Deep Waters

by Patricia Hall

  She turned the light out and closed the door behind her, leaving Kate to make the best of what would very likely be an uncomfortable night and quite sure that Robertson and his sister-in-law were not telling her anything like the truth.

  The next time Kate woke, a pale grey light was filtering into the room through flimsy curtains and she was aware of loud shouting in the room next door. The voices were male, one relatively quiet but the other full of an anger that rose in intensity as the argument went on.

  ‘I don’t bloody believe you,’ the more angry voice insisted. ‘I don’t believe that you and Bert and his wife didn’t find the money and help yourselves to it. They were living on Canvey Island right up to the flood and no one else has even hinted that anyone else on that God-forsaken island found it. It must have been you and Bert and Connie. There’s no one else. And Bert’s your bloody brother. If he’d stumbled on a fortune you’d know about it. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t.’

  ‘Is that why you killed him?’ Kate heard Delia break in, sounding desperate. ‘You’ve no idea what happened on this coast that night. You were safely tucked away in jail, well out of it. It wasn’t just whatever you’d hidden that got washed away, you know. Whole houses were swept away, whole families and all they possessed. If you’re still looking for your money you’d better start looking at the bottom of the North Sea, because that’s where I guess it is. You’ve no idea what happened that night. We all had much more to think about than hidden loot. If you left it with Connie and Bert in that flimsy chalet, it was washed away and they were lucky not to have gone with it. Everyone was fighting for their lives that night with water up to the ceiling.’

  ‘Which doesn’t mean you or Bert wouldn’t grab what you could,’ the more angry voice broke in harshly. There was a sudden bang and a clatter and the quieter man seemed to gasp as the other gave a howl of rage.

  ‘What’s all this stuff here then, Delia?’ he demanded. ‘All this stuff in this cupboard. Silk dresses, a nice fox fur, hats … God knows what all this cost. Very nice for someone who’s not supposed to have two pennies to rub together.’

  ‘Leave that, Sam. They’re mine.’ Kate could hear the fear in Delia Dexter’s voice as she pleaded with her former husband.

  ‘Sure they don’t belong to that sister of yours? Looks much more like her style. Fancy woman, Loretta. Is she back in the country? I thought she’d gone to live in Spain. Has she come over to get a cut too, you cheeky cow?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ Delia said quickly. ‘She left me some stuff to look after, that’s all. It’s been there years. It’s not the sort of stuff I ever wear.’

  ‘Wasn’t she married to that boxing promoter Robertson? Always getting his picture in the papers in a poncey penguin suit with Lord This and Lady That?’ the angrier voice broke in.

  ‘She was,’ Delia said. ‘But they divorced years ago. Just like we did, Sam. I’m not your wife any more and she’s not Ray Robertson’s.’

  ‘But that toerag Rod Miller worked for him, didn’t he, after he left Southend? Who knows what Miller told Robertson about what was going on out here before we got nicked?’ Kate guessed that this was the aptly named Bomber Barrett speaking, obviously consumed with fury. ‘He worked for that puffed up ponce at his gym in Whitechapel all those years. I was sure that bastard Miller knew more than he was telling us. He had to, considering he was working for your bloody brother-in-law, who just happens to think he’s Mister Big in Soho.’

  ‘Not any more,’ Delia said. ‘As I hear it, Ray’s disappeared and that poor beggar Miller’s dead.’

  ‘We made sure of that,’ Barrett said and Kate hoped that the sharp breath she drew could not be heard by the group on the other side of the door.

  ‘Never mind all that, Bomber.’ The other voice – which Kate now realized belonged to Delia’s ex-husband Sam – was obviously on the edge of panic. ‘You never know when to keep your mouth shut, do you? They haven’t done away with the noose yet, you know, in spite of all the chatter. They’re probably saving a special rope for you.’

  ‘What does it matter?’ Barrett said. ‘I thought you said it was all family here. Who’s going to grass us up for murder?’

  ‘You never had anything to do with Robertson, did you petal, after Loretta divorced him?’ Dexter asked. ‘I always thought you said she’d moved away. Spain was what I heard.’

  ‘I never saw either of them after the divorce,’ Delia said and Kate could hear the fear in her voice.

