Shadow Sands

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Shadow Sands Page 5

by Robert Bryndza


  “Were you drinking that night?” asked Kate.

  “No. We forgot to get the booze in. And all we had for dinner was cold baked beans, right out the tin, and Mars bars. It turned into a gloomy night. I wish we’d had booze. Si went into a dark mood.”

  “How did you know his mood was dark?” asked Tristan.

  “He was withdrawn. August had been tough for him. You couldn’t move for hearing about the Olympics, could you? We’d had a great day, though. We met some girls on the beach. One swapped numbers with Si. She had a fat friend for me,” he added with a grin. “We were going to meet them the next day to go diving at Benson’s Quarry. There was a group of them going there.”

  “Did you see any other campers or walkers that night?” asked Kate.

  Geraint shook his head.

  “It was eerie. Creepy. The roar from the power plant seems to block out all other noise. It’s not loud, but it’s constant, and gets into your head.”

  “Did you see any boats on the reservoir?”

  “No. I just wanted to bed down, sleep, wake up, and get the hell out the next morning. We pitched the tent, and I must have fallen asleep around nine or ten, I can’t remember. Si kept saying his body was aching and he felt rough. He only had a couple of days off before he had to go back to training. I don’t think he was eating properly. I didn’t see him eat the whole day on the beach, and he hardly touched any of the beans or chocolate. I woke up around seven the next morning, and Si wasn’t there. His sleeping bag was empty.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing at first. I thought he’d gone for a piss or a number two. I went outside and made some tea on the little gas stove and waited. Then I phoned him a few times, but his phone was off. That’s when I . . .” He hesitated.

  “What?” asked Kate.

  “I searched through his bag for his mobile. It wasn’t there, but I found a bottle of pills. Citalopram. They’re antidepressants. I was shocked, cos I always thought Si was, you know, dealing with stuff.”

  “Do you think Lyn knew he was on antidepressants?” asked Kate. Geraint shrugged.

  “I googled citalopram. It’s strong stuff, and there’re side effects, which would affect his performance swimming. I don’t know if Lyn would have wanted him to be taking them.”

  “What did you do after you found the pills in his bag?” asked Tristan.

  “I went around the site, checked the woods, the horrible toilets again.”

  “And there was nothing suspicious alongside the fence, by the edge of the reservoir?” asked Kate.

  “Suspicious, like what?”

  “Was there any blood on the grass or the fence? I’ve seen how much damage a razor wire fence can do to someone if they try and climb it.”

  “I walked the fence alongside the water for quite a way in both directions; in fact, in one direction, I went through the trees and all the way along to the power station. There was no holes in the fence, nothing,” said Geraint.

  “When did you raise the alarm that Simon was missing?” asked Kate.

  “Just after lunch. I called Evil-Lyn. She was worried, told me to keep in touch. I had to charge up my phone, so I walked back to the power plant and went into the visitors’ center and had a coffee.”

  “What’s in the visitors’ center?”

  “It’s an art gallery. It’s on the edge of the reservoir. You can have a coffee looking out. It was really surreal to be there and drinking coffee, knowing Si had gone off somewhere. I was still there later in the afternoon about five o’clock when Lyn rang me back to say she’d called the police and reported Si missing. I still didn’t want to believe it. I hoped that he’d gone off with that bird we’d met the day before . . .” Geraint swirled the last of his pint in the glass and downed it. His eyes were wet with tears. He rubbed them away. Kate noticed a red stain on the sheepskin sleeve of his jacket.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” she asked.

  “What? This?” he said, peering at the faded stain on his sleeve. “No. This is old, from that night Si injured himself and cut his ankle. I helped him to A&E.” He stared at the bloodstain for a moment longer, then rolled up his sleeve, tucking the stained sheepskin inside.

  Tristan mouthed if he should get him another pint, but Kate shook her head. Geraint was already slurring his words, and they needed to ask more questions.

  “So. Lyn called the police. What did you do?”

