Slated for Death (2 page)

His colleague shook his head. “No. Not all right. We're two short.”

“Two! Well, one of them is that fellow who panicked and we had to bring him up early. So he's accounted for. As for the other one … sure you got the count right? No one could have slipped past you?” When the colleague shook his head to indicate the count was accurate, Bevan called out to the operations team to let them know the train had to make one more descent.

When the group of mine workers reached the starting point of the tour, several hundred feet below ground, Bevan spoke. “We'll go this way.” He switched on a powerful torch. “The missus is making shepherd's pie tonight. I hope this won't take too long.”

The men set off, raking the ground with the bright beams from their torches, occasionally pointing them down the chained-off side tunnels that were not part of the tour.

One of them stopped to pick up a gum wrapper and a little further on, a business card and then a glove.

Suddenly, Bevan stopped and held up his right hand. “What's that?” he asked in a low voice. A silence fell over them.

“I don't hear anything, said one of the men. Bevan pushed his hand forward in an impatient, halting gesture and then slowly lowered it. “Wait. Listen,” he whispered. A faint, eerily moaning sound drifted down the tunnel toward them. “The lake,” said Bevan. “It's coming from the lake chamber. Come on.” They hurried down the uneven passage and entered the large chamber. The silence was broken only by the gentle, pleasing splash of the waterfall. Bevan used his torch to slowly scan the floor of the chamber and as its bright beam reached the steps near the lake, a crumpled splash of red was revealed.

The men raced toward it. As they got closer the splash of red came into focus as the still form of a woman wearing a red coat.

When they reached her, one of the younger workers kneeled down and gingerly touched her shoulder.

“Are you all right, lady?” he asked.

He rolled her over slightly; her silvery hair fell to one side, revealing her face.

“Hey, isn't that…?” said one of the men.

When the woman did not respond, the crouching worker looked up at the others, his face a mask of shock and fear.

“Fetch the box!” yelled Bevan Jones.

 

Three

DCI Gareth Davies had been to some bad accidents and crime scenes in his thirty years with the North Wales Police. He'd seen the aftermath of horrific killings that defied belief. Scenes where the violence had been so shocking, so gruesome, that the flashbacks that jolted him awake just as he was drifting off to sleep left him sitting up in bed, sweating, and wishing there was some way he could delete the unspeakable images from his memory. But he'd never had a case where a body had been found in such a deep, dark place.

The call for an ambulance had come from the mine just after six o'clock and, unsure of the nature of the call, the dispatcher had requested police assistance. By the time Davies and his team arrived, there was no doubt that Glenda Roberts was beyond help. He stepped back from the body and looked around. Bevan Jones and his assistant stood in the shadows just outside the pool of intense, focused beams cast by the emergency lighting that had been set up near the body.

After examining the body, Davies walked over to them. “Which one of you is in charge?” he asked.

Bevan took a step forward. “I'm the operations manager.”

“Right. Can you tell me how all this works?”

“Not sure I follow you. How all what works?”

“Well, the tour. The mine. I've driven by lots of times, but I've never been here before.”

“That's the way of things, isn't it? We go where life takes us. I've driven by police stations lots of times but can't say I've spent much time in them.”

Davies decided he liked this blunt-speaking Welshman in the bright-red boilersuit, with his large, capable hands. He appeared to be in his mid to late forties, with pale blue eyes set in an open, somewhat weathered face.

“Describe to me what happened in, say, the last hour of your day.” Davies gestured in the direction of Glenda's body, which had been cordoned off, awaiting the arrival of the pathologist.

“Well, we bring the people down the mine on the train. The same one that brought you down. It's a self-guided tour for the most part that lasts about forty minutes, but we do have employees stationed down here available to help if required and to do the demonstration of Victorian mining techniques. We count the visitors in and out on each tour. This lady was on the last tour of the day and one of the lads told me we were two short when the group she was in returned up top. One was a fella who panicked, so we brought him up earlier. As soon as the tour count totalled one short, we came down looking for the other person who was unaccounted for and there she was. That's just how we found her.”

