64. Tarpaulin #2
Then Spate was moving. Sally's gaze dropped back, to where the older man slipped, slid and tumbled out of the hot tub. He landed with a splash in the lake below, scrabbled for purchase then took off; a geriatric from the starting blocks.
She watched as he lurched awkwardly through the deluge, feet dragging wakes in the high water, barely holding his balance. This was all crazy. It was too much.
"I'll go," said Liam, and strode after him.
He wasn't fast, but fast enough to gain on Spate. Sally followed, eyes scanning the wall to the coast road. The white van was there now, just about visible through the rain. The doors had to be opening, Tania Brown racing out, but she couldn't see yet.
But they were coming.
"That's enough, Liam," she called. Still making no move to actually stop him.
"Gerald," Liam called over the storm, stalking the older man. "Gerald!"
Spate looked over his shoulder, overbalanced and fell into the water. Liam caught up and stood over him. Spate began backpedaling rapidly, churning the foul gray water. Sally kept pace, heart clamoring, looking down into the man's terrified eyes.
"Tell the truth, Spate," Liam boomed. Rain beat off his face, the living picture of Dr. Syn. "For once in your life, before it's all done, tell the truth!"
Spate's jaw worked at the air, coughing as rain found its way in. "I didn't do anything!"
"Then let's get you comfortable," Liam cried. He patted Spate's knobbly knee then slid one arm under Spate's back and lifted. "Back in the hot tub with you. Face the storm down like a man."
"No!" Spate bellowed, trying to punch Liam again, but the blow had no power. "I'll tell you, OK! Everything I know about Reg, Richter, Bledd, whatever you want. Just, stop!"
Sally could only stare. The media crew were vaguely visible now, cameras up, coming down the slope. "We're done here, Liam!"
"Who killed Richter, Gerald?" Liam boomed, his face inches away from Spate's. "You? Rook?"
Spate shook his head, a keening wail rising from his throat. "Neither of us, I swear it! Reg just ordered it!"
Liam twitched. "He ordered it? Ordered who?"
"I swear I don't know. I never did! Reg had a guy, that's all he'd ever say. A guy he trusted, a guy he'd known for decades, then it was done, and that was it!"
Liam's fist tightened around Spate's upper arm, the flesh underneath pinching white.
"You're hurting me!" Spate whined.
"Why, Gerald? What did Richter see?"
The wail swelled in Spate's throat. "People. He saw them moving people."
"We already know that!" Liam's gaze flashed briefly to Sally then back. "So it's gotta be worse than that, hasn't it? What's worse than people?"
"I wasn't ever involved. I never went to the beach. I hardly ever even saw the cargo. I just prepped passports, birth certificates, that stuff!"
"What's worse than people?" Liam started pulling backward. Spate's fists battered uselessly at Liam's chest and shoulders, his legs kicked at the foam, until finally the words slipped out.
"Kids! It was kids, OK?"
Liam stopped.
He let Spate drop into the water and straightened up. In that moment his wordless rage was transcendent, and for one awful second, Sally saw herself in him. What she'd done to him.
The animal heart. The thing that didn't know when to stop. He looked like he was going to execute Gerald Spate where he knelt.
"Kids?" Liam boomed.
Spate's eyes bugged wide, realizing what he'd done. Sally could feel his mind racing, looking for the way out.
"Not like you think, OK?" he gasped. "It was adoptions!
Black market, right, but kids wanting families, families wanting kids.
Reg was talking about it for years. There was money out there, and he wanted it.
" Spate started stammering. "A s-social service, really!
I would never have g-got involved otherwise, I swear. I–"
"You just confessed to trafficking children," Liam cried. "You really think that all those 'families' just wanted a child? Or is that just something you told yourself so you could sleep at night?"
Spate's jaw flapped but no noise came out.
"So that's what Tom Richter saw? And you killed him for it. Reg Rook ordered the hit. You framed Bledd. So who's framing Bledd now? Who is Reg's hitter, Gerald?"
"I swear, please, I don't know!"
The media team were near now. The camera was up and Sally saw the red light. Finally she clamped one hand on Liam's arm.
"It's over, Liam! We're finished."
Liam's chest heaved, he looked at Sally and for a moment she thought he was going to hit her. Out of control. Wild.
"It's me," she said. "Sally."
Something shifted. Liam seemed to withdraw back inside himself. The mania faded, replaced by something that looked almost like terror.
"It's OK," she said. "You're OK."
Tania Brown and crew set up and started shouting questions.
"Now make the arrest," Sally said firmly. Willing Liam to come back to her. "He's all yours."
Liam shuddered as control came back. The fear dwindled and he gave the tiniest nod, then reached to his waist. Spate shrank backward, but Liam returned with a pair of handcuffs.
"Gerald Spate," he announced, "I am arresting you on suspicion of human trafficking, historical trafficking of children, and conspiracy to murder Tom Richter 30 years ago. You don't have to say anything, but anything you say…"
Liam kept talking but Sally tuned out.
The shape of this whole thing had just turned inside out. Reg Rook the Owler boss, ordering hits? Children getting trafficked on Dungeness? Arthur Bledd the patsy twice over?
But how did it help them now? Reg had died three years ago. His sons would have to be idiots to kill Harrow with cockle shells; and they hadn't been alive to complete the hit three decades ago.
So who the hell was doing the killing?
Liam finished the caution and pulled Spate to his feet.
"How can you justify arresting an elderly man in this way, Officer Rogers?" Tania Brown shouted through the rain.
"He broke the law," Sally answered, "now stand clear." She took Spate by his other arm and helped Liam frog-march him toward the squad car. The media crew trailed behind, asking questions that dwindled under the firestorm playing out in her head.
Nothing about this arrest was clean. Maybe none of the charges would stand. But it was a direction. A name-shaped hole. A buried route leading right back to the death of Tom Richter 30 years ago.