Page 5 of Gone in the Night
The farmer had already set off, and Ben was keen to follow him. Luckily, both he and Morgan had recently completed their off-road course that allowed them to drive four-wheel drive vehicles over rugged terrain. Marc would no doubt sign up to do his after this, and he wondered if Tristan had his off-road driving authority.
The purple Land Rover came into view with its roof tent up. Set against the dramatic background of Blencathra, it looked as if it could have been an Instagram advertisement for wild camping. Ben stored that thought. He would ask Morgan to check out Instagram and Facebook; damn it, Amy usually did this kind of stuff. He was going to miss having her to rely on.
Morgan leaned forward.
‘That looks amazing, what a great place to camp. Especially with one of those, you don’t even have to mess around putting a tent up. It’s a genius idea whoever thought of it.’
‘Car tents have actually been around since the fifties, but they didn’t really take off back then. You wouldn’t catch me up here camping on my own. It’s too far away from civilisation.’ Tristan was shaking his head.
She turned to him. ‘Where would you rather be, in a busy campsite?’
He laughed. ‘In a five-star hotel, with a soft bed, lots of pillows and room service. Camping is not my thing at all; I’m not one for the great outdoors full stop.’
Ben stopped the car and all four of them got out. ‘I don’t know if we have any kit in the back of this. Sorry, I didn’t think to check.’
Tristan pulled a pair of gloves out of his pocket and held them up. ‘I have these.’
Morgan opened the rear door of their vehicle and began rooting around in a box of stuff. Pulling out several packets, she let out a sigh so deep Ben knew what it meant.
‘They are all size small, what a surprise.’
The farmer stood to one side, while the rest of them watched her.
Ben said, ‘Sorry.’
She didn’t reply but began to tear open the packet with the white crime-scene suit inside it. Everyone turned away even though she was tugging it on top of the clothes she was wearing. She put bootees over her Docs and pulled gloves out of the almost empty box.
‘If you kind of walk around the not obvious route to the ladder it might help preserve any forensics.’
She glared at Ben, and he shut up. Morgan knew better than any of them the correct way to approach a crime scene.
‘How do we even know there’s a body in there?’
‘Joss said he knows the smell of decomp, so let’s assume the worst.’
The sun was warm, and Ben couldn’t help thinking that it would be awful if whoever was inside the tent had perished all alone.
Morgan reached the 4x4 and turned to look at him.
‘I can’t reach unless I use the ladder, I’m not tall enough.’
Marc shouted, ‘Stop.’
Everyone looked at him.
‘What if there are prints on the ladder? We could be jeopardising everything.’
Morgan caught a whiff of decay carried on the breeze and felt her stomach muscles clench tight. The smell was emanating from the tent. It didn’t matter how many times she was faced with the stench of death, it had the same effect on her.
‘Well, I think Joss is right. Something dead is up there, so how are we going to determine who it is and what they died of, if we’re standing here all day twiddling our thumbs?’
‘What if I drive the quad bike as near as possible and you stand on that?’ offered Joss.
Ben looked at the large bike that would surely mess up the scene even more than Morgan.
‘Thanks, Joss, but it’s okay. Morgan, you’re going to have to climb up and we’ll deal with the consequences later.’
Marc shook his head. ‘By consequences you mean Wendy.’
