Blackwater (DI Nick Lowry)

by James, Henry

  ‘Evening, stranger.’ She walked into the room breezily, slipping out of her coat. ‘Oh – can I have one of those?’

  She could do with a drink, take the edge of this hangover cum interminable comedown – and he had the good stuff out: amontillado.

  ‘Be my guest.’ He raised his glass cordially. ‘Good day at work?’

  ‘Long and exhausting,’ she said, pulling her hairclip out and shaking her hair free.

  ‘You slept like a log all yesterday – I thought you’d have recovered. Matthew told me, before you ask.’

  The ice-cold sherry glugged generously into the glass. They’d both been smitten with sherry since a week in the Costa del Sol on their honeymoon, though she’d long stopped asking him not to keep it in the fridge, in the same way that she’d stopped inquiring how he knew things. Taking the glass from the table, she stepped back and leaned against the kitchen draining board, putting some distance between herself and the scarf.

  Nick stretched out his legs. He still had his shoes on. She wondered fleetingly where he’d been – they were covered in mud.

  ‘How was your day?’ she asked, finally.

  ‘Busy.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She bit her bottom lip. She would tell him, but he’d have to ask. To be honest, she actually wanted to tell him – but she was spooked and still tired and was desperate to get to bed. She had lost count of the number of times she’d repeated to herself she would never ever touch drugs again.

  ‘So, how was it at Trish’s on Saturday night?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Remind me again where she lives?’

  He knew damn well where she lived: in the Dutch quarter, among the squiggly lanes that ran across the back of the high street. What to do? What to do? There’s lying and there’s lying.

  ‘And you went straight there, right?’

  She twisted uncomfortably against the kitchen units. ‘No.’ She couldn’t risk being found out – he’d never trust her again.

  ‘Where did you go first?’

  ‘Aristos, at the bottom of East Hill.’ She looked at the chequer-tiled floor. It needed mopping.

  ‘And what did you get up to?’

  ‘Took a load of speed with some blokes we – Trish – met.’

  The flint of Nick’s lighter, and the sound as it skittered across the table. He loved her and he would protect her, surely – pull her out of all this crap?

  ‘I don’t remember anything. Honest. I was with Trish the whole time.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘Why? Well, I didn’t want to—’

  The slap on the table made her jump.

  ‘Why didn’t you go home like I said you should, Jacqui?!’

  ‘I . . .’ The anger in his voice scared her. Nick never shouted.

  ‘I told you to go home, but no, you wanted to be comforted by your friends, which I agreed to – fair enough – but then to stay out? On the street, after what happened?’

  Jacqui frowned. Who cares? she thought. Why’s he going on about that? She did go out – so what? Her scarf, linking her to a place where two people were killed, surely that’s the—

  The legs of his chair scraped back. She forced herself to look at him as he made his way towards her. What was that expression? Not anger.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t do it to annoy you – I did it to forget, to forget about what had happened. You know?’ She met his stare. Pained – that was it. ‘Wipe it away, so, you know, a line of speed – never hurt anyone.’

  ‘You have no respect for me,’ he said flatly.

  She could smell the sherry on his breath and slipped away from the kitchen units. Picking up the bottle to top herself up, she turned round. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Why would I want to come home to an empty house? You’re never here; always on the job or boxing with that psycho boss of yours.’

  He shook his head and smiled.

  ‘What?’ she said, confused.

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Am I in trouble?’

  ‘I know you were with Trish the whole time, like you say.’

  ‘You know?’ She met his gaze, which was fixed on her but said nothing. ‘How?’

  ‘I spoke to her.’

  ‘You spoke to . . . Why, you . . . let me sweat like that!’ Relief was swiftly replaced by humiliation and she started to tremble. No, she was not going to cry.

  ‘And the taxi rank in town.’

  ‘What did they say?’ Now she was genuinely curious.

  ‘I heard you come in, so I checked the taxi rank for all trips around three that morning. You shared a cab. Jesus, Jacqui, I thought she might for once act responsibly and think of someone other than herself.’ He shook his head solemnly, then downed the beaker of sherry. ‘Can’t Trish get a steady boyfriend? Cavorting around town like she’s nineteen. No wonder Andy had had enough.’

