Page 8

CHAPTER 8

MELANIE – D AY O NE

It’s late and dark. Melanie zips up her puffa jacket. She has two layers underneath but is still surprised at the cold. A bitter wind. She reaches into her pocket and is relieved to find gloves, putting them on as she approaches the dive team’s van.

Melanie has Raynaud’s syndrome – a condition that makes her fingers and toes go white in the cold. She was once offered tablets by the doctor but didn’t bother. She manages the condition with gloves and good socks but she hates it if people see when she forgets to wrap up. Ugly fingers. Like the digits of a corpse.

She pulls the wool of the gloves up her wrists and glances around. Further along the bank there’s a team of three, one of them already in a drysuit, the others checking the equipment, all in animated discussion. Good. There will be tests and risk assessments and all manner of palaver before anyone can go in the water but it’s good they’re getting ready. No sign of any gawpers, or worse, media, but she’s not sure how long this will go unnoticed. Dive teams always draw a crowd.

The van doors open and she recognises the dive supervisor immediately. He looks older than she remembers. Hasn’t seen him in a while. Less hair. More lines.

‘I thought you didn’t like the cold?’ He’s smiling and Melanie smiles too, but not for long. And not a real smile.

‘I appreciate this, Ed. Cracking on so quickly for me tonight. I know it probably feels a bit early in the investigation but I can’t move anything forward on this one until I know. With that CCTV camera disabled.’

‘Sure. We all have kids, Mel. I wasn’t short of volunteers. It’s not a huge stretch of water and it’s not that deep.’

Mel again turns her head to take in the divers, just visible from her angle along the bank. She wonders how they manage this with family life. The long hours. The cold. The dark.

It was the cold and the Raynaud’s that put her off that one time forever ago that she volunteered for an introductory day, fresh out of police college. She had wondered if she might try for the dive team herself, maybe even pitch for the full course. But no. One day was quite enough.

‘You remember that training day you did with us?’ Ed’s looking at something on the computer screen inside the van as he speaks.

‘How could I forget? Never been so cold in my life. I have no idea how you do this.’ Melanie’s fingers took an age to return to a normal colour that day but she’s surprised that Ed remembers. He didn’t mention it on the phone when she asked him for this favour. To turn out the team as fast as possible.

‘You would have got used to it. The cold. We told you that.’

Melanie pulls her coat tighter around her. ‘Doubt it. So how are we doing?’ She resists the urge to look over his shoulder, instead putting her gloved hands in her pockets.

‘Just finishing the pre dive checks and then we’ll put the first diver in. As I say it’s not too big an area so we’ll get going and keep you posted.’

‘And it’s OK to work in the dark like this? You don’t need to wait for first light? I don’t want to be making it more dangerous—’

‘Like I told you on the phone. Visibility down there is so bad with the silt, it makes very little difference. It will be a fingertip search so we may as well get cracking. Let the family know one way or another.’

‘Exactly my thinking.’ Melanie wants this canal ruled out so she can crack on. There’s nothing from the ground teams and no one home at the last-known address for Dawn Meadows in Cornwall. Neighbours still saying they moved long ago. Priority now is to find the Meadows and check all those on the local sex offenders’ register. Plus the press conference for a big media push.

‘You want a brew? Just making tea for the gang.’

‘No thanks. Still prefer coffee. The good stuff.’

‘Well, I won’t offer you instant then. It’s one of those giant economy packs.’ He’s smiling again as he finishes up on the computer.

‘I’ll just say hello to the guys before they go in.’ Melanie nods and steps down from the van to move along the canal bank to the team now testing the safety line for the first diver.

‘DI Melanie Sanders. In charge of the investigation.’

They all turn their heads to acknowledge the introduction.

‘Ma’am. Good to see you.’ It’s the team member not in a drysuit who’s speaking.

‘You can call me Melanie. Just wanted to thank you for this and to wish you the best. Always difficult when it’s a child missing.’

The three men all nod and Melanie watches them continue with their preparations. She suspects only one diver will go in initially. There are rules about how many are in the support team on the bank and each piece of kit has to be meticulously checked.

She still remembers vividly her introductory day. She was taken first to a swimming pool for stamina training. Fifteen lengths and then various exercises with the air tanks. One of them involved sitting on the bottom of the pool, wearing weighted belts, sharing air from a single tank, the mouth piece passed from one to another. It was designed to prepare you for a possible emergency if air in one tank ran out or a system failed. She was told to keep calm but she remembers the panic, holding her breath and counting as she passed the mouth piece over to the next person.

After the swimming pool stint, she was taken with the team to a reservoir to watch the complex set-up procedure. That was when Ed, more junior back then, turned up to show her all the equipment checks and explained the on-site rules. She wasn’t allowed in the water but they let her try on a full drysuit and even getting changed was freezing. Awful. She spoke to everyone about how they managed. The cold. The dark. Did they get afraid underwater?

She realised pretty quickly, white fingers and all, that it was not for her, but she knew it would be useful for her other plan – a future in CID – to understand how the dive teams worked.

‘I think I’d get claustrophobic.’ Melanie finds that she’s saying this aloud, alongside the canal, just as she did all those years ago on that introductory day. ‘And much too cold. I admire what you do. I want you to know it’s appreciated.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ The guy on the bank smiles. ‘Melanie, I mean. We’ll do our very best for you.’

Melanie nods and walks back along the bank to the van, poking her head around the open door to say goodbye to Ed.

‘I’m off now. My thanks again for this. You’ve got my mobile? Ring me the minute you get anything. Anything at all.’

‘Sure. Are you staying at a hotel? If I can’t get the mobile.’

‘Technically. Strictly between you and me, I might have a sleeping bag in my boot so try the office if you can’t reach the mobile.’

‘So the rumours are true?’

‘What rumours?’

‘Workaholic. Grapevine says you’re supposed to be on holiday.’

‘Yes, well. He’s a friend.’

‘So what’s he like, this Matthew? I googled him. How he left the force. Sad.’

‘Yes, it was all very unfair. He was a great officer.’

‘And how’s he holding up?’ Ed’s tone and expression are much more serious now.

‘He’s one of the good guys, Ed. And he’s really struggling.’

‘Tough for you then? Being his mate, I mean.’

Melanie doesn’t answer. Just nods. She turns to the water. She pictures Amelie at her last birthday party, playing in the garden. George and Amelie squealing with delight at the small bouncy castle set up on Sally and Matthew’s lawn.

She watches as the breeze makes ripples on the dark surface of the canal. Closes her eyes.