The Salt Marsh

by Clare Carson

  ‘Oh, OK. I give up. But hang on a moment, I’ve got something else for you. A letter turned up in the post for you the other day. I left it up in my room. I’ll go and find it.’

  Sam walked to the front door, eager to leave, eyed the cupboard under the stairs and remembered she had left Jim’s bag of discarded rubble there. She grabbed it, might be worth a closer look. Jess reappeared, envelope in hand. Sam recognized the writing on the front. Her friend Tom. Journo. She stuffed it in her pocket, for later reading.

  *

  The Great North Wood covered the hills of Sydenham and Dulwich. Harry’s allotment was on the far side. She had been there many times when she was a child because Harry asked Jim to tend the plot when he went away on his extended trips to undisclosed locations, and Jim delegated the task to his daughters. Sam followed the familiar claggy path through the hornbeams, reached the crest of the hill, tipped her head back and opened her mouth to catch the rainwater from the morning’s downpour as it dripped from the leaves. Wash-off, she heard Dave’s voice say in her head. Secondary contamination. She let the tepid water dribble down her gullet anyway.

  The allotments covered the southern downslope; beanpoles, dog roses, chrysanthemums and cucumber frames. Harry’s bulky windcheater-swathed form was hunched over a spade. She wound her way around the patchwork of plots and when she was within speaking distance he acknowledged her presence with a nod of his head and a concerned smile, his fleshy face hanging more heavily than the last time she’d seen him, nearly two years ago now.

  ‘OK?’ He asked in a way that made her feel she might not be when he had finished talking to her.

  ‘I’m fine. The rain hasn’t spoiled your veggies.’

  He gestured across the flourishing allotment. ‘South-facing slope. Well drained. London clay. Quite claggy up there,’ he pointed to the top of the hill, ‘where the water collects. And down there, where the clay meets the chalk, that’s a different story again. Chalk, tricky stuff. But then I suppose it would be, all those crushed skeletons.’

  Listening to Harry reminded her of Jim – they had both been in the army and the Force, and she could detect the same speech patterns, the clipped sentences, the authoritative yet evasive words of the spook. She had inherited some of those tics too – the evasiveness rather than the authority – echoes of her father.

  He stood back from the spade, glanced around the allotments. Blackbird perched on the broken arm of a scarecrow. Hum of bees and cars. Drip, drip, drip of rain trickling off a shed roof into a metal bucket.

  ‘I’ve heard something interesting on the grapevine,’ he said.

  ‘Interesting?’

  ‘Well, interesting if you are interested in cops and their doings. The Force has set up this new unit, it deals with the overlap between terrorism and organized crime. The Sewer Squad, as it’s unaffectionately known.’

  She parked herself against a water butt; she could tell this conversation was going to be neither quick nor easy. ‘Why the Sewer Squad?’

  ‘Because they spend most of their time wading through the shit.’ He chuckled, and then stopped laughing abruptly. ‘It’s important work – difficult work – trying to untangle the flow of money and weapons to terrorist groups. Terrorists acquiring weapons from criminal gangs. Drugs and weapons trafficked along the same routes. No clear boundaries out there in the shadows.’

  A heavy weight was forming in her stomach, a sense she was being sucked down, trapped in the sticky London clay.

  Harry said, ‘Crawford, Superintendent Crawford, he’s the officer in charge of the unit.’

  ‘But what’s Crawford and the Sewer Squad got to do with me?’

  ‘He’s been investigating the death of your friend Dave Daley.’

  She stifled her shock with some effort. Crawford must have been the obnoxious top cop she overheard talking the night of Dave’s death.

  ‘And Crawford’s the officer who is dealing with your file.’

  Her lungs tightened, trachea constricted.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I really don’t get it.’

  ‘According to Crawford, your mate’s death was suicide.’

  He narrowed his eyes when he said that, gave her the old gimlet stare. She said nothing, tried to maintain a blank face.

  *

  He continued. ‘Crawford is interested in the weapon he used to shoot himself. He’s working on the theory that Daley was planning some sort of attack on a nuclear waste transport vehicle at Dungeness. Using firearms.’

