Salt Lane

by William Shaw

‘Who knows? Maybe you have. Only time’s going to tell. You did great. Is there anyone who I should be calling who can come and pick you up?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I can drop you somewhere if you like.’

  ‘No.’ Her small smile trembled slightly. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Cupidi stood. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’ll go then.’

  Ferriter nodded, and Cupidi was relieved to walk away because the constable was going to start crying soon, and she wouldn’t want her watching.

  DI McAdam was on the other side of the hospital sliding doors, talking on his mobile.

  There were worse coppers than McAdam. He was a good policeman, dedicated, efficient, intelligent; one of those men who thought of themselves as forward-looking. While other officers might complain about government cuts destroying the police force, McAdam saw it as his job to get on with it all without moaning. He was the kind of man who always came to birthday and leaving parties, bought rounds for others but drank only sparkling water himself.

  When he saw her through the glass, he ended the call and beckoned to her.

  ‘You were right,’ he said. ‘I arsed it all up, didn’t I? Bloody hell. They’ll hang me for this.’

  ‘Like you said, it was process.’

  As she pushed through the doors, he asked her, ‘What about Constable Ferriter in there? She going to be OK?’

  ‘Shocked more than hurt, I think,’ she said. ‘She took it badly when I told her that Eason might not make it. She thought she’d saved his life.’

  ‘Let’s hope for everyone’s sake she has.’

  ‘It would make life a lot easier, you mean?’ She took a gulp from her can, her throat still dry. There would have to be an investigation into what had gone wrong with the operation at Eason’s house; a fatality would make that much more serious.

  ‘Frankly, yes. If we can get him to stand trial and he’s guilty, then everything I did looks shiny.’ He looked at his neat black shoes. ‘But if he dies…’ He raised his hand to his head in the shape of an imaginary gun.

  ‘Can’t be that bad, can it?’

  ‘They’ll be asking why I surrounded the building against the advice of one of my own officers.’

  ‘You said it yourself. You had no choice.’

  He nodded. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Surprising. Tougher than she looks.’

  ‘Right,’ said McAdam. ‘I should go and thank her personally.’

  He looked through the glass at the constable. She was still dabbing her face with tissues.

  ‘I’d give her a minute, sir. She’s a bit weepy. I don’t think she wants to be seen like that.’

  ‘Ah. Yes.’ He looked back at Cupidi. ‘And the house?’

  ‘A mess. The fire’s out, but it’s still too hot to get anywhere near it. You could see the smoke in Rye, apparently.’

  They were replaying footage on the news now, too, the helicopter circling round the building as the flames licked through the tiles.

  ‘As soon as it’s safe, put the team in to see if we find anything that links Eason to the murder. Do you think the chances are we’ll find something, Alex?’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Attempting to burn down your own house is not the behaviour one would expect from an innocent man.’

  An elderly man in pyjamas emerged from the front door of the hospital in a wheelchair, pushed by a porter.

  ‘Some men find it a little hard to back down.’

  The patient in the wheelchair lit a cigarette. ‘And some women, obviously,’ said McAdam.

  ‘As soon as it’s safe to go in there I’ll see what I can find, sir. The evidence that links him to Hilary Keen’s murder has to exist.’

  ‘Thanks, Alex. Better get to it then. We’ve two murders on the go in this neighbourhood now.’

  It took a second for Cupidi to realise what he said. ‘Two?’

  ‘Weren’t you told?’

  ‘The man in the slurry pit?’

  ‘I’ve just heard that the preliminary investigation of the body shows significant bruising that wouldn’t be consistent with just falling into the tank.’

  ‘He was assaulted?’

  ‘I don’t have the precise details, but it looks very much like it.’

  ‘God. And thrown into the pit?’

  ‘And left to die, yes. That’s not the worst of it. The press have got hold of the fact that he’s probably an illegal immigrant.’

  ‘Being forced into a hole full of shit is not the worst of it?’

  The smoker in the wheelchair stared at them. McAdam took Cupidi by the elbow and led her away. ‘There’s a story going out on Meridian News tonight.’

