The Scent of Death

Sixteen

Plot reminder: Jennifer has just received a second anonymous coordinate...

*

"Hi Jennifer, what's up?" His voice sounded sleepy, ready to go to bed.

My own by contrast was half-panted, never more urgent. "You at home?"

"Yea." His affirmative carried a tone of suspicion. "What's go---"

"A mile or so past Hollerby," I interrupted, "there's a back road leads off the A412, heads down to the bank of the river Wyn."

He was quick on the uptake. "Christ, another coordinate?"

I was in the hallway, scurrying around in search of essentials: car keys, a warm coat, Dudley's harness and lead. A task hindered somewhat by having the phone clamped to my  ear, an agitated Labrador squirming around at my knees. I needed a flashlight too, I thought. I had one somewhere. Where the hell had I put it?

Ben's voice too now bounced with movement, the hectic gathering together of things. "Just that? A coordinate, nothing else?"

"Not the most verbal of types it seems."

"And you tried calling back?"

Finally, I uncovered the flashlight - there behind my cagoule hanging off one of the hooks at the back of the coatstand.

"Number unreachable," I replied.

"Different SIM, like we expected."

The location was a thirty-minute drive from Littleford, I calculated, twenty minutes from Wynmouth."You'll get there before me," I told him. "You need to go all the way down to the river, half a mile or so from the main road."

I stopped for a moment, took a calming breath.

"But please Ben, just be careful out there, okay."

*

The night was fresh but not breath-cloudingly so.  A three-quarter moon was blurred behind a ceiling of high, wispy cloud, the occasional star winking through a gap. As the headlights bore through the darkness, my heart thudded like a war drum: strong,  rhythmic, persistent. What was it that awaited us there on the banks on the river Wyn? My stomach squished and knotted at the possibilities. Another body, I wondered? The murderer himself engaged in some unimaginable act of horror? There hadn't been another young girl reported missing in recent days, but - oh Lord - there was always Meghan. We still hadn't found Meghan.

As I passed through the village of Hollerby, I squinted at the road ahead in maximum concentration. Judging from the digital map I'd consulted, the left turn towards the river would be difficult to spot, little more than a dirt track. Indeed, I almost drove right past - the junction, such as it was, obsured from view by the final of the modern-build detached houses which lined the northern extreme of the village. Signalling at the last moment, I jerked the steering wheel sharply to the left - a manouvre which heralded a disapproving beep of the horn from the driver behind. Dudley too let out a muffled bark of protest at being tossed unceremoniously around the back seat.

The lane ahead was narrow, a thinness emphasised by the walls of hedgerows to either side. The headlights illuminated three distinct stripes - a slim, grass-topped line in the middle sandwiched by two thicker, paler areas of tyre-bared soil.

I pulled to a stop, killed the lights.  Though not the steepest of river valleys, there was a certain level of descent towards the Wyn. Even hidden by the hedgerows, someone down on the river bank looking back up the incline would detect the glow of approaching headlights. For the same reason, I would have to avoid switching my torch on.