  Sweat dribbled down her chest. She flapped the neck of her tee shirt to circulate some fresh air around her torso.

  ‘Firearms?’

  ‘Well, singular. One gun, supposedly for holding up this container vehicle, but then used, unfortunately, by Daley to shoot himself. You don’t have any guns in your possession, I assume?’

  She shook her head vigorously. She hadn’t taken up Sonny’s offer of the Firebird, so she wasn’t lying. Christ, how did she get into this mess?

  ‘Daley’s suicide was something to do with a girl in London, apparently, according to the note he left. Crawford believes the girl is you.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense to me.’

  Harry shrugged. ‘So there’s a gun. And then, apparently, they found a note in the house in Skell, a rough plan of the event.’

  ‘What was the plan?’

  ‘Use the gun to hold up the lorry carrying the spent fuel rods container and force the driver to a different location.’

  Sam screwed her face up. ‘Why would anybody in their right mind do that?’

  ‘According to this note, to demonstrate how easy it would be for terrorists to hijack one of the spent fuel rod transport carriers.’

  ‘That’s nuts.’

  ‘You might think it’s nuts. And I might think it’s nuts. But Crawford has to go on what he’s got.’

  Harry leaned on the spade, looked her in the eye.

  ‘You don’t know anything about this gun or a plot to hijack a nuclear waste transporter then?’

  ‘No. Of course not. I’d never get involved in anything as ridiculous and as dangerous as that.’

  ‘But were you planning anything?’

  She sighed, realized she was going to have to say something. ‘Yes. A protest about the transport of nuclear waste at Dungeness. But with banners and placards, nothing more. There was no gun involved.’ She wanted to cry.

  ‘And what about this Dave Daley? Could he have been planning to do this hijack malarkey without you knowing about it?’

  She hesitated too long, she knew. She was getting in a muddle, didn’t know what to say and what not to say, didn’t want to mention Luke, because she didn’t want to bring him into it if his name wasn’t on Crawford’s list. She didn’t want to air any doubts about Dave, didn’t want to consider the possibility that her best mate had been involved in something totally stupid.

  ‘No, not Dave,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t even involved in planning the demo. He has an academic interest in the effects of radiation, not a political one. Had,’ she added.

  ‘Word is, he had connections with the Provos, which explains how he got his hands on a gun.’

  Her brain was scrabbling, perceptions slipping around like quicksilver.

  ‘No. No. Maybe some of his relatives are connected to the Provos, I really don’t know, but he wasn’t in contact with his relatives anyway. He didn’t speak to his brothers. His father is in the States.’

  She rewound the conversation between Crawford and his sidekick she had overheard from the far side of the flint wall. It wasn’t the details that stuck in her mind, but his tone, his bullying, his bigotry.

  ‘Is Crawford good at his job?’ She asked the question cautiously, feeling her way – didn’t want to reveal she’d been earwigging on a cop.

  ‘Crawford? He’s tough, make no mistake. He has to be. But he’s dedicated to the work. He’s built up quite a reputation. He has contacts all over the place – Intelligence
, CIA, you name it.’

  ‘You don’t think he might be...’ She fumbled for the right words. ‘Jumping to conclusions about Dave because he’s got an Irish father?’

  Harry took a deep breath. ‘Crawford’s not exactly known for his liberal views. But the thing is, from what I’ve heard, the information is there, on the record.’

  He examined the clouds when he spoke, didn’t look straight at her face.

  ‘Apparently you’ve been involved in the planning of this Dungeness...’ he flicked his hand, ‘fireworks fiasco for months, according to their informer.’

  ‘Informer?’

  ‘Reliable unnamed source. Somebody’s been dripping information about you.’

  An alarm bell rang in her head. Dungeness. Informer. Small-time dope dealer. Alastair. She paled, tried to recall exactly how much she had told him about what and when.

  ‘I think I know who the informer might be.’

  Harry folded his arms, frowned.