  Jacqui nodded in agreement. She’d been living off her best friend’s divorce as an excuse for reckless behaviour for the last year. Andrew Vane, an accountant in town, had run off with his secretary, who was half his age. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked eventually, not understanding his change in mood but sensing she was off the hook.

  He raised his eyebrows blankly. ‘Nothing yet. That’s why I spoke to Trish first.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When I came on the ward this evening. You were on a break. Surprised she didn’t say?’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’ She felt a pang of guilt. She’d been to see Paul. Trish had left by the time she returned.

  ‘I told her to say nothing until I’d figured this out.’

  ‘But Nick, they’re bound to find out! When you find out whoever did this – they’ll say we were there! You’ll get into trouble.’

  Nick topped up his drink. ‘If we ever do. And even if we do, their memory is likely to be so frazzled they won’t remember a thing. The killings took place at least sixteen hours after you left, judging from the time they went to Shehab’s. You’re safe.’

  She went to hug him. ‘I promise I’ll never do anything like this again. Promise. Promise.’

  ‘Easy.’ He broke off the embrace, forcing her to stand upright. ‘I need you to think and stay calm. I will need to talk to someone at Aristos . . .’

  ‘I will stay calm, promise.’

  ‘I’ll need you to think hard about what went on.’

  Jacqui felt the harshness Nick put into the word ‘think’ was a sign he was trying to stay calm. She needed to distract him.

  ‘Nick, there’s something else. It’s Matty.’

  His expression softened slightly ‘Matt? What about him?’

  ‘I think he’s being bullied at school.’

  ‘Bullied? What do you mean? It’s been school holidays for the best part of a fortnight.’

  She hurriedly explained the mark she’d found on her son’s neck and watched another worry sag her husband’s shoulders as he drank his sherry.

  ‘You’re on an early tomorrow?’ he said at last, wanting the day to end.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.’ He smiled wanly.

  ‘Let’s have another,’ she said.

  ‘No, no.’ He shook his head. ‘I need to think. I’ll be up soon.’

  The telephone rang in the hall. ‘Leave it, eh?’ she said. ‘Probably only Trish.’ She didn’t want to talk to Trish yet; she needed to corroborate with her friend first. But he made towards the phone. ‘Or, worse, my mother – I said I’d pop over tomorrow evening.’

  It was time to go to bed – quit while she was ahead. She drained her sherry and put the glass down on the kitchen unit. ‘Night, then. Don’t be long.’

  ‘Sure.’ He smiled thinly. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  She prayed he was right. What if it made the press? What would happen to them? She’d be out on her ear, no question. She kissed him on the forehead and left the kitchen, vowing to herself she’d never take another drug as long as she lived.

&nbs
p; *

  Lowry stared at the cheap beaker. Matthew, being bullied? It had been the Christmas holiday; was she sure? Surely it was rugby? He couldn’t bear the thought of his son, his pride and joy, being hurt in any way. He topped up the beaker. He didn’t believe it. She was manipulating him, to get herself off the hook. It hurt to realize how transparent it all was. He was fast coming to the conclusion that she was taking the piss – or there was something very, very wrong. She’d nearly been raped, and yet it was water off a duck’s back to her. Was she blanking it out, as a way of coping? But he couldn’t deal with that right now; he had to come out the other side of the Greenstead murder first, and that meant keeping Jacqui out of it.

  He could, conceivably, keep Jacqui’s involvement under wraps. If it weren’t for the scarf . . . He’d have Uniform check all the nightclubs in town so that it wouldn’t appear obvious that he’d singled out Aristos, which he himself would visit. He would also check that the descriptions of Boyd and Cowley tallied with those given by Shehab, and take it from there.

