The Drowners by Jennie Finch

stepping forward and saying, ‘Get some flat bits of wood – bark even – and if we stand the poles on them it’ll stay steady while we get the pegs in, Sir.’
    The sergeant looked at him for a moment, then back at the mess the group were making of the job.
    ‘Go on, then – you try it. Here.’ He grabbed the nearest man and pushed another torch into his hands. ‘Stand there and give us some light will you?’
    Dave slid and sloshed his way across to the nearby stand of willows and hacked off a few thick strips from the trunkusing his pocket knife. With the somewhat reluctant help of another Constable he lodged the tent poles on these, adjusting the tension on the ropes as each settled, partly floating on the mud. Just in time, the tent settled over the body and the soaked policemen huddled around its meagre shelter as the doctor’s car pulled up. It didn’t take him long to pronounce the death and in a few minutes he was off down the muddy track again, the envious eyes of the assembled police force following him as he headed for his warm, dry home.
    No sooner had he left than the Inspector’s car drew up and stopped with its engine idling on the far side of the area. There was a crackling of radios as he attempted to communicate with the sergeant, but the weather was against them and finally the Inspector wound the window down and beckoned him over. There was a brief conference, the sergeant leaning close to the car window whilst the Inspector sat inside issuing instructions and trying to avoid the rain running off the man’s hat. Dave watched as the sergeant made his way back across the sodden ground and the car reversed away towards the track that passed for a road this far from civilization.
    ‘Right, there’s not much we can do in these conditions without risking more contamination of the site,’ said the sergeant. ‘I need a couple of men watching the perimeter – make that four, one for each corner. And I need a volunteer to stay here with the body to make sure there’s no mistakes.’
    He looked straight at Dave as he said this and not for the first time Dave wondered why he had not chosen banking or politics or even teaching when he left university. Somehow the whole team was looking at him even though no-one had turned their head in his direction. He raised his hand wearily. ‘I will if you like.’
    There was a feeling of relief in the group as the rest relaxed, knowing they would be heading back to the Station to finish their shifts in relative comfort. The sergeant nodded. ‘Right, I’ll go and tell the others and let the lucky four know they’re staying here.’
    Dave watched his colleagues shuffle off towards the van, then stepped back into the minimal shelter offered by the entrance to the tent. As the vans loaded up and drove off down the track, the darkness and stillness returned, the only sound the steady falling of the rain and random flapping of the canvas covering the grim scene at his back. PC Brown walked round the tent carefully adjusting the ropes until it was secured to his satisfaction. A few dozen yards away his fellow policemen shuffled and muttered in the cold and wet, stamping their feet and shifting their weight in an effort to keep warm. ‘Everyone all right out there?’ he called.
    ‘’Tis okay for you. You’m in the tent,’ retorted one.
    ‘I’m not – I’m outside like the rest of you,’ he called back.
    ‘Reckon we could take turns out of the rain though,’ suggested another.
    Dave sighed. ‘We can’t go inside,’ he answered. ‘It’s a crime scene and we can’t go trampling all over it. Sorry guys, but I’m not standing inside either.’
    There was a deep, sullen silence and he thought he heard one of them muttering ‘… college boy’. Then all was still apart from the rain that just kept falling.

Chapter Five
    ‘What the bloody hell were you thinking!’ roared Tom, smashing his fist on the table. At the opposite end sat Max, hunched