The marker looked like a gravestone. Grace stood at the exact spot where Danny Robertshaw had fallen, staring down at the dark stains still visible in the grass. Even without other indicators, the furious buzzing of the flies would have drawn her to the spot.
Why? she asked the unknown gunman. What did you hope to achieve?
She shook her head, recognising the fatigue that crept along her bones like winter frost. It was five a.m. after a clear night. The sun was already climbing towards the promise of another oppressive, airless day, but Grace felt she’d never be warm through again.
Robertshaw had remained unconscious during the short wild ride from the show field to the air ambulance. She’d wanted to go with him but they hadn’t let her. She’d watched the helicopter lift off and swoop north towards Carlisle General. Afterwards, drained, Grace had briefly gone home. She’d stayed long enough to shower, change, feed the dog; then she’d gone straight back to the field.
The whole place was being treated as a crime scene, finally cleared of the public and swarming with official personnel. She signed the log at the gateway from the road. The young constable on duty asked about Robertshaw straight away.
“Me and him went through training together. I never thought…well, you don’t, do you?”
Grace touched a hand briefly to his arm and walked on.
Chris Blenkinship had taken responsibility for the second victim, abandoning his work on the red wall. Grace felt a mild annoyance that it was being allowed to fall by the wayside but what right did she have to dictate what was done after she left the scene?
Young Ty Frost had taken over photographic duties, and Sibson was buried in his work, barely acknowledging her return. Feeling lost, Grace turned her attention to reconstructing the wall. She worked alone, documenting her progress, ignoring outside distractions, using that single-minded act to push everything else away from her, and hold on.
As the light faded, they brought in floodlamps, bathing the whole area in harsh light. In a rural area with little by way of streetlighting, their glow was visible from miles around.
Later, somebody left her a thermos but she couldn’t have said who. She barely registered them, couldn’t let herself be drawn into pointless speculation about Robertshaw’s chances. She didn’t see the hurt stares, the muttering. It wouldn’t have made a difference if she had.
Just as the first streaks of dawn reached across the fields to soften the artificial brightness of the work lamps, she put the last wooden shard in place. As she lifted her camera to record this final piece, Grace noted automatically that she could close down the aperture another stop. Daylight was on its way.
Only then did she notice the flask for the first time. She unscrewed the cap and sniffed the contents. Coffee—milky and sweet. Not to her taste but she poured it out anyway. Tepid, she realised at the first sip.
And now the task was over, she felt yesterday’s events drag at her shoulders. Stiffly, she sat cross-legged on the edge of the treadplates, cupping the foul coffee in both hands and staring through the hole she’d rebuilt in the jumping wall.
On the other side, it was relatively small—not much more than the diameter of a golf ball. A neat round insertion point that belied the damage the bullet had already done before it reached there.
But this side was another story. The exit hole in the hollow structure was huge by comparison, raw, jagged, surrounded by a starburst of shards and splinters as the flimsy plywood had simply been blown apart.
Grace hadn’t had the time to collect every tiny piece of the jigsaw and painstakingly ease it into place, but she’d done the majority. Enough to work out the angle of penetration, to take a bearing that might track the path of the shot back to its point of origin. One of the accident investigators had promised to bring down a theodolite first thing, so they could accurately measure both the horizontal and vertical angles to get a precise bearing. Too far for canes and string. And once they had…
“Here, you look like you could use this.”
“Mr Weston.” She didn’t turn round. “Could use what?”
She felt the metal plate vibrate slightly underneath her as he stepped closer, finally glanced up when he was right alongside. He had changed his clothes, she noted, wearing a wax cotton jacket against the dewed chill.
He lifted something wrapped in foil out of his jacket pocket, warm to the touch when he dropped it into her hands. The smell alone made her salivate.
“Bacon sandwich. Get it down you while there’s still some heat left in it.”
Just for a second the thought of it revolted her; then her stomach took over, the craving for food overriding any finer sensibilities.
She flicked him an upward glance. “Thank you, Mr Weston.”
“Frederickson insists on calling me Mister Weston, just to keep me in my place. You do it to keep me at a distance. Why is that, I wonder?”
“There’s supposed to be distance.” She peeled off her gloves to unwrap her gift. Inside she found toasted bread, mayonnaise, sliced tomato, and lettuce, as well as the bacon. She bit deep, couldn’t remember anything quite so welcome or tasting so good.
He didn’t interrupt her while she ate, just strolled away, keeping to the treadplates, eyeing the rebuilt wall. He must have been watching her, too, because he timed his return just as she was wiping her hands at the finish.
He crouched to eye level, searched her face. “You’re exhausted, Grace. You’ve done your job. Why not go home, get some sleep?”
She took her time to chew and swallow the last mouthful. “Like you have, you mean?”
“I grabbed an hour in the car,” he said, dismissive. “I have a kid, remember? I can do without sleep.”
“Whereas I am an old lady who can’t, you mean?”
He almost smiled, a fleeting glimmer, jerked his head towards the wall. “Was it worth it?”
“If it helps us find him? The evidence to convict him? Yes.” Grace rose, braced her hands behind her and stretched out her back, feeling the muscles quiver and twang. She missed her yoga.
“You think you can do that from a bullet hole in a few bits of wood?”
“It’s actually two holes—one in, one out. With enough of a gap in between to measure an angle. If lining them up means we get a fix on the hide and find it before it deteriorates, or before the scene’s contaminated by animals, or it rains—even another dewfall won’t help—then yes, it will have been worth it.”
She stooped to cap the lens, slip the camera into its padded bag. When she straightened again, she found him watching her steadily.
“What now?” he asked, and just for a second, any number of possible answers flitted through Grace’s mind.
“Back to the office,” she said firmly, swinging the bag onto her shoulder, resting her hand on it. “I need to download this little lot, pull up some satellite images and see what I can put together before the search teams really get under way again. What about you?”
He shrugged, beat her to the field kit. Grace debated on arguing that she could carry her own gear, decided she was too tired to argue. Let him be gallant if he felt the need.
“Me, too—back to the office, I mean. Pollock’s had me looking into threats against Duncan Inglis or his wife. He’s still not best pleased with me,” he added, rueful, wiping a hand round the back of his neck. “You’ve no idea how many crackpots send them crazy letters every week. I’ve spent most of the night chained to my desk, knocking on cyber doors. No doubt I’ll soon be out knocking on real ones.”
They walked back along the treadplates towards the cluster of vehicles by the edge of the arena. The width meant they went single-file, didn’t speak again until they reached the crime scene van.
“I assume someone’s been trying to track down this man Tawney the major mentioned?” Grace asked, opening the sliding side door and depositing her bag inside. “Any trace of him?”
“Once he’d done his time, he just dropped off the map.” Nick shook his head. “The man’s a ghost.”
“Hardly surprising,” Grace commented, and when he glanced at her she said simply, “Well, wasn’t that what the military trained him to do—how to disappear in hostile territory?”
Nick let out a long breath. “Yeah. Unfortunately, it was.”