by David Blake
‘But there could have been someone there with her?’
‘I – I’m sorry, I don’t know. There could have been, but I wouldn’t want to say, not with any certainty.’
Tanner turned his attention back to Christine. ‘How long was it before you arrived?’
‘Probably about twenty minutes after we were called.’
‘I don’t suppose you saw anyone when you got here?’
‘Nobody,’ she replied, shaking her head.
‘How about on the way over?’
‘You mean, on the water? Hardly a soul. You’d have to be either particularly stupid or incredibly brave to take your boat out in this, not unless you’re being paid to, of course.’
‘But you did see someone else?’
‘Only one that I can remember.’
‘A hire boat?’
Christine shook her head. ‘If it had been, I’d have stopped them to ask what the hell they were doing, taking it out on a day like this.’
‘Did you see what it was?’
‘If I was to hazard a guess, I’d say it was a Fairline, possibly a Squadron, but don’t quote me on that.’
‘How about a name?
‘I didn’t think to look. It was heading back the other way, towards Potter Heigham.’
‘And the helm?’
Christine took a moment before answering. ‘A man, I think. Quite tall, with a thin narrow face.’
‘Would you be able to recognise him if you saw him again?’
‘I doubt it. As you’d expect, he had a hood pulled over his head, and what with the weather and everything.’
CHAPTER FORTY NINE
LEAVING VICKY TO make a note of the shopkeeper’s phone number, Tanner peeled away to have a quiet moment with Christine.
‘I just wanted to say sorry again for not having returned your call,’ he began, keeping his voice as low as possible as he guided her down one of the empty aisles.
‘It’s fine,’ she whispered back. ‘As you said, you’ve been busy.’
‘Well, yes, but that’s hardly an excuse, and I’m not going to give you one now, but you called when I was getting out of my car, just as this solicitor came up to start moaning at me about his client.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘After that, I had Forrester dragging me into his office to have a go at me about what amounted to the same thing. Then we had this witness walk in off the street; all that before getting the call to come over here.’
‘So, no excuses then?’ Christine responded, offering him an acrid smile.
Tanner smirked back in response. ‘I was hoping you’d consider them more as reasons than excuses.’
‘There’s a difference?’
‘I’d have to admit, it is subtle.’
Having reached the end of the aisle, Christine stopped where she was to turn and face him. ‘To be honest, I assumed your silence was in direct response to my message.’
With Tanner only able to offer her a blank guilty expression, her eyes bored into his. ‘You didn’t listen to it, did you!’
‘Of course,’ he lied; regretting doing so before the words had even left his mouth.
Christine hooked her hands around the empty arms of her lifejacket. ‘I see. So, what did I say?’
Tanner shook his head. ‘Sorry, I meant that I knew you’d left me a message, I just haven’t had the chance to listen to it yet.’
‘I think all that means is that you’ve managed to add lying to your growing list of undesirable attributes, together with being generally unreliable, of course.’
Tanner could feel the apologetic guilt he’d been carrying around with him ebbing away to reveal a layer of resentful anger simmering underneath. As far as he was concerned, all he’d done wrong was forget to return her call. But that was hardly surprising, given the day he’d been having. And now with the body of yet another young woman on his hands, with a witness unsure as to whether she’d tripped, or if someone had given her a helping hand, he really didn’t need to be standing there listening to Christine bawling him out over it. ‘Maybe it would help if you told me what the message said,’ he eventually replied.
‘You can listen to it yourself, can’t you?’
‘I’m here now, so you may as well tell me.’
The shop fell into an awkward silence as they both realised they’d stopped whispering a long time before.
‘I said,’ Christine began, forcing herself to keep her voice down, ‘that it’s probably best if we wait until we both have a little more time before resuming whatever this is.’
‘Doesn’t something need to have started first, before it can be resumed? I mean, I haven’t even so much as kissed you yet.’
Christine face flecked with colour. ‘I think that’s exactly my point. You first asked me out over a week ago, and despite having made numerous promises, you’ve still yet to take me out on an actual date.’
