‘The Raging Storm’ Chapters 43-48

It seemed, though, that Matilda did want to speak, just not about Arthur.

‘I heard there was another incident at Scully.’

‘Yes,’ Mary said. ‘There was.’ She looked straight at Matilda, challenging her to ask more questions, but the teacher’s eyes slid away, and when she spoke again, it was almost as if she was talking to the boy in the chair.

‘It seems that Eleanor Lawson’s gone missing.’

‘Oh?’

‘When the police turned up at her house yesterday, apparently there was no sign of her.’

Mary wondered how Matilda could have got that information. ‘Her husband’s just died. I suppose she wants a bit of time on her own.’

‘Of course,’ the teacher said. ‘I expect that’s it.’

‘I should get back.’ Mary wanted to be in her studio, working. The exchange was making her uncomfortable.

‘Of course,’ Matilda said, her face flushed. ‘I’m sorry.’ Mary couldn’t really see what there was to be sorry for. She didn’t understand what the conversation had been about at all. ‘I’ll have to get in too.’

‘Sure.’ Mary released the brake on the wheelchair, and turned it so Matilda could take Arthur inside. She had to shout to tell Isla again to go into school, because whose kids ever responded on the first time of asking?

Ruth Smale’s. I bet her girls do just what they’re told. First time.

Mary had read somewhere that well-behaved little girls often turned into teenage monsters. Wouldn’t that be great, if it were true? All the way home she fantasized about Ruth’s darlings falling prey to teenage pregnancy and heroin addiction, and then she felt guilty for wishing that on any mother.

She was just unlocking her door when she saw Jen Rafferty walking towards her. It seemed that today there would be no peace, no chance to become engrossed in making her art. ‘Are you looking for me?’

‘Please. I was hoping for more advice.’

‘I suppose you’d better come in.’ After the encounter with Ruth and Matilda, Mary didn’t care if she sounded churlish. Instead of taking Jen into her living space, she led her upstairs to the loft, the room she used as a studio.

I work too. My time is as precious as yours.

‘What did you make of the incident yesterday?’ Jen asked. ‘A bit odd, wasn’t it?’

‘Really odd.’ Despite herself, Mary was curious to know what the police had made of the empty boat. ‘There was no real sign of damage and the weather wasn’t that bad. And coming so soon after finding Mr Rosco’s body in the same place ...’ Her voice tailed off.

‘We’re checking to see if anyone saw who took it out from the marina. Someone must have seen it leave.’

‘I guess so. But in the middle of the day, and midweek, there wouldn’t be so many people down there.’ Mary paused. ‘It’s unlikely that it was taken very early in the morning, not if it was sailed straight to the cove. Dad and I were on the headland at lunchtime and we didn’t see it then.’

‘One person could have sailed it?’

‘Sure, if they knew what they were doing. But if you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t get into trouble on an afternoon like yesterday.’

‘What’s the most likely scenario?’

There was a moment of silence. Mary considered the possibilities.

‘I think it was done deliberately. Posed.’ A pause. ‘Honestly, I can’t think of any other explanation.’

‘Like Jeremy Rosco in the Moon Crest dinghy?’ Jen asked.

‘Yeah, but why would anyone want to do that?’

A silence. The room was lit by a skylight and Mary could see a gull, very white against grey clouds. Its beak was open, and she knew it would be screaming but she could hear nothing.

‘Bartholomew’s wife has gone missing,’ Jen said at last.

‘I heard.’

‘Who told you?’ The detective seemed surprised that the news had got out, disturbed even.

‘Matilda Gregory, when I dropped Artie off at school.’

There was another silence before Jen spoke again. ‘We were wondering if Eleanor could have taken out the boat.’

‘You think she had some sort of accident? Went overboard?’

‘That might be one explanation. There’ll be a team searching the beach at Scully today.’

‘They won’t see much there until mid-afternoon,’ Mary said. ‘It’s the spring tide, and with this wind behind it …’

‘Spring tide?’

‘The biggest tide of the year. At the equinox.’ Mary loved the magic of the tides, the suck and flow of them, pulled somehow by the tug of the moon. ‘It’ll cover the beach over the middle of the day. Right up to where the path ends. Even if they’ve already started searching, they won’t get far before they have to go back up the cliff.’

‘There’s nothing else you can tell me?’

Now Mary was losing patience. She wanted this woman out of her house. ‘Why don’t you talk to Sammy Barton? He’s a bit old school – he’s never really believed that a woman should be lifeboat crew – but he knows this coast better than anyone else for miles. And he grew up here, understands the people and taught most of them to sail. He might have an idea who’d pull that sort of stunt.’

 

Chapter Forty-Six

VENN WOKE, UNCOMFORTABLE IN in his chair by the range, just as it was getting light. He threw more logs into the stove and moved the kettle onto the hotplate to make coffee. If he’d hoped for inspiration about where Eleanor might be by staying in this strange old house, he was disappointed. All he’d achieved was aching joints and a sense of failure. And an obsession with Scully Cove. The place and the old stories surrounding it had drifted in and out of his dreams throughout the night.

