Chapter 2

By Monday morning, they had sorted the boxes into some sort of order, ready to be worked on as they went forward. There was no pattern in the streetwalker dumpings, the sites looked as if they were chosen randomly. The places where the victims had been snatched from varied wildly, as well. One had been taken from Birmingham city, two from Sheffield, another two from Manchester and one from Coventry. There was no regular period between the bodies being found. All were naked when found and all had died by drowning.

When Sally came in, she was greeted warmly and introduced around, Most of the team remembered her from the raid and sting. When Sky walked in, he was greeted with cheers and hugs. It was a good feeling in the room that day.

Sally was given the six files and told to see if anything jumped out to her, while the others started looking at the future cases. Mid-morning, she asked for attention and the others turned to her.

“These girls were mostly found at old coalmine sites. I see that they were mostly towards Blackheath, to the west of the city. One at the Eagle pit, one at the Old Lion pit and three at various Saltwells pit sites, of which there are many, and the girls weren’t all taken from here. But there’s one that doesn’t fit. That one was found on the Piccadilly Recreation ground, way over to the east. What wasn’t picked up was that Piccadilly was the site of the old Kingsbury colliery, which has been totally erased by new development, mainly the FedEx building at one end, and the oil depot at the other. That makes it a definite in the series. The other thing that I noticed was in the autopsy reports. These girls weren’t drowned in a bath, the later ones drowned in pure water that had been passed through limestone, which, I think, would have put them near a spring or a pool near limestone cliffs.”

The others congratulated her on her findings.

“But wait, as they say, there’s more. The autopsy reports are all similar in a couple of other ways. All say that there was no obvious sign of rape, with no damage to the vagina or anus, so they must have had natural sex if that was what their murderer wanted. Also, any markings on their bodies were postmortem, so had been caused by handling the body. Then there’s a very interesting link to them all. In all cases, their last meals had been tinned goods, like spam, and veg. The tests showed the preservative additions clearly. I don’t know what that tells us, but it might be a factor if we find the place where they were kept. The last thing is that they were all identified by fingerprints, having been pulled in at various times. No clothing or personal ID has ever been found for any of them.”

The others sat, stunned. Lee was the first to react, as he got up to go over to Sally to give her a hug.

“That’s bloody brilliant, Sally! I’ve looked through those files a few times but those never jumped out at me. We can add those to the queries to other areas.”

Andy laughed.

“Actually, Lee, I sent off those queries on Friday morning and I’ve had a few replies while we’ve been working this morning. Manchester had two in their cold case files, Sheffield had one and so did Leeds. Nottingham had three. They’re all sending us the hard copies by courier. I make that our six, plus another seven, all similar. The Nottingham bodies were found near the old Welbeck Mine, the Hucknall Mine and the Cinderhill Colliery, the last closing in 1966. The one from Sheffield was found at Harworth Estate, a new development planned for the old Thoresby mining site, which closed in 2015, just out of Edwinstowe. The Manchester ones were both found in different places in Newton-le-Willows, which is actually in the Merseyside division, but the girls were both from Manchester. The village was the site of the old Parkside Mine, which closed in 1993. The Leeds one was found very recently, on the doorstep of the National Coal Mining Museum for England, on the site of the old Thornhill mine that closed in 1972.”

They all sat back, wondering about what Andy had just told them. Sally gulped.

“So, my first day as a detective and I’m investigating thirteen deaths? I don’t believe it.”

“You’d better believe it, Sally,” whispered Maria. “We were told, just a few weeks ago, that big serial murder cases only happen once or twice, in a career. We had better let Sue know about this one.”

She got up and went to see Sue, bringing her back to their corner.

“Andy, you’d better tell Sue what we now have.”

“OK. Sue, Lee brought us six similar cases of dumped and dead streetwalkers. I put out a query to other stations and we are expecting the hard copies of another seven cases, all streetwalkers and all found dumped by old coalmine sites. We’ll know the timeline when we get the files, but I do know that the latest was found, near Wakefield, just three months ago. There are other links in the cases, but we’ll wait for the other files before we present you with what else might be common.”

“Wow! That’s something right out of left field. If anyone can track these, it’ll be you lot. I’ll let the CS know so that he can smooth the way for you to work out of our divisional area. You’ll have to be able to see all of the dump sites and pick-up points for yourselves. This will be your priority for now, what’s in those other boxes can wait until you either crack this or run out of steam. This is a good one to start your CID career Sally, if you’re successful.”

“Yes, boss, I don’t know what to say, I thought that I would be tracking down forgers or bank robbers once I got here, not straight into a serial murder investigation.”

“They’re all alike, Sally, it’s just the crime that’s different. They all take a lot of hard work, a lot of reading, a lot of walking and a lot of patience.”

They spent the rest of the day, making lists of what they knew, and a timeline, with the new information that was coming to be added to it. They all looked, critically, at the files and reports, again. Maria saw that Jenny had made notes in a few, before she transferred out, mainly linking a few of the dump sites to old mining sites, as she had grown up in Blackheath. Maria knew the area well, as it wasn’t far from the Harborne station. She silently thanked her friend for her insight. At the end of the day, they went to the local, to have just the one drink, before going home.

The next morning, as they were back to looking at the files, while waiting for the courier to arrive, Harley Handscome, the manager of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, was cycling along Coalport High Street, on his way to unlock the entrance to the Tar Tunnel. When he arrived, he found that the lock had been ground off. Cursing modern cordless tools, he opened the door and stood back, to allow the pungent smell of bitumen to exit, then turned on the tunnel lights.

Thinking that it may be a squatter who had broken in, he called out. When he hadn’t received a response, he walked into the tunnel. Although the shaft went over three thousand feet into the hillside; after the first three hundred feet, it was closed off to visitors as the bitumen gasses were too dangerous without masks and oxygen. The figure was slumped against the iron grill that designated the no-go part. He stopped short and then went slowly to the naked girl, putting his hand out to touch her, only to feel the coldness of death, something he had felt before, in the Falklands.

He knew what he had to do, get out of there and call the police. Outside the door he waited for the local copper to arrive and take charge. He knew that there would be no Tar Tunnel walks today, or for some days to come, so he called the ticketing office to put up a sign that the tunnel was closed until further notice.

It took until the afternoon before word came through to Aston. It had gone from the local copper to his station, to the CID and eventually to Terry, who had passed it to Sue. The four investigators went to the Tar Tunnel in the Audi. They donned FSI suits to go and see for themselves. FSI had already dusted the door, and the lock, for prints, as well as the bars behind the body. The Police Doctor had examined the girl but hadn’t moved her until the detectives could get a look.

Maria asked the FSI to take the girl’s prints, and to run them through the vice files. Andy told the doctor that he wanted a contents of stomach analysis, as well as an analysis of any water that may be found in the lungs. The doctor looked at him quizzically, so Andy explained that this body showed all the hallmarks of others that had been found, except that it wasn’t at the site of an old coal mine. The doctor smiled behind his mask.

“Maybe the murderer has decided to diversify, there are only so many coal mine sites, after all.”

“He did that with the last one found on the steps of the Coal Mining Museum at Thoresby. I think that now he’s just getting cocky.”

They did all they could in the tunnel and would have to wait for expert analysis to find out more. Andy pulled out his phone and asked Doggy to see what cameras were around the area, and if they could have any pictures taken during the night. Beyond that, they spoke to the local CID officer and asked him to talk to all those places close by, to find out if anyone heard the noise of the angle grinder during the night. Andy gave the man some of his cards to hand out, in case someone remembered something later. He then drove them all back to Aston so that they could pick up their cars. He and Maria went home. On the way Maria looked across at him.

“Not just an intellectual exercise now, is it? We were the first on the scene today. That was a first for me, as well, as Butt wouldn’t let us poor girls look upon such nastiness.”

“I keep thinking that this guy has got away with it for a long time, mainly by spreading out his pick-up and dumping points. The last drop was a deliberate break of pattern, with this one going a lot further. We’ll know when we read the other files, but the drops have usually been somewhere that he could just drop the body and go. This took time and effort to get that girl in there. What if he had been in the tunnel and someone had come by to investigate the grinder noise? It was a dangerous statement that he made, almost as if he had tired of the hunt, and wanted to goad us into chasing him.”

“You could be right, we’ll know more, tomorrow.”

The next day, when they got into the office, they found Lee already at one desk, with some new files open, and Sally at her desk, with her nose in another. Andy and Maria said their good mornings and opened up the files that had been left for them. Later, that morning, they finished the timeline. One thing was following Andy’s hunch, the drop points were random, and no area had subsequent drops, making sure that no station would pick up on the serial nature of the deaths. The timeline brought up one surprise, in the fact that the earliest victim was found ten years ago, with a year before the second. The interim periods got less as time went on, but no more than two discoveries were made in the same year until the two latest ones.

“It looks as if he got the killing bug, but now wants to be stopped. He may have started to feel guilty and wants us to find him. The state of the bodies haven’t changed, over the years, all drowned and not showing signs of sexual damage. A couple did show scratches and cuts, but the reports say that these were caused by some kind of rock.”

“I think you’re right, Lee. It’s a pity that the early ones didn’t analyse the water, even if all the stomach contents were checked and all show similar intake, tinned goods. I think that you should do a tour, Lee, to inspect the early pick up and drop sites, make plenty of notes and take a camera with you. I’ll run it past Sue to cover the expenses; make sure you keep all receipts, for food, petrol, accommodation. Start at the furthest north and work back. We’ll look at the local places as far as Nottingham. We can take the rest of the week, by the time we’ve finished, we’ll have more reports from yesterday.”

After Andy had checked with Sue, Sally went off to look at the local sites, Andy and Maria went to look at Nottingham, while Lee headed north. Over the next couple of days, they looked at the dump sites, took photos, spoke to detectives in the other towns and were taken to the likely pick-up points. It was in Sheffield when Leith met Candi, a streetwalker who had known Roxy, one of the dead girls. She had been angry that nothing had happened yet.

“That girl was one of the good ones. She didn’t do drugs, like most of the girls down this road. She made sure where she was being taken to and would make a note in her phone.”

It made Lee think about that. He couldn’t remember if any phones were listed in the properties that had been collected from the dead girl’s homes. None of the dumped girl’s had anything left with them. With the Birmingham files, he knew that there had been no checking of phone records.

When they all got together, on Friday morning, he raised his concern.

“I think all of the victims, at least those from the last few years, would have had phones. You can’t live without them, these days. I know that Harborne didn’t try to get their phone records. Can we check with the service providers, we have the names and the addresses, to see which ones the girls were with. They might still have records of the last calls that were made. If we’re lucky, they might have a note of the last tower that the phone was by.”

Maria nodded.

“That’s a good idea, Lee. I expect that they were taken to a motel style place, where they could be subdued and carried out to a vehicle. That would be where the phone was turned off and the card removed, I expect. One thing bothers me about all of the cases. The files show that the surrounding areas were unsuccessfully searched for clues. I wonder if the murderer kept their things, as mementos. He might be TV and gets his jollies wearing their things, they were all a similar size, weren’t they?”

Andy smiled.

“I suppose that you realise that we never thought to look for clues, ourselves, at the Gorge. We expected that FSI would look around. Perhaps we should go there on Saturday and familiarise ourselves with the area, on foot. The girl may have even been carried in over the footbridge from the other side of the Severn. We assumed that she had been brought by car.”

On Saturday morning, Andy and Maria picked up Sally at her home, then met up with Lee at the parking area to the south of the Shakespeare Inn. They walked around that side of the river for a while, and then crossed the Memorial Bridge to the other side of the river.

“Do you realise, that this is the first time I’ve been on this side. My parents had taken me to the Coalport China Museum when I was young, but there’s nothing like that on this side.”

Sally laughed.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Andy. This side is all craft and selling. To the south it goes to countryside, but, to the north, there are some shops and a café once you get past the private houses.”

They strolled along Ferry Road until they did, indeed, reach the Craft Centre and the café, where they sat for a little while, until they were joined by the local constable.

“Oh, it’s you. Sorry to bother you, officers, but the locals have got antsy since that girl was found. A couple rang the station to report some suspicious strangers looking too closely at the fronts of their houses. Most tourists stay on the path closer to the river.”

“Sorry to have bothered you, constable. We’re just trying to figure out why no-one heard, or saw, the padlock being ground off. Standing on this side, you would have seen the glow across the river. The noise should have made someone wonder.”

“Yes, there’s a couple of reasons for that. The first is old Ferdie, he lives close to the Boat Inn. He has a habit of metalworking into the evening, but usually stops at around eight. He makes metal models that they sell around Ironbridge, scale versions of the bridge, among other things. The other reason is that, on the evening she would have been put there, there was a musical evening at the Boat Inn, with a live band. They make enough noise to wake the dead, but, as most of Ferry Road is in the pub, we don’t get any complaints.”

They bought the constable a cup of tea and sat, talking about the problems of the local area, then strolled back to the footbridge and their cars, Andy and Maria lagging behind, hand in hand. At the cars, they decided to go into Ironbridge. They had all lived nearby, and all had known about the bridge, but none had actually seen it. They drove along the riverside road until the arrived in the village, finally finding a couple of car parking spaces in a parking area off Waterloo Street. There was a path, just opposite the car park, which ran alongside the river and gave them a wonderful view of the first ever cast-iron bridge, still standing, strong and proud, since 1779.

They walked up to the bridge level and went across it, just to say they had. Maria spotted an ice cream shop on the way back, so they all had an ice cream before stopping at the Tontine Hotel for lunch. They all used this time to relax and recharge, only talking about the case over coffees, after lunch. Andy looked at the others.

“Well, my friends, what do we know, and where do we go, now?”

Sally put her finger down on the table.

“One, we know that all the victims were taken from a range of places. Two, we know that they were taken somewhere, for how long, we don’t know, but we do know that they were fed on a diet of tinned foods, so it must be somewhere that they are isolated. Three, we know that they were drowned in spring water when they had reached the use-by date. Four they were dumped in sites with links to old mines, naked.”

Lee put his finger down.

“Five, we think that they were taken off the street to a place close by, where they were subdued. If we can pinpoint those places, we may strike lucky with the registers, but that will probably only give us a heap of John Smiths. I think that we now have to try hard to get their phone records. If nothing else, it might give us the last tower that registered the phone.”

Maria added her finger.

“Six, we know these girls gave themselves, willingly. To me that means that they knew, without a doubt, that they had no chance to escape, and that they lived as long as they made their captor happy. To me, that’s somewhere that isn’t a normal building, where there could be a small hope. I’m going for a cellar, in a secluded place, or a tunnel. It could be that he has access to an old coal mine, seeing his penchant leaving them by one.”

Andy shook his head.

“I don’t think that a coal mine would be the place, mainly because of the spring water near a limestone cliff. I don’t see them co-existing, but it’s one thing we can get expert help with. One thing that I’m sure of, and that’s the holding place is, as you’ve said, somewhere isolated, and, quite possibly, underground. We could be looking at a cave. If this guy was a miner, or had some dealings with mines, then he has no trouble being underground. I’ll research the likely areas with caves in limestone hills.”

Maria was making notes.

