Chapter 7

“All right, Alex. You’ve got yourself a deal. Now let’s cut the chat and get in there!”

Sue ceremonially opened the grill lock and gave the keys to Alex. He went to the steel door and opened the padlock, after a bit of juggling. He pulled the door open, and then looked inside. It was a fissure, about five feet high and two feet wide, which went back about six feet before turning sharply to the left, going behind the wall of the cave.

Alex led them in, with Janet next. After the turn, the fissure opened up a bit and went downhill. It was almost an easy walk for a bit, then it turned left, further into the hillside, still going down. They emerged into a cavern big enough to have an echo, and it echoed Janet’s “Wow, look at that” as her light showed a debris strewn floor with bones sticking out of it. Alex had his light on the obvious pathway that had been cleared with the debris shovelled to one side.

Andy played his light further forward and they saw a black object next to the pathway. When they got to it, they saw a car battery, with an alligator clip on one contact, the other on the floor beside it. Andy picked up the other clip to attach it to the other contact. They all gasped as a string of LED lamps came on, bathing the whole cavern with light and leading through to another fissure.

“Are you glad you came, Alex?” grinned Andy.

“Oh, yes, my lad. We’ve hit the jackpot. Now let’s go and see where those lights lead us. Janet, we’re going a little further, so you can take your time in here. You might want to take a picture of that drawing on the wall behind you, it looks like an elephant.”

Alex and Andy walked into the fissure, a much easier task with it fully lit. It meandered and then they emerged into another large cavern, this time with a lake. By the side of the lake was a number of things, actually, quite a lot of things.

The first items were two scuba tanks, new ones as Alex had predicted. He looked at the gauges.

“Looks like he filled them recently. If these are to be believed, one tank has about thirty minutes used, and the other about fifteen. So, two were breathing going in, and one came out with the tank. This takes us to the end game, Andy. We’ll put together a circus tomorrow.”

Andy was looking at the other items that were gathered, some way from the edge.

“Looking at these, boss, it seems that he saved the clothing, probably stripping them here before taking them in. The worry is that there are seventeen boxes with things in, and three that are still empty. I suppose that he thought that this would be the safest place to leave them. FSI are going to have conniptions over this lot, even without what we’re likely to find, further on.”

“Yes, I don’t think that the cavern has flooded for a long time, but it has done so, sometime, and wiped out any finds for Janet, unless they’re at the bottom of the lake. Look, I think that the parts we have seen are safe enough for civilians, and the rest of the crowd, outside, deserve to have a look. Why don’t you go back to the entrance and lead them in.”

Andy left him and went back to the first cavern.

“Janet, there’s another cave with a lake, and it looks as if it had flooded, sometime, and wiped all the finds away. Have you got enough here to keep you busy?”

“You bet, Andy, there’s enough her to take me most of my working life. It’s fantastic! I would say that this is the biggest collection of finds in a hundred years, and it’s mainly untouched.”

“That’s good. I’m going upstairs and bringing down the others, for a look. They deserve it, seeing the work they’ve put in. I’ll tell them to stay clear of the debris.”

When he emerged from the fissure, there was expectant looks on all the faces.

“We have found a large cavern, and a second cavern with a lake. We have found everything we thought we’d find, including seventeen boxes with clothing in them.”

“Seventeen!” gasped Sally. “That would mean that there are more than we have in the files.”

“I’m afraid so. Now, Alex has deemed that where we have been, so far, is safe for civilians, which means that the FSI will be able to easily remove all the items without needing extra safety gear. That also means, my friends, that I’m allowed to take you in, for a look, before the real work starts. One big thing; stay close to me through the first fissure, it’s a bit tight for a little way but a walk in the park after that. When we get to the first cavern, there’s one rule, and that is to keep on the path. Janet is like a kid in a toy shop, down there, and thinks that there’s enough work for her career. Who wants to have a look?”

“Not me, Andy,” said Maria. “You know that I had a hard time in those show caves, with walkways. I’ll stay topside and keep the sightseers at bay. I’m sure that there’ll be lots of photos.”

Andy lined them up, with Sue behind him and Lee as tail end Charlie, handing out a few flashlights. He told Lee that if anyone had a problem to call out and they would all come back. He led them through the door and into the fissure, taking it slow so that they kept together. He could hear the sighs of relief as the way got easier and took them down into the first cavern.

