64. Tarpaulin
"What the hell does it mean?" Liam asked, as they stamped back through the driving rain to the car. "This whole Bledd seal thing was a setup by the Rooks?"
"I'm not sure." Sally's thoughts whirled a mile a minute. "Maybe by Reg Rook and Gerald Spate? To cover their tracks on the murder of Tom Richter?"
"So we're back to him witnessing something?" Liam's pace sped up.
"It seems that way."
"Whatever it is, that bastard Spate lied to us again!"
Sally hustled to keep up. "If Meeks is right, Spate's been lying for 30 years. They framed Bledd back then, but it didn't work, so now they're doing it again."
Liam stopped and turned to her. "Shit. You're right! If the Rooks blew up his boat, this is the second time they've framed him for murder."
Sally stopped too, already so soaked it made no difference. "The fifth Rook. Reg tried it with Richter, but DCI Stewart didn't take the bait. Bledd was never even considered; he's not in the case notes, not in the podcast."
"One more point of noise that threw the whole investigation off," Liam said darkly. "Rook and Spate must have been laughing their arses off. So much that they're trying it again now, 30 years later?"
"Except Rook's dead and Spate's a spent force."
"I'll spend his force," Liam said, hands tightening into fists. "I will boil that cocky bastard in his bloody hot tub."
"I'm with you. And he'll deserve it."
Liam broke into a jog and Sally followed. As they rounded the weeping willow, they saw a white van parked beside the squad car. Beside it stood Tania Brown beneath an umbrella, dabbing her cheeks with a foundation sponge.
A long beat passed as she stared at them and they stared at her.
"You've got to be fucking joking," Liam murmured, barely audible over the rain.
Then Brown snapped her fingers at her cameraman. The camera was up in seconds, the lens cap off, and the message was clear: all deals were off. "Officers Sally Rogers and Liam O'Connell. What are you doing here, at the house of Crawford Meeks?"
"Run," Sally hissed.
They ran. In moments they were in the squad car and Liam hit the gas, rocketing backward. Sally had a clear view of Brown and her team hustling back into their van.
"They're going to follow us," she said.
"They're not going to catch us," Liam answered, reversed back onto the road then shifted to first and pushed the gas pedal down. They picked up speed down the hill then hit the bottom with a thump, the chassis bouncing on its suspension, already doing 50 miles an hour.
Sally craned her stiff neck back. The white van was there, almost at the bottom of the hill too. "Right behind us."
Liam swung the wheel, taking a tight corner in a sharp, hydroplaning skid.
"Bloody hell, Liam," Sally said, holding the dash. "It's not worth dying for."
"Isn't it?" He spun the wheel the other way, squealing into another turn. An SUV screamed past on their right, horn wailing, barely an inch away. "Spate's got away with murder for 30 years, and I don't want these wankers seeing what I'm going to do to him."
Sally rocked back into her seat as Liam straightened up. That made sense. Spate had just become their number one suspect. "Hit your blues and twos, then."
Liam grinned. "Yes, ma'am."
He hit the button and they became a wailing, flashing bullet shooting south at 60 miles an hour.
Adrenaline coursed through Sally's system as they flew over the surging RMC, ran a red light through the tiny village of West Hythe and accelerated hard down Botolph's Bridge road back toward Dymchurch.
In moments they were surging back past Martello 24, with Spate's holiday park spreading out on the left-hand side.
"Good God," Sally murmured, looking down.
The park had become a lake, its surface battered by sheets of driving rain, the artificial grass no longer visible. Each caravan had become a lifeboat in a network of gray canals, bobbing with litter; cans, bottles, chip wrappers, crisp packets.
Sally flashed back to the strand line on Dungeness, split by the body of Jason Harrow. Hair perfectly combed, cockle shells in his eyes, white strips of salt crystallizing in his clothing. Left there on a bed of bleached driftwood, tangled blue fishing net and glass fragments worn down to amber.
A sudden rage swelled in her chest.
The killer had done all this. They'd set their little traps, shared their stupid Heraclitean theory, but this is what it came down to. Real people dumped like garbage.
Liam closed on the entrance and turned the wheel, but Sally reached out and grasped his arm.
"Stop here, Liam! Don't pull in."
He braked sharply, pulling to the side, and turned to her as the car still rocked.
"Why not?"
"Look." Sally pointed.
The incline down to the park was a true waterfall now. Huge amounts of water were flowing off the road and down into Dymchurch's haven every second, inches thick, frothing with shingle and brown mud.