“Next week, we should have some news about the latest case, then we can look carefully at the pick-up point, as well as the victims usual activities. If the previous one was only three months prior, then we might be able to get a lot of information on this one. I’m starting to get optimistic about these cases. If we can crack the new one, the others will fall into line. It’s quite possible that traffic will have the photos from near the pick-up. You never know your luck.”

On Sunday, the two lovers went to see Andy’s Aunt. While sipping tea, she told them that she was thinking of moving into care, as her hips were making it hard to do all the usual things, like the cleaning, shopping, and even sitting comfortably. She was not in a hurry, and when Andy asked her how much she wanted for the house, both he and Maria were pleasantly surprised at the figure.

“Auntie, I will be due to receive my inheritance in a few months, when I turn twenty-five. With what’s coming, I think I’ll be able to put a substantial deposit down and use the shop as collateral for a mortgage. This would be perfect, for us, after we get married. We could do it, even if we both left the force, with the shop being our income stream. Once Collette retires, we could just take what we need, leaving the remainder for the shop income. We could attract a new clientele by bringing in more teenage fashions. Mum always aimed at the rich, but elderly. Some of the stock is for the young, but was mainly aimed at the daughters, not working girls with a few Euros to spare.”

“So, you’ve popped the question, have you? Where’s the ring, my girl?”

Maria looked in her bag and brought out a jewellers box and showed her the ring.

“It’s not super expensive, but I love it. I’m not wearing it in case I go into work with it on. That might cause us some trouble, as they don’t like a married couple on the same team. Once we do marry, one of us will have to retire, or else get split up. I don’t think that I could be happy with that. If we take over the shop, I could be front of house once I’ve had some training from Collette. It could be a tight squeeze, but we’re going to be starting with quite a bit behind us.”

On the way home, they talked about the plan, now a lot more solid than it was before they arrived. They were upbeat when they cooked dinner, and in a good mood when they went to work the following day.

Marianne Gregory © 2023

Chapter 3

Monday morning, Sally had some news, but not news about the case.

“Hey, guys. Yesterday I caught up with a few friends from the Burton station. My husband drove us there. We met at a café in the town for morning tea and they surprised us by telling us that we had a lunch date at the old manor house that we had raided. The story is that the previous chefs and waitresses have done a deal with the lawyers for Quincey and his partner. They hadn’t been able to transfer the income from that last dinner into their accounts, so there was over a quarter of a million in the Hyp-Nouvelle account that they couldn’t touch. They agreed on a deal that saw the casuals take over the building and the business, in exchange for a quarter of a million.”

Maria grinned.

“So, what have they called it?”

“It’s now called ‘Off the Bone’ to mine the notoriety of the place. They now do proper food, good serves at a good price. We had a wonderful lunch, and all the staff were very nice to us. They told us that we had helped them go from casuals to restaurant owners. They gave me a bunch of cards that they have printed up. I’ve got them here in my bag. All the girls from Burton have one.”

She pulled out a wad of cards and put them on the desk. Andy looked at them and just had to laugh.

“What’s this, the ‘Prime Cut Club’. What does this give us?”

“It will give you good service and a good meal at a keen price, for life, or so they said. There’s enough here for the whole team, as well as the uniformed men who were in the raid. They have offered us the use of the upstairs room for a special dinner, should we want to take it. It’s becoming quite popular for parties and weddings, so we’ll have to book. Jim, the main guy there, told me that some of the old customers were coming back, and remarking that it was the first time they had finished a meal there without still feeling hungry.”

The three of them took a card, and Sue was called over to take the rest to hand out to the team. When Sue called for attention, she got Sally to explain what the cards were for and there was a bit of smiling and fist-bumps. Sue had enough, left over, to give to Terry and Porky as well as the uniformed men.

Maria remarked that it might be somewhere that they could take Jenny and Dave, so that she could see, for herself, where the final act took place. Andy agreed, so she rang Jenny and arranged it for the following Saturday evening.

“She told me that they would come up during the day, and then stay in a hotel on Saturday night. She says that Dave had told her that there was something that he needed to do, if they were coming this way.”

Then they all set to work with the current case. The reports had come back on the latest victim. Sally read the autopsy report first.

“It says here that she had been dead about three to four days before she ended up in the tunnel. The lab results on the stomach contents did show tinned and preserved foods, while the water in the lungs was, as expected, spring water that had been through limestone. The doctor has made a note on the bottom that he had been surprised when told that this would be the case. She was also transgender, had been a working girl, in every sense of the word, for quite a few years.”

Lee looked up from the page that he was looking at.

“The girl went under the name of Trixie Petal, but her real name was Janice Bowen, previously John. It says on the sheet that she would have been thirty-four when she died. She looked a bit older but might have been because the life she lived. She had a small sheet for soliciting and had been caught with a small amount of cannabis on one of the regular street checks. We have an address; perhaps we should go and see if it’s still unchanged, or if all of her things were stored. There’s also a vice squad name here, who had been the one to arrest her before. I think he might be someone to talk to.”

Andy and Maria finished reading the FSI reports.

“FSI has found some prints on the door and the grill. We need to take the Museum managers to eliminate them. They also said that an over-the-counter angle grinder would have taken all of two minutes to go through the padlock. There’s a note here about that. They reckon that it would have taken about thirty seconds to have separated the steel plate from the hinge, seeing that it wasn’t hardened. I wonder if the murderer was trying to make life easier for others to just replace the padlock?”

“Doggy has trawled through the pictures from the cameras in the area. None of them show any cars other than locals going about their business, mainly the people from the band night, going home. If I was to take a guess, my friends, I’d say that this guy is a local; one who knows that there’s someone who regularly uses an angle grinder, close by.”

“One thing about that, Maria,” said Lee. “The guy who makes the bridge models stops working around eight. Or so the local bobby told us.”

“What if the lock was ground off during the early evening. That would account for it not being noticed. I took note, while we were walking along that path, that sound carried along the riverside, more than normal. We can’t assume that the grinding, and the dumping, were both happening at the same time.”

They made a couple of phone calls. Lee rang the vice squad in Manchester, where the girl had been last seen, while Maria rang the CID in that city, to ask for an appointment with the CID Inspector. They took two cars, Lee with Sally, to meet the vice squad officer at a place he had told them to go to, Maria and Andy off to the main police station.

They had both appointments for early afternoon. Andy and Maria stopping at the Knutsford services for a light lunch, before leaving the motorway a little further on to head into Manchester. When they entered the office of the CID Inspector, he stood and came to shake their hands.

“Well, it’s not every day we get a couple of detectives who had put away a mass murderer, as well as one our own. What can we help you with?”

“It’s about the cold cases we are looking at, Sir,” said Andy. “We started out with six murdered streetwalkers that Harborne had sat on, and we added another seven, from here, Sheffield, and Nottingham. All are similar. Last week we found another girl near Ironbridge. She was a Manchester girl, called Trixie Petal. Two others, from our team, are meeting the vice squad at a place where he thinks she worked. What we would like is to be able to look at her lodgings, we have the address, and to see if we can find anything there. One path we want to take, seeing that she is the latest victim, is to see if she had a phone, then to see if that phone provider can give us her records. We would like to have the last tower that pinged her, but I know that may not be possible.”

“Right, that’s easy. I’ll give you one of mine for the afternoon, he’ll be able to smooth any problems for you. Head down to the front desk and he’ll join you there.”

“Thank you, Sir. That will be a great help.”

“Always happy to help those who take the proper channels, ask nicely, and don’t go blundering around my patch. Now, off you go.”

They were only down by the door a few minutes, when a middle-aged and rather overweight detective came into the foyer and up to them. He put out his hand.

“The boss tells me I have to help a couple of out-of-town crimefighters. I’m happy to help two of the team that cracked that cannibal case. If your car’s outside, I’ll sit in the back and direct you. Do you have an address?”

When they pulled up outside the terraced house that the girl had lived, the detective ‘call me Bert’ looked at the place.

“This is a fairly typical whore hang-out. I think that you’ll find that there’s at least three living here, and if she’s been gone a while, her things would have been shared around. We just have to ask nicely; the others will be having brunch by now.”

They knocked on the door, waiting until it was opened by a brassy blonde in a housecoat.

“What’s the fuzz want with a clean-living working girl at this time of day?”

“We’re here to talk about Trixie, or you may have called her Janice, at home.”

“OK, where is she, she owes two months’ rent.”

“If you let us in, ma-am, we can tell you. There are a few questions that we have.”

“Ooh, what a smooth one you are, young plod. All right, don’t mind the mess, it’s a tough ask to vacuum after you’ve spent half the night sucking cock.”

The other girls took it quietly when Maria explained that Janice was in the morgue in Birmingham. Andy asked if anything of hers was still in her room.

“There’s a bit of stuff. We’ve all raided her wardrobe since we last saw her, she would have done the same. We can get another girl in to share the costs, now. Her room was the second on the right, upstairs. Take what you want, so we can clear it out. Poor kid, she was doing well, had a few regulars, never did any kinky stuff. Fancy turning up dead, down south. I suppose that it can happen to any of us. Pull the door closed when you leave.”

The three of them went to the room indicated. It was a bit of a mess, and they could see where the others had pulled things out of her wardrobe and drawers. Next to the bed was a table, with a drawer, and that’s where they found her proper identification, along with some bills, one of which was from BT. Bert rang a contact at BT and asked if he could get a print-out of the last usage of the phone, reading out the number and the customer ID. Andy told him to ask if the last tower was able to be added. Bert nodded, asked his contact that question and then asked for the information to be emailed to his computer at the station.

They gathered up all the paperwork they could find and took the plastic bag full of notes, that they had found under the mattress, downstairs. Handing it to the blonde, Maria told her that it should pay for the back rent. The woman looked surprised.

“Bloody hell! Honest fuzz! If they’re all like you lot down in Brum, I’m coming down there to work. You look after yourselves, dearies. And thanks for this, every little helps.”

“Before we go, did you work the same patch as Trixie?”

“No dear, she had a special place where she would go, away from the usual places where the pimps control. I think that she spent some of her time near Salford, either at the shopping centre, or by the University. She said that you met some interesting men, with big wallets and small dicks, near there. I think that she may have been referring to the staff, rather than the students. Of course, none of them will tell you that they knew her. She would also work around the Uni by the Piccadilly Station, she knew a lot of the people from the Gay Village, seeing that she was transgender.”

On the way back to the police station, Maria rang Sally to see how they were getting on.

“Not much luck, here. No-one seemed to know her around the usual places.”

“Try the Gay Village and towards the University. We’ve been told that she worked that area to pick up randy teachers.”

“Righto, we’ll try there. How are you with her papers?”

“We have all that we could find. We’re just heading back to the station to see if her phone records have come through. I’ll give you a call when we know more.”

Back at the station, Bert led them up to his desk. When he logged in, there was an email from BT waiting for him. He sent it to the office printer, and they all had a look at it. The last tower was noted, at the railway station near the university.

Bert pulled out a street map and then looked up.

“Tell your friends that there are two motels very close to there. One is just across the road, and the other is only a hundred yards up Piccadilly. They’re both three-star and are typical of the sort of place that the whores like. The biggest problem with those types of place is that they have an underground carpark. I suppose that you could half-carry a body, so it looks like she’s had too much to drink.”

Maria rang Sally to let her know that the previous location was good, and to try to see if they could look at the registers of the three-star hotels on the day that they knew the phone had been in the area. They agreed to discuss their findings, back in the office, in the morning. The two then thanked the helpful detective and went down to the car to drive home.

Tuesday morning, they got together to share notes. Lee had a sheaf of photos that he had taken, showing pages of hotel registers for three days before and up to two days after the phone location.

“Typical one-night stand joints, those hotels. Both had underground car parking with a direct lift access, as well as stairs without cameras. I don’t think we’ll get a lot out of these pages, either. The whole world is made up of Smiths, Browns and Jones’ if these are to be believed. The main thing that the receptionist was complaining about was the number of towelling robes they lose, every month. If our boy draped one over the girl, on the way down to the car, it wouldn’t look too out of place. They wouldn’t give me credit card receipts unless we get down to less than four names, with a court order.”

“Right,” said Andy. “You and Sally start working through those pages and see if you can get those four names. Maria and I are going to the Coal Mining Museum to see if there’s anything we can learn. We’ll try to get hold of their employee and volunteer lists, while we’re about it. It’s out past Sheffield so we’ll be all day, so will catch up with you tomorrow. Give us a call if anything comes up.”

They went and got into the Audi for the trip north. The quickest way was to head towards Leicester and pick up the M1 north, leaving the motorway at Haigh. They made good time and pulled up outside the museum at half past eleven. Inside, they showed their warrant cards and sat down with the curator. Once he knew why they were there, he was as helpful as he could be. The file photo of the body had shown her to be sitting on the front step, with her back against the front door.

“She was in an unusual pose for these bodies, sir. It has only been replicated in the most recent case. All the others were just dumped in the open. Are there any old employees or volunteers who have a grudge against the museum?”

“We have always had staff who may not be as happy as they should be, mainly from the stress of trying to stop children doing stupid things. While we have safe things, like the café, the shop and pony rides, it’s still what was left of a working coal mine. There’s the winding house, the pump house, the shaft-head, not to mention the shale heaps and a lot of old machinery; all of which seem to attract kids intent on hurting themselves. I’ll get our office girl to put together a list for you, if you tell her the period that you’re wanting. While that’s happening, why don’t you have a look around, take the underground tour, get lunch?”

They did as suggested and found that Maria didn’t like being underground very much. She stayed with the tour, and they learned a lot about the conditions that the miners had to work in.

“Of course,” the tour leader told the group. “It all improved since the sixties, with a lot more safety features and visits from mine inspectors. These guys didn’t just look into coal mines, they oversaw safety in pits, quarries and the heap of caves that dot the area. A lot of miners survived because of the work that they did. If coal hadn’t become a dirty word, we could still be producing, and doing it faster with automated machinery.”

Back on the surface, much to Maria’s relief, they had lunch in the café and wandered into the shop. There were the usual soft toys and snowdomes made in China, but a few models caught Andy’s eye. They were scale models of the winch wheel tower and buildings and were beautifully made. Andy asked where they were imported from, and the girl behind the counter smiled.

“Not imported, sir. These are made locally; I think that these come from a retired guy down near Birmingham. They are wonderful, and that’s why they’re so expensive. We don’t sell many, mainly to Americans with taste and loaded wallets.”

Back in the curator’s office, they picked up the lists of staff they had asked for. Andy had wanted the list back as far as they could, seeing that the museum wasn’t that old, and the girl had come up trumps.

They drove south again and had time to drop into the office to leave the list before heading for home. Wednesday they were going to head north, again, to look at limestone areas and ask questions about spring-fed pools. Maria had looked up some places on her computer, the previous evening. There were a lot more than she had expected, so they had planned to stay overnight at Sheffield, and come back to the office on Friday.

Mid-morning on Wednesday saw them at the Visitors Centre in Castleton, between Sheffield and Manchester. They spoke to the manager and picked up a map of the caves. The closest cavern was the Peak Cavern, or, as the Manager called it, the Devil’s Arse. They were told that the visitor area was a lot less than it was a hundred or more years ago. When Andy asked about pools of water, he was told that there was an area, now closed off, which flooded at times, and was such a trouble to clear out debris before the visitor season started, it had been closed. Otherwise, there was also a small stream the passed through the further caverns.

