Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
The convoy of unmarked police cars followed by two marked vans made their way up the narrow, winding road to the old Buttermere Summer Camp.
Ben had the warrant clutched in his hand, and Morgan thought that if he’d been pissed off and angry earlier, the waves of fury that were emanating off him now made her feel more than a little uncomfortable.
She had never, since the day she met Ben, seen him this way.
She wanted to reach out and touch him, tell him it was okay, but he was in the passenger seat, Marc was driving and she felt out of her depth if she was honest. She had wanted this, wanted Amos’s house and outbuildings searched again, so this was partly her fault.
What she hadn’t wanted was to upset Ben to this degree, and she needed to know why he was so against it; this wasn’t like him.
He was always nothing but professional to let his personal feelings cloud his judgement like this, and she wondered if the blow to the face he’d received earlier had maybe done a little more damage than the purple-yellow bruising that covered the left side of his jaw.
They drove as far as they could and parked outside of the gates.
A dark figure stood watching the cars, not moving, and Morgan felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle as her skin broke out in goosebumps, then a dog lumbered around the side of it, and she released the breath she’d sucked in and been holding.
It was Amos and Shep. She felt a little foolish and was glad she hadn’t gasped out loud.
‘Wait here,’ Ben barked at her and Marc.
She watched as he got out of the car, tugging his coat around him to keep the wind out, the warrant was clutched firmly in his hand.
‘What’s going on with him?’ Marc asked without turning around to look at her.
‘I wish I knew.’
‘What, he hasn’t said anything to you about why he’s so against this?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I don’t get it, that guy is good for it, don’t you think so? Lives here, in the middle of nowhere with all this land and no neighbours nearby. Has plenty of places to hide bodies too.’
‘Maybe it’s his gut instinct telling him no.’
‘Yeah, I get that, but you can’t rule out the possibility they could be our person of interest because you like someone.’
Ben was standing, head bent against the wind, talking to Amos. He turned around and beckoned them.
‘Well, I guess we’re on.’
‘I guess we are.’
They got out of the car and Morgan shivered at the biting wind that nipped at her face.
The search officers slammed the van doors as they got their search kits out.
Amos led the way and they followed behind in a line.
She didn’t miss that he was limping badly tonight, and poor Shep wasn’t walking much better. She wondered how Amos had hurt his leg.
The house was lit up, every window shone warm yellow light onto the wilderness of the fell which guided them towards it through the bitterly cold night.
Morgan turned to look at the dilapidated cabin that Tori had been found hiding inside and shuddered.
This was raw, not to mention terrifying, and as much as she wanted Ben to be right about Amos, she was praying he was wrong and they would find those two missing women scared, but safe somewhere on this property.
Amos led them into his home, no questions asked, no anger, just a determination to do the right thing judging by the set of his jaw as he nodded at each and every officer who came inside.
‘Look, I don’t want to get in your way. Use the kitchen as your base, it’s got that big old farmhouse table in it. Where do you want me to be while you search?’
Ben glanced at Morgan. ‘Amos, if you could wait here with Morgan while we look around that would be the best thing.’
Morgan felt a brief flash of anger. Why should she be babysitting this man who could be a violent killer? She wanted to be out there searching with the others and opened her mouth to disagree, but Marc stepped in.
‘Actually, I want Morgan out searching. Ben, do you want to wait with Amos?’
‘Whatever you think, boss.’
Ben didn’t argue, he didn’t even make eye contact with Marc or her, and she felt that icy chill settle over her again as she wondered what was going through his mind. Morgan pulled some gloves out of her pocket and tugged them onto her fingers.
‘Amos, how many outbuildings do you have?’ Marc asked.
‘Four and a crumbling shed, well if you don’t count the old cabin that the girl was in yesterday. God, it seems like it was ages ago, not just a day. How is she doing?’
‘She’s holding it together, as well as she can be,’ Morgan answered. She was the only one who had spoken to her. ‘Do we need keys for any of them?’
Amos nodded and took a keyring off a hook next to the back door, passing it to her.
‘They’re a mess, full of dust, spiders and possibly rats so be careful out there. I can’t be responsible if you hurt yourselves. You are doing this of your own volition that is documented, right? I don’t want to get sued if somebody falls or gets in trouble.’
Ben and Marc nodded.
‘Yes, this is our doing. Is there anything out there that we should know about, Amos? If you do have anyone out there who shouldn’t be or anything dangerous hidden away, now is the time to talk about it,’ Ben asked him.
‘To be honest, I don’t know what’s out there, plenty of broken furniture, old rusted up tools, lawnmowers, the odd chainsaw that kind of thing. To my knowledge there is no person out there, hiding or being kept hidden.’
