10. Lethal Oversight
They exited the reactor in silence. Outside, the wind bit with a constant low roar, the rain slashing in near horizontally. Sally started back toward the beach, a range of thoughts spiraling in her mind.
The CCTV mishap. Palmer. Reactor Logistics.
At the fence a hand caught her elbow. Mayhew. She turned.
"You were out of line in there, Rogers." Mayhew's face was flat, her tone cold. "This is exactly what I warned you about."
"It's how I operate," Sally shot back. "I call out bullshit, and that guy, Palmer? He's full of it."
"You implied he's the killer. That's not a responsible investigation. He's a pillar of the local community, and–"
"And right now he's our only suspect! If that means rattling his cage, so be it."
"Rattling his cage? This is not America, and you are not a 'special agent' here. There is a procedure and a way of doing things. We had access to the reactor, and now we don't. I'll file a warrant, but their solicitors will slow walk it, and it could take days. Is that what you wanted?"
Sally opened her mouth, but bit back a retort. Days was too long. A silent moment stretched.
"I asked him about Reginald Rook. You reacted, DCI. Why?"
Mayhew glared, seemed to consider withholding, then relented. "Rook's the man Nancy Cagen has always blamed for the original murder. There was a time she couldn't stop talking about it." She eyed Sally. "Why do you have that name?"
Sally weighed the benefits of mentioning Rook's ownership of the Crab Shack. If she said it, Mayhew would doubtless insist they go together.
She didn't want that.
"Somebody said his name. One of the door knocks."
Mayhew eyed her like she didn't quite believe it. "Rook was well known around here. Not anyone's idea of a good man, but he was looked into for the murder. There was nothing to it. His alibi was rock solid."
Sally absorbed that. Some exchange of information; that was good. She needed everything she could get.
"What was his alibi?"
"In a pub, a lock-in that went all night, and half of Lydd swore to it."
"OK. And in what way, not a good man?"
Mayhew sighed. "Lots of things. All cautions and fines, going back well over 30 years, but no arrests. Scrap licensing errors. Accusations of fly-tipping waste, but unsubstantiated. Several minor environmental breaches and a caution for domestic battery."
Sally wondered how far she could push it. "Any family?"
Mayhew frowned. "You think there's some kind of generational murder plot here? One of the sons carries on what the father started? I don't think the Rooks are sophisticated enough for that."
"So he has sons?"
"He does." Mayhew tilted her head. "Four of them, all in their 20s. Roarke's the only one I remember. Rumor has it they're into petty larceny, drugs, but we never catch them at anything. Teenage disorder, a rape charge that was dropped, but nothing serious. You really think they're suspects?"
"I'm just doing background," Sally answered. It didn't sit right with her, to lie so directly, but if she wanted to get this case moving, she had to do it her own way. "I'll go check the northward beach team. You sent a team to check for cameras, right?"
"Of course I did."
"Good."
Sally strode through the fence, barely stopping to flash her badge, and mounted the shingle rise. The wind on the beach below was pummeling, the forensic tent skewing hard. Mayhew was right behind her, so she pressed on faster, stopping the first officer she found.
A young woman, short with plump cheeks, Asian, with the name Chakrati across her chest.
"The officers that went north," Sally shouted over the wind. "Where are they?"
Chakrati stared at her for a moment, then nodded. "I was one, ma'am. Myself and PC Hawlin."
She gestured to another officer, on his knees now and crawling over the shingle. A finger-tip search.
"Good. What did you find?"
"Nothing, ma'am. Not within a thousand yards."
Sally looked north. Visibility was severely limited by the rain now, the skies above the beach darkening to black. "Nothing at all?"
"Nothing we could use, ma'am." Chakrati's gaze flickered as Mayhew came to stand beside Sally. "There was one camera on a lamp post a few hundred yards out. Apparently it's there for a tidal climatologist's study? Rick, I mean PC Hawlin, suggested I climb it. So I did."
She said this last almost defiantly. Sally found herself liking her attitude.
"And?"
