76. Caught In The Storm
By the time Sally reached the road, blue lights were flashing through the haze of rain. A squad van. Sirens wailed and she raised one hand to greet them.
The van stopped and officers ran out. She recognized Stephen Gemmell. His mouth opened in shock, eyes running over Sally's bandaged head, Mercer in cuffs, blood slicking down them both.
"What happened?"
"Got caught in the storm," Sally managed, then pointed. "Liam and Mayhew are that way. Mayhew's trapped in Mercer's van and the tide's rising."
Gemmell ordered Hawlin and Flaherty ahead and they broke into a run, soon swallowed by the driving rain.
"Come on, Sally," came Gemmell's voice. His hand on her elbow, easing the cuffs from her grasp. "This way."
"You'll never make anything stick," Mercer snarled. "I'm a victim of police abuse, and–"
"Shut up," said Gemmell, leading them both on.
Sally felt lightheaded, as if at any moment she might be carried away by the storm, lifted into the winds to be batted across the sky. Part of the flow, part of the river.
That didn't seem so bad right now.
Gemmell opened the van's rear door and pushed Mercer in. Then there was blessed silence. No more of his desperate need to be seen. No more of his lost-soul cruelty.
The storm felt clean with him gone from it. Honest.
"You've done an amazing thing here, Sally," Gemmell said. He stood before her and looked into her eyes, though it was hard for her to focus. Her gaze kept getting pulled to the side. To the reactors, where Jason Harrow had died.
Why had he had to die?
She remembered talking to Nancy Cagen on the beach. She remembered the deep, aching sense of her regret. A regret she'd paid for, in the end.
Reg Rook. Roarke. Jack Mercer. All bound by blood, and what had it done for any of them? Richter. Cagen. Bledd. They all died for a reason.
But why Harrow?
She refocused on Gemmell, thoughts roiling. "We need to find the bodies. Bledd and Mensah. Where he hid them."
"We'll do all of that, Sally. Look, here." He steered her toward more flashing lights coming through the rain. "There's an ambulance. They'll take you to hospital. There'll be time for all that later."
Sirens approached. The cavalry, she'd said. Send everyone.
But the last question dug at her. She couldn't let it go. Not yet. She took hold of the van's rear doors and pulled them open. Gemmell didn't stop her.
Mercer was sitting on the bench, curled over his lap. He didn't look up.
"Harrow. Why did you kill him?"
Mercer chuckled.
"He's no one's relative. He saw nothing. He didn't reject you, like Cagen. There's no reason to kill him."
Now Mercer looked up, and she saw it. Clearer than before, bright as the lightning across Dungeness.
The madness. Mercer had given himself over to it. Like he was in the river already, seeing all things, feeling all things at once. "You really want to know?"
"I want to know."
"Good," he said. "Live with that."
Then his head sank back down. The conversation finished. Anger flashed through her, the senselessness of it, then Gemmell's hand came on her shoulder.
"Sally," he said. "It's OK."
"I think I know," she went on, staring at the top of Mercer's head. "It's none of those things, is it? It's chaos. No order at all, other than setting the record straight."
Mercer did not react.
"Your father rejected you even after you killed for him." Nearby, paramedics pulled a gurney from the ambulance. "Because of how you killed him, and you've been living the shame of that for decades."
Mercer twitched. Sally pictured herself back at the board in the Rye bullpen, where both dead boys' faces were side by side. She hadn't seen it before, hadn't allowed herself to, but maybe it really was that simple.
"You wanted to rewrite that. Kill him your way, for you. Not for Reg."
Mercer was still.
"You chose Harrow because he looked like Richter. Same face shape. Dark hair. That's it. You wanted a do-over."
Mercer turned his head. "Take her away," he said softly.
Gemmell slammed the door shut.
Then the paramedics were there, pushing their gurney. Was John Logan amongst them? Hard to tell. Her eyes were bleary now, backwash from the head injury, maybe, and the exhaustion. She saw three houses along the shore, as they took her arms and laid her down.
A figure watched from a dark window. Was that Dean Whateley, the Seafoam Strangler? An innocent, after all. Another victim.
The gurney wheeled her through the water. So close, now. Close to letting go. Gemmell walked alongside her. She grasped his hand.
"The DCI? Liam?"
"Officers are with them both. He's OK, Sally. Mayhew's still trapped, the water's high, but fire are almost here. They'll cut her loose."
Her eyes roved the storm above, seeking patterns in the endless flow. "And the reactor?"
"As far as I know, secure. Nothing in, nothing out. Whatever bomb Mercer wanted to trigger, he failed."
Sally gulped. That was the last thing, her final message to deliver. "It's not a bomb. It's … pipes. Process water connected … to the Boils outflow. Just plumbing."
Confusion flashed over Gemmell's face, but he set his jaw. "We'll do it. I swear, Sally. We have this. You need to rest."
They reached the ambulance. Her eyes kept working, searching for anything she'd missed, but that seemed like the final piece of the puzzle.
It was done.
She let out a breath as paramedics lifted her into the back of the wagon. Was one of them John Logan? She couldn't tell. Soft words, gentle touches, and she finally released her grasp on consciousness