The road got steeper the farther up she went. She passed furze bushes on either side, the last yellow flowers of the year just about hanging on. Kate knew she wasn’t there for the beauty of the landscape, but there was still something purifying about leaving the city behind and breathing in the crisp, pure air, so different from the suburban madness below.
When she reached the area marked off by the yellow and black tape, the drop down to the burial site was steep, and the ground was still soft after the rain from a couple of nights before. From where she stood, she could see granite stones and boulders embedded into the soil, as well as smaller stones which probably came from the old granite wall bordering one side of the site. She saw the remnants of an old cottage, almost lost, as if it had been eaten by the earth. Just before the drop levelled, there was a narrow stream. The water flowed fast, rippling along a stony path, in a hurry to move on. At first, the noise of the stream was all she heard, but as Kate moved nearer to the spot where Caroline’s body had been found, she could hear the birds singing. Like the water, they seemed rushed. Chaffinches and greenfinches flew excitedly through the undergrowth, their birdsong falling like raindrops.
From the roadside, she could see how the lower branches on the trees were barren, dark brown, because they were hidden from the light. To her right, beyond the trees, a carpet of heathers and bilberry bushes spread wide, still in full colour. She could smell the sap from the fir trees and in the distance, farther up the mountain, she saw spruce trees of giant proportions, almost touching the practically clear-blue sky. The place was tranquil, filled with the sounds of nature. She had to shake herself free from its seduction and refocus on the task in hand.
She continued along the path, meeting more squad cars parked like unwanted visitors, with uniformed guards positioned as sentries along the taped-off terrain. She signed in with one of the guards, who looked fresh out of training college. There was no point engaging the officer in conversation. Once she had clearance, she continued down to the centre of the site, where the burial had taken place beneath an enormous elderberry tree. The tree reached up to at least twenty feet from ground level and much of the upper foliage was still intact because of the shelter afforded by the fir trees beyond. As a result, the berries on it were plentiful.
The steep drop down to the open grave was full of twigs, pine cones and mossy stones. The landscape was as difficult as it had looked in the photographs O’Connor had shown her. In the dark, it would be tricky to negotiate. Whoever brought Caroline’s body down here must have been agile and fit. She thought about how secluded the area was. Unless you knew where to look, the drop down to the level of the burial could not have been spotted from the road. Cars would have passed by and seen nothing. Whoever the killer was, he knew this area, and was comfortable even in the dark, to make his way around it.
When she reached the grave, the whole atmosphere changed immediately. This was a place that felt totally cut off from the outside world. What struck Kate most, however, was the beauty of it all: the rambling stream, the birds fleeting in and out of the trees, the elderberry tree and the almost seductive smell of mossy earth, more potent the farther down you went. It felt like a special place, almost private, forgotten. The killer had to have known about this spot beforehand – it seemed highly unlikely that he had stumbled on it in the dark. The intimacy with which he’d arranged certain things about both girls now made sense to Kate in terms of the place he’d chosen for Caroline’s final resting spot. This secluded area was as private as he might have imagined his relationship with her to have been. The more she looked around her, the more convinced she became that this place had been chosen very specifically. If she was right, then like every other component of the burial, there had to be a good reason for it.
She took her own photographs of the site, first kneeling down to take shots of the immediate area: the ground underfoot, the dugout grave, the view above her, the foliage, the berries on the elderberry tree, the steep drop down – everything was important in order to imagine the killer working his way within it. Standing up, again she used the lens at different angles, close-ups and wider shots, stopping to speak into the small Dictaphone machine she always carried with her, noting the various senses: the sounds, the light touch of a breeze on her cheeks, the smells, the remoteness, the feeling of privacy. She attempted to re-imagine the night of the burial: the blackness, the time it would have taken the killer to prepare the grave, the physical act of burying the girl, yet he had been calm, specific, displaying a detachment from the victim within his own personal sense of intimacy, and probably deep-rooted need.