‘But that’s only because I’ve had so much going on. I’m not normally this busy.’
‘Well, we’ll have to see, but from my perspective, since moving off that boat of yours, I’ve spent more time with you in a work-related capacity than I have in a social one; like now, for example.’
‘And I’ll make it up to you, just as soon as this investigation is over.’
‘Which could take months.’
‘Well, yes, but…’
‘Which was why I suggested for you to give me a call when you’re done.’
‘I was going to say that it was possible it could take months, but it’s not very likely.’
‘Look, John, I just don’t think I want to be in a relationship where I’m forever wondering where you are, and if you’re ever going to show up when you actually say you are.’
‘Then I’ll make sure to call more often.’
‘It’s not just that.’
‘Then what is it?’
Christine hesitated, her eyes holding his before falling slowly to the floor. ‘I’m – I’m just not sure I want to spend the rest of my life worrying; not so much about when you’ll come back, but if you’ll come back.’
‘I’m not about to up and die on you if that’s what you mean.’
‘And you can say that for a fact, can you?’
It was Tanner’s turn to fall silent. Since joining the Norfolk Constabulary they’d lost no less than two of their own, one of whom was his fiancée.
‘Anyway,’ Christine continued, ‘I’m not saying I want to stop seeing you, I just think I’d rather wait; at least until you have a bit more time.’
But the look of immovable resolution in her eyes told him otherwise. It was obvious she’d come to the conclusion that it wasn’t working out, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, at least not until the current mess of an investigation had come to some sort of an eventual conclusion.
‘OK,’ he began, an empty feeling of rejection beginning to churn inside the depths of his stomach. ‘Would it be OK if I gave you a call – when all this is done?’
‘Oh, I’m sure we’ll see each other before then.’
‘Is that a no?’
Christine paused for a moment. ‘You can, of course, but I can’t promise anything.’
They stood there in silence, staring at each other before Tanner blinked to look away. ‘OK, understood.’
With Christine’s mouth remaining firmly closed, Tanner sucked in a juddering breath. ‘Right,’ he said, forcing himself to stand up straight. ‘I’d better get on.’
Making his way back down the aisle, he turned to stare back at her, opening his mouth as he did to offer her a look of pitiful remorse. But when it came to the moment of actually saying something, the words simply weren’t there. He knew that anything he did manage to come out with would make him sound desperate, a male trait he knew to be even less attractive than lying. So he closed it again to head silently away, doing his best to hold his head high as he began peering down the remaining aisles in search of the person he’d walked into
the shop with.
CHAPTER FIFTY
‘ARE YOU OK?’ asked Vicky, in a concerned motherly tone, the moment they were back outside the shop.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ came Tanner’s dismissive response.
‘Oh, no reason.’
Knowing she must have overheard virtually their entire conversation, Tanner sought to change the subject. ‘Do we need to speak to Johnstone again, before we head back?’
They both stopped to look over to where they could see him, crouched over the woman’s body.
‘I suppose that depends on if he’s found anything that would help clarify what the shopkeeper said; that she may not have simply tripped over a mooring line.’
As they continued to stare through the unrelenting rain they saw Johnstone tilt his head towards them, raising a hand as he did.
‘That can’t be good,’ commented Vicky.
Tanner lifted his own in acknowledgment. ‘Is it ever?’ he replied, before hunching his shoulders to begin leading the way over.
‘What’ve you got?’ he called out a minute later, as they came to an eventual halt behind the medical examiner, now staring down at the body.
‘We’ve found her purse,’ he began, lifting his head to cast his eyes along the line of boats. ‘It was on the grass, near to where she must have gone in. It still has all her credit cards and ID inside. Assuming it belongs to the victim, her name’s Amanda Monaghan.’
Tanner watched Vicky dig out her notebook. ‘Anything else?’
Johnstone heaved himself up to face them, water dripping down from the lip of his hood. ‘I’m afraid there’s an indentation on the back of her head.’
Tanner gave him an agitated look. ‘I thought you said she drowned?’
