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Same question every time. ‘Yep.’
Gary stepped on to the bank, then hesitated.
‘What now?’ said Ronnie, hands on hips, scowling.
Gary rubbed his hand around his mouth. ‘I dunno.’
‘They’ve probably left it and gone somewhere. Done a runner or something. Come on, let’s get back on our boat. We’ve gotta get it back to the yard. I don’t want to be caught up with loads of traffic on the A12.’ She turned away from him and began fiddling with the rope.
‘It doesn’t …’ Gary hesitated. ‘It doesn’t feel right.’ He sniffed the air. ‘It smells funny.’
Ronnie sniffed too. ‘That’s just the countryside, isn’t it?’
Gary put a foot on the other boat and knocked on the sliding canopy. ‘Hello? Anybody there?’ He glanced at Ronnie, then tried the door. It was stuck.
He knocked again, and frowned. ‘I’m just gonna—’
‘Gary. I think you should leave it.’ He was bound to make a mess of things and then they’d be in trouble. And she wanted to get out of there. Pronto.
Too late. Gary tugged at the door. It slid open. He stuck his head inside.
‘Ronnie, it smells minging in here.’
His voice, thought Ronnie, was wavering, as if he was scared, and all at once she was worried. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t go in, Gary.’ She shivered and looked around. Goosebumps. Why had she got goosebumps? There was nothing but water and sky and flowers and green stuff. Too much green; she preferred the concrete blocks of home. ‘Gary, come on, let’s go. We’ll tell that lot at the boatyard when we get back. Let them come out and deal with it.’
But Gary had already stepped inside.
Twenty seconds later he stumbled out, fell off the boat, and threw up in the grass.
2 (#uefcda61b-480a-591a-8ce3-26e5b31140dd)
Afterwards, Alex Devlin would associate the music of Wagner with the time her relatively settled life began to slip from her control.
The day hadn’t started well, beginning with a disjointed conversation with her parents, just as she wrote the last sentence of her most recent article for The Post.
‘Your father would like to see you, Alex,’ her mother said, her tone mildly censorious.
Guilt immediately corkscrewed through her. ‘I know, Mum, I will come.’
‘When though? You always say you’re going to visit and then you don’t. Here’s your father. Talk to him.’
There was the muffled sound of the phone being handed over.
‘Who is this?’ Her father’s once mellow voice now reedy.
Alex clutched her phone tightly. ‘Alex. Your daughter.’
‘Oh yes, Alex.’ He paused, and Alex could almost hear the effort he was making to form the right words. ‘When are you coming? Your mother says you haven’t been.’ Another pause. ‘For a long time,’ he finished.
‘I’m—’
‘You like balloon animals.’
She closed her eyes, hearing the note of anxiety in his voice. The making of animals out of balloons had been one of those things that they had done together when she was young, just her and him. It used to make her laugh.
‘I’ll make some for when you come round.’
Alex’s throat was blocked. The time for her father to make balloon animals had passed long ago.
‘The weather’s been nice.’ It was her mother again.
‘I’ll come over,’ said Alex, knowing she must.
‘Can you make it later? This afternoon some time?’
‘Of course.’ She looked out of her study window, and could just about see the sun glinting on the water of Sole Bay.
‘Thank you.’ Her mother put the phone down.
Her plan had been to spend the rest of the morning and the afternoon on the beach after having been immersed in the world of extreme couponing for the last few days. (Spend hours scouring the Internet! Browse newspapers and magazines and cut out vouchers! Organize your vouchers in folders and ring binders! Keep your vouchers handy in your purse!) Not exactly stretching the brain but it did at least help pay the bills. And gave her tips on how to save money at the supermarket, which was particularly appropriate as she was going to have to fill the fridge with food for Gus who was coming to stay with her in Suffolk. How was it that she spent a fortune in the supermarket (vouchers or no vouchers) and the food she bought was all gone in an instant as soon as her son turned up? Locusts could learn a lot from him, she thought. Still, it was going to be lovely to see him. It had been a long time. And thank God she’d finished that wretched article, and had sent it away with the press of a button. Couponing. Channel 4’s Cathy Newman she was not.
She sighed. It had to be done. No, she wanted to do it. God knew life had been hard enough for her mum and dad, what with having to cope with her sister, Sasha, as a troubled teenager – unsuitable boyfriends, self-harming, all spit and fire. Alex had done as much as she could, although she hadn’t been a model daughter either.
But it was so hard to see her once gentle father slowly turning into someone else. Early-onset dementia, they called it. A miserable twist of fate, she called it. And because she had found it hard, she had not given her mum as much support as she should have done. Her excuses had been her work, visiting Sasha in the mental health unit – anything, really. But it wasn’t good enough.
