Prologue

The powerful motorcycle roared along the road, the rider stooping as low as he could to reduce drag from the wind. Then he sat more upright as he slowed to take the turning ahead, leaning left as he steered the bike off the main road and into a narrow, tree-lined lane. Using his booted feet to steady the bike, he allowed it to slow to a stop, flipped up the visor of his crash helmet and took his first look at the legendary Dragon Barn Lane.

Coming up to eighteen years of age, Billy Hopkins was motorbike mad. His dream was to join the Bare Back Riders club, and proudly wear the BBR tattoo, but to become a member he had to descend almost two miles from the barn at the top of the hill down here to the main road in less than two minutes. 

A mile and a half in two minutes sounded easy enough, but the lane was narrow, with straight sections and enough twists and turns to satisfy the keenest roller coaster rider. And, to earn the right to wear the tattoo, the ride had to be completed under official BBR timed conditions, without a crash helmet. 

They had told him no-one ever used the lane and that the barn at the top was derelict so he could practise the descent whenever he wanted. Aware of the risks of flying downhill around hairpin bends, and safe in the knowledge no-one would watch, Billy intended to wear his crash helmet, just until he was confident, of course. 

Billy blipped the throttle twice and looked up at the sky through the branches of the trees above him. The light was already fading, but he thought he could get two or three practice runs in before dark if he got a move on. 

He flipped his visor back down, opened the throttle and roared off along the first straight, emerging from under the trees to find the first slow, twisty section, then along another straight to an impossibly narrow hairpin bend, that made him slow to a crawl. Then he was opening the throttle on the next straight section.

Billy could just make out where the narrow road disappeared around the next corner, when suddenly a vehicle appeared, coming from the opposite direction. He had been told no-one ever used the lane, and he was so surprised it took a few seconds to realise what was happening, but by then he was almost on top of the vehicle.

Billy braked hard, but only managed to put the bike into a slide. He did his best to keep away from the other vehicle, but at the last moment the driver jerked the steering wheel to the right, causing a glancing blow which sent both bike and rider flying through the long grass that bordered the lane.

The vehicle had slowed considerably before it hit the sliding bike, but now it came to a halt and the driver leaned out of the window to see what had happened to the bike rider. Then the driver put the vehicle into reverse and crawled backwards through the grass in the wake of the fallen bike and rider.

Laying in the long grass, bruised, winded, ears ringing, Billy couldn’t quite believe he was still alive. He tried moving his arms and legs and was surprised to find they worked. Stiffly and rather unsteadily, he climbed to his feet. Looking around, he could see the vehicle that had just knocked him off his bike was reversing towards him. 

Good. He was going to need help to get his bike out of here, and then he was going to have some choice words to say to the idiot driver. He undid his crash helmet and was just taking it off when he realised something wasn’t right. Instead of stopping, the vehicle was speeding up. 

The last thing Billy felt was the agonising pain as the vehicle crashed into him.

Chapter One

Detective Constable Judy Lane leaned back in her chair, stretched, yawned expansively, and then looked at her wristwatch. It was 21.00. It had taken much longer to write her report than intended, and now she was starving and wished she’d eaten earlier.

She tidied her already immaculately neat desk, gathered her things together and climbed slowly, and stiffly, to her feet. God, she was tired, but now it was done. At least she could sleep with a clear conscience. 

She crossed the shared office that doubled as their incident room, slipped on her coat, switched the lights off and pushed through the doors into the corridor. And then, just as the doors swung closed behind her, the office telephone rang.

Lane cursed quietly. Just a few more seconds and she would have been out of there. For a second or two, she thought about ignoring it, but she was far too dedicated to her job to give the idea serious consideration. With a heavy sigh, she turned on her heel, pushed her way back through the doors, and snatched up the nearest phone.

‘Llangwelli station, DC Lane speaking.’

‘Good evening. This is Sergeant Davis from the Regional Call Centre. We’ve had a call put through to us for urgent investigation, but we’ve got no uniforms available, and it’s in your area.’