  ‘You’re a lying cow,’ Barrett screamed. ‘How come she left you all that stuff to look after if you haven’t seen her for years?’

  Kate froze as there were sounds of a scuffle in the outer room. She heard Delia cry out in pain or fear, or both, and Sam Dexter shout almost as angrily as Barrett.

  ‘Leave her alone, Bomber!’ he yelled. ‘There’s nothing to be had here. We’ve searched the place. The bloody money’s gone. There’s no point in more violence. How many people are you planning to kill anyway? Let’s go. Now!’

  Kate stood with her back to the door breathing heavily, knowing that if she was discovered eavesdropping by Barrett it would be the end of her. But Barrett seemed to be persuaded by Dexter’s argument.

  ‘We’ll take this cow with us,’ he said in more reasonable tones. ‘Where’s your car, Delia? There’s no way I’m going back over those bloody sands.’

  ‘You came over the Broomway?’ Delia sounded surprised. ‘I didn’t know Sam knew the way.’

  ‘Sam here persuaded me it would be best not to go through the checkpoints,’ Barrett said. ‘But I nearly ended up in the mud more than once. And there was fog coming down. We’ll go back out on four wheels. Give me your keys, woman, and let’s get going.’ There was a moment of silence before Delia spoke again.

  ‘It was giving me trouble when I got here,’ she said tentatively. ‘I’m not sure it’ll start.’

  ‘If it doesn’t start, I’ll take you across the sands and pitch you into the bloody mud.’ Barrett screamed. The door banged and Kate could hear him trying to start the engine, until the battery finally died and he came back in beside himself with rage. She heard Delia cry out again and Dexter protest.

  ‘Bloody leave her alone, Bomber!’ he shouted. ‘So we’ll have to take the Broomway again. It’ll be all right if you don’t try to rush it. It won’t be so dark now, so it’ll be easier. You just have to keep calm and move carefully.’

  ‘It’s treacherous out there,’ Delia said. ‘And it’s quite likely they’ll start firing on the ranges as soon as it’s light. If the red flags are flying, you shouldn’t go near. You need to wait for daylight before it’s safe, anyway, and for the tide. You’d be better off walking down the road and over the bridges.’

  ‘And be clocked by the army,’ Barrett snarled. ‘Not likely. Anyway, you’re coming with us. I’m not leaving you here to talk to the bloody cops. Where’s your phone?’ Delia didn’t reply, but Kate could hear something being torn from the wall closest to her door. That was another link with the outside world severed, she thought, and she wondered again if she would get out of this situation alive. She didn’t give much for Delia’s chances or her own if she was discovered. As she stood with her back to the door praying that no one would be tempted to open it, to her surprise she heard the sound of a car outside. Then a new voice broke in, deep and slightly husky, which sounded familiar though she could not place it exactly. The front door slammed shut hard.

  ‘Stop that or I’ll blow you away,’ the newcomer said. ‘I came to see you, Delia. I didn’t expect to find these two toerags here. It’s a good job I came prepared, isn’t it? Now let’s be quick about this. You two get over there, and keep your hands where I can see them while Delia tells me where Connie Flanagan and her boy are hiding. I reckoned you might be stupid enough to give them shelter out here.’

  ‘They’re not here,’ Kate heard Delia whisper. ‘I’ve no idea where they are, Jasper. No idea at all.’

  Of course, Kate th
ought, the voice belonged to Connie’s uncle. And judging by the ease with which he had reduced Dexter and Barrett to silence, he had come armed.

  ‘Come on, Jasper,’ Dexter said with a note of desperate appeasement in his voice now. ‘You know what we’re looking for. And we think Delia knows the answer. You don’t need to be waving that bloody shotgun at us. We’re all in this together, aren’t we? We were back then, and we’re still looking for what we’re owed. If you know who’s got that money, we can find it and share it out.’

  ‘There was a time that was true, but it’s long gone,’ Dowd said. ‘I’m not interested in where your bloody money’s gone any more, but if you start interfering with my family you’ll live to regret it. Flanagan’s dead, Connie’s disappeared, and her kids are God knows where. And now you’re threatening Delia. Get out of here before I blow you away. My finger’s itchy. You can be back in Southend before the shops open if you start walking now.’

