24. Mermaids And Sirens
The calls took the best part of an hour and a half, and by the end Sally's hand ached from writing.
"Lot of these lads are dead," Causley said cheerfully, near the end. "Dungeness takes them young, the sea does. Harsh mistress, that siren song. You want the sons too, do you?"
Sally erased the duplicates and circled what was left. Gerald Spate appeared three times and earned a circle in red.
Gender was easy, but age and career would take some digging.
She began by underlining the male lines.
The foremost standouts were Spate and some of Reg Rook's older cousins.
They'd all be about the right age. They'd all been involved closely with the land.
Maybe they all knew where the bodies were buried.
"It's a start," Liam said. "But it's far from complete."
Sally grunted. "We need a bigger net. With a tighter weave."
Sally's eyes drifted up to the clock. Coming up for 9 p.m. She was deeply tired now.
The tide had crept up while she was working, held back by the dam of adrenaline, but now it was overflowing.
Every muscle ached. Her throat pulsed hot, every swallow a tiny, jagged pill.
Her eyes felt like they'd been packed with sand.
"No sign of Mayhew," she reflected.
"Good sign, you think?" Liam asked. He looked as worn as she felt; cheeks gray, the red welt on his neck standing out sharply.
"McMaster would have called if we were off. She would've come and given us the boot. She just had to blow off steam."
Liam snorted. "Same with faulty boilers. Until they explode. Or start venting carbon monoxide."
Sally gazed at the list until her eyes drifted out of focus. Sixty-five names. Was the killer amongst them?
"There's a hotel in Lydd," Sally said. "The Albion."
Liam shuddered. "I can't face the drive now. Bound to be full of press by now anyway."
"Maybe somewhere in Rye, then."
Liam pulled out his phone and searched. Minutes passed and Sally drifted. "OK, there's places on Mermaid Street. Some gorgeous old alley, barely a 10-minute walk."
Sally rubbed her eyes. "Yeah. Two rooms."
"Two rooms, comped by the Agency." His thumbs moved across his screen. "Done. They've got a restaurant too."
Sally barely felt hungry, but she knew the residual adrenaline was suppressing her appetite. She hadn't eaten since the steak bake, and her body needed fuel. "Good. Thanks."
Liam booked them in, Sally took a photo of the suspect list, then she collected her plastic bag of wet running gear and headed out of the room. The bullpen was quiet but for a small group of officers at one desk, looking at photographs of the victim.
The boy on the beach.
Sally walked over and the group looked up. Three men and two women, their faces swimming before her. She recognized Chakrati, Hawlin, and some others whose names she didn't know.
"DI Gemmell?"
"That's me, ma'am," said one of the men, bobbing to his feet. He was older, late 30s in an expensive suit, and tall, with thin, unruly blond hair. He offered his hand. "Stephen Gemmell."
"Sally Rogers and Liam O'Connell," Sally said, shaking his hand. "Has there been any news from forensics, or the victim's ID?"
Gemmell shook his head. "Nothing yet, ma'am."
Sally looked at the other officers, their faces blurring before her. "You're locals, or out of Dover?"
"I'm out of Eastbourne," said Gemmell. "Just transferred in recently. PCs Chakrati and Hawlin are local, but you probably know that. DS Flaherty and Sergeant Simms are in from Dover."
Flaherty was a tall, slender woman with limpid green eyes and blond hair. Simms was a solid block, the build of a linebacker with ridged cauliflower ears.
"Any suspects yet?"
"Just Gabriel Rook. The whole county's on alert for the rest of his crew. There's not much else."
Sally looked at Liam, and he shrugged.
"We've got a prelim list up in the training suite," she said.
"All names linked to the Rooks in some way.
Can you start working through them? No calls, just background.
You mostly need ages and careers. Our profile suggests the killer's a man in his late 50s, involved in some kind of emergency work or land management. "
"Ah…" Gemmell said awkwardly. "Ma'am, the DCI's asked us expressly not to work with you."
Sally smiled. "Of course she has. Look, take the whiteboard out of our room and just work it like it's yours. Or spend the night looking at these photos." She gestured at the table. "Your call."
She walked away. Liam lingered for a moment, introducing himself and shaking hands. He only caught up to her at the uniform locker, as she collected another spare set of kit.
"You've got nothing with you?" he asked.
"Nothing but mud."
They stepped out of the station into the cold drizzle of an early spring night. The air was cold and smelled of the sea. The press numbers had dwindled by now, with no sign of Tania Brown, but a half dozen media vans remained, engines idling.
Liam led them away from the station and through the quiet, darkened town.
A few pubs were open, but quiet, light spilling out in golden halos.
