79. Never Ending
Sally's three days of observation passed smoothly and calmly.
DI Gemmell came by several times, sharing swift, dense debriefs.
The pipework in Reactor A had been isolated and contained.
Mercer had rejected every offered solicitor and clammed shut.
Mayhew was back in her Rye station, leading the search for Arthur Bledd and Nia Mensah.
There was still no sign of them, as if the marsh or the sea had swallowed them whole.
"She seems different, though," Gemmell said. "The DCI."
"Nicer?" Liam asked.
Gemmell smiled. "I don't know about that. But, maybe. And one more thing. The girls trafficked by the Rooks, one of them's been asking after you."
Sally strained for the memory. "Eszter?"
"That's it. Safeguarding pushed her asylum claim as a trafficking victim and got it flagged urgent. Apparently you had something to do with that?"
Sally smiled. "So she's secure?"
"She is. It's not a yes on asylum yet, but she's out of Dover and in a safe house in Folkestone."
That was another tiny breath of relief. "Thanks, Stephen. Let them know I'll be in touch."
"Of course."
On the news, the floodwaters in Romney Marsh led the coverage, along with trickling details from the Cockle Eye Killer case.
Tania Brown was on numerous shows as a talking head, sometimes right alongside the original podcast crew.
Together they broke down and monetized Jack Mercer's foundational wound for the masses.
A few people came to visit Sally: a contingent of officers from Buxton; a phone call from her mentor back home in Intelligence; but no family.
Friends came to visit Liam, then his father.
He was a stuffy man in a tight suit, complaining on the way in about the state of the roads and the ever-present stink of the marsh. He carried it in with him on his boots.
They sat side-by-side, largely in silence. A few words here and there. No warmth, but at least he was present. Sally watched them, and when the father finally left, she did not mention it. Neither did Liam.
At the end of the second day, Director McMaster called. It was on Liam's phone, but he put it on speaker so they both could hear.
"O'Connell," he boomed, "Rogers, you both there?"
"Yes, sir," they answered.
"All right. First thing to say is, bloody good job. Kept all of us in work, after your utterly unacceptable dance moves with the Gaze. Top brass were gunning for you both, and you somehow moonwalked your way out of it. So, three sodding cheers."
He did not cheer. Sally looked at Liam, who only shrugged.
"Thank you, sir," he said.
"Shut it. Now, there's the inquiry. Where did you eff up, when did you eff up, how much did you eff up.
I'm pretty sure the answers to all three are everywhere, constantly and by huge margins, so when the debrief comes, just shut your cake-holes and look pretty.
It was a storm, you hardly remember details, and that would pretty accurately reflect your level of thought in the moment anyway, wouldn't it, Rogers? "
Liam looked over at her. Half-smiling. "Uh, yes, sir," she said.
"Don't take that tone with me," he snapped back. "You should be on the slow boat back to America, but I'm a softy and I'm keeping you both on. Nine months left in your tenure? I'm curious how much more you can screw up. Any thoughts?"
Her mind went blank. "Uh, I'll endeavor to–"
"I already know you're lying. Both of you, bugger off, shut your faces, and I'll see you back in London as soon as this little bout of annual leave is done."
The line died.
Liam looked at Sally solemnly.
"Cake-holes," he said.
She started laughing. It hurt but she didn't care.
The morning of the third day, NCA officers came to take their statements in painstaking detail.
They particularly lingered on the interview of Gerald Spate.
Neither gave anything incriminating. There was mention of a recording, taken in heavy rain, that suggested the two officers were not actually arresting Spate as he lay in the freezing water of his caravan park.
Rather, it suggested that they were interrogating him.
But the quality was poor. The audio non-existent. And maybe that was enough.
When it was over, they talked. Bantered.
Laughed. The warmth they'd discovered late on Dark Peak slowly came back.
On the fourth day, they were discharged.
Sally hobbled along with her arm in a sling and her right leg in a brace.
Liam was down to a sore neck from seatbelt whiplash, a few cracked ribs and some residual exhaustion.
They got in a taxi waiting by the door, which took them 10 miles south to Lympne, a church just up the hill from Meeks' house, St Stephen's. After a short walk through an old wood they reached a viewing point over Romney Marsh that was magnificent.
Sally just stared. The sky was a brilliantly pale blue, the land a great black mirror stretching as far as she could see, broken only by the odd contours of hedges, trees, bramble patches and houses. No roads were visible, but several bright boats plied fresh paths across the marsh.
Further afield, Sally picked out the contours of Dymchurch on the coast, the holiday park at Greatstone and even beyond that, the tiny gray blocks of the reactors standing on the horizon.
It was beautiful. Like nothing she'd ever seen before.
"Flooded, still," she murmured. Her voice was airy, her breathing still shallow.
"They say it'll be another week before Scots Float is back up," Liam said. "About the same for the sea walls. Then, and you won't believe this, three months to drain just half of all this."
Sally grunted softly. Three months. About as long as they'd drifted apart. "That's a lot of pumping."
"A hundred million cubic meters of water, the news said. I think they were just guessing, though."
"A hundred million sounds like a lot. Even if it is in meters."
