The Reservoir Tapes

They watched more cars pulling into the car park. A helicopter passed by overhead.

I’ve arranged for the Cardwell team to come and take over, he said. I think we’ve done our share. Could I perhaps interest you in some breakfast?

She smiled. She was very cold. Yes, Graham, she said. You can interest me in some breakfast.

*

When they got to the house, Vicky took a shower while Graham started cooking. She was trembling and she felt a little sick and she knew she needed to eat. These were her vulnerable moments. They’d talked about these at the group. She felt bad for worrying about herself, with everything that was going on, but she also knew she had no choice. At the group they talked about putting on your own oxygen mask first.

While she was drying herself she felt dizzy and she had to sit down. Graham had lent her an old fleece and a pair of walking trousers to wear. They smelt musty and they were too big but they were at least clean. She felt comfortable in them.

In the kitchen Graham was just putting the breakfast out on the table. The radio was on and they were talking about the missing girl.

Suits you, he said, glancing up at her outfit. She sat down.

She wanted to say something about the girl’s mother. She could feel her eyes starting to sting. She looked at him. There was a question in his expression but she couldn’t read it.

Tea’s in the pot, he said.

3: Deepak

The morning after the girl disappeared there were police going up and down the street, and journalists setting up in the market square. Deepak’s mum said there was no way he was doing his paper round that day.

It’s not safe, Dee Dee, she said. We don’t know what’s happening. You’re staying at home now. Anyone could be out there.

His mum still called him Dee Dee, sometimes. No one else dared.

His dad said there were that many police out there, the street was the safest place to be. He said people would be disappointed if they didn’t get their papers, and he opened the door for Deepak while the two of them were still arguing about it. Deepak headed out.

It was dark outside, and cold. He got his bike out of the shed. There was a misty drizzle which felt like it would soon turn to rain. He pushed his scarf up over his mouth and rode down to the shop to collect the papers. There were people everywhere. He usually had the street to himself, this early. He heard someone say there was a search being organised, up at the visitor centre.

On the news, the police had said they wanted people to keep their eyes open. They wanted to know about anything unusual, any suspicious behaviour, any changes in routine. Any detail could help, they said; no matter how small. It felt like they were talking to him personally. If there was anything to notice, he’d notice it. He was good at that. He knew about people’s routines. When he was doing his paper round he could always tell who was still in bed, who was having breakfast, who had gone out to work already; he noticed when anything was different. They should make him some kind of detective. DCI Deepak had a ring to it.

The Jackson house was the first on his round. Usually a couple of the Jacksons were out in the yard, moving sheep around in the stock shed or loading up the trailer. There was always a smell of bacon and cigarettes, and they never said hello. Place was quiet this morning, though. That was one change in routine to make a note of already.

Irene’s house was next, back up the main street. Her son had special needs and went to a different school. Her lights were always on when he got there, just like this morning, and there was always steam coming out of the tumble-dryer vent under the kitchen window, just like there was now. She was an early starter. Nothing to see here.

The butcher’s shop was empty. Mr Fowler would usually be behind the counter, setting everything out, and would shout hello as Deepak pushed the paper through the letter box. He was friendlier than some. Deepak’s dad thought it was funny that he kept offering to stock halal meat for the family. He’d stop him in the street and go, Vijay, listen, it’s no trouble at all. And Deepak’s dad was always like, mate, we’re not even Muslim, we don’t really eat meat. And then Mr Fowler would forget, and offer again the next time.

After the butcher’s he crossed the square to the pub, the Gladstone, which took four papers. The square was full of police vans and journalists and people just standing around. But there was nothing he could say was suspicious. He carried on up the back lane to Mrs Osborne’s house. It was steep, and the gears on his bike kept slipping. When he got there Mrs Osborne opened the door, as always. Usually she asked if he had any good news for her, like the news was his responsibility or something. But today she just smiled in that old-person sad way and took the paper.

He rolled back down the cobbles and across the square. DCI Deepak had nothing of note to report. He headed up the main street towards the edge of the village, and as he turned into the lane past the allotments he hit a pothole and his chain came off.

Calling headquarters: request mechanical assistance. Would be cool if he could do that. He got off and started fixing the chain back on. He wondered what the police really meant by something unusual, or something suspicious. They said any detail could be vital, but how would you know? Would it be some piece of clothing, like a lost glove on a railing, or like a hairband in the gutter? Or would it be if you saw someone dodgy in a van? Or something really bad, like a tiny bloodstain, or a strand of hair?

