48. Cold Water Shock
Sally surged from the freezing water, lungs trying to inhale before her face was clear, sucking in sea water and foam. On her knees in the tide, she spluttered and coughed, every muscle clamping hard at once, as if the sea had tightened to wire around her ribs.
Cold water shock, she registered, combined with the wet fire of synthetic capsaicin. Her chest heaved, pulse raced, head spun. Panic hit but she rode it as best she could, keeping her head above water as her eyes burned, her nose, mouth and throat stinging like they'd been drenched with acid.
She could barely see, but the wreckage of the houseboat blazed red and yellow before her, an island of fire spreading atop the waves.
There were gasps and screams. Someone was shouting, "Chakrati!" repeatedly.
Somebody else coughed and gasped by her side. Liam. He splashed in the water. She managed to find her feet against the lash of the tide, then helped him stand too.
"Holy shit," he croaked, one hand on his stomach. "What the hell, Sally?"
Sally splashed water in her eyes. It helped a little, so she dunked her head and shook it. When she came up, she could briefly see.
"Sorry I hit you," she gasped, her breathing still short and rapid, her throat raw with every scraping word.
"How did you know?" Liam asked, staring into the fire. "Did Emily get out?"
Sally dunked her head again.
"Sally?" Liam repeated as she came up. "Did she get out?"
She pictured Emily Chakrati haloed in flame. The unruly sunne. "No. She's gone. We need to get out of this water, Liam."
He stared for a moment, then pulled up his phone. Calling it in. Sally took his elbow and started pulling him toward shore.
"Get off me!" he shouted, yanking his arm away, then talking into the phone.
"A boat just exploded in the water off Dungeness.
Near Prospect Cottage. We need–" Sally grabbed Liam's free arm and pulled.
This time he let himself be dragged. "We need everything.
Ambulances. Coastguard. More police. And fire. "
Sally splashed her face with her free hand and kept on pulling, circling the spreading swamp of flames.
Already she felt the wind leeching heat from her body.
The frame of a bicycle leered through the fire, somehow wedged upright.
Mayhew stood like a statue in the water nearby, just staring into the blaze.
"Gloria, get out of the water!" she rasped, every word searing her throat.
Mayhew didn't budge.
"Glory Hallelujah," Sally tried, and this time the woman flinched and focused, but there was no recognition in her eyes. Only pure terror.
"Your team are in a threat-to-life situation," Sally croaked, feeling her throat catch and her jaw start to lock. "Emily's gone. Help me clear the rest."
Mayhew's lips moved but no sound came out.
"You can't do anything for her now," Sally said. "Come on, clear your damn team, DCI Stewart!"
Those last words physically shook her. Mayhew blinked and took in the scene for what seemed the first time: Hawlin on his knees with the water up to his chest, holding a blood-soaked hand to his face; Simms staring into the fire, his face white as sea froth; Flaherty wading around the watery pyre repeatedly shouting, "Emily! "
"I'm not my father," Mayhew murmured, so low Sally barely heard it.
"So prove it!" Sally barked. "Get them to the shore."
Liam pulled his hand free from her grip. She let him go and made for the beach. With every step shudders racked her body. Too cold, too fast.
"O'Connell, help Rogers!" came the command from Mayhew, finally. "Flaherty and Simms, snap out of it and help me with Hawlin!"
Sally trudged on, every sense in her head firing with pain, watching afterglow images of Emily Chakrati's final moment erupt again and again across the gray tides. She'd only thought of Liam, back in the houseboat. She'd hardly tried to save Chakrati. Now she was gone.
How had this happened?
She looked to the sky but all she saw was bleary gray. Had Bledd been watching with his drone? Had he triggered the explosion remotely?
But why? Why would Bledd do any of this? His whole life had been a battle to preserve the marsh; a battle he'd fought against Reg Rook, against species extinction, against pollution.
A punch here and there, maybe, but never real violence. If he'd been planning for months, even years, to blow his boat up and kill a police officer, why go to Scots Float Sluice and advise them on drainage just the day before?
It made no sense and kept repeating in Sally's head. The man she'd met hadn't surrendered to Heraclitus' madness. He'd made himself into a conduit between chaos and order, between the marsh and its people, looking for ways to live together.
Not this.
But that explosion couldn't have been triggered by a touch plate or a movement sensor. Those would have gone off as soon as officers boarded. It had to have been triggered by the drone, or someone within visual range. Someone watching for as many officers boarding the boat as possible.
It was a miracle Sally and Liam had escaped.
She let out a laugh. Someone had just tried to kill her, and they'd almost succeeded.
Then DI Gemmell came crashing through the water toward her. He said something then she couldn't hear, then scooped her up in his arms and carried her the rest of the way to shore.