A Dark and Twisted Tide

by Sharon Bolton

  ‘If that’s your best attempt at a polite ticking-off it’s not going to work.’ Alex put the tray down on the table. ‘She’s far too brazen to be warned off by subtleties. Help yourself. All cold, I’m afraid. We’ve both been working all day, but the bread is very fresh and that Brie looks like it’s about to run off the plate.’

  ‘It looks great,’ said Lacey. ‘It really was very kind of you to ask me over. And what’s this we’re drinking?’

  There was an unopened bottle of Chablis on the table, condensation running down it like raindrops on a window, but Thessa had mixed another of her cordials and, given the heat of the evening, they’d started with that.

  ‘Blackberry,’ said Thessa. ‘With a few drops of truth serum.’

  ‘Do tuck in, Lacey.’ Alex passed her a plate. ‘And just ignore her. Although I have to confess to being rather curious about the incident at Deptford Creek today.’

  ‘You saw it on the news?’

  ‘Thessa was out in that paddle-boat of hers and saw the police on the river. I’m surprised one of you didn’t run her under. She called me and I kept an eye on the local news for the rest of the day.’

  ‘Then you’ll know we found a body,’ said Lacey. ‘Not the first of its kind. There was another just over a week ago, one that I found when I was out swimming.’

  ‘You swim?’ Alex looked genuinely shocked. ‘In the Thames?’

  ‘I did,’ admitted Lacey. ‘Haven’t since then. I’m thinking of giving it up completely.’

  ‘Yes, please do. No one should be swimming in that river. That’s probably what happened to the two poor souls you and your colleagues found.’

  If only. Lacey leaned forward and added bread, cheese and cold chicken to her plate. As she settled back, she caught Thessa glaring.

  ‘What?’

  Thessa’s eyes went pointedly to the mixed salad in a carved wooden bowl.

  ‘Silly me.’ Lacey leaned forward again. ‘This is a work of art, Thessa.’ The salad was sprinkled with flowers, tiny cherry tomatoes and small, jewel-like fruits and berries. ‘Looks too good to eat.’

  ‘Nevertheless.’ Thessa watched, lips pursed, until Lacey had loaded up her plate and begun the process of putting leaves in her mouth.

  ‘You’d make a good mum.’ Lacey was wondering how much of the green stuff she had to force down before she could spread that rich, runny cheese over bread that looked as though it had been baked with walnuts. ‘Of course, you could be already. I shouldn’t assume.’

  Silence fell like a shower of summer rain. The breeze from the river seemed to have changed direction. She couldn’t hear the usual river sounds of traffic and water fowl. Instead there was a soft, almost musical sound, like water flowing.

  ‘Can I hear a fountain?’ she asked, when the silence became uncomfortable.

  ‘Yes, it’s coming from Thessa’s Koi pond at the front,’ said Alex. ‘There’s quite a collection in there. And to answer your question, neither of us have children.’

  Lacey kept the smile steady on her face.

  ‘I married very briefly, not long after we arrived in the country,’ he continued. ‘It didn’t last long and I wasn’t inclined to try again.’

  ‘There’s a bond, you see, between twins,’ said Thessa. ‘Especially identical ones. A closeness that I imagine anyone would find it difficult to break into. Alex’s wife always felt like the odd one out, I think.’

  It was on the tip of Lacey’s tongue to ask whether they’d all three lived together in this house and, if they had, which of them really – honestly – had thought it would be a good idea.

  ‘But you can’t be identical,’ she said. ‘Identical twins have to be of the same sex.’

  ‘Of course they do. I think my sister was just making a general remark. What about your family, Lacey? Where are they?’

  This was why she didn’t have friends. Friends asked questions to which there were no easy answers. Lacey stole a glance at Thessa, who was intent on the contents of her glass, but whose ears were practically flapping.

  ‘I don’t really have any family,’ she said.

  Thessa looked up. ‘Everyone has a family. Even us, although the chances of our ever laying eyes on any of them again are pretty slim.’

  ‘I was taken into care when I was quite young. When I grew up, I lost touch with my foster family and I have no idea about my real one. There’s just me, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Until you marry and have a family of your own,’ said Alex. ‘Which can’t be very far away, I’d imagine.’

