'Good,' Nikki replied. 'You can carry the Portascope and lead the way.'
She turned her torch on and shone it downwards, creating a circle of light around her feet. Its brightness only seemed to emphasise the darkness surrounding them. Leaning down, Jon curled his fingers round the case's handle, surprised at how heavy it was. No problem, he thought. Ten minutes to the gully, half an hour to search the rocks, ten minutes back. Less than an hour. Piece of piss. He skirted to the side of the pot hole, glad he hadn't tried to drive over it.
After another hundred metres the track ended at a shallow ditch. He stepped over it, feet sinking into the soft turf beyond. Turning round, he held a hand out to Nikki. Small fingers that were colder than his gripped his hand and she jumped across. As she landed on the other side her momentum carried her forwards into Jon. Their bodies were up against each other as she gripped his elbow with her other hand to stop from falling backwards.
Jon felt her stomach as it pressed against his groin. The blood surged in his chest. Do not go there, he said to himself, stepping back. 'Close one. You nearly went in there.'
'Yes,' she replied in a voice charged with emotion.
The torch picked out a narrow path through the clumps of thick grass. 'Sheep trail,' said Jon. 'We'll follow that.'
With Nikki walking behind him, they followed the route carved by the animals. Every now and again Nikki directed the beam off to the side to reveal shimmering ponds of black water, their surfaces silently rippling in the stiff breeze. Other times the beam of the torch picked out bushes of gorse, each branch and twig brought into sharp relief against the infinite darkness behind. They resembled exotic plants glimpsed on the seabed, twisted and bowed by the weight of water pressing down from above.
Jon pushed on, pausing every now and again when an alternative path branched off. By keeping the red light of the radio mast directly behind them, they made their way slowly across the moor. After twenty minutes Jon became aware that there was higher ground before them. 'Shine the torch ahead will you? I think this is Black Hill.'
'I bloody hope so.'
The beam lifted up and there, at the top of the slope in front, was a pile of stones.
'That's the cairn!' Jon said.
He felt her hand slap him on the back. 'Good going.'
'The gully is just on the other side.'
They passed the stones and tramped down the opposite slope, high stepping over branches of heather before finding a sheep trail that led in the right direction. Jon could feel they were descending and, when he looked back, he saw the red light was now only just visible above the curve of the land. A few dozen steps later and it had disappeared completely. He hesitated. This is bloody stupid, he thought, uneasy now there was nothing to keep his bearings by.
'What's up?' Nikki asked behind him.
Come on Jon, you're nearly there. 'Nothing. It's somewhere here on our left. Have a look down there.'
Nikki shone the torch in the direction he was pointing. A narrow gully was revealed. Jon stared down into the gloom. It didn't seem right. 'Must be the next one.'
'How can you tell?'
'I'm not sure, it just doesn't feel familiar.' He heard her sigh. 'Go on then.'
Uncertain now, he carried on until he heard the sound of running water. Another gully had to be on their left. 'Try shining it again.'
The beam swept down, immediately picking out the cluster of rocks. Thank God for that, he thought. 'This is it.'
The little stream had died to a trickle and they were able to pick their way down the slope with relative ease. Within twenty metres of the rocks, Nikki shone the torch forwards again. Four ghost-like forms suddenly broke away from the boulders. She quickly cut off her cry of alarm. 'Jesus, they made me jump,' she giggled as the sprinting sheep disappeared beyond the range of the beam.
'I'm glad you're nervous too,' Jon said. 'I nearly pissed myself.'
They both laughed out loud as they approached the rocks. Jon put the Portascope down, rotating his shoulder back and forth to relieve his aching muscles. 'She was lying right here,' he said.
'The theory is whoever jumped her was using the rocks for cover.'
'Whoever or whatever?'
'Whoever,' Jon stated firmly. 'Let's not shit ourselves up any more than is necessary.'
Nikki shone the torch around, picking out strands of white fleece on the black soil. 'What a grim place to die.'
'Yup,' Jon replied. 'What do you reckon our chances are of finding anything?'
'Minimal. These rocks are our best bet.' She handed the torch to Jon, opened the case and took out the main unit. After screwing the bulb in, she selected a filter cap. 'We'll start with UV.' She attached the battery pack and put her finger on the switch. 'You can turn the torch off.'
As Jon did so he heard the Portascope click on. An eerie halo of blue light bathed the area before them. Holding it at waist height, Nikki started to sweep the rocks. Lichen and moss shone white in its unearthly glow and once again Jon felt like he could have been on an ocean bed.
Nikki worked her way along the semi-circle of rocks.
'Nothing ink based,' she said, removing a filter and releasing a burst of white light. 'Let's go to violet.' A new filter was attached, which turned the glow a soft reddish colour. Nikki began to sweep again. Now the lichen was hardly visible, though scratches and irregularities on the rock's surface suddenly were. Jon was glancing uneasily into the darkness behind him when he became aware that the glow had stopped moving.
'Got something?'
'I'm not sure. Is this a letter? It is! That's a K, or what's left of it.'
Jon looked over her shoulder. Just visible on the pockmarked surface was a darkish stain in the shape of a ragged K. 'Go to your right.'
Nikki swept the light across, and a faint U, R and I were revealed. 'Does that say Kuri?' Nikki asked.
'Go to the next rock, you'll find more letters there.'
She stepped sideways and the rest of the word appeared.
'Kuririkana. What does that mean?'
'Remember,' Jon replied. 'What do you think it's written in?'
'There's only one substance that glows black under violet light, and that's blood.'
Jon felt as though a cobweb had just caressed the back of his neck. He briskly rubbed at the spot with one hand. 'Can you take a scraping, for DNA?'
Nikki waved a hand. 'Problem is the cleaning agent, whatever it was.'
'Cleaning agent?'
'Someone's tried to rub this off. In fact, they probably believed they did remove it. In daylight, this would be invisible. Luckily, blood is one stubborn substance to remove completely, especially from a surface like this.'
Who could have tried to remove it? Jon ran through the list of people who'd visited this spot. Ken Sutton, Adam Clegg…
Jeremy Hobson. Had his alibi been checked for the night of Rose Sutton's death?
Nikki had removed a pot from her jacket and was scraping at the rock when the noise cut through the night. He saw her back stiffen and when she looked round at him, her eyes were wide with fear. 'What was that?'
Jon had to swallow before any words would come. 'Screech owl?'
Nikki was still crouching, eyes now shifting to Jon's side and the blackness beyond.
What? He wanted to shout as his pulse rocketed away. Is there something behind me?
'That was not a screech owl.'
Keep calm, Jon told himself. Do not let her see you're scared.
'A sheep then. They make pretty weird sounds, coughing and all sorts.'