by J. S. Law
“Military police,” said Dan, making sure her voice was confident, unquestionable. “I need to know if there’s a yacht here registered to a Sarah Cox, or a member of her family, and where that yacht is now.”
The woman looked stunned, leaned back in her chair, and paused for a second.
Dan was preparing to tell her that the civil police were on their way, but the woman recovered and leaned forward, typing on her keyboard.
“I think Sarah came in to drop some stuff off a little while ago,” said the woman.
Dan turned to John, who was waiting behind her. “Go,” she said.
He moved past her and jumped the turnstile that led into the marina area, jogging out of view.
“She’s on berth seventy-nine,” said the woman.
Dan followed John, stepping out of the reception into the marina. Her view was good, and the level of the jetties was such that few vessels were big enough to obscure her line of sight as she scanned the wharves and walkways.
John had run to the far end of one leg of decked jetty and was looking around.
“Seventy-nine,” called Dan. “John, it’s number seventy-nine.”
She saw him react, looking around for numbers on the planking and starting to make his way back toward her.
Dan looked also; there were numbers on small signs attached to the railings. She headed right, toward the berths numbered fifty and above, jogging along the wooden deck, alternating between searching for numbers and scanning ahead for any motion.
There were slots opening up in front of her, gaps where yachts and sailboats should be but weren’t, and Dan wasn’t able to tell whether Cox’s yacht was still there or not.
She jogged quickly, counting up the numbers, seeing berth seventy-nine and exhaling as she saw a vessel berthed there, recognizing it from the pictures she’d seen in Cox’s office and home.
Dan stopped and looked around, then listened. There was no noise at all, no sign of anyone moving around.
“Sarah Cox! Military Police! Come out now!” shouted Dan as she moved closer to the yacht.
John was behind her now and she turned to look at him, weighing what to do. He nodded toward the yacht, asking whether she wanted him to go on board.
“Go,” said Dan, her voice quiet.
John moved close and jumped across from the berth to the yacht. His weight as he landed made the vessel roll and Dan listened again, wondering if that might have disturbed someone within.
She watched him track along one side, heading aft, and then saw him look down into the living areas below.
He looked up at her, seemed confused, and then stepped down and out of sight.
Dan never saw Cox step out from behind the superstructure of an empty yacht. She only caught a movement from the corner of her eye a second before she was struck hard across the back with something long and hard. The blow drove Dan to her knees and then forward onto all fours, knocking the air out of her, and she knew instantly, instinctively, that she couldn’t stay still. She allowed the momentum of her fall to carry her down onto her belly, where she quickly rolled to one side.
A loud thwack cracked only an inch from her ear as the long wooden boat hook smashed onto the decking where her head had been only a second before.
Dan looked up.
John Granger was there, back out of the yacht and approaching Cox, who turned, swinging the wooden pole hard at John. He tried to step aside and dodge it, raising his arm in a reflexive defense and taking the blow to his elbow with a loud, sickening crack. He yelled in pain, clutching his arm, and staggered back along the walkway.
Dan saw Sarah Cox cock the pole back, ready to swing at John again. She moved quickly, scrambling to her knees and grabbing Cox around the shins, pulling as hard as she could with both her arms to pull Cox’s legs together and then driving her shoulder into the back of Cox’s knees, trying to bring the woman down. Dan’s bastardized rugby tackle worked—Roger would’ve been proud—and Cox toppled forward, dropping the pole and falling in front of Dan.
Dan released Cox’s legs and tried to crawl up the woman’s body, trying to get close to an arm she could lock, or to her torso, so she could hold on and secure Cox until help came, but Cox was stronger, and much bigger, and she was desperate.
Cox lashed out, freeing her legs for an instant and driving her knee up underneath Dan’s chin as she fought to get away.
Dan tasted blood in her mouth. Her vision blurred as tears reflexively welled in her eyes and her head swam. She dropped her head down close to Cox, grabbing at her legs again and tightening her grip around them, just below the thighs. She was glad she did, as she almost instantly felt an elbow land hard against the top of her head.
“Get off!” screamed Cox.
Dan looked up to see John reaching down to grab Cox’s hair. He was using his left arm to force her head facefirst against the decking, his right arm cradled against him.
Dan took advantage of the distraction and crawled quickly up toward Cox’s head, reaching out and grabbing one of her arms.
But Cox wasn’t done. She arched up violently, twisting her whole body around to face John and throwing Dan’s arms loose. Cox grabbed John’s hand as he gripped her hair and twisted his wrist, then, as he dropped down to react, she released her grip and grabbed his right arm with both hands, the arm she’d broken with the wooden pole.
Dan knew it was broken, could see it even now, but she could do nothing to stop Cox from grabbing the injured arm and wrenching it toward her, just as Dan had done to David Simmons only a week or so before.
Cox swung off John’s arm, twisting and bending it as if she was wringing out a cloth.
The sound of bone and sinew tearing made Dan flinch, but it was soon lost to the animal-like howl that came from John as his legs gave way beneath him.
He swung a punch at Cox with his left hand, connected well, but it was only a mechanism to make her release her grip, and as she did, he collapsed backward onto the wooden walkway.
