Simon Beckett - The Restless Dead

What if Rachel’s sister was guilty of more than blackmail?

‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked.

Clarke tore her eyes away from the scene on the launch. ‘Once you’ve given your statement you might as well go back to London.’

‘London?’ I said, surprised. ‘I’ve still got some things to finish off at the mortuary...’

‘They can wait. You’re too involved now. I can’t afford any more complications because one of my consultants got tangled up with a victim’s family. Not after this.’

‘But I can still—’

‘I’m not asking, Dr Hunter,’ Clarke said, her voice suddenly hard. She sighed. ‘Look, I appreciate what you’ve done, and I know you want to help catch whoever did this. But you can’t. You need to let us handle it from here.’

I was on the point of arguing. Then I saw the strain in her face and remembered Lundy, and any argument drained out of me.

I nodded.

She started to walk away, then turned back. ‘One more thing. Until we know what’s going on, I’d appreciate it if you don’t see anyone else connected with this investigation. That means anyone, OK?’

Ginger hair blew about her face as she stared at me, making sure there was no misunderstanding. Then she turned on her heel and marched to the launch.

Below me on the diminishing sandbank, the gulls fought raucously over the last of the pale crabs.

The weather was filthy as I was taken back to shore in the marine unit RHIB. Gusts of wind blew the rain in near-horizontal sheets, merging it with the spray thrown up by the blunt bow. The open cockpit lacked any sort of shelter, and I was shivering despite the waterproof jacket I’d been lent. It was heavy, but the bright-yellow plastic was unlined. The marine unit officers were politely distant towards me, but I didn’t mind. I wasn’t in the mood to talk either.

The larger coastguard vessel had taken Clarke and Frears further down the coast, where there was a deep-water harbour from which Lundy’s body could be taken to the mortuary. The RHIB was heading back to the oyster quay, where a mobile incident command unit had been set up. Bouncing and pitching on a towline behind us was the small boat that Rachel, Lundy and I had taken out to the sea fort.

It seemed an impossibly long time ago.

The overcast sky was already hastening the day towards a premature dusk as the RHIB bumped against the quayside. I climbed up the same steps as I had the morning we’d recovered the body from the Barrows. There was something dreamlike about walking again across the puddled concrete when I went to give a formal statement in the police trailer. More than once the police officer taking it had to repeat herself when my attention wandered.

‘Sorry, what?’ I asked, realizing I’d drifted away again.

‘I said, do you want to see a doctor?’ The young woman’s round face was professionally concerned. ‘You might be suffering from shock.’

She could be right, but I didn’t need a doctor. The only person I wanted to see was Rachel, and I still had no idea what to do about that. She should have been allowed home by now, but I didn’t think turning up at Creek House would be a good idea even if Clarke hadn’t expressly warned me against it.

But no matter what the DCI had said, there was no way I could leave without speaking to Rachel, at least. I was already taking out my phone as I left the trailer, walking into the lee of the boarded-up oyster factory for shelter while I called her. When it went to voicemail I left a message to ring me and then tried to think what to do next.

The numbness I’d felt earlier had descended again. I knew Clarke would be angry that I’d tried to contact Rachel, but it didn’t seem to matter any more. Objectively, I was aware that the state of suspension I was in was only temporary, that it was only a matter of time before everything that had happened caught up. For now, though, I was running on automatic, focusing only on whatever was directly in front of me.

Which right now was how to get to the boathouse where I’d left my car. None of the police had offered to drive me back, and even if I’d wanted them to I wasn’t going to ask at a time like that. I spent several minutes standing with the rain dripping off the plastic hood of my borrowed coat, staring blankly across the broken surface of the estuary, before I realized the answer was right in front of me.

One of the marine unit officers was in the process of untying Trask’s little boat from the RHIB when I offered to take it back to the boathouse, where it could more easily be collected. There was a brief discussion over the radio, but the police had more important things to deal with than delivering a boat back to its owner.

‘You sure you’ll be OK handling it in this?’ the marine unit sergeant asked, looking at the white-flecked waves in the estuary.

‘I’m only going to the creek.’

‘OK, but don’t hang about.’ He glanced at the moody sky, water streaming from his yellow waterproof. ‘It’s a spring tide, and the weather’s going to get worse before it gets better. We’ve been told to get everyone off the sea fort in the next hour whether they’ve finished or not. You don’t want to be taking a boat far.’

I told him I wouldn’t, but I didn’t really care about the weather. I’d sailed in bad conditions when I was younger, and I’d be running with the returning tide rather than against it. The engine started on the second go, and as soon as I pulled away from the quayside I felt the current take hold. Even though I’d been expecting it I was almost caught out. I fought the boat as it tried to get away from me, then brought the bow round and headed up the estuary towards the creek.

Once I was out in the middle it was easier. The estuary was rougher than I’d seen it, but not so much so that it threatened to overwhelm the small craft. I was glad to have something to occupy my mind, and the waves’ grey rhythm was hypnotic. Rocking with the boat’s motion I found myself thinking of absolutely nothing beyond the simple task of keeping the bow on course. Then a larger swell thumped against the fibreglass hull, and I flinched as the shotgun’s boom seemed to echo in my head again.

As quickly as that, the numbness was gone. I took deep breaths of the cold salt spray as the full impact of what had happened finally hit home. There was too much to process. The revelation about Leo Villiers, my dismissal from the investigation and uncertainty over Rachel. All of it faded beside Lundy’s murder. The memory of that made me feel physically winded. No matter what Clarke had said, someone had come out to the sea fort with the intention of killing everyone on it. Someone who had already murdered four people, at least two of them only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And now that Leo Villiers had been ruled out, we had absolutely no idea of who had done it.

Or why.

Distracted, I almost missed the opening to the creek. When I realized how fast it was coming up I quickly steered towards it, but I’d misjudged the strength of the tide. The engine pitch rose as I opened the throttle, turning at a sharper angle to compensate. Now the waves were hitting the boat side-on. I clutched at the seat as a larger one smacked into the hull, sending freezing water over the side and almost overturning it. As the little boat settled I looked around, only now noticing how conditions had deteriorated. The estuary was a mass of frayed waves, already lapping close to the top of the banks, and the level was still rising. I’d been too preoccupied to worry about the marine unit officer’s warning. I couldn’t afford to ignore it any more.

The mouth of the creek was sliding past at an alarming rate. There was no way I could make it, not without exposing the side of the boat to the full force of the waves, and I’d come close enough to tipping over once as it was. Wiping the spray from my eyes, I turned the bow away until I was running with the tide once more. By now I’d passed the creek, but there was no helping that. Looking back, I tried to gauge the rhythm of the swells before gunning the engine and swinging the boat into a tight turn. It began to roll, lurching as waves slapped against its side, but then the bow came round and I had it aimed directly into the waves, heading back up the estuary towards the creek.