71. Three Years
"The coast road's closed, Sally," Liam said.
"It's our best shot at beating them there." She made a tight right turn onto a rattling gravel track alongside the River Rother.
"Where are we going now?"
"Shortcut to bypass the road block. Call Mayhew and try to warn her."
"Good idea." Liam placed the call while Sally wrestled with the wheel. Water streamed down the track, while off to the right the River Rother had spread into a wide delta, filling the floodplain basin.
It was an incredible sight. Like the river was becoming the sea.
"Can't get through, there's no signal."
Sally cursed. "Try the radio. See if Gemmell has anything from the reactor."
Liam switched the radio on and it crackled to life. Someone was speaking rapidly; Sally couldn't tell if it was DI Gemmell or somebody else, but it seemed urgent.
"Can you make that out?"
Liam shook his head. "Let me try…" He switched channels to the tactical set, then the county control channel. The signal fractured, came back, fractured again but improved a little, swerving in and out of crackly focus.
"… repeat, we cannot reach the reactors … phones are down, hardlines not functioning, and…"
The signal was lost in static.
Sally felt blood drain from her face. No signal. No warning. The reactor was a sitting duck, and Mercer already had a 20-minute lead on them. If he'd come by the coast road too, they'd never catch him. If he was on the circle route up around Appledore, then maybe–
"Sally!" shouted Liam.
She glimpsed the blurry gray line of the sea wall dead ahead, barely visible against the storm-tossed Channel beyond, and wrenched the wheel left. The squad car skidded through a lake of spreading water, the side slammed into the wall then they screeched away as the wheels caught.
"Bloody hell," Liam said. "That thing was invisible."
"Sorry," she said. "But I can't slow down."
"I know. Sounds like we're on our own."
Her thoughts churned for a moment. "I think Mercer's cut the hardlines. He's done it before, with the reactor CCTV, and that lamp post? I think everything he's done, it builds up to this storm."
He looked at her. "You think he's been waiting for this particular storm?"
"Yeah." She glanced his way. "My bet is, he's been waiting ever since Reg died. That was three years ago, right?"
"Right. So?"
"Same time Mercer retired and came back from London."
Liam said nothing for a long moment. Then he cursed. "We had that! Three years, he said it right at the start. It was there the whole time!"
"As if his father's death gave him permission to come back. Finish this. But lots of things were there the whole time, Liam. The name of his boat, Ephesian Tears? That's Heraclitus. Then that fake alibi at the Conundrum, provided for Reg Rook? And quoting Donne at me?"
"He was showing off."
"Exactly. Remember what he said when you mentioned numbers on the body?"
"Uh. Shit! Right. He told us to go look at the Bible, didn't he?"
"Classic misdirect. But he also said go look at Donne! It's not Heraclitus, but he couldn't help but slip something in there."
"The son of a bitch."
"Reg's son, so that's true."
"He's taking the piss. Three effing years! And now you think he's been waiting all that time for a big enough storm?"
"Maybe?" She ran the numbers in her head as the squad car swerved through the water alongside the sea wall. Any hint of the road underneath was invisible. "Maybe the storm, and getting Roarke set up at the reactor. Setting up all this bullshit with Arthur Bledd."
"Poor Bledd," Liam murmured. "Framed twice, and it's always been this bastard on the houseboat next door. Having drinks." They rode in near silence bar the splattering of water on the windshield. "Sunday night, you think Bledd was out at Mensah's house?"
She glanced at him. "I don't know. Why?"
"A wild mooring there, and it's an easy snatch and grab for Mercer. Nick his boat, go down the coast a thousand yards, and dump Harrow. Then drop it back before Bledd ever notices."
Sally's mouth ran dry. "It all lines up."
"We still don't have any clue how he took Harrow. Or why."
"If he's been preparing this for three years? He could've groomed Harrow. Earned his trust. They're mates. Then he calls, Harrow goes, one beer with ketamine in and he's done."
"Murdering bastard."
Sally grunted and pushed the pedal down. The sea churned on her right, whitecaps peaking and spitting spray, then the track opened up to join the coast road heading east to Lydd.
"Thirty years," Liam said, staring ahead numbly. "With the Met. Then he comes back from London, and he sets all this on course."
Sally grunted. Chunks of shingle began hammering off the window, caught in the gale and propelled by the waves, leaving bullet-like stars in the glass.
"What was in all this for Roarke?" Liam asked. "He took a lot of risks, stealing Reactor Logistics off Meeks, cutting CCTV. Why bother?"
"I don't know." The wipers thrashed helplessly at the rain. "Maybe Mercer's London contacts were worth something? 30 years on the Met, he'd know all the gangs, right?"
Liam exhaled like he'd been punched. "Sure. If I was trafficking girls, I'd know who to talk to, and I was only there for 10."
"So it's a business opportunity for Roarke. Help him traffic his girls into the mainland, and all he's got to do is cut a few wires."
"While Mercer's plotting to blow up the reactor and irradiate Dungeness." Liam shook his head. "Chaos and order. An exclusion zone around the bomb site. Is that really what he wants?" Liam paused. "Does it seem enough?"
