Free Two Evils: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel by Mark Sennen

tell me you’re a railway nut, PC Dawson.’
    ‘No, ma’am. There’s an information board on the cycle route. Tells you all about the old line. Did you know that—’
    ‘No, and I don’t want to know either.’ Savage stepped away from the body and then turned and walked back to the PC. ‘Get along to the far side of the tunnel and stop any more cyclists coming through.’
    ‘Hey? Must be a couple of hundred metres and it’s pitch black, ma’am. I’ll probably brain myself. That’s if the killer is not waiting for me. I’d rather not.’
    ‘Don’t be stupid. Here, take this.’ Savage handed Dawson the torch. ‘I’ll make my way out and secure this end. I don’t want to think about what our chief CSI is going to say when he arrives.’

    Dawson huffed but reached out and took the torch. ‘You’ll be OK, ma’am?’
    ‘Yes, now go before anyone else comes through.’
    The PC shuffled off, his shadow dancing away in a circle of light. Savage turned to where a faint glimmer marked the edge of the tunnel. She took tentative steps on the concrete surface as utter blackness folded in around her. As the sounds of Dawson walking off grew fainter, she heard the drip, drip, drip of water falling from the ceiling. She tried not to think about the killer nor about the hundreds of tonnes of rock balancing overhead. This was a strange place to bring the body. Did the killer come here merely to dump the corpse or was this where some sort of assault took place? Did the tunnel have a special meaning or was the place just convenient?
    Lost in her thoughts for a moment, she stepped off the central concrete slab and onto the rough ballast at the side. She put her hands out to steady herself against the tunnel wall. The stones were rough, damp and slimy. She moved away from the wall, stumbling on something at her feet. She crouched and felt around in the darkness. There. A rustling. A plastic bag containing something soft.
    Savage put her hand in her pocket and pulled out her phone. She pressed a button on the side and the screen flashed into life. She turned the phone so the screen pointed downward. The bag contained a bundle of fabric. She used the phone to prod the bag open. Clothing. Tracksuit bottoms, a T-shirt, and a hoodie. Too much of a coincidence to belong to anyone but the boy.
    She stood and moved back to the concrete path. The whole tunnel would need to be fingertipped from end to end. They’d need arc lights, generators, dogs and God knows what else. Never mind, that would be down to Layton. It was just the sort of logistics problem he loved.

    ‘Maaaaaa’am! Are you in there?’ The echoing voice belonged to DC Calter.
    ‘I’m coming, Jane. Stay where you are.’ Savage moved forward again, aware of lights up ahead. Activity. The rest of the team. ‘What took you?’
    ‘The boss man.’ Calter stood at the entrance to the tunnel dressed in a high-vis jacket and wielding a large rubber torch in her right hand. She jerked a thumb behind her. ‘He insisted on coming but I had to wait for him to phone the Hatchet.’
    Savage peered up the railway to where a large round figure barrelled down the path from the road and staggered onto the track. Detective Superintendent Conrad Hardin.
    ‘That you, Charlotte?’ The voice boomed across to Savage and then echoed down the tunnel. ‘Couldn’t have made it any more difficult, could you?’
    Hardin brushed some debris from his trousers and marched towards them, shoulders hunched, as if he was still playing front row forward for the Devon Police First Fifteen. Sadly, Hardin’s glory days on the rugby pitch were well in the past and ‘First Fifteen’ was now used as office banter, referring to the DSupt’s penchant for finishing an entire pack of chocolate digestives single-handed and at one sitting.
    ‘Sir,’ Savage said. ‘You didn’t need to come. You could have coordinated things from the station.’
    ‘Of course I needed to bloody come,’ Hardin