Messen's old air raid shelter and basement

The old air-raid shelter and cellar are a concealed site on private land, several miles from where the bodies in the Manham investigation were found. An overgrown track leads to the forgotten wartime structure, and beneath it a much larger cellar contains the evidence that connects the hidden place to Jenny Hammond’s abduction and brings David Hunter face to face with George Mason’s grandson. The location turns an apparently abandoned building into the story’s concealed centre of danger and discovery.

Setting and Approach

David Hunter finds the route by chance while driving in heavy rain. A brief reflection from a registration plate catches his eye; the track continues beyond a yard into the woods, and its remote position suggests why it had escaped the search. It is private land, several miles from either body’s discovery site, and had not been investigated. Hunter hesitates between contacting Mackenzie and following the track, then drives on.

The route is heavily overgrown. Branches close in, and switching off the headlights to avoid announcing his approach leaves Hunter unable to see; when he switches them back on, the track seems to vanish beyond their beam. The vehicle at its end is a van, parked beside a low building. The detail of the registration plate first makes the vehicle visible, while the storm and darkness make the approach uncertain and isolating.

The Shelter and Hidden Cellar

From the outside, the building is a squat, featureless block. It has no visible door or windows on the side Hunter first sees, and sections of its concrete walls have broken away to expose reinforcing rods. Only when he circles it does he find a deep-set door and a narrow window. He recognizes the structure as an old air-raid shelter, the sort built on some country properties at the start of the Second World War and often never used. This one, however, has been put to a purpose.

The rusted steel door swings open when Hunter pushes it. Inside is a single room, bare apart from dead leaves, with a second door almost hidden in a corner. The outer door shuts behind him, making a loud bang that alerts anyone inside to his presence. He proceeds through the concealed entrance and down a narrow staircase, which bends back on itself before reaching a long, low cellar. The cellar seems considerably larger than the concrete structure above it, as though the shelter rests on older foundations; the narrative leaves that apparent construction history unexplained.

A weak bulb hangs over a workbench, while the far end of the cellar recedes into darkness. The space contains old tools and vices, a desk lamp aimed at an empty corner, and a rope secured to a metal ring. The shelter’s plain exterior gives no indication of this extensive underground room or its contents. Its hidden scale and obscure entrance make it a place designed to remain out of sight, although the evidence does not establish who built the cellar or when.

Evidence of the Killer’s Activities

The outdoor approach and the cellar both bear signs of deliberate, prolonged use. A rusty wire fence runs through the undergrowth near the building, with the bodies of small birds and animals hanging from it. Inside, animal and bird remains are suspended from the ceiling: foxes, rabbits and ducks, in varying states of decay, many mutilated. They form a macabre display, not ordinary traces of an unused shelter, and establish the cellar as a place where the killer has gathered and staged animals.

A blood-soaked, ornate wedding dress is draped over a chair among the tools and other objects. Its presence makes Hunter call out for Jenny Hammond. From the cellar’s far end, a figure emerges: George Mason’s grandson, wearing bloodstained clothes. The dress and the hidden work area link the location to the threat facing Jenny, while the grandson’s appearance confirms that Hunter has reached the place where she is being held.

Discovery and Narrative Significance

The cellar is the setting for Hunter’s discovery of Jenny and the confrontation that follows. She moves out of the shadows, and Hunter recognizes her; during the struggle, she intervenes, enabling him to overcome her captor. Afterward, Hunter finds her seriously hurt but alive. The discovery changes the building from a location of ominous clues into the place where Jenny is recovered, though her survival does not erase the danger she has endured.

The location’s construction shapes the sequence: an overlooked track leads to a featureless wartime shelter, the shelter contains a nearly concealed door, and that door opens onto a cellar larger than the structure above. Each threshold delays understanding of what the site is and what it contains. The contrast between the ordinary, largely unused wartime building and the secret room beneath it also gives the location its narrative force: what appears to be a discarded rural structure has become an isolated place for concealment, animal staging and captivity. Its discovery exposes the hidden activity that the visible landscape had kept out of the investigation’s reach.