The Calling Of The Grave

He'd gone beyond that.

None of which would have involved Sophie, except for the anonymous phone call to her house. It had been made from a lonely public phone box on the outskirts of Princetown, a small town surrounded by high, open moors. It was also the site of Dartmoor prison, where Monk had spent the early years of his sentence. That could have been a coincidence, but there was a more compelling reason why the location might have appealed to him.

There was an old tin mine nearby.

The cave team who had gone down had reported that, like the larger mine at Black Tor, it was flooded and impassable after the recent rains. Even so, it still had to be checked out.

'Wouldn't surprise me if the bugger made the call from there deliberately, knowing we'd waste time. He conned us into taking him out on the moor looking for graves, so he's not as stupid as he looks,' Roper said. 'There's only so many mines he can go down, though, and now we know what he's up to he's on a hiding to nothing. It's only a matter of time before he's caught. The question is what sort of damage he can do before then.'

Which was the real reason for his visit. After what had happened to Wainwright, Monk's attempt to contact Sophie was being taken seriously. So seriously that Simms had arranged for her to stay at a police safe house. Or perhaps 'instructed' was more accurate.

The conversation had gone downhill from there.

'We don't suggest this sort of thing for fun,' Roper persisted. 'It's for your own good.'

'I'll decide what's for my own good, thanks. I'm not going to some grubby safe house because of some… some stupid phone call you don't even know for sure was from Monk. This is my home!'

'That didn't stop someone from waltzing in and knocking you unconscious a few days ago.' Roper raised his eyebrows in mock enquiry. 'Don't suppose you've remembered anything about that yet, have you?'

Sophie's hand made an involuntary movement towards the bruise on her face. She lowered it. 'Don't you think I'd have told you if I had? Anyway, that was nothing to do with Monk. The police said it was just a burglary.'

'Yes, so I gather. Except I don't think you've reported anything stolen, have you?'

Sophie opened her mouth, then closed it. 'There was some cash I'd left lying around and a few pieces of cheap jewellery. It didn't seem worth bothering with.'

That was news to me: she hadn't said anything was missing. Roper regarded her for a moment.

'Look, love-'

'I'm not your "love". And I'm not leaving. You can't expect me to just drop everything, I've got a business to run!'

'You should have thought about that before you chose a murderer as a pen pal,' Roper snapped. 'To someone like Monk that's as good as an invitation.'

Sophie folded her arms. 'I'm not going.'

Roper sighed, looking at me as though to say, Well? 'He's right,' I told her. 'It doesn't have to be a safe house. Like I said, we could go to a hotel for a few days. Or you could stay at your sister's-'

That was a mistake. 'Oh, no! No way.'

'It would only be for-'

'No. I'd rather face Monk.' She turned to Roper. 'Sorry you've had a wasted trip. Now if you don't mind I've got work to do.'

She banged out. Roper stared after her. 'Well, that's that.'

'Isn't there something else you can do?' I asked.

He pulled at his lip unhappily. 'I suppose I can see about having a panic button installed. Not that it'll do much good, the time it'll take a response team to arrive.'

'Can't you arrange for police protection here?'

'We're not a private security service. She's been offered a safe house, but if she wants to stick her head in the sand that's up to her.' He got to his feet, shaking his head. 'The ACC isn't going to like this.'

'He's going to like it even less if Monk hurts anyone else.'

Roper gave me a sharp look. 'I'm sure he'll take that under consideration, Dr Hunter.'

I saw him out, watching as he drove away, then I fetched my coat and went across to the kiln. I could hear the whirr of the potter's wheel before I opened the door. Sophie sat behind it, intently shaping a bowl from a piece of wet clay.

'I'm not going to change my mind,' she said, without looking up.

'I know. I just wanted to see if you were all right.'

'I'm fine. 'The bowl on the wheel was uneven, but she didn't seem to notice.

'You didn't say anything before about money and jewellery being missing.'

'There was nothing valuable. It wasn't worth mentioning.'

I waited. She kept her attention on the wheel. 'If there's anything you need to tell me…'

'I just need to be alone for a while, OK?'

The bowl had begun to wobble and lose its shape. It was beyond salvaging, but Sophie carried on as though it might somehow correct itself. Not knowing what else to say, I went out. The damp and misty air caught my throat as I headed back to the house.

I couldn't understand why Sophie was being so stubborn. But then I didn't really know her. So why are you staying? Just for her? That was part of it, although there was another reason as well, one that had been nudging at me ever since I'd heard about Monk's escape. And perhaps even longer: it had been lying dormant but this went back eight years, to the abortive search on the moor.

I wanted answers.

I'd just reached the house when my phone beeped with an incoming message. The signal was unreliable around here, subject to the vagaries of weather and geology, but something had obviously got through. I took it out and saw I'd got a text. It was short and to the point.

Trencherman's Arms, 2pm.

It was from Terry.

Chapter 22

The mist thinned as I neared the higher ground at Oldwich, but as though to compensate the drizzle gave way to rain. It was the sort of monotonous downpour that seemed as though it could go on for ever, making the moor look lifeless beneath the incessant grey sky.

The Trencherman's car park was empty except for one other car. I didn't know if it was Terry's or not, but the grubby paintwork and litter-strewn interior made me doubt it. Although the yellow Mitsubishi must have been long gone by now, Terry had always been as fastidious about his car's appearance as he was about his own.

But when I went into the pub and saw he was the only customer I realized the car must be his after all. He was sitting at a secluded corner table. His clothes were crumpled and unwashed, and even from across the room I could see the untidy stubble on his chin. He stared into his half-empty beer glass, an expression on his face I'd not seen before. It was one I didn't associate with Terry.

He looked lost.

Then he noticed me and it vanished. His shoulders straightened as I went over. He sat back, regarding me with something more like his old arrogance.

'I wasn't sure you'd come.'

I almost hadn't. The sensible thing would have been to tell Roper, or to ignore the message altogether. I'd considered both, but whatever mess Terry had got himself into was a disciplinary matter rather than a criminal one, and running to Simms went against the grain.

Besides, I wanted to hear what he had to say.

I pulled up a chair and sat opposite him. A sour smell of sweat and unmetabolized alcohol came across the table. 'What did you want to see me about?'

'Aren't you having a drink?'

'I won't be staying long.'

I'd told Sophie I was going to buy food. That was no lie: I'd stopped off at a local shop on my way here to stock up on groceries. I didn't like leaving her alone at the house, but after Roper's visit we both needed some time to ourselves. Still, I didn't plan on being away any longer than I had to.

'I think we've had this conversation before.' Terry took a drink himself. 'You tell anyone where you were going?'

'No.'

'How about Sophie?' His grin was vicious. 'Don't tell me you've not got your feet under that table. Sympathetic shoulder and all that. Or are you still pretending to be just good friends?'