  ‘Yes, how is that young man of yours?’ said Thessa. ‘Behaving himself any better, is he?’

  Lacey smiled patiently.

  ‘Oh, you’ll tell us everything in time. They always do.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘My sister has pet projects,’ said Alex. ‘Patients, usually. She won’t rest until she’s worn them down physically and spiritually with her combination of pills, cordials and relentless intrusion into their private lives.’

  ‘I consider myself warned,’ said Lacey. ‘But the young man in question works away a lot. He’s away at the moment and I’ve been rather surprised by how much I’m missing him.’

  ‘He’ll be back,’ said Alex. ‘Unless he’s a complete buffoon.’

  Lacey smiled. Alex had fallen into the habit of paying her gentle compliments over the past couple of weeks. Normally, compliments from men meant a sexual interest that she was always very careful to guard against, but she never had that feeling from Alex. His compliments were always respectful. They were almost paternal – yes, that was the only word for it. It was something new in her experience, the unquestioning, unconditional approval of an older man.

  ‘That’s not all, though, is it?’ said Thessa. ‘The sadness in you goes so much deeper than just missing your man.’

  Lacey glanced at Alex, wondering if he were going to jump in again, but he was unusually silent.

  ‘I was a detective,’ said Lacey, ‘up until a couple of months ago. It was all I’d wanted to be since I was young. But this time last summer I got involved in a very difficult case. I ended up right in the thick of it. After that, I was sent away on a job. It was supposed to be just routine surveillance, but it turned out to be anything but. I nearly died.’

  She looked from Thessa to her brother. Two sets of large, dark-blue eyes were unwavering. They were good listeners, these two. Too good.

  ‘I came back to London on the verge of leaving the police for good,’ she said. ‘I was a wreck. And the last thing I needed was another bad case, so of course that’s exactly what I got.’

  ‘You weren’t involved in the South Bank murders, were you?’ said Alex. Lacey nodded. ‘Dear me. They were particularly distressing.’

  ‘I’ll say,’ agreed Lacey. ‘So I gave up my career as a detective and went back into uniform. I just want to patrol, uphold law and order on the river, help keep London safe. I know that sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s all I can manage right now.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’ asked Alex.

  ‘I found that body. A week ago. And, as luck would have it, it wasn’t a suicide or an accident. It was something much worse. Then, this morning, another one popped up, practically on my doorstep.’

  ‘But you can’t be involved, surely?’ said Thessa. ‘CID or Special Branch or the Flying Squad will handle it now?’

  ‘No prizes for guessing who gets her knowledge of police operations from the television,’ said Alex.

  ‘The Major Investigation Team at Lewisham are dealing with it,’ Lacey explained. ‘But they have co-opted me back on the team because, like it or not, I seem to be involved.’

  ‘And that’s a problem in itself?’ said Alex.

  Lacey nodded. ‘I can’t be involved and I can’t not be. How screwed up is that? Sorry to be so self-indulgent, it’s really not like me.’ She looked pointedly at the jug of cordial. ‘You weren’t kidding about the truth serum, were you?’

  ‘You’re a
lot stronger than you think you are,’ said Thessa, without hesitation. ‘Midsummer babies always are.’

  ‘I was born in December,’ said Lacey. ‘I’m sure we’ve had this conversation.’

  ‘Whatever. The important thing is, you’re not on your own. Not any more, anyway. You’re quite right, you know. I would make a very good mum.’

  ‘Sometimes my sister is beyond ludicrous.’ Alex was shaking his head. Then he stopped, reached over and gave Lacey’s hand a quick, almost furtive pat. ‘And sometimes her instincts are absolutely spot on.’

  69

  Dana

  ‘SO HOW DID it go?’

  Dana looked up. In the reflection of the bedroom window she and Helen made eye contact. Suddenly stiflingly hot, Dana reached out and pulled the sash window open. The effort made her robe loosen. She waited for the breeze to cool her skin. It didn’t come. Outside the air was still and heavy.

  ‘I lay on my back in a small cubicle with my knees in stirrups and a nurse syringed the sperm of a complete stranger into my uterus,’ she replied. ‘If I think about it too carefully, I feel the start of physical revulsion.’

