Simon Beckett - The Restless Dead

‘You’re welcome. Just try not to eat them all next time.’ He stood up, mock-groaning as he set his granddaughter down. ‘The rate you’re growing I’m not going to be able to lift you for much longer. You help your gran while I see Dr Hunter out.’

‘He said his name was David!’

‘He’s a grown-up, he’s allowed more than one.’ Lundy came out with me into the hallway. He still seemed uncomfortable after our earlier conversation. He jangled the change in his pocket. ‘You OK?’

‘Fine.’ I shrugged. ‘Don’t worry, there won’t be a conflict of interest.’

‘Glad to hear it. Anyway, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’

I felt tired and depressed as I drove back to the boathouse. I was already beginning to wonder if I’d done the right thing by committing myself to going back to London, but staying at the boathouse any longer would put me in an untenable position. I couldn’t tell Rachel about any of the new developments, and yet keeping them from her felt as bad as lying.

But I couldn’t just leave without giving her a reason. Or was I flattering myself that she’d really care? She’d got more to worry about than a man she’d only known for a few days.

There was something else bothering me as well. Lundy had said that Rachel could have stayed in Australia, that she didn’t have to come over to help out the Trasks. Yet she’d told me she’d already been in the country for a friend’s wedding when her sister went missing. I turned that over in my mind, not liking where it led.

Lundy didn’t know Rachel was here when her sister disappeared.

I knew it didn’t necessarily mean anything, that the DI might simply have forgotten. Or got his wires crossed, because the police would have checked her out along with the rest of the family as a matter of course.

Wouldn’t they?

I flinched as the sudden trill of my phone jarred me from my thoughts. My stomach knotted when I saw Rachel’s number on the display. I pulled over to the side of the road, earning an irate blare of the horn from the car behind as it shot past. Rain blustered against the windscreen as I looked down at the phone, letting it ring again before I answered.

‘Can you talk?’ Rachel sounded anxious, and I immediately forgot everything else.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing... I don’t know. Look, can you come over?’ She lowered her voice, as though not wanting to be overheard. ‘I’ve found something.’

It had stopped raining when I pulled up outside Creek House. The light had almost gone from a gunmetal sky, and the gale of the previous night had died to a fretful breeze that set the marsh grass whispering like static. Although it wasn’t yet high tide, the creek in front of the house looked ready to overflow, the seabirds on its choppy surface paddling furiously against the tidal drag. There was a restless quality to the landscape, a sense of pensiveness.

Or perhaps it was just me.

Rachel hadn’t wanted to say much more on the phone, leaving me no wiser as to what she might have found. My imagination had rushed to fill the void on the drive over, competing with a guilty conscience because I was flouting Lundy’s warning. In the end, it came down to a simple choice. Which was I going to put first, my continued role in the investigation, or Rachel’s plea for help?

So here I was.

As I walked through the dripping branches of the silver birches, I told myself that technically I wasn’t doing anything wrong. The body from the barbed wire still hadn’t been identified, and Mark Chapel could still be alive and well somewhere. Until it was proved otherwise, Trask wasn’t actually a suspect.

But the rationalization rang hollow, adding to the sense of nagging disquiet that had formed after what Lundy had said about Rachel.

I went up the steps and knocked on the front door. I could hear music playing inside, and then Jamie opened it. He regarded me dully, then dropped his gaze.

‘Dad’s not here. He’s with a client.’

His eyes looked reddened. With everything that had happened, I’d not really thought how Stacey Coker’s death would have affected him.

‘That’s OK, I came to see Rachel,’ I said, relieved that Trask was out.

Wordlessly, Jamie stood back to let me into the hallway. The music was coming from one of the ground-floor bedrooms: some sort of girl band by the sound of it. Jamie shut the front door and turned towards the room where the music was playing.

‘Fay, turn it down!’ When there was no response he went over and banged on the door. ‘Are you deaf? I said turn it down !’

There was an indignant but inaudible reply from inside, then the volume was lowered.

‘Yeah, you too,’ Jamie said to the closed door, then turned to me. ‘Rachel’s upstairs. Go on up.’

‘Thanks.’ I hesitated. ‘I’m sorry about Stacey.’

He looked startled, then almost resentful. Giving a grudging nod, he began to turn away and then stopped. ‘What’s going to happen to Edgar?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Will he go to prison?’

I hesitated, but honesty was better than evasion. ‘I doubt it. He’ll probably be sent to a psychiatric hospital.’

That was true regardless of whether he was guilty or not. It would be a long time before he saw the Backwaters again, whatever happened.

Jamie’s hands were clenched into knots. He struggled for a moment, looking on the verge of tears.

‘Did he... was she, you know...’

I started to say that I couldn’t tell him anything; that I wasn’t even part of that investigation. But I’d already crossed more lines than I cared to think about.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said quietly.

His next words seemed to spill out.

‘It’s my fault. Everything, it’s all my fault.’

‘You can’t blame yourself,’ I said, knowing that was easier to say than do. No matter what anyone told him now, his abiding memory of Stacey would be watching her drive off after they’d argued.

‘No? How do you know?’ He dashed a hand across his eyes. ‘Fuck! I just wish I could go back ...’

There was nothing I could say to that, and empty platitudes wouldn’t help. I watched Jamie go into his room, and then went upstairs to find Rachel.

I paused at the top. The open-plan kitchen and living area was empty. The huge floor-to-ceiling window cast a dark reflection, but the only person in it was me.

‘Rachel?’

‘Over here.’

Her voice came from behind the freestanding bookshelves at the far end of the large room. Behind them, partitioned off from the rest of the living area, was a small work studio. Rachel was sitting at a glass-topped desk, studying a laptop. The glow from its screen reflected back warmly from the huge window it shared with the dining and living area. Her smile seemed hesitant as I went over.

‘I didn’t hear you arrive,’ she said.

‘Jamie let me in.’

A shadow crossed her face. ‘He’s taking what happened to Stacey hard.’

‘What about you?’

‘Oh, I’m all right. You know.’ She gave a small shrug. She was wearing faded jeans and a baggy cable knit sweater with the sleeves rolled. The black hair was pulled back from her face with an Alice band. She looked natural and unselfconscious, and I felt a dull ache under my breastbone. ‘It still hasn’t sunk in, to be honest. Going to Edgar’s house and... and everything, it all seems a bit unreal. I still can’t believe he’d do something like that.’

He didn’t. But I couldn’t tell her that. ‘I called you earlier,’ I said.

‘I know, I was going to phone back before, but...’ She trailed off. ‘Look, can I get you something to drink? I just made coffee, but there’s beer or wine?’