by Oliver Tidy
‘I didn’t go looking for him. I was getting a quiet dinner and a pint. I hoped to be left alone. He was in the other bar. He’s a retained fireman in the village. Probably couldn’t wait to get down his local and be the centre of attention. He came and spoke to me about it. He said something about her being caught on the metalwork of the outfall and that if she hadn’t been she might have ended up in the middle of the Channel and never recovered.’
‘What’s your point?’ She maintained her tone.
Ignoring her question, I said, ‘The tide would have been coming in about the estimated time of death you gave me. If she’d gone in at Dymchurch, it’s likely she wouldn’t have ended up at St Mary’s Bay, she’d have been carried the other way towards Hythe. The tide rises west to east. She should have washed up on Hythe Ranges.’ I was exaggerating only a little. Because of how I was viewing the disappearance of my relatives, I needed her to be taking notice of me. ‘The only way for her to have ended up in St Mary’s Bay would have been if she had gone in the sea there. And what would she have been doing all the way down at St Mary’s Bay at that time of the evening with no coat, in her slippers and with my arrival – that she knew all about and hadn’t forgotten – imminent?’
‘Firstly, we don’t know she was in her slippers, not for sure. Secondly, how sure are you about your tide theory? Thirdly, you don’t know she didn’t forget about you.’
‘Her slippers aren’t here. She must have been in her slippers when she went out. As for the tide theory, very,’ I lied. ‘I checked with a tide timetable and someone from the local sea-angling club. For the time of death you gave me, when she would have gone in the water, the tide was coming in. I still find the idea she was wearing no coat strange, too.’
Detective Cash came back with a poorly-considered riposte. ‘Perhaps she could have ended up in St Mary’s Bay when the tide ebbed and she was drawn west with it.’
And I had her. ‘When the tide ebbs, Detective, it also retreats from the shore. By the time her body would have been dragged down as far as St Mary’s Bay there would have been a wide band of sand between the sea and the outfall.’ Checkmate.
She changed the subject. ‘You’re sounding like you think there is something suspicious about your aunt’s death.’
‘Of course I do. Don’t you? Everything points to it not being an accident. I can’t believe it doesn’t seem that way to the police.’
‘Who said it doesn’t?’ There was a quiet pause before she said, ‘With your uncle still unaccounted for, you’re doing a good job of implicating him, don’t you think?’
‘Yesterday you told me to expect the worst. By that, I thought you meant he was probably drowned too, not responsible for my aunt’s death.’
‘I did.’
‘So why have you changed your mind?’
‘I haven’t, necessarily. We’re just keeping an open mind. Until he shows up he can’t be eliminated from our enquiries.’
‘Well, you can think what you like because you didn’t know either of them. I did. There is no way my uncle would have had a hand in my aunt’s death. He’s missing because he’s dead too. There is no other explanation. Did the pathologist’s report say anything about broken bones or other bruising? The fireman suggested she must have been forced on to the ironwork with considerable force. I wondered if there was any evidence of that.’
‘Look, Mr Booker, I understand why you might want to believe that this is not an accident, but they do happen. In the strangest of circumstances, sometimes. There is nearly always a reasonable explanation.’
‘I wish you’d make your mind up – accidental death or suspicious.’
‘We will when we have all the facts to make that decision.’
‘In the meantime, would you do me a favour?’
‘Mr Booker, we’re not in the habit of doing favours for members of the public.’ It wasn’t said with irritation.
‘Could you just ask the pathologist to look at the sleeve of the top she was wearing? There should be a hole in it where she was snagged on the outfall’s ironwork. And then can he look at her corresponding arm to see if there is any physical damage to suggest she had hit the structure she was found snagged on with any force?’
‘What do you think that will prove? She was in the water for some time. You’ve got a lot of sea wall, scores of groynes and the outfall that she could have been thrown against by the tide. All might have caused injuries to her. In fact, I’d be surprised if her body didn’t show signs of her having been battered by the sea and the geography of the place.’
‘I think you know what I’m thinking, Detective.’
‘Then, with your uncle still missing, don’t you think he could be involved in some way?’
‘Not for me. I don’t think my aunt’s death was an accident and the last person in the world who would have done my aunt harm was my uncle.’
‘Under normal circumstances.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘When I asked you before, you said you weren’t aware of either of them having a serious illness. Your aunt had cancer?’
I sat down. ‘What?’
‘The pathologist’s toxicology report found traces of a cancer-fighting drug and physical examination showed evidence of puncture marks to indicate regular injections.’ A brief silence. ‘You didn’t know?’
‘No. I didn’t.’
‘It could change things. How would you feel about a mercy killing angle?’
‘Disparaging. Come on. Not on the day I was due to arrive. Not with the business in limbo. And certainly not like that.’
‘I’ll find out what you asked and let you know, Mr Booker.’
‘Thank you. I’d appreciate that, Detective.’
I waited for her to hang up but she didn’t.
‘My DI wants to speak with you. Will you come here, or shall I send a car?’
