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Chapter 1

When the alarm pierced the darkness, Joe Spencer rolled over and flopped his arm out from under the duvet to silence the damn thing. He sighed loudly. Had he really been that stupid? To think that he could haul his kids out of bed – as well as his wife – before dawn, to get into a freezing car, all to witness the sunrise over a pile of stones?

He sighed heavily again. Annie, his wife, groaned and pulled her pillow over her head.

‘You seriously set the alarm?’ she asked. He fumbled around the floor, under the bed frame, and found his phone. He switched off the beeping siren and slumped back to his sleeping position. As a National Park Ranger, he was supposed to be used to early mornings, but he was off work, and he’d drunk too many beers last night.

‘I’ve got a headache,’ Annie announced.

‘You drank too much wine.’

‘That’s rich, coming from you.’ She squeezed one eye open affectionately.

‘Come on, we’ll regret it if we don’t go,’ he said, sitting upright, galvanised suddenly by his original excitement from when he’d first planned the crazy idea. The boys had been up to Castlerigg before but never at sunrise. Every time he made an early morning visit to check the site for litter, miscreants and misdeeds he took photos of the captivating dawn and swore that he’d show his family one day.

Castlerigg stone circle was some five thousand years old, though no one knew for sure, and its true history was shrouded in mystery. Funding had never been forthcoming to excavate it, and the circle had sat for centuries, guarding her secrets, in solitude, surrounded by an amphitheatre of rock and fell. The huge glacial boulders originated in Neolithic Borrowdale, some nine miles away, and how they were lugged to Keswick, through such precipitous terrain, was anyone’s guess.

‘Come on, it’ll be worth it, I promise,’ he said to Annie. She’d never been. Annie was originally from Cornwall and the whole experience of the Lakes to her had been a revelation. Joe had romanced her with a thousand views of mountain and lake. Now she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Joe wasn’t a local either, but he’d lived here for most of his life.

Annie scowled at him from under her pillow, the only light still was the blue glare from his phone.

‘I’ll wake the boys.’

Joe flicked on the hall light and went into the boys’ room. He quietly opened the door and found them both fast asleep, which he’d expected. He gently nudged the older boy first.

‘Callum,’ he whispered quietly, and then louder. The boy roused and shielded his eyes from light pouring in from the hallway. His son shot daggers at him and Joe smiled his best convincing grin. He went to Connor’s bed and did the same, getting the same response.

‘Come on, guys, this will be amazing, I can see the sky is clear and we don’t want to miss it.’

Callum swung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled on his trousers, followed by a sweater and a snood. He stretched and leant over to poke his brother.

‘Come on, Connor,’ he said to his brother, who finally did the same, and in under a minute, both boys were ready and upright.

‘Where’s Mum?’

‘She’s coming. Bags are packed, let’s go.’

Callum and Connor went out into the hall and towards the kitchen, grabbing protein bars on the way, with Joe following them before going outside to get the car started. It wasn’t a long drive to the stone circle, and they’d be there in ten minutes. As part of his contract with English Heritage, Joe was given a house deep in the Lakes, on farmland, in the middle of nowhere, between Keswick and Penrith. There was no noise in the yard; not a neighbour’s dog or cockerel stirred. Joe threw coats at the boys, who’d followed him outside, and they took them happily, shocked by the temperature.

‘Why is it so cold?’ asked Connor. It was only September after all.

‘Summer’s over. It’s winter’s turn now. Death cometh to the land and feasts upon the remnants of life…’ Joe did his best impression of a menacing stranger, preaching Pagan babble. The boys rolled their eyes. Joe winked at them and went to the car, getting in and starting the engine, flicking on every heating switch there was. The boys bundled into the back and Annie came out of the cottage.

‘Keys?’ she asked. Joe nodded. She closed the cottage door and got in the car.

‘Right, let’s go!’ He swung the car out of the yard, along the dark track towards the main road. Joe scoured the sky and was happy: it had yet to show signs of the blackness turning to charcoal and then to grey and purple. They were still ahead of time.

The dual carriageway was deserted. Joe could have driven blindfolded. This was his backyard. A small sign, covered almost completely by bushes, said ‘Castlerigg Stone Circle’, and they turned off another road, which was even narrower. They went uphill and Joe looked to his left.

‘Almost there.’ His wife said nothing. The boys grunted acknowledgement, accustomed to their father’s enthusiasm for outings at odd hours.