She looked out of the window of her study. The sun and the promise of the kiss of warm early summer air on her skin beckoned. An hour? Maybe half? To recharge her batteries, that was all. Then she would go and see her parents. She pushed back her chair and went to fetch a towel.
Alex settled on the sand, finding a comfortable spot where there weren’t any pebbles sticking into her skin. She was sheltered from the worst of the sharp sea breeze by the dunes.
The sun was warm on her face. She closed her eyes, feeling drowsy. A few more minutes she thought, though it was becoming more difficult to ignore the creeping guilt.
In the background, she heard the sea dragging on the shingle at the shoreline, mingling with the insistent barking of a dog, and children playing a game of volleyball on the beach.
‘It’s my serve,’ said a girl.
‘No, it’s not, it’s mine.’ A boy’s voice, younger. Brother perhaps?
A sigh. ‘Go on then.’
Thwack! The sound of the ball being hit.
‘Yesss!’
‘Oh.’ This from the girl. ‘Shall we call it a draw?’ she said.
‘No, you lost,’ said the boy.
Alex smiled. Kids arguing. Fine when they weren’t your own. She sat up and then leaned back on her elbows. A few hardy souls were trying to swim in the North Sea, their screams testament to how cold it was. A dragon kite was flying high above her. She was trying to clear her head – be mindful, as some yoga teacher had once told her – trying to think of nothing.
‘Ride of the Valkyries’ boomed out from her bag. Her phone.
For a brief moment she considered not answering it. But it could be anything – Gus finally telling her what time he was arriving (what was it about children that they didn’t realize you had a life, too, and to be able to organize it was helpful?), or (please God, no) something more to do with her sister, or maybe someone offering her work.
She sighed and rolled across to her bag, fishing inside until her fingers made contact with the hard case. She squinted at the screen, but the sun was reflecting off the sand and she couldn’t see a thing.
‘Hello?’
‘Alex Devlin?’
She didn’t recognize the voice, but all sorts of people had her number – it was how she often got commissions. ‘Yes, hello.’ She had her friendly I-can-do-work-for-you voice on.
‘I was wondering if you could help me.’ The voice was smooth.
‘I’ll try.’ She kept a smile in her voice.
‘It’s about your sister, Sasha Clements.’
Alex froze. ‘Who is this please?’
‘My name’s Penny, and I wondered what your reaction was to her being released from Leacher’s House?’
‘None of your bloody business.’ She stabbed at the screen and thrust the phone back in her bag.
She lay back on the sand, a knot of irritation tying itself up inside her stomach. And so it starts, she thought, all over again.Of course journos would want the story, want to rake over the events surrounding the killings for which her sister had been responsible.
And now Sasha was returning to society and Alex was to look after her. It was a chance to do more for her sister.
She was dreading it. And trying not to think about an email she’d received that morning about Sasha. It had to be a mistake, though, surely? Push it out of your mind, she told herself. Don’t worry about it now. Deal with it later.
‘Ride of the Valkyries’ again. She snatched up the phone, any pleasure leaching out of the day. ‘Go away, I don’t want to speak to you.’
‘Is that you, Alex?’ Uncertainty clouded her mother’s voice.
Alex suppressed a sigh and forced a smile onto her face. ‘Mum. Sorry. I thought it was a … never mind.’ Any mention of journalists or newspapers would send her mother into a right state. ‘I’ll be leaving soon,’ she said.
‘I was wondering if you could you go via Great Yarmouth and go to that Greek shop? I thought your dad might like some of the Greek tagliatelle he loves. And a pound of those special smoked sausages.’
Alex’s heart twisted. Her mother was trying so hard, but her father wouldn’t be in the least bit bothered what pasta or sausage he ate, not these days. And Great Yarmouth was hardly on the way to her parents – more like a bloody great detour. Still, her mum didn’t ask for much.
‘Of course I will,’ she said.
3 (#ulink_b6329665-516d-5d1a-85a9-64c5e9b3901a)
The road out of Great Yarmouth was slow, and Alex tuned her radio to the local station in time for the news on the top of the hour as she drove.
‘Two bodies have been found on a boat on Dillingham Broad in Norfolk, police have said,’ intoned the newsreader. ‘We’ll bring you more news as we get it.’
Her ears pricked up. Two bodies on a boat. Who? Why? ‘Come on, give us some more,’ she muttered, her journalistic instincts cutting in. She turned up the volume, as if that would entice the newsreader to give her some more interesting facts. Instead all she got was a story about a leisure centre being built on the edge of a Norfolk village and how Anglo-Saxon finds had been made at a wind farm site in Suffolk.
