78. What The Tide Leaves
The custody suite at Maidstone was warmer than he was used to, rocking on the Rother in his houseboat, Ephesian Tears. Already he missed the small rhythms of life on the water; even the sound of Arthur Bledd at the next mooring point, working on his experiments with mud.
All of life was a river, though. The water was always there.
They'd given him a meal in the evening, a breakfast, another meal. He'd touched none of them. The last still sat on the shelf of the hatch with the film in place, going cold, a shape under plastic.
He'd scarcely moved since they put him here, scarcely slept, just sat on the edge of the bed with his back straight and his bandaged hand resting on his knee, looking at the wall.
They had tried to make him talk, all that first evening and already three sessions today.
A specialist down from London who spoke to him as if they were colleagues.
A younger one after that who did not. A solicitor he had declined.
A woman from the psychiatric team who sat for 40 minutes and got the same as the rest of them.
He would not speak. Maybe not ever again.
It seemed to surprise them. Maybe they'd expected a talker. 30 years of quiet and then a body arranged on a strand line with a citation cut into the shells: that was a man who wanted an audience, they thought. And audiences were what they had come to offer him.
But there was nothing left to say. He'd never give them Bledd and Mensah, and they'd never find them on their own. He was certain of it. Their bodies were consigned to the water.
His alone.
The wall ahead was gray, concrete, a slapdash affair likely repainted every few months.
Covering all the dents from its inmates, all flowing through here one after another, dozens of lives split by their crimes and their punishment.
He felt he could spend a lifetime just studying those marks, reading the stories behind them all.
He missed his houseboat, but this was better. He'd been on both sides of the law now, and this felt more honest. He'd always been chaos, he realized. Order had never really worked for him, though he'd aped it well. Chaos behind bars.
They probably even believed, with his grand mission failed, that he would never kill again.
Only he knew that they were wrong. He'd wait, like he had before.
Years, if it took that long. Wait for them to relax their guard.
Take him out of solitary. Make him part of the general population.
Then, when the moment came, he'd take it.
A guard. A prisoner. It didn't really matter.
The river didn't care which soul he sent its way.
Down to join Arthur Bledd. Nia Mensah. All the rest.
Somewhere down the corridor a door clanged, and a man laughed wildly at something, and the sound echoed around the gray walls thin and reedy and so full of want.
Maybe it would be him.
The churchyard at St. Thomas's was still half under water, gloomy even in the mid-afternoon light.
Gloria Mayhew came up the path slowly, one hand on the wall where the going was worst, because her ribs wouldn't let her do it any other way. Her skin still tingled all over, residue from the hypothermia, but a good sign, the doctors had said. Blood was repairing all her cells at the same time.
They'd wanted her to stay longer, remain under observation, but she had to leave. She had to come here, no matter how much it hurt, all the way to his small, cold gravestone.
ROBERT JOHN STEWART
She'd never brought flowers before, but this time she had. A bouquet of white lilies with a handwritten card. Her mother said they were what he'd always bought for her.
She stood in the wet grass and spoke to her father for the first time in so long.
"Hi, Dad. It's been a while."
Slowly, haltingly, she told him all of it.
From Richter on the shingle to the garage of their old home, where his trusted friend and DI Jack Mercer had ended his life.
She wept, but went on. She talked about the days and years that followed, as his absence took its toll.
As the idea of what he'd done dug a hole in her that had never healed, only scarred.
All the way through to the end. Harrow, Cagen, the race to the reactors and the ultimate arrest of Jack Mercer.
For 30 years she'd believed his lie. That it had been her father's choice. That some door in him had just shut, and little Glory Hallelujah hadn't been somehow enough to keep it open. That he'd just passed through and left her on the other side.
None of it was true.
"I'm so sorry, Dad," she said, at the end.
The tears came in earnest, flowing down her cheeks with no sign of stopping, and nor did she want them to. These tears meant that he'd always loved her. She'd always loved him, and that was real and true.
"I've missed you so much, Dad."
After it was all said, and the tears stilled, she felt a shift in herself.
For the first time in her life, this empty hole in her chest began to change.
Not heal, exactly. It would never really heal.
The grief was still there, as ever, but it finally felt clean. Honest. Something she could build on.
She stayed a time longer, until the tears stopped and the cold crept into her bones.
The flowers were so bright and white against his gravestone.
Thirty years. At the end, she put two fingers on the top of the stone, something she'd never done before, like a kiss, then went back down the sodden path to her car.