Sally frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I'm not sure. Just, hardly anybody actually lives here, right? Dungeness is barren, and it's already chaos, the shingle always creeping, the storms battering anything built nearby. And Mercer, he's a maximalist. This Heraclitus stuff, it's all or nothing."
Sally waited. "Go on."
"Maybe I don't get it. A bomb in the reactor may kill a few people; just those nearby. Thanks to the storm, the beach is lost for a while, but who cares? He'd have a way higher kill count if he just bombed Rye station at peak time."
Sally considered that. Liam wasn't wrong, so what did it mean?
Chaos. Order.
"Low-level radiation wouldn't kill anyone, either," she said. "At least not right away. Maybe it'll reduce the lifespan of those exposed. Certainly anyone who stays on the beach."
"So that's a slow-drip death for a few dozen people," Liam said. "It just, for all this effort? It hardly seems worth it."
Sally squeezed the wheel as the road curved north.
Slow drip. Just a few dozen people. Names and faces ran through her thoughts, the people who'd be most affected.
Dean Whateley, the Seafoam Strangler. Amelia Brig in her father's house, at the end of the row.
Other beach combers like Nancy Cagen. Artists hoping for a residency in Prospect Cottage.
"It does feel like we're missing something. It seems–"
The window to Sally's right exploded. There was a blast and cubic shrapnel blew inward, something hard smashing into her temple.
She jerked sideways, pulling the wheel left even as she instinctively slammed the brakes.
The vehicle hydroplaned, skidded out then spun through the water.
Sally tried to pull herself back upright but Liam had her now, his arms wrapped protectively around her head, hunkered together over the center console.
Sally's foot stayed buried on the brake, her body straining like a bow as a pounding pain built in her skull. The wind sucked and pounded through the open window with ear-popping pressure as the car spun, cracked off the sea wall again then rocked to a halt.
Pain filled her head and neck. She let out a sob. Her hand came back from her head covered with blood. Icy rain blasted her scalp. The pain was drilling deep and she felt sick and dizzy.
"What the hell was that?" Liam shouted over the storm, as he unhooked her seatbelt and hauled her bodily across him, away from the open window. "Are you OK?"
More rocks pinged off the car's frame. Sally tried to frame words but couldn't get anything out. Liam swiveled, putting his back toward the shattered window and blocking the worst of the influx. "Let me see."
He studied her head, peering through her tangled blond hair, then swore.
"Your scalp's split. Damn it. Hold still a second."
He pulled back and wrenched off his jacket, popping buttons to get it free, then wadded and held it to the side of her head. His face hung close before her, his eyes swimming, and she was back in the pile of bodies in Louisiana, looking up at the man who'd shot her.
"All you bitches," he'd said. He'd looked her in the eyes. Then he'd shot her in the head, and nothing had been the same again.
"Help!" she murmured.
"I've got you," Liam said, but she could feel the blood pulsing out, just like before. The sense of panic rising, the terror, with only Liam's blue eyes as a lifeline. "We'll get you to a hospital."
He raised her limp hand to hold the compress. "Keep it tight, Sally. I'm coming right back."
Then he was gone. The door opened, the gale rushed in and she was alone. Icy fingers stole over her, like the cold peat of Dark Peak, like the blood of her sorority sisters dripping down.
Dying alone, and so cold...
There was a muted slam, then another, then Liam was back beside her, shielding her from the storm.
"I'm right here," he said.
There was something green in his hands. A box, which he unclasped and tore through. An AED kit hit the floor, a foil blanket, gloves, scissors. He opened a pressure bandage, stripped back the tape then nodded to her. "OK, let go."
She released the jacket and Liam pressed the bandage firmly over the pulsing heat of her right temple, then held her hand back on top of it. "Hold again."
She did her best. Her grip was weak. More blood ran down her arm. Liam opened the bandage strip and began wrapping it around her head, tighter, many times, cinching hard.
The pain dropped slightly. Liam taped the bandage then pulled away to check his work.
"Are you with me, Sally?" he asked.
The words came to her in pieces, misty and uncertain, but she understood enough. "I'm OK."
"You're not OK." Liam adjusted her in the passenger seat gently, strapping the seatbelt across. "We're going back to Rye. You need a hospital."
He got back behind the wheel, pulled his own seatbelt on and restarted the stalled engine. It coughed to life, barely audible over the roar of the storm. He cranked the stick into reverse, started a sharp U-turn, then Sally's hand came on his arm.
"There's no … time," she managed, every half-shouted word making her head burn. "We have to stop Mercer."
Liam stared at her, like he was weighing something. "Your scalp is gashed open, Sally. I'm not qualified to–"
"We stop … Mercer!"
A stillness descended between them. The storm was still there, hammering at the car, but distant. Strange thoughts spiraled in her mind; the unruly sunne, the world's center, all coming down to this.
"We don't even know what he's carrying," Liam said faintly. "We don't know if he can get through."
"He … might. And he's got Mayhew."
Liam stared. She could feel him bending. The kind of man he wanted to be, his vision of a career, being pushed to the very edge.
"This is what we do," she grunted. "This is who we are."
Seconds passed as the gale howled around them. Then Liam put the car in gear. "If you pass out, I turn around. I don't care what's happening at the reactor."
"If I pass out … you keep driving."
"Agree to disagree." He hit the gas and the car rocketed away, siren howling into the storm.