  ‘This hippy bloke I met. He came along to these environmental meetings we organized in Dungeness, when we talked about a protest. I think he’s a dope dealer as well. Maybe he’s been making things up, handing over stories to the cops in exchange for cash, or to keep them off his back.’

  ‘Possibly. It does sound as if somebody has been feeding Crawford false information about you. It’s the most obvious explanation for all this. But, look, I don’t want you doing any detective work yourself, thank you very much. No going round exposing informers, please. That wouldn’t be clever. Best thing to do with Crawford on your tail is sit tight, keep your nose clean. He’ll certainly want to pull you in for questioning at some point, to clear up any outstanding issues around Dave’s suicide if for no other reason. But I suspect he won’t contact you for a couple of days because he’s prioritizing the weapon, tracing it back to its source. And anyway he’s got a lot on his plate at the moment. He’s been dragged back into another difficult case. Hangover from his last unit.’

  ‘Anything interesting?’ She only asked to take the focus away from herself for a moment; she needed a breather.

  ‘Murder. Ex-detective. He left the Force and set up his own private investigations agency. Apparently it was a professional job, couple of bullets in the back of his head. Two days ago.’ He wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘It happened quite near here in fact. Over by Crystal Palace.’

  ‘So where’s the connection to Crawford?’

  ‘Well, Crawford was his boss before he left the Force. They were both working on this bullion case – you know that airport robbery – the haul was worth millions, but it was all in gold bars, so it required a vast laundering job, dragged the whole of the south London criminal fraternity into the operation – smelting, mixing, layering, converting it into dirtier currencies. Drugs mainly.’

  ‘Turning gold into shit. Reverse alchemy.’

  ‘If you say so.’ He raised a pale eyebrow. ‘Is that relevant? Alchemy?’

  Her eyes glazed for a moment. ‘I don’t know. It’s a pattern, like a Fibonacci sequence, a spiral, a periodic repetition, that’s all.’

  ‘You’ve been smoking too many funny cigarettes.’ He huffed. ‘But yes, there’s been a lot of gold smelting going on in garages all over the sticks.’

  He paused then, as if something had occurred to him. ‘You’re familiar with that edge of town, aren’t you?’

  ‘You mean the periphery, where we used to take the dog for a walk – where Jim is buried? The criminal belt?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. That’s what Jim called it – the criminal belt.’ He sounded sad, or possibly more reflective than sad. He snapped out of it, returned to Crawford.

  ‘Unfortunately for Crawford, he can’t entirely shake this case. This ex-cop, the one Crawford was managing, had to leave the Force because there were corruption allegations flying, stories that he was taking cuts from the gold launderers he was supposed to be investigating. Nothing proved, but he had to go. And it’s almost certain he’s been done in by his criminal contacts because his fingers got too sticky. Of course Crawford is familiar with all the ins and outs, so he’s had to go over the old ground.’

  She spotted a brown flash at the edge of the allotment, a fox patrolling a row of raspberry canes.

  Harry continued. ‘The only lead they’ve got so far is this old lady who was taking her dog for an evening walk. Westie, I believe – the dog. She insists she passed a man with a funny halo walking along the road where it happened, shortly after the time the murder took place.’

  ‘A funny halo?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s what she said. The man had a funny halo floating above his head. But the witness is eighty-six and somewhat short-sighted, so I’m not sure anybody is taking the description too seriously. Wanted, pistol-carrying member of the angelic horde. Doesn’t quite stack up.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  He stuck his hand in his back pocket, produced a newspaper cutting.

  ‘I spotted the report in the local paper this morning. Made me laugh – the haloed hitman – so I tore it out. Have a look if you want a bit of light entertainment.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He handed her the folded article. She put it in her coat pocket.

  ‘Anyway, hopefully Crawford will be kept busy by old ladies and their Westies for a couple of days and by the time he gets round to contacting you, I’ll have worked out what’s what. Sorted out where all this dodgy information is coming from. So don’t do anything stupid, please, and certainly steer clear of protests around nuclear power stations, thank you very much.’