They had a good look, never having visited these caves, Maria not too happy when they got out of sight of daylight. The next cavern that they saw was the Speedwell Cavern. It was exciting for Andy, when they got down to the bottom a lot of steps, Maria getting more agitated the deeper they went. At the bottom was a large pool of water. The rest of the cavern was only accessible by boat. Andy realised that the site wasn’t what they were looking for, seeing that the brochure told them that the system had been well searched, and was securely locked out of hours, as was the Peak Cavern.

The other two show caverns were discounted, because the water in the victim’s lungs had not shown any trace of Blue John, a sedimentary material, which had been mined in both caverns. Both were also run by private owners and access was limited. Back at the Visitor Centre, they asked about other caves that they should look at, where they were set in limestone cliffs. Most were a long way further north, somewhat outside the likely area that would be readily accessible from the targets area between Manchester and Birmingham. They found a hotel in Sheffield for the night, after ringing the office to see if anything had happened.

Thursday, they went south, to the village of Creswell, as they had been told about a number of caves in an area called Creswell Crags. There was a large colliery site there, as well as a limestone gorge with several caves. They parked outside the museum and went in to have a mid-morning coffee and cake, while looking at the brochures. Of the caves listed, they put a line through two, because they were off the edge of Crags Road, which didn’t have anywhere to park out of sight. The other two, on the other side of the lake, looked promising, or else one did.

That one was the Church Hole, so they left the car outside the museum and walked to it. On the way they passed the Boat House cave opening, with a solid-looking iron grill and a padlocked gate. When they looked in the Church Hole, they were disappointed as it was totally cleared for visitors and had no nooks or crannies that could lead to a hidden place.

On the way back, Andy looked closer at the Boat House. The brochure had said that it had been converted to a shelter, with a concrete floor and a concrete wall to hold back the lake. The wall was now part of the walk. When Andy shone his pocket flashlight into the cave, all he saw was a large ‘room’, totally clear, except for what looked like an iron door with a ‘Danger, steep scree slope’ in faded paint on it, off to one side. He then shone his light on the padlock, seeing that it looked used.

Back at the Museum, he asked to see the manager, asking him about the Boat House.

“That one’s been closed off for some years. It was a concrete floor, and someone wondered if there were any finds left there when it was poured. They didn’t find much, and it was left as it was. It’s not really interesting enough to be a show cave, so we concentrate on the others around the lake. It was filled with rubble and, when the workers cleared it, they found a small fissure. We had a government safety inspector look at it, as some experienced cavers had said that the acoustics felt as if there was another cavern. He reported that the fissure that led to a deep scree slope, which, he said, was too dangerous to allow visitor access. He had the inner door made and we built the barrier at the entrance.”

“Does anyone go in; I thought the padlock was easily usable?”

“No, we haven’t opened that gate since the inspector left. He never came back. He may have retired, as he looked old enough, or so my predecessor told me. The only things that have been inside are birds and other local animals.”

“Is there a key we can use?”

“No, there isn’t, but even if there was, I wouldn’t allow you access without authority from the Inspectorate of Mines, in Sheffield. I expect that you would have to have a qualified caver with you, along with correct safety equipment. Get that, and a professional lock-pick, and the place is yours to see. I can’t see what you find so interesting about an empty and uninteresting hole in the cliff.”

“Thank you, sir. I hope to see you again, soon.”

They had seen all that they wanted to see, so got into the car to drive back to Birmingham. On the way, Andy was quiet until Maria asked him what was on his mind.

“It’s that Boat House Cavern, it’s just so bloody unlikely that it bothers me. Every other place we’ve been to has been too public. Either this guy has found a cave that no-one else knows about, or else he created somewhere that was perfect for his needs. The one thing I can’t understand is how a locked cave, which has only been visited by rats and birds for ten years, can have a floor that looks as if it was swept yesterday.”

Marianne Gregory © 2023

Chapter 4

On Friday morning, they sat at their four desks and talked about what they knew. Lee and Sally had been through the registers and had one name that looked interesting. It was for J. Bowen and was two days before the phone went dead.

“It must have been a phone booking, these girls sometimes make the room booking themselves, and she must have paid by card, in advance. That would mean that it was a regular, or someone that she had dealt with, before. It makes sense that our guy would have tried the victim before taking her away. I looked in the paperwork that you brought back from her place and there was a statement from Mastercard. I contacted them and they verified that she had made that payment on the day before.”

Andy nodded.

“Good work. What about her phone records?”

“BT were kind enough to send us the last three months, and the call to the hotel is in there. We checked the incoming calls and there was one, the day before, from a burner phone with no name on record. When we checked with the hotel for any camera vision, they told us that all records were overwritten after a week.”

“That’s not good. We had a good look around the limestone caves in the region north and south of Sheffield. The problem is that the majority are show caves, with public access, and either manned during open hours or shut away behind private farmhouses. There’s only one which bugs me, and that’s in Creswell Crags. It’s been locked for ten years, or more, for safety reasons. We can’t get any support to get it opened unless we get clearance from the Inspectorate of Mines, in Sheffield. I think that we should contact the CID there, who worked on their cases, to help us. I’ll go and talk to Sue.”

Andy went over to Sue’s desk and asked her if she could spare some time.

“Certainly, Andy. How are you getting on with the case?”

“We have confirmed that the last victim, Janice Bowen, had made a booking at the hotel opposite the Manchester Piccadilly station. She had a call from a burner before that, so we have guessed that she had dealt with the customer before. FSI have confirmed that her stomach contents and the water in her lungs were the same as the other victims.”

“That’s solid work. Why do you want to talk?”

“Maria and I went off looking at limestone caves, this week. We have the idea that he keeps them somewhere, and that it must be near limestone because of the water they were drowned in. Everywhere we looked aren’t likely, except for one. That one’s called the Boat House, and it’s in the Creswell Crags park. It’s locked and has been locked for more than ten years. The museum manager has told me that they do not have a key, and that I needed permission from the Inspectorate of Mines, in Sheffield, before they would allow me to see if we could open it. What makes it interesting is that it’s along a track that is big enough for a vehicle, and isolated enough for there to be no other traffic. The one thing that made me want to look inside was the fact that the padlock keyhole isn’t corroded, and that the floor of the cave, that you can see through the bars, is clean, after ten years without maintenance.”

“That’s compelling, I have to say. Anything else?”

“Yes. There's a small door, also locked, with a danger sign on it. The manager told us that he had been told that they think that there may be another cavern underneath. What I want, other than permission, is to see the report that got the place closed. It might, just might, have the signature of our mass murderer on the bottom.”

“All right. You talk to the CID in Sheffield to see about that report. Actually, no! Maria can do that. If you do get permission to go in, you, young man, wouldn’t be allowed to, because you’re not a qualified caver, nor do you have a diving certificate if there’s the water that you expect. I’m going to call DCI Anderson; Alex, who was the leader of the diving team that you worked with before. He’ll know how to get you up to speed in double quick time.”

“The diver was a DCI, he never said. I would have been more professional when we were working together, had I known.”

“Never fear, he was very happy with the way you handled yourself, respectful and helpful, and he has spoken to me, when we were working on the court cases, about what a good investigator you are. Don’t get a big head with that, because I’ll expect the two of you will be working closely on this one, if it turns out the way you think. I’ll let you know, later, if he’ll teach you some tricks.”

Later, that day, before the usual group meeting, Sue came over to their corner.

“Right, what have you lot got for next week?”

“Lee and I have an appointment with the detective in Sheffield on Monday morning, and he’s going to join us to see that safety report. He sounded excited that we may have moved forward on his case.”

“OK, Maria, that’s good. What about you, Sally?”

“I’m going to the council at Ironbridge, to see the electoral rolls for the area, to get all the names of people along Ferry Road. We think it could be a long shot that our man is a local.”

“Right. Andy, you have to get yourself to the Police Training college, where your swimming abilities are going to be tested, nine in the morning on Monday.”

After the regular Friday meeting, they all knocked off. On the way home, Maria took out her phone and called Andy’s Auntie.

“Auntie, it’s Maria. Andy and I have to be in different places next week and I need to pick up my car.”

She listened for a little while.

“Hold on, I’ll just ask Andy.”

“Andy, love. Your Auntie needs to go to the care home, in the morning, to see if she likes it. She wants to know if we can take her there. If we can, she says that we can stay in the house for a while, to help her out, and to start sorting the things she will need. If we go home, we can pack a couple of bags and go there, this evening.”

Andy nodded.

“Right, Auntie. Andy agrees. How about we take you out for a meal, tonight. We need to go to my place and pick up our things. Being at yours, next week, will be good, because Andy has to be at the Police College again, for a few days.”

They went home and packed a couple of cases, adding a few garment bags to hang in the back of the car. They arrived at the Aunt’s house a little after seven, and quickly took the things inside, to a spare room with a double bed. Then they all went out for a meal at the carvery, not far from the house. After the meal, they went back and made up the bed, then sat with Auntie, with a cup of cocoa, and talked.

Early, on Saturday morning, they drove a very short distance to the Retirement Home, where they were shown round. There was a vacancy, immediately, should it be needed, and Auntie looked at Andy.

“Look, I know this is sudden, but with the two of you already in the house, I could move in tomorrow, if you can come up with the deposit. I’m not pressuring you, but you’ve seen how hard it is for me to get around. What do you say?”

Andy thought for a moment, then asked the manager what the deposit was, and when she would need it. The figure was well inside what he knew he had in the bank, and the timing was anytime next week, by electronic transfer. They signed the paperwork, and his Auntie gave him a hug.

“You really are the best nephew a woman could have. You were so neat and tidy when you lived with me, I could hardly believe it. I know that you’ll look after the house, and you’ll be close enough to see me now and again.”

That settled, they went back to the house where Maria put together a lunch for them. In the early afternoon they went the short distance to the Tesco service station to fill the Audi, and then to the Tesco Extra to buy some needed supplies. They had arranged to pick up Dave and Jenny from their hotel at four, so quickly got dressed for their dinner. Leaving Auntie with her usual microwave tea to get for herself, they drove into the city and stopped in front of the hotel. As they pulled up, Dave and Jenny came out and they all had handshakes and hugs, before getting back into the car. Jenny asked, from the back seat.

“Maria, I need something nice for a wedding in a few weeks. Do you know anywhere that’s good?”

Maria looked at Andy and he gave her a wink, then laughed.

“Jenny, we know exactly the place. It’s where Maria got the dress you saw at that meal. She’ll give someone a call to make sure they’re open.”

As he headed for Harborne, Maria rang Collette and found that she was closing early to attend a civic reception, invited by one of her clients. When Maria let Andy know, he just smiled.

“Tell her I’ll come in the back and leave the tag, or tags, on the office desk.”

When they arrived at Jolenes, Andy drove up a driveway and around to a small parking area in the back. Jenny wanted to know what was going on and Maria just told her to trust them, as all would be revealed. They got out of the car and Andy opened the rear door and reached in to turn off the alarm. Then he opened the door, wide.

“Welcome, folks, to Jolenes, importer of fine gowns for discerning ladies. I’ll give you a quick tour and then Maria will help you, Jenny, to choose something for tonight. As you can see from what we’re wearing, it’s supposed to be casual but dressy. Now, behind this door is the climate-controlled store for long-term storage and customer furs. Then there are the stock rooms for different ranges of outfits and accessories. To the front is a lounge area. Upstairs is my office and Collette’s office, the store manager. There are a few other rooms, which, from memory, are used for alterations and storage of old stock.”

Dave looked hard at Andy.

“Your office?”

“Ah, yes. Why don’t we go up and have a quiet drink, while Jenny delves into the stock. Maria, you’ve spent more time back here than I have, recently. Can you point Jenny in the right direction?”

Upstairs, Andy found a bottle of scotch in the filing cabinet, where he had left it some years ago, after he had used it to gain some courage for the funeral. He poured two drinks, then they clinked glasses and sat. Then he proceeded to tell Dave how they came to be sitting in his office, in his dress shop. He was relieved when Dave didn’t laugh.

“Andy, you have this as a fall-back if you leave the force, and I can see that you’re a long way down the road with Maria. I congratulate you on the way that you’ve been working in the CID. To think that if you hadn’t found that body, you may have been a beat copper, right now.”

“If I hadn’t been called to see Sue Cousins, I may have been a Special, pounding a keyboard, or holding out a lollipop at a kiddies crossing. It doesn’t bear thinking about. At the moment, I’m alive and doing something I love. I don’t know what I’ll do when we crack the current case, probably get bored and come here to make my living. I get the place signed over to me when I’m twenty-five, not that far away. Maria and I have bought, or, should I say, are buying, my Aunties house out Solihull way, a nice three-bedroom detached with off-road parking. My dad’s rally car is there, at the moment.”

“A rally car, that doesn’t seem like you, at all.”

“I mean, it’s a car he took to rallies, a Wolseley 6/80 from his youth, complete with full police pursuit kit of the day. I used to love ringing the bell.”

“And the Audi? I did notice two extra switches on the consul.”

“Ah, yes. It was once a pursuit car which he bought as a damaged vehicle, got fixed and resprayed. As an inspector in traffic, he was able to fit it with blues and twos, but not the rest of the kit. It came in handy when we raided that restaurant, and I took Sky to hospital in it. It’s where we’re going for a meal, tonight. They’ve re-opened and gave all our team loyalty cards. Maria and I thought that you would be interested to see the ‘H/N’ that you were able to help with us solving the case.”

Just then, there was a call from downstairs, so Andy rinsed the glasses at a small sink, and they went down to see how the girls had got on. Jenny was elegantly dressed in a flowing mid-calf gown that showed her slender form to its best advantage. Maria had also changed. Both looked radiant.

“Andy, sweetheart, I’ve got the tags, can you take them up to Collette’s desk, as we promised. I hope you don’t mind but this dress was hanging there and calling my name.”

Andy took the tags and popped back up the stairs. When he got back, they went towards the back entrance. Dave asked how many furs were in the cool room.

“About a million Euros worth, I think. It changes all the time, with some going out for civic receptions, and some coming in when the owners go off on holiday. There is a separate security system in there, along with the climate controls. Any changes to the temperature or humidity and Collette gets an alert on her phone. I can’t even go in there, yet. If I did, we’d get a couple of squad cars from Harborne inside five minutes, I remember when it was tested. My mother made sure that I knew everything about the business, even though I wanted to follow my father’s footsteps.”

The other three waited in the car while Andy reset the alarm and relocked the door. They then went north to the restaurant. On the way, Dave tried to pay for Jenny’s dress, but Andy would have none of it.

“The dress is from Maria and I, in gratitude for your help with the case. The price, to me, will be at cost, and I have got quite a decent account, in the business, that covers it. We supplied all the girls from Burton who helped out with the sting, and I think that the accountant will write it all off as advertising, as they’re all likely to be telling their friends.”

At the old Manor house, they stopped in the very full carpark.