It must be pretty hard being a detective.

It was pretty hard being a bike mechanic as well. The chain was wedged between the frame and the sprocket, and he couldn’t get it out. He took his gloves off to try and get a better grip. It was too cold for this kind of thing.

The front door of the house on the corner opened and a man came out. Deepak had seen him around, but he didn’t know him. The man asked if he needed a hand, and Deepak said no, thanks, he was fine. The man stood and watched. It was well awkward. The chain was totally jammed, and he couldn’t get it shifted. It was cutting into his hands when he pulled at it. The man was just watching. It was embarrassing. He was standing too close.

Deepak, lad, he said; I’d say that chain’s stuck. I’ll get some tools.

He went back into the house. Deepak wondered who he was. He pulled at the chain again. Time was getting on.

The man came back out with a toolbox, and budged Deepak out of the way. He said it wouldn’t take a minute. It was all about having the right tool for the job, he said, and gave Deepak a funny look as though he’d told a joke.

He asked if Deepak was surprised that he knew his name. When Deepak said yes, he said: well, I’ve seen you around. You stand out a bit round here.

He did something with a screwdriver and got the chain sorted. It took less than a minute. Deepak said thanks, and went to get back on his bike.

The man said: hang on there a minute, let’s just pop inside and get you cleaned up.

Calling headquarters again: request guidance. Request backup.

The guidance was obvious. Going into a stranger’s house was one of the things you weren’t supposed to do. But this man wasn’t exactly a stranger; he knew Deepak’s name, and Deepak had seen him around. But even so. He could basically hear his mum shouting at him as he walked towards the front door: you don’t even know this man, Dee Dee! It’s not safe, Dee Dee!

She worried too much, though. His dad always said that.

A real detective would take certain measures in this situation. There would be a colleague waiting in a car further down the road. A uniformed officer covering the back door. He would be wearing a wire. As it was, he took mental notes. Just in case. A description of the car parked outside, and the registration number. A description of the house. For example: there were piles of junk mail and free papers just inside the front door. The curtains in all the upstairs windows were closed. The man was wearing a waxed jacket, and trousers with lots of pockets. He was old. Sixty, at least.

Deepak knew he shouldn’t be going inside. But he didn’t want the man to think he was rude, or ungrateful. And anyway, what would he say? I don’t want to come inside in case you’re some kind of massive nonce? You couldn’t go around saying that.

He felt the man’s hand on his shoulder, steering him through the door.

Just head through to the back, he said. Kitchen’s straight ahead. Soap’s by the sink.

It was dark in the hallway, and he had to squeeze past a line of coats and jackets hanging along the wall. Everything smelt damp, and muddy.

This was definitely a bad idea.

He went straight to the sink and started washing his hands. The water was cold, and the bar of soap cracked in half as soon as he picked it up. The sink was full of old dishes. The oil wouldn’t come off. It was just making the two halves of soap filthy. He could hear the man doing something in the hallway. The water coming off his hands was black and going all over the dishes, but the oil wasn’t shifting. He was making a mess of the man’s kitchen. He wanted to leave now. He was going to be late.

He heard the man in the doorway behind him.

It felt like he was just standing there, watching.

The water was still cold. He turned the tap off and looked around for something to dry his hands with. The place was a mess. His mum would be horrified. Although his mum would be horrified just knowing he was in there. There were more dirty dishes spread along the worktop, and newspapers and magazines stacked up on chairs, and newspaper spread across the table, and on the table there was a gun.

He looked a second time, trying to make it look like he wasn’t looking.

It was definitely a gun.

He didn’t call headquarters in his head this time. There was no backup. He wasn’t a detective. There was a gun on the table. His chest felt very solid all of a sudden, and he more or less stopped breathing for a moment.

But, okay, there were cloths and brushes on the table next to the gun, and some kind of grease or cleaning fluid. There were boxes of cartridges. So it was sort of okay. Sort of normal, round here, more or less normal. He’d never seen a gun before but he knew people owned them. It was a shotgun, probably. It was for shooting rabbits or whatever. It was normal. He pretended he hadn’t seen anything.

The man was still standing in the doorway. He asked if the oil was coming off. Deepak looked. The soap was black with it, and there were oily smears all over the sink. He told the man it was all done, and he’d have to get going. He tried shaking his hands dry. Even if there had been a towel he would have wrecked it.

