68. Firstborn
Sally photographed the Reg Rook document, Liam bagged it in a clear plastic wallet, then they thanked Edwin Pike and ran from his door to the squad car. Rain crashed off the roof. Liam started the engine, set the wipers slashing back and forth and started away.
"Reg Rook's firstborn," he said. "We need to find that child. Set the team chasing up local registry offices, as well as parish and diocese records for the adoption certificate. We can try the GRO, General Register Office, but if all this went through some local church, they may have nothing."
Sally barely heard, picturing the hours after the birth.
Rook's girlfriend, likely just as young as he was, going through the hardest moments of her young life.
The pain of childbirth, the joy, then to have her baby snatched away by those meant to be safeguarding her. Cyril Rook. The reverend. Her teacher…
Then imprisoned. Humiliated. Injury upon injury.
The anger built in Sally's chest. What had happened to that mother? What had happened to the child? Had he or she gone to good parents, people who'd loved them, raised them well? Maybe they'd gone on to live a productive life.
But she feared not.
"Sally?" Liam said.
She blinked and focused on him. "Yeah. I'll call the team, get them on it. Warrants, physical trawl through the records, whatever it takes."
"Agreed." He looked over, concern in his eyes. "But we should be realistic, Sally. Even if some record of this adoption exists, how long will it take to find it? 24 hours, minimum, and that's if we get lucky. Days or even weeks are more likely."
Sally mumbled something.
"You OK?" Liam asked.
She tried to shake it off. "Just thinking about that child. They got sent away as a baby, then came back. What would it have meant, to come back to this place? Looking for your mother or your father, and find Reg Rook?"
Liam sucked his teeth. "That's some shitty lottery. You'd be better off not knowing."
"Unless you had nothing else. If the adoption was bad? If the child was abused. Bounced around the system. If it went like that, then Reg was right here? He welcomes his child back, gives them a role? What wouldn't they do for him?"
Liam scowled. "And a man like Rook would've drained that well dry. Exploited his own child. Had them kill for him. We already know he kept this person away from everybody else."
Sally felt a sickness spreading through her. "Isolated. Running whenever he called. Hungry."
"If any part of that is true, it's disgusting. So let's put some flesh on the bone."
Sally raised her phone and made the call. DI Gemmell answered, and she explained briefly what they needed. She asked him to keep it quiet, just their team and nobody else.
"If the record's out there, we'll find it," Gemmell said. "Just get back here; Isla's officially a red advisory now, threat to life."
Sally hung up and watched the rain splash and swipe on the windshield. 24 hours wasn't fast enough. The killer could have struck again a dozen times by then. They could be long gone.
They needed it faster.
She thought of family.
Her own mother and father dashed through her head. Her mother had been hooked on religion, punishing every slight 'against God' with a whipping. Sally had been forced to go cut her own switch many times. Her legs had bled on her sheets after.
Her father had been more an absence, always on the road selling whatever latest crackpot product he glommed onto, then gambling it all away on local roadhouse boxing matches before coming home drunk in the small hours.
Violence. Tears.
Another raindrop fell, splashed, split and ran. Wipe. Another and another, each splitting into multiple trails before the next wipe came. She thought about fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, each generation wiping the slate clean, but taking on the crimes and pain of the past.
Then the train of Sally's thoughts jolted, as if it had just run off the tracks.
"You all right?" Liam asked.
Sally barely heard him. Working it through. Testing for holes.
"I know that look. You've got something."
"I think so. Meeks gave a reason for Roarke wanting Reactor Logistics. He said it was because of Roarke's uncle."
Liam frowned. "His uncle. Right. But he also said, and I know this is true because I spent a whole morning running down the family tree, that Reg had no brothers. Roarke has no uncle. So that's got to be…"
He trailed off. The rain kept splashing, countless generations of raindrops splitting and spreading downward. Then his mouth dropped open. He turned to Sally.
"Shit. Really?"
Sally said nothing. Barely certain of it herself.
"I guess, this child…" Liam paused, running the numbers. "OK. It was 60 years ago, wasn't it? So he'd easily be old enough to pass off as Reg's younger brother."
Sally's mind leaped ahead. "And the family resemblance? It could fly."
"Bugger me," Liam murmured. "Roarke's uncle is actually his older brother? So the fifth Rook was actually the first?"
Sally just stared ahead through the rain, ramifications tearing through her head. It felt like a bomb had just gone off; reorienting everything they knew about the case.