"And the wire was disconnected," Chakrati said proudly.
Sally weighed that. What were the chances of another camera going out by accident? "Disconnected like it had come loose, or cut?"
"What does that matter, Rogers?" Mayhew called into the wind. "We don't have CCTV, so we move onto–"
"It speaks to the killer's preparation and access." A powerful gust of wind rocked the tent ahead and the fabric shook violently. "If it was cut, that's a pattern of premeditation."
"You're jumping to conclusions again. Anyone could have disconnected that wire."
Sally faced her. "Who else would cut a wire like that, out here?"
"There could be lots of people. The smugglers bringing in small boats. Local kids causing trouble. It doesn't have to be some grand conspiracy to–"
"But it might be. Let's establish the facts first, yes, DCI?"
Mayhew opened her mouth, then closed it. Sally turned.
"PC Chakrati, cut or disconnected?"
The short officer paled slightly. "Sorry, ma'am. I didn't look that closely."
"And neither did Hawlin, I take it?"
The young officer snuck a faint smile. "He hates heights."
"Of course he does. OK. A few hundred yards north, right?" Chakrati nodded eagerly. "I'll go see for myself."
Sally set off over the shingle at a jog. Her feet and legs ached; all her muscles, tendons and ligaments worn out from the Mud Beast. A deep tiredness was settling in, but she had no time for it, and sped up.
The curtains of rain opened as she advanced. The reactors receded. Soon a slim matchstick structure appeared through the gloom ahead, taking on definition and shape. It stood at the end of a cracked black road, solitary as a lighthouse, with no cars, buildings or people nearby.
The lamp post. Sally reached it, wrapped both hands around its corroded black metal, slick in the heavy rain, and began to shimmy up. Her running sneakers held their grip well.
At the top hung the lamp, its refractive glass as cloudy with salt deposits as the window to the Crab Shack. Beneath it hung the camera, a simple black box with a clean lens. Cleanliness suggested regular maintenance. A single black wire looped from the box's rear into a slot in the post.
There was a single clean sever-line through the rubber sheath, the braided cables and the copper wires within. No fraying, no tears, no rust, which signaled it was recent.
Cut.
Rain slashed Sally's face. She adjusted her grip and brought up her phone, leaning back to take a photo of the wire, then she slid back down the pole, mind turning over the possibilities.
Mayhew was right that other people could have done this. But it fit her developing theory of the killer perfectly: they'd blinded the reactor camera 9, cut this line, but what about the Crab Shack?
That was an aberration. Its red light was still flashing. Had the killer missed it? Dismissed it?
Now it was her only possible source of CCTV. Distant from the beach and the place the boat would have come in, but it might have seen something. A profile. The boat itself.
A sense of urgency lit in her chest. She slid down the pole and started jogging back toward the reactor, but something struck her right ankle.
The pain was sharp and sudden, like a snake bite.
She looked down but there was nothing there, only the driving sheets of rain crashing diagonally into the shingle.
Then another sharp strike stung her left calf.
She ran her hand down and it came back spotted with blood.
The thin neoprene of her running leggings was torn.
She stared for a moment, trying to understand what could've caused this.
Then a powerful blast of wind swept along the beach, raking up a low wave of pebbles and propelling them toward her.
They bounced and scattered along the road, and one struck her on the left ankle. She let out a small cry as the stone smacked bone, sending a flash of the Mud Beast pipe through her mind; the grip, the dark water, the seconds mounting.
Assaulted by the land itself.
She shook the feeling off and ran. The shingle crunched and the wind fired waves of small stones into her ankles and calves. The impacts became steady, the stinging pain constant.
By the time she reached the reactors, her legs were numb and the forensics tent was in chaos. One corner had come loose from its pinion and whipped loudly in the wind, like some chained banshee. CSM Akilota was halfway up the beach, seemingly fleeing from the storm, along with his team.
Sally glimpsed the body within the remains of the tent. The young man had been tipped onto his side, half-rolled onto the black sheet. Alone again. Sally scanned the beach and spotted DCI Mayhew breaking for the fences. She ran to intercept her.