“Busy night,” observed Dave.

At the main entrance, the girl who had been on the door when they raided it looked at Andy and Maria, then came over to hug them both.

“Oh, boy! Jim is going to have kittens when I tell him that you two are here. You, sir, are his all-time hero. He hasn’t stopped talking about the time that you laid out the Algerian with one hit. That has been something that he, and the other chefs, had been wanting to do for a couple of years.”

She beckoned to another girl to come over.

“Bella, can you look after the door for a few moments while I escort the fine people to the restaurant?”

She led them past the lift, still sporting the ‘H’ and ‘N’ on the doors, Andy pointed at them.

“I would have thought that you would have removed these, by now.”

“Oh, no! They are part of our popularity. You have no idea how many selfies get taken with those doors in the background. A lot of customers are here to say that they’ve eaten in the ‘House of Horrors’ and a picture next to those doors proves it.”

She led them into the main dining room and stepped back as the chef who had been the second chef in the old business, walked quickly up to them. Holding out his hand, and surprising Andy when he went to shake, only to be pulled into a man-hug.

“Andrew Barton, you are most welcome. We have a special table which we have kept aside for anyone from the raid to use. I suppose that Angela has already told you that I’m your biggest fan, seeing you drop that bastard Algerian was a sight for sore eyes. It was something I’d nearly done several times. Now, madam, if I’m right, you’re Maria, who went through the books before we did the evening do. That was unreal, all our normal guests never knew what went on upstairs, just as none of us did. Old Maxie and Harry kept that all quiet. Look, before you sit down, would you like to show your friends the dungeon?”

He took them back out to the lift and pressed the button. When the doors opened, and they were inside, he put a key in a lock that hadn’t been there before.

“We added the key entry only for the basement. It’s a little different from when you last saw it. It staggered me when I came down for the first time, it must have been horrible for those poor people.”

The doors opened and they walked into the basement area. Jim pointed out the door locks.

“We padlock these when we’re not working. One is the drinks store, and the other has been turned into a larder. It’s a bit cooler, down here, because we’ve piped a pair of cooling units, off the main air-conditioning. About the only thing still here is the trolley, we haven’t had the nerve to take it into the daylight. If I put it in the foyer, I think that a lot of our present customers would want to try it out, and I really couldn’t stand that.”

They didn’t stay long, with both Dave and Jenny very quiet when they went back up in the lift. Back in the foyer, Jim turned to Andy and Maria.

“Look, would you two be happy for some of our customers to have selfies with you, after the meal. We don’t allow the picture taking until everyone has finished. It would be fantastic for advertising, and I’ll give you the meal free. If you don’t mind photos with the staff, I’ll even throw in the drinks.”

“We’re happy to help, Jim, as long as the pictures don’t find their way into the papers.”

They enjoyed an excellent meal, with Andy staying off the alcohol as he was driving them back. Afterwards, Jim announced that tonight, they were all graced with the two detectives who had cracked the ‘Cannibal Case’ and that they had agreed to pose for pictures next to the lift. That led to a half an hour with Andy and Maria posing with couples as Jim took the pictures on their phones. At the end, the whole staff were lined up while Dave took pictures with phones thrust into his hand. At the end of that, he took a couple, for him and Jenny. Before they finished, Maria insisted that Jenny join the two of them for a special picture, seeing that she and Jenny had worked on the case, years before.

All in all, it had been a very jovial evening, On the way back to the city, Dave started asking for ‘blues and twos’ but Andy resisted, telling him that only his superiors would allow him to do that, again. At the hotel, they all got out of the car and Dave followed Jim’s lead by pulling Andy into a man hug.

“Detective Barton, you handled yourself with a grace and humility, tonight. I’m proud to have met you, I’m happy to have helped you, and I would be honoured to have you as a friend. I will see you, again, never fear. Maybe the two of you will be able to come south for your honeymoon.”

All Andy could do was smile and nod, before Jenny enveloped him in a hug of her own, thanking him for the interesting evening and the dress.

“When you two tie the knot, we have to be invited, or else I’ll talk to my grandmother, who is a Cornish Piskie, and she’ll put a hex on your love life.”

“Never fear, Jenny, I think that Maria already has started a list. I take it that she showed you the ring, then.”

“Oh, yes, young groom, she can’t wait to wear it every day. But I’m sure you know that already.”

With final handshakes and hugs, the two got back in the car and went to their new home. Tomorrow would be busy, moving Auntie to the retirement home.

Sunday was, indeed, a busy day. They helped Auntie get her things together. She didn’t need a lot, judging by the size of the wardrobe and drawers in her new room. The room was fully furnished, so there was no heaving and lifting. They moved the main bedroom wardrobe into the unused third room and stored all the left-over clothing there. They planned to sleep in the spare room until they had redecorated the main bedroom, seeing that it was painted in one of those eighties colours that defy description. A new bedroom suite was also on the list.

When Auntie was settled in and asking what was for tea, they said cheerio and went to uncover Maria’s car. When it had been hosed off and warmed up, she gave Andy a kiss and went off to her flat to get some of her own things to bring back. Andy took the Audi to his old place and completely cleared it, taking all the clothes he had left, along with all the linen and kitchen goods. When he was satisfied that nothing had been left, he shut the door on his single life. When he had the chance, he would go into a real estate agent and put the old place on the market. On the way to his new home, he realised that he and Maria had bought their first house together. It was a sobering thought.

That night, not having anyone close by for the first time, Andy didn’t mind when Maria gave vent to her happiness with some hearty groans and screams. They finally went to sleep, cuddled together and giggling happily.

Marianne Gregory © 2023

Chapter 5

Monday morning brought them back to earth. The had breakfast, tidied up and both left the house. They kissed, and then Maria went west, towards the Aston station, while Andy went towards Coventry and the Police College. When he arrived, he walked to the swimming pool, a place he remembered with happiness.

When he walked into the pool area, he saw the dive leader, now known to be DCI Alex Anderson, who was checking over a wetsuit.

“Young Andy, welcome back. I looked at your record here, and it said that you were an excellent swimmer. Take this wetsuit and go into the changing rooms. Make sure it’s smooth without wrinkles, those will get hard to get rid of as you get wet.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right! Before you go, there’s no sirs here. You’re Andy and I’m Alex. Successful diving depends on the two of us knowing what the other is thinking. Underwater, we’re equals and looking out for each other. By the time we finish getting you qualified, the gossip magazines will be calling us Alexandy, we’ll be that close. Now, the same goes with potholing and caving, which Sue has told me that you need to be trained in. If we go diving, underground, you will be in the second most dangerous place you could imagine. The most dangerous place is standing in front of a madman with a gun pointed at your head.”

“Aye, Aye, Alex,” grinned Andy as he went to the changing room.

When he came out, Alex checked him over and then grinned, as one of the back-up crew from the previous dives joined them.

“First up, we are going to swim until one of us calls it quits. This is a fifty-metre pool, so every 20 laps is a thousand metres. I brought Charlie with me as our spotter. He has lifesaving certificates, but, as you can see by his beard, you don’t want him to give you the kiss of life. Don’t go so far that you can’t do any more, because there will be more to do once we’ve finished that. Stop when you think that you’ve got close to the exhaustion point, this is to gauge your sensibility as well as your swimming prowess. OK, let’s do it.”

They both dived in and started doing laps. Andy called it quits at twelve hundred metres, with Alex doing two more laps at a slower pace. As he towelled off, he sat on a chair to get his breath back.

“What do you think, Charlie?”

“He’s good, boss. Nice consistent times, I reckon that he could have gone the full fifteen hundred metres, with a bit of training.”

“Right, then. Andy, you have five minutes to recuperate, then we put these fins and goggles on. We do the laps, scuba-style, but the difference is that we do the first lap above the water, and then each odd lap as far as you can go, underwater. This is to test your lung capacity.”

When the five minutes were up, they lowered themselves into the water and set off, much faster than they had swum before, thanks to the fins. At the far end, Andy saw Alex take a deep breath before submerging and pushing off the wall. He did the same and followed for as long as he could, coming up before Alex. This continued for more laps, Alex staying just in front of Andy, with Andy going further, underwater, with each hundred metres.

They had been swimming for some time, and were on an underwater lap, when Andy saw Alex lose all his air in front of him and start to sink to the bottom. Without even thinking about it, although he knew he was almost at the end of his last breath, he dived under Alex and pulled him towards the surface, arriving in time to take a big breath.

“Unhand me, you randy sod,” laughed Alex. “That, my boy, was a test and I think that you may have broken the record for reaction time. How did he go, Charlie?”

“He was going for you before your bubbles hit the surface, boss. I didn’t even have time to start the stopwatch.”

“How many laps, Charlie?”

“You were on the thirty-fourth, boss. Andy would have needed a few more before he could do the full fifty underwater, but he was getting there as he got the hang of the technique.”

They swam to the steps and got out, taking off the fins.

“I think, my friends, that it’s time for lunch. I hope the canteen does the food as good as it was when I was last here, lecturing.”

“You didn’t do any lectures while I was here, Alex.”

“That’s because they were for active constables, sergeants, and above. We do a course every couple of years to pick new recruits for the dive teams.”

The two of them went and put towelling robes over the wetsuits and they went into the canteen, getting a tray, each, and finding a secluded corner.

“Now, Andy. This is when you tell us why you’ve been sent for this training. If you had failed, this morning, you would have been heading home, by now. Seeing that you are good material to join the dive team, we need to know what it is that has brought you here, so we can plan future lessons.”

Andy, between mouthfuls, told them about the case that he was on, ending at the point where he thought that the victims had been kept, in a cavern, with water between them and the outside world.

“That’s a long bow, Andy. I’ve potholed for years, and every cave that fits your description is visited regularly. You say that this guy has been operating for ten years, I can’t think of anywhere that would fit the bill, unless he’s found a new site that has never been explored.”

“There’s one site that has been locked for ten years, or more, and it’s in a secluded place where a night visit would not be noticed. It’s in Creswell Crags and is called the Boat House.”

“I know that one,” Charlie said. “It’s got a grill over the entrance and it’s just an empty space.”

“With a small door, off to one side, that has a danger notice on it. What I want to know is how a padlock that hasn’t been touched, in ten years, looks like it was used every week. Also, why the floor of an open space, that’s only visited by mice and birds, looks like it’s been swept.”

“You have a compelling argument there, Andy. Once we get you on track with the scuba gear, we’ll organise a dive in the lake. Then we can have a quiet look at the cave, ourselves. You will still have to do some potholing, and some underground diving, before I’ll allow you to go in, and I know that you’ll never let someone explore any unknown cave unless you’re there.”

That afternoon, Andy and Alex swam lengths, again, with flippers and goggles. This time they did two laps above water, then as much time as they could underwater, on the next two laps. By the end of the afternoon, Andy was closing in on Alex with his underwater times, although he did have the idea that Alex was holding back for him. Tuesday, he was told, they would start him on breathing from a tank and staying down for a lot longer.

When they had dried off and redressed, Charlie took the fins and goggles and hung the wetsuits to dry. Out, in the carpark, Alex told Andy to be back in the morning, and then he and Charlie got into the truck. As they watched as Andy drove away, Alex turned to Charlie.

“What do you think of that?”

“That’s one hell of a policeman, boss. I did some asking around and found out that he and another detective were going into the kitchen on that restaurant raid and the cook stabbed the other guy. Andy hit him in the head with a straight hand heel and knocked the guy into next week, then taped his mate with blue chefs tape and took him to the hospital at Burton, in that car. If you look closely, it’s got the lights and I’m told it has a two-tone fitted. His father was in traffic, something of a legend, and got the car from an auction up north. It’s a previous pursuit car. I’m told that the father had reflexes so quick that he could have driven Formula One.”

“That accounts for his reaction when I started sinking. I can remember experienced divers who had to think for five seconds before they decided to save me. We’ll put him through the full scuba introduction, tomorrow, and aim for a visit to the lake at the Crags on Thursday. See if you can round up some of the guys for a caving weekend, including some dive time. I think that our Andy is going be qualified by this time next week, any longer and he’ll be ready to bite someone. Also set up a full crew training session on Wednesday, in one of those pools we searched for those sacks.”

When Andy got home, he let himself in and went to have a shower. He made himself a cup of tea and went out to the attached garage, taking off the covers on the 6/80. He wiped over the bodywork and then opened it up to see if it would start. It took a few tries but fired up. He left it idling and opened the big door to ventilate the space. He was polishing the bell and spotlights when Maria arrived.

“Hello, darling, how was your day?”

“Don’t ask! Lee and I met with the detective in Sheffield, and we went to that mines place. What a bunch of bastards they are! First, they didn’t want to even answer our questions, and then, when we told them that refusing to help the police in a murder investigation would see them in court, the manager agreed to look up the records. It took nearly an hour before they found the records book for the right year, and then another fifteen minutes to find the line that noted that the Boat House had been sealed as dangerous. When Lee asked if they had the original report, the guy nearly shat himself. He told us to come back in an hour, or so, and we went off to have lunch. When we got back, he had found the folder where the report should have been. He was apologetic now, but it didn’t make the missing report reappear.”

“Did they give you permission to open the cave?”

“No, they told us that we would need a court order to do that, as once it has been deemed dangerous, it would take an official inspection team to be put together, and that would take six months. Nothing we could say would move him. It’s in the regulations. Phooey to the regulations.”

“So, if I want to get in, it will have to be as an official police raid, with agreement from the head office. I’ll be diving in that lake later in the week and we’ll have a quiet look. If I can get Alex on board, I think that we may stand a chance of getting permission to break in.”

“Alex?”

“DCI Alex Anderson, he’s the dive leader who we worked with on the diving for sacks.”

“Him! He’s a good guy, I never guessed he’s a DCI, he’s so approachable. So, you’re on a first-name basis with him?”

“Yes, he insists that as we watch each other’s backs in the water, we have to be equals as we work. If you remember, all of those divers were like a bunch of pals, rather than a crack squad.”

Andy turned the car off, recovered it, and closed the door. They made some dinner, then walked to the retirement home to see how Auntie was. Tuesday, Maria was scheduled to see Sue and the CS, about getting tacit agreement to open the cave grill, if they had any more reason.

In the morning, Andy was introduced to modern scuba diving. He had expected a tank and mouthpiece, but was shown a full-face diving mask, with inbuilt radio, and a lightweight tank that fed the mask. He, and Alex, spent twenty minutes just sitting by the pool with the gear on, passing the time with Alex asking Andy about his time as a Special.

They changed the tanks to new ones and added weight belts before getting in the water. Andy had the experience of weightlessness for the first time. Then Alex told him that they were going to sit on the bottom for a little while. Then he told Andy that they would take it easy doing a couple of laps, with one hand touching the bottom of the pool. As they went along, Alex started asking him maths questions, to ensure that he didn’t go into a sort of trance, something that Alex told him was a danger when you are floating without any idea of which way you’re up.

In the afternoon, Andy was shown how to change tanks, and then repeat the operation sitting on the bottom. Wednesday, they met at the paddleboats where the last sack search had occurred. They had the full crew with them, and Andy was welcomed as part of the team. Charlie had been there, first thing, and thrown six weighted sacks out as far as he could. On this dive, they all had two tanks and Andy experienced diving in restricted visibility, with plants and debris laying on the bottom.