He needed to get a move on. He’d be late finishing the paper round. His mum would have kittens. The man was still talking. He wanted to look at Deepak’s hands. He told him to scrub them a bit harder. Deepak said it was fine, and he should probably be getting on. The man came and leant over him and turned the tap back on.

You just need to scrub a bit harder, he said.

Deepak let the water pour over his hands, and looked through the kitchen window. It was light outside, and in the small garden a blackbird was rooting around under a bush. The search party he’d heard people talking about would probably be setting out from the visitor centre around now. The girl would be found, if she was still up there on the hill. He wondered what it might have been like, spending the night up there. He wondered what she might have been hiding from. If that was what had happened.

He had met her, back in the summer. They all had. She’d been all right. He hadn’t told his parents this, before, but now he thought he probably should. The police had said any little detail might help.

He wanted to go home and tell them now.

The water poured over his hands, and he kept scrubbing, and the man said he was nearly done.

He hoped his bike would be okay. He hadn’t locked it or anything.

4: Graham

The important thing to remember, Graham always said afterwards, was that no one had actually died.

There were questions to answer, and lessons would be learnt; of that there was no doubt. But those people who had made so much fuss about what had happened would do well to bear in mind the lack of fatalities.

Vijay wasn’t immediately reassured by this. Shouldn’t they have taken more precautions, he said; shouldn’t they have cut the walk short as soon as the weather turned?

Everyone had signed consent forms, Graham reminded him. They knew what they were letting themselves in for.

Graham and Vijay had led these walks for several years without incident. This was another overlooked factor in the subsequent hullabaloo: the number of miles they’d covered without mishap of any kind. In fact, if you were to calculate the average length of walk, and the average number of walkers, you’d be talking about many thousands of miles of incident-free walking.

But, no. People preferred to accentuate the negative.

The buck stopped with Graham, unfortunately. He was employed by the Park Authority, and had completed the risk assessment. He had written up the incident report. Vijay had been there in a strictly voluntary capacity, and his liability was limited. Not that there was anything to be liable for, as Graham was able to make clear.

They operated well as a team, but it would be fair to say that Vijay was the more cautious of the two, the more inclined to worry. This perhaps had to do with his day job, as an insurance broker. Plenty of the old crunching numbers, double-checking the paperwork. Graham had always been more of a seat-of-the-pants man, by contrast; stick a finger in the air and see which way the wind’s blowing, was his approach.

Not that Vijay wasn’t an outdoors man. Far from it. He was a very keen walker. He had all the gear. This was one of their few differences. Graham was of the opinion that good shoes were all that counted; everything else was just the leisure industries taking you for a ride. Whereas Vijay always had the latest piece of gear, the technical fabrics and spring-heeled shoes and GPS what-have-yous. And walking poles. They’d had some lively discussions about the need for walking poles. Vijay had a lot to say about hip alignment and cartilage impact. Graham’s point of view tended towards the fact that they weren’t in the ruddy Himalayas.

*

The walk that day was a Butterfly Safari, which was always popular. A full seventeen people turned up, including a party of Girl Guides and their leader. The forecast was good, and the weather when they set off from the visitor centre was still and fair.

The first part of the walk was straightforward enough, although as always there were those who struggled. The climb up the track towards Black Bull Rocks could be thought steepish if you weren’t used to it, and the Girl Guides were carrying a full set of camping gear each, for some reason. They swayed as they walked, with the weight. The chatter and giggles soon died down, and they were left with the tapping of Vijay’s walking poles. The ground was hard – it had been dry for weeks, after a month of heavy rains, which turned out to be relevant, later – and the dust kicked up around their boots.

Graham took the opportunity to tell the group a little more about where they’d be walking and which species they might see. The heather beds they would pass were good feeding grounds for Common Blues and Small Coppers, and the knapweeds around the old mine workings were regular haunts for Painted Ladies. He told them a little about the industrial heritage: mines, quarries, the modern cement works. It’s important not to see this as any kind of unspoilt, ‘natural’ environment, he said. There’s plenty of nature here, but there’s nothing natural about the landscape.

As always, people’s attention started to drift.

They came over the top of the hill and set out along the ridge, and the noise level rose again. The Girl Guides lagged behind quite early on, stooping under their heavy loads.

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