‘We’ve got no uniforms here either, sir,’ said Lane. ‘Just like your guys, ours is helping to deal with this massive rave that’s going on.’

‘But you’re there,’ said Davis.

Lane’s heart sank.

‘Yes, I’ve been working late, but I was just going home.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Davis. ‘Unless you’re telling me you’re going to refuse to do your duty.’

Lane put her hand over the receiver, swore softly, then removed her hand so he could hear her.

‘No, sergeant,’ she said wearily. ‘Of course, I won’t refuse to do my duty. Can you give me some details?’

‘It’s a bit of a weird one. Apparently, the caller dialled 999, but when the operator answered, there was silence on the other end. At first she thought it was a prank call, but, as she listened, she thought she could hear ragged breathing. This worried her, so she flagged it up to me. I’ve tried calling the phone, but it seems to be dead. However, we have tracked the phone’s last location; that’s how we know it’s in your area.’

‘What’s the location?’

‘As far as we can tell, the call came from somewhere along a lane called Dragon Barn Lane. D’you know it?’

‘Not off the top of my head,’ said Lane. ‘Have you got a postcode, or grid reference?’

She made a note on her mobile phone as Davis reeled off a grid reference.

‘Any idea what I might find?’ asked Lane.

‘At first I thought it could be a heavy breather,’ said Davis, ‘but they usually hang up after a few seconds.’

‘What if it’s someone in danger and they can’t talk?’ asked Lane.

‘That’s a possibility,’ said Davis, ‘but whatever it is, we won’t know until you get out there, will we? Or is there some problem I should know about?’

‘No, sergeant, there’s no problem. I’m just trying to make sure I know what I’m getting myself into.’

‘Well, now you know as much as I know, so get out there and do your job.’

As Lane returned the telephone to its cradle, she took a few deep breaths to calm herself.

Since DI Southall and DS Norman had arrived, she had made herself so useful inside the office doing case management that she rarely ventured outside. On the rare occasions she went out, she was always the subordinate officer and was never alone. But this time she was very much alone, and this brought back some uncomfortable memories.

‘Come on, Judy, you can do this,’ she muttered, as she made her way out to the car park and climbed into her car. ‘Someone needs your help. It’s what you trained for. It’s what you do.’

She tapped the grid reference into the car’s navigation system and studied the map that popped onto the screen. Dragon Barn Lane was a narrow lane off the main road about three miles outside Llangwelli. On the map it appeared reasonably straight to begin with, but then twisted and turned more and more as it snaked up the hillside, finally petering out at a solitary building. 

Lane’s heart sank even lower as she realised there was zero chance of there being any street lights to aid her search.

‘Terrific,’ she muttered as she started the car and put it into gear. ‘I’ll be groping around in the dark. That’s all I need.’

Fifteen minutes later, she turned off the main road into Dragon Barn Lane and wondered how many times she must have driven past this turning and not even noticed it. Once in the lane, she stopped the car and peered ahead into the gloom. In the glare of the car’s headlights she could see this first part of the lane was lined with gnarled old beech trees which formed a cathedral-like arch over the narrow ribbon of tarmac that stretched ahead of her. 

She drove slowly through the trees, following the lane as it narrowed, curved to the right, back to the left, and then straightened out again. She stopped again, and gazed ahead where she could just about make out overgrown grass verges on either side of the lane with tumbledown stone walls beyond. Beyond the reach of the car’s headlights, it was pitch black. She looked up at the sky, which was enveloped in such thick cloud not a single star could be seen. 

Swallowing hard, and offering a silent prayer to imaginary rain gods in the hope they might delay the imminent deluge, she released the brake and allowed the car to crawl slowly forward. As she peered out at the verges, it soon became apparent they were uneven in width, and in some places, the stone walls were so close she could almost reach out of the window and touch them. 

She turned another sharp corner and found herself on yet another straight stretch, but here the verges widened so she could no longer see the stone walls – they could have been yards away, or miles away, she just couldn’t tell. 