  But Bomber Barrett’s reaction was probably not what Dowd or anyone else expected. The sight of a firearm might reduce most people to fear, but from Barrett there was a shriek of pure rage. Then Kate heard the sounds of a sudden scuffle and an explosion echoed round the stone walls of the farmhouse, followed closely by a second one before Delia began to scream hysterically.

  ‘Shut up woman,’ Dowd said, sounding unperturbed. ‘Now tell me where Connie and Luke are. Did they come here? Are they still here?’

  ‘No. No, they’re not,’ Delia said through her sobs. But Dowd didn’t appear to believe her.

  ‘Let’s just make sure, shall we?’ he said. And before Kate could move away from the door, it was flung open and she found herself facing the tall tattooed showman, who held a still smoking shotgun in his hands.

  ‘You!’ he said. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ He pulled her roughly into the living room, where the bodies of Dexter and Barrett lay sprawled across the floor in pools of blood and shredded flesh, and pushed her on to a chair. ‘Sit very still while I think,’ he said. Kate met Delia’s eyes for a moment but could see nothing but shock there, which she guessed mirrored her own. Completely frozen by fear, she could not think of any way out of the situation they found themselves in and reckoned only that now Dowd had killed two people he would hardly hesitate to kill two more if he felt he needed to. But Dowd came up with a more complicated plan.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I need to get out of here and those two need to disappear. We’ll put them into my car and shove the whole lot into the quicksands. It was nicked, anyway, so it can’t be traced back to me, and it won’t take long to disappear. Then we’ll walk out. I need you, Delia, to navigate. It’s years since I used that pathway. What do you call it, the Broomway? We’ll have to wait until it gets properly light. No one’s going to find that route in the dark. And you, miss, will have to come with us,’ he said to Kate. ‘You may come in useful if we’re spotted. And when anyone comes out here, all they’ll find is a patch of blood on the carpet and an empty house.’ Kate looked at him appalled. Delia might make it back to dry land with Dowd, but she doubted very much that she would. She would die on Maplin Sands, just as Bert Flanagan had done, and no one she knew would be any the wiser.

  NINETEEN

  Harry Barnard woke up realizing that the loud banging was not just the thumping in his head but was also shaking his front door. He rolled off the sofa, which was where he found himself, but he had no idea why he had slept there rather than in his bed, although he had a vague and uneasy memory that Kate had not come home last night. He staggered to the door and opened it, and to his surprise found a uniformed sergeant and a constable he did not know standing outside in the hallway with unfriendly expressions on their faces.

  ‘DS Harry Barnard?’ the sergeant asked. Barnard nodded, his stomach clenched tight as a dim memory of the previous evening’s events filtered back into his mind through what seemed like chunks of cotton wool.

  ‘Is it Kate?’ he whispered, but the officers looked puzzled and didn’t bother to ask who Kate might be.

  ‘We’re local, from Highgate, but your DCI wants you at your nick now,’ the sergeant said. ‘We’re to take you in to see him.’

  ‘Are you arresting me?’ Barnard asked, mouth dry and hands clenched.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ the sergeant said. ‘Let’s just say he didn’t give you the option to say no and he wants to be sure you get there.’

  ‘Jesus wept!’ Barnard exclaimed, panic threatening him as his head cleared enough to recall quite clearly that he had not heard anything from Kate for twenty-four hours and he had no idea where she was. But it was obvious that his colleagues from Highgate were not interested in any of that, and clearly the sooner he got away from them the better.

  ‘We’d better go then,’ he said, picking up his coat and hat from the chair where he had evidently dropped them the previous evening and trying to conceal the raw fear he felt. ‘I need to talk to DCI Jackson just as much as he needs to talk to me.’

  The journey into the West End passed in silence and Barnard spent the time trying to put his thoughts into some sort of order. He remembered getting home and he remembered his fear when he discovered that Kate could not be found. He also remembered Ray Robertson’s unexpected arrival and what must have developed into a blazing row which ended with Ray hitting him hard. After that, he had no recollection of anything until he woke on the sofa to the thunderous banging in his head and on the door.

