The Keeper Page 5

  Jenna tucked an errant lock of her short, dark hair behind her ear for the third time and sighed as the mean wind whipped it back out again. She hunched her shoulders against the cold and fell in step beside Mason.

  The main walkway was flat and straight, well maintained but for the thick, black mud the deluge of rain had churned up. The three of them strode through the tunnel under the railway bridge, mud sucking at their feet, making Jenna regret the pride she’d felt as she’d slipped her new boots on earlier, the small heel perfect for office work. Not so brilliant in the thick sludge.

  She took a few trotting steps to catch up with the dog handler and her feet skidded, the long slide almost took her into the back of him as Chris paused to train his beam of light along the first winding pathway off to the right. It curled around behind them and over the railway bridge. Straight up the Gorge.

  Jenna peered beyond into the dark. ‘She wouldn’t go up there. Not at this time of night. I would have thought she’d keep to the main drag, or possibly up the narrower path running parallel, depending on what time she arrived. Fliss likes to go up there to get a glimpse of the deer. She’s really sure-footed normally, I don’t think it would faze her, going along that path, she knows it so well. Definitely not that way though, it’s too steep, too dark, and it’s not the best of walks.’ Shaking her head, Jenna continued straight on, determined, somewhere along the trail, her sister would be sitting down in a pile of leaves, crying over a turned ankle. If she was, Jenna would slap her stupid for making her heart stop. If she had the opportunity.

  She stared through the white swathes of light as her stomach churned. Surely, if that was the case, Domino would charge out of the undergrowth at them. They’d hear something, movement of some kind, but complete silence reigned. The darkness had even silenced the birds.

  ‘What the hell’s happened?’ Her low mutter went ignored by the other two.

  Had Fliss lost her footing and slipped down the hill? There were only a few places on the walk someone could do that. Normally, the path was a safe one. Unless the stupid, dotty dog of hers had taken a leap of faith over the side of the old railway bridge wall further along and gone straight down the sharp bank. The bank that slid in a steep slope all the way to the water. Jenna had heard about a dog a few weeks earlier that had gone off the edge in a flying leap. The people on the opposite bank said they could hear the echo of the dog’s legs snapping as it hit the ground by the river. The river had been low then; it had risen since with the amount of rain they’d had recently and was much higher. The flood defences were ready to be slid into place any time soon. If Domino had slipped, he would have gone straight in. No noise.

  ‘You know, if Domino has leapt over the edge, Fliss is going to be down there, ferreting away, trying to find him.’ Jenna glanced up at Mason. ‘If she couldn’t get a signal on her phone to call for help, she’d get on with his rescue herself. It wouldn’t occur to her to run into Ironbridge to summon help. She’d put her own life at risk for him.’ Jenna rubbed her fingers over numb lips because she understood. She’d do the same for him. The dog was special, he filled a place in her heart even though she bitched about him. ‘She’d leap into the swirling waters.’ Jenna’s stomach gave a sick lurch.

  The reason Fliss had left her ex was because he was so jealous of her relationship with Domino he’d tried to persuade her to get rid of him.

  Jenna snorted.

  Stupid move. It was one of the things that had made Fliss sit up and take notice of the way he’d been controlling her for the last couple of years while she’d been at university. The man had been a complete dick. His objection to Fliss visiting their mum in the hospital had been the final nail in the coffin of their relationship, so to speak.

  Attention focused on the span of light, Jenna narrowed her eyes, searching for movement in the undergrowth, her ears straining for any sound, while her thoughts rambled around in her head.

  Once Fliss had realised what was happening, she had dropped him like a hot potato. Served him right. Not that he believed it. He thought Jenna had something to do with it. They’d never liked each other and since Fliss had left him, he’d ranted frequently about Jenna, blaming her for the break-up. One moment he shouted down the phone, threatening to cut her out of his life for good; the next he sent flowers in an attempt to wheedle his way back into Fliss’s life. Jenna was pretty certain Fliss had remained unswayed by his constant badgering. At least Jenna hoped she had. She wasn’t so sure Fliss hadn’t caved and met up with him a couple of times. Life had been a bitch since their mum had died. Perhaps she needed someone other than her own sister to lean on.

