‘What can we do?’ she asked.
A bale shifted at the top of the stack and toppled down onto the floor in a shower of dust.
‘He’s going to die in there, get him out. You have to get him out.’
‘No, Lauren. It’s unstable. We’ll have to wait,’ replied Jeanie. ‘We have no choice.’
‘The specialist rescue team will be here within the hour,’ Pascoe said, but his eyes went up to the large crack that was starting to appear in the top centre of the stack. The stack was beginning to give way. Willis saw it too.
‘I’ll go in now, guv. We can’t wait.’
‘No, Eb, you can’t risk it,’ Jeanie said.
‘I think I can get through.’ She looked at Cam. He shook his head in response.
‘I have no idea what it’s like in there any more. It was always a small space, even when we were kids.’
‘No, Eb. You can’t, it’s too dangerous,’ said Jeanie.
‘But Kensa has been in there,’ answered Willis. ‘I’m bigger, but I reckon I can squeeze in. We know Samuel is in there. We have to try and get him out. We can’t wait an hour and then another hour trying to get in there. Let me give it a go.’ Jeanie looked at Carter to try and stop Willis. He was staring up at the stack. He looked at Willis and nodded.
Pascoe went to his van and came back with a length of rope and a safety helmet.
‘This is all I can find.’
Willis took it and switched on the torch on top of the helmet. She strapped it on tightly and tied the rope around her waist.
‘We have to go for it now,’ she said as she gave Jeanie her jacket but kept her radio, making a last-minute check it was working before giving Jeanie the end of the rope.
‘If it collapses, you’ll be able to locate me?’ she asked, as she looked across at Carter. It was a rhetorical question but Carter couldn’t answer anyway. He was struck with some sort of fear he’d never felt before. It was all right sending himself into danger, but not someone he cared so deeply for.
‘Guv?’
He nodded.
Willis lay down on her side and began to wriggle between the bales and work her way through.
The barn fell silent as the others listened to the sounds of her exertion until she disappeared from sight. Carter knelt on the ground and called through the darkness, ‘Okay, Eb?’
‘Still moving forward, guv,’ she replied, though she was barely audible. ‘The space is pretty small.’
Inside the stack, Willis shone her hand-held torch forward in the darkness and saw the edges of the straw walls widening in front of her.
‘Samuel?’ she called.
‘Mommy?’ came a reply in the dark, muffled heat and dust. Willis paused as she listened to a rumble around her and stayed absolutely still as a dust cloud enveloped her.
‘Eb?’ Carter called into the tunnel but he could see it had collapsed inside.
‘Guv?’ Willis waited for the rumbling sound to stop and then she called back down the tunnel. There was no reply. ‘Guv?’ she called again, and her voice went flat and nowhere. There didn’t seem to be any air left. She felt each breath burn her lungs with dust and heat. She waited in the dark for a minute and then pulled herself onwards into a space two bales wide. It was wide enough for her to turn onto her stomach and pull herself up onto her elbows before her head touched straw.
‘Samuel? Good boy.’ She found him. He was strapped into a car seat. There was a bottle of water next to him. She picked it up and gave him a drink as she shone the torch over his face to see how he was. He was covered in dust and snorting as he drank.
‘Hello, Samuel, your mummy’s waiting for you but you’re going to have to be a very good boy for me, okay?’
‘Eb, can you hear me?’ Carter spoke into his radio. ‘Eb, are you okay?’
‘We’re here, guv. Samuel is in good condition. Tell Lauren and Toby he’s all right. He’s strapped into a car seat so I think he’ll have a good chance if this collapses.’
‘You can’t come out the way you went in, now.’
‘Okay.’ She shone her torch around the space. ‘I can see where the tunnel continues,’ she radioed back. ‘Are we sure that’s the way out?’
‘Wait. I’ll move to the exit and you listen for me calling.’
He called out her name.
‘I can hear you – just,’ said Willis over her radio.
‘Can you follow the noise?’
‘I don’t know. It seems to be coming from further inside the barn, I’m not sure if I want to risk it.’
‘Cam?’ Carter turned to ask him, ‘Does the tunnel come straight out?’
‘No, it goes around in a semicircle then it rises to the next level before it comes out here.’
‘Is there any other exit at the back maybe?’
‘No.’