  “I went back to the campsite, late afternoon, packed up our stuff, and I got a cab back to my student halls. The next afternoon, the police rang my mobile. I thought they’d found Si, but they asked me to come down to the station and make a statement about him being officially missing, which I did. I was there for seven hours. They were hard on me, asking the same shit over and over, trying to catch me out. Then they let me go in the evening.”

  “Did they question you with a solicitor? Or was it more informal and you left a statement?” asked Kate.

  “They kept saying I was free to go at any time, but . . . I’ve got a criminal record. I went to juvenile detention when I was fourteen. I got a year for glassing this arsehole who attacked me in a pub. I also got into a bit of bother a couple of years back in a club; again, it was self-defense.” He shrugged. “Just cos I stick up for myself when drunk arseholes come at me, doesn’t mean I’d kill my best mate for no reason.”

  “What happened after you left the police station?” asked Kate.

  “I had a couple of phone calls from Evil-Lyn. Asking questions. She wanted Si’s stuff back, his bag. The second time she phoned, she was drunk . . . she was asking me all this stuff. Were me and Simon gay? Were we having sex with each other . . . That’s a no, by the way. The third time she phoned, she was proper roaring drunk and screamed at me that I killed him cos I was jealous, and I had a history of violence.”

  “And what did you say?” asked Tristan.

  “I stuck up for myself. I know her son was missing, but she was just vile on the phone . . . I don’t know if she’s got many friends. Si is—was—an only child. His dad’s dead. They don’t have much other family. After the third call I switched my phone off. There were loads more missed calls from her when I switched it back on the next morning. She said she’d called the police and told them to question me again . . . She shook me up, she was so insistent and confident.”

  “Did the police speak to you again?” asked Kate.

  “I got a knock at the door that evening. It was the police. I thought they’d come to arrest me, but they told me Simon’s body had been found in the reservoir and he’d drowned. They said they’d officially ruled it was an accident.”

  Geraint’s bottom lip began to tremble, and he looked away.

  “Can you remember when exactly this was?” asked Kate.

  Geraint turned back and wiped his eyes. “Must have been four or five days later.”

  “Can you be sure? The exact date?”

  “I went to his funeral on the fourteenth of September, which was exactly two weeks after the police came around, so that would make it . . . the thirty-first of August.”

  How could the police rule so fast on accidental drowning? thought Kate. If only she’d found Simon’s body the day before.

  “Can you remember what time of day the police came over on the thirty-first?” she asked.

  “Afternoon. Just after lunch, around two,” said Geraint. “They were only there a few minutes, told me on the doorstep. Si was dead, it was an accidental drowning, and that I was no longer under any suspicion.”

  “They came to the conclusion that fast?” said Tristan, echoing Kate’s thoughts.

  Geraint shrugged.

  “I don’t trust the police. Never have and never will. But if they say I’m innocent, I’m not going to argue . . . Although how could a strong swimmer like Simon drown?”

  10

  “It doesn’t add up,” said Kate when they were in the car going back to Ashdean. “I found Simon’s body on Thursday, the thirtieth o
f August, late in the afternoon. I called the police, and they arrived pretty quickly, but the dive team couldn’t have brought up his body until later that evening. Then a doctor was brought in to do the postmortem on Simon’s body the next morning . . .”

  “The morning of the thirty-first of August,” said Tristan.

  “Yes. A postmortem takes time, a few hours. Then reports have to be written. The reports go back to the police officer assigned to the case. More decisions have to be made. If the postmortem was done at nine a.m., how could the police be knocking on Geraint’s door within five hours to tell him that Simon’s death was an accident and that there will be nothing further pursued?”

  “What if Geraint was lying to us?” said Tristan. “And the police still think he’s a person of interest?”

  “No. When I went to see Alan Hexham yesterday, the report in the file said it was accidental drowning. Alan was concerned. He didn’t do the postmortem. Another doctor was brought in.”

  “Something fishy’s going on,” said Tristan. The road from Exeter to Ashdean followed the coastline, winding farther inland through empty ploughed fields and bare trees where a low mist was hung in the air. Kate’s phone rang, and she picked it up with her free hand.