As they emerged into the lit cavern, everyone had to gasp at the scene. Janet was still on the path, but taking as many pictures of the debris as she could. To Sue, it was an amazing sight, and she could see, by the string of lights leading further, that Andy had been right all along. He told them to keep on the path as they went down to the second cavern, where Alex was sitting on a rock, with a bemused look on his face.

“OK, you lot. Don’t go near the water, it could be deep. And stay away from those boxes and air tanks, they will be the first things that FSI take away. I expect that the boxes will contain enough to keep the team working for some time to come. I’ve had a little look around and have found box that used to contain condoms, that might have good prints on it. Take a good look around, as the next ones down here will be our dive team and Joes team.”

“How many are going in?” asked the Sheffield Inspector.

“There’ll be Andy and me, and three others from my team, two having FSI papers. They’ll be searching the place we expect to find at the end of the swim. Then there’ll be Joe, his FSI diver and two or three from his team. The extra divers will be used to bring out any evidence we think is worth saving. We will take an extra tank and mask to bring out the hostage that we believe is in there, and she will be taken to the surface to see the paramedics that we’ll have up there. We don’t know where she was abducted from, so any fighting over her can happen after she’s been taken to hospital.”

“Who else?”

“In this cavern, there will be the back-up crew from both dive teams. Up top, there will be a veritable circus, I expect, with uniformed from Sheffield and I think Sue will have a few from her team there.”

“You’re right with that. Alex. I’ll call Terry at Harborne, I think he’ll want to be in on it.”

“OK, have a good look around but don’t touch anything. If there’s any IDs in those boxes, I’m sure that they will be made priority. One thing that you have to know, is that when we dive, we take as long as it takes, if you’re waiting up top, bring sandwiches and a thermos. Oh! Inspector, can you arrange a small generator and a lead long enough to get to that first cavern, we don’t know how much life the car battery has.”

He gave them five minutes and then told Andy to lead the way back, while he followed. In the first cave, the cameras came out as the Sheffield Inspector and Sue wanted something to show their superiors. Then they dragged Janet away from her picture taking and Alex led them out to the open air. Andy took a last look around and whispered, “Got you, you bastard,” as he unclipped the alligator clip, plunging the cavern, once more, into darkness, with just his helmet light disappearing up the fissure.

After Sue had locked the inner, and then the outer door, she gave the keys to Alex.

“I expect that you and Joe will be in charge when we come back. With what we’ve found, I don’t think that it will be too many hours before we’re all here again.”

“Amen to that,” said the Sheffield man.

“Janet, I know that you will be itching to show those pictures to all your history friends, but you have to keep them to yourself for a few days longer. The guy who put those lights in has killed a lot of girls and we don’t, up to now, have any positive ID on him. We’re hoping that he has made a mistake, somewhere further in, and that it will lead us to him. Until then, this might be hard for you, but anything that may scare him has to be avoided. Why don’t you take a few days off and sort out all the pictures you took. And don’t tell the guys in the Museum what you’ve seen, not yet.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll tell the boss that there were a few items that looked interesting, but I need to go home to my computer to enhance the pictures. I’m going to print this one off and get a frame for it.”

She showed them the close-up that she had taken, a cave drawing of a woolly mammoth, as clear as if it had been done the day before.

They walked to the Museum and two grinning policemen got changed back int normal clothes. Then the joined the others at the cars and left the area. The Sheffield guys to set up enough uniforms to secure the area, tomorrow morning, and to talk to Joe, showing him their pictures.

Alex had told Andy to meet him at the dive headquarters in the morning, as he would be going in as part of the dive team and they wanted to make sure that he had all his kit. Sue went off to let the CS know that it’s all go, and to get the AC up to date. He would be needed to oversee the intra-divisional co-operation. She had told Andy and Maria to take it easy for the rest of the day, as tomorrow would be a long day. Sally and Lee would be going back to the station, to call all the people from the other divisions to let them know that there was going to be something to see in regard to the murdered streetwalkers, should they want to send someone to be part of it.

On her way back, Sue called Terry, to thank him for sending Lee and the files, and telling him where he should be, tomorrow, if he wanted to see the upshot of his generosity.

Maria was looking through the pictures on Andy’s phone as he drove them home.

“Wow! These are amazing. I’m glad I didn’t go down, as I would have wanted to get out again. Is that a sabre tooth tiger jaw, there, in the corner?”

“I don’t know, love. It could be a mammoth rib, the remains of a neolithic lunch. That would be hard, back then.”