“You've got CCTV, I assume?” Davies asked.

“Just aboveground. Not down here. It's too dark.”

“We'll need to see whatever you've got.”

“No problem,” said Bevan. “We'll make everything we've got available to you.”

“I guess it would be too much to hope for that you'd know any of the people who were on the tour with our victim.”

Bevan shook his head. “Sorry, no. It's like any other tourist attraction. Anyone can buy a ticket and go.”

“Well, I'll need the names of all the employees who were working today. We'll need to interview them. And I'll want to know more about this fellow who panicked and was taken up early. When you say early, do you mean before the tour ended?”

“It happens sometimes. Folks think they'll be okay but once they get down here the claustrophobia they didn't know they had reveals itself…”

“I can see why it would take some people that way.” Davies checked his watch. “I'm sorry, but we could easily be another couple of hours. We'll need to station someone aboveground to bring the pathologist down and then you'll have to tell us how we can get the body out.”

Bevan shrugged. “Well, I better call the missus and tell her to keep that shepherd's pie warm.” He thought for a moment and then spoke directly to a young mine worker. “On second thought, you go up top and see if the canteen manager's still on site.” He turned to Davies. “She may have stayed behind to set up for tomorrow as she likes to have everything ready to go when she comes in of a morning. That way, she's not so rushed.” Turning back to his colleague, he continued, “Ask her if she'd be so good as to make up a tray of sandwiches and a large pot of coffee. I'm sure we could all do with something to eat. And tell her to keep the heat on. It's bloody freezing. And reassure her there'll be overtime.”

Davies liked him even more.

“You know, I wouldn't mind going up top myself,” Davies said. “I'm finding it … down here, it's…”

“Oh, I know what you're trying to say,” Bevan said good-naturedly. “I've heard it all before. Many times. Dark, cold…”

“I admit I do find it dark and cold,” Davies said, “but there's something more.” He raised an arm. “It's almost as if I can feel the weight of all that slate above me, and to be honest, it makes me a little nervous. How far down are we, by the way?”

“Deeper than you think, I'll bet. At this level, we're about five hundred feet down.”

“This level?”

“Yes, sir. There are lots of levels. This mine is sixteen floors or levels deep with over three hundred chambers. Our largest chamber is twice the size of St. Paul's Cathedral. Remember, the mine's been worked for over a century. There's been a lot of slate carved out of this mountain.”

Davies reflected on all those hollowed-out chambers held up by pillars of slate and the backbreaking work it would have taken to create them.

“Most of us don't have that much to complain about, when you think about it,” said Bevan, as if reading his thoughts. “About the kind of work we do. Driving to work, sitting at a desk, using a computer. Twelve hours down a mine, now that's real work. And they would have walked a couple of hours each way just to get here. And in Victorian times, there would have been no electric light. All this would have been worked by candlelight. Imagine!”

“I can't,” said Davies.

“And you wouldn't have been a grown man, either. You'd be working down here from dawn to dusk as a lad only twelve years old. But of course, it would have been so dark you'd have no idea of dawn or dusk. And with your lungs full of slate dust, you'd be an old man at forty.”

And then, after giving Davies a few moments to absorb that, he drove home his message. “And there'd have been no safety equipment, either. Just regular clothes. No proper boots, no hard hats, no eye protection, no harnesses…”

“I expect there were a lot of accidents,” said Davies. God, I hope this turns out to be just an accident, he thought. If it's a crime scene, it'll be a nightmare to process.

“I don't suppose you know who she is?” he asked Bevan.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Bevan replied. “That's Glenda Roberts. She was organizing a concert down here.”

“Concert? Down here?” Davies expressed the same surprise Penny had. Bevan reassured him that that mine was, in fact, a desired special-events venue with a major wow factor. Bevan then added, “But of course Glenda's well-known to us here at the mine.”