‘Here!’ Joe pointed to a gate leading to a field, though they couldn’t see the stones just yet, and parked further up the lane. There were no other cars there and Joe felt a thrill of exclusivity grab him: they might have it all to themselves. He parked and turned off the engine. ‘Right, team, come on!’ he said.

‘Can we stay in the car, Dad?’

‘Nope. Denied. You know that new Xbox game you want?’

The boys looked at one another and knew what was coming.

‘Yeah, well, you have to earn it.’

‘By sightseeing in the dark!’ Callum thought himself clever and Annie laughed.

Joe got out of the car and went across the road. His eyes adjusted and out of the oily blackness, one, then two, then more mysterious, tall, dark grey structures appeared in the distant field before him. He heard the car door slam, and Annie and the boys approached.

He pointed across the field and the others followed his gesture. Behind the ghoulish formations, a faint glow emerged from the horizon and, in seconds, the stones were silhouetted gently by a purple hue. Joe led them into the field.

‘Watch out for the sheep crap,’ he warned.

‘I can smell them,’ said Callum. In the distance, an animal bleated, as if in answer to Joe’s insolence. As the forthcoming light materialised, they spotted scores, if not hundreds, of white blobs, moving nonchalantly between the huge stones, chewing and occasionally looking up at their visitors.

They walked closer to the structure and Joe could tell by the silence that it had been a good idea: he looked at his boys, who were staring at the boulders before them. They reached the outer circle and Connor put out his hand to touch the rock.

‘How old did you say these were, Dad?’

‘About five thousand years. It’s estimated that they’re Neolithic because of some axes that were found here. The stones have never been properly dated.’

‘Why not?’

‘Money, mainly. If it was under threat from erosion or farming, I suppose somebody would step in, but English Heritage isn’t made of money.’

‘That’s wrong,’ Connor said. ‘Who knows what’s under there?’

‘I agree, but at least it’s left in peace and not overrun by tourists.’

Their words merged into the silence around them and dissipated on the wind. It was an odd sensation, and somehow, the absence of other human beings made their voices resonate further. They walked around the stones and came to where it was believed the entrance stood: guarded by two huge monoliths, each perhaps weighing sixteen tonnes. Just inside that, there was a strange arrangement of stones that seemed to indicate an inner chamber.

‘What was this for?’ It was Connor who asked again. His favourite subject was history. Callum’s was maths. Joe reckoned that the stone circle would satisfy both minds.

‘No one knows. It could have been an inner chamber. There was a small dig undertaken in the nineteenth century, apparently ruling out a burial. What do you think, Connor?’

‘I think it was an altar.’

‘How did they mark it out?’ Callum wondered at the regularity of the circle and Joe smiled.

‘The sun and moon both align to some of the stones at certain times of the year too,’ he said.

‘Like Stonehenge?’

‘Yes.’

The dark turned from purple to grey and Joe pointed to the horizon. The night had been crisp and clear, and the sky turned quickly from purple to red. The sun was coming. The outline of the mountains surrounding them became clearer and they tried to name the peaks they’d climbed. They picked out Helvellyn, which was clear on top. Joe wasn’t a spiritual man, as such, but he believed in ancient souls, and he could feel the allure and the magic of the place. He tried to imagine how Neolithic man might have felt trading or praying here, or perhaps even offering sacrifices.

A cry startled them, and they turned to the west.

‘What was that?’ Annie asked.

‘A sheep?’

They heard it again. Callum strode to a stone that was leaning to one side, after thousands of years of abuse from the weather.

‘Did you hear something, Callum?’ Annie shouted after her son.

Callum stopped and turned around, and yelled with a breaking voice.

‘Mum! Dad! Come here now!’

Annie recognised the cry as one of a child in distress and, before Joe reacted, she was sprinting to her son. She arrived by his side, breathless and wide eyed, and almost crashed into him to break her speed.

‘Oh my God! Joe! Come here. Callum! Stay back!’

Annie bent over and Callum watched his mother. Behind the great stone, shining ghoulish in the early dawn light, a girl crouched and shivered, naked and terrified. Callum couldn’t take his eyes off her skin. It glowed blue-white and appeared like some phantom before him. Annie took her jacket off and covered the girl, speaking to her, soothing her and asking a thousand questions. She barked orders.

‘Callum, go to the car and find blankets, food, water, anything that might warm someone up. Callum? Go!’

Callum finally responded to his mother’s orders and turned and ran to the parked vehicle, taking his brother with him. Connor babbled questions at his older sibling and tried to keep up. Behind them, they saw their parents’ tenderness towards the stranger.