  “Speak of the devil. That’s Alan Hexham.”

  “Shall I put it on speaker?” asked Tristan. Kate nodded and handed him the phone.

  “Hello, Kate?” boomed Alan through the speakerphone.

  “Hi, Alan. I’m here with Tristan,” she said.

  “Oh. Hello, hello. Look. I’m just calling you about the Simon Kendal postmortem. I wanted to say thank you.”

  “What for?” asked Kate.

  “You alerted me to some worrying inaccuracies in the case file. Simon Kendal was camping with his friend, and it made me think. Tent pegs.”

  “Tent pegs?” repeated Kate.

  “Yes. The picture I showed you. That puncture mark on Simon’s rib cage. It had been mistakenly identified as being caused by an outboard motorboat propeller, but I think it was caused by the beveled edge on a sharp object. A metal tent peg would fit that description as a potential weapon . . .” Kate and Tristan exchanged a glance. Alan went on, “I gave this information to DCI Henry Ko, the SIO on the case.”

  “Do you know why it was ruled so quickly as accidental drowning?” asked Kate. “We’ve been putting together a timeline . . .”

  “Kate. I’m sorry I can’t comment on the cause of death right now.”

  Tristan glanced across at Kate. Alan sounded very uncomfortable.

  “Okay. Alan, the only person camping with Simon was his friend Geraint. Are the police now saying Simon’s death is suspicious?”

  There was a long pause.

  “I can’t comment on that either.”

  “So, Geraint is now a suspect?”

  “Kate. I’m calling you as a courtesy. I can’t comment anymore, and I’m not party to what the police decide . . . Now, I really must go now,” he said and hung up the phone.

  Kate saw a lay-by up ahead and pulled into it. It was next to a large, desolate-looking field that had been freshly ploughed for the winter. They were silent for a moment.

  “Did we just read Geraint completely wrong?” asked Kate.

  “If we did, he’s a bloody good actor,” said Tristan. “With such control.”

  “No, if he was controlled, he wouldn’t be walking around with Simon’s blood on his jacket and then be so calm when we asked him about it,” said Kate. “And there’s the whole question of how Simon got into the water. Was Geraint with him? The campsite is fenced off from the reservoir. Did they walk a couple of miles around to the other side of the reservoir? Did Simon climb the razor wire? Did they both climb it? I remember Simon’s hands. There weren’t any cuts or bruises on his skin. Geraint was unscathed too. It doesn’t add up.”

  “Do we know for sure they even went to the campsite in the first place?” said Tristan. “We’re just taking Geraint’s word for it.”

  “Exactly. And why didn’t I think of tent pegs? It’s so bloody obvious as a murder weapon!” Kate thumped the steering wheel. The horn blared out over the field, scaring a group of crows, who took off into the sky cawing.

  “Did Alan say anything when you saw him? If the police found a tent peg at the campsite?”

  “No, he didn’t. And even if they did find a tent peg, I doubt there would be much forensic evidence left on it after so many weeks out in the elements.”

  “It still doesn’t answer the question: Why were the coroner and the police so quick to rule Simon’s death as an accident?” said Tristan.

  Geraint stayed at Pot Black Snooker Club for another hour, and he sank a few more pints. When he left, the cold outside hit him, and he felt unsteady on his feet as he walked home. He had a bedsit in a block of flats a mile from the snooker club. The road where he lived was a mix of scruffy terraced houses and two-story postwar concrete blocks of flats. As he drew close to home, it started to rain, and he hitched up his jacket collar so it covered his head. He didn’t see the police cars outside his building until he rounded the bins on the corner of the small car park out front.

  There were three police cars, and six police officers grouped under the concrete awning over the main entrance. The lights were on in the hallway, and he could see one of his neighbors, an elderly lady who lived at the end of his floor, talking to the police. She looked up and saw him.

  “There. That’s him,” she said, indicating him with her unlit cigarette. Geraint didn’t know why he made a run for it. He could have stood his ground. The booze was coursing through his veins, and the blue flashing lights still turning on top of the squad cars put him in a panic.