Before Davies could respond to that, a mine worker in a high-visiblity jacket approached, followed by a tall man carrying a large holdall. Both were wearing hard hats, as were Davies and Bevan Jones.

“This here's your pathologist,” the worker said.

Davies led him to the body and then returned to Bevan. “Let's leave them to get on with their work and take the train back to the surface.”

On the way up, Davies said, “I'm curious. Mines and quarries. What's the difference?”

“Slate lying close to the surface is quarried,” replied Jones. “That's a relatively straightforward operation. But when the rich slate veins run deep underground, they have to be mined. It's a much more complicated, risky, and labour-intensive process.”

 

Four

Victoria Hopkirk took her first sip of morning coffee in her flat on the top floor of the Llanelen Spa. She thumbed through her diary, made a few notes on the day's to-do list, and then reached for the envelope Glenda Roberts had dropped off the day before. She slit it open and pulled out a few pages of sheet music. She read the sticky note attached to the first page:

V—Here's your music for SDD concert. First rehearsal Tuesday 7 pm. Will call you. G.

And then she glanced at the song titles. A couple she knew well and expected to see as they were old standards at events like this, one she knew a little, and one was new to her, although she thought she'd heard of it. She read the music and heard herself humming a vaguely familiar melody. That sounds like an old '80s pop tune, she thought, but the name of it eluded her.

She and Penny had opened the Llanelen Spa the year before, but Victoria had not always lived in North Wales. She'd lived for many years in London, where she was well-known and in demand as an accomplished harpist at sophisticated gatherings. But during a somewhat messy divorce, she'd returned to Llanelen on a break to stay with relatives, met Penny who was operating a manicure salon, and the two had decided to pool resources and start a business together. So far, their venture, the Llanelen Spa, had been a success. They were providing employment and offering a service that women wanted. Their business was growing and they had recently launched their own brand of hand cream, the first in a planned series of in-house products.

It had been some time since Victoria had played the harp in public and she was looking forward to performing in the concert, especially here in Llanelen, which at one time had been home to a vibrant harp-making industry. She replaced the sheet music in the envelope, pushed it aside, then got up and walked to the kitchen to prepare her breakfast.

Just as she finished slicing a banana on top of a bowl of muesli and was about to pour milk on it, a knock on the door interrupted her. That's odd, she thought, glancing at her watch. No, she wasn't late. It was only eight thirty.

“It's me,” called a muffled voice through the door.

Victoria opened the door. “What are you doing here so early?” Victoria asked. “Is something wrong? What's the matter?”

“Can I come in?”

“Yes, of course. Come through.” Victoria stood to one side to allow Penny to enter.

“Oh, sorry, am I interrupting your breakfast?” Penny asked, pointing to the milk carton in Victoria's hand.

“Yes, you are, actually. I was just about to pour it on my cereal, but never mind.” Victoria gestured toward the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“That would be great, thanks.”

“So,” said Victoria when they were seated at the table. “What brings you up here so early? You never come up here unless it's important.” She raised a spoonful of cereal. “Or you're locked out. Or you need a nap in the middle of the afternoon. Or you're hungry. Oh, that must be it. Have you had your breakfast?”

“Yes, I have, thanks.” She accepted the mug of coffee Victoria held out to her. “No, it's just with your concert coming up, I thought you'd be interested to know there's been an incident at the Llyn Du mine,” Penny began. She took a sip of coffee. “I heard on the radio that they found a body down the mine yesterday. It's nothing to do with us, of course, but the police are investigating.”

“Oh, that's terrible!” exclaimed Victoria. “What on earth could have happened? Was it an industrial accident do you suppose? Somebody fell, maybe. Dangerous places, mines. There's a lot that can go wrong and I would imagine if someone's hurt, getting them to the surface would be a real challenge. They could die in the length of time it takes to get them out.”