47. Unruly Sunne
Sally stepped out onto the beach, wind whipping away all sound, off-kilter on the shingle. The little figure with its head craned back flashed before her.
So Bledd really was the killer?
She couldn't make sense of it. It felt wrong. He hadn't just helped the investigation; he'd been instrumental in finding the body of Nancy Cagen. Why do that if he'd put her there?
Sally found herself staring at the black cottage wall, half-reading the looping metal letters nailed into place.
'Busy old fool', the poem read, 'unruly sunne'.
Unruly sun?
That felt like chaos. Order.
She spun. Mayhew was at the door, talking into her radio. Sally caught snatches of her voice, torn at by the wind; calling in reinforcements, the AROs, forensics. Then she turned further, looking out to sea. Bledd's boat was there still, a dark blot down at the tideline.
"DCI, we need to clear Bledd's boat," she shouted over the wind and pointed. "Out there!"
Mayhew squinted. "You're sure that's his?"
"I'd recognize it anywhere."
Mayhew cursed and leaned inside the cottage. "O'Connell, Hawlin, Simms, Flaherty, Chakrati, you're with me." She turned back to Sally, her jaw set. "You had him in the car with you. What were you thinking?"
Sally felt that like a blade in the ribs. Mayhew was right. She hadn't suspected a thing, and what did that say about her judgment?
Officers poured from the cottage. Liam trooped along with the rest, not meeting her eyes. Mayhew lowered her voice.
"I do not want you here now, Rogers. You are the problem, and thanks to O'Connell's full debrief, you will be off this case within hours.
" She leaned closer. "So stay out of our way.
Do not follow us, or there'll be an extra charge of insubordination on top of the reckless endangerment charge you already face. "
Mayhew's eyes burned. Sally felt herself shrinking.
"What did Liam say?" she managed.
"Just stay here," Mayhew spat, then turned to the others. "Come on. DI Gemmell, watch her. Do not let her out of your sight."
She led the squad away over the beach. Liam didn't turn. Only Chakrati cast a backward glance, almost apologetic, then they were receding over the shingle.
Sally's limbs went weak. Liam first. Bledd next. If she'd been wrong about both of those, what else had she been wrong about? Maybe all of it. Maybe everything. Maybe she really was the liability Mayhew thought she was.
She thought back to John Logan, following her around Rye. The notion made her sick. His next pet project, Mayhew had said. Like she needed saving. Blind to her own partner turning on her. Deaf to the killer sitting right by her side.
Another barbarian soul.
One knee went out and she dropped to the shingle. They were just small mistakes, a voice inside her said. Liam had been faithful until now. Bledd had seemed genuinely harmless.
An eccentric. An eel man. An eco-warrior.
But a murderer?
The words of the poem danced on the black wall before her.
'Busy old fool, unruly sunne,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?'
The words felt like a mockery, like she was another busy old fool, so wrapped up in herself that she couldn't see the truth: that she simply wasn't wanted.
The realization hit like a punch in the stomach. Did it explain Liam? Did he pity her too?
She felt herself coming apart within, broken by two truths she hadn't seen coming. The Fates had warned her; her partner was not what she'd thought, and the killer belonged to this place in a way she'd never belonged anywhere.
The poem reeled on, taunting her.
'Go tell court huntsmen that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.'
Sally laughed, a wild bray escaping her lips.
Any sign of order was a mirage, and maybe it always had been.
For hours, days, months… Dungeness yawed around her, the vastness like a mouth opening wide.
She tilted sideways and caught herself on the shingle; cockle shells and granite crunching beneath her fingers.
Maybe this was right? Maybe this was where she'd always been headed?
A hand came on her shoulder.
"Hey, you OK?"
She looked up. Stephen Gemmell. His eyes widened when he saw her face.
"Shit, Sally," he said. "What can I do?"
Sally just looked at him. This was kind, she thought. He was a kind man. "Nothing." She managed to get her feet back under her, standing again. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine. I don't know what just happened between you, but forgive me for being blunt; the DCI can be a real bitch sometimes."
Sally looked at him. "You don't have to–"
"It's true. She had a hard time as a kid, I've heard that much, but it doesn't excuse being cruel. Being insular. I stay away from her, honestly. Trauma makes people toxic, you know?"
Sally pulled in a breath, the first good, deep one in minutes. It helped a little. It didn't change anything, but it put the ground back beneath her feet and stopped the sky swirling.
"She lost her father," she said. "Because of this."
"That's not an excuse though, is it?"
"No," she said. She took another breath and straightened up. "You're right."
"Damn right I am. So Bledd went under your radar for two days? The DCI's been here her whole life, ma'am. How many times you think she arrested Arthur Bledd for murder so far?"
Sally grunted. That was almost funny.