  ‘Two stories on the same day. Press office must love us.’

  ‘We appear to be very much in the media’s eye. And that was the Chief Constable on the phone.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he was happy.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Her senior officer, normally so positive, so full of energy, looked weary now. ‘You may have noticed there’s a certain amount of interest in illegal migrants in this area,’ he said drily. ‘From your report, he appears to have been a Muslim migrant. More petrol on more flames. You understand the sensitivity. There are all sorts of people around here who love to stir that pot. So, hopefully we can wrap up the Keen death as soon as we can. If there’s forensic evidence in what’s left of Eason’s house, let’s find it and job done. Write it up. We already have the killer. We need the paperwork. Then we concentrate what resources we have on the case where the murderer is still on the loose. Can you do that?’

  Cupidi ran her hand through her hair. It felt greasy from the smoke. ‘Right. Course, sir.’ Though she wondered how much there was to write – or to find. They didn’t know how Hilary Keen had died, so how would they know what to look for?

  ‘There’s another possible crime scene in the Keen case. We know that she had lived in a caravan behind his house. Maybe she was killed there.’

  McAdam looked encouraged. ‘Good,’ he said.

  Eason had said he had towed the caravan to Sittingbourne. He might have been lying, obviously. Cupidi looked at her watch. It was three in the afternoon. If she went there now, she’d be late back home. Zoë would be on her own again. But if she was right, she had to find it before it was destroyed.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Alex. Were your ears burning yesterday? I met one of your Metropolitan Police colleagues.’

  ‘Did you?’ she asked. ‘Who would that be?’

  ‘What was his name?’ he frowned as he tried to remember.

  She raised her Coke can so he wouldn’t be able to see her face.

  ‘Superintendent David Colquhoun… That was it.’

  ‘Oh.’ She gulped hard, coughed on the fizzy drink. ‘David Colquhoun is a superintendent now?’

  ‘Recently promoted I believe, Detective Superintendent, running Whitechapel CID. Did you work closely with him?’

  She looked down at her sooty linen trousers. ‘No. Not really at all.’

  ‘Oh. He seemed to know you well. He spoke very highly of you, in fact. He said you were a talented officer.’

  ‘Talented?’

  ‘Yes. He said you were very passionate about your work. And I would agree with him there. It’s a good quality in a copper. He said I was lucky to have you. Which I am.’

  She looked up and examined his face for any sense that his words might mean more than he was saying.

  ‘Was that all he said?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘Should there have been more?’

  ‘No.’ There was an awkward silence.

  Excused, she locked herself in a disabled bathroom to wash herself as much as she could. Stripped down to her bra and pants, she stood in front of a sink and padded herself clean with green paper handtowels. Then she dabbed at the black smudges on her blouse. She looked in the mirror at herself, standing half naked in a small hospital toilet, urine stains on the floor, and sighed.
/>   Jammy David Colquhoun. Five years younger than her and he makes bloody Superintendent while she’s still a sergeant.

  TWELVE

  Cupidi found the owner of the breaker’s yard in the lot behind the office. He was wearing swimming trunks and dark glasses. A man in his fifties, greying hair swept back across his head, sitting on a plastic chair next to a swimming pool with a can of lager in his hand.

  The pool was surrounded by piles of old tyres and rusting gas cylinders.

  ‘Hard day at the office?’

  His leathery tan suggested he was out here most days during the summer. He fancied himself; worked out a bit. His stomach was flat for a man his age, his arms muscular.

  ‘Work, work, work,’ he answered, smiling. ‘What about a dip?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Cupidi,’ she responded. ‘I called you about an hour ago.’

  The man took a gulp from his lager, stood, slid his feet into a pair of slip-on shoes. ‘Like I told you, not much left. Hardly worth me buying it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He put the can down beside the pool, ran his hand through his hair. ‘Nobody wants old caravans. All we do is strip out anything that’s worth taking. Fridges. Cookers. Foam fetches a bit these days, you’d be surprised. The rest goes for scrap or straight to the tip. Hardly anything of value in there.’