‘I still think that was the cause of death, but something hit her before she died, either as she went in, or when she was in the water.’
Tanner thought for a moment. ‘The shopkeeper mentioned something about a falling branch.’
They all spent a minute gazing about at the surrounding grass, strewn with dancing leaves and jagged broken twigs.
‘I can’t see anything that would have been nearly big enough,’ Johnstone eventually replied, his focus returning to the body. ‘Besides, I’d say the shape of the indentation was more manmade than natural.’
‘Please don’t tell me it was another hammer?’
‘Well, it’s certainly similar to the other two. There’s something else they have in common as well. There’s another stamp on the back of her hand.’
‘And that brings us all the way back to McMillan,’ Tanner muttered, catching Vicky’s eye.
‘Who’s still back at the station.’
‘Which is where we’d better be getting back to, before Forrester calls to find out where we are.’
‘What about Iain Sanders?’
Tanner threw her a look of curious confusion. ‘Sorry, what about him?’
‘According to my notes, he’s got a Fairline Squadron, the same boat Christine saw.’
‘The same boat Christine thought she saw.’
‘And she said there was a man behind the wheel.’
‘Isn’t there always?’
‘And that he was tall, with a narrow face.’
‘Which she said she could hardly see. Besides, what possible reason would Sanders have for murdering an exotic dancer who worked at a strip club he’d never been to?’
‘He only said he’d never been there. For all we know, he was one of their most frequent visitors.’
‘Even so, he doesn’t have a motive, at least not one we know about.’
‘But if both the boat and its driver match the description of the only boat seen sailing away from what is looking likely to be the scene of another murder, isn’t it worth having a chat?’
‘I suppose,’ capitulated Tanner, glancing down at his watch. ‘Let’s just hope Forrester sees it the same way.’
CHAPTER FIFTY ONE
WITH THE ROADS virtually devoid of all traffic, it took them less than twenty minutes to reach the short narrow dyke where they’d first met Iain Sanders.
As they turned into the carpark, for a full moment they thought his boat had gone, only to realise a second later that it was still there, just not where it had been before. When they’d been there last it was up at the far end, near to where the dyke met the River Thurne. Now it was lashed to the hardstanding at the other end, directly opposite the carpark.
Seeing someone move about inside, they forced themselves back out into the torrential rain to begin forging their way through buffeting gusts of turbulent wind, over to the boat’s cockpit enclosed by a clear plastic canopy, one of the sections left flapping in the wind.
‘Hello!’ Tanner yelled, attempting to peer inside. ‘Is there anyone on board?’
A moment later the figure of a man could be seen emerging out through the glass patio doors inside, his features clouded by the canopy’s thick plastic covering.
‘Mr Sanders?’ Tanner continued.
‘I’m not sure who else I’d be,’ came his familiar voice, as they watched him place something heavy down onto one of the cockpit’s moulded plastic seats.
‘It’s DI Tanner and DI Gilbert. Norfolk Police.’
‘So I can see,’ he continued, pulling back the half open flap to lift a toolbox onto the narrow walkway.
‘We have some questions for you – if that’s OK?’
‘You’ve certainly picked quite a day for it.’
‘Hardly ideal, I know, but time and tide.’
Sanders glared out, first at Tanner, then Vicky, before ducking back inside to disappear once again.
‘Have you been anywhere nice?’ called Tanner, bringing Vicky’s attention to the toolbox he’d left out in the rain.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not leaving,’ came his muffled response.
‘I asked if you’d been anywhere nice, Mr Sanders,’ Tanner continued, ‘not if you were making plans to.’
The figure soon appeared through the canopy, more heavy items hanging from the ends of his arms.
‘Sorry,’ he eventually said, pulling back the cover to lift more toolboxes out. ‘I can barely hear anything with all this wind. What did you say again?’
‘I asked if you’d been anywhere nice?’
‘Only back home, to pick up these tools.’
‘But you’ve just come from somewhere though, haven’t you?’
Sanders shook his head whilst holding Tanner’s gaze. ‘I haven’t moved, not since you were last here.’