AVON
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Copyright © Mark Sennen 2014
Cover design © Susie Bell
Mark Sennen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © December 2014 ISBN: 9780008130619
Version: 2014-12-05
The call came late afternoon on her day off, just as the twins were finishing their milk and marmite on toast. She left them with her mother, visiting for the week, and moved into the hall.
âItâs tonightâs match, see,â the voice on the end of the line said. âArgyle and Exeter. All available uniforms are at Home Park or mopping up the trouble makers in the centre of town. Down to you Iâm afraid. You and a lad from D Section.â
D Section she thought, so it must be somewhere on the water. The officer gave her the details. Yes, she said, sheâd be there. Twenty minutes. Half an hour max. She hung up and stared at her reflection in the mirror. The woman who stared back was mid to late twenties, red hair, bright eyes full of excitement, casual clothes. Time was if sheâd received a call to go into work sheâd have had to get changed. Put on a uniform. Not anymore. Not as of five days ago.
Detective Constable Charlotte Savage.
As a rank it was technically no better than that of PC, still â¦
Becoming a detective was something sheâd dreamed of since joining the force. After three years on the beat sheâd taken maternity leave and on her return sheâd made her mind up. Sheâd studied, passed the exams and now, as of Monday, she was a detective on the Major Crimes team.
She blinked and pulled herself together. No time to be smug. Back in the living room she checked her mum was OK to look after the girls for a couple of hours and then grabbed her waterproof and left the house.
*
Twenty minutes later she was clumping along a pontoon down at Mountbatten, waterproof zipped up against a steady rain. At the end a large RIB pushed itself gently into the pontoon. Constable Nigel Frey sat at the rear of the boat, the wheel hard over, the motor idling.
âHurry up, Charlotte,â Frey said, passing her a life jacket as she stepped into the RIB. âThe tide will turn soon and weâll not have long there. Plus I donât want to be navigating back in the dark.â
âKeep your knickers on, Nigel,â Savage said, smiling. Sheâd been on the beat with Frey as a young probationer and theyâd teased each other mercilessly. She accepted the life jacket and put it on. âI can always walk back.â
âI doubt it. The place is only accessible by boat.â
Savage sat down as Frey moved the boat away from the pontoon. He turned and then headed out into the Sound. A light wind had fluffed up little wavelets, but was doing little to disperse a low mist that hung over the bay.
âFifteen minutes I reckon,â Frey said as he pushed the throttle forward. The RIB rose up onto the plane and began to bounce over the waves. âWeâll take the inside route past the Mewstone and then wend our way up the estuary to Cofflete Creek.â
âAnd itâs a body, you say?â
âYes. Usually a couple of uniforms would go over the fields to check, butââ
âThe match, I know.â
âCheer up. This is what itâs all about, isnât it?â
Savage glanced back as a splash of water came over the bow. The spray caught Frey in the face and he grinned.
Within a few minutes they were at the entrance to the narrow inlet that led to the twin villages of Newton Ferrers and Noss Mayo. Come summer, the place would be packed with visiting yachts, but at the moment many of the moorings were empty. A little way beyond the entrance the estuary divided, the right arm heading between the two villages â one on each bank â while the left arm plunged into a thickly wooded valley, the trees running all the way down to the creekside, where mud and rock lay exposed by the now falling tide. Frey turned the boat left and navigated up through a double row of moorings, the boats straining on their chains as the water ebbed.