  “Stop! You! Stop where you are!” shouted one of the police officers, but they needn’t have bothered. Geraint lost his balance on the corner by the bins and tumbled onto a wet pile of black sacks, feeling something large inside one of the sacks push into his belly. The police officers piled on him like a rugby scrum before he could catch his breath, pinning his hands behind his back, slapping cold cuffs on his wrists, and reading him his rights. As they pulled him up to his feet, the ground seemed to give a horrible lurch, and he saw stars, then threw up.

  “Jesus Christ, what a state,” said a voice. A slim Asian officer got out from one of the police cars and came over to them. He was in plain clothes: skinny jeans, a white polo shirt, and a bright-yellow Ralph Lauren–branded waterproof jacket. Geraint thought he looked dressed up and ready for a night out.

  “It’s cos you all piled on top of me,” said Geraint. He coughed and heaved again, spitting on the ground, his hands still cuffed behind his back.

  The Asian officer came close and looked him in the eye, challenging him. Geraint thought he was going to punch him; then he took out his police ID card.

  “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Henry Ko. Geraint Jones, I’m arresting you for the murder of Simon Kendal . . .”

  “What the fuck?” started Geraint, hearing the shock in his own voice.

  “You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say can be used as evidence in a court of law,” said Ko.

  “I want a solicitor,” he said.

  “You’ll get one . . . Process him. But don’t put him in my car,” said Ko. The police officers led him away, and he was shoved into the nearest police car.

  11

  Kate dropped Tristan back at his flat, and they agreed to meet the next day and keep in touch if there was any more news about Geraint.

  Kate lived in a large, old two-story house at the end of a road running along the cliff edge. It was a few miles outside Ashdean, in a small hamlet called Thurlow Bay.

  Next to Kate’s house was a surf shop, which served the campsite nearby in the summer. It was run by Myra, her friend and her sponsor in AA.

  Kate’s house was comfy and lived-in—grandma-ish, Jake called it. The furniture in the living room was chintzy, and the walls were covered in bookcases stuffed with academic book
s and novels. An old piano sat against one wall. The house came with her job as lecturer at Ashdean, and she’d been renting it for eight years. Her favorite part was the living room and the row of windows that looked over the cliff top out to sea. The kitchen was slightly more modern than the rest of the house, with blond wood countertops and cupboards painted white.

  Kate unpacked her shopping in the kitchen, then opened the fridge. She kept a jug of iced tea on the top shelf. She took out a crystal tumbler, filled it half with ice, and topped it up with the sweet iced tea. Then she sliced a lemon, adding a sliver to the top of the ice. Preparing her iced tea in this way had the same ceremony as making a cocktail, without the alcohol. Alcoholics Anonymous frowned on any sort of crutch or replacement, but Kate found this worked for her. It helped to keep her sober.

  She took a long drink of the cool sweet tea and pulled out her phone. Should she call Lyn? It was coming up to five p.m. The issue of the tent pegs as a potential murder weapon came back to her again. If Geraint had stabbed and killed Simon with a tent peg, where was it now? She thought of the reservoir and the day she and Jake had gone diving. It had seemed bottomless, an endless darkness beyond her lamp.

  She sent Jake a quick text message, asking if they were still Skyping later. She waited a few minutes, and when there was no reply, she opened the fridge again and topped up her glass.

  What she wouldn’t give for a whiskey. A Jack Daniel’s and Coke. The smoky depth of the whiskey flavor, mixed with the sweetness of the cold, fizzy Coke.

  She took a sip from the freshly filled glass.

  Nope, it wasn’t the same. The problem with sobriety was that once you had it, there was always that niggling feeling that you could cope with a little drink now and again.

  She sat down at the table and lit up a cigarette. Did she buy Geraint’s whole melancholic Welsh rogue act? Was it an act? She wished she could be at a desk, down at the station with HOLMES, the police database, at her fingertips. With a few keystrokes she’d be able to find out whether the police knew the whereabouts of the camping gear and whether they’d seized it as evidence.

 

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