That was unexpected. ‘What about?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I can drive my uncle’s car in. When?’
‘An hour suit you?’
‘All right. About an hour.’ I put my phone away and wondered what that was all about and why the hurry.
***
10
Standing against the wall to my left, Detective Cash had been babysitting me.
Detective Inspector Sprake kept me waiting nine minutes by the clock in the interview room where I’d wasted part of my life the previous day. It still reeked of vomit and guilt.
Cash seemed unusually taciturn compared with our previous interactions – professional and distant. I didn’t press her for conversation. If she wanted to practise the silent treatment, that was fine with me. I was used to it: I was married.
When the man himself finally deigned to put in an appearance he didn’t apologise for keeping me hanging around. He didn’t thank me for pitching up voluntarily and saving him a drive. He didn’t smile or introduce himself. He sat down opposite me and kept me waiting a minute longer while he pretended to be reading a piece of paper tucked in the usual beige file and I stared at the top of his head. It was no more interesting than the painted block wall behind him.
Sprake was a cod of a man: indifferent, grey, protruding cod eyes; featureless cod face; a cod mouth with a natural inclination to gape, no chin to speak of and a forehead that slanted back from his weak brow a little too sharply. The overall effect was of something bred for the sea not the land: aquadynamic. He was almost completely bald and short. Like most short men, I sensed he wore about him like a cheap shawl the air of someone who wished he were six inches taller and naturally resented anyone who was. I was. And more.
When he thought he’d impressed me enough with his importance, he looked up and snagged my eyes with his dead gaze. ‘Mr Booker.’ A cold fish.
It didn’t sound like a question, so I didn’t answer him. He’d lost my goodwill and any natural deference I would harbour for his position. As an interrogator he could have been his own worst enemy.
‘You know why you are here?’ That did sound like a question.
‘Only that you wanted to see me.’
He flicked his empty eyes up at Cash. ‘We want to talk about your aunt’s death and your uncle’s disappearance.’
‘Good. Me too.’
‘How was your relationship with both of them?’
One thing you could say for the man, he got straight down to what was on his mind.
‘What? What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘It might have a lot to do with it.’
The room seemed suddenly smaller and hotter.
‘You are joking?’
He shook his head from side to side slowly fixing me with those dead cod eyes, like something dying on the hook. ‘By your own admission you were back in Dymchurch about the time your aunt is believed to have drowned. We’ve confirmed you flew in to Heathrow when you said you did and we’ve traced the taxi driver who drove you to your relatives’ home. That’s all nice and neat for us. So we have opportunity.’
I sat stunned by his theory and his homework. ‘I don’t believe this. You seriously think that the moment I arrived in Dymchurch I attacked and killed my relatives?’
‘It’s possible, Mr Booker. Like I say, you had the opportunity.’
‘Possible and stupid. With that kind of reasoning anyone in Dymchurch at the time could have killed them if being around is all it took.’
‘Why do you say them, Mr Booker? Only your aunt is dead.’
‘You still believe that? My uncle’s been missing for thirty-six hours without a word. He’s dead.’
‘We’ll remember you volunteered that. What did you do when you got home and found the place empty?’
‘I already told Detective Cash.’
‘Well, now I’d like you to tell me.’
‘I hung about the house, went to the pub to see if they were there, came back home and fell asleep on the sofa. I didn’t wake up till the morning.’
‘Didn’t it strike you as odd that neither of them were there and you had had no word of them?’
‘Of course it did,’ I said, injecting as much incredulity at the idiotic comment as I could muster. A thought occurred to me. ‘I phoned them on both of their mobiles several times while I was travelling down from Heathrow to Ashford. Check their phones. Check mine. You’ll see that none of my calls was answered.’
He thought about that before changing tack: ‘You didn’t report either of them missing for how long?’
‘I called the police the following morning. I was told I couldn’t officially report either of them missing until twenty-four hours had elapsed. Ask your Detective over there.’
He looked at her and she confirmed it with a nod; something else that had been checked up on.
In the quiet pause that followed I said, ‘What would be my motive?’
‘I don’t know. Why don’t you tell us? Got any money problems? We can easily find that out.’
It could have gone one of two ways. I could have exploded at him, told him what I thought of his dim-witted policeman’s logic and got myself some trouble, or I could see it for what it was – a man without a clue poking at snakes – and rise above it.
Despite my strong inclination to push away from the table and tell him what he could do with his theory, I calmed myself with a deep, stabilising breath. ‘I understand that you are just doing your job. I also understand that you either don’t care, don’t have the time, the energy or the vision to look any further than that wart on the end of your nose for answers to my relatives’ disappearances. So why don’t you go back to your comfy little office, shuffle some paperwork and leave the search for answers to someone who gives a shit? Next time you want to speak to me you can drive out to Dymchurch.’
I did get up then. Let him see my height and resent me for it. I shot a dirty look at Cash – I had thought she’d been OK. I always had been a lousy judge of women – and walked for the door.
‘Got quite a temper on you still, I see, Mr Booker,’ said Sprake, not moving.
