Simon Beckett - The Restless Dead

The rain dripped off the edge of the sea fort’s tower in swaying silver curtains. Every now and then a squall of wind would blow a sheet of it into its shadowy underside, a cold spray that ran down necks and sleeves, chilling to the bone.

The sandbank that had built up around the tower had been exposed by the low tide, revealing a smooth brown island by one of the legs. Dappled with seaweed and the rusted carcasses of tin cans, it had been colonized by dozens of small, pale crabs. They’d emerged cautiously into daylight, pincers raised as they made scuttling runs that left stippled patterns in the wet sand.

I watched them from the edge of the docking platform under the tower. The tide had begun to return, and now the crabs were disappearing as the sea reclaimed the sandbank. I’d be sorry to see them go. Watching them had been a welcome distraction from the activity going on above my head. A blanket was draped around my shoulders, replacing the ruined coat I’d left inside the tower. The marine unit’s RHIB was moored to the platform next to the smaller boat I’d come out in with Rachel and Lundy, bobbing on the waves. A larger launch was anchored in deeper water further out, wallowing on the heavier swell.

As we’d waited outside the tower for the emergency services to arrive, Rachel had wiped tears from her face.

‘It’s my fault. He didn’t even want to come out here.’

I told her it was no good blaming herself, that there was no way to have foreseen any of this. I doubted it made any difference. The shock of what had happened was numbing. I felt useless myself, unable to even hold her. Lundy’s blood was still caked on my arms, cold and sticky, but I couldn’t wash it off before the police got there. They would need to test our hands for gunpowder residue to rule us out as suspects. And so I stood while it dried on me, a clotted coat smelling of iron and offal that cracked when I moved.

A fast coastguard launch arrived first, bringing paramedics who’d clambered up the ladders to Lundy. The urgency was in contrast to the way they’d re-emerged a short while later, empty-handed and defeated. They’d offered blankets and hot coffee while we waited for the police. The marine unit had arrived next, vaguely familiar faces I recognized from the estuary recovery. They’d been followed by a bigger police vessel, discharging the first of what seemed like an endless stream of CSIs and crime scene personnel. Or perhaps it was the same ones coming and going.

I didn’t keep check.

Rachel had been taken back to shore to be interviewed and make a formal statement. Although I’d not asked to stay, no one suggested I leave. I could guess why, and so I’d waited on the platform out of everyone’s way, watching the busy crabs. It was a relief when my hands had been swabbed by a member of the forensic team and I could finally clean Lundy’s blood from my hands. I’d crouched down on the platform and plunged my arms in the sea, rubbing the caked mess from my skin and letting the cold saltwater carry it away.

It was mid-afternoon when the coastguard launch returned with more passengers. It bumped alongside the platform, and I turned and waited as DCI Clarke and Frears climbed out. Both wore coveralls, and the DCI’s face was bleak. She looked over at me as she accepted help out of the boat from a police officer, but went straight to the ladder without a word. Behind her, the pathologist appeared uncharacteristically solemn as he clambered on to the platform. He saw me and paused, as though in two minds.

‘Dr Hunter. Glad you’re all right.’ He looked up at the tower, shaking his head. ‘Bloody bad business.’

I nodded. It was.

A bloody bad business.

I went back to watching the crabs on the diminishing sandbank. Only a small patch remained above the surface when the first seagull found them. Within a few minutes several more had joined it, their cries echoing under the tower. I was still watching nature run its course when I heard someone coming back down the ladder. I waited until footsteps approached behind me, and then turned to face Clarke.

The DCI’s pale eyes were red-rimmed, and the wispy ginger hair was even more dishevelled than usual. Her voice held a quaver, but I thought that was barely contained fury.

‘What the hell happened?’

I went through it one more time, even though I knew she would have already been briefed. She didn’t interrupt, but her mouth compressed into an ever tighter line.

‘Jesus Christ,’ she said when I’d finished. ‘Jesus fucking Christ! Whose idea was it?’

‘Mine.’

I could tell she didn’t believe me. Or perhaps she already knew: Rachel wouldn’t have spared herself in her statement. But I wasn’t about to point any fingers. No one had forced Lundy to come out here. Or me either, come to that.

Clarke gave me a hard look, then stared off at the waves through the curtain of rain. A wisp of escaped ginger hair flapped unnoticed in the wind.

‘And you didn’t see who it was? Nothing at all?’

‘The engine sounded like a small boat’s, but that’s as much as I can tell you.’

She sighed, impatiently pushing the loose strand of untidy hair out of her face. ‘Christ, what a mess.’

‘What about forensics?’ I asked. ‘Can you tell anything from the footprint?’

‘Not much. It’s only a partial, and there’s no sole pattern or any identifying marks. Doesn’t look like it’s been worn down, so probably a smooth-soled shoe. Most of the surfaces are too rusty for fingerprints, but we’ve found two distinct sets in the room and five on the aluminium ladder. We’re assuming that three of those will be from you, Rachel Derby and... and DI Lundy. We don’t know about the other two yet, but they aren’t recent. If we’re right about the set-up here I think we’ll find they belong to Emma Derby and Mark Chapel.’

I thought so too. The natural oils in older fingerprints would have been dried out by weathering and the salty air. I’d have to have my fingerprints taken at some point to exclude those I’d left, and so would Rachel and even Lundy. But if the five sets the police had found could all be accounted for, that meant whoever had climbed up to the tower to shoot Lundy had been wearing gloves.

The same as Stacey Coker’s killer.

‘He knew we were here,’ I said.

‘He? I thought you didn’t see who it was?’

I bit back an angry retort. But she was right, and I should know better than to make assumptions. ‘OK then, whoever it was knew we were here.’

‘We don’t know that.’

‘Why else would they have come out? By the look of it no one had been inside the tower for months, and it can’t be an accident they turned up at the same time as us. Not with a shotgun.’

‘So what are you saying? Someone tipped them off?’

The only person who’d told anyone we were going out to the sea fort was Lundy. He’d called in to let his team know, but I couldn’t believe one of his colleagues would set him up to be murdered.

‘Or they were keeping a watch on the fort somehow, I don’t know. I just don’t believe the timing was a coincidence.’

‘I don’t like it either,’ Clarke said flatly. ‘But the alternative is that someone came out here to deliberately execute a detective inspector. And two civilians, given half a chance. What would they gain by that?’

‘To keep anyone from knowing what was inside.’

‘And shooting a police officer’s really going to keep a lid on that.’

Her voice was heavy with scorn, but she had a point. Even if Lundy’s murderer had succeeded in killing all three of us, the tower would have been searched as a matter of course when Lundy didn’t report in. Shooting him had only escalated the situation.