She drove along this straight stretch for a hundred yards until something caught her eye. The assorted vegetation growing on the verge had been knee high until this point, but now it looked as if someone, or something, had gone off the road and across the verge, creating a wide path in its wake. 

Lane stopped the car and tried to make out what had happened but, even after she had spent several minutes manoeuvring the car into a better position, she still couldn’t make out what she was looking at. It was no good. She was going to have to do the thing she dreaded most; leave the car and explore on foot. 

She fumbled around under her seat for the torch she kept there, fished it out and switched it on and off to make sure it worked. Her hands were trembling, but she knew if she let her fear get the better of her now, she’d never overcome it. 

‘I’m not a coward,’ she told herself loudly. ‘Anyone would feel the same in the circumstances. I’m not a coward.’

She popped the door open, stepped into the darkness, and pushed the car door closed. Then it occurred to her there was one more thing she really needed to do before she set off. She reached into her pocket for her mobile phone, breathing an enormous sigh of relief when she saw there was a reasonable signal. She scrolled through her contacts until she found the right one and pressed the button to make the call.

Holding the phone to her ear, and the torch in her other hand pointing ahead, she took a few tentative steps away from the car. She had expected to hear the ring tone for quite a while, so it startled her when it was answered almost straight away.

‘Yo, this is Norm,’ said the familiar, reassuring voice.

‘Hi, Sarge. I’m really sorry to call you this late, but you’ve always said we should call if ever we feel we may be at risk.’

‘Is that you, Judy? Where are you? What risk?’

‘I was working late catching up on my reports when the Regional Call centre called. They needed someone to respond, and there was no-one else available, so here I am.’

‘What’s the call?’

‘Mobile phone call from the middle of nowhere. They think it might be someone in trouble.’

‘It could just as easily be some sort of trap,’ said Norman.

As she walked, Lane could see something which, at first, she couldn’t quite make out.

‘It looks as if a vehicle may have gone off the road just here,’ she said, before adding, ‘oh, hang on, what’s this? It’s okay, Norm, this isn’t a trap. There’s been an accident; I can see a motorcycle on its side.’

‘And you say there’s no-one available to help you?’

‘Every uniform for miles around is dealing with a rave which is in danger of turning into a riot. They’re even calling in day shift guys.’

‘Jeez, they’ll be a merry bunch,’ said Norman. ‘But you shouldn’t be on your own. I’ll come and help. Where are you?’

‘I’m all right—’

‘Don’t argue, Judy. Just tell me where you are.’

‘A place called Dragon Barn Lane.’

‘Where is that? I’ve never heard of it.’

‘Nor had I until half an hour ago. It’s off the main drag about three miles out of town. I’ll text you the grid reference.’

‘Right,’ said Norman. ‘Send it to me now and I’ll be on my way. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.’

‘I’ll be easy to find. I’m on a lane leading nowhere and mine is the only car for miles.’

‘If it’s that remote, this could still be a trap. I think you’d best go back to your car and sit tight. I’m on my way.’

As she slipped the phone back into her pocket, her car headlights switched from full beam to sidelights. Close to panic, she held her breath and froze, then felt a fool as she remembered this was exactly what the car’s ”e-function” lights were supposed to do. 

She let out her held breath and recalled Norman’s warning, but she didn’t go back to her car. If there was a crashed motorcycle, that meant there had to be a rider somewhere nearby, and she’d probably wasted too much time already. 

>>>>>>>>

Llangwelli is a small harbour town that relies on tourism to survive, but at 21.30 on a weekday in January there are few visitors around. Even the locals tend not to stray too far from home at this time of year, so the roads are often empty, especially after dark. This meant Norman could put his foot to the floor and speed, unimpeded, to the scene.

As he slowed to turn off the main road on to Dragon Barn Lane, Norman glanced at the dashboard clock and was pleased to see it was 21.49. Nineteen minutes to reach a place he’d never even heard of was pretty good going.

