Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
Ben had booked Amos in again to be interviewed formally this time, and Morgan had heard Jo, the duty sergeant’s, displeasure with the pair of them loud and clear.
Clutching the evidence bag, she had gone upstairs to the CSI office to see if Wendy was around, and had breathed a sigh of relief to see her hunched over her computer, engrossed in whatever she was doing.
She didn’t even look up. Morgan gave a slight cough and Wendy jumped off her chair.
‘What the hell! You scared the crap out of me. What are you doing sneaking around, Morgan?’
Morgan went and sat on the empty chair opposite her. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I wanted your advice.’
Wendy looked at the evidence bag Morgan was holding and shook her head.
‘I’m going to tell you now that it’s a bad idea. Whatever crazy scheme you’re thinking about, reel it in and don’t give in to those intrusive thoughts.’
Morgan grinned at her. ‘We found this phone in one of the barns and it doesn’t belong to the guy who lives there, but…’
‘But?’
‘Well, it could belong to a lost walker or someone; it might not necessarily be evidence.’
Wendy screwed her eyes up so tight Morgan couldn’t even count the frown lines on her forehead, there were that many.
‘You want to take a look at it and see if you can get into it?’
‘Yes.’
Wendy shook her head. ‘You don’t need me to tell you that it’s a big no from me, do you?’
Morgan sighed. ‘I don’t, I’m tired, we haven’t caught a break all day and we don’t know where those two missing girls are. This might have captured something useful on it; it might be our only chance to save them.’
‘Emotional blackmail, that’s low.’
‘I’m not saying take it out of the bag and touch it.’
‘No, then what are you saying?’
‘That we put a tiny slit in the evidence bag, stick a charger in the port and see if we can find anything.’
‘No, you’re going to have to send it up to HQ and mark it urgent.’
‘That’s going to take too much time, Wendy, we don’t know how long they could have left.
They could be out there somewhere freezing to death, and we’re going to let that happen because we’re too afraid to look for some clues as to where they could be.
Scarlett is sixteen, Wendy, Janey Moore is twenty-four.
They didn’t deserve whatever has happened or is happening to them.
We owe it to them to at least take a look, and if you find anything significant, we’ll send it to HQ. ’
‘You’re really going hard with the emotional blackmail, pass it to me.’
Morgan held out the bag, and Wendy took it from her.
‘We might be jeopardising crucial evidence.’
‘We don’t know who it belongs to; we might be saving their lives.’
‘Have you booked this in?’
Morgan shook her head, and Wendy looked at the bag. ‘You haven’t even documented it and put your reference number down.’
‘I know.’
‘You were going to look at it anyway whether I agreed or not to help you, but you thought you’d share the burden and get me involved anyway.’
‘I just want to help them.’
Before either of them could change their mind, Wendy snapped on a pair of gloves, picked up a pair of scissors and slit the bottom of the bag just enough that she could feed her iPhone charger through it.
Pushing it into the charging port through the slit, she placed the phone on the desk, and they both watched it, not daring to breathe and hoping that it was going to charge.
An empty battery icon appeared on the screen, and Morgan leaned across and high fived Wendy.
‘I can’t believe that you’re going to take me down with you. What will we do after this? I don’t have any other skills.’
‘I can’t believe you’re so pessimistic, nobody is around. Nobody knows and we might save someone’s life. Sometimes you have to rebel against the system to get the results that count.’
Wendy shook her head. ‘You’re a bad influence.’
‘I know, I get told that a lot but it’s all for a good cause.’
‘I hope so.’
They both sat in the dark, staring at the phone screen, waiting for it to come back to life, and they were so focused on it they never even noticed Cain who crept in and yelled, ‘Boo.’
Both women screamed in unison. Cain slapped his thigh and roared with laughter. ‘You crazy women, what in the hell are you doing? Put a light on, it’s not as if you’re paying the electricity bill.’
Morgan, whose heart was thudding so hard inside her chest, had a good mind to stand up and slap him for scaring the shit out of her.
‘We’re busy, we didn’t have time to put a light on.’
Cain flopped down in the empty chair next to Morgan and tilted his head at her.
‘I think you’re up to no good, why else would you be sitting in the dark? This is very exciting. What have you blackmailed Wends with to make her your accessory to whatever crime you’re committing?’
‘You have a suspicious mind. You should be a detective.’
Cain laughed even harder. ‘Funny you should say that. Come on, spill the beans, Brookes, what are you doing, whose phone is that?’
‘I found it in one of the barns up at the old summer camp.’
‘Ooh, interesting, is it the missing girl’s?’
‘What do you really think we’re doing?’ Morgan’s voice was laced with sarcasm.
‘I think you’re being naughty and tampering with evidence.’
Wendy looked up at him, her eyes wide, and Morgan felt bad that she’d put her into this predicament. ‘It was all my idea; Wendy didn’t want to.’
‘Really, you didn’t need to clarify that one, Brookes. Look, I’m not going to go running to the boss and tell tales; in fact it hurts me deep inside my heart that you might think I would. I want to know as much as you where they are, and if this is going to help then who am I to judge?’