It took two hours to find all the sacks, Andy finding one. The new thing that he learned was how to attach a marker buoy and fill it with the expelled air from his mask. They all washed off and changed in the truck, then going to a local pub for lunch. Last time he had eaten with these men, he had been a total outsider. This time he was part of the group and accepted as an equal. They were all going to be meeting at the beginning of the track to the Boat House, just off the Crags Road. The team was looking forward to it, all hoping that real work didn’t intervene.

Next morning, Andy parked next to the truck at the end furthest from the Boat House. There was a barrier around them with a ‘Police – Training in Progress’ sign. They decided on a line search, the length of the lake, just marking anything that looked out of place. They entered the water with Andy between two of the crew and kept in contact as they swam along the bottom. The thing that Andy learned, today, was to keep a slow, but steady pace, and to call out when he found something that needed marking. Charlie and another support member were by the truck, monitoring the radio. Whenever anything was found, the diver would call his name, and a description of his find, before releasing the marker.

About two-thirds of the distance to the Boat House, the diver to the right of Andy called out that he was marking what looked like an old scuba tank. Some way further on, the same diver called that he was marking another one. Andy was elated, this was something that could prove positive. When they reached the top end of the lake, Alex called for them to surface and head for the cave with the grill. They all got out of the water and took the scuba gear off. The last thing that Alex had called was for Charlie to pull down the barrier and reverse up the track to collect them.

They stood and talked about what had been discovered during the session. Most of the finds along the main roadside were the usual bikes and rubbish. They had found two old cars, and Alex told Andy that he would contact the Sheffield dive squad to run a training session for the recoveries. When Charlie backed the truck to them, most of the crew hosed off and got changed, before loading up their kit. Alex took a large flashlight from the toolbox and motioned Andy to join him looking in the cave.

With them hidden from general view, by the crew and the truck, Alex slowly panned the light around the cave, taking pictures on his phone, especially the safety door. He also took a picture of the padlock, noticing a serial number.

“I think that you have something here, Andy. That floor is far too clean, the thing is that if it was as it should be, you would be able to see tracks, and just brushing the tracks out would show up. I’m starting to lean towards going in, but first you need the potholing qualification, and we do need to lift those tanks.”

Turning to the crew, he asked for attention.

“Guys; today has been more than a training session, one which you all scored highly. It was also part of an ongoing investigation. Andy and I are going to recover those two scuba tanks, and they have to be brought ashore with full FSI protocols. This is not a drill; this could be very important.”

The two of then put new tanks on and refitted their masks, testing the air and the radio. The truck moved forward, slowly, with the crew all walking beside it. At the first tank, the two donned their fins and went into the water, with Andy pulling a line. Alex talked him through attaching the line and then called for the crew to pull it in, with the two of them lifting it to stop it dragging through the mud.

The crew had a big evidence bag, and, with gloves on, sealed the tank. Charlie gave Andy the line and they went along a little further to recover the second tank. When that was safely in the truck, Andy and Alex got hosed and changed. They agreed to meet in a pub in Creswell, for lunch, and Andy walked the rest of the way to his car, then followed the truck into the village.

After the meal, he was surprised by the crew declaring him a team member and giving him a patch, which adorned all their uniforms, whenever they needed to wear one. After lunch, the crew headed back to their station, and Alex joined Andy, in his car, to go to a store in Sheffield, where Andy would be kitted out with all the kit that he would need to go potholing. After that, Alex guided him to a house, where he got out.

“Tomorrow, you wear what you just bought. Pick me up, here, at eight-thirty, and I’ll take you to some holes in the ground that will test your determination to see this through. On the weekend, pack a case with enough for an overnight stay, as we’ll be going into caves where you’ll learn how to dive, underground. Don’t get too worried, the places where we’re going are large enough to hold a party. Have a good evening and I’ll see you, in the morning.”

The next day, Andy picked up Alex and they went north, beyond Sheffield, into the Yorkshire moors, where they went down holes that Andy thought could be too small to squeeze into. Underground, he was amazed at the size of the spaces, the big ones, and the small ones. Alex talked him through each traverse and insertion, until Andy became happy with the places that he was putting his body. Alex seemed to know where to go and each time they arrived back in the open air, asked Andy if he knew how far and how deep he thought they had been.

As far as Andy was concerned, the day was too short. They sat in a pub, late afternoon, and Alex went through all the things he had got right, and the few things where he was about to go wrong. Alex went through what they would be doing over the weekend. Andy was to be at his house by eight-thirty, again, and he would be able to park his car off the road. The crew would pick the two of them up a little after that and they were off for a weekend of caving, something Alex told him that they all enjoyed.

“I’ve booked the weekend in as another training session. We need to keep up our proficiency so it will be on overtime, including you. When you go home, again, I expect that you’ll be the fastest trainee to get qualifications in both caving and diving. You keep going the way that you are, and you’ll be matching, if not exceeding, my rank. When you get there, I know, from the times we have spent together, that you won’t allow that to spoil you.”

At home, Andy showed Maria a few pictures that he had taken, and caught up with what had been happening at the station. Maria told him that the Super was leaning towards allowing them entry to the cave but needed more proof. Andy had told her about the air tanks that they had recovered, but these did not prove anything, yet. They went out for dinner and then to bed.

Saturday morning, Andy was up early and making breakfast when Maria came down. He put his things in the Audi, kissed her and the left for a day that he knew he had never experienced before. On the way, he thought about the past week. He had never been truly adventurous as a young lad, even though his father loved sports. He thought about some of the spaces he had squeezed through, yesterday, and grinned as he thought of his large parent trying to insert himself into the space.

After they had been picked up by the crew, the trip north was an adventure in itself. Squeezed in between the divers, he could hardly move, as well as hardly being able to breathe. That, though, may have been from laughing at the bawdy jokes. They arrived at a gate to a field, with a ‘Danger, potholes!’ sign. Charlie assured him that they had permission to be here, as Alex got out and opened the gate so the truck could park. The ‘Police Training’ sign was put next to the gate and the dive team got suited up.

Wearing runners, they walked into the field, to a fenced area. From the approach, Andy couldn’t see anything unusual, but, at the fence, he looked into a big dip with a hole in the side of it. Opening the gate, Alex led them, carefully, down to the hole, and then addressed the group.

“Guys, this is the first underground dive for Andy, and I don’t want any monkey business on his first dive. Andy, with this cave, we have to walk in, then negotiate some tunnels and fissures before we arrive at the lake. We all carry our tanks and fins to the water’s edge. The flashlights are waterproof, and you will consider it as part of your body, never drop it. You’ll only need the one tank and, although we can use the radio down there, Charlie will find it hard to hear us once we’re in the water. If we get into trouble, and you’re able to, get back here and alert Charlie. The local cave rescue team has been told that we’re here. Remember, this is good fun but also life threatening, which these guys consider as part of the fun. Let’s get our act together and get inside.”

Marianne Gregory © 2023

Chapter 6

Andy had a little help from Charlie as he made himself ready. It would be a bit different, negotiating tunnels with a weight belt and tank on. The mask was hooked to a snap lock on the harness, and Charlie gave him a short cable with a snap lock on both ends to attach the flashlight to the belt. The fins went on another snap lock, and he felt that if he had to walk very far, like this, he would need a rest before he could do anything.

The last things that were handed out were waterproof bags. Charlie told him that there were a few light wands in it, which can be used to light a cavern. When these were added to the load and they were all ready, Alex led them into the cave, with Andy flanked back and front by crew members. He was surprised when he found a set of wooden steps, leading down.

“We don’t clamber as much as we used to,” said the man behind him.

At the bottom of the steps, Alex was already in a fissure, and they all followed him, now using their lights. The fissure zigged and zagged, but mainly went down. When Alex led them into a huge cavern, with masses of stalactites and stalagmites, he stood while they all emerged from the fissure. Then he led them towards the back of the cave, where the floor sloped down to a ledge with water lapping at it. Andy pointed his light across the water and saw the wall of the cavern about twenty feet away.

Everyone was quiet as they changed from the runners to their fins, then donned the masks and tested the air. Alex took a rollcall, and they all said “Here.” Then, one by one, they carefully got into the water. Andy was surprised, as he had expected it to be cold, but it was reasonable.

Alex then led them towards a large hole in the back wall, underwater, and they all entered. It was quite large for most of the swim but did narrow in places. Andy was fascinated by the air bubbles that gathered in hollows in the roof. They must have swum for about fifteen minutes when that emerged into a larger body of water. Another five minutes and they arrived at a ledge and Alex went up, breaking the surface and then waiting until they all joined him, answering the rollcall.

“Light wand coming up, save your batteries and close your eyes. Don’t take the mask off, Andy, the air in here isn’t too nice.”

When Andy opened his eyes, the light showed him to be floating, next to a ledge, in a giant cavern that amazed his senses. He had never thought that such color would be this far underground, but then realised that the formations, over his head, had been formed from water seeping through many layers of different rocks, so giving the variations. They stayed there until the light wand spluttered and then Alex told Andy to lead the way back.

He turned and orientated himself with the way he thought they had come, then allowed himself to sink, before pushing off from the cave wall. He had counted off the seconds, in his head, when they had emerged, so did the same on the way back, not being far out when his light showed the wall coming up. He was about ten feet to the right of the tunnel entrance and veered towards it, before stopping to see if everyone was behind him.

Alex called, “I see your light, leader, take us through.” Then Andy went into the tunnel and back to the original cave pool. One by one, they surfaced and told Charlie who they were, before getting out of the water, drying with towels that Charlie had. The whole crew shook Andy’s hand to congratulate him on his first cave dive.

Putting on the runners and making sure that their kit was secure, they walked back up through the fissure and then up the steps and into the sunlight. At the truck they hosed off and changed into the potholing kit, then they went to a country pub for lunch, with Andy told that his was free, for being successful with his first cave dive.

“But it wasn’t that bad, guys!”

Charlie put up his hand to stop the others answering.

“Andy, that dive is about four minutes to the tunnel, another fifteen to twenty in the tunnel and a good five minutes at the other end, to the ledge. I expect that Alex kept you all there to take in the view. Now, seeing that you were the first to surface, I expect that Alex told you to lead. How far was he out, boss?”

“About ten feet to the right, Charlie. He’s got the spatial awareness of a fish underwater.”

“What’s the worst you’ve had, down there, Alex?”

“That’s easy, we had a belligerent Inspector who ended up back at the ledge. He didn’t pass the course and then wondered why.”

In the afternoon, they went to another hole in the ground, this one needing a key to get past the gate. It was different, in that they went in as potholers, carrying the scuba gear in hold-all’s, through caves and fissures that Andy saw had markings over the various tunnels they entered. He asked about these and was told that they were there for safety, and that there were similar markings on the way back.

“People have died, down here. It’s too easy to get lost in a labyrinth. Takes a lot of the fun out of it but you don’t have to carry as much string, these days.”

When they had reached the water, they got changed and put their clothes into waterproof bags, then started swimming. Andy saw that the tunnels, underwater, were still similarly marked. There were caverns which had two, or three, exits, and Alex had told them that they were taking the blue line. This time, the passages were a lot smaller, and Andy had to calm his nerves as he wriggled his way through an impossible gap. When they did surface, they were in a large cavern and Charlie was waiting for them with towels and some thermos flasks of hot coffee.

Climbing up a reasonably wide cleft in the rock, they emerged, some way from the entrance, with the truck parked for them to clean the kit and get dressed again. If they had packed badly, they would have had to put on wet things, as a punishment.

That evening, at the hotel where they were staying, they again congratulated Andy on getting through, and awarded him another, smaller, patch that showed a diver, inverted, with bubbles going past his feet. After the others had a few drinks, Andy found out that the cave that they swum, this afternoon, had been a training cave for Alex and two of the others, before they went to Asia to help save a team of young soccer players. Charlie told him, quietly, that only one in twenty would go through the tightest sections.

“We’re all in awe of you, young man. You have done, this afternoon, a dive that we’ve only taken those who had been diving for some weeks. That you did it, without complaint, is a credit to you. It showed us that you trusted us to not lead you into an impossible place, something others couldn’t do. Tomorrow is all fun, a cavern that’s almost as good as a swimming pool in the city, with a freshwater waterfall, no less.”

After a good sleep and a hearty breakfast, Andy found that the dive was easy, the water clear, and the cavern that they did emerge into had a beach, a small hole in the roof that let in light, along with the waterfall. They relaxed and played three a side water-polo with a ball that needed to be blown up, and then got back into their kit to go back to the entry cavern, then into the daylight for the trip home.

After Andy and Alex got out and had their bags next to them. One of the other divers called out that they looked forward to diving with Andy again. Then Charlie drove away, leaving them at the curbside.

“I’ll expect that you want to get back to your home, Andy. I’ll see what I can do about a key for that outer padlock, I have a friend who is very good with such things. We have the number. When I get the key, we will have to take a trip to the Crags and have a look at the lock on the inside door. If we’re lucky, he would have used something off the shelf for that, seeing that the grill is locked. Consider yourself qualified enough to go in there when we have it open. I’ll organise your certificates during the week.”

“Thank you, Alex, sir. You’ve been brilliant in getting me this far. I expect that I’ll find some time, into the future, to go underground again.”

“You certainly will, because I’m going to put you on the official list for the rescue team. All our guys are on that, along with a few others who have done what you did this weekend, even if it did take them a lot longer to get there. We’ll have a full set of kit made up for you, along with coveralls with the patches on them, should we have to do something in public view. Now, go along, I need to see my wife for a couple of hours this weekend.”

Andy went home, his new patch resting in the speedo cavity on the dashboard. When he got home, he showed Maria the patch.

“You’re holding it upside-down.”

“No, sweetheart, it’s supposed to be like that. Inside a cave, under water, with a weight belt on, you don’t know which way is up unless you can see the bubbles, and when there’s no light, you can’t see the bubbles. It’s a small patch of that black humour.”

They unpacked his bag, adding things to the wash hamper, then had afternoon tea before going to the big store in Tamworth to look at a new queen-size bed. On the way, Maria didn’t take long to bring him up to date on the case. Sally had the list of the residents of Ferry Road, and all had checked out as clean of anything worse than traffic offences. Maria had gone through the employee list from the coal museum, and none matched the other list. Lee and Sue had been to see the CS a couple of times but there had been no movement on getting permission.

“I’m ready to scream,” said Maria. “While we were waiting for his mightiness in Sheffield, I nicked some sheets of his letterhead. I’m about ready to write our own permission.”

“Darling, if we weren’t on a major road, I’d kiss you. Alex thinks that he has a friend who can get us a key for the padlock. If we can get in and see the other lock, close up, we might be able to have a set of keys. Then we can front up at the museum and pretend that we have both the keys and the permission. If we get that far, we’ll be able to see if there’s really something on the other side of that door.”

“If we go that way, we can get one of their guys to be with us when the door is opened. I’m pretty sure that they’ll insist on that.”

