Cut Dead by Mark Sennen Page B

time at Full Sutton was exemplary. He worked with long-term prisoners and sex offenders. Still does, as a matter of fact, few days a month over at the Vulnerable Offenders Unit at Channings Wood in Newton Abbot.’
    ‘And the prison, Full Sutton? What’s that like?’
    ‘Nothing like here.’ Rose stood and returned to the sofa. He picked up his cup, took a gulp of coffee and then ran his tongue over his teeth, as if trying to remove something unpleasant or bitter. ‘HMP Full Sutton is a Category A prison and houses some of the most dangerous men in the system.’
    After working through a number of administrative details with Hardin, Savage left the station and headed back to Tavy View Farm, intent on catching up with John Layton. In the lane outside the farm a Sky TV van straddled the verge, in front of the van a BBC outside broadcast car. Satellite dishes on their roofs pointed heavenward, ready to supply up-to-the-minute reporting.
    She parked behind the Sky van, went into the farmyard past a watchful PC, and headed for the field. The temporary aluminium tracks remained in place but the big yellow digger had gone, a huge water bowser in its place. Nearby, the crime scene tent stood in an area of devastation, three new exploratory trenches carving through a landscape of mud and spoil heaps. The pump unit stood idle and the trenches had backfilled with a thin layer of grey sludge. Two CSIs, their white suits plastered with mud, were washing debris through sieves and the resulting discharge trickled down across the field. Savage tracked the stream to where it reached the boundary fence and the railway embankment. Then she went to find John Layton.
    When Savage explained her intentions he wasn’t happy.
    ‘Your call, ma’am,’ he said, ‘but the DSupt won’t like it.’
    Layton shook his head and followed Savage down across the field. Two strands of slack barbed wire marked the edge, beyond a hedge in need of attention, the hawthorn trunks thick and ineffective as a barrier. She climbed over the barbed wire, slipped through a break in the hedge and pushed up through some scrub before stepping onto the railway line. The ballast was wide enough for two tracks but only one remained. To the right the track curved back towards the village and the station; to the left the lines of steel headed across the Tavy Bridge and seemed to converge in the distance, pointing almost, Savage thought.
    ‘That way,’ she said, ‘and I’ll take the rap for any Health and Safety issues.’
    Savage knew DSupt Hardin would want things done by the book, in this case meaning getting permission from Network Rail before venturing onto the line. The result being half a dozen men in fluorescent vests tramping along the tracks with them, leaving her no room to think.
    ‘Over the bridge?’ Layton came through the scrub and then looked up the track away from the crossing. ‘Not back towards Bere Ferrers station?’
    ‘We’re on a peninsula. It’s a long way to get here from anywhere. Plus the village is tiny. A car parked in a lane would be noticed as being unusual. I reckon the killer came from the Plymouth side.’
    ‘He dragged the bodies across the bridge?’
    ‘There are no trains in the middle of the night and in darkness no chance of being spotted. The burial site is only a short way from the end of the bridge.’
    Layton shrugged his shoulders and they started walking. The bridge began as a stone structure but after a couple of spans became steel, a series of seven columns forging their way through the rising water of the river Tavy. Halfway across, Layton paused and moved to one side. He peered down into the water at the swirling eddies caused by the incoming tide.
    ‘We need to dive the area to be sure, but I guess any evidence, such as clothing or a weapon, will be long gone.’
    ‘What about the heads?’
    ‘You mean plop, plop, plop?’ Layton looked down into the water again, bit his lip and then shook his head. ‘I