Joe reached his wife and immediately took his phone out of his pocket to dial 999.

‘Damn! No signal! Wait, I’ll stand on a stone.’ In the circumstances, it might seem to an outsider an odd statement, but Annie knew it was their only chance, apart from driving around in the car. Joe wafted his phone in the air and straddled two huge monoliths. Annie comforted the girl.

‘You’re freezing! What happened? Are you hurt? What is your name?’

The girl didn’t respond.

‘Joe, I think she’s hypothermic. She’s not responding.’

‘Got it!’

Annie returned her attention to the girl as she listened to her husband detailing their predicament to the emergency services.

Her sons returned across the field and brought a thick picnic blanket, a chocolate bar and an umbrella.

‘To shelter her from the wind, Mum,’ Callum said.

Annie smiled at her son. ‘Thank you.’

The wind whistled around them and the girl still said nothing. She sat cossetted, huddled between the strangers, but showed no emotion or any semblance of cognisance. Seconds seemed like minutes and minutes, hours, but finally, they heard a heavy vehicle and spotted blue lights in the distance. Its sirens were quiet as it drove quickly up the dark lane.

‘I’ll go,’ said Joe. He sprinted across the field, aware that he was running in sheep shit, and reached the vehicle. Two paramedics got out and he gave them as lucid and sensible a report as he could. After all, he didn’t know much, apart from they’d found a naked girl shivering behind a stone in the middle of nowhere.

The ambulance personnel retrieved a stretcher from the vehicle and ran across the field. The sun was peeking over the horizon, behind the mountains, and Joe could see his family, huddled behind the stone. A police car drove up the lane and parked behind the ambulance and two uniformed officers got out. They were greeted by the remaining medic in the ambulance and exchanged words, then turning their attention to Joe. He told them what he knew and they nodded, peering towards the field.

‘Do you know the woman?’

‘No. I came up here with my family to see the sun rise.’

‘So you don’t know how she got here?’

‘No.’

They took his personal details and made their way to the field, where the woman was being treated.

‘She’s freezing half to death!’ He followed them. The two policemen said nothing. When they reached the scene, the girl was shaking and the paramedics were sticking needles into her and loading her onto the stretcher. Joe put his arm around Annie and told the boys they should go back to the car.

‘Can we go home, officer?’ he asked.

‘We’ll take statements from you first, if that’s all right, sir. Go and get warm in your car and we’ll be with you shortly.’

Joe led his family away and they climbed into the car. Callum kept looking back.

‘Don’t worry, Callum, she’s just cold. She’ll be all right,’ Annie soothed. When they reached the car, Joe started the engine and put the heating on full. They sat in silence.

Chapter 2

Detective Inspector Kelly Porter felt a mixture of relief and dread when she received the notification on her Toughpad. The call had come from the pod in Keswick, and it gave her a reason to get out of bed and stop pondering her paranoia. She kept the iPad, safe in its police issue cover, by her bed, and reached over for it, flipping it open and reading the details they had so far. Johnny, her boyfriend of three years, slept soundly beside her. He always did now.

Unlike herself, who’d taken to dreaming again. It was no coincidence. She’d lain awake since three a.m. trying to be as still as she could so as not to disturb Johnny. She’d occupied herself with various tricks: watching his back rise and fall, listening to the coming dawn chorus from the birds getting ready to migrate at the end of a long, beautiful summer in the fells; and her cases – old and new – that whizzed around her head occasionally, churning questions, as if accusing her of falling short.

Johnny must have become aware of her fiddling, because he rolled over and put his arm across her.

‘Have you been awake for hours?’ he asked.

‘How do you know?’

‘I can tell because you’re wide awake. You’re not grumpy like you are after a good night’s sleep.’

He felt good and she held onto him and snuggled down into her pillow, dropping her Toughpad back on the floor. Suddenly she was drowsy. It was always the way when one finally had cause to be awake.

‘The letter?’ he asked.

‘I guess so.’

The letter she’d received two weeks ago had got under her skin. It hadn’t been the first and, she suspected, it wouldn’t be the last; but it was the increasing level of familiarity that bugged her. She felt indignant and angry, and the negative energy was pissing her off. The first had been posted before the death of her mother, Wendy, and Kelly had wanted to vomit. That was almost a year ago. The sentiment had evoked a guttural response in her and she’d thrown the letter into a drawer, feeling dirty having handled it.

