11. You Lost, Sweetheart?
In the back of the ambulance, Sally rolled up her shredded leggings and a male paramedic with sure hands set to work cleaning the wounds. Every dab of stinging iodine hurt, but she was good at ignoring pain.
Not so good at ignoring Liam O'Connell.
He hovered nearby, watching over her. He looked bad. Burst capillaries in his pale cheeks like blood freckles, eyes red-shot, hands quivering faintly. Then there was the smell; the same hot fog that had come off him for months now.
Alcohol.
She'd tried to raise it with him several times. He'd made jokes about late nights out at clubs, dancing until the dawn. But she'd followed him home once. There'd been no club. Just a trash can filled with vodka bottles.
"You OK?" she asked.
"I'm fine," he lied easily. "Was at a club last night, though. Didn't expect to get called in."
Sally managed a smile. "Me either. But here we are." She waited a moment, but he offered nothing more.
"Almost done," the paramedic said, and began winding the fabric around Sally's calves. "Next time you're on the beach, I recommend jeans. The weather changes fast around here."
"You're not kidding," Liam said. "That came on like a tsunami."
Sally just watched him. He'd changed somehow, and it dug at her. The self-assurance was gone. Like he was performing the role, no longer inhabiting it. It made her sad and a little angry. Not at him, not exactly, but she didn't know why.
"Thanks again, Liam, but you don't need to babysit me. Why not go liaise with Mayhew and Akilota. Get started on that warrant."
"Yeah, good idea," he blurted, a little too loud, then dropped out of the ambulance.
The exchange left a sour taste in Sally's mouth. She hadn't meant to give him an order, but that was how he'd responded to it.
The paramedic taped the last bandage. "All done."
"Thank you," Sally said absently, and dropped back to her feet. Her left ankle wobbled but held.
"A word of advice?" the paramedic said.
"Jeans, got it," she muttered, then climbed out of the ambulance and back into the downpour.
"Your partner's in withdrawal," the paramedic called after her. She turned, eyes narrowed against the rain, really looking at the man for the first time. He was tall, maybe five years older, with a silver-shot stubble and wide-set brown eyes.
"Hands shaking," he went on. "That's not just one big night. That's alcohol dependence."
Sally hadn't noticed that. It annoyed her. "You going to report him?"
"It's not for me to do that. That's for his partner. But I do know one thing."
Sally waited.
"A man like that needs professional help."
Sally let a moment pass. "Who the hell are you?"
"John Logan," he answered. "Amongst other things, I'm an AA sponsor. Used to have a real problem myself. Maybe I can help."
Sally narrowed her eyes. "Is this some kind of shakedown, John Logan? We hire you, you keep quiet?"
He smiled. That was even more annoying. "Nothing like that, I promise. Just an honest offer of help."
"You already wrapped up my legs. That's all the help I want."
She walked away, angrier now than before.
At the forensics van, one of the rear doors was open.
The team inside were working rapidly. She glimpsed the boy's body on the gurney.
His clothes had been fully stripped and fresh photographs were popping, while analysts urgently collected trace samples with a filtered forensic vacuum and sterile swabs.
"Capturing as much as they can before the damage sinks deep," Liam said, leaning out of the door.
"They should never have left him in that tent."
"Right. They think they've got cause of death, though."
She looked up. "Already?"
"Chemically induced MI."
"Myocardial infarction? A heart attack?"
"Yeah." Liam dropped down beside her. "Rapid IA drugs screen confirmed it. They were worried about environmental degradation, so, yeah..." he shrugged.
"And?"
"Heavy ketamine presence in the blood, and a cardiotoxin, cocaine or something like it. Could've both been a big factor in his death."
Sally's mind rushed. "Injection point?"
Liam breathed out heavily, fuming sour, alcohol-scented air over Sally. "Not yet, but they're still looking. Autopsy is up next; the heart should tell the story."
"I know that, Liam. Where's their unit based?"
"Dover."
"What's that, an hour away?"
"Yeah."
"OK." She breathed out. Resetting herself. "I'm going to Reginald Rook's place. See if I can find out who runs the Crab Shack now." She studied him. "Can you get started on that warrant?"