“What would?”

“Deciding if you wanted the breast or the leg. The plates must have been bigger, back then,”

Too excited to go home and cook, they went to the retirement home and took Auntie out for lunch. Then they went home, tidied up a bit, then Andy realised that he still needed to put his apartment on the market, so they went to an estate agent, giving her the keys and signing the contract. Andy was assured that it wouldn’t take long to sell, seeing that it was quite new, and fully furnished. The agent said that she had a long list of Airbnb owners who were looking for that kind of property.

That evening, they were too excited to relax, so went to bed to try and expend all that pent up energy. They ended up expending enough to sleep well.

In the morning, Andy took the Audi to join the dive crew, while Maria took her car directly to Creswell, having to show her warrant card to the men manning a barrier at the turn-off. She parked alongside a few other cars, picked up her bag and walked along the pathway towards the Boat House. At that time of day, it was quite pleasant, much like the day they had tried the first key. The dive team from Sheffield was already there, their truck backed up as far as it could.

As she strolled on, she heard a honk, behind her, and stepped out of the way as the Birmingham dive truck was reversed up to join the other one. The dive team all got out as she joined them, Andy resplendent in a new set of coveralls, with his name on the breast and the two patches on the arm. Andy gave her a kiss and she complimented him on how he, and the whole team, looked.

“That’s a bit of on-upmanship, sweetheart. Alex wanted to show Joe what a good team should look like, but I think that they had anticipated that. Don’t you think that they look, well, American, in that red?”

Maria had to admit that the Birmingham blue was much classier, although, she had to admit, the Sheffield crew in the bright red coveralls looked a bit – well – hunkier?

The FSI van was backed up to join the line, with the paramedic van now parking in front, for a quick get-away. There was quite a crowd at the Boat House. She said hello to Terry, and was introduced to a DCI from Manchester, another from Sheffield, and a third from Nottingham. Sue saw her and gave her a hug.

“Isn’t this exciting! All the top brass have seen the pictures and expect us to pull the rabbit out of the hat today. I can see that the divers have unloaded their stuff, I’ve brought a couple of folding chairs for us, so that we can sit in this lovely sunshine and await the big reveal.”

They were joined by Lee, Sally, and a few from their full team. Everyone was hoping that this would be the day.

Alex called for quiet, and then explained to order of the day. Into the first cavern, laying out a cable from the generator to make sure the lights stayed on, then the dive teams, and support crew to go down to the second cavern to put on the kit to make the dive. Only then would the FSI officers be allowed to join them, in full suits, to start removing the evidence by the water’s edge. They would be laying down a thin cable which would transmit pictures and audio back to a screen that they had set up in the first cave, also linked to a DVD recorder to preserve the event for evidence purposes, driven off the generator. Andy was tasked with leading them in after the others had entered.

It had been planned well, and, after Andy led the FSI team in, those on the outside gasped when the camera showed the first cavern, then they could see the way further down. The video also had sound, so they could listen to the FSI men talking about what they were looking at. At the second cavern, the camera was put on a tripod and the vision stabilised. Andy joined the dive team and took the coveralls off, to reveal his very own wetsuit, with his name on the front breast.

Charlie helped his team all get ready for the next step, then, finally, all ten of the divers were ready to get in the water. After testing the radios, they submerged and Alex led Andy, followed by the others, towards a large tunnel entrance. After where he had swum before, this was an easy dive, and Andy made sure that he kept concentrating on Alex, in front of him.

At one point, Alex stopped by a smaller hole in the side of the tunnel, taking a small bottle from his bag and opening it. The inky liquid that came out, merged with the flow coming from the hole and preceded them along the tunnel they were in. Everyone stayed patient as they waited, then Alex carried on, following the stain. After about fifteen minutes, they emerged into a large cavern, with a faint light showing at the surface.

They rose towards the surface, to see a ledge, with a girl standing there, wearing a towelling robe.

“Oh! Bloody hell. I sit here for days, all my own and now it looks like a gangbang is coming my way. As long as you wait before taking your turn, I can take you all on.”

Andy lifted his mask.

“We’re police divers, lady, and we’re here to get you out. We have paramedics outside to take you to hospital and check you out. We might take a little while before we move you, but we’re not here to hurt you.”

“You’re a fancy one, young lad. If there wasn’t an audience, I’d give you a freebie. Theres a beach to your left, where you can come ashore. Don’t go to the right, there’s an outlet there that leads to a big hole. That’s where I take a shit.”