  Cupidi followed him around the edge of the swimming pool. An oil drum, cut in half, made a barbecue. A fridge, presumably from one of the caravans, sat on a pallet, a long orange flex leading off towards the office.

  ‘All mod cons,’ said Cupidi, looking round.

  ‘Ain’t much, but it’s my slice of heaven.’ The man led her to a fence at the back of the yard and opened a small gate.

  ‘Here you go,’ he said. ‘You’re pretty flukey. I was planning on taking it to the scrap-metal merchant today, only the sun was out.’

  Parked in a narrow lane behind the property was a dropside truck. Stacked upright on the back were sheets of aluminium, strapped together with webbing and rope. A couple of axles, a rusty wood-burning stove and lengths of chimney flue lay alongside them.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yep. That’s the caravan, said the man. ‘What’s left of it, anyway. I cut ’em up, see?’

  ‘What about the contents?’

  He jumped up onto the back of the truck’s bed, looking down at her and rattling the sheets of aluminium. ‘Weren’t much else. Couple of books. A few photos. Burned those at the weekend. Lit the barbie with them. Spare ribs with sauce.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Cupidi.

  ‘It’s my job. Why you so interested, anyway?’

  Cupidi looked at him. ‘Because it’s possible that this was a murder scene,’ she said, looking at the remains of the caravan.

  ‘You’re having a laugh,’ he said, standing in his snug black trunks.

  ‘No. The caravan was brought in by Mr Eason. Did he sound keen to get rid of it?’

  A shrug. ‘Wanted a hundred for it. I offered him twenty. He took thirty in the end.’

  ‘How did he react? Disappointed? Or so eager to get it off his hands he’d have taken anything?’

  ‘Don’t know. Man of few words, as I remember.’

  ‘How did he get it here?’

  ‘Towed it.’

  ‘Do you remember the vehicle?’

  ‘Ratty old Land Rover.’ The orange one that had been parked in the yard.

  ‘So, from what you saw of it before you smashed it up, what kind of woman lived in it?’

  ‘Bit of a hippie, ask me. Woodburner. Dead giveaway.’

  ‘Who was in the photographs?’

  ‘Didn’t really look. When it’s a caravan someone’s been living in, it’s like house clearance. You don’t want to get too caught up, do you?’

  Sitting in her car on the breaker’s forecourt, Cupidi called the incident room at Ashford on her mobile. Moon picked up. ‘We’ll have to impound it. Get it picked up from here somehow. Though I’m not sure what we’re looking for. There won’t be any blood.’

  Was there even any point? She dug in her handbag for something to eat and came up with one of the energy bars she had bought that morning; suddenly she didn’t feel hungry anymore. She left it in the bag. ‘What about the man in the slurry pit? McAdam said it was a murder investigation now?’

  ‘The man had significant bruises on his body, apparently,’ said Moon. ‘It looks like he was assaulted.’

  ‘What about Ferriter?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re her friend, aren’t you?’

  A pause.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘She likes you.’

  ‘Does she?’ Like he didn’t know it already.

  ‘So I assume you might have heard from her.’

  ‘Yeah. She messaged me a couple of times. Think she’s a bit shook up, to be honest. Says she wants to come back in, else it will do her head in.’

  Still dressed in his trunks, the caravan-breaker was watching her from his office window. ‘What else? Anything new on Hilary Keen?’

  ‘We’ve managed to dig up some old arrest records from the eighties and nineties. And the dentist. The woman who treated Hilary Keen has retired, so we haven’t been able to speak to her. They’re trying to find contact details for her. We got him, though, haven’t we? I bet you we’ll find something that links him to her within the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re sure.’ As she turned the key in the ignition, something made her look round. Still dressed only in his swimming trunks, the caravan-breaker was running towards her shouting, ‘Wait!’

  He caught up with her, panting. She rolled down her window and turned off the engine.

  ‘Just remembered something.’