She knew she couldn’t overpower this woman in a wrestling match, and she knew that to win, she’d need to be willing to escalate the violence quickly. She saw Cox shake off John’s punch and turn toward her. Dan threw a solid punch of her own, aiming for the center of Cox’s face, trying to catch her nose, knowing a good strike there would fill Cox’s eyes with tears, send blood flooding back into her throat, and dizzy her senses.
The punch connected, but not well, glancing off Cox’s forehead as she flinched away.
Dan followed her punch in, using Cox’s own momentum as she flinched to push her back as Dan now drove her elbow toward the side of Cox’s head.
The elbow landed more cleanly, and Cox rolled onto her back.
Dan pressed her advantage, straddling Cox and throwing two more hard punches to her face.
Cox’s arms were up as she tried to defend herself, and Dan grabbed one of them, gripping the forearm and leaning in, trying to bend it so that she could twist it to apply a lock. She leaned forward harder, feeling the arm start to give beneath her.
Then, before she knew what had happened, Cox had twisted onto her side, driven her hips away from Dan, and used the space she’d created to raise her knees and push Dan away with both legs.
Dan rolled across the decking, sensing that she’d lose this battle if she didn’t get some space, but she was fighting a madwoman.
Cox was on her feet in an instant, twice stamping her foot hard onto the walkway, missing Dan’s arm and then her head by only a fraction of an inch.
Dan was still rolling as Cox lunged toward her, swinging a kick that caught Dan in the ribs and doubled her onto her back.
It was sheer luck that Dan’s head lolled back in pain as Cox’s foot swung again, brushing past Dan’s hair and narrowly missing her temple; this woman meant to kill Dan if she could.
Dan was aware of John now.
He was slumped back against one of the posts that supported a rope handrail. He was reaching out, though, with his
left arm, grabbing at Cox, gripping the material of her trousers near the thigh and trying to pull her away from Dan.
Cox screamed, a mix of rage and frustration, and turned away from Dan. She clenched her fist like a hammer and swung it down hard, twice, onto John’s forearm, forcing him to release her.
He did, slumping onto his side as she pulled away from him.
Cox watched John fall and Dan saw her tee up John’s head like a footballer about to take a penalty kick, drawing back her foot.
Dan rolled onto her feet and dived forward, driving both of her hands into Cox’s lower back and forcing the woman to lose her balance and stumble forward onto her knees. Dan was lying on the decking now, John next to her, and as she saw Cox look back over her shoulder, Dan knew this was a fight she might not win.
Cox reached out for the long boat hook again, standing up with it and turning toward them.
Dan scrambled to her knees, grabbed John’s torso, and, mustering all her strength, rolled both of their bodies off the walkway and into the water.
The cold hit her hard, but she knew what she had to do. She held on to John, turning him onto his back and dragging him away from where Cox was now standing up, the weapon held tight in her hand as she stared at them in the water, out of her reach.
Dan watched as Cox weighed her options.
She must’ve known that time was limited, that she couldn’t escape by yacht, nor could she deal with Dan and John as she’d have liked. So she stood motionless on the walkway, her eyes boring into Dan’s as she continued to pull John and herself farther away.
Dan wondered what Cox would do now that this route of escape was blocked.
“You okay, John?” Dan whispered.
His breathing was heavy and he didn’t answer.
“She’s got to run now,” said Dan. “She knows she can’t escape on the yacht, not now.”
“Okay,” John said, his voice faint.
Dan was still kicking her legs but was now holding them in the same place in the water between two yachts.
Cox smiled at Dan and walked back to her yacht.
New sounds were making their way into Dan’s consciousness now. Other marina users had seen Dan in the water and were raising the alarm.
Dan watched as Cox disappeared onto her yacht for a few moments and then reemerged.
People were pointing at Dan and John; someone was running down the deck of the nearest vessel to get to them. They spoke to Cox, who pointed at them before walking away calmly, as though nothing had happened.
Dan tried to tell people to stop her, tried to tell the men who were pulling John out of the water that they needed to call security, when she saw the first puffs of smoke rising into the sky.
An older man grabbed her arm, another next to him reaching for her other arm.
Their hands were tanned, the skin rough, but Dan could only watch over her shoulder as she realized what Cox had done.
She pointed to the yacht, made the men look, and then she dragged John behind the cabin of the small leisure cruiser they’d been pulled aboard as a fireball ignited on Cox’s yacht. Dan heard the loud whoomp of petrol catching fire as the pressure rocked every ship in the marina.
The heat distorted the air above the yacht as the flames engulfed it, and people ran with extinguishers to try to fight the blaze.
Dan knew that the dark billowing smoke meant that a lot of petrol had been used in there, that there was no way they’d save the boat, nor whoever may have been on board it.
42
Thursday, February 5
“I’m okay,” John said. “I just wish I’d blocked the boat hook with my left arm, there’s certain activities I really need my right arm for, you know, where the left just won’t do.”
“You’re gross,” said Dan, shaking her head.
“What? I meant golf and writing. Don’t blame me because your mind’s in the gutter.”
They both laughed, and Dan looked down at John’s arm.
