The Scent of Death

Twenty-six

Plot reminder: It's the middle of the night. Another anonymous has arrived.

*

No words passed between us as I lowered myself into the passenger seat, our greetings reduced to solemn nods of the head as if on our way to the funeral of a dear mutual  friend. Perhaps sensing the grimness of the task ahead, Dudley too settled himself down onto the back seat without his usual stir and commotion.

With a jerk of the gearstick, off we crept through the streets of Littleford, ghostly in their emptiness. The streetlights periodically washed through the interior of the car before we were plunged once more into the darkness.

"The edge of the forest," I murmured. "A back road a few miles west of the village of Camberdale."

Ben nodded, my words a momentary distraction from the thoughts which heavied his brow. Out now into the countryside, the three-quarter moon grew starker, a multitude of stars now visible, tiny pinpricks of light shining through the inky membrane of the sky. The headlights swept through the darkness with the same stealth another vehicle had a little earlier sneaked its way along the back roads of the county. A white van carrying the most abysmal of loads.

In rural Wynmouthshire, early hours traffic is rare. Few were the vehicles we passed floating south as we ploughed northwards, occasonal pairs of blinding headlights emerging from round corners - five, seven, ten minutes  passing before the next came into view.  With only the foxes and owls and sleep-disturbed cows to bear witness, there is nothing to check evil desires from becoming brutal reality. Nothing at all. As easy as turning on the TV. As lying to a child.

We were around halfway through our journey before Ben finally broke his silence.

"Wilkins is wrong, The copycat can't be from another part of the country. He must be a local man, have some kind of link to Frankens. Whoever it is sending these coordinates knows the pair of them, is aware of their activities. Frankens' van will be in custody of the county forensics team, so the guy must have put a GPS tracker on *both* their vans. It's the only logical explanation to all this."

I gazed out of the window, the dark huddled forms of sleeping cattle distinguishable in a passing field.

"I don't think we're supposed to look for logical conclusions, Ben. Ours isn't to analyse or make sense. We're just supposed to keep following the coordinates, that's all. They"ll lead us in the right direction. Eventually, lead us to the answer."

He glanced across at me, lowered his brow in silent thought once more.

It was quarter-to-five by the time we passed through Camberdale, the only sign of a life an interior light in a high street bakery, a single silhouetted figure slinking along the street. An hour or more still until the village - as the wider county - would begin to rouse itself from its slumbers. Almost two until the full glow of sunrise would filter through the gaps between bedroom curtains.

Opening up my laptop, I acted as navigator for the short final stretch of the journey. A right turn past a farmhouse, then left onto a single lane back road, the glow of the headlights bordered to either side by the low grey structure of dry stone walls. A mile or so, then left once more onto a bumpy dirt track, the treeline of the forest now visible through the driver's window - its outline jagged and looming like a row of giant stalagmites, a pure black stain upon the canvas of the night.

"Here," I whispered. "He must have parked the van somewhere around here."

Ben pulled to a stop, thrust up the handbrake. Let out a deep, laboured exhale.

"Can't have dragged them far." He tilted his head towards the trees. "Like Rebecca and Meghan, they'll be just inside the treeline."

Kayleigh too, I remembered. The burial site had been little more than a hundred metres from the backroad which had bordered those dark, dismal woods.