He struggles to his feet, a gust tousling his hair. He turns and looks west to where a sheet of rain marches across the landscape. The first drops reach him, spattering in the mud at his feet and then wetting his face.
Soon the storm will sweep over the hills and the valleys and rush through the villages and the towns. The wind will scour the sinners until they are naked. Then the Shepherd will lead them to the altar and there they will prostrate themselves before God and beg for forgiveness. And at the end will come the boy who plays with the skull.
And he will be judged too. And he will not be forgiven.
Jennycliff, near Plymstock. Tuesday 20th October. 11.47 a.m.
At Jennycliff, Riley turned off and drove down the access road to where the wooden cafe sat at the top of the cliffs. He spotted DC Enders standing by the path which led down to the shore. Enders wore a high-end red Berghaus, the hood raised against a light drizzle swirling in from the sea on a gusty breeze. A tangle of brown hair poked out of the hood above his boyish round face. The DC was a good few years younger than Riley and already married with three kids, but despite their differences, he felt an affinity with Enders. Perhaps it was because Enders’ Irish roots were, in a way, similar to his own distant Caribbean heritage. Perhaps it was because he just liked the lad.
Enders stood next to a PC, the officer explaining to a dog walker with a lively border collie why she couldn’t go down to the beach.
‘No access until further notice, ma’am,’ the PC said. ‘In police jargon, it’s what we call an ongoing incident.’
‘Nicely put,’ Riley said, as the dog walker moved off.
The PC shook his head. ‘Never seen anything like it, sir. She’s naked down there. Butchered. God knows who would do such a thing. Horrible.’
‘Right.’ The PC was working himself into a frenzy, Riley thought. ‘Well, you remain up here and DC Enders and I will go and take a look, OK?’
‘Yes, sir!’ The PC swallowed. Nodded enthusiastically.
‘Do you remember your first body?’ Enders asked as they negotiated the tortuous path down the cliff face to the beach. ‘Mine was a homeless guy down under the flyover at Marsh Mills one January. The poor bugger had frozen to death over Christmas, but by the time he was found the weather had turned. Terrible stink. Yours?’
‘A stabbing,’ Riley said. ‘Never would have believed anyone could bleed so much.’
‘That way.’ They reached the beach and Enders indicated off to the right. ‘She’s over in the next cove.’
The gravel crunched under their feet as they trudged along. Little waves came up over the gravel and sucked at the stones as the water fell back. The tide, Riley thought, was on the way in. But he might have been wrong about that.
‘What a beauty,’ Enders said, gesturing out into the Sound. A large yacht slid by a couple of hundred metres offshore, the crew on board well wrapped up in oilies and obviously returning from some serious sailing out beyond the breakwater. ‘Beats London, doesn’t it?’
Riley thought for a moment. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Only sometimes? Don’t tell me you’d honestly swap this for a crowded, polluted city?’
Riley pondered the question. He’d been down in Devon for a couple of years now. He’d got together with Julie and recently she’d moved in with him. He knew he should feel settled and content. Yet being a black officer in a white force, a London lad in a provincial city, he did sometimes feel like a fish out of water. He missed the vibrancy of London, the diversity of people, the clubs, bars, the fact that twenty-four hours a day something was happening.
‘Maybe on Saturday night, but come Sunday morning I’m quite happy here.’ Riley glanced at the yacht. ‘I’d be even happier if I could afford one of those things.’
‘Yeah, right. Fat chance on a police salary.’
They rounded a rock promontory and there, halfway up the beach, was some sort of raft. The thing atop the raft was more of a box than a coffin. Rectangular. Like a crate used to ship goods. The box lay on two eight-by-four pieces of plywood, the plywood supported by a criss-cross of wooden beams. Beneath the frame, a dozen plastic barrels provided the flotation.
‘The question is,’ Riley said as they approached, ‘how long has it been here?’
‘No idea.’ Enders pointed to the yacht again. ‘We need someone who knows about tides and stuff. DI Savage or John Layton.’
They stood next to the raft now. Riley clambered up onto the structure and Enders joined him. The raft creaked and shifted under their weight and then settled. Riley pulled out a pair of latex gloves from his pocket, took a gulp of fresh air and reached out and lifted the lid of the box.
She was naked, just as the PC had said. The right arm had been severed above the elbow, the amputated limb lying neatly alongside the torso. The left arm was still attached, but the hand was missing three fingers. On the stomach a series of burn marks patterned the surface like zebra print, while near the breasts there was evidence a cutting device had been used. The head was the worst. Where the eyes should have been there were nothing but gaping holes where some kind of drill had twisted its way in and the mouth was nothing but a froth of bubbled plastic.
Riley reached in with his hand and flicked the right arm with a fingertip. The limb made a hollow ringing sound.
‘Oh,’ Enders said, a smile spreading across his face along with a tinge of red as he stared down at the mannequin. ‘Sorry, sir. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have called you out. I took the PC at his word and I only caught a glimpse before he whipped the lid back on. That’s where the ice cream came in. There was this kid up on the raft with a ninety-nine. The whole thing was about to fall off the cone and land on the body.’
‘Never mind,’ Riley said. ‘It’s one for the canteen. The lads at the station will be joking about this for months.’
He looked down at the raft. The structure had been painstakingly constructed with dados and lap joints on the subframe, the pieces of plywood on the top had had the edges rounded over and the surface given a coat of wood stain. Somebody had spent time and money on building the thing.
‘It’s a lot of trouble to go to,’ Enders said, following Riley’s line of thinking. ‘Unless the raft is some sort of publicity stunt.’
‘Publicity?’
‘Yeah. A promo for a soft drink or a movie.’ Enders gestured at the structure beneath his feet. ‘You set this lot up and hope someone might film a video which will go viral and get hundreds of thousands of views. Isn’t that how it works?’
Riley had no idea. Since Julie had moved in there hadn’t been much time for movies.
‘I’m right, sir.’ Enders had picked up the disembodied arm and was running a finger up and down one side. ‘There’s a message engraved here, look.’
Enders held out the arm. Hundreds of little indentations peppered the surface and spelt out a sequence of letters:
TB/PS/CH/BP
‘A game, I reckon. Xbox, PlayStation, that sort of thing. This is a code. Maybe it’s a set of keystrokes to a secret level or an Easter egg.’
Riley looked down at the rest of the mannequin. Perhaps the raft had been constructed in a special-effects workshop. That could explain the high-quality joinery.
‘Where’s the press then?’ Riley said. ‘And