"DCI!" she shouted, barely audible over the wind. "We have to collect the body!"
Mayhew turned, stared for a second then shook her head. "Akilota's gone for sandbags. The tent will hold, we just have to–"
A scraping shriek came from the forensics tent as a second pinion sucked free from the stones. The wind hammered up into the tent's interior, swelling it into a bulbous distortion then spilling free like a ruptured pulse, each blast yanking at the remaining pegs.
One more tore loose, then the rest plucked out like uprooted teeth. The wind snatched the whole tent and hurled it up the beach, its shape convulsing, its trailing edges raking the ground.
Sally dragged Mayhew down.
The tent thrashed by inches above them, then caught a crosswind and shot upward into the sky, torn out of sight.
"The body!" Sally shouted.
Mayhew nodded and they ran back into the storm together.
The young man lay on his front on the shingle now, stones crashing off his side. Sally went to the shoulders and squatted. Small stones thudded into her stomach and chest. Mayhew dropped by his ankles.
"Flip him over!" Sally shouted, her voice clawed by the wind, then hoisted his left shoulder. Mayhew helped and his weight thumped over onto his back, empty eye sockets staring up at her through the rain, scant inches away.
Her gorge rose but she couldn't look away.
Without the shells, he looked more human. More hurt. She'd imagined his face in the dark, the hands above him, the first shell going in. Now the shells were gone and hers was the face above him, rain dripping from her chin onto his cheek, and he was still just as helpless.
The wind crashed into her like a wall.
"Officer Rogers!" shouted Mayhew.
Sally scooped both arms under his armpits and heaved. Her thighs strained and the shingle under her feet slipped, but she kept lifting. This young man deserved better. She locked out upright and shouted.
"Go!"
She set off at a shambling, wild backward sprint with Mayhew following.
Rain lashed her eyes and she couldn't wipe them clear.
Every step she thought she would stumble and fall.
Along the slick shingle, up the final mound then down the other side.
The stones slipped and she fell, one arm windmilling back toward the ground but–
Strong arms caught her, buoyed her up and raised her upright.
"I got you," came the voice by her ear.
Sally found her feet and turned.
Liam O'Connell stood there. Stubbled, haggard and washed-out, but sturdy. Arms under her elbows now, sharing the strain.
"Shit," she hissed. "Good timing, Liam."
"Sorry I'm late."
He took one of the boy's legs and together they pushed through the fence into the reactor lot, where the wind ebbed slightly. CSM Akilota rushed to meet them, a sandbag over each shoulder.
"What are you doing with my body?" he shouted.
"The tent's gone," Mayhew answered.
Akilota gazed out at the fury of the beach, then dropped the bags and took one of the boy's arms. In moments they reached the forensics van. A gurney was already waiting. They fed his body on top then rolled it inside. Akilota slammed the door shut, leaving the four of them panting in the rain.
"Liam O'Connell," Sally gasped, gesturing. "DCI Mayhew, CSM Akilota."
Mayhew nodded gravely. Akilota looked shell-shocked.
"I thought the tent would hold," he said. "We staked it deep. That kind of a storm, we just–"
"It's Dungeness," Mayhew said. As if that answered everything. Akilota wilted.
Sally fought to get her breath back. Her legs felt ready to give out. O'Connell still held to her elbow, peering into her eyes with a concern she hadn't seen for months.
"You're bleeding, Sally," he said. "Your legs."
She looked down.
He was right. Below the knee, her calves were a welter of cuts and blood. "It's fine."
"Let's get you to that ambulance," he said, pointing. "Now."
She nodded but focused on Mayhew.
"The wire was cut, DCI. Recently, no rust."
Mayhew twitched. "OK, so what?"
"So my next stop's Reginald Rook." She turned to Liam. "Or whoever owns the Crab Shack on the beach. Can you file a warrant, Liam, for its CCTV footage?"
"Not a problem," he said. "Now come on, let's get you cleaned up."
Sally just grunted and hobbled toward the ambulance.