"Give me a hand here," I said.
Soon we'd cleared the earth from a roughly made rectangular box. We all climbed out of the hole and I inserted the spade beneath the lid. There was a loud creaking as nails came away from the wood, then the cover shifted.
"Bloody hell!" Rog said, as we took in the diminutive figure.
It was a young girl, her hands bound and resting on her abdomen. Her eyes were wide in terror. There was another piece of rope around her ankles, and her knees were raw from the countless times she had banged them against the coffin lid.
I got hold of her shoulders and pulled her up as gently as I could, then handed her to Pete. When she was on the floor, Rog started cutting her bonds. That was difficult, because she was jerking around like a dying fish, croaking something that we couldn't understand. Eventually I understood. She was desperate for water. Pete went back to the cottage to get some.
"What's your name?" I said, taking her in my arms.
She continued to shudder violently, but she managed to speak again.
"Am…Ama…Amanda Ma…Mary."
I smiled at her. "Hello, Amanda Mary. I'm Matt and this is Roger."
She stared at us as if we were aliens. When Boney came back with water and some bread that he'd found, she drank desperately, spilling much of it over her pink blouse. I reckoned she was eleven or twelve. I also had a pretty good idea who she was. To have got the former SAS men to ignore their training and allow themselves to be taken out, Sara had used their family members as leverage. The only question was, whose daughter was she? I couldn't face telling her what had happened to her father now. I kept her in a tight embrace while Rog and Pete dug down to the next coffin. This time it was a boy, who didn't look more than six. He couldn't speak at all-just drank and then stuffed bread into his mouth. Finally, Pete and I got a middle-aged woman out.
As I'd suspected from the moment I saw Amanda Mary, there was no trace at all of Andy. Twenty-Eight Karen Oaten was driving down the fast lane of the M4, blue lights flashing and siren blasting.
"Jesus, guv," John Turner said, hands clutching his seat. "Can we get there in one piece, please?"
"Come on, Taff," she said, swerving inside an ambulance that was also in full emergency mode. "When have I ever put as much as a scratch on a car?" She sounded in high spirits, but it was only for show. Matt's call, saying that he'd found three people buried alive in a property owned by Sara Robbins, had almost made her scream- not because he'd saved three people's lives, but because he'd told her that he'd already left the cottage. She was sure he was in pursuit of Sara, but he hadn't bothered to tell her where he was going.
"What did the AC say about Matt pulling a gun on you?" The Welshman was still outraged by the writer's performance.
Oaten kept her eyes on the road. "He doesn't know."
"What?"
"Calm down, Taff. I decided against publicizing that and I managed to get the PC to keep it to himself, at least for the time being."
"But why?"
The chief inspector glanced at him. "Would you rat on your wife?"
Turner sighed. "She's hardly likely to wave a gun at me or anyone else."
"Matt left because I was taking him to the Yard." Oaten's hands were tight on the wheel. "What did you expect me to do? I love the stupid bugger. It's not as if he's a master criminal. And remember, his best friend was killed."
"The law's the law, whoever you are," the inspector muttered.
"Oh, come on, Taff, how many times have you overlooked things team members have done?"
He glared at her. "Involving firearms and murderers, none."
Karen Oaten took a deep breath. "Look, I didn't say Matt was off the hook. At the end of these cases, I'll review the situation."
"You'd better," the Welshman said, "or the AC will tear your head off."
Oaten thought back to the scene in the house in Stoke Newington-blood everywhere, but no body. It was obvious it had been in parts, though. "Nice metaphor, Taff."
Inspector John Turner raised an eyebrow. "What? Oh, I see what you mean. Sorry."
They proceeded to the cottage at Oldbury, a truce of sorts established.
It took us only half an hour to get to the railings that marked the limit of Earl Sternwood's domain. The moon was casting a fitful light across the acres of parkland and forest. I got out of the Suzuki and listened. Apart from the faint noise of traffic in the distance, there was no sound. We checked our gear.
"Oh, shit, I just remembered this," Pete said, holding up a brick-size block wrapped in clear film.
It was plastic explosive. Dave had trained us how to use it, but this would be the first time for real.
"Yeah, take it," I said. "We're trying to get into a castle, after all." I looked at the satellite photo I'd found of the estate. A faint line wound through the dark patch of forest in front of us. "This looks like a path. If we follow it, we come out right in front of the main buildings."
"Fair enough," Rog said. "As long as His Lordship hasn't had mines laid."
"We'll just have to take that chance," I said. "For Andy."
The others nodded and we set off. It was quiet in the woods, apart from the scurrying of small animals and the faint flap of owls' wings. I was glad I had company. I wouldn't have fancied walking through the ancient forest on my own-there were too many obscure places for enemies to conceal themselves. After about ten minutes, I made out the lights on the main house. There weren't many of them. Either Earl Sternwood was strapped for cash-which seemed unlikely, given the drugs deal he'd done with the Albanians-or there wasn't much going on. The area that the map showed as taken up by the castle was completely unlit. If I'd located it correctly, it was a brooding, shadowless presence.
We reached the tree line. Now the mass of the old stronghold was visible, its vertical walls blocking out the stars and satellites that stood low in the northern sky. We squatted down behind a tree and looked at the photos that Safet Shkrelli's investigator had obtained. They gave us an idea of the tower's size, but didn't tell us anything about the interior structure. On the other hand, the meetings of the notorious Sternwood Hell-fire Club had taken place in a subterranean cavern. I reckoned that the present earl kept his secrets down there and that Sara wouldn't have been able to resist stashing Andy there.
"The door's at the back," Pete said.
"Right," I said. "I'll go first. If a motion-sensor turns on lights, I'll see if I can spot it. We'll need to shoot it out." I racked the slide on my Glock, then nodded at the others.
"Three, two, one, go," I said under my breath, running across the gravel as fast as I could. I made it to the castle wall without anything happening-at least, anything obvious. I had no idea how good the earl's security system was. I might already have been spotted.
"One at a time," I said via my cheek-mike.
Pete came first, then Rog. I led them around the side of the tower, pointing to the two cars that were drawn up to the rear. It didn't look like many people were around, though there was plenty of parking space on the far side of the house.
We reached the door. It was a great wooden thing with metal studs all over it, but it didn't look old. The locks were also modern and solid. I wouldn't have fancied trying to pick them. Pete moved past me, heading for a square ventilation panel. It was about a meter above ground level, with each side measuring about three- quarters of a meter. It would be a tight fit, but I reckoned we could make it-if we managed to separate the lou- vered panel from its metal frame. Boney set about it with a chisel, cursing under his breath. After five minutes, he had to admit defeat. I had a go, but the join was tighter than a banker's lips.
"Only one way to go now," Rog said.
"Don't tell me," Pete whispered. "The plastic."