While they were deep in discussion, the screen came to life, and a picture of a podcast cover filled it.
Cain pointed to it. ‘That’s the podcast Janey Moore and her friend Lizzie Thomas host; Amy found it before and we were listening to it.
They are really good too. This is so awful, it has to belong to one of them. ’
All the guilt Morgan felt was replaced by a tiny spark of hope that flared inside of her chest. Wendy swiped the screen up, and Morgan, who didn’t expect it to unlock, held her breath as the screen filled with apps.
Wendy turned to stare at her. ‘Holy crap, it’s not got a passcode or anything.’
Cain shrugged. ‘Not everyone can be bothered with that kind of stuff, you jammy buggers. Who would have thought that?’
Morgan stared at the screen, not quite believing what a stroke of luck this was. ‘Can you go onto her photos and see if they took any of the summer camp?’
Wendy nodded and opened the photos app, and photos began to load. Wendy shook her head. ‘This is crazy.’
‘But brilliant,’ whispered Morgan.
Morgan and Cain both scooted their chairs around to Wendy’s side of the desk, as close to her as they could get, and leaned over to look at them.
‘It’s all dark, but look, click on that one. Isn’t that the cabin we found Tori in?’
As the photo enlarged and the cabin filled the screen, Wendy grinned at her.
‘What’s that video of?’
Wendy pressed it and the grounds of the summer camp came into view; it was a bit shaky because whoever was filming was moving pretty quickly.
‘For whoever watches this if we post it, we might not yet, it depends on if it’s good enough quality and we won’t know that until we review the footage, but if you are watching this is the haunted site of the old Lakes summer camp, which was steeped in tragedy from the day it first opened.
There are many tales of tragedies that have happened on this land, and some say that it’s cursed.
Apparently, there is an urban legend that says be careful of the watcher.
When the fog lies low, the watcher leaves the safety of his dwelling and woe betide anyone out wandering around in the fog. He will get you.’
‘Ahh.’
A different voice screamed, and the woman with the phone jumped a little before laughing loudly.
‘Fuck off, Lizzie, you scared the shit out of me. Sorry, folks, she has the worst sense of humour. As I was saying, people around these parts believe in this mysterious watcher, but nobody has ever seen him and lived to tell the tale, or so they say.’
A loud crack somewhere behind them echoed, and both the woman who was filming and her friend Lizzie jumped. Lizzie looked a little panicked and whispered, ‘What was that?’
Janey turned the phone to selfie mode and held it close to her face.
‘That might be the watcher, he’s coming for us because we’re out trespassing on his land. Woo-hoo.’
‘Shut up, Janey, did you hear footsteps?’
Janey, who was no longer grinning at the camera, let her hand fall to her side and the picture went all blurry.
‘Relax, it’s just an animal.’
‘Bloody big animal to make a sound that loud, don’t you think? I don’t like it. Can we please get out of here?’
‘Yeah, yeah, in a minute. As you can see, you need a strong constitution to deal with this kind of shit day in, day out, but that’s what we do.
This is the whole point of the podcast, folks, so stay tuned and if we don’t get murdered by some weirdo out here, let’s connect when we’re back home safely.
You know the drill, you can find us on whatever platform you listen to. ’
A terrified scream filled the air.
‘Run, Lizzie.’
The phone was still filming, only now it was fast and blurry as Janey was running away from something or someone.
She lifted the phone up to try and film whoever was chasing them, and Morgan’s heart was beating as if it was a caged animal trying to escape its cage.
There, a short distance away from Janey Moore, was a tall, dark figure, far too tall to be Amos, and it was chasing the women.
They were fast, too fast for Amos who had a limp.
All dressed in black, it was catching up to them.
A loud shout and the sound of someone falling as Lizzie fell over something and hit the ground.
Janey’s phone captured her on all fours.
Before Janey could run to help her friend, the figure was there, standing above Lizzie and swinging a bat.
The crunch as it connected with her skull was sickening, and all three of them cupped their hands over their mouths.
Janey began to whimper, but she took off running, then she either fell over or was brought down by whoever was chasing her.
Her phone on the floor was filming the night sky until a shadowy figure stood over it, leaning down to pick it up. The filming stopped.
‘Oh my God,’ Wendy’s voice trembled.
Morgan couldn’t believe what she had just watched. Cain was shaking his head. ‘That’s sick, the sick fuck.’
‘Someone needs to go tell Ben to come up here and watch this. There is no way it’s Amos. Did you see how fast they moved. Amos has a significant limp; he struggles walking at a normal pace.’ Morgan was whispering and she didn’t know why.
Cain stood up. ‘I’ll go.’
As he reached the door, he turned the lights on and both Wendy and Morgan had to shield their eyes from the fluorescent glow that was blinding. Wendy was shaking her head.
‘That was awful, the sound of—’ She didn’t finish her sentence; she didn’t need to.
The sound of the bat connecting with Lizzie’s skull would never leave Morgan’s brain. It would be stored there along with all the other horrific memories she had collected over the years.