  It wasn’t fair. One day their mum was perfectly okay, laughing with them about the damned stupid dog, cheek to cheek with him as she snuggled him in. She’d loved him. Treated him like a baby. The next day, she’d collapsed with a blinding headache and double vision. The doctors said it wouldn’t have made any difference whether she was in the hospital or not, the second stroke three days later was the one that killed her.

  Dead. Her mum was dead and all she had left was Fliss.

  The unexpected sting of tears hit the back of Jenna’s eyes.

  Her breath whipped out of her lungs and it took every morsel of her willpower to keep her knees from buckling under her.

  Jenna had been devastated, still was. Every day was an effort to get through without the thought of her mum being there. Her heart had literally been broken, the tight squeeze on her chest only relieved when her mind was occupied with work. Work held her up, powered her on. Only in the quiet moments, the solitude of taking a bath, did she let the tears roll down her face.

  Fliss had reacted differently. She’d left the man she’d claimed to love to distraction and moved in with Jenna. Nightmares had dogged her every night. Fear of the dark, of being alone, terrorised her, a re-emergence of her childhood phobias, and the only comfort she’d found was in the children she taught each day, Domino and Jenna. They’d always been close, but the death of their mum had pulled them in closer.

  Fliss could still bug the hell out of her, but underneath it all, Jenna adored her. Her and her damned spotted dog, even if he had destroyed her kitchen. She’d forgive him everything, if only they found them both fit and well.

  Jenna puffed out a breath and rubbed at her upper arms in an attempt to stave off the cold and numbness threatening to overwhelm her. There was no point dwelling on Fliss’s problems. She just had to find her. Where the hell could she be?

  As they passed the lime kiln and pathway up the hill to the left, Jenna shook her head.

  ‘I think she would have stayed on the main drag. It’s too dark up there.’

  Chris stared up at the narrow path disappearing into the night. ‘It wouldn’t have been when the incident happened necessarily.’ He ran his tongue across his teeth, making a sucking sound, then glanced down at the dog snuffling at his feet. ‘Okay.’ Decision made, he pointed back at the main path. ‘It’s the most likely place, so we’ll start here. We can always move upwards if we don’t have any joy.’

  Jenna moved to the right to lean her hands against the exposed bridge wall, where, in the dimming light, it was still possible to look all the way down to the river. In full daylight, particularly in summer, you could stand at that point and see clearly the far side of the riverbank with Dale End Park. Jenna could almost hear the quiet murmur of voices from the twilight walkers as they gave their accounts to PC Walker. The acoustics of the valley lent themselves to channelling even the softest of sounds upwards.

  Just above waist-height, the old bridge wall fell away on the other side, straight down the hill to the river. This was the place they’d heard her sister cry out. Directly opposite.

  Jenna leaned over the wall and peered into the shadowed vegetation below. ‘Chris, try here.’

  The wide strip of light panned across the steep embankment, while Blue hitched his front paws onto the wall next to her, stretching up to look over the side while he leaned aga
inst Jenna and allowed her to curl her icy fingers into his thick pelt.

  ‘Fliss?’ she called, half expecting her sister to answer from the steep embankment below. Hoping. Dreading.

  Silence. Not even a rustle of movement.

  ‘I don’t want to send Blue down there unless I have to, Jenna,’ Chris murmured. ‘It’s straight into the river.’

  ‘No, don’t.’ The prospect of her sister sliding down there filled her with dread and she wasn’t yet ready to make the call on whether they should pull in the help to scan the river. She tried to tamp down on the dramatic, but the sick coil in her stomach sent a shiver through her. She dug her fingers deep into the comfort of Blue’s coat, his heat curling around to warm her hands.

  ‘Fliss!’ Mason’s voice boomed out into the night, and as Jenna jumped, she could only be grateful for the dark that disguised her fear.

  The sound echoed around the Gorge. As most of Ironbridge would have heard it, Jenna sighed. The last thing she needed now was half the residents coming out to help. She needed to listen.

