of seven columns forging their way through the rising water of the river Tavy. Halfway across, Layton paused and moved to one side. He peered down into the water at the swirling eddies caused by the incoming tide.

      ‘We need to dive the area to be sure, but I guess any evidence, such as clothing or a weapon, will be long gone.’

      ‘What about the heads?’

      ‘You mean plop, plop, plop?’ Layton looked down into the water again, bit his lip and then shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, Charlotte. Whoever removed the heads has most likely kept them as trophies.’

      ‘Along with the genitals?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Great. If we ever find this guy – assuming it is a guy – remind me to let you enter his property first.’

      ‘It’ll be a pleasure.’ Layton turned from the edge of the bridge and grinned. ‘But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’

      They walked on and the bridge ended with another stone section, the line arriving at the far bank where woodland came down to the edge of the estuary mud. To the left of the track a chain-link fence hung loose from a set of concrete posts. A light push and you’d be able to hold the fence down while you climbed over it. Even if you were carrying a body. Beyond the fence a rough path wriggled past a number of mature trees and crossed an area filled with saplings. On the other side of the young trees a swathe of mud and gravel ran away from them parallel to the railway line.

      ‘That track runs to Tamerton Lake,’ Layton said. ‘From there a lane goes to Tamerton Foliot where you’re right on the edge of the city. If your hunch is correct then the killer is away in minutes. Anything goes wrong and he gets spotted burying a body on the peninsula we’d be setting up roadblocks and checking vehicles in totally the wrong place while he hotfoots it over here.’

      ‘Clever,’ Savage said, ‘but I wonder if there’s more to it than that.’

      ‘Some connection to the village, you mean?’

      ‘If he just wanted to dispose of a body there are many places more remote. We’re going to need to trawl through all the Candle Cake Killer stuff.’

      ‘I don’t recall any of the physical