40. Pub Crawl
It was dark and drizzling outside the station. Sally glided through the thin ranks of the press like a boat cutting over still water. A few lackluster shouts followed her, barely eddies in her wake, then she was clear.
No car. No partner.
No Liam.
At the bar she showed a photo to the bartender; on her phone, one from the aftermath of Dark Peak. "Has this man been in tonight?"
"Wanted, is he?" the girl asked.
"Yes."
"Oh. Right. No. I don't think so."
"If he comes in, call me." She gave her number and left.
Sally walked along the Market Road, then the High Street. People moved around her, men and women, young and old, all on their own paths. There were bookshops and sweet shops, shops for crafting and for paperweights, a gallery, a bank, then another pub.
The George in Rye. More wood, beer pumps behind the bar, gilt-edged paintings of Tudor aristocracy on the walls, but no Liam. She left her number and moved on.
A camera met her at the door.
Tania Brown stood there, one hand holding her cell phone out, the other tucked into her coat pocket. She gave Sally a small, satisfied smile.
"Long night, Officer Rogers?"
Sally started walking. Brown followed.
"Is this official NCA business? Or are you just wandering around Rye asking strangers questions because Kent Police finally took your keys away?"
Sally kept moving.
"Come on, don't be like that. You're the story now. You must know that."
The words hit harder than Sally wanted. She turned down a narrow lane, past darkened windows full of ceramics and handmade candles. Brown followed.
"You rammed a civilian vehicle into a boat, Sally," Brown reasoned. "Three suspects injured, one severely, and now you're wandering pubs in the rain. That's a story."
Sally stopped and turned. Brown stopped too.
"Turn that off."
"Public street."
"Turn it off."
Brown smiled. "This isn't Louisiana, Sally. We're not the Wild West. You don't get to ride into town, fire off the siren, smash up half the marsh and call it justice."
Anger flickered through Sally, cold and clean. Ever since this thing had begun with the podcasts, vultures like Brown had been trying to make money off the back of misery and pain, and it made her sick.
"People like you don't care about justice."
"I care about what sells." Brown tilted the phone slightly, framing her.
"I care about what the public have a right to know.
And right now, you're both. The American supercop.
The survivor. The woman who dug herself out of a pit.
Only now people are starting to wonder whether you're saving the case or imploding it. "
Sally took one step toward her.
"That's it," Brown murmured. "There she is."
Sally saw the trick. Brown didn't really expect answers now. She wanted movement. A flinch. A shove. A hand across the lens. Sally Rogers losing control of the animal within.
"So keep filming," Sally said softly.
"I intend to."
"Film yourself feeding on dead women and frightened locals. Film yourself dressing up gossip as an investigation, when you haven't got the spine to really look into the dark."
"I'm looking into the darkness right now. We'd all be better off if you'd stayed buried on Dark Peak."
Sally moved without thinking.
One moment Brown was two yards away; the next Sally had crossed the space, hand flashing for the phone.
Brown jerked back, heel skidding on wet stone.
Sally's fingers brushed the case but failed to grip it.
Pain tore through her shoulder, bright and immediate.
For half a second she was overextended, weight wrong, body betraying her.
Brown stumbled into a shuttered shopfront hard enough to rattle the glass. Sally caught herself on the wall.
The phone was still up.
Brown stared at her, eyes wide now, fear and triumph braided together. "God damn it. You really are off the leash!"
Sally's pulse hammered in her throat. She could have taken the phone a day ago. Before the marsh, the crash, the water. Now her whole body felt like a weapon fired too many times.
"That's the clip," Brown said quietly. "That's all I needed."
Sally straightened. Her shoulder burned. Her ribs throbbed. Rain ran cold down the side of her face.
"Then use it all," she said. "Don't cut the part where you followed an injured officer through the rain trying to make her snap. Don't cut the part where you smiled when it worked."
For a second neither of them moved. Then Brown laughed. "You think that saves you?"
"No." Sally started walking away. She knew it didn't. It could damn her completely, and part of her didn't care. "It just means we both know what you are."
Sally kept moving. Off center, uncertain, but she didn't have time.
Liam was what mattered now. She entered Los Gringos on a corner, Tex Mex and cocktails.