Liam cursed under his breath. "We'd never get out again."
"We have to go on foot."
"But Brown will see us parked here. She'll come down."
"So let's go fast."
Sally pushed open her door and bounded out.
Water flowed fast around her feet. She slammed the door and ran down the incline, hands windmilling to keep her balance before splashing into the deepening sump below.
The water was inches thick now, up past her ankles.
Together they ran past numerous vacant caravans, their doors hanging open, the residents long-fled.
Foam flashed over the sea wall, splashing noisily into the waterlogged park. The endless pulse of the waves slamming against concrete carried up through her body, drumming into her chest.
Ahead, Spate's mobile mansion became visible through the downpour. The porch tarpaulin was swollen with wind over his foul little hot tub, and there, square in the center like a chick in its nest, sat Gerald Spate.
His eyes widened as they approached.
"The fuck are you two doing back here?" Spate shouted over the thudding of his generator. He stood and water dripped down his red chest.
"We went to see Meeks," Sally said, stopping before him. Liam circled back to the generator and began ripping things away.
"Cut that out, you cheeky little shit!" Spate shouted, swinging a punch toward Liam's head.
Sally caught it and shoved Spate back into the water.
Liam stood, a collection of fuse caps and a large metal plate in his hands. His face was ash-white. "You lied to us," he said, then tossed all the pieces into the tub.
"Shit!" Spate shrieked, springing backward. "You could break my bloody toe with that thing."
"I'll do more than that, you murdering prick. Meeks told us you were boasting about Richter and the seal two whole days before he died. Two days, Spate!"
Spate stared. For a moment the light seemed to go out in his eyes. His shoulders drooped, his body went slack. Then he mustered. His chest puffed back up, his eyes igniting.
"Crawford Meeks is a pussy, and he'd say anything to save his own skin. You can't believe anything he tells you, because–"
"But I do believe him," Liam said. He made a sideways step, took hold of one of the thin support rods for the tarpaulin above, and pulled.
The spike rooting it into the sodden grass sucked free easily. Liam paused a moment, the tarp strung taut above, then let go. The rod fell to the ground and the canvas instantly caught the gale like a kite, bulging up then letting slip with an ear-thumping slap.
Slap. Slap. Slap.
With each pulse the porch frame shook harder, the remaining rods jerking, the first blades of rain slashing in to spatter the hot tub surface.
"What the hell are you doing?" Spate cried.
"You shouldn't take a hot tub in a storm," Liam shouted, and moved to the next rod.
"You shouldn't run a generator in a storm.
You shouldn't murder an innocent boy and cover it up for 30 years, Gerald, for a dead, criminal leech like Reg Rook, but you never learned what you shouldn't do, did you, so you just keep doing it. "
He pulled out another rod.
The tarpaulin lashed manically, a long straining sweep up that rocked the mobile home and sprayed rain over the three of them, then a hard whipcrack down. One corner of the canvas smacked Spate in the forehead. He raised a hand; blood welled where a metal eyelet had struck.
"What the…" Spate mumbled, staring numbly at the blood on his palm as Liam moved to the final rod and took hold of it.
Sally's eyes widened. "Liam," she said. But not loud. She made no move to stop him.
He ignored her. "The sea should've claimed a man like you three decades ago," he shouted over the tumult. "Instead of Richter. Instead of Harrow. But you know what they say about the river. It just keeps on rolling."
He tugged. The rod sucked loose, the tarpaulin pushed taut, and–
"Wait!" Spate cried.
Liam paused, looking at the man in the tub like a spider eyeing a fly in its web. "What is it, Gerald?"
"I just, you can't…" Spate's eyes darted, searching his sunken kingdom for an escape then settling on Sally. "Stop him!"
She said nothing.
Liam dropped the rod.
The tarpaulin shot upward, enflamed with wind, stark white lines stretching at the final mooring points to the mobile home's roof.
Then the wind spilled out with a thudding, ear-popping suck, and the canvas dropped down to shroud Spate completely.
Half a second passed, filled with a low keening whine coming from within, then the wind ripped the canvas off his trembling body and up.
There was a sickening snap as the first eyelet tore, releasing the canvas to gyrate directly above, thrashing side to side. Rain soaked them all, rain splashed off the generator.
"Oh my God!" Spate called.
A final gust gripped the tarpaulin, the last few eyelets wrenched away and the blue fabric rocketed away into the storm.
Sally watched it go, its chaotic, twitching form engulfed swiftly by the rain.