  She dug her toe into the soil, prodded around, sent an earthworm wriggling. ‘We’ve got a right to protest. We weren’t planning anything illegal.’

  ‘I’m not saying you were, but you’ve got to be careful if you want to stay out of trouble. Watch it. Stay below the radar. We need to contain this, we’re trying to keep you off a bloody MI5 computer index, not issue a minute with your name underlined three times in red. Be circumspect about who you choose to hang out with. Trust nobody.’

  She was about to bite back, an instant reaction, when she registered his words. Trust nobody.

  ‘Harry, I meant to ask, somebody has been leaving messages on my answerphone, whistling that Third Man tune.’

  ‘The Third Man?’ He hummed. ‘The one Jim always used to whistle?’

  She nodded. He frowned.

  ‘No, not me. I can’t whistle. One of your mates messing about?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s a reminder, in case you needed one, that you can never be sure who is on the other end of a line. Never trust a spy you cannot see.’ She remembered Jim using that line when she’d told him she had heard a click on their home phone – spooks, he said, different parts of the secret state monitoring each other. Never trust a spy you cannot see, he added, and then he laughed and disappeared. Harry continued. ‘Use a phone box when you call me. And don’t keep using the same one.’

  He walked over to a pile of carrier bags at the edge of the potato patch. ‘Here, take these, some tomatoes I picked this morning.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘My pleasure. And Sam.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Stay out of it, will you? Go camping for a couple of days.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And go easy on the whacky-baccy.’

  Raindrops splashed her face as she pushed her way along the side of the allotment. She looked over her shoulder; Harry back at his digging, the fox slipping along the hedgerow behind. Harry glanced up and she caught the concern on his face, the furrowed forehead, before he had a chance to smile. She waved, trudged up the slope to the Great North Wood, under the shadow of the dripping trees. She pulled out the cutting he had given her, the case of the haloed hitman, read as she strolled, ignored the wet splodges on the newspaper. The name of the ex-cop turned private investigator then killed by a haloed hitman almost made her trip. Flint. The same name she had se
en scribbled in Jim’s diary, 6 June 1984, the stick of candyfloss doodled underneath. A gagging sweetness filled her mouth, her throat, her nose. She retched. Her legs buckled.

  *

  She slumped on the path, stuck her head between her knees, blood beating in her ears, fragments flying around her brain. Flint. The candy man – cold steel eyes, scythe-shaped scar. The man she had seen at a May Day fair in 1978. The man Jim had been desperate to avoid. She had assumed he was a murderer, or a terrorist. But now it looked like the candy man was a cop. A bloody cop. A bent cop taking a cut from the criminal belt bullion launderers. And, if that was the case, why had Jim met up with him in 1984, two weeks before he was killed? Maybe it was all irrelevant, because this was 1986 and if Flint was the candy man, then he was dead. Killed by a haloed hitman. Perhaps it was good news, of sorts. Yet it felt more like bad news, uncomfortable news, news that made her feel small, vulnerable, exposed to danger, but unable to identify its source. She stood, stuffed the newspaper cutting in a pocket, brushed her trousers, listened to the oak leaves rustling, jays laughing. A fat droplet ran off an overhanging branch, plopped on the back of her neck, and for a moment she thought it was a bullet.

  TWELVE

  SHE WANDERED INTO the kitchen, bag of Jim’s belongings picked up from her parents’ house in one hand, bag of tomatoes from Harry in the other. Sonny was cooking. Head bent over hob, stirring whatever was in the saucepan, steam billowing hellishly round his dark head. The sight of him being domestic in her kitchen flipped her momentarily. He stood back from the oven and smiled at her coyly. Or was he being sly? She took a deep breath.

  ‘What’s on the menu?’

  ‘Spanakopita.’

  ‘Is that a South African recipe?’

  ‘Greek.’

  She must have grimaced, although she wasn’t conscious of any facial movement.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I found a postcard on the mat this morning.’

  He handed her the card lying on the counter top.

  ‘I couldn’t help reading it. There was nothing personal on it.’

  There wouldn’t be, if Liz had written it.