‘Yes, I suppose so. But they don’t even live in the Castleton area any more, do they?’
‘No, that’s true.’ Fry looked disappointed. ‘Oh, well. We’re leaving a patrol car at the entrance for the time being.’
‘My guests won’t like that.’
‘Don’t bother telling me. I don’t care any more.’
‘Well, you were right about the Beast of Bradwell, Ben,’ said Gavin Murfin, when Ben Cooper got back to the office. West Street was a bit quiet, and Cooper thought the senior officers must be in a meeting somewhere.
‘Oh? No beast?’
‘The vet’s report says the sheep’s throat wasn’t ripped by teeth. It was cut with a sharp knife.’
‘There you go, then. Another sicko wandering the area. A few years ago it was horses, remember? Doesn’t sound like a professional poacher - they’re much more organized, and they take entire flocks rather than slaughtering an individual animal in the woods like that.’
‘This was in the daytime, too. Two witnesses came forward who thought they heard something run off when their dog barked. Or someone.’
376
Cooper noticed that Murfin was looking too smug.
‘Anything else happened, Gavin?’
‘Good vet they got,’ said Murfin. ‘Almost as good as a pathologist.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He said the sheep had been shot. With a crossbow.’
‘My God. Have they -1
‘Everybody’s out there now,’ said Murfin. ‘Didn’t you notice how quiet it is?’
The search party was working its way along the sides of Rakedale, but the going was slow. The trees on the slopes were too dense, the caves too deep, the holes and crevices in the limestone too numerous to count. Armed officers went ahead of the main group, and their caution slowed the search down even more. But without them, the task force officers would have been too vulnerable, because their attention had to be focused on the ground and on their immediate surroundings. They were looking for traces of recent occupation in the caves, or in the ruins of the old mine buildings that were scattered along the northern side of the dale, almost overgrown with ivy and brambles.
‘It’s much too slow,’ said DI Hitchens. ‘If he’s in here, he’ll see us coming half a mile away.’
There’s no way we can speed the search up,’ said DCI Kessen. ‘The troops are too exposed already. If Quinn should be waiting up on one of those limestone cliffs, he could do a lot of damage.’
That’s if he’s still armed. We don’t know that for certain.’
T’m not taking the chance.’
The dogs seem to be all over the place,’ said Hitchens.
They don’t know what they’re looking for. We have nothing of Quinn’s to give them.’
The helicopter should be here soon, though. Its thermal camera will identify any bodies hiding among these trees.’
377
‘In the trees, perhaps. But not in the caves.’
‘And what about the public?’ said Hitchens.
‘They’re a nightmare …’
At the bottom end of the dale, several families were enjoying the sun by the water. Half a dozen Mallard ducks sat in a row on a log submerged in a green pool, watching the children rushing about on the grass.
‘… but there’s no way we can get rid of them altogether.’
The search didn’t reach the end of the dale until early evening. The co-ordinator called a halt where the trees petered out and the limestone sides gave way to a patchwork of fields criss-crossed by stone walls.
‘He’s not here. Not any more, anyway.’
Kessen and Hitchens gathered around him for a hasty conference. Two officers carried over a pile of bin liners filled with evidence bags.
‘I don’t want to see all that,’ said Kessen. ‘What have we got that’s of any significance?’
‘Someone camped out in one of the caves recently. About halfway along the valley on the south side. You can’t see it until you get right up to it. It isn’t big, but it’s dry, and there’s a sort of ledge at the back where you can lie up and be out of the weather, as well as out of sight.’
‘What traces are there?’
‘A couple of the SOCOs are going over it now. I’d say they’ll get no more than some wax and ashes, and a few scuff marks in the dirt on the cave floor.’
‘Nothing we can get a DNA sample from?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘He must have defecated and urinated somewhere.’
The search co-ordinator shrugged. ‘This man is very careful. There’s no sign of anything in the vicinity of the cave. My guess is he’ll have gone deep into the woods somewhere, a different location each time, and concealed the
378
traces in a scrape in the ground. We’d never find anything like that.’
‘Here’s the helicopter at last,’ said Hitchens.