The lane was even narrower than he had expected, and the overhanging trees turned what was already a dark night into one of inky blackness, which even his headlights didn’t seem to penetrate fully. Muttering darkly about how this place gave him the creeps, he followed the narrow road through the trees and around several sharp turns until, at last, he saw the red tail reflectors of Judy Lane’s parked car.

Norman pulled up behind the car, expecting to see her climb from the car as he arrived, but nothing happened. Grabbing the torch he had brought with him, he jumped from his car to be greeted by an eerie, silent stillness. He peered into her car, but she was nowhere to be seen. This wasn’t really a surprise, as he knew it was extremely unlikely she would sit tight, knowing an injured rider could be nearby. Even so, he felt uneasy.

He figured she couldn’t be far, so he called out to her.

‘Judy! It’s Norm. Where are you?’

He listened hard for a reply, but all he heard was more suffocating silence. Swinging the torch around, he spotted the area of flattened grass verge she had mentioned. He guessed that must be where she saw the motorcycle, so he hurried that way.

It didn’t take him long to find the fallen motorcycle, but there was no rider, and no Judy Lane. Slowly, he swung the torch around, looking for clues. A rough path through the long grass caught his eye and suggested someone may have walked that way. Almost running now, he followed the path for a few yards until he saw a man dressed in motorcycle leathers sitting back against a tree.

He ran the last couple of steps to the man, knelt beside him and felt his neck for a pulse, but there was none. Feeling how cold the man was, Norman understood he could do nothing for him, and returned his attention to finding Judy Lane.

Jumping to his feet, he called her name again, but still there was no reply. Desperately, he fumbled his mobile phone from his pocket. Miraculously he had a signal, so he found her number, pressed call, and held the phone to his left ear as the ring tone began. 

It was fully ten seconds before Norman realised he could hear the ring tone in his left ear and, more faintly, another ring tone in his right ear. The two ring tones were in sync, but the fainter one was a different, more musical sound. He took the phone away from his left ear, listened hard, and then followed the music which was coming from behind the tree where the body was sitting.

As he followed the music it grew louder until, some twenty yards beyond the tree, he found Judy Lane slumped in a heap on the ground, a tiny trickle of blood in her hair suggesting she’d somehow fallen and hit her head.

Having quickly found out she had a steady pulse, and was breathing normally, he carefully gathered her up in his arms, fumbled his torch into place to illuminate his path as best he could, and then slowly stumbled his way back through the long grass towards the cars. 

Breathing heavily, Norman gently placed Lane on the grass verge, fetched a blanket from the boot of his car, and made her as comfortable as he could. Then he reached for his mobile phone and called 999. There were two or three more calls he would need to make, but they could wait until he knew Judy was in expert hands. 

Luckily, an ambulance had been just a few minutes away when Norman made his call and it was on the scene within just ten minutes. The two paramedics on board competently and efficiently assessed Lane and, having assured Norman her condition did not appear to be life-threatening, settled her on a stretcher in the back of the ambulance, and set off for the nearest hospital with an Accident and Emergency unit, for further treatment.

>>>>>>>>

Norman had made the rest of his calls while he was waiting for the ambulance to arrive, starting with his boss, DI Sarah Southall, who was shocked to hear his news, but told him she would be on the way within minutes. 

Now he leaned against the boot of his car and, as he tried to gather his thoughts, he watched the taillights of the ambulance disappear into the darkness and then listened hard as the sound of the engine became quieter and quieter until, finally, he could no longer hear it. 

In the deathly silence that followed, he ran the sequence of events through his mind again, and again, convinced this was somehow his fault, and that Judy Lane’s injury could have been avoided had he handled the situation in a better way. But he soon realised that it didn’t matter which way he looked at it. There was nothing he could have done to change what happened. If only she had waited for him, or called him before she got to the scene…

The faint, faraway sound of a car interrupted his thoughts. It was approaching rapidly along the main road from Llangwelli; the noise increasing as it approached, then fading as the car slowed to take the turning into Dragon Barn Lane. 

Now the noise alternated, louder and then softer, as the car negotiated the twists and turns of the narrow lane, the beam of its headlights creating an eerie light show that glowed and dimmed in time with the sound of its approach. 