I stopped and turned to face him. I noticed Cash push herself upright from the wall.
‘What was that?’
He tapped the file on the desk in front of him. ‘Actual Bodily Harm it says in here. Your employers know about that, do they? I didn’t think there was a school anywhere that took on teachers with criminal records. Maybe Turkey just hasn’t caught up with the rest of the civilised world, yet. Maybe I’ll give them a ring and ask.’ He smiled nastily at me.
I bit my tongue, hated him and left.
I wanted to slam the door behind me. I wanted to kick a hole in the plasterboard corridor wall. I wanted to punch the first face that looked at me.
I walked out into the fresh air and with a couple of deep lung-cleansing ins and outs swapped it for the fetid foul gas I’d been breathing for the last twenty minutes.
Well, if the police weren’t interested in finding out what really happened to my relatives I was. And my reasons had nothing to do with acquitting myself from any half-baked suspicions of some lazy bastard detective who wasn’t worthy of his office. One thing I did know: Sprake couldn’t have been even half-sure of himself. He’d let me go.
***
11
I drove home the longer, less busy way – the same way Detective Cash had driven me home the previous day.
Opposite the Hotel Imperial in Hythe I pulled off the road into a parking area with access to the beach. The sun had finally broken through and it was almost warm.
I crunched over to the shingle shoreline for a smoke and a stare at the great heaving mass of secrets in front of me. Now the sea kept secrets from me. I waited and watched and listened.
The greater the distance of time and space I put between the police and me the calmer and more rational I became. I needed to be. I needed to be thinking clearly. Anger and aggression wouldn’t be any help.
I smoked two cigarettes, got nowhere with my thinking, went back to the car and drove slowly home.
*
I was making a sandwich when my mobile rang. It was Detective Cash. I was tempted to ignore her but rose above that childish inclination.
‘Yes.’ I tried injecting my disappointment, resentment and sense of betrayal into the single syllable.
She wasn’t interested in my feelings. ‘Mr Booker?’ Who did she expect it to be?
‘Yes.’
‘Are you at home?’
‘Yes.’ I was conscious of being monotonous and monosyllabic.
‘Can you come downstairs and let us in then, please?’
That got me. Still holding the phone to my ear I crossed to the kitchen window. In the otherwise deserted car park and at the entrance to the back gate two vehicles were parked: a white panel van and the car Cash drove around in. She was standing looking up at me, phone held to her ear. There were three bodies suiting up in the white coveralls of Scenes of Crime Officers. She saved me the question.
‘I have a warrant to search these premises.’
I didn’t respond. I terminated the call and, trailing my outrage and anger behind me, went down to let them in. I unlocked the back door and went through it to stand on the pea-beach. I heard car doors opening and closing, men talking in low voices then pairs of feet crunching across the gravel. Anonymous figures carrying little cases and bags traipsed past me without making eye contact. They walked in like they owned the place.
‘Wipe your feet, will you?’ I called to their backs.
I turned to see Cash finish a phone call and then walk towards me. She held my gaze.
‘This your idea, is it?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think I spend my life being perpetually disappointed and fooled by people who I should know better than to give the benefit of the doubt and my trust.’
It was quite a speech and, perhaps, a little harsh, but I had some repressed anger to take out on someone and she was in the way. Her jaw tightened a little and her lips pursed.
‘It’s his theory and he’s the boss. I don’t have to agree with him but I’m not stupid enough to get in his way.’
I hadn’t finished being petulant. I wanted to let her know I didn’t think much of her for holding out on me while we had waited for Sprake. ‘Thanks for the heads-up at the station by the way, Detective.’
‘Don’t be obtuse, Mr Booker. It doesn’t suit you. If I’d told you what to expect, you think he wouldn’t have seen it in your face. You don’t appear to have a talent for hiding what you’re thinking. And then where would that have left me? I have to work with him. Besides, if you had nothing to hide there wasn’t going to be a problem, was there? At least there wouldn’t have been a problem for you if you hadn’t jumped up on your high horse and ridden away.’
I took my rebuke like a man. ‘So what’s your theory?’
She looked at me levelly. ‘I don’t have one, Mr Booker. Yet. I try to resist the urge to form them until I have had a chance to gather the necessary evidence and information, intelligence and facts, and then examine it all and shape a logical, reasoned opinion. Don’t make the mistake of thinking all police officers think the same way.’
I took that for some kind of code that she didn’t share her senior’s view of events.
‘So why are you here?’
‘I’m here because I have a job to do and if you were to come out from behind your indignation and arrogance and try to be a bit more objective about this you might just see that, if you have nothing to hide, a thorough forensic search of the property could be to your advantage.’ That was quite a speech too.
Despite myself and my ‘indignation and arrogance’ I had to smile at her for that. She didn’t smile back. She didn’t have to.
‘All right, Detective. Do your duty then. When you’ve finished, I’ll be out here trying to work out what really happened to my relatives.’
She didn’t move. ‘Don’t you want to know about the injuries to your aunt’s arm?’