"It matches the Fates' profile," she said. "Male, age late 50s or thereabouts, foundational wound in his past, willing to do anything for Reg."
"And Reg ordered him to kill Richter. So this is a generational killing, after all!"
"Not exactly. Reg ordered it, but the son did the killing then, and almost certainly did the killing now."
They sat in silence for a moment.
"I did not see that coming," Liam murmured.
"Reg kept him apart. Trusted him. Exploited him."
"And involved him in some life and death bullshit on the marsh."
Sally felt possibilities curdling in her guts. They had everything now. The motive, the history, the means and opportunity. Everything but the name.
"We need to get in with Roarke Rook."
Liam looked at her. "Right. He knows who his uncle is."
"I'll have him prepped for interview."
She brought up her phone. Liam pushed down on the gas. DI Gemmell answered and Sally made the request, her tone neutral, giving nothing away.
"He's still in IR1," Gemmell said. "We'll let it ride. Oh, and ma'am?"
"What is it?"
"The coast road's out. Best come inland, via Appledore."
"Thanks."
She hung up. Her whole body felt like it was buzzing.
"The coast road's out," she said, her lips numb. "We're going to have to take the scenic route."
"Got it."
Sally peered out over the marsh. There were no other cars on the road, now.
Just the downpour and the swelling gutters either side.
Liam accelerated through Lydd, past the museum and the old hotel, then north on Romney Road.
Fields spread to either side, transformed into long flat expanses of water.
They sped alongside black sewers that breached the road in places.
At the T-junction with Lydd Road a bizarre sight stretched ahead; a long curving waterfall, no more than a few inches deep, where the water on the road spilled into the lower-lying field.
The effect stretched for as far as they could see.
"Never seen that before," Liam said.
"The marsh is flooding," Sally said softly. For a few moments they just sat there, watching the water flowing. "It's got to be hundreds of gallons a second."
A low mist crept across the waterlogged fields, fogging the distant details of cottages, trees and barns.
"Looks like we're reverting," Liam murmured. "Back to Owler days."
A shudder rippled down her back. "Come on. Before we get stranded."
They continued at a crawl. It took 40 minutes before they rolled into Rye. At the police station, half the press had fled, leaving their mini marquee tents in place. The journalists looked bedraggled and cold, their equipment coated in multiple layers of clear plastic.
Inside, Sergeant Simms was on duty desk.
"Ma'am, sir, are you both OK? It's apocalyptic out there."
"We're fine," Liam said. "Why?"
"Fire service is out, Coastguard, council's engineers; there's ruptured sewers all up and down from Dungeness to Hythe. Sewage is literally everywhere, and now it's washing inland."
Sally frowned. "Washing inland? What about the sea walls?"
"Sea walls don't cover the whole coast. There's plenty of places where high tide can breach."
Sally blew out a breath. "That's why the road's closed."
"Sewage, waves and high winds. Come on through."
He buzzed them in. Sally and Liam made a beeline directly to their team, clustered in the usual spot. DI Gemmell, Hawlin and Flaherty. All three were on their phones, scratching out notes. Gemmell looked up as they arrived.
"You took your time. Is it really bad out there?"
"Water's up to the wheel wells," Liam said. "How are we doing on the records search?"
Gemmell shook his head. "Nothing. Flaherty knows someone at the GRO, she's run a fast check, but there's no sign. The rest of it, churches, the hospital, there's just nobody to run a search right now. We're all on hold."
He gestured at the team. Hawlin and Flaherty nodded, phones held to their heads.
"What about Rook? Is he ready for us?"
"Still in IR1. The DCI doesn't like it, but she's off somewhere for a bit. Now's your chance."
Sally and Liam exchanged glances.
"Let's go," he said.
Eyes across the bullpen watched them. Sally noticed the shrine to Chakrati had expanded again, while her picture on the wall was barely distinguishable, so shredded by dart holes.
They stopped outside the interview room, Sally's hand on the handle, looking through the small window.
Roarke Rook was there with his lawyer beside him.
He didn't seem the same man. No longer cocky, no longer slouching.
He sat upright, to attention. Maybe that wasn't surprising.
With human trafficking charges, he was facing life in prison.
It didn't make Sally's heart beat any less hard. This was the closest they'd been since the marsh, wrestling in the sewer after he'd just fired at her car.
"The uncle," Liam said, right by her side. "We get his name, we're in and out."
"In and out," Sally repeated, then pushed through the door.