Marc nodded. Morgan looked to Ben, who finally met her gaze and smiled at her, and she smiled back.
He looked so angry underneath it though, and she just didn’t get why that was.
She followed Marc and the rest of the search team outside, tugging her beanie hat down over her ears and zipping her coat as far as it would go.
‘Morgan and I will take those two buildings; you take the other two and somebody go back to the main building we walked past. Check for attics, cellars, trap doors, anything where a person could be hidden. We might be looking for bodies though at this point, so bear in mind forensics. If you think you’ve found something, stop what you’re doing and don’t go trampling all over the scene, shout me over the radio. ’
They split up, and Morgan followed Marc into the first outbuilding which was the size of a small barn.
As he pushed open the door, they both turned on their torches, the beams of light picking up the thousands of dancing dust particles.
Morgan sniffed the air, it smelled damp and fusty, but there was no stench of decomposition lingering in it.
They stood still, not moving a muscle, straining to listen for any signs of movement.
A slight scratching from somewhere froze Morgan to the spot.
Then tiny scurrying as claws scrabbled across the wooden floor, and Marc whispered, ‘Mouse, I hope, because I bloody hate rats. Big ugly things with sharp teeth. Did you ever read the book The Rats, by James Herbert?’
Morgan nodded at him, eyes wide, not quite believing he was about to talk about books right here and now, when he barely talked about anything personal when he had the perfect opportunity.
‘You did? Me too, I read it far too young. Gave me nightmares for weeks and an irrational fear of them that I still carry with me. Do you know how hard it was working nights in Manchester, all those takeaways, the backstreets would be full of them, huge ones, scurrying all over the bins to get to the waste food.’
He shuddered, and Morgan smiled at him, not sure if he could see her trying to commiserate with him while wanting to tell him to shut the fuck up, this wasn’t about him.
She turned away from him and began walking in the direction that the scratching came from.
Marc hovered behind her, following for ten steps before stopping again.
‘I’ll cover your back from here.’
‘Well thanks, boss, that’s great. Appreciate that.
’ Her voice dripped with sarcasm that was probably lost on him because he had the worst sense of humour.
She shone the torch around, walked right to the back and checked all the dusty corners.
Apart from the mice or rats, there was no place else in this building for anyone to hide.
No trap doors, no steps up to a hayloft.
Just lots of broken machinery that was all rusted and no use to anyone.
‘There’s nothing back here.’
‘Right, good. Let’s check the next one then.’
Marc moved so fast she thought that he may have just ran back outside, and she shook her head. ‘What a hero he was, he couldn’t get out of here fast enough.’
Outside, he was waiting in front of the next building for her. Morgan brushed past him and opened the door. Stepping inside, this one smelled a lot worse than the other. Marc followed her inside. ‘Jesus.’
She wrinkled her nose at the smell of manure.
‘What the hell?’ Marc had a hand cupped over his nose. ‘That’s disgusting.’
‘No, that’s cow shit.’ Morgan laughed.
‘What for? Oh, God.’ Marc began to make a strangled sound in the back of his throat, and Morgan thought to herself that he was as much good as a chocolate fireguard.
‘It’s okay, I’ll check it out. You wait out here again.’
She pulled her polo neck jumper up enough so that it covered her nose and mouth, then stepped inside.
Her torch light picked up a pile of manure so tall it was like a miniature mountain.
She made her way around it. If there were bodies in here, it would be the perfect cover for them, you’d never smell them over that.
Squeezing herself behind the pile, she had to push herself against the wooden slats of the wall so she didn’t touch the pile of cow dung.
Her foot stood on something hard, and she felt a crunch underneath it.
Shining the torch down she saw a pink iPhone that now had tiny cracks all over the back of it thanks to her heavy Doc Martens.
‘Hey, I found a phone. A pink one.’
‘Really, you better leave it in situ, Morgan, and get forensics to come get it.’
Morgan looked around for anything else, but there was nothing she could see, so she slowly backed out and made her way outside. Letting her face free, she sucked in deep breaths of the fresh, cool air.
‘I’ll get Wendy here to take a look.’
‘With all due respect, sir, if that’s Scarlett’s phone we could be wasting precious time. Why can’t I go back in, photograph it and collect it in an evidence bag? Wendy will be at least an hour to get here. It’s pointless and besides, for all we know it might belong to Amos yet.’
‘Go on then, make sure you don’t touch it without gloves on.’
She rolled her eyes at him, not caring if he saw her.
‘Obviously.’
He didn’t try to stop her and she felt a fizzing in her stomach that signalled to her things were about to take a turn. She didn’t know yet if that turn would be for better or worse, but at least they had found something. And she wasn’t about to stop now.