  Walking ahead of his escort, he went straight to DCI Jackson’s office and found his boss on the phone. He glanced at Barnard with open hostility.

  ‘I’ll tell him that,’ he said to whoever was at the other end of the line and, although he waved the two uniformed officers from Highgate out of the door, he did not wave Barnard into a chair.

  ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have you arrested and charged with assisting a fugitive to escape,’ he said.

  ‘Because that never happened, guv,’ Barnard said flatly.

  ‘Pull the other one, Sergeant,’ Jackson scoffed. ‘Robertson was spotted last night close to your flat by a beat officer who didn’t have the sense to report it until he came off duty this morning. He was heading to see you, I suppose?’

  ‘He turned up unannounced, guv,’ Barnard said, his mouth like sandpaper and his head still feeling as if it was being assaulted by a cannon.

  ‘And you didn’t call in? You let him walk away?’

  ‘Not quite. As far as I can remember, it developed into a brawl. He hit me hard and I didn’t come round till this morning. He was a contender once, a handy man with his fists in and out of the ring. I wasn’t expecting it. I was about to come in to talk to you when our friends from Highgate nick turned up.’

  ‘So you say,’ Jackson snapped. ‘And what caused this alleged brawl?’

  ‘I told him I wouldn’t cover for him,’ Barnard said, almost sure that since he ended up unconscious that must have been what he had said. ‘I said I couldn’t and I wouldn’t. I told him to come in and talk to you about the alibi he claims he has for Rod Miller’s murder.’

  ‘Did he tell you where he was going next?’

  Barnard shrugged. ‘I don’t think so, but it’s all a bit fuzzy.’ He fingered his head and realized that not only was there a large bruise at the base of his skull but that his hair was matted with dried blood still oozing enough to stain his fingers red, which suggested that he had hit something pretty solid on the way down. ‘I was out cold. I didn’t wake up until I heard the local plods trying to bash my door down.’

  ‘You expect me to believe all this?’ Jackson asked. ‘After your history with Robertson? Did he arrive by car?’

  ‘Yes,’ Barnard said. ‘Well, I think so. Or maybe he said he’d left his car and come in on the Northern Line.’

  ‘Did you see a car? Make and number?’

  ‘No, I didn’t see one,’ he said, still unable to recall what Robertson had said about his plans. ‘He wanted to use my phone—’

 
; He broke off, suddenly feeling dizzy, and put a bloodied hand out to steady himself on the back of a chair. Jackson harrumphed angrily.

  ‘Sit down, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘If you’re as bad as that, you’d better see the doctor. You don’t look fit for duty.’ Barnard took a deep breath to steady himself.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ he said. ‘But there’s something else, guv. My girlfriend, Kate O’Donnell, is missing. I think she went to Southend yesterday, and she hasn’t come home. I was about to ring Southend nick last night when Ray Robertson turned up and I never got the chance. It’s been twenty-four hours since I’ve heard from her.’

  Jackson sat and looked at Barnard intently for a moment.

  ‘The Yard want you suspended now, this minute,’ he said. ‘That’s who I was talking to when you came in. But I want a medical report before we go any further. See the doctor and make sure he lets me have an assessment immediately. In the meantime, I’ll mention Miss O’Donnell’s disappearance to Southend. Twenty-four hours isn’t very long for a missing person, but she seems to have a remarkable ability to push her nose in where it’s not wanted, so I suppose we’d better make sure she’s safe. We’ll continue our conversation when the doctor says you’re fit to answer more questions. But don’t take that as any indication I believe a word you’ve told me about what happened last night between you and Robertson. You are skating on very thin ice, Sergeant. Very thin. Now get out before I change my mind.’

  The police doctor probed Barnard’s head wound with what he thought were unnecessarily heavy fingers, cleaned it up and inserted two stitches which he protected with a bandage.

  ‘The DCI tells me you’re having trouble remembering what happened,’ the doctor said. ‘That’s not unusual after concussion. I’ll report back and advise him to leave it twenty-four hours before he talks to you again. In the meantime, go home and rest and ring your own doctor if it gets any worse. Don’t drink alcohol, that won’t help. And don’t drive.’