Winter stared at him, his mind itching with something he couldn’t place. Dots were joining somewhere deep inside him and he didn’t like it. He swore under his breath, telling himself to get on with it, and edged back to fire off a succession of closing shots. The poor bastard, sitting in his own River Styx waiting for a call that had already come. He doubted that there was a coin to be found in the man’s mouth, no payment for the ferryman.

‘Okay. I’m finished.’ He shuffled backwards down the tunnel, Narey and Morton doing the same until the space was large enough for all three to stand, crouching slightly, under the ceiling. The two women looked at him but he just nodded in return as he spoke behind the protective mask on his face. ‘Job done.’

Angie Morton blew out air anxiously. ‘How bad is it down there?’

‘The space or the body?’

‘The space. I’m hardly going to be bothered by the body. That’s my job.’

‘Pretty tight. I didn’t know you were claustro phobic.’

‘Neither did I till now. Okay, wish me luck.’

She ducked and crept forward warily, her back receding into the near distance until Winter and Narey were left standing alone. His hoarse whisper was tinged with annoyance.

‘Don’t enjoy myself too much?’

‘Sorry. It just came out. Old habits. You know I didn’t mean it, right?’

‘Right.’

She lifted her face mask from her mouth and did the same with his. Raising her head, she leaned forward to kiss him firmly on the lips. ‘Am I forgiven?’

‘You are. Are you not taking a chance on being seen or heard? Angie’s not far away.’

She shrugged. ‘I’ll live dangerously. Anyway, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. You look hot without a mask.’

‘Careful, Rach. You almost sound like someone who could deal with this the way normal people would.’

‘Oops, my mask slipped.’ She eased the protective cover back down over her mouth. ‘You had your chance . . .’

He grinned at her, liking it. Claustrophobic tunnel or not, they were in a good place.

She smiled back with her eyes then snapped into professional mode. ‘What did you make of the victim?’

‘What’s left of him? Looks like he was set for a day on the hills. No sign of his hands having been tied. No obvious injuries at all except the cut throat.’

Narey shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance it could have been suicide?’

He laughed. ‘Can’t see it. There’s no knife lying around for a start. And anyway, why would you? Come down here to kill yourself, I mean.’

Narey looked round. ‘Why would you come down here to kill? Or be killed? Or at all? I mean, look at this place.’

‘Wherever there’s places other people won’t go, there will always be people who want to go there.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Did you get that from an episode of The Twilight Zone? Or somewhere even darker? Like inside yourself?’

‘One of those. Getting this guy out is going to be a barrel of laughs. He’s ready for falling to pieces.’

‘So is Angie,’ she grinned wickedly behind her mask. ‘I’m betting this will be the shortest examination she’s ever done. We’re going to have to get a team down here and do an inch by inch of the tunnel once we’re finished. Ha. Here she comes now.’

Morton was lifting and wriggling her shoulders. ‘That freaked me out. It was the thought of getting stuck there even though I knew I wouldn’t. It’s beyond me why anyone would choose to come down here.’

Narey looked at Winter and raised her eyebrows. ‘Ask Tony. He’ll get all deep and meaningful about it. Anyway, my turn.’

With that she made her way further down the tunnel, the plastic covers over her shoes singing dolefully as they slipped through the shallow water of the burn.

‘Does nothing bother her?’ Morton was looking at Narey’s retreating figure with what seemed to be a mixture of respect and irritation.

Winter hesitated. Rachel had seemingly given him some hint that maybe their relationship didn’t have to be as secret as she’d previously demanded. At least he thought she had. Still, he knew better than to answer anything other than carefully. Not too defensively or protectively.

‘Plenty, I’m sure. But not enough to stop her doing her job. I guess she just shuts out what she needs to.’

‘Well I get that. You have to when you’re dealing with the dead. Unless you’re you and actively enjoy it.’

Winter groaned loudly. ‘Give me peace. Did you go through his clothing?’

Morton shook her head. ‘Too risky. I’ll do it once I can get him laid out in the morgue. We will be able to move him easily enough. Hopefully it won’t be in bits. Will you do it?’

‘What? That’s not exactly . . . You’re kidding me, right?’

‘There’s only room for one person down there and I’d really rather it wasn’t me. You’ve just got to—’

‘Yeah I know. We’ve been through it. You could ask Rachel.’

‘I’d rather not. Please.’

Winter breathed out hard. ‘Yeah, okay. Just don’t make any crack about how it’s going to be some kind of fun.’

‘I won’t. I know it’s not.’

Fun was the last thing it was going to be. Rigor had been and gone from the victim’s body, leaving it as limp as he was when his lights and his life had been turned off. There was still enough density in the bones to keep him upright but whether that would stand the test of movement they’d only know when they tried. When he tried.

The plan was to ease him back onto the light stretcher they’d brought with them, hopefully causing as little damage as possible, then float him back down the burn until the ceiling lifted again. Then they’d carry him the rest of the way. More like Baby Moses on bulrushes than a corpse ferried from the battlefield.

He looked up from his thoughts to see Narey beginning to stand up from the crouch that had carried her back through the lower part of the tunnel.

‘Anything?’ Angie Morton asked her.

Narey shrugged. ‘Whoever he is, he was left here thinking that he’d never be found. No attempt to hide him. No point when the body’s already well out of sight. The killer must have thought this guy would be dust by the time anyone found him. If anyone ever did.’

‘Maybe that’s why he was here in the first place,’ Winter suggested.

‘Maybe,’ she agreed. ‘But came here or brought here? And why would you come to a place like this with someone who might do that to you?’

‘Do you have an answer?’

She shrugged again. ‘No but I did find this.’

Narey held up a blue-gloved hand and they strained to see what it was she was holding between finger and thumb. It was wooden and rectangular, the size of a matchbox but thinner with a metal ring on the end.

‘What is that, Rachel?’

She held the object slightly higher so they could see. ‘A key ring. With . . .’ She held it higher. ‘The letters RH on it.’

Chapter 4

Remy watched four men in white paper suits, the hoods over their heads, pitching a tent near the fence where the body would come back up. How the hell were they going to get it out of there without destroying evidence? Evidence. The word hit him over the head. It wasn’t just that the dead guy’s DNA was on him. His DNA, his clothing fibres or whatever, were all over the dead guy.

He wanted to step backwards like he did in the tunnel. But he couldn’t. There was a whole new lot of people in behind him. He was trapped just like the dead guy. It felt claustrophobic all of a sudden and he wanted to tell them all to get the hell out of his way. They just kept talking, leaning into him to get a better view, crowding him.