Then, as the car rounded the last bend, the headlights were suddenly dazzling and Norman had to raise a hand to shield his eyes. The driver, DI Sarah Southall, hastily dipped the lights before pulling up behind Norman’s car, switching off the engine, and climbing from the car. 

‘Sorry about that, Norm,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to blind you.’

‘It’s my fault. I should know better than to stare into the headlights, especially when I heard you coming.’

Southall quickly took in the scene.

‘Where’s Judy?’

‘The ambulance took her off to hospital.’

‘Is she badly hurt?’

‘I don’t know if she fell or what happened, but she somehow hit her head. She’s unconscious, but the paramedics say they don’t think she’s in immediate danger. Of course, they won’t know for sure until they get her to hospital and she has a scan.’

‘What about you, Norm? Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine, just upset I didn’t get here sooner.’

Southall took out her mobile phone.

‘Which hospital have they taken her to? I’ve got Catren Morgan on standby so she can go over there and keep us informed.’

‘Morriston,’ said Norman.

He waited while Southall called Morgan and sent her off to the hospital.

‘What was she doing out here in the middle of nowhere?’ she asked as she slipped her phone back into her pocket.

‘She came out to investigate an emergency call.’

‘On her own? What about uniforms?’

‘Apparently, there’s a massive rave going on. They sent uniformed officers to break it up, but now it looks like it’s going to turn into a riot so they have called in every uniform within fifty miles, which includes our one and only guy, and everyone from Region.’

‘That explains where Harry Winter is, then.’

‘Winter? What about him?’

Harry Winter was the youngest and newest member of their team.

‘I couldn’t get hold of him, but I assume they’ve called him away to deal with this damned rave, too.’

‘Officially, he’s still a uniformed PC, so that was bound to happen.’

‘Anyway, what’s the emergency?’ asked Southall.

‘Someone called 999 but didn’t speak. They pinged the phone and found it was out here. Judy came out to investigate. When she called me she said there had been an accident and she’d just found a motorcycle on its side.’ Norman pointed towards the body. ‘The rider’s down there, propped against a tree, dead. I found her lying on the grass about thirty yards away from him.’

‘Did the paramedics check him out?’

‘Yeah, but he’s well gone. All they could do was confirm his death.’

‘Didn’t they take his body away?’

‘I wouldn’t let them,’ said Norman. ‘They couldn’t do anything for him, and one of our officers has possibly been assaulted, so this is a crime scene, and that body is evidence.’

‘Was Judy assaulted?’

‘It’s so damned dark out here it’s almost impossible to see anything, even by torchlight, but I had a good look around where I found her, and I couldn’t see anything hard enough to knock her out if she fell.’

‘And you think someone attacked her?’

‘My gut’s telling me I don’t believe she fell.’

Southall looked around.

‘You’re right, it is dark out here, isn’t it? And I assume if everyone’s at a rave we’ve no hope of getting any support out here?’

‘Zilch,’ said Norman. ‘They laughed when I asked.’

‘Not even forensics?’

‘There’s a team on the way, but my guess is they’ll tell us this place is so isolated there’s virtually no danger the public are going to trample all over the scene so they’ll just cordon it off and tell us to come back in the morning when they can see what they’re doing.’

They could hear a large vehicle approaching.

‘That sounds like the forensic guys now,’ said Norman.

A minute or two later, they could see headlights approaching and then the van was rounding the last corner before pulling up behind Southall’s car with a loud screech of brakes. The driver’s door swung open, and the driver climbed out. He took a quick survey of his surroundings and walked across to join Norman and Southall.

‘You have to be kidding,’ he said. 

‘We don’t get to choose crime scenes,’ said Norman. ‘If we did, they’d all be inside nice cosy houses.’

‘We won’t be able to see what we’re doing.’

‘Don’t you have lights?’ asked Southall.

‘Well, yes, but—’

‘Then I suggest you unload them and get them working. And where’s the pathologist?’