They chose a bed and arranged it to be delivered with the old one taken away. Then, because they had gone from king to queen size, they needed a complete set of new sheets, blankets, and pillowcases. They celebrated with dinner out and saw Auntie in the evening.

On Monday, they went to the station, together, and settled into their corner desks for Andy to see the paperwork that had come in. Andy was intrigued when both Sally and Lee insisted on running through their progress with him, showing him the lists of names.

Sue asked him how he had got on with his course, and he told her that he had qualified, so would be able to go into the cave, once they were able to. As she walked away, she smiled, having had a conversation with Alex, last night. She wondered at Andy’s apparent lack of boastfulness, as there were many who would have made a lot more of what Alex had told her that Andy had achieved.

Later in the morning, Alex came in with a smile on his face. He had a key, which, he told them, would, hopefully, open the grill lock. Sue, who had joined them, asked them what they were going to do, looking at Andy.

“We need to be very careful about this. We should make it look like were just sightseers, and make sure this gets us in, so we can have a close look at the inner lock. Maria has a plan for when we get the second key. How about we meet, at the Crags Museum, tomorrow, say mid-morning, and go for a walk, like normal people, stopping at the grill and crowding around while Alex tries the key. If he gets in, he can go in and take pictures of the inner lock and be out again in minutes.”

“That’ll work for me,” Alex smiled. “I’ve been told that the Sheffield recovery team will be pulling the cars we found from the lake. I want to introduce Andy to the DCI, seeing that he’s going to be on the register for the national rescue teams.”

“What! You never told me that! You mean to tell me that you’ll be gallivanting over the countryside, pulling idiots out of holes in the ground.”

“Maria,” laughed Alex. “I command the local rescue team and there’s no-one I’d want more to be coming to save me. We put Andy through the tunnel that we used to train for the Asian soccer team rescue. Imagine crawling under your car, a hundred feet underground, with nothing but water around you, and you’ll have some idea of what Andy achieved on Saturday. Your man is one in a million.”

There were gasps from those around them. Andy was blushing and felt embarrassed. Even more so when Sky called out.

“I’ll vouch for that; he saved my life.”

They worked through the day, with plans made for the next day. Maria mocked up a test letter on the computer, which sounded pompous enough. They left early, with the bed to be delivered late in the afternoon. At home, that night in their new bed, Maria made sure that Andy knew how proud she was of him.

The next morning, they parked in the Crags Museum carpark, next to the four by four that Alex drove. They could see him talking to Lee, Sally, and the detective from the Sheffield CID. They all met, like friends and then strolled out, along the path, past the picnic ground and to the grill. They pretended to look in, while Alex used his key to open the lock, walk to the door and take several pictures of the lock. He bent down and picked something up, then returned to them, clicking the padlock shut. They continued their walk along the path, and he gave Maria the item that he had picked up.

“Oh my God! That’s a hairclip! There must be a girl down there. We didn’t see that when we looked in, before, so it must be recent. We have to get in, even if we break that bloody door down!”

“Hold back. Maria. You told me that the other girls had been kept for up to three months. This one has only been in there a week or so. We keep to the plan, the second lock isn’t as old as the first, so we might be ready to roll at the end of the week, early next week at the latest. If we open the door, and find something interesting behind it, I’ll use my clout to make a proper search. It will need my team and that lot across the lake. This is their patch. Come on, let’s talk to them.”

They carried on, around the lake and along the Crags Road where they could see a tow truck pulling an old Escort out of the lake. Alex showed his card to an officer who wanted to move them around the action, then strode towards a man looking over the activity.

“Joe, old pal, how are you?”

“Alex, thanks for this chance for my guys to get some training. What else did you find, down there?”

“Not a lot, mainly bicycles and a couple of fridges. We left all the markers for you if you want to extend the session. We did take a couple of items out that might be part of an ongoing case, though. That’s why we’re here. Let me introduce you to a small CID squad from Birmingham.”

He beckoned the others over and introduced them. Stating their ranks and names. Joe was amazed.

“You’re here with a CID team who are all constables, there has to be more to this story.”

“Well, yes. The odd one is from the Sheffield CID. My four works with Susan Cousins. Andy and Maria were the ones to crack the cannibal restaurant case, earlier in the year. Sally, so I’ve been told, was a WPC on that raid, and Lee was sent over from Harborne with the case files that they’re now working on. It took me some time to get my head around what they’ve come up with, but this morning I passed the point of no return. If you’ll allow your team to get on with it; we can explain what we think, when there’s no-one within earshot. I’ll tell you, it’s wild.”

They all moved away from the activity and stood looking over the lake.

“Joe, do you see the grilled cave across the water?”

“Yes, that’s the Boat House, it’s been shut for years, safety reasons, I believe.”

“We think that there’s a girl in there, probably on a ledge that’s only accessible by a swim through a cave tunnel. If she is there, she will be the fifteenth, we think, over the last ten years. All had been taken from the streets and all died by drowning in limestone filtered water. When Andy told me what they thought, last week, I wasn’t ready to believe him, but the more I’ve worked with him, this week, the more I’ve come to trust his thought process. The girls were taken from Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, and Nottingham, and were all dumped next to coal mines, except the last two.”

“I remember those cases, they seemed unsolvable. If you’re right, it’ll be amazing and will go down in the record books. Look, if you’re behind them, I’ll come on board. What do you want?”

“If we go in, it will have to be with divers with FSI accreditation, as there aren’t any diving FSI officers. I’ve got two in my team.”

“I’ve got one. Who else will be going in?”

“It will be me and Andy, and my two.”

“Andy, the lad, what experience does he have?”

“In the last week he qualified as a diver and as a caver. We sent him through The Coffin on his second cave dive and he breezed through it. I’m adding him the register of rescue contacts.”

“That’s high praise, coming from you. All right, let me know when and I’ll be here, with my kit. I’ll be coming in with you.”

They shook hands and the group carried on to the car park.

Before they left, Alex smacked his head.

“I forgot to tell you. Those two tanks we pulled up were both old ones; they used to be around until about ten years ago, when the lightweight ones became available for the general public. If there are any in the cave, I expect that they’ll be modern ones like the ones we use.”

The Sheffield detective went off to report to his superior, while Andy and Maria followed Lee and Sally back to Birmingham. At the office, they briefed Sue on the current situation and showed her that hairclip.

“Not much to go on, but it is strange to be there. Come on, you lot, I’ll take you up to see the Super, he has told me that he wants constant updates. If you have Alex and now Joe from Sheffield on your side, we are getting some high-powered support.”

The Chief Super heard them out and agreed that things were coming to a head.

“If we have a strong belief that there is a girl, somewhere behind that grill, we have to act positively. When you’re set to move, I’ll let the AC in on what’s happening. We’ll block the place off with uniforms from Sheffield. You tell me that there’ll be three FSI accredited divers going in, so that will help the evidence collection. We’ll need paramedics as well. We’ll make enough of a circus, that even if there’s nothing there it will be a good exercise.”

“We won’t be going in until we’ve made certain that there’s something worth going in for, Sir. When we get the second key, we’ll just have a peek inside, probably with someone from the museum to see if there’s any finds that he can spot. He won’t be allowed in after the first entry and will have to wait until we’ve cleared the cavern of anything we find.”

“What do you expect to find, Andy?”

“A prisoner and ten years’ worth of spam tins, Sir, for a start.”

For the rest of the day, they revised and arranged what evidence they had. At first glance, where they were now was on a hunch, added to with Alex saying that there wasn’t any other cave that fitted the bill. It was only the limestone filtered water that tilted the scales towards a cave, otherwise, the prison could be any one of millions of cellars and sheds in the area.

Wednesday, Sue had a call from Alex. He had been able to get a key for the second lock, so the next episode was about to begin. Maria told Sue about her plan and Sue couldn’t help but laugh at the audacity and insisted to be the one to present it to the Museum manager. Maria printed off the letter giving permission to look in the cave.

They met Alex at the museum car park. He had the two keys on a ring and smiled when Sue asked for them. By then, the Sheffield detective showed up with his Inspector. Alex and Sue went into the museum to see the manager. They came out, after about twenty minutes, with smiles on their faces.

“He didn’t like it, but Sue waved the paper in his face and told him that obstructing police in a murder investigation could see him in the dock. We have to wait for one of his archaeologists to join us. It will take him a few minutes to kit up and will join us at the grill. I guess we’d better get into potholing mode, eh, Andy?”

“You bet, Alex. I just hope that it’s all been worth it.”

“It was worth it just to see the look on that guy's face.”

Andy and Alex took their bags into the museum toilets and came back out with the potholing coveralls, helmet with light and the big boots on. They all walked towards the grill and waited for a few minutes before they were joined by a woman in similar attire.

“Hello, I’m Janet, and I’ve been wanting to look in this cave ever since I got here, but it’s been locked. What do you think we’ll see?”

“Well, Janet, I’m Alex and this is Andy. What we want to see is evidence that someone’s been into the cave in recent times. Anything else is your business. I’ll tell you one thing, right now, and that if there is the evidence we’re looking for, you can’t come back into the cave until we’re finished with it. So, you had better make good notes and take pictures of what interests you, while we do the same with what interests us. OK?”

Marianne Gregory © 2023

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

Chapter 8

Andy got up and went to the bag that held the extra kit that they had brought with them. They went off to the left end of the ledge and he stood, with his back to her, as she put the wetsuit on. He checked her for wrinkles. Then they went back to the bag, and he pulled out a weight belt.

“Any idea of what you weigh?”

When she told him, he took off a few weights and helped her put it on. Then she put on the harness for the tank.

“Right. What we do now is have you put this mask on. We then sit for five minutes while you get used to breathing with it. It’s just like breathing in normal conditions. I’ll wear mine; they have radio so we can still talk until you think that you’re ready to go.”

They spoke about what she was going to do, after she was outside.

“I don’t know, go back to standing on a corner, I suppose.”

“That’s not likely, Andrea. You will be wanted to talk about this on radio and TV. You’ll be able to sell your story to the magazines. I know where we can get you dressed for success. You could even get work here, digging in the upper cave. There are years of work there, and Janet, the girl from the Museum, is a nice person, who will need a helper, especially one who has explored this cave, something she won’t get to do before we’ve cleaned it out.”

“Do you think so? That would be brilliant. I’m getting too old for the streets, more suited for a brothel, somewhere. I think I’m ready to go for gold. Where am I, anyway?”

“Have you ever been to the caves at Creswell Crags?”

“A couple of times when I was studying.”

“Well, you’re some hundred feet below, and several hundred yards further into the hill from the Boat House.”

Andy clipped the tank on the harness and walked her to the beach. He got her to sit down and put the fins on. Then he secured his own tank and weight belt, gave Alex a nod, getting a big smile back. Securing the evidence bag in his waterproof pouch and turning off the recorder, he took her hand, and they started swimming towards the wall of the cave.

“Are you all right, Andrea?”

“Yes, this is wonderful.”

“OK. Now, think like a seal and we’ll go down some.”

She kept a strong grip on his hand as they went down, and she saw the tunnel opening ahead. Knowing that this was the only way to freedom, she also knew that she could trust this man beside her, he was unlike the men she had known before. They swam, almost leisurely, through the tunnel. She found it hard to believe that the weightlessness was real, and wondered if it felt the same in space.

When they got to the other lake and surfaced, she had a problem with the bright lights and kept a tight hold on Andy’s hand until they reached the ledge.

“Give me your hand, miss,” Charlie said, softly. “Me and Jack here will have you on dry land, quick as a wink.”

She let go of Andy’s hand and put hers up, to be quickly lifted onto the ledge. One of the FSI officers stood by her as Andy was lifted out. They quickly took the mask, tank, harness, and weight belt from her as Andy took off his own. Taking off the fins, she was given a pair of runners to put on, then a team coverall. Andy was similarly dressed.

“I must look a mess.”

“No miss, you look like a miracle, to me,” said Charlie. “To paraphrase Harry Potter, you’re the girl who lived.”

“See, Andrea, you’re already a celebrity and you haven’t reached daylight yet. Now, Charlie, do you have some sunglasses, Andrea has been in semi-darkness for about two weeks. I’ll be back to help with the transfers, in a while.”

She put the sunglasses up on her head, smiled at Andy, and put her hand out. He took it in his and led her towards the sunlight. At the doorway, she could already see how bright it was and put the glasses over her eyes. He went into the Boat House and the turned to help her emerge. As she came out, there was a cheer and applause. Maria came up to Andy and gave him a hug and a kiss.

“Maria, this is Andrea. Can you go with her to the hospital to make sure no-one gives her a hard time. I think they’ll take her to Sheffield, so I expect that our friendly Sheffield detective will join you. I need to talk to Sue, and then I’m going back down. If you give me your keys, I’ll drive to the hospital, when I’ve finished, and pick you up. When you find out where she was taken from, let Sheffield take over.”

She got the keys for him, as the paramedics took over. Andy stood and watched as the ambulance took Andrea and the two detectives off to the Royal Hallamshire. He then went over to where Sue and the team were waiting. He pulled the evidence bag out of his waterproof pouch and handed it, along with the recorder, to Sue.

“She knew him. He had been a lecturer at a course she had been doing. He had left a bunch of books down there, and this one is interesting.”

Sue looked at it and passed it to Sally, who let out a little shriek.

“That’s the Ferdie that we were told used the grinder into the evening. He lives next to the pub on Ferry Road. We were that close!”

“There’s one other thing. I didn’t tell Maria because she would have driven off to pull someone’s head off. The guy used to be an underground workings specialist and worked as an inspector for the Inspectorate. I expect, Lee, that the brick wall that you knocked your head on needs a little talking to, hopefully with hot coals and a branding iron. Lost file, indeed!”

Sue gave him a hug.

“Solved it all, it’s a great job. We’ll get straight on to this; quite likely we’ll have him in the cells before you finish with carting spam tins. Look after yourself, down there. I have spoken to the AC, while you were down on the ledge, to give him the good news. It was better than reality on the screen.”

Andy turned to look at the screen, seeing Charlie hauling a sack out of the water, the diver changing his tank before going back to the other cave. He told the others that he would see them later and went to have a drink from a thermos on the dive truck. On the way back, he saw Janet, looking at the screen. He went over to her.

“Janet, the girl we brought out is called Andrea, and her time, underground, made her think about her life. She had studied history and had wanted to work on a dig. She told me that there was a fissure at the back of the end cave, leading to a space where she thought must have been open to the air, at one time. She said that it was full of remains of animals that had fallen in. I don’t know what era. Can you see if you can recruit her to help when you work down here? I expect that there’ll be a fair bit of money to do the research, seeing how good the things I’ve seen are.”

“For you, Andy, I’ll do what it takes. I’ve been talking to a lot of policemen while you were down there, and they all told me that it was you and Maria that drove this case, with opening the cave all down to you. If we get to the point of creating names, the big cavern is going to be called the Barton Cavern.”

“As long as the end cave is called Andrea’s Den, I don’t mind. Have to go, now, work awaits.”

He spent several hours, going back and forth through the tunnel, with sacks of rubbish and some sacks with evidence bags in waterproof pouches. When they were finished, he stood, with the other divers, on the ledge. Alex told them that it had been a good day and Joe congratulated everyone for a job well done.