It was in a temporary cast to immobilize it after surgery, too swollen to be put in a permanent cast yet.
“How long will you be malingering in here, then?” she asked. “We’ve got work to do, you know, proper work, and I need you back.”
“You need me back?” he said, frowning. “I call bullshit on that.”
“Well”—Dan paused and looked at him—“I’d really like you back.”
“Well, they’re operating again tomorrow, reattaching some muscles or some such thing, then I’ll be in a few more days until the swelling calms down and they put some kind of protection on it,” he said. “Then, eventually, they’ll let me go home, but I have to come back every day for checks. I can kinda feel my fingers again, so that’s good news, so they tell me, and the bone’s back in a good place now, like, where it actually should be, so all may yet be right with the world.”
“I’m sorry,” said Dan.
She slumped down into an uncomfortable blue plastic chair next to his bed.
“No, you’re not,” he said. “And I wouldn’t expect you to be. If things had turned out different, we’d be heroes.”
“But they didn’t turn out different, did they?”
He shrugged.
“Ifs and buts. I’ve never met a patient Danielle Lewis, the sort of girl who waits around and does things right. To be honest, if I did meet her, I’m not certain I’d like her much. She sounds dull, predictable, not the sort of person I’d enjoy hanging out with at all.”
Dan nodded. “She sounds dull as you like.”
“And,” said John, nodding toward Dan. “I assume that the panda jokes will all be stopping now, seeing how your chin makes you look like a chimpanzee.”
Dan touched her jawline gingerly.
“She got me good. Between us, we’d be like the Elephant Man,” she said. “It’s like we’re heading out to a fancy dress night themed as the guy from Goonies.”
They laughed.
There was a sound behind them and they both turned to see Roger Blackett come in.
“How you doing, John?” Roger asked, looking down at John’s arm but not yet acknowledging Dan. “You know we can bring charges against malingerers in the navy, right?”
“I already did the malingering gag,” said Dan.
Roger grudgingly turned toward her and smiled, but she could see he wasn’t happy.
“Anything more from the yacht?” asked John.
“Well, she was leaving. It was stored for a long journey. Torching it seems last-minute according to the way the fire spread. Seems she had a jerry can of fuel there and just kicked it over and lit a candle. The fire caused a lot of damage.”
He paused, then turned around and shut the door to John’s room.
“I’m led to believe that a body’s been found on board. It’s badly damaged, though they’re sure it’s a male.”
Dan looked down at her hands.
There was silence among them for a long while.
“People’ll say she was burying victims at sea,” said Dan. “That’s still what some people say about Hamilton.”
“Well, people, whoever they are, will just need to accept that it’s all speculation at the moment,” said Roger.
“Anything else?” John asked.
“There was a tattoo on the yacht victim’s body,” said Roger. “It looks very much like one Mark Coker had; I think we know it’s him.”
Dan shook her head, at a loss for words.
“Any trace of Cox?” asked John.
Roger shook his head. “She left her mark on you two, but nothing else. We’ll get her, though. She can’t hide forever, and she’s a remarkable woman, she’ll be noticed.”
“And Black?”
“Awake and saying very little for now. He’s a big dumb animal, but smart enough to lawyer up. The Hampshire police are talking to him today, but their, and my, gut feel is that he doesn’t know where Cox is. He’s saying she was blackmailing him, wanted him to do things he didn’t want to. I’ll let y
ou know if I hear more.”
John nodded and tried to sit up in his bed a bit more.
Dan and Roger both rose to help, looked at each other, and then Roger sat back down as Dan continued to assist John, moving his pillows and helping him settle.
“I could get used to this treatment,” said John, smiling at Dan as she adjusted his pillow.
“I wouldn’t,” she said, sitting back down.
“Dan, might we chat outside for a moment?” asked Roger.
He looked at John, who raised an eyebrow.
“You need your rest, John,” said Roger as he stood and opened the door, gesturing for Dan to pass through. “I’ll send her back shortly.”
They stepped outside and Dan saw instantly that Roger wasn’t just annoyed, or even angry, he was furious.
He turned toward her, the rage seething out of him, the words whispered, but through gritted teeth. His eyes were dark and wild, and Dan, though she’d known him more years than she could remember, stepped back in surprise.
“Jimmy. Fucking. Nash!” he seethed at her, leaning in close, invading her personal space.
“What about him?” asked Dan, recovering herself and leaning toward Roger, closing the small gap to show she wasn’t intimidated by him.
“You went to see him?”
“Yes.”
“And never thought to mention it?”
“I was going to. It happened quickly.”
“And pray tell, Danny, which investigation was it in relation to?”
Dan paused, thinking.
“I was following up on what Hamilton said to me when I met him. Following up on William Knight.”
They both straightened up and smiled as a nurse walked past and entered John’s room, then leaned back in again.
“An investigation you’re not on,” said Roger.
“It was just a follow-up, a favor, John knows him. We didn’t go in under official credentials.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“Yes.”
Roger took a step back.
Dan could see that his anger was dissipating, as it often did with Roger. His temper spiked and manifested in short but visual explosions, then quickly returned to normal, and that was happening now.