  The frown line between Helen’s brows had deepened. Even feet away, reflected in the glass, Dana could see it, like a short, vertical scar on her partner’s face. ‘Did it hurt?’

  ‘A bit. Not as much as childbirth, I imagine.’

  Helen was moving closer, but slowly, as though nervous of approaching too fast or too suddenly. It was unlike her, this sudden uncertainty. ‘I guess a big case will help take your mind off things over the next couple of weeks.’

  Outside, Dana could see a small brown bird on the lilac tree in the next garden. It started singing, a shrill, sweet sound of summer. Funny, that against the background of one of the biggest, busiest cities on earth, against cars revving, horns sounding, people shouting, this tiny bird was the clearest thing she could hear.

  ‘Except I can’t help thinking this case is about pregnancy,’ she said. ‘Lacey and the others suspect some twisted branch of the sex trade, but I’m less sure.’

  ‘No trace of that hormone, whatever it was, in the woman you found this morning,’ Helen reminded her.

  The bird was a song thrush. Smaller than a blackbird, with creamy yellow breast feathers, speckled with grey. It seemed to be singing directly at her now.

  Helen’s eyes dropped to the spot just below Dana’s waist where the edges of her robe touched. ‘Want me to bring a drink up?’

  ‘I shouldn’t.’ Dana’s hand went instinctively to her belly.

  Helen raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit soon to start acting the pregnant woman?’

  Suddenly inexplicably angry, Dana stepped closer to the window and looked down into the garden. The song thrush had gone. Just the sound of traffic now, an aeroplane passing overhead, an argument in the garden next door. Nothing out there as loud as the noise in her head.

  ‘Guess that wasn’t the most sensitive thing to say right now.’ Helen had moved forward too, was directly behind her. Dana kept her eyes down. ‘It’s just not in my dour Scottish nature to count chickens before they’re hatched.’ Helen never wore perfume, and yet somehow the smell of her skin and hair always made Dana think of summer mornings.

  ‘Are you angry with me?’ Helen’s breath tickled Dana’s ear.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  Dana took a deep breath. ‘Because I have to spend hundreds of pounds and beg for help from total strangers who couldn’t care less about me, not to mention suffering untold humiliation, just to get something that every other woman on the bloody planet takes for granted. I’m angry with you because you don’t have balls.’

  Behind her came the sound of a breath being taken and slowly released. ‘I can think of a few guys in Dundee nick who might take issue with that.’

  Still, Dana didn’t, couldn’t, look up. She’d had no idea how much rage was inside her. ‘Children are supposed to be created out of love. Ours – if we’re lucky enough to have any – will be conceived with a pair of stirrups and a syringe.’

  From somewhere a breeze had arrived. It crept its way inside Dana’s robe, stroking her skin.

  ‘No man ever loved his wife more than I love you,’ said Helen. ‘I’d say the rest is just detail.’

  As the breeze cooled Dana, she felt herself calming down. It had just been the heat. The heat and the frustrations of a case she didn’t believe she’d ever solve. She felt the tension in her body give way, come tumbling down like the bricks in a child’s tower. Either Helen had moved closer or Dana had leaned back. She could feel the warmth of her partner’s body through the cotton of her robe and it felt good. The cool of the breeze, the warmth of Helen and somewhere in between maybe, just maybe, the start of something new and incredibly special. Whatever unorthodox route it had taken to get here.

  ‘Do you want to get married?’ Helen asked, her fingers brushing the side of Dana’s neck.

  Dana held her breath, ran the words over again in her head, making sure they really were what she thought she’d heard. And then a giggle rose in her throat. ‘Are you proposing?’

  ‘Well, someone’s got to make an honest woman out of you.’

  The robe was at her feet. Helen’s fingers were running slowly up her right arm. Goosebumps responded immediately, turning her arms into a mass of pimples. Helen loved that, she knew, loved the feel of her dark hairs standing to attention. Sometimes, she ran her hands over Dana’s body just close enough to touch the hairs. Sometimes, she made love to her for long, long minutes before really touching her at all. She was three inches taller than Dana, just tall enough to have to bow her head to kiss the side of her neck.

  ‘Yes,’ Dana said, closing her eyes. ‘Let’s get married.’