“While we’ve been here, I had a look at the bit where she said she was told to shit. It’s a natural outlet and I think I could hear rushing water, some way below. That means that this cave has never flooded. It would be good to do a proper dive, to have a look at what’s on the bottom.”

Alex laughed.

“Talk to Janet, I’m sure that she’ll welcome some professional volunteers, when they get to that point. Andy, the last item to leave is the airbed. Now it’s been deflated, you get the honour of giving it to the FSI so that they can call it a day.”

They all kitted up. And went to the water’s edge. Andy had the last nightlight, which he turned off to put in his waterproof pouch, plunging the cavern into total blackness, until the divers turned on their own lights. As he entered the water, he took a last look at the ledge and then submerged, to start the trip back to city life and crowds.

When the ten of them were stood on the ledge, with Charlie and the Sheffield crew fussing over the kit, Andy gave the FSI man the last evidence bag. He looked around and saw that the boxes, and all the rubbish, had been removed, along with the camera and cable. They picked up their kit, along with extra tanks that had been emptied, and made their way, in single file, back to the big cavern. There, Alex got his flashlight and told the others that it was time this place was back in darkness. When they were all ready, he pulled the power cable from the alligator clips,

With Andy at the rear, now with a cable in one hand and his tank in the other, they followed the fissure back into the light of day. Alex went to the truck and got two, new padlocks with keys. He gave them to Janet,

“Janet, as far as we’re concerned, the cave is yours. There’s nothing in there, now, that pertains to the case. When the guys have pulled the rest of that power cable out, you can lock it again, with these new locks. We will want to use the outer cave for a little while, to change.”

They all got their bags from the two trucks and changed into their normal clothes. Then Janet locked the door, then the grill, as the two crews shook hands. They were then joined by the CID DCI from Sheffield.

“Well Joe, I think that your lot has earned a drink, on me, before you knock off.”

He looked at Andy.

“Your DCI shot off like a rocket, early on. What gives?”

“I gave her the name of the murderer, Sir. It was someone that we knew of but had never spoken to. He had dumped the last one close to his house, and something that Andrea said, in the cave, makes me think that he wasn’t too well. We’ll find out when he’s arrested, that’s where DCI Cousins was going.”

“Well, I never. You saved the life of a victim and solved the case. That’s good going for any detective. You can come and visit us, in Sheffield, any time you like.”

“He may do that,” said Joe. “He’s on the rescue list, and from what I saw of his work, today, it’s well deserved. You taught him well, Alex.”

“He’s a good student, Joe. And no, you can’t borrow him.”

They all had a laugh and Andy picked up his bag.

“I’ll see you later, Alex. I’m taking Maria’s car to the hospital to pick her up.”

The Sheffield officer grinned.

“Follow me, then. I will need to get my guy back to the office.”

As Andy turned to go, the FSI Inspector gave him a paper bag.

“Those are the contents with the things for Andrea. Seeing that she wasn’t dead, she can have them back, although I don’t think that she’ll want to be seen, in daylight, in the dress she had been wearing.”

Andy and the Sheffield DCI walked to the cars. As Andy followed him onto the main road, the lights went on and it sped up, Andy grinning as he followed, all the way to the hospital.

Maria was waiting at the entrance when they arrived. She gave Andy a hug and told them where to find Andrea. Andy showed her the bag that he had been given and she took it from him.

“Keys, please. We were wondering about what to get for when she leaves here. I’ll pop off to the shops and get her something nice to wear. See you when I get back.”

The two men walked towards the ward where they found Andrea, in a three-bed room, on her own, with the detective sitting on a chair. He stood when they entered.

“Good afternoon, Sir. Andrea has had a lot of tests and some blood taken. She’s in good spirits, considering what she went through. There are just the blood results to come back but I think that she will be out of here before long.”

“That’s good, constable. I’ll have a word with her then I’ll take you back to the station. You did well in helping the Brum team to get this far, it will be noted.”

The DCI went over to Andrea, to ask her to come into the station to make a formal statement, when she could, and then Andy’s phone rang. It was Sue. She asked him where he was and, when he said that he was at the hospital with the CID from Sheffield, she asked him to put his phone on speaker. They all stood by Andrea’s bed as he did so.

“Andy, we rang the Ironbridge station to see if they could put a watch on Shields home until we get there. They told us that the constable had seen Shields leave, in his van, on Tuesday afternoon, of last week. When the constable spoke to him, he said that he was going for a holiday, for his health. The constable told his superior about it, saying that old Ferdie seemed to be very short of breath. We did a call to the airlines and the ferries and found that an F. Shields had a one-way ticket to Brazil, booked for that night, leaving from Heathrow. The thing is that he was a no-show. We took a guess that he would have been taking the M40 and came up trumps. Our murderer is in a morgue in Oxford, waiting for someone to claim the body. What’s left of his van is in their pound. The story is that a couple of squad cars were coming up behind him, on blues and twos, and he suddenly sped up and raced ahead of them before veering off the road and rolling, several times.”

“Sounds like a heart attack,” whispered Andrea. “He was breathless on the last time I saw him.”

“Absolutely right, Andrea. That’s the finding. We’re sending Lee down to collect his papers, tomorrow, and bring the keys back so that we can open the house for FSI. I know that it’s not the best ending to the case, but it is a closure, of sorts. The AC is going to hold a press conference, on Monday, and he wants the CID from Sheffield, Nottingham, and Manchester to attend. I think that he will outline the case to the press and name the murderer. He wants you, Andrea, to attend. Will you be happy if I put you into the care of Maria and Andy for a while? They’ll keep the sharks away once it’s known that you were rescued. I’ve already had my pal, Jackson, on the phone. There has been some YouTube activity about the circus at the Boat House, today, and he smells a story.”

“I’m happy to stay with them if they’ll have me. I don’t think that I can face my old companions at the moment. I’ll just need to go to pick up some things from my digs.”

Sue ended the call and Andy could see the detective from Sheffield looking like he was about to explode.

“That bastard in the Mines office. He was covering for a murderer all the time. I’ll rip his bloody head off!”

“Surely,” asked the DCI. “You had permission from them to open up the cave?”

Andy shrugged.

“You’d better know it all, Sir. The manager took a long time finding the book with the note of closure of the cave. Then he took a lot longer finding the empty file that should have had the safety report in. Lee and I think that he was covering for Shields, who had worked as a Safety Inspector, out of that office. Maria had pinched some letterhead from the manager’s desk, and we forged a permission letter to go with the keys that we had made. It was Sue and Alex, both DCIs, who forced the museum into letting us do the first search, then that’s when we put the event together that you saw today. He was spoken to on the Monday of last week, with Shields leaving home on the Tuesday. I think that some phone records need to be looked at.”

“So, the manager of the Inspectorate can now be classed as an accessory to murder? I think that you, my fine young detective, can be the one to arrest him, in his office. If we leave now, we can do it before close of business. Thank you for being frank, Detective Barton. That bit can stay between us. Come along, constable, we have a bit of arresting to do. I’ll see you two at the media do, when I get an official invite.”

When they were alone, Andy asked Andrea how she felt.

“Surprisingly good, Andy. All that time without junk food and alcohol has done me the world of good. I could have spent a thousand quid in a wellness spa to get the same result. You don’t mind putting up with me for a little while?”

“No, we won’t mind. We have a spare room for you. We have a place in Solihull. Maria has just gone to get you something to wear when they let you out of here. I was given a bag with the things that he removed from you when he took you down there, so there’s probably underwear and your handbag. FSI told me that you would look a little underdressed if you wore what was in the box.”

“If I have something normal, that’ll be good. We can loop by my digs, and I can pack a bag. The rent’s paid up for another few weeks. You two are being fantastic, I’ll never be able to pay you back.”

“Just get your life back on track. That will be all we will want to see. I spoke to Janet, and she said that she’ll get you a place on the dig team. I expect, now that we have our man, so to speak, that she’ll be wanting to put in proper lights and start sifting through the bones in the first cave. I think that Joe and Alex will offer the services of the two dive teams to have a look in the bottom of the lakes, at both ends of the tunnel.”

The door opened and a doctor came in, with a clipboard in his hand.

“Well, miss. You have a clean bill of health, from me. The only thing off is the vitamin D count. You really should get more sunshine.”

Andy and Andrea were still chuckling when Maria arrived, with bags in her hand.

“Out, Andy. We girls have got some preening to do. Can you leave, yet?”

Andy went into the corridor and saw a drink dispenser, further along. He went and bought himself a drink and the sat on a chair and thought about how they would work, from here. There would be all the paperwork to complete, the press conference to attend, the house on Ferry Road to look at. He thought about the ones they hadn’t known about, and he had a sudden idea. He rang Sue, in the office.

“Sue, the ones that we hadn’t known about. In the prison cave, there was a hole, to one side, that sounded like there was an underground stream, some way below. He might have just hit them, then dropped them down the hole, it would be just large enough. The only place, in the near area, where there’s a lot of water, is at Welbeck. Can you check if there had been any floaters found there? It would have been ten or more years ago.”

“Will do, Andy. Your guesses have been good, up to now. I’ll see you and the girls on Monday morning. We’ll be going to Sheffield for the press release. I want you to look smart. We’ll have Sally and Lee, as well as Alex. Our Chief Super will be there, as well. It will be a shock to the press, not having any information to hit us with, while there were girls being murdered and dumped. The AC has taken all the files so that he can present a complete picture. He wants to talk to us, privately, afterwards.”

When Maria and Andrea came out of the room, he stood,

“Andrea, you look good. I’ve spoken to our boss. We have until Monday morning, when we have to be at the station. I expect that there’ll be a bus taking us to the press conference, in Sheffield. The Assistant Commissioner will be fronting that. Now, do you want to go and pick up some things?”

Maria gave him the bags.

“You can ride in the back. We’ll need to loop by the dive headquarters to pick up your car once we leave Sheffield. Andrea has said that there are some normal things that she would like to have, along with her cosmetics. You can sit and wait for us to sort things out.”

They went to Andrea’s home, then to the dive headquarters so he could pick up the Audi. Maria drove off and he went inside to make sure that his kit had been stored. Alex was still in his office, filling out paperwork.

“Hi, Alex, working late, I see. I’m afraid that I had to tell the Sheffield DCI that you and Sue got us into the cave with a forged letter. He said that it would stay between us.”

“Why was that?”

“I’ve been told that Shields left for a trip to South America, the day after Maria and Lee had spoken to the manager at the Inspectorate. He was going to Heathrow and didn’t make it, having a heart attack along the way. We will have to recover his body from the morgue at Oxford.”

“So, he was going to skip the country, leaving Andrea to die down there.”

“Looks like it.”

“What’s happening with her?”

“We have the job of looking after her until Monday. You’ll get a message to attend a press conference in Sheffield. The AC will be calling it. Sue wanted me and the girls at the office, that morning. I think that she’ll organise a bus for us all. What are you and your wife doing, Saturday evening? I can get us a table at a fantastic restaurant. I want to treat you to a good meal, as thanks for putting up with me and going along with my mad ideas. In fact, I think I’ll try to book a big table and invite Sue and Mervyn, I think he’ll enjoy seeing the place.

Marianne Gregory © 2023

Chapter 9

Andy took the card out of his wallet and rang ‘Off the Bone’. When he put his phone away, he laughed.

“Jim told me that if I can get the team in, he’ll set up the function room, on Saturday evening, just for us. He is still happy with us, and the place is, or so he said, going gangbusters. The room is big enough for your team and their partners if they want to come. I’m sure that Jim will have enough food for us all. Here’s the address, it’s smart casual, and we’ll meet you at seven. Now I’ve got to round up the others.”

“With what you’ve done, this week; I doubt that that would be too hard. Now run along, I’ve got real work to do.”

Before he got in his car, he rang Sue, again, and passed on the invitation for Saturday evening. He told her that the whole team, and their partners, were invited. When he got home, he told Maria what had been arranged, and she wondered if Dave and Jenny would be able to join them again.

They had settled Andrea into the spare room and had dinner around the kitchen table. Andrea looked around.

“You know, this is just like my old home. Our house was built around the same time. The more I’m with you two, the further I get away from that cave, as well as what took me there, in the first place. What else have you in mind to show me?”

“Well,” smiled Andy. “We have an invitation from Jim, at the ‘Off the Bone’, to have our whole team for a dinner, in their function room, on Saturday evening. I think that it will be an experience not to be missed. Alex and the dive team are coming, so you’ll be able to see them all in a much better place than when you last saw them. I think that they’ll all be happy to tell you how relieved they were to see you, even if you were gobbing off at us.”

It had been a long day, and they had an early night, Andrea looking forward to sleeping in a proper bed, with the curtains open so she could see the moon. Andy had Maria snuggled into his shoulder.

“Darling, there is a little bit of news that I had, while you were shopping for Andrea. It added to something we found out in the cave. There was a book down there, with a note that it was to Ferdinand Shields. Andrea knew him, as he had given lectures at her college. He worked as a Safety Inspector at the Inspectorate of Mines.”

He felt her stiffen.

“And you failed to tell me that little thing!”

“Yes, I needed you to be unstressed to look after Andrea, and you did it very well. Since then, I have spoken to Sue; and Ferdi was heading to Heathrow to skip the country, the Tuesday after you went to Sheffield.”

“I’ll rip that guy’s head off, the sneaky bastard!”

“You’ll have to wait in line. The Sheffield DCI and the DC were going from the hospital to arrest him, just before you came back with the shopping. I think that he’ll be spending a few nights in the cells, while they trace his phone calls.”

“All right, there has to be more. What about this Shields?”

“He’s in a morgue, in Oxford. He was heading to Heathrow in his van, when a couple of squad cars came up behind him, in full flight. He must have thought that they were after him, had a heart attack, and the police said that the car sped up before going off the road, and rolling, several times.”

“So, that’s it, then? No arrest, no trial, no extra work to get the prosecution up to speed. It’s not long before you turn twenty-five and we have to decide what we do; we can think about our future.”

“Yes, my love, we have a future. Now, we have a guest, how quiet can you be?”

They took it easy, the next day, with Andy busy with washing and vacuuming both cars, after which, the vacuum was brought inside and he had the task of using it, from the upper floor to the downstairs. Maria and Andrea kept themselves busy with dusters and polishing rags. It was, overall, very relaxing and a good break from the stress, for all of them.

On Saturday, they took the Audi to the dress shop, where Andrea was fitted with a classy wrap-around in varying shades of darker blues. She tried to tell them that they shouldn’t do this, but Maria assured her that it was all part of the plan. A plan to introduce her to the world at the press conference. For that, Collette came up with an elegant skirt suit and silk blouse.

That evening, when they arrived at ‘Off the Bone’ they were greeted with hugs by Jim, who told them that he was over the moon at seeing all of the team that raided the place. He asked about the group of strong-looking guys and Andy told him that they were the dive team that found all the clothing from the victims, as well as the car with the girl in it.

They went up the stairs to the function room, finding the tables crowded with friends and well-dressed women. Alex came over, with his wife, and then took Andrea to introduce her, formally, to the men who had saved her life. Jim stood next to Andy and asked the question.