Down an alley she tried The Grapevine Jazz Bar, the lights tinged red with a saxophonist starting a staccato set.
The High Street curved north after that, where the shops peeled away to reveal a stunning view across the River Rother and the darkening Romney Marsh.
On and on. Vast, timeless, uncaring.
She circled back, working more pubs, handing out her number and trudging numbly on.
Narrow cobbled alleys lined with wattle and daub buildings.
Brick stately residences blending into hip cafes with anthracite-gray wooden shutters.
Steeples rising and disappearing alongside TV antennae.
She found herself in a tight alleyway that spilled into a graveyard.
Many small, listing headstones sprouted intermittently beneath great twisted oaks, carved with words she could scarcely make out. Heraclitus' river was everywhere, the tide flowing in then out.
She stopped in the shadow of Rye Castle. A medieval tower with four round corner turrets that overlooked the marsh. There was a 'gun garden' of ancient black cannons all pointing outward, and she watched the stars in the dark sky.
It was beautiful. Strangely silent. She sat on a bench and felt the night passing her by.
Nearby a pair of teenagers huddled close, arms wrapped, sipping from bright-colored cans and stealing muffled kisses.
The smell of their drinks carried on the air, a chemically sweet alcohol, some fruity cider.
Sally let out a breath and watched occasional lights glimmer on the distant water.
"Here you are," came a familiar voice.
Sally turned. John Logan stood a few yards away, like he was keeping his distance. Like she was a bomb about to explode. She almost laughed.
"You've been following me."
He approached then sat on the other end of the bench. "Not exactly. I'm looking for Liam, too."
She said nothing.
"I've been all over town," he said. "No sign of him. Everyone's taking about you, though."
Sally looked over.
"Various accounts. On the north side, they're calling you 'this terrifying lady cop'. On the south, you come across more like a lost soul. Around here, the castle? One person thought you might actually be a vengeful ghost, looking for a lost lover."
Sally let out a numb chuckle.
"Ghosts don't laugh, though, do they? Not that I've heard. And I've read all the Ingoldsby Legends."
"So you're stalking Liam and me."
"Guilty, I guess."
They sat in silence for a moment. "Ingoldsby," she said. "That was the name of Arthur Bledd's houseboat."
"I'm not surprised. Everyone knows Arthur Bledd, by reputation if nothing else." He leaned back. "There was a time, maybe a decade ago, when he was putting up all these flyers across the marsh towns? Rye. Lydd. Greatstone. New Romney. Some kind of campaign."
"Campaign for what?"
He looked up, like he was searching his memory. "If I remember correctly, it was for an endangered species on the marsh. The medicinal leech, I think."
"Seriously?"
"Oh yes. That or the Marsh Mallow moth."
"A marshmallow?"
"A moth." Logan smiled. "He's a man with passion, no doubt."
Sally let out a slow breath. Bledd. Liam. Marshmallows. What was all of this, really? Transient moments, passing her by.
"He's not out there."
"Liam? I don't think so. But if I had to wager? If he's anything like I was as a drunk, he's bought a bottle of vodka and he's curled around it somewhere in the dark, just drinking away his sorrows."
Sally thought about that. The image made her feel sick. Her partner relapsing, because of something she'd done. Her partner in pain.
"He could be anywhere."
"I think so." Logan reached out, then, and his fingers grazed her shoulder. A gentle touch. She almost wanted to lean in. Logan was annoying. Self-righteous. Smug, even. But he was also kind. Decent. He'd spent hours looking for Liam, just because he wanted to help a 'fellow' alcoholic.
But she couldn't do that now. Instead she smiled and pulled away slightly. His touch coming away from her shoulder stung a little.
They sat in silence, watching the stars. The teenagers giggled then got up, running across the paved garden arm-in-arm. Sally wanted to say something more, but nothing seemed right. Not now. Not with Liam gone, not when it was barely 10 o'clock and she was already crashing hard.
Instead, she stood, weaving slightly. She felt more than saw Logan tense, like he was ready to catch her if she fell.
"Thanks for trying, John," she said.
He smiled. "Of course. Anytime. Take care, Sally."
She patted his shoulder as she passed. The touch sent a thrill up through her fingers, but that was all she could allow. "And you."