He nodded. "Absolutely. Yes. But, ah–"
"What is it?"
"Shouldn't we go together?"
Sally just looked at him. She didn't want to mention the alcohol still on his breath or the shaking in his hands. As long as he didn't drink while on the case, they'd be fine. But taking him with her like this?
"I've got it. We really need that warrant, in case I get nowhere."
"Oh," he said. "Sure."
He didn't move. Sally nodded and headed away, leaving him behind.
Back in her Mustang, she sat for a moment, hands on the wheel. Her legs were shaking and her knuckles were pale. She twisted the rearview and looked at her face.
White.
She saw the boy's body again, tossed by the storm. His perfect hair finally ruffled. So small, so powerless, exactly how she'd felt in the grip of the storm. Her heart went cold and she gave herself a shake, then leaned over to rummage in the passenger footwell.
Tossing aside Mud Beast paraphernalia, she came up with her rucksack. Inside was her laptop, ruggedized with black rubber. She popped the lid and logged in, tethering to her phone's hotspot.
The hotspot couldn't connect.
"Damn storm," she muttered, then put the laptop back in her bag, looking out through the rain-smeared windshield.
She had enough on Rook to warrant questions. Access to the Police National Computer would be good, but she didn't want to delay now. Take too long, and Mayhew would catch up to her. Everything would get caught in the thick, slow-moving mud of police bureaucracy.
She paused a moment. Four sons, Mayhew had said. A rape charge. Sally weighed that then put it to one side. She was police, and besides, she could look after herself. She put the Mustang into gear and headed out of the lot. At the gate she stopped. The security officer looked at her blankly.
"You've got my bat and my canister," she said. "I want them."
"Got a receipt?" he asked, his face unmoving.
"Who else did you take a bat and a canister off?"
He trudged back to the booth, returning with the bat and Farb-gel. "That bat's illegal. Don't try to come back in here with it. The gel too."
Sally didn't reply, just revved off.
The storm chased her away from the reactor, across the shingle expanse and into the long flat miles of Romney Marsh. She took a left turn onto Dungeness Road, then another left half a mile away from Lydd onto a rutted, waterlogged gravel track.
There were signs for the RSPB Preserve. Beyond the fences lay broad, brackish ponds and thick fields of bulrush reeds, their sausage-shaped flower heads spiking upward. She turned onto a dirt lane marked by a rusting metal sign with bullet pockmarks:
PRIVATE PROPERTY - TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW
The lane was hard mud and grass strung with barbed wire on both sides. Scrap metal hung from it; old license plates, bits of tin, a rusted hubcap clanging in the wind.
Umberside Lodge.
Sally slowed as the complex emerged through the rain; a large farmhouse encircled by half a dozen lean-to outbuildings, a large barn, and an encircling line of salvaged vehicles that served like a barrier wall against the marsh.
Rusting tractors sat nose-down in the mud. Old vans with smashed windows. A pickup truck with no doors. Piles of scrap metal and oil drums formed crooked alleys between the outbuildings.
The place smelled of diesel and the swamp.
Sally rolled through an open gate into the muddy forecourt before the farmhouse. Three dogs burst out from behind a stack of pallets, barking loudly as Sally rolled the Mustang to a stop. Big, muscular XL Bullies. Thick shoulders and scarred muzzles. They circled the car, teeth flashing.
Fear bit at Sally's chest. Dogs at 3 a.m. She kept the engine running and leaned on the horn, the piercing sound splitting the day. Within moments a door banged open and a large man stepped out of the barn.
He was thick through the shoulders, wearing a black sleeveless vest with tattoos crawling like black vines up to his neck. His jaw was square, his stubble tightly sculpted and he watched her with blank gray eyes.
Another man appeared behind him, this one carrying a large, open cardboard box stuffed with colorful plastic sticks. Vape pens, she realized. Two more followed, all carrying boxes, all built the same way, the family resemblance undeniable.
All four of the Rook brothers?
They put their boxes down and fanned out. The leader hawked and spat into the mud then walked over slowly. Maybe the eldest? The dogs fell silent as he leaned against Sally's door and motioned for her to roll the window down.
"You lost, sweetheart?"