  A heavy silence hung over them once more for several moments before Chris spoke. ‘I can hear Air One.’

  Jenna tilted her head and picked up the steady thwacking of the rotors in the distance, their approach rapid.

  The radio hissed to life.

  ‘Juliette Alpha 76 from Control. Air One, ETA one minute. Over.’

  ‘Juliette Alpha 76, acknowledged. Over.’

  ‘They need to shine their light down here.’ Chris waved his hand across the entire hillside below them.

  ‘They’d be better off using the thermal imaging. Let me tell them what we’re looking for and where to start first.’ Mason moved away from them both to talk to Air One.

  With a hefty snort, Blue slumped down off the wall to stand next to Chris. Jenna instantly missed his warmth and wished he’d lean against her leg as he did to Chris. There wasn’t much the dog could do unless they sent him off the edge of the cliff. If they wanted the helicopter to pick up thermal images, he needed to stay where he was while they calibrated everyone’s positions, so they could detect any additional body heat. With a glum look up at the sky, Jenna considered they wouldn’t even pick up her body heat. She was already a block of ice. She tucked her hands under her armpits and prayed hypothermia didn’t set in before she found her sister.

  As Mason spoke to Air One, a wide illumination moved over them, making the Gorge light up brighter than day. The downdraught from the helicopter thrashed through the trees to whip off the remaining leaves and fling them at them.

  Jenna swiped at her face, shoving back her thick mop of hair whipping about her head. ‘I can’t hear anything now. If she’s down there and calls out, we won’t hear her. It’s too noisy,’ Jenna yelled above the sound of the rotors.

  Chris dipped his head, his rugged features close to hers. ‘If she’s down there and okay, she would have already answered, Jenna. She needs us to find her, and the quickest way is thermal imaging.’

  He was right of course.

  Jenna blew out a gentle sigh. She was the senior officer at the scene, she needed to clear her mind and think logically. If Blue had heard or scented anything, he would have been off after it. He knew his job, but the hillside had been silent and eerie before the arrival of the helicopter, not even the sounds of disturbed animals.

  She raked the hair back from her face and turned into the wind, so it could no longer thrash around her head.

  ‘Juliette Alpha 76. Our thermal imager has picked up a form near you. Which way are you facing?’

  Mason snapped the Airwaves to life. ‘Air One, we’re looking north towards the river.’

  ‘Juliette Alpha 76, turn 180 degrees and walk eighteen feet forward.’

  Mason turned first, but Jenna scurried to follow, the unsteady flutter of her pulse filling her ears to almost block out the sound of Air One. Please, please let it be Fliss, let her be okay, she found herself praying over and over as they headed to the opposite side of the track.

  They peered up the hillside, squinting in the bright light of the helicopter. With Mason’s broad shoulders blocking her view, Jenna moved another couple of paces along, desperate to see her sister. She didn’t even know what she was looking for, what Fliss would be wearing. Would she have been sensible enough to have put on her waterproof, her jaunty red hat that matched Domino’s lead? Fliss was far more practical than Jenna, but which coat would she have chosen?

  ‘C’mon Fliss. Where the hell are you?’

  ‘Juliette Alpha 76, take eight paces to your right.’

  Following directions, Jenna leaned forward as Blue dashed in circles around them; from his obvious interest, he’d picked up a scent and, at the same time, inspired hope.

  Jenna’s heart stumbled. Stood right at the edge of the path, she scanned the lit-up area around her, unable to see anything that might give a hint of her sister’s whereabouts.

  ‘Below you, Juliette Alpha 76. Over.’

  She could see nothing as they squatted to peer into the gulley disappearing beneath the line of the old Severn Valley Railway they stood on. The wide fingers of the spotlight unable to wriggle their way into the shadows.

  ‘Go on, lad.’ Chris sent the dog down first, then went over the edge, dragon light in hand.

  Jenna followed, gingerly sliding on the wet leaves and fallen branches, muttering to herself as the heel of her boot gave a precarious wobble. She was going to kill Fliss for this. She’d make her buy her a new pair of boots when she got hold of her. ‘If I break my ankle down here, I am so going to kick your butt, Felicity Morgan.’