‘There’s no choice, Eb. That’s the only way out. It bends and then it rises and then you’re out. It’s fifteen feet, at the most.’ Carter looked at Cam for confirmation. He shook his head. He wasn’t sure. ‘We think,’ Carter added.
‘Okay, I understand.’ Willis inched towards the gap, sliding her body as she pushed the car seat and Samuel forward inch by inch. She felt the walls around her start to groan and slide. She stopped.
‘Not sure whether I can make it through that gap, guv, I risk bringing the place down if I try and force the car seat through.’
‘You have to, Eb. This way is the only way out for you both. It’s still clear, for now. You have to move fast.’ Carter turned to Pascoe. ‘Have the paramedics stand by. Get the fire brigade out here, anyone who will be able to help shift these bales if this thing collapses.’
Jeanie held on to Ebony’s rope.
‘I can try and push Samuel through if you can coax him through your end,’ said Willis into her radio. ‘But I’ll have to take him out of the seat. He’s very scared, but if Lauren calls him and I push him from this end I think he can make it.’
Carter looked at Lauren; she nodded.
Willis was so cramped now that she couldn’t raise her head, only lie on her side as she unstrapped Samuel.
‘Samuel? You want to see Mommy? Mommy and Daddy? Do you think you can squeeze through like a clever little wiggly worm?’
‘Little worm?’ His voice was cracked and sore with the dust.
‘Yes, listen, Samuel, who is that?’
Lauren’s voice came through calling him. ‘Mommy’s here, my darling. I’m waiting for you. Come to me.’
‘Mommy?’
‘Yes, she’s waiting for you, Samuel.’
Willis managed to ease him out of his chair and push it to one side as she pushed him forward.
‘Keep calling,’ she said into the radio.
Toby and Lauren took it in turns to call, and Willis watched Samuel as he crawled forward and through the gap. She moved with him and shone her torch for him to see. When she could go no further into the gap, which was the size of a cereal packet, she continued talking to Samuel, encouraging him to keep moving. She spoke into her radio.
‘He’s coming to the raised bit now, I think. I can’t move any further forward. He won’t be able to get up there on his own. Can you try and reach in and get him out your end?’
Carter reached his arm into the tunnel and felt nothing. He looked at everyone. Finally, he assessed Toby’s chances.
‘Toby, you’re the thinnest, the tallest. Get in there as far as you can and try and get him.’
Toby moved inside and was lodged waist-deep into the tunnel when they heard the bales groan as he pushed harder to reach Samuel. He let out a muffled yell and Carter and Pascoe dragged him out. He was holding Samuel in his arms.
‘We got him, Eb, well done,’ Carter radioed.
‘That’s great, guv.’ Willis rolled onto her side to try and breathe freely. She wiped the sweat and dust from her stinging eyes.
‘Your turn now, Eb, don’t hang about.’
There was the sound of the bales shifting above her, the squeak of straw sliding on straw.
‘I’m too big to make it through this last section, guv.’
‘The bales are shifting. There might be a chance then. Get ready.’
Willis looked behind her. Her exit was completely cut off now. There was nowhere to go. She grabbed the car seat and pulled it against her chest.
Carter looked around as the rope round Ebony’s waist was yanked out of Jeanie’s hands and sucked into the tunnel as bales began to tumble inside and the cracks in the structure began to widen.
‘Come on, Eb, it’s collapsing. You have to try now.’
Willis saw her chance as she crawled forward on her stomach and squeezed through. But then the gap was gone. She opened her mouth to scream as pain hit her and bales began crushing her from above, but her lungs had no space to expand. Her vision became a view of the starriest night she’d ever seen, and then there was only blackness.
Carter waited for the air ambulance to take off, watching its lights disappear into the dark sky. He walked back across the field and stood in the lane outside the barn, leaning against the cold metal roof of his car as he stretched his shoulders; he’d pulled a muscle trying to get Ebony out. He’d never felt so done-in, in all his life. The exertion of pulling off the bales and dragging her from underneath, the exhilaration and relief to find her still breathing, alive, was utterly exhausting. She was unconscious when they’d stretchered her off with Samuel. Lauren and Toby went with them.
Jeanie came up behind Carter and touched his arm to make him turn round. She held out her arms and hugged him.
‘She will be all right, Dan.’
‘I bloody hope so.’
Jeanie stood back to look at him.
