Simon Beckett - The Restless Dead

For all I knew it might be nothing more sinister than an old trainer. But unless I found it I’d never know one way or the other. Rachel was right: I didn’t know the Backwaters the way she did, and if the shoe had drifted off I’d need her help to find it again.

‘So what’s special about it?’ she asked, as we made our way to the section of bank I’d been to yesterday. ‘Or do you just go around collecting old trainers?’

‘Not from choice. There was a case a while back in British Columbia,’ I told her. ‘Shoes were being washed up along a stretch of coastline. A lot of them, about a dozen over five years or so. There were boots and other shoes as well, but it was mainly trainers. And they’d all still got feet inside them.’

Rachel grimaced but didn’t look shocked. ‘Nice. What was it, a serial killer?’

‘That’s what the police thought at first. Or that it might be victims of the Asian tsunami. But it turned out that most of the shoes belonged to people who’d jumped or fallen from a particular bridge in Vancouver. Their bodies got washed out to sea, and...’

‘And the feet fell off.’ Rachel nodded. As a marine biologist she’d know about the effects of water better than most people. ‘How come they didn’t sink?’

‘Because they’d got air-filled rubber soles.’ I paused to wipe my forehead. My body was letting me know I was overdoing it, but we were almost there. ‘The soles kept them afloat, and the shoes stopped scavengers from getting at them. They drifted hundreds of miles before the sea currents washed them up on the same stretch of coast.’

‘And you think this shoe might still have got Leo Villiers’ foot in it?’

I’d been careful to avoid any mention of either Villiers or her sister, but Rachel was no fool. ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘It could just be an old training shoe someone threw away. But it looked like a man’s size.’

Ordinarily I wouldn’t have jumped to that sort of conclusion: women’s feet could be every bit as large as men’s. But that was rare, and even though I hadn’t taken much notice of it at the time, I could remember the shoe was a sizable one. Unless Emma Derby had abnormally large feet then it wasn’t hers, and I wanted to set Rachel’s mind at ease without being obvious about it.

She saw through my coded comment, though. ‘Don’t worry, my little sister wasn’t the training-shoe type. Emma was a swimmer, but if she’d gone running she’d probably have done even that in high heels.’

There was another note of disapproval in her voice, but I didn’t have time to reflect on any tensions between her and her sister. We’d reached the side of the creek. The water was lower than the last time I’d been here, but the crescent-shaped bite from the sandy bank was otherwise the same. Bits of wood, plastic bottles and other debris floated in it, and I saw the same doll’s head as the day before.

There was no training shoe.

‘Are you sure it was here?’ Rachel asked doubtfully.

‘Certain.’

I looked up and down the muddy water’s edge. Even though I’d known there was only a slim chance that the shoe would still be here, that the fast-moving tide had probably carried it off by now, it was still a bitter disappointment. A wave of fatigue washed through me, and if Rachel hadn’t been there I’d have flopped down on to the cool-box to rest.

‘The tide probably carried it towards the estuary rather than further inland,’ she said, her brow furrowing. ‘There’s a section where the bank’s collapsed down that way. It might have got caught there.’

We didn’t talk as we walked along the creek bank. I was beginning to feel shaky now. The sensible thing to do would be to call it a day, but I’d no intention of doing that. After about ten minutes we reached a section of bank that had crumbled, forming a partial dam. Rachel slowed.

‘This is it,’ she said. ‘If it’s not here it could be anywhere by now.’

My optimism was flagging along with my energy. I was already berating myself for missing what could well have been my only opportunity to examine the shoe when Rachel pointed.

‘What’s that over there?’

A small bush had fallen into the creek when the bank collapsed. The tangle of dead branches was draped with grasses and weeds, and now I saw something pale had snagged there as well.

Floating on its side was a training shoe.

‘Is that it?’ There was excitement in Rachel’s voice.

‘I think so.’

Unless there were two of them, which was possible but not likely. When we drew closer I could see that it was a right shoe. It was only a few feet from the side, caught on the straggly branches with its sole facing towards us. If I’d got my waders on I could have easily retrieved it, but I wasn’t going to paddle out in my boots. I set down the cool-box and carefully stepped on to the crumbled bank. My boots sank into the sandy mud as I tried to snag the shoe with the oar blade. It splashed into the water a few inches short. I leaned further out.

‘Here, grab hold.’

Rachel offered her hand. It was warm and dry when I took it, her grip strong as she pulled backwards to counterbalance me. I reached out with the oar and missed again, but only just. Next time the blade caught the trainer, knocking it clear of the branches and nearer the side.

I nudged the shoe closer, then used the oar to steer it through the water towards me. Rachel let go of my hand, and I tried not to notice the sudden absence of warmth against my skin.

‘I hate to rain on your parade, but that doesn’t look like something Leo Villiers would be seen dead in,’ she said.

I’d been thinking the same thing myself. Beneath its coating of mud, the training shoe looked cheap and chunky, designed with high street fashion rather than sport in mind. It didn’t fit my image of Villiers, a man who bought bespoke outdoor clothes from his tailors in St James’s and had a custom-built shotgun worth a small fortune.

‘Is that a purple sock?’ Rachel asked, leaning over my shoulder for a better look. ‘ Definitely not Leo Villiers’.’

She was right. Although I’d known all along it was probably nothing, I felt a sense of anticlimax take what little energy I had left. I was about to let the shoe drift away again when I realized a discarded shoe wouldn’t still have a sock in it. And then I noticed something else.

The sodden laces were still tied.

‘You might want to move away,’ I warned. But it was too late. The trainer had turned in the water as I’d nudged it closer, presenting its open top towards us.

Nestling inside the training shoe, and half hidden by the lurid sock, was the pale bone and gristle of an ankle.

‘You should have called me.’

Lundy sounded more reproachful than annoyed. We stood in the kitchen area of the boathouse, mugs of untouched tea cooling on the worktop. He was dressed more smartly than before, and I wondered if my call had interrupted his own bank holiday plans.

‘And what would you have said?’ I asked wearily. ‘For all I knew it was just some old trainer. I only went to set my mind at rest. And there wasn’t enough time before the next high tide to organize a search anyway.’

That earned a grudging sniff. ‘Pity you didn’t think to take a look when you saw it yesterday.’

Tell me about it . Once I’d seen what the training shoe contained, I’d been faced with a tough choice. Although I was loath to handle it myself — that was a CSI’s job — the tide was flooding back into the creek at an alarming rate. If I didn’t move it soon the water would, and I didn’t want to risk losing it again.

So, after taking photographs, I’d used a bin-liner to pick up the shoe, then reversed the plastic bag so it was wrapped inside. There was no mobile service out there, and it wasn’t until we were back at the boathouse that I could phone Lundy.