By the afternoon of the second day, Liam was no longer drifting in and out of consciousness. He was not on concussion watch like Sally, and was starting to feel better. While Sally dozed in the bed to his left, the doctor gave him crutches and said it would do him good to walk around a little.
So he did.
Outside their private ward, the hospital thrummed with motion. Doctors and nurses rushed back and forth, patients in gurneys lined the corridors, children cried, the A and E was full and ambulances kept coming in and disgorging more people.
Slathered in marsh water and mud. Hollow-eyed, hungry, searching. But alive.
He sat in the canteen and watched the world flow by. Families came in and out. Some visiting, some admitted. Tears, hugs, some shouts, some kisses. He drank coffee and nibbled on biscuits and thought about the odd path his life had taken.
His phone rang.
It had been ringing all morning and he'd ignored it, but he couldn't keep that up for ever, and he didn't want to. He tapped his phone a few times, brought up an app, checked everything was in place, then answered.
"O'Connell."
"Liam." Director Wilcot's voice was measured as ever. Unhurried. "I've read all the accounts, watched all the footage. I wanted to be the first from high command."
"Sir?"
"First to congratulate you. It's an extraordinary result.
I don't say that lightly." A pause, weighed and measured.
"The killer caught. A nuclear crisis averted.
There will be an inquest, of course, and there'll be noise about corners cut and suspects manhandled, and the Chakrati family will want answers we may not be able to give.
But none of that need touch you." Another pause.
"At least, so long as the correct version of this story emerges. "
Liam watched a drop of water fall from the ceiling. Could that be a leak, he wondered? The rain finding its way through all the floors of William Harvey Hospital?
"I've spoken to the Deputy Commissioner this morning," Wilcot went on.
"There's a place on the accelerated command course in April.
It's competitive, every other place gone by now, but he could squeeze you on.
" He let that stand a moment. "You wanted to make DCI by 30, as I understand it?
You're not far off the pace, even after everything. "
There it was. Set down carefully between them. An incredible offer, really.
"And the correct story, sir," Liam said. "Is one where Sally Rogers takes the blame for any and all mistakes."
Seconds strained. "Only if that reflects the truth, Liam."
Liam said nothing. The water before him dripped again. He took a breath. He'd already come so far; what was one more step?
"What if that doesn't reflect the whole truth, sir? What if I made my own share of mistakes?"
"I'm sure that won't be the case, Liam. You've been exemplary."
"I haven't, sir. At times, I've neglected my duty. I've strong-armed suspects. I've made a mockery of PACE."
The silence stretched.
"I think you may be confused, Liam. I know how badly injured you were in the line of duty.
I know how stressful these situations must've been.
I also know what a corrupting influence your partner was.
There is no reason the career of a promising officer such as yourself should be dragged down by her iniquity. "
Liam felt the nausea rising in him. This was the real betrayal, right now, of everything the role stood for. All for advancement. It was hard to even get the words out.
"You want me to blame Sally Rogers."
"I only want the truth, my boy. You are in the best position to speak accurately about her conduct. Tell the truth, and I will back you to the hilt."
"The truth that sends her home."
"This is the service you must provide, Liam. Fail in your duty now, and I will no longer be able to protect you. The repercussions of Dungeness will fall equally upon both your partner and yourself."
And there it was. Carrot and stick.
"No," Liam said.
"Think carefully, Liam. This is a moment in your career that–"
Liam tuned him out. He looked at his phone, tapping through to the app he'd opened. Tania Brown had given him the idea. A simple few taps, and any cell phone could become a wire.
"I'm recording this conversation, director," Liam interrupted. "From the beginning. All of it."
There was silence, then an icy response. "What do you mean by this?"
Liam watched another drip form, swell and fall. There was hardly any splash. "I think you know, sir. I'll even send you a copy. It can be mutually assured destruction. You've got me confessing to dismissal-worthy offenses. I've got you trying to bribe me to turn on my partner."
Wilcot said nothing. That was probably wise.
"So leave us alone. Me. Sally. For good. Or I send this to the Gaze."
Liam hung up.
His heart pounded in his chest. A bead of sweat ran down his cheek. He checked the app, ended the recording and played it back. It was all there. Perfectly clear, both sides of the conversation. He emailed the file to himself, then uploaded it to a secure private server.
All done, he told himself.
It didn't feel that way. It felt like, at any moment, armed officers would charge in. Blackmailing a senior officer was a serious offense, whatever the content of the blackmail was.
But he was already living in fear. At least this was honest.
He stood and pocketed his phone, then started walking back through the hospital. He wanted to be there when Sally woke next.