‘He’s on his way. He’s not too happy about being called out at this time of might.’

‘Well, I’m sorry if we’re inconveniencing you all,’ said Southall. ‘Perhaps you’d like me to pass your complaint on to the young detective who is currently on her way to hospital in an ambulance.’

The driver winced and shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

‘Ah. I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know. But if she’s on the way to hospital, can’t we wait until the morning? And, do you need a pathologist?’

‘If it could wait, I wouldn’t have called you guys out,’ said Norman. ‘And as for, do we need a pathologist? Yeah, we do.’ He pointed into the darkness. ‘There’s a dead man whose body needs recovering, but we need you guys to go over the scene before he’s moved. And, before you ask, no, he can’t wait until the morning.’

‘It will be a lot easier to get set up if we can bring the van closer.’

‘All the action seems to be on this side of the road,’ said Norman, ‘so you can park your van on the verge opposite.’

Once the van had been moved, it wasn’t long before a generator was humming away, and they had erected lights, their brilliant beams aimed towards the scene of the accident. Now the white-suited figures, led by the driver who seemed to be the team leader, made their way slowly towards the body, photographing every inch of the area as they walked.

After a few seconds, the leader called a halt and made his way carefully back to Norman and Southall. 

‘I think we need to call in an accident investigator. There are what look like wheel marks going through the grass.’

‘That would be where the bike went off the road,’ said Norman.

‘I don’t think so. I’m talking about paired wheel marks, like a car would make.’

‘A car?’

‘Okay, maybe not a car, but a vehicle with four wheels.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Southall.

‘To be honest, even with the floodlights it’s difficult to see anything clearly.’

‘But you think it’s possible there was another vehicle here.’

‘I’d go further than that and say it’s probable.’

‘Which means this entire area could be a crime scene,’ added Southall.

The team leader nodded.

‘Exactly,’ he said.

‘And we could contaminate it just by standing here,’ added Southall.

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Are you saying is you want to call your team off until the morning?’

‘You’re the boss, so that’s your decision but, as team leader, I have to advise you we’re almost certainly trampling all over potential evidence because we can’t see it.’

Southall looked at Norman.

‘What do you think, Norm?’ she asked.

‘I dunno,’ said Norman. ‘Isn’t it better to get things moving as fast as we can?’

‘Even with the floodlights, it’s so dark out here it’s going to be almost impossible to find trace evidence,’ said the leader, ‘and as for doing anything fast, well…’

Southall studied the man’s face as she considered her response.

‘If we call it off until the morning, I still want that body moved,’ she said. ‘We can’t leave him out here all night.’

‘Doctor Bridger would never sanction leaving a body out all night, but he won’t allow us to move the dead man until he’s examined and photographed him in situ.’

‘And you think you can do that without compromising the scene?’ asked Norman sceptically.

‘You guys have already compromised the scene by wandering all over it in the dark. We’ll do our best not to make it any worse.’

Norman bristled.

‘I didn’t know it was a crime scene. I was looking for a colleague who had been attacked!’

The team leader took a step back.

‘All right, mate, keep your hair on. I totally understand why you did it, and I’m sure I would have done the same. But it doesn’t matter how noble your intentions were, you still walked all over a potential crime scene. And that is going to make an already tough job a lot harder.’

Norman sighed. He knew the man was right, and arguing just for the sake of it was pointless. He nodded his agreement.

‘When you put it like that, I think we should probably do as you suggest.’

The team leader smiled.

‘I honestly think it’s for the best, and I’m sure the accident investigator will be a lot happier if we can preserve the scene until he gets here.’

Norman turned to Southall.

‘Looks like you could have stayed at home.’

‘Nonsense. If one of our team is in trouble, I want to be there whatever the time of day.’

Norman nodded.

‘Do you want me to go to the hospital?’ he asked.

‘You get some sleep,’ she said. ‘We need you fresh for the morning. I’ll wait for the pathologist and then take over from Catren at the hospital. I’d like the two of you to meet here first thing in the morning and make a start.’