  70

  Lacey

  LACEY SAID GOODNIGHT to Alex and then, accompanied by Thessa, walked round to the front of the house, where a narrow path led through a small, neat garden to the high metal gates and perimeter brick walls. The cooling temperature had intensified the scents of the garden, the rich, heady perfume of old-fashioned roses and the strong sweetness of jasmine. Thessa had been chatting, her usual mix of local gossip, folklore and nonsense, pointing out plants and flowers, when she stopped her chair abruptly, just ahead of Lacey’s bike.

  ‘There!’ She was pointing towards the back of the flower bed, to the tall, spiked columns that grew against the wall. ‘Blooming in your honour. Aren’t they beautiful?’

  Lacey looked at the spears of blue, lilac and white flowers, standing proud amidst the mass of greenery and colour. ‘They’re delphiniums, aren’t they?’ She smiled at Thessa’s quizzical look. ‘I like flowers. I used to hang around the flower market a lot, when I lived in Kennington.’

  Thessa looked politely impressed. ‘Do you know their common name?’

  Lacey didn’t, but she could hazard a guess. ‘Larkspur by any chance? Goodnight, Thessa. Thank you for a lovely evening.’

  She bent to kiss her friend on the cheek, the first time she’d ever done so, but at the last second Thessa pulled back.

  ‘I read up on that woman in Durham prison you were telling me about, dear. I didn’t mean to pry, but I remembered the case and I was curious.’

  ‘It’s all a matter of public record.’ Lacey straightened up and stepped back from Thessa, conscious of her chest suddenly constricting.

  ‘It was a sad story. Those poor girls.’

  ‘We don’t concern ourselves too much with the why.’ Lacey picked up her bike and switched on both lights, although it wasn’t nearly dark enough to need them. She bent to check the tyre pressure, although she’d never known it need attention. ‘We leave that to the defence.’

  ‘And yet, being a “why?” sort of person, I found myself deeply curious as to what would turn a perfectly normal girl into a killer.’ Thessa moved away, her chair crunching across the gravel. Lacey felt a moment of relief that was soon over.

  Thessa’s wheels
stopped turning. ‘There was a particularly insightful feature in one of the Sunday papers. I don’t know if you read it. Two sisters, brought up in care, subjected to a horrible attack one night, denied any level of justice.’

  She’d positioned herself directly ahead of Lacey on the path. There was no getting past her.

  ‘According to the story, the younger sister, Catherine, went completely off the rails, ran away from home, lived on the streets and then died in a river accident. She’d been living in a houseboat on the creek, not so very far from where you are now. Such a coincidence, I thought.’

  Lacey tried to look up, got as far as the blue and lilac pointed columns of flowers.

  ‘The older one couldn’t get over her sister’s death.’ Thessa was relentless. ‘She spent years plotting her revenge. She turned herself into a killer, constructed an elaborate and deadly plan and put it into action. Killed four women, nearly got a fifth, too, but she was caught. Does that just about sum it up?’

  ‘I knew Victoria Llewellyn a few years ago.’ Lacey had found her voice at last. ‘We were friends for a while. That’s why I was able to track her down, how I persuaded her to give herself up. It’s why I’ve kept in touch.’

  ‘Yes, I gathered you were the unnamed young constable instrumental in her arrest. And I’d probably have left it at that if there hadn’t been such a clear photograph of her accompanying the article. My dear girl, the resemblance is unmistakable.’

  Lacey watched Thessa’s strong, brown hand reach out and break off a column of deep blue flowers. Resting her hands back on her lap, she began to twirl the stem in her fingers and Lacey wondered if she’d ever be able to smell garden flowers again without feeling sick.

  ‘I simply couldn’t understand why nobody else has spotted it. But as Alex is fond of pointing out, not everyone sees what I see.’

  Surprise gave Lacey the ability to make eye contact. ‘You’ve discussed this with Alex?’

  For a second the shine in Thessa’s eyes grew dull. ‘No. These days Alex and I have more secrets from each other than I’d have once thought possible. But that’s why you dress the way you do, isn’t it? Hiding under those ugly baggy clothes. Why you never wear make-up, and always keep your hair tied back. Do you wear sunglasses when you go to see her, so that no one will spot that your eyes and hers are identical?’