They remained a little longer. Sally wondered about the end of Arthur Bledd and Nia Mensah. Maybe they were out there somewhere, resting beneath the water and the mud. She hoped it had been swift.
"Mercer's still not talking," Liam said, as if reading her thoughts.
"He never will."
"So the hunt goes on."
"I think Mayhew can handle it."
Liam grunted. "You want to go see her again? Back to Rye. I heard she's taking visitors."
Sally considered that. She wouldn't know what she'd say, and besides, they'd already said everything they needed to back at the car as the tide crashed in. "We already spoke. I'm good."
"Me too. Well, then. Logan?"
She punched his arm. "I'll call Logan on my own time, thank you very much. I'm not seeing him while chaperoned by you."
"I'll wait outside."
"You'll shut your face. Come on."
They got back in the taxi and rode to Ashford train station. The media were everywhere on the route, still. Cameras taking long panning shots of the lonely marsh. Reporters standing on boxes while their hair tossed in the wind, the drowned land prominent beyond them, a character in itself.
Mercer's work. But it would all be cleaned. It would all heal, given time.
They took an elevator to their platform. Bought coffees, sandwiches and chocolate bars and boarded the train. They had a table to themselves, almost a private booth, as they pulled away from the station.
There was no one else to say goodbye to. No cars to collect. Not even any clothes.
"We totaled everything we brought down here," Sally said, gazing out the window as the town accelerated past.
"Our bodies too. Maybe our careers."
Sally laughed.
"Plus side, though. You got a boyfriend."
She looked him up and down with an appraising stare. "You've just got to try a little harder, Liam. Put yourself out there."
He raised one finger. "I'll have it on the record that Logan was coming for me before he settled for you. He literally looked for hours. It's only after he couldn't find me that he went looking for you."
Sally laughed. "Good point."
"So, you've got me to thank for that. You're welcome."
They laughed and drank their coffee. Sally ate her chocolate bar. Outside, the grassy fields and low, rolling hills of Kent passed by. Forests, villages, streams. She brought up her phone.
She had barely checked it for days. There wasn't much in her inbox. The message from Anton Mylovich remained, along with its large zip file. At some point soon, she'd dig into that, but she didn't have the energy now. Lazily, she doom-scrolled CNN, Fox, then the BBC, catching up on the world.
At the end of the BBC's UK page, beneath a slew of breaking news and commentary on Dungeness, she saw a headline with a photograph that caught her attention. The photo showed hundreds of sweaty, muddy runners in bright neoprene and numbered bibs charging through a forest.
A spike of unsettlement ran through her chest. She tapped the article and read the full text, then started again from the top, barely breathing.
DEATH AT MUD BEAST RAISES SAFETY CONCERNS
'A mud-running event in Kent has been suspended while safety procedures are reviewed following the death of a female competitor on the course.
The woman, Michelle Scott, 29, was found in one of the "Deep Dive" submersion pipes at the Mud Beast event site near Hawkenbury on Monday afternoon, several hours after the event had ended.
Kent Police said inquiries were continuing and the death was being treated as not suspicious. Maidstone Borough Council said it was reviewing the event's safety arrangements, including marshal numbers, course-clearing procedures and risk assessments for water-based obstacles.
The Mud Beast organizers said all upcoming events had been suspended "with immediate effect" while they cooperated with police, the council and safety inspectors.
In a statement, the company said it was "devastated" by the death and offered sincere condolences to the woman's family, and a vow that nothing like this will happen again.
Police have not confirmed how long the woman was in the obstacle before she was found.'
Sally stared at the article and the words blurred out of focus.
The same Mud Beast event. The same obstacle. Deep Dive. She flashed back to the tube, to the hand on her ankle, to kicking to free herself for 30 seconds. She'd been so sure in the moment. She'd even gone back in, put her hands on every inch of that pipe and found nothing.
So she'd buried the feeling. She'd doubted herself. And the killer had come back and tried again.
Now a woman was dead.
Breathing grew harder. She let the phone drop to the table. In a very real way, this was her fault. She sat with that feeling for a moment. She probed the edges of her guilt.
Then she pushed it to one side.
If she'd learned anything in Dungeness, it was to keep faith in herself. Self-doubt had allowed this killer to try a second time. But not a third. Her hands curled into fists as she looked out at the countryside.
She'd find this killer. Arrest them. See justice done the right way, again.
"You all right?" Liam asked.
She looked up and saw the concern on his face. For a moment she considered keeping it to herself. Another off-the-shelf investigation to pursue. Private. Personal. Relying only on herself.
But she'd seen where that led.
"Not really," she said, then spun the phone and pushed it toward him. "But maybe you can help."
Thank you for reading Slack Tide Kill. I truly hope you enjoyed it.
If you did, please consider leaving a review on your preferred retailer or Goodreads. I read every single one, and they genuinely help other readers discover Sally and Liam's stories.
The investigation continues...
Sally's life in London is getting on track. She's making headway in her various cases. Then her morning run on the Thames Path is disrupted when a man's body tips off Blackfriars Bridge.
There's a rope around his neck. As Sally races to save a life, the killer's reign of terror begins. London will never be the same again.
Start reading Blackfriars Kill (Sally Rogers Book 3) now.