"I've read up on him," Gemmell went on. "Arrested plenty of times for flyposting. He's a big one for his newsletters and his freedom of speech. Couple times for fishing without a license. No one ever fingered him for Richter, though. 30 years, and nobody came close, until you."
Sally watched the officers slow on approach to Bledd's boat, down at the tide line. Barely visible now, ankles already sunk in the foam. Was the tide coming in? Something about that felt off.
Gemmell said something more, but Sally didn't hear; running back over every moment with Bledd.
He knew the tides, no doubt. He knew the beach.
He had eyes over everything, whenever he wanted, and had to have known they were coming.
Even the Rooks had known that, and they didn't have a drone in the air.
So why hadn't the boat moved off?
She started walking toward the sea.
"I'm supposed to stop you," Gemmell said, but she ignored him and kept walking.
Simms had said wild mooring was simple. Know your tide tables, and now the tide was coming in. So what the hell was Bledd's boat still doing here? If he really was a genius who'd evaded capture for 30 years, why would he let the police take his home now?
It was almost too easy.
She broke into a run.
"OK then," Gemmell called from behind.
The run became a sprint. Feet thudding, arms pumping, slicing through the sea gale. Ahead Liam and Chakrati were already boarding the boat, batons and PAVA ready. Hawlin, Simms and Flaherty circled in the water, up to their thighs, while Mayhew stood guard at the bow.
Sally's feet hit the incoming tide but didn't slow. Three months of constant exercise paid off as she splashed deeper. Liam was at the houseboat's door now, halfway down the steps, pulling back the enforcer ram.
"Liam, wait!" she shouted.
He didn't hear and swept the ram in. The crash carried on the wind. DCI Mayhew turned and saw Sally plowing through the waves and her face darkened.
"Stop right there, Officer Rogers!" she shouted.
40 yards, and Sally couldn't stop now. Something was wrong here and she had to figure it out. All eyes were on her, except for Liam and Chakrati, already pushing inside the houseboat.
Sally scanned the houseboat as she raced closer, trying to figure out what felt so off, but everything looked the same.
The same tired red and green paint job spackled with eclectic found art, the punt bobbing in the water, the huge filtration tanks dragging low on the flank like anchors, the rear metal platform still crammed with detritus.
Thirty yards.
"Officer Rogers, halt now!" Mayhew boomed, her can of PAVA spray held high.
Twenty yards.
She flashed back to those moments on Bledd's boat, hot-docked to the Rother; how it had bobbed when she stepped on the tanks, how he'd felt every shiver and shift in the water.
But then…
Biochar, Arthur Bledd had said. Activated charcoal. Greater Reedmace. Bacterial mat. Sucking marsh water up via capillary action, which meant…
Which meant…
Sally's eyes locked on the filtration tanks. They stood in over two feet of water now, but weren't floating like before, which meant–
10 yards.
She smelled it then, cutting on the cold wind, barely detectable over the briny stink of the sea but unignorable once she was looking for it. Not something she'd smelled at the hot-dock or at any of the other houseboats.
Gasoline.
The tanks weren't floating because they were full to the brim.
Five yards. Mayhew fired her PAVA spray. Sally closed her eyes, raised her arms and kept running. The spray blasted over her hands and face, then she barged into Mayhew's shoulder at full speed, sending her flying into the water.
The burning synthetic pepper spray attacked Sally's eyes and airways, but she did not slow, eyes blinking madly as she hit the houseboat's bow and vaulted aboard.
"Liam, get out!" she cried.
She rolled onto the deck, stumbled down the stairs and into the houseboat's dim, mud-smelling interior. Liam and Chakrati were shadows through a haze of red pain, moving within.
"It's a bomb!" Sally cried. "It's going to blow!"
She grabbed Liam by the arm and pulled, but he resisted.
"Stop it, Sally!" he barked back at her. "The second it's not about you, the second you fuck up, you pull something like th–"
She punched him in the gut with everything she had. The air blasted from his lungs and he bent double. Without thinking, she thrust one shoulder under his chest, took his weight across her back and staggered back the way she'd come.
"Chakrati!" she cried as she stumbled against the step, as Liam's back thudded off the doorframe. "Get out!"
She managed to feed Liam ahead of her, barely seeing anything now, barely hearing or breathing, operating on blind faith and memory. She emerged into the gray light and pummeling wind astride Liam, then dragged him sideways, tipped him into the water and flopped after him.
"It's a bomb!" she cried, splashing up and yanking Liam away, catching the gaze of DCI Mayhew briefly, soaking wet and furious. She raked at the water, backpedaling deeper against the tide. Chakrati was at the doorway now, looking back with eyes wide.
Then the houseboat exploded.
A fiery blast swallowed its many parts, driving a shockwave of shrapnel, heat and wind across Sally's face and knocking her backward. Chakrati was framed for a millisecond in flame, then she was gone, dissolved by the force of the blast.