  Blue let out a series of short, sharp barks, filling Jenna with anticipation as she approached.

  Let her be all right, please let her be okay.

  There’d been no sound, she could be unconscious.

  Whatever she was, just let her be safe.

  5

  Friday 26 October, 18:10 hrs

  ‘Here!’ Chris’s voice boomed out even above the sound of the helicopter.

  Jenna leaned on the dog handler’s shoulder to peer into the vegetation while her heart pounded in her chest in rhythm with the whirring rotors. It took her a moment before her brain acknowledged what she saw. Covered in leaves and half buried beneath the brick tunnel, Domino’s limp body lay motionless, the white of his fur barely discernible beneath the thick layer of mud and wash of crimson blood.

  Dread consumed her as Jenna shook her head, horror warring with disbelief. So much blood. Swathes of it over Domino’s coat, glossy in the brightness of the light.

  ‘Oh, God.’ She whispered as her stomach churned.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Shaking his head, Mason pulled out his radio. ‘Juliette Alpha 76 to Control. We have a dog’s body. Air One do you have any further heat ID down here?’

  ‘Negative, Juliette Alpha. Only one heat source visible. We’ll keep looking.’ The helicopter moved off, the wide fan of its white light still illuminating the area, but Chris’s dragon light was more effective where they crouched under the shadow of the bridge.

  Chris straightened and called Blue from where the dog was sniffing at Domino while Jenna slipped to her knees onto the thick carpet of mouldy leaves, oblivious of the wet soaking through her trousers.

  ‘Oh my God, you poor baby. Poor Domino.’ She reached out a tentative hand, stroked the leaves from Domino’s still warm body and uncovered his face. She used the back of one muddy hand to swipe at the tears coursing down her cheeks. Poor Domino. Her heart clenched. He drove her crazy, but this was the last thing she’d have ever wanted to happen to him. She loved him to bits.

  Chris held the light steady as Jenna ran her fingers over Domino, his body broken and twisted.

  Surely, if her sister wasn’t there, she must have gone for help. Why hadn’t she used her phone to call her? Like a flash, Jenna remembered the static on her answerphone earlier when she’d picked up her messages.

  ‘Mason. She phoned me, earlier. Fliss called
me. She wanted my help and I wasn’t there for her. Where the hell is she?’

  Silent beside her, Mason scrubbed his hands over his face and shook his head.

  She sank down and rested her cheek against Domino’s soft, dirty skin. Fliss must have gone for help. She wasn’t there. Air Unit One said there was only one heat source. Jenna curled her fingers through Domino’s wet fur. Why would she have left him like this? She would have tried to lift him, move him onto the main track so they could recover his body with ease.

  Unless she was hurt too.

  Heart clenching, Jenna peered up into the broken darkness of the hillside above them, flashes of bright light from Air One illuminating the shadows and then moving on to plunge them into darkness again.

  Jenna knew the terrain almost as well as Fliss did. Domino had probably taken them both off the side of the narrow path above, they could have slithered together, but Air One still hadn’t found a trace of another heat source. Even if Fliss wasn’t all right, if she was there, she’d still be pulsing off heat for some time.

  Like the heat Domino was generating now, enough to warm Jenna’s fingers as she lifted the heavy weight of him onto her lap, no longer caring whether tears streaked down her face as she laid her head against his limp body. ‘I’m sorry, boy, sorry I wasn’t there.’

  The sturdy heartbeat of a living dog throbbed beneath her cheek. She reared back, whipping around to yell up at Mason.

  ‘Call an emergency vet. Now! He’s alive. Domino’s alive.’

  As he scooped Domino into his arms, Mason’s suit jacket stretched taut across his shoulders. Strain lines slashed across his face as he bodily heaved the dog out of the trench as gently as the weight and size of a thirty-eight kilogram deadweight of dog allowed. As he carried him up the slope, slipping and sliding all the way to the veterinary van that had been brought as far along the walkway as possible, Jenna trotted alongside him, sharing in each grunt and groan Mason made for every step he took.