  In his office there was a large desk. While she stood waiting, he sat down on the chair behind it and pulled open a drawer full of papers. ‘Hold on,’ he said, still breathless. Rifling through it, he picked out a small, slightly faded, colour photograph. ‘I kept that one, see? On account of the caravan. It’s a classic.’

  She took the picture from him and looked.

  It was parked in a meadow; two boys, long-haired and grubby, sitting in front of it. It had been taken in late summer, around this time of year. The grass was long and dry, lit by low evening light. The oldest looked about eight; the younger maybe five or six. It was easy to see the similarity in their faces. They must be brothers. Shirts off, chests brown from living outdoors, the younger one sat on the step of the caravan, the other in a camping chair, both grinning at the camera.

  On the caravan was written, in green paint: ‘WE ARE WATER’.

  ‘Why did you keep this one?’

  ‘It’s a classic two-door, built around 1970, I reckon. Look at the lines on that. Beautiful, isn’t it. Still got the Royale badge on it.’ He pointed to a small winged insignia at the front of the white streamlined mobile home. ‘Royale Touranger. Not any of this modern rubbish. She must have liked it, too. It was pinned on the shelf above her bed.’

  There was a small mark at the top of the picture, from where the dead woman had fixed it onto the wood. She looked at the picture for a long time, fingering the small indentation Keen had made in it.

  THIRTEEN

  She was late home, tired, dirty, hungry.

  Tourists were sitting outside the Britannia Inn eating chips, basking in the evening light, seagulls padding around looking for leftovers. Artists had put their work out on displays by the road for everyone to see: paintings, sculptures made from plastic found on the beach.

  Everybody seemed so happy. It was tempting to join them, to sit down with a large cold glass of wine. Filch a cigarette off someone. Find some swarthy fisherman to talk to. Anyone, really, who could just tell her ordinary stories about their lives. That would be nice.

  But only this morning she had stood by a house where a man had tried to kill himself; time would tell if he had succeeded or not. Wine would only make her mor
ose.

  Besides, she had promised herself she wouldn’t drink during the week. And Zoë would be waiting for her, wondering where she was.

  Except she wasn’t.

  The house was locked. She let herself in to see if her daughter had left a note on the kitchen table, but she hadn’t. She called her mobile and heard a soft buzzing from upstairs. When she looked in Zoë’s bedroom, her phone was lying on the floor, plugged into her charger. The home screen showed only her own missed calls.

  Slumped against the doorframe she looked around the tidy room, bed made, clothes folded on the chair, her daughter’s careful drawings of birds on every wall. Was it normal for a teenager’s bedroom to look like this?

  Downstairs, she took a sheet of A4 from the printer and wrote ‘CALL ME!!!!’ on it, left it on the kitchen table, then locked the front door and set out again across the shingle, shouting her daughter’s name.

  A woman with a ponytail was jogging with her dog along the footpath. ‘Have you seen a teenage girl?’

  The jogger took out her ear buds. ‘What?’

  ‘Have you seen a teenage girl? Short hair. Purple streaks in it. Thin.’

  The jogger shook her head. ‘No. Hey. You were on the telly, weren’t you?’ She put her headphones back in and carried on jogging up the path.

  It was eight in the evening. Zoë must be hungry. Did she have money for food?

  Cursing, Cupidi got in her car and travelled the short distance to Arum Cottage. She was looking after it for the owner while he was away; nobody knew how long he would be gone. Sometimes Zoë let herself in here when she wanted to be alone. Cupidi banged on the door and peered in through the dark windows, but the house was empty. She got back in the car and drove around, peering between the beach huts and cabins as she drove. A rich smell of smoke and burning meat drifted over the promontory; people were having barbecues. Her stomach lurched. The smell of burning meat brought back this morning’s horror; Stanley Eason’s charred skin.

  A car had its limits here. Many of the shingle banks were inaccessible except in a four-wheel drive. A fenced track leading to the power station cut the place in two. If you were in any vehicle, you had to go out onto the main road and travel halfway out to Lydd before you could head back in towards the bird reserve.