I nodded, but I wasn't really concentrating on what she'd said. She was still pressed against me. She brushed a windblown strand of hair away from her face as we looked at each other, then she moved away.
'Anyway… this is a natural entry point into the moor as well,' she said. 'There's a steep bank running along most of the track, but it's easier to negotiate just here. Shall we?'
'OK'
I was glad to start walking again. Keep your mind on what you should be doing. The embankment running down from the track might not be so steep here, but it was a lot more overgrown than I remembered. I scrambled down, then turned to help Sophie. She came down in a rush, flashing me a self-conscious smile as I steadied her.
'Are you sure you can find where the grave was without a map?' I asked as we started picking our way across the tangled heather.
'I'm sure,' she said.
It was hard going. Even when the heather gave way to spiky marsh grass it was still impossible to see where we were treading. My boots alternatively squelched into mud or twisted on some hidden rock or hole. But Sophie seemed confident of where she was going, skirting the clumps of thorny gorse and boggier patches of ground as if following an invisible path. It took me a while to realize that she wasn't just reading the landscape any more.
'You've been here recently, haven't you?' I asked.
She pushed her hair out of her eyes. 'Once or twice.'
'Why?' There couldn't be anything to see, not after all this time.
'I don't know. It feels… sanctified, almost. Knowing what happened, that someone was buried here. Can't you feel it?'
I felt something, but it was more of a prickling sense of unease. Like we're being watched. That was stupid, but I was uncomfortably aware of how alone we were, how far we'd come from the road. And the light was still dropping, wisps of wraith-like ground mist obscuring the dips and hollows. I found myself glancing at the nearest patches of gorse and rocks.
'How much further?' I asked.
'Not far. In fact it's just…' She tailed off, staring directly ahead.
The moor was pitted with holes.
They'd been hidden by the grass and heather until we were right on top of them. I counted half a dozen, each one about eighteen inches deep and about twice that long, roughly hacked out with clods of peat scattered around them. They seemed to have been dug at random, with no pattern or scheme.
I looked at Sophie. 'You didn't…'
'No, of course not! They weren't here last time I came!' Her indignation was reaclass="underline" this wasn't another of her surprises. 'Could an animal have dug them?'
I crouched down by the nearest hole. It was a little smaller than the rest, as though it had been abandoned partly dug. Its edges were marked with clear vertical cuts, and a neatly severed earthworm coiled blindly in the bottom. I could almost hear Wainwright s voice: Lumbricus terrestris. Overcomplicate at your peril.
'These were dug with a spade,' I said, straightening. 'Where was Tina Williams buried?'
'Just over there.' Sophie pointed. The patch of ground was undisturbed, overgrown with heather. The holes were unevenly spread out all around it.
'Are you sure?'
'I'm sure. The first time I came back out here I brought the original Ordnance Survey map I'd marked the coordinates on. I didn't need it after that.' She came and stood closer. 'It was Monk, wasn't it?'
I didn't answer: we both knew there was only one person who would have done this. None of the holes was big enough to be a grave. They were more like crude attempts at the exploratory trench Wainwright had dug when we'd found the dead badger.
'I don't understand. Why would Monk have been digging out here?' Sophie asked, glancing round uneasily.
'It has to be for the graves. You always said he might be telling the truth about not being able to remember where they were. Perhaps you were right.'
Her forehead wrinkled. 'That's not what I meant. I'm not surprised he couldn't find them after all this time, if that's what he was doing. But why would he want to?'
That hadn't occurred to me. It wasn't unheard of for killers to dig up their victims and rebury them, sometimes more than once. But that was usually done out of panic, a paranoid urge to hide the evidence. That didn't apply here. Monk had already confessed to the murders, and Zoe and Lindsey Bennett's graves had lain undetected for years.
So why dig up half the moor looking for them now?
I found myself looking down at the earthworm again, wriggling in its stubborn attempt to burrow into the soil. Something about it was nagging me. Then I realized.
Worms, even cut ones, don't stay long on the surface. Either they burrow back underground or they're eaten. Yet this one was still here. And the hole it was in was smaller than the others, as though whoever had dug it had broken off or…
'We need to go,' I said.
Sophie didn't move. She was staring across the moor. 'David. ..'
I followed her gaze. No more than a hundred yards away a motionless figure stood watching us. It seemed to have appeared from nowhere: there were no bushes or rocks nearby where it could have hidden. In the fading light it was little more than a silhouette, motionless in the rising ground mist. But there was a breadth and bulk about it that had an awful familiarity.
Topping the broad shoulders was the pale globe of a head.
There was an instant when everything seemed frozen. Then the figure started towards us. I took hold of Sophie's arm.
'Come on.'
'Oh, God, that's him, isn't it? It's Monk!'
'Just keep walking.'
But that was easier said than done. Heather clutched at our feet like barbed wire, and white tendrils of mist spread across the darkening moor like a vast cobweb. At another time I might have appreciated the sight. Now it made each step potentially treacherous. If either of us fell or turned an ankle…
Don't think about that. I kept my grip on Sophie's arm, urging her back towards the track. The car was just visible on the distant road, a tiny block of colour disappearing into the dusk. I felt sick at how far away it looked. It was tempting to ignore the track and cut straight across the moor, but even though that was the shortest route it would mean slogging over rough heather and bog. That would take even longer, and in the fading light we daren't risk it.
Both of us were already out of breath as I took another glance behind us. The figure was nearer than before, steadily closing the gap. Don't get distracted. Keep going. I turned away, and focused on the track ahead of us. It was no use phoning for help. Even if there was a signal no one would get here in time.
We stumbled over tussocks of reed-like marsh grass, boots squelching into the mud and water concealed underneath. I took another look back and saw that the figure wasn't following us any more. Instead of trying to catch us before we reached the track, he was cutting across the moor towards the road.
He was going to try to beat us to the car.
Sophie had seen him as well. 'David…' she panted.
'I know. Just keep going.'
The track was tantalizingly near, but once we reached it we still had to get back to the road. The figure didn't have nearly so far to go. He was moving across the moor in a steady, unhurried stride.
God, we're not going to make it. The ground rose more steeply as we reached the bank immediately below the track. Sophie was struggling now, and I had to help her scramble up the last few yards, clutching at handfuls of heather to pull ourselves up.
Then we were on the track's firmer surface. My chest was burning as I tugged Sophie into a lumbering run. 'Come on!'
'Wait… get my breath…' she gasped. Her face was white and slick with sweat. She shouldn't have been exerting herself so soon after coming out of hospital, but there was no choice.