Only the bare facts then. Not even ‘Police are treating the deaths as unexplained’. Hmm. But then Norfolk Police were known for being cautious – only a few years before a couple had been found battered to death in their home but local coppers refused to say it was murder until all the ‘i’s had been dotted and all the ‘t’s crossed. Caution was probably a good thing, but it could go too far.
She glanced at her watch. Her mother wasn’t expecting her at any particular time, and a little detour to Dillingham wouldn’t take her that long. The story might be something and nothing. Or it could be interesting.
There was only one way to find out.
The countryside became ever more flat as she neared the Broads. The rivers and lakes of the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads had been formed by the flooding of medieval peat excavations that had provided fuel to Norwich and Great Yarmouth. She’d learned that somewhere. School, maybe? Or perhaps she had read it in a Sunday supplement. Today the watery landscape was home to a myriad of boats and yachts and old wherries and was a magnet for tourists wanting a relaxing holiday. The two on the boat, whoever they were, had certainly found relaxation – permanently.
She turned down the road that led to Dillingham Broad. It was lined with trees and very comfortable-looking houses with gardens that no doubt went down to the water. What sort of price they would go for she couldn’t imagine. Nothing she could afford, that was for sure. A few minutes later she reached the end of the road and pulled up on the staithe.
A small knot of people was gathered on the concrete apron looking into the distance. She recognized a couple of bored-looking journalists from the local papers and gave them a nod. A lone fisherman sat on his collapsible chair under a large green umbrella at the edge of the water, a rucksack on the ground next to him. He appeared unperturbed about the goings on around him. Alex shooed away the ducks and geese that came waddling towards her in the hope of food and, shielding her eyes with her hand, peered across the water to a line of trees that were almost in full leaf, and to the two boats moored up against the bank on Poppy Island. Figures in white suits and masks were looking busy around the boats. Forensic officers, she thought. Probably the pathologist was there too. She wondered how long the bodies had been on board and what state they were in now.
‘The poor sod that found ’em won’t forget his holiday in a hurry.’
Alex turned towards the voice with its distinctive Norfolk lilt. ‘Oh?’
The man had the tanned and weathered face of someone who’d worked on the water all his life and was probably younger than his leathery skin implied. He wore jeans that were slightly too tight for his stomach and a tee shirt designed to show off his biceps. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth.
He shook his head. ‘One of my boats, wasn’t it? Firefly Lady. And one of my customers who stopped to see what was what. Found the bodies. Or what was left of them. Then he came to tell me. I asked him why he hadn’t called the police and all he could do was look at me, couldn’t say anything. Shaking he were.’ He pinched the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. ‘So I called ’em. Gave the poor sod some brandy.’ He nodded towards the police boat. ‘Now they’re all over there, aren’t they? Coastguard, fire, police. Overkill, if you ask me.’
‘Where is the “poor sod” now?’ asked Alex.
‘Jim here said he’s being given hot tea. So’s his wife. Bloody tea. I ask you, what use is that? And he’s being kept away from everybody.’
‘Aye.’ This from Jim. ‘A bad business.’
A satellite truck rolled up, and a reporter looking like an eager young puppy jumped out.
‘Vultures,’ said the boat man.
‘Aye,’ said Jim, nodding before he spat a blob of green phlegm onto the ground. The ducks and geese waddled over again, looking eager.
‘Not nice for you being involved in all this,’ said Alex, trying not to look at the green slime near her feet. ‘My name’s Alex, by the way.’
‘Colin,’ said the boat man. ‘Colin Harper. Of Harper’s Holidays.’ He gestured towards Jim. ‘And that’s Jim. And it’s a bad business and bad for business.’ He shook his head before drawing on his cigarette.
‘I gather there were two people on board. That’s what the radio said. A man and his wife, wasn’t it?’ asked Alex nonchalantly fishing for information, still looking over the water.
Colin shook his head and threw the stub of his cigarette onto the ground, grinding it under his heel. ‘They might be a couple but it ain’t a man and his wife.’ He chuckled. ‘One of them was someone from London, young Eddie told me.’
‘Eddie?’
‘Copper. I’ve known him since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. Little sod. Said the stink was like nothing he’d ever smelt. Them bodies had been there for at least three days. Humming, it must have been.’
Alex winced. It had been unseasonably warm over the last few days. ‘Three days.’ She whistled. ‘Wow.’
‘Yup. That’s when I hired the boat out. They didn’t get very far, did they?’
‘And the other one?’ she asked.