Soon they reached Mermaid Street. It was cobbled and steep, flanked by timber-framed houses that leaned toward each other overhead like old men sharing a secret.
It was pretty, as advertised. Quaint.
Their hotel was a converted pub, low-ceilinged, with uneven floors and walls the color of old cream.
A young woman checked them in without asking any questions.
Liam took his small travel suitcase to his room.
Sally had nothing to drop but the spare uniform and wet bag, so just took a seat in the restaurant.
It was dim and peaceful, with a fire in the hearth and a balmy warmth in the air.
There were a handful of other guests, with candles on the tables, and a menu written on a blackboard.
Sally studied the choices, half-listening to the twang of a tourist's Midwest accent nearby, commenting on the ruggedness of the stone walls.
Liam returned and sat. Sally ordered fish pie. Liam ordered sausages and mash, then looked at the wine list for slightly too long before putting it down and asking for water.
They ate mostly in silence. The food was good; thick, rich, hot, and Sally worked through it steadily, refueling rather than really tasting. Across the table Liam cut his food into small pieces and moved them around. His water glass was drained and refilled twice. He kept glancing toward the bar.
"You ever tried AA?" Sally asked quietly.
He looked up. "What?"
"AA. That paramedic, Logan. He's a sponsor."
Liam held her gaze for a moment, then looked back at his plate. His jaw worked and his cheeks flushed slightly. "It's not like that. It's… I'm fine."
Sally left it at that.
The candle between them guttered in some unseen draught and a fresh welter of rain ran in sheets down the windows, warping the street lights into long amber smears.
"Long day," Liam said eventually. "We got a list, though. Maybe we'll have ID tomorrow."
"Here's hoping."
"You did well, out on the marsh. Those girls." He paused, then pressed on. "You didn't have to go back at the Rooks alone, though, Sally. That was reckless. And I was right there. I would've helped."
She sighed. There was a lot to say there. Better left unsaid. "Time was a factor. But you're right. Tomorrow it'll be better."
Another silence. She could feel him wanting to say more, the words pressing up against this same block between them, but she was too tired to figure it out.
"Let's get some sleep," she said.
Something crossed his face. Relief, maybe. Or disappointment. "Yeah. I'm shattered."
They went up. Sally's room was small and slanted, positioned in the building's eaves, the walls veined with ancient wooden beams. A window seat overlooked the glistening street below, built around a metal radiator.
Sally emptied the wet bag of running gear and hung it on the radiator, then turned off the lights and sat on the edge of the bed.
The weariness sank deep. Past 10 p.m., and she was crashing.
She pulled off her boots and uniform then shrugged on the hotel night gown and lay back, bringing up her phone.
The battery was almost dead, but that was a problem for tomorrow. She scrolled through her emails. There was something from a contact in Lincolnshire; one of the fathers of the girls who'd died in the spree killer stabbing.
His name was Anton Mylovich. She'd met him once, on a weekend visit up to Lincoln.
He'd been frayed, hair tousled, bags under his eyes.
He'd talked too fast, only speeding up as he'd gulped down his coffee.
Talking about his daughter, lost in the attack, and his theory that the killings had not been random, as everyone believed.
He thought they were targeted. That the killer had beelined for certain victims, young women who weren't in his direct path, ignoring victims who were nearer. Mylovich believed the spree killing was intended to disguise a pinpointed murder.
Sally had listened, but it had felt like conspiracy theory to her.
They'd promised to stay in touch. Afterward, she'd plotted out the whole two minutes and 43 seconds of the attack.
She'd laid out walls of the breakfast club with colorful cones in Battersea Park, then walked it through countless times, trying to make sense of the killer's path.
She'd concluded Mylovich had a point about the killer's movements. It was possible they were random, but the pattern defied explanation. She'd looked deeper into the victims to see if there was any reason to target them, but found nothing.
Still, Mylovich kept messaging her. Every few days he sent something; new research, new theories, new patterns. He hadn't lost faith that there was a 'real' target there, some emergent shape in the choices the killer made, more than just random killing.
None of his theories had borne out, and she'd taken to opening his messages later each time. She didn't have the energy to process them. The energy to hope. And right now, her eyes were losing focus and her mind was numb.
She closed her email and opened the podcast app instead, bringing up the Cockle-Eye Killer, episode two.
The narrator's low voice mumbled into the dark room.
Talking about fishermen and smugglers, the marshes and the beach, the detectives and the families torn apart.
She closed her eyes and the boy on the beach was there waiting for her, in the dark behind her eyelids, patient as the tide.
She still didn't know his name.
The podcast played on into the night.