The Devil's Chair by Priscilla Masters

had happened to the little girl.
    The weather was cool but as Randall took a few steps down into the valley the wind dropped and it became muggy. Tonight there would be more thick fog. The Devil’s own weather, it was said amongst the locals. The damp folded him into it like a blanket and for a moment it misted out the view so he felt he was alone and the other personnel somewhere else behind a thick screen. It was disorientating. He could not say exactly where he was. He was aware he must be careful not to step over the edge and, like the VW, tumble down into the valley. Then the mist cleared a little so he could look around him. The surrounding colours were muted: soft greens and browns, as gentle as English – or Welsh – countryside. This was, after all, the border between the two countries. In this blanketing fog even the voices of the officers were muted, their shouts softly distant and less staccato.
    Randall took a few more steps up the Burway, rounding the corner and climbing the steep slope to where Roddie Hughes, ex-SOCO, now an independent crime scene investigator, was ignoring the damp to kneel on the floor. Dressed in a white forensic suit, he was measuring tyre skids with a woman, presumably a colleague, at his side, filming the proceedings. Roddie specialized in vehicular crime scenes. He stood up and grinned as Randall approached him.
    â€˜Afternoon, Alex.’
    Randall returned the greeting and focused his attention on the tyre marks. Roddie scratched his head and looked ruefully at the damp knees of his forensic suit. Doubtless underneath he would be wearing a smart city suit and at a guess that too would have damp knees.
    â€˜She was doing about fifty,’ he observed, looking around him.
    Alex grimaced. Fifty might be reasonable on a straight road or a dual carriageway but on this narrow, winding and precipitous road it was breakneck speed.
    Roddie continued: ‘She wasn’t even driving straight on the way up but when she came around this corner she must have had a bit of a shock.’ He took three steps backwards. ‘Here,’ he said, stamping his foot down on a thick spread of rubber. ‘It must have been right
here
. Which means …’ He stepped forward ten, twenty yards and looked down at the road surface, ‘… whatever she saw must have been around here.’ His voice tailed off. Neither man could see any sign of activity at this point.
    Randall frowned. While there were clear tyre marks where Tracy had slammed on her brakes, there was no corresponding skid beneath Roddie Hughes’ feet on the road. ‘It can’t have involved another car,’ he said slowly, ‘or we’d see more marks.’
    Hughes shrugged. ‘Not,’ he said, ‘if the other car was already stationary.’ He hesitated. ‘It might have been nothing. She’d been drinking heavily. She might have
thought
she saw something without there being anything really there. It might even have been …’ His eyes drifted upwards towards the Devil’s Chair looming through the mist. Then he looked back at DI Randall. He was watching the detective very intently as he spoke. Alex felt something uncomfortable in his gaze and turned to look at him. ‘Oh, surely, Roddie, you can’t believe all that …’ His mouth opened and he was tempted to laugh. ‘Not all that Devil stuff, folklore, surely?’
    Again, Roddie shrugged. ‘She might have
thought
she saw something like that. You have to admit,’ he said, looking around him as the mist danced, ‘this is an eerie place, particularly at night. Strange, inexplicable things do happen here.’
    As he was speaking the woman straightened up and Alex met a pair of very fine grey eyes fringed with long, curling black lashes. She was tall and long-legged, with silky brown hair and a very forthright stare. She gave Hughes a swift, prompting glance and he flushed. ‘This