Next came the sympathy card and flowers, after Wendy’s funeral. Inside the card was a poem dedicated to everlasting beauty, and how the afterlife protected one from further tainting by human hands, or some such crap that Kelly could barely fathom. It went into the same drawer.

They’d become more regular after that, until Kelly had sought the advice of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) which handled such harassment from prisoners, past and present. The letters were coming from Amy Richmond, a serial killer put away by one of Kelly’s former investigations. She’d been menacingly dubbed ‘The Teacher’ by the press at the time and it still made Kelly shiver. However, they’d yet to figure out how she was getting the letters out of Broadmoor, the high security loony bin which held such dangerous prisoners. Neither Kelly, nor her team, ever judged Amy as insane: she knew what she was doing and why.

Somebody must be mailing the letters on her behalf, but who? Correspondence from Broadmoor was heavily vetted, unless there was a bent guard – always a possibility. The postcode was a local Bagshot one, near the hospital, on the Surrey/Berkshire border.

At that point, around six months ago, something else had struck Kelly. Instead of launching a formal investigation into the correspondence, Kelly toyed with the idea of using them to her advantage. The letters themselves could hold the key to the psyche of the writer, and could be potentially important in the future study of psychopaths. They could also possibly lead them to a copycat killer. It had been done before. Psychopaths like Amy Richmond often studied the work of their heroes: other killers.

HQ had suggested a positive mindfulness course for her and her team in reaction to Kelly’s suggestion. She’d initially turned up her nose. Mindfulness – or the conscious awareness of the energy surrounding all living things – was a thing in workforces now, apparently. But within a police force? When crime was the manifestation of the opposite of such drivel? Kelly was a staunch cynic when it came to sending her officers on courses that concentrated on feeling empathy. Not that she was opposed to relating to human emotions in others – far from it – but, as law enforcers, they dealt with the damaged, the ruined, the damned and the downright sadistic. A bit of tree hugging and meditation wouldn’t cure them.

HQ got their way, and she and her team had endured five sessions so far. They’d taken place at Eden House and a budget had been arranged to provide biscuits, coffee and juice. Kelly had said to Johnny she’d rather put the money towards catching bastards, but she didn’t know how to put that in writing.

During one session, each participant had to identify three instances where they’d actively implemented a self-care plan. They’d joked and suggested examples such as taking a subsidised holiday to Jamaica. The course provider hadn’t seen the funny side. Kelly had asked how they were supposed to heighten their awareness of the human side of crime when they dealt with losers who insisted on actively opting out of humanity to commit crime. They weren’t just dealing with children from broken homes going on to fall foul of the law, they had to consider the career criminal; devoid of empathy and hell bent on causing pain to others.

Nature versus nurture. The course provider said that was a debate for another course, presumably with the same refreshments.

Johnny agreed with her – the army had begun implementing such awareness courses too – and many elite training programmes had been cancelled as too offensive. How the hell they were to train soldiers to go to war when they were encouraged to refocus on feelings was anyone’s guess.

Deep breath.

Meanwhile, the letters continued to arrive and Kelly was in discussion to implement a diversion postal address. But her curiosity delayed the process. Part of her wanted to read what the letters said. It was a morbid game. Not only did each correspondence take Kelly back to one of the worst cases she’d ever worked on, they also reminded her of her sister. It seemed a lifetime ago now, to think that because of Kelly’s job, her only sibling had almost become The Teacher’s final victim. And Nikki had never forgiven her. Theirs was a strained relationship at the best of times and she hadn’t seen her blood relative in months.

‘I can feel your head whirring, slow down and give me a kiss, Kelly Porter. Have you got a long day?’ Johnny brought her out of her wandering musings. She stopped twitching and looked at him. She kissed him and felt safe. It was one of the first things that had attracted her to him: despite his appearance of the wild mountain man in flip-flops, with the intense smile and bright blue all-seeing eyes, she’d been drawn in by his relaxed dominance. It reminded her of her own sense of self. They’d ended up in his bed that first night and she remembered the next morning when they’d stayed there for far too long and she’d had to get to work. It had been the early days of her Cumbria Constabulary journey back then, recently returned from the London Met.

Now, when she looked at him, she felt the familiar calm he allowed her and she wished she could stay in bed again.

‘I need to go to Castlerigg. A young woman – well, a girl really – has been found naked and freezing half to death, near the stones.’

‘Jesus. Is she hurt?’

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