  After leaving Mrs Boyd, he, with the assistance of Brightlingsea police, had called at Felix Cowley’s address. Nothing – an empty flat. From this, Lowry wondered if Cowley had headed for open water: Fingringhoe was close to the Colne estuary due east, which led to Brightlingsea on the east bank and East Mersea to the west, and beyond that to the mouth of the Blackwater and the North Sea. Logically, that must mean Cowley had escaped out to sea, if he hadn’t returned home; had his intention been to go inland, there would have been easier, more accessible paths. Bradley was out along the Mersea coastline now; there was every chance they’d pull him out of the water . . .

  He pushed himself up from the table with an effort. He was in a tight spot, no doubt about it. And he couldn’t say he’d been there before – he hadn’t. Did he inform Sparks of Jacqui’s involvement in the case? Doubt niggled at him, and he decided he’d think about it again in the morning, with a fresh mind. He picked up the scarf and pulled it out of the bag and smelt Jacqui’s perfume. She really didn’t understand why he did what he did. Everything – always – had been for her. He could only laugh – to keep his sanity. A sudden surge of anger powered through him and, instead of flicking off the kitchen light, he punched it hard, splintering the plastic housing and leaving the house in darkness.

  Standing in the pitch-black hallway, the answering machine blinked red at him from the telephone table. He remembered that the phone had rung earlier – West Mersea police, maybe? There were two messages. The first was the dentist. Could he come first thing tomorrow morning, at eight forty-five? There’d been a cancellation. Great. Next was a tired-sounding Trish. Tired and, yes, anxious. Hell, let her be anxious, the mess she’d led them into. He flicked the phone the V and followed his wife up to bed.

  Tuesday, 4 January, 1983

  -37-

  6.15 a.m., Tuesday, Dutch Quarter, Colchester town centre

  Frost sparkled on the roof of the Mini under the street lights’ weak glow as Trish Vane scraped away the ice on the windscreen. Cold shards flew off, catching her eye. God, how she loathed early shifts in winter; it would be at least another three months before she left for work in daylight on an early. No matter how long she’d slept, it still felt like going to work in the middle of the night. She couldn’t endure another year of this hell. Though she probably would.

  The exhaust spluttered intermittently while the Mini’s feeble heater did its best to thaw out the car’s damp interior. ‘That’ll have to do,’ she said to herself, giving up on clearing the screen completely and jumping inside the car. Slamming the stick into reverse, she realized she hadn’t done the rear window. Sod it, she thought; there was nothing there to crash into. Flying out of the drive and roaring forward, she found she could still barely see and grabbed her scarf from the passenger seat and started rubbing frantically at the wet interior glass. Flicking the wipers on and over-revving, she clumsily knocked the gear stick into third, still clutching the scarf.

  ‘Jesus Christ, women drivers!’ said a hoarse voice behind her. Her heart froze, not unlike the crystals spraying before her eyes. ‘Keep driving, there’s a good girl,’ said the voice, and she felt something cold against the nape of her neck, which she could only imagine was the nose of a gun. Foot trembling on the clutch pedal, Trish drove the car timidly out of the back streets.

  ‘Where now?’ She had reached the junction on North Hill.

  ‘Wherever you’ve stashed it.’

  ‘Stashed what?’ Trish said this with conviction, but knew, somewhere within her, it had something to do with Saturday night. Christ, what on earth had she done?

  9.15 a.m., Queen Street HQ

  ‘Nothing. A big fat zero.’ Sparks slammed the desk, sending a flutter through the pages of his morning report, which detailed the previous evening’s incidents and arrests. Kenton flinched in his peripheral vision, but the object of his outburst – Lowry – did not. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re playing at, having those berks poncing up and down the Blackwater in the middle of the night? I have to pay those blighters overtime!’

  ‘He might still be on the mainland, then,’ Lowry mumbled. He’d at least had his tooth fixed.

  ‘Might he?’

  ‘Both smugglers come from Brightlingsea. Cowley may have tried to get back there from Fingringhoe, across the channel. And from there—’

  ‘What, after killing his partner, Boyd? He’d still head home?’ Kenton asked.