“Thanks, lady. When three of these men get onto dry land, they’ll be changing into suits to allow them to look at things without contaminating them. They’re Forensic Scene Investigators, what used to be called Scene of Crime Officers. If you can go and sit somewhere, quietly, we’ll organise ourselves to get you out.”

They all got out at what she had called a beach, more like a gravel slope, as far as Andy was concerned. He stood and looked around. The ledge was lit by a single electric light, one that comes from camping shops and is classed as a camping nightlight. The main redeeming factor with these was a long battery life. She saw him looking at it.

“There’s a few more, in a box. I put it out when I want to sleep. It’s frigging dark in here, then. The only food is tinned ham, spam. and vegies. I’d kill for a Big Mac, right now.”

Andy reached into his waterproof bag, switching on his recorder, and then pulling out a chocolate bar.

“Will this do, until we get you out?”

She took it from him and went to an airbed, towards the back of the ledge. She sat on the bed with her legs curled under her, and he went and sat beside her, a little way apart, with his legs straight out. He sat, quietly, watching the others as they took stock of the ledge contents. Gary, one of his team, called out.

“Andy, you were right about the spam. There’s enough empty tins here to fill a rubbish bin.”

The girl looked at him, over the chocolate bar, then took it out of her mouth.

“So, you’re Andy?”

“That’s me. What’s your name?”

“I am whoever the customers want me to be because that’s what they pay for. My real name is Andrea Churchill. My competitors call me Molly, sometimes just Mad Moll. My friends when I had some, called me Andy, like you. Being in here has made me think about my life, you know. I studied history, wanted to work on digs. The crazy thing about being here is that there’s a fissure, at the back, that leads to a cave full of prehistoric remains. There must have been a hole in the roof, at one stage, and they fell in.”

“There’s a cave, on the way down here, that’s much the same.”

“Yeah, well. I didn’t see that bit. I was in a hotel room with a customer one minute, the next I knew I woke up here. One of the lights was on and there was a list of instructions next to it. It says that I was a prisoner, and told me where to shit, what to eat, and not to pee in the lake water because that’s all I have to drink. I apologise for the brassy welcome; that’s professional acting, to make sure you stay in control.”

“How did you pass the time?”

“I think a lot. He did leave me some books to read, but I think he must have raided his childhood collection.”

“He could have got them in an op shop.”

“No, they’re his own books. Look, I knew the guy. He had visited the college and gave us a couple of lectures on underground workings over the years. He was a working safety inspector for the Inspectorate of Mines, in Sheffield. He was interesting to listen to. When he picked me up, at my beat, he didn’t know me from Eve. For me, it was a bit of a laugh getting shagged by a teacher. That last time, though, was hard for him, he seemed breathless.”

She reached over to the other side of the airbed and pulled up a book.

“Look, there’s his name inside the cover.”

Andy took the book from her and looked at it. Seeing where they were, ‘King Solomons Mines’ seemed appropriate. He looked inside and read the inscription. ‘To Ferdinand Shields. Best Maths Student 1956. Brook Primary, Audnam.’ He read it, out loud, for the recorder.

“Gary, have you got an evidence bag, please. I’ve handled this so will have to be eliminated.”

Gary held a bag open, and Andy put the book in it, open to show the writing.

“Was that important?”

“Everything is important in a case like this, Andrea.”

“Tell me. What was going to happen to me?”

“It’s likely that he would get tired of you, eventually. Then he would tell you that it’s only a quick swim to the other side of the wall. That’s when you would have found that his quick swim is more like twenty minutes.”

“How many. Before me?”

“We had about fourteen, however, with what we found on the way down, it could have been that you were number seventeen. He would drop the bodies near coal mines.”

Her hand went to her face.

“Oh! My God. I read about those, one of them was a few years ago and I had worked with her on the same patch. I was away with a man when she had been picked up.”

“Have you used a snorkel, or scuba mouthpiece?”

“I have snorkelled a bit, on holiday. I think that I will be all right, as long as you’re holding my hand. I bet you’re taken, already.”

“Sorry, but I am, Andrea. You’ll meet my love when we get outside. She’ll look after you because I’ll have to come back and complete my job.”

“All right, what do we do, now. I’m starkers under this robe. I think it was left to help with the cold in here.”

Marianne Gregory © 2023