‘It will have been a water rat. This place is right next to the lake. There’s bound to be all sorts of vermin running around down there. Must have took a liking to you, young Billy. You should be grateful it didn’t decide to take your finger off and eat it for its tea.’
Billy shuddered; he didn’t like rats or mice.
‘Now stop behaving like your Emma and let’s get this done. The quicker we see what’s causing the blockage and move it the faster we can go home and still get paid.’
Billy nodded his head and stepped forward. He didn’t want to put his hand down there but he didn’t have any choice. If whatever it was that had brushed against his hand was a rat it was a bloody big one. On the count of three they heaved the drain cover off and dropped it onto the floor.
‘Now get down on your hands and knees and take a look down into that hole; see what might be causing the blockage.’
Billy shook his head. ‘You stick your head down there. What if it’s waiting for one of us?’
Fred rolled his eyes at Billy and took the lamp he’d put down onto the floor. He hovered over the hole. The smell was bad. Fred mumbled that he had no doubt some animal had got trapped down there and died. He didn’t want to go fishing around in the drains and have to move some rotting animal corpse but he did want to go home and put his feet up, so he knelt down to take a closer look.
Billy, who was ready to run should anything dark and hairy come up through the hole, watched Fred with an expression of horror etched onto his face. Fred leant right down and peered into the blackness then let out a scream and jumped back.
‘What was it? What did you see?’
‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I think it was a rat but it was massive. It moved too fast to be sure but there’s something at the bottom that’s going to need shifting. Whatever it is stinks and must be causing the smell.’
‘How are we going to shift it? I’m not going down if there’s a huge rat running around. Christ, it’s probably looking for its tea and if there’s one there will be hundreds more. Just put the cover back over and tell them we couldn’t find anything.’
‘Some hero you are, Billy. You’re scared of your own shadow. It won’t be interested in me or you when it’s got something else to eat. Go upstairs and get one of the empty sacks. I’ll go down and put the sack over it and scoop it up, then you can take it off me and pull me back out. It will take five minutes at the most and then we can get out of here.’
Billy looked at Fred with fresh admiration and then turned and ran. It was almost dark now and what little daylight was left was dirty grey, streaked with black. He grabbed a sack and heard a muffled shout from the cellar; Billy ran as fast as his legs would let him. Where was Fred? He shone his lantern around but the vast room was empty as far as he could see.
‘Fred, stop mucking around. Where are you?’
But there was no reply. He knew that his friend couldn’t have gone upstairs without Billy bumping into him and he felt a ball of dread lodge in the back of his throat. What if he’d fallen down into that hole and was stuck in the drains? He ran across to the black hole, which seemed to have doubled in size since the last time he’d looked into it a couple of minutes ago.
Fred’s lantern was on the floor and Billy called his friend again. A muffled grunt from inside the hole made Billy force himself to kneel down and look inside. He couldn’t see Fred, but he could see whatever it was that Fred had been talking about at the bottom of the hole. Billy leant closer. The thing was moving ever so slowly but it was definitely moving. He opened his mouth to shout to Fred again and was pulled down into the hole by something with sharp nails that scraped against his skin, making him shiver in disgust. He was so shocked that he couldn’t speak. As he was falling he hit his head on a large rock that was jutting out of the wall, and just before he lost consciousness he saw a face in front of him unlike any he’d ever seen before, one that was ghostly grey with two huge red eyes and a mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth.
‘I can’t hear you. Speak up. It’s too windy.’ Police Constable Jake Simpson was talking into the radio clipped on to his body armour to his best friend and colleague, Annie Graham. He refused to call her by her married name, Ashworth, because she’d always be Annie Graham to him. She was near to the side of Lake Windermere looking for a missing sixty-year-old man who had last been seen pottering around near some of the rowing boats that were for hire. A gust of wind took Jake’s police helmet clean off his head and blew it along at some speed until it reached the corner of one of the boathouses then disappeared underneath it.
‘Shit, I’ll call you back. My helmet’s just blown away.’
He didn’t hear Annie’s giggling as he ended the call and jogged across to find it. He bent down to reach underneath. He’d never hear the last of this if he didn’t get it back. He rarely wore the damn thing but this morning they’d had an email from the inspector telling them to make sure they were dressed appropriately at all times and not to let standards slip. It was all right for her – tucked up in her cosy office doing the crossword. She should try to keep her hat on in a gale-force wind and see how much she was arsed about standards then.
Jake’s fingers brushed against something that he assumed was his hat. He wasn’t really paying attention because he was too busy looking to see how many of the Japanese tourists on the steamboat that had just docked at Bowness pier were actually watching him and taking photos. He grabbed it and yanked it towards him. When he pulled it out and saw what he was holding in his hands he actually threw it onto the shingled path and screamed – really screamed. Which in turn made the tourists who were now all watching him lift their cameras and begin to photograph the perfectly preserved, severed head in front of him. Not only was Jake not wearing his helmet as he became the most photographed policeman in the Lake District, he was also swearing profusely and jumping up and down while rubbing his hands against his trouser legs.
He shouted down his radio to the control room for assistance and wondered how the hell a woman’s head had got under there and where the rest of her body was. Annie came running across from the other side of the pier towards him to see what was wrong and stopped in front of the head. Her mouth fell open and she looked from the head that was lying on its side on the ground back up to Jake.
‘Oh my God, where on earth did you find that?’ She tilted her head and stared. ‘Isn’t that the woman who went missing in Barrow a couple of months ago?’
He shrugged and pointed to the gap underneath the boathouse. ‘How would I know that?’
‘Well, you would if you bothered to read the bulletins the Intelligence Unit send out now and again instead of pressing delete every time.’
‘Jesus Christ, Annie, remind me what it was that you said? Come and work with me in Bowness, Jake. It’s lovely in the summer and ever so quiet in the winter. You won’t know you’re born. It’s all ice creams and summer fetes.’
Annie’s cheeks turned pink. ‘Well, it is most of the time. You’re not blaming this one on me; it’s all your fault. Is the rest of her body under there?’
‘I haven’t looked yet, boss. Oh my God, I dragged it out thinking it was my hat. Do you want to do the honours? And what the hell do we do with that? Everyone’s looking.’
Annie slid her torch out of her body armour and shone it underneath the building. She could see Jake’s helmet, which she reached under and grabbed, but there was no sign of a body. She turned around and looked at the size of the head; it wasn’t as big as Jake’s.
‘Should I cover her with your helmet?’
‘Piss off. I have to wear that!’
‘Stop being so dramatic. You can get another one. We can’t just leave her on show for the tourists to stare at; it’s not right or dignified.’