‘Are you okay?’
She held his face in her hands. He closed his eyes and had such an urge to kiss her out of: relief, adrenalin, gratitude, he didn’t know which. He was grateful when Pascoe came out to speak to him.
‘What shall we do with Cam Simmons?’
‘It’s late and he’s been through enough today,’ replied Carter. ‘We’ll give him a lift home.’
‘Are you headed back to interview Raymonds?’
‘Yes, he’s been in there for hours. He’s going to be madder than a wasp in a jar,’ replied Carter. ‘I’m looking forward to enlightening him on a whole host of local issues.’ He looked at Jeanie.
‘I need to drive to the hospital in Truro and see that Lauren and Toby are okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll keep you informed about Eb. They might let me see her.’
‘Give her my love. Will you stay over there?’
‘I doubt it. There’s room for me at one of the B&Bs here. I’ll text you later.’
Carter got a call from Sandford.
‘I’m back at the hotel. How’s Eb?’
‘Just taken off in the chopper. We don’t know anything yet. I’ll see you back there. I need a stiff drink after the day I’ve had. What’s happening at the farm?’
‘Leonard has taken over there now. There was a large quantity of the white stuff in some surfing bags near the body.’
‘Yeah, a little project Marky and Jago were working on. Any dealer who killed him would have taken the drugs. This was a personal matter then.’
‘There’s plenty for Leonard to look over here,’ said Sandford. ‘There was quite a fight and there are shoe prints leading to and from the field. It doesn’t seem like any attempt was made to cover it up.’
Pascoe got a lift with Carter as he handed back the police van to his colleague.
The cliff top area was still cordoned off. They had to drive the long way round to get to Cam’s cottage.
‘Thanks for your help, Cam,’ said Carter. ‘We will need a statement from you tomorrow. Will you be all right here on your own tonight?’
Pascoe interrupted.
‘I’ll come back and see you in an hour or two if that’s okay? I pass this way on my way home.’
Cam thanked him and hesitated as he was getting out of the car.
‘I want to make a full statement about the abuse I suffered as a child. I want people in this village to know that Raymonds never once intervened. He knew it went on and he allowed it to. I came back here to expose him. I came back here to try and make a life for me and Mawgan and to help Kensa. I can at least achieve part of that.’
After they left Cam, they drove down towards the beach. As they came level with the car park, Pascoe told Carter to pull over. Raymonds’ Ford Cortina was in the car park. It was crushed front and back. Towan was standing beside it smoking a cigarette.
Carter flicked the lights on in the police station as they led Towan in. He smelt of booze.
‘I’ll put him straight in the interview room,’ said Pascoe.
‘I’ll check on Raymonds,’ Carter replied.
‘Tell him I remodelled the old Silver Fox,’ Towan shouted out as he was led away by Pascoe.
Carter unlocked the door and switched on the light.
Raymonds was hanging. His face was pressed against the light bulb. His bulging eyes were half closed as they stared at the door. His legs dangled in mid-air. His neck was broken.
‘You bastard,’ Carter muttered under his breath.
He walked across to the desk. Raymonds had taken off his shoes and placed them neatly on the floor. Carter picked them up; their soles were caked in mud.
Towan stared down at the table in front of him.
‘Would you like a glass of water?’ Carter asked. Towan nodded.
Pascoe stood to go and get him one. They heard the sound of officers talking as they carried Raymonds’ body away. Pascoe looked at Carter expectantly.
‘You go, if you feel you should,’ Carter said as Pascoe brought Towan’s water, and then left the room.
Towan grinned at Carter.
‘I saw the body bag. Don’t tell me Raymonds has topped himself right here in this station? Now, that’s got to be the best thing I’ve heard in a long time. Why did he do it? Didn’t think he was the type,’ said Towan. ‘He’s always been such a hard-nosed, self-righteous bastard. Never had him down as a quitter.’
Carter sat back in his chair and looked across at Towan.
‘He couldn’t bear to lose control of his empire. He was scared of the consequences. Prison wouldn’t have been fun either, would it? You know what that’s like, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, he would have been beaten to a pulp in a week. He had a good run for his money. It was fun while it lasted, like.’
‘I thought you got on with Raymonds. Why did you trash his car?’
‘Just pissed me off.’
‘So you and Raymonds fell out, why was that?’