  ‘We can’t be certain that he’d head there – or that he even killed Boyd and Stone, at this stage – but he was seen at the Fox, and Boyd’s mother said Cowley was simple, so—’

  ‘Well, let’s hope so,’ the chief said. ‘Clumsy to have lost him, in any case. That’s the second man you’ve lost in as many days,’ he remarked, casually this time. ‘Anyway, glad you got your tooth fixed before tonight.’

  ‘It’s only temporary.’ Lowry put his hand to his jaw, then asked, ‘Why, what’s happening tonight?’

  ‘Ladies’ night, remember, at the Queen’s Head?’

  ‘Not going.’

  ‘Course you are.’

  ‘I’m not. Is that all? I’ve a briefing to do, so if you don’t mind . . .’ Lowry rose to go.

  ‘You’re really not going? We always go together.’ Sparks was crestfallen. Something really must be up with Lowry; he knew it. Giving up boxing and smoking, and now the Lodge.

  ‘Not on a Tuesday night, I’m too busy. Besides, the food is awful there.’

  Sparks pulled his creaking chair up to the desk. The food was poor, but so what? It was part of the tradition. He felt a twinge in his gut at the prospect of yet more rich seasonal fare. He stretched back on the chair to alleviate the grumblings in his stomach. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘toddle off to your briefing.’ They both turned to go. ‘Not you, Kenton. Wait here a sec.’

  Sparks rubbed his abdomen – maybe he should skip tonight, too? – and stared down at his desk, a manila file catching his eye. ‘Oh, yes, Lowry, that reminds me – your dead German; the autopsy’s done. Stomach contents: turkey.’

  Lowry, who was already at the door, asked, ‘Do Germans eat turkey over Christmas?’

  -38-

  9.30 a.m., Tuesday, Queen Street HQ

  Lowry wandered back down to the main office. The Dodger had found nothing in the estuary, Felix Cowley was still at large, and all that was on Sparks’s mind was ladies’ night? God, that was the last thing he needed – he wanted Jacqui as far away from Sparks as possible. Besides, he had plans. There was a meeting of the Colchester ornithologists tonight, and a lecture on raptors; Doug Young, the ranger from East Mersea, had told him about it. But he was damned if he was about to share that with Sparks. He may as well announce he’d taken to wearing women’s underwear.

  He put the autopsy report to one side on his desk – turkey or not, the German was low priority – and instead tried to focus on the briefing meeting and on coordinating resources to find Cowley. And on whether th
ere was a connection between Boyd, Cowley, Stone and the now-elusive Pond. The garage that Boyd had worked at on the Clacton Road was one of Tony Pond’s concerns. Pond, Pond, Pond: he was always turning up, like a bad penny. It was about time Lowry tried to get hold of him again, find out what his game was. As he sat down and flicked through his tatty Rolodex, the phone trilled.

  ‘Yep.’ He scribbled the number of the garage on a Post-it note.

  ‘Detective Inspector Lowry?’ a silky, clipped voice asked.

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Merrydown here.’ The assistant chief constable. ‘I’m in town later this morning and I wondered if we might meet.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Super. I’ll see you in the Old Library café at eleven.’ And she was gone. It was the first time she’d ever telephoned him and, unsurprisingly, he hadn’t recognized her voice – it had been so formal and polite; she had even omitted her Christian name, as a man would do. What could she want with him? Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. It was a nuisance, in any case – he wanted to get on to Pond, and it was already gone half nine, and he had a briefing . . .

  -39-

  10.15 a.m., Tuesday, Queen Street HQ

  Kenton returned to the CID office with two coffees. Bizarrely, after Lowry had left the chief’s office, Sparks had unexpectedly asked the young DC whether he was free to attend a Masonic ladies’ evening. He even suggested Kenton take Gabriel, having seen the WPC in attendance at the fight. Kenton had declined, claiming truthfully the lack of appropriate attire and short notice, but he was nevertheless touched to have been asked and said next time, for sure. With Jane, imagine that! He placed one coffee before Lowry, who looked puzzled.

  ‘Thank you,’ Lowry said, taking his coffee. ‘Did Uniform have any joy looking for the car round Stone’s place?’