“Who is that girl, she is certainly being feted by those guys?”

“I told you that they’re the dive team. This week we found where she had been imprisoned, underground, and left to die. She has so much courage, I’m in awe. If you read the papers, next week, you’ll find out the rest of it.”

Maria had seen Jenny and Dave, sitting at a table. Andy had to look twice at who they were sitting with. They went over to say hello.

“Good evening, Sir,” he said to the Assistant Commissioner. “I’m pleased to see you here, with your lovely wife.

“I just had to come when young David, here, told me about the dinner. It isn’t often that I visit the scene of the crime, these days. Is that lovely girl, with Alex, the one you took out the cave the other day?”

“Yes, Sir. That’s Andrea, and she is getting her life back together. Maria and I are looking after her and will be bringing her to the event on Monday. Do you want to be introduced?”

“Not now, maybe later in the evening. Now, is it possible to look at the cellars, here?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, I’ll find Jim and get him to show you. The lift now has keyed lock for the basement, and the lift is the only way to it.”

He left them to find Jim, Maria in conversation with Jenny. As he started to walk from the table, Dave stood and joined him.

“Let’s find Jim then have a small chat, Andy. You will have questions about how I’m here with the AC. There are wheels, within wheels, and you, my boy, are being talked about in high places.”

They saw Jim and told him that the Assistant Commissioner would like a personal tour of the basement. Jim had a big grin on his face as he went towards the table.

The two of them went out to towards the top of the stairs, where Dave looked Andy in the eyes.

“You, Andy, have a problem. That is that you love policing, and you are so good at that you have been noticed. When you get noticed, it often leads to being ordered to do something that you don’t want. I’ll come clean with you, and this stays between us. I do work for the Anti-Terrorist Squad, but I am also with another, far more secretive, government force; one that you would never have heard of. When you left our dinner, after I told you about the website, I was intrigued enough to pass your name onto another member of the squad, who lives near here. He made it his business to find out what you were up to, and he came back to me with the information about your case. Even he was surprised at what you found, in this very building.”

“That would be the spook who visited Sky Walker in hospital?”

“Oh, dear. I’ll have to tell him that he was rumbled. You’ll have to introduce me to Sky; he sounds like a canny man.”

“So, where does this leave me and Maria?”

“Some time, next week, you are going to meet a couple of very highly placed people, who will make you an offer. I can’t tell you what it will be, as news of your latest success will need to be processed before they make it. All I can tell you is that it will solve a lot of your worries, and maybe use some of those skills that my big brother taught you. He kept me up to date with what you achieved, in the week, and I have to say that you are an exceptional investigator, the sort of officer the country needs.”

“So, you and Alex are brothers?”

“We are, but we don’t get to see each other very often. I went for that rescue team course, once, and flunked. They had to pull me through a very tight space after I froze. I’ve never put a mask on since. Anyway, let’s get back to the room; I’m interested in how much Jim praised you when he was in the basement with the AC. And I want to talk with that lovely lady you brought with you. She was, what, the fifteenth victim?”

“You’re so far behind the times,” grinned Andy. “There were sixteen boxes of clothes in the cave, before hers. We’re going to try and trace the other two, next week.”

They went back to the ladies, via introducing Dave to the rest of the team from Aston, as well as Terry, now at Harborne. Sue had brought Mervyn, who had also been involved with the cannibal case, if only as an advisor. Mervyn asked Andy if Jim would like a few boxes of the new ice-cream dessert that he had been involved in developing. Sue said that if they had that dessert on the menu, she would be coming back every Saturday night. Andy had a good meal, sitting at a big table with a lot of friends, along with his future wife and, he suddenly realised, two people who he had saved from certain death. At one point, Andrea leaned his way and whispered.

“If someone had told me that I would be eating a dinner with this many coppers, I would have told them they were crazy. The really crazy thing is that all of these coppers are so bloody nice! Even the, what do you call him? The AC. Last one of those I saw was in a hotel room, and the fan rattled.”

After the meal, Jim came out and asked if those who had been in the raid could gather, down by the lift doors with the letters, for a group picture, seeing that they were all here. It was, he told them, a small price to pay for the evening. He had organised a photographer from the local paper, to record the occasion. They all trooped downstairs and arranged themselves in front of the lift doors, for their picture. When they went back up to the function room, Andrea asked Maria what that had been about.

“Oh, that was because we wound up a case here, a little while ago. You may have read about it in the papers. This was where young men were ritually killed and parts of them cooked for the diners. The criminals are all doing a lot of years in jail for that.”

“I read about that in the papers. ‘The Cannibal Tribe of Birmingham.’ It was horrible. So, this is the group of officers who broke that case. Wow, you guys should have been given medals.”

“We did get commendations, which, to a copper, is better than a medal, because it’s on your record, for life.”

“Will you get commendations for saving me?”

“Probably a couple will, but not all of us. It depends on the AC, and how much hoo-ha he wants to create at the press do on Monday.”

For the rest of the night, and all-day Sunday, Andy thought about what Dave had said. He wondered how he could do policing work, along with whatever they had in store for him. He would, he hoped, find out next week.

Monday, they went into the station and then boarded the bus for Sheffield. Andrea thought that it was a little like the school outings of her youth, though, this time, she was dressed like the teacher. At Sheffield, they were taken to a police gymnasium, which had rows of chairs at the front for them. There was a small dais, with a microphone. The press were there, in force, with some TV cameras and lights. Eventually, the AC got on the platform and cleared his throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press. I have called this meeting to tell you about a series of deaths that have been largely under-reported, or, in some cases, not reported at all. Over the last ten years, a number of women had been murdered and dumped, in the open. All had been sex-workers, and all had drowned. My office can give you a sheet with all the names that we have, as well as where they were found. A lot of the places, where they had been found, were sites of old coal mines, with a few that didn’t match, until a team of young Detective Constables were given a set of old files to work on. It is they who took the total number of linked cases from the six they had, to thirteen, spread between Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, and Manchester.”

He looked around at the press.

“Then there was another, this time the victim was discovered in the old Tar Tunnel, near Ironbridge. She had also been drowned, and carful testing of the water, in her lungs, showed that she had died in limestone filtered spring water. This led a very capable detective, Andrew Barton, to the conclusion that all had been kept in an underground cavern, likely only accessible by an underwater swim. Not being accredited with any caving or scuba skills, he was sent to learn by his superior, DCI Susan Cousins. Not only did he achieve accreditation in both sets of skills, but he did so well that he is now on the rescue register. Such was his determination that he would be the one going to look for the next likely victim.”

There was a buzz among the journalists as Andy blushed.

“The problem was to locate the cave. Now, Andrew had the idea that the locked cave, known as the Boat House, at Creswell Crags, was the most likely, and, by various means, he, and DCI Alex Anderson, the diving leader, managed to get the keys needed to enter that cave. They did so, for the first time, on Wednesday of last week. What they found made sure that a full exploration, including underground diving, had to happen. This occurred on Thursday, a joint operation between Birmingham and Sheffield, using both teams of divers. They found, when they had swum through a long tunnel, another cave. In that cave was an abducted girl. Could you come up and show your pretty self to the press, Andrea.”

Andrea stood and went to stand beside him as there was a barrage of flashes.

“Andrea had been in the darkness of that cave for about two weeks, others had been there for an estimated three months before being murdered. There was evidence, in her prison, that gave the detectives a lead on who the murderer was. His name was Ferdinand Shields, a retired Safety Inspector for the Inspectorate of Mines, here in Sheffield. I say ‘was’ because he died in a car roll-over, on the way to Heathrow with a one-way ticket to Brazil in his wallet. Without the determination of the team of Detective Constables, and the help of their superiors, this lovely lady, standing tall and proud beside me, would have been left to die, a long and slow death in the dark. At this point, we usually ask for questions, but in this case, I have given you everything that you should know. My office will be able to answer your questions. Thank you for coming.”

There was a clamour of questions shouted as the AC led the Birmingham and Sheffield officers out of the gymnasium, through a side door flanked by a couple of uniformed officers.

In what looked like a changing room, he turned to the assembled officers, and Andrea.

“I think that went pretty well. The press have enough to dig up all the stories they want, and you all get a little breathing space before they track you down and want your side of things. My men are clearing the gym, and we’ll have to wait for them to do so, because this room doesn’t have another exit. It looked good, but that’s about it.”

There was a general chuckle and that broke the tension, allowing the different groups to talk for a while in relative peace. Andrea asked him what was going to happen with her, now.

“Now, my dear, you will be a celebrity for a while. They all got your picture, and, if I were you, I’d get myself an agent, so that you can make hay while your sun shines. My officers will be tasked to look after you, as long as it takes. Andy and Maria are due for some down time, so they can be your guardians, if that’s what you want.”

The door was opened.

“It’s clear, now, Sir, but they’re all outside the front. The bus from Birmingham is out the back door, if your guests want to leave that way.”

“Thank you, sergeant. Now, I want to see the Sheffield contingent, in your conference room, this afternoon. I will meet your team, Sue, tomorrow morning in the conference room at Aston. Before you all go. It was a brilliant plan last week and executed perfectly. You’re all a credit to the force and the co-operation has not gone un-noticed. Andrea, you have shown bravery and determination to live that will be an ongoing part of you, even if it hadn’t been apparent, before. Now, get along, I’ll go out the front and the press can talk to me.”

The atmosphere in the coach back to Birmingham was lively. Sky came to where Andrea was sitting and introduced himself as the first one that Andy had saved, embellishing the tale as he told it, while Andy wanted to curl up in his seat on the other side of the aisle. Maria could hardly stop herself screaming with laughter at the look on his face. Back at the station, Sue told Lee, Sally, and the others that they had time off until the meeting on Tuesday, while the rest of the team grumbled as they went back to work.

Before they left, Sue gave Maria a note.

“This is an agent that we have used to represent other high-profile witnesses and victims. He knows what’s needed to maximise the returns for Andrea. You have an appointment with him, this afternoon.”

The five of them went to a pub for lunch. Lee and Sally were a little awestruck after the press conference, never having been to one before, as well as wondering what tomorrow’s meeting will involve. They had a relaxing lunch, Andrea thanking the two for helping with the search for her.

“I have so many people who I owe my life to, it’s not something I have had, before. For too many years I’ve been on my own, without friends. On the street the only ones you can trust are yourself and your instincts. All the other girls would push you under a bus if they could snag a good customer out of it. Without that time, on my own, I could never have started thinking this way. Mostly, though, I’m indebted to the four of you, who worked out what was going on and also figured out that I, or another girl, was somewhere, hidden away.”

That afternoon, Andy waited while Maria took Andrea to see the agent. Then they went home and took Andrea to meet his Auntie.

Tuesday morning, the three of them were in the conference room, with the rest of the team, when the AC came in, with the Chief Super.

“Good morning, officers, and lady. It’s not often that I get to be at a meeting like this. Last time I was here, I handed out commendations to every member of that team who solved a very nasty case, involving eleven murders. Today, the case included sixteen suspected victims, as well as Andrea, who was the intended seventeenth. I know that not all of you worked on the case, directly, but I have been told that DCI Cousins makes sure that all of you have briefings and that all of you have input. With that in mind, once again, all members of the team will get a commendation added to their record.”

There were gasps and smiles as Sue thanked him on behalf of them all.

“There will also be a commendation added to all the dive team, while the Sheffield officers got a note added to their records, for a job well done. We have claimed the body of Shields from Oxford, along with all the contents of his van, which are with FSI. Ironbridge have secured his house. I can tell you that FSI found a sound system with a tape of grinder noises, which is how he was able to be away in the evenings without anyone knowing. The manager at the Inspectorate has claimed that he thought that Shields was using the cave to hide stolen goods or illegal drugs, and has been allowed to go home, on bail, after being charged with obstructing the police.”

He turned to the CS, and they spoke, quietly. Then the CS stood.

“I have to thank you all, once again, for a job well done. Now, if you can look after Andrea, Sue, we would like to have a short word with Andrew and Maria.”

The others all filed out, the CS holding the door and waiting until they were around the corner and out of sight. He nodded to the AC.

“Come along, you two, there’s a couple of people in my office who want to have a word.”

Maria took hold of Andy’s hand as they followed him to his office. Inside, the CS went behind his desk, which had two, very well-suited gentlemen sitting beside it. They were shown two chairs while the AC came in and sat to the other side of the desk.

When they were sitting, one of the strangers, who wasn’t so strange to them, spoke up.

“Andrew and Maria, I can see that you have recognised me as the Minister in charge of the police. I’m here so that you can be certain that what you are about to hear is all totally approved and above board. This gentleman, beside me, cannot be named, so, for the moment, we can laughingly call him ‘M’. He is the officer in charge of a squad which is intended to seek out terrorists, both here and overseas, who do not have the best intentions towards this country. You already know one of their men.”

Andy nodded, while Maria became more worried at where this was going. Were they going to take her Andy away from her? ‘M’ cleared his throat.

“You two are in a very unique situation. On one hand, you are both exceptional investigators, on the other, you are both worried that when you marry, you will be split up. I can understand that. We have done some background searching into both your histories and found that we have a job for the two of you, that also ensures you stay together. Now, if you other gentlemen leave us, the rest is for these two, only.”

The AC and CS left the office, much to Maria’s amazement.

“Now, we have a proposal for the two of you. Refuse and you carry on, taking what life throws at you. Agree and you are certain of exciting, and dangerous times, working in the best interests of the country. Are you in?”

Andy looked at Maria, who smiled and nodded.

“Yes, Sir. I believe that we’re in.”

“Right. Andrew, you are due to inherit the dress shop that your mother has deeded to you, when you turn twenty-five in, what is it, five weeks?”

“Yes, Sir. That’s the terms of the will.”

“We want you to resign from your present positions and take up the dress shop. I say ‘resign’ but this will only be a token, as you will both be part of my group, with continuation of service and the usual increases in rank. When you marry, you will be able to present a real front, with nothing made up in a back-room. Then, you will be able to go overseas on buying trips, tour the manufacturers in this country, even expand your operations. All of it as a cover for your work for us. We need people with your insight and imagination, to discover those small things that lead to us cracking bigger organisations. It could be tedious, it could be dangerous, it will certainly be appreciated by your Government. No matter how it pans out, you will be together, using all the skills that you have, between you. Have I your agreement?”

Maria looked at Andy before saying, “Yes, Sir, we are looking forward to working for you.”

“Good, now run along and join your team. DCI Cousins has been advised that we were going to talk to you but hasn’t been told why. It won’t be a surprise to her when you resign. Take some time off, make sure that the girl Andrea gets something to do in life, she is wasted with what she was doing. I can tell you that one of our sidelines will put some money into funding the dig in the cave. I saw the pictures and it will be a job for life, also likely to advance our knowledge of the prehistoric.”

As they were going back to the CID office, they entered the lift to go down. When the doors closed, they held each other tight and kissed. Maria murmured.

“I love you, Andrew Barton. Double O seven.”

He smiled.

“I love you too, Maria Barton. Double O seven and a half.”

As the door opened on their floor, she laughed.

“Yes, buster! The better half, and don’t you forget it!”

Marianne Gregory © 2023.