He’d kept his overnight bag in his car and he’d washed and changed by the time Ross arrived with bacon sandwiches from the cafe in Morrisham.

‘So, what’s the plan, boss?’ He was speaking with his mouth full, too eager, it seemed, to wait until he’d swallowed. He made Venn feel middle-aged and stale.

‘I want to go back to Scully. Let’s see what’s been washed ashore now that it’s light.’

‘I thought the coastguard team were on that.’

They were, until they were pushed back by the tide, but Venn still wanted to be there, to check for himself. In the end there was a compromise. He waited until the coastguards had finished their search. He stayed in Eleanor’s house, the spider in the middle of a web, soaking up the information coming from outside, from Jen, and Ross, and from the team canvassing in Morrisham, becoming more frustrated as only fragments of news filtered through. Then in the late afternoon, he decided to move and he and Ross made their way back to the cove.

He made Ross drive – he was anxious about his ability to concentrate – down the narrow lanes through the overgrown hedges and past trees bent by the wind. Ross wouldn’t stop talking:

‘Are we looking for a body?’

It seemed to Venn that the last question was almost gleeful. Excited at least. He bit back a sharp response, partly because he had no idea why he felt they should go there. Why they might find something that the coastguard had missed.

‘Or a cold and tired woman,’ he said. Though after a night and a day, and the blood in the bath, he knew that was unlikely. Venn wondered why he was so keen to go. Perhaps because he hoped to see himself as Eleanor’s saviour, the white knight galloping to the rescue. Perhaps she’d become his own means to redemption.

When they arrived at the top of the cliff path at Scully, there was building cloud and a chill breeze. They parked in the layby and walked through the scrubby thicket of hawthorn and elder until they reached the path down the cliff towards the cove. Ross wasn’t dressed for the weather and started moaning before they were halfway down.

Venn thought that if Eleanor had been in the boat and somehow found her way ashore, she’d already have had a night in the open air. She’d be freezing and miserable. If he’d been thinking more rationally, they’d have come prepared with blankets and a flask of coffee. He’d have allowed Ross to get a coat and boots before setting out. Besides, this was a fool’s errand. A fantasy, stirred by the superstition surrounding the place. If Eleanor had found her way ashore, the coastguard would have found her. Still, he was pulled back to the place. In his gut, he knew that it was important.

There were signs of the search party on the beach: boot marks on the wet sand below the tideline. Ross wanted to turn back immediately. ‘You can see that it’s already been searched. We’ve no phone signal down here. The team’s got no way of getting in touch if she does turn up.’ He made a show of shivering. He too thought this was a waste of time.

‘Now we’re here, let’s do the thing properly. We didn’t see Lawson’s body at first, when I was here with Jonathan. It was around the cliff on that narrow beach at the edge of the bay. If the tide was still up when the coastguard came, they wouldn’t be able to make their way there.’ It was low water now. Rocks were exposed that would only be seen at a spring tide. But the tide was already on the turn, and soon the sea would slide up the cove again. They had to take their opportunity.

Venn started to clamber across, following the path that Jonathan had taken. He heard Ross, splashing and cursing behind him, and allowed himself a smile, before thinking that he should be more charitable.

All trace of Lawson’s body, and the investigators’ work, had disappeared, swept away by the high autumn tide. There was no space between the tideline, marked by seaweed, the white bones of driftwood and the glints of sea glass, and the bottom of the cliff. They walked along it. Venn poked at the kelp with his boot, more he realized to slow their progress and to annoy Ross than in the hope of finding anything. From here, there was no view of the path, and Venn was aware that the tide was already turning. In a couple of hours, they would have to retreat to the shingle beach and begin their climb back. He might as well admit to Ross and to himself now that this had been a wild goose chase.

There was a sound above them. They were so close to the cliff bottom and the grey granite was so steep that it was impossible to get a glimpse of what might be happening there. If anyone was at the top, the angle prevented them from being seen. Venn stepped further away towards the water, and looked up in the hope of a better view. He became aware of a movement and thought he could see a figure, shadowy in the fading light. Then he told himself that he was being melodramatic, was seeing ghosts, affected by the superstition surrounding the place, by his almost sleepless night in Eleanor’s house.

The boulder, though, was no figment of his imagination. While Venn had been focused on the person above, a rock, so big that it could have been quarried from the Greystone works, must have bounced down the grassy, sloping, upper reaches of the cliff and now was in freefall from an overhang. Venn started to shout a warning, but it was already too late. As he watched in horror, too far now from Ross to throw him to safety, the boulder hit the man on his shoulder and felled him. Ross crumpled, and collapsed onto the shore, his head hitting the seaweed-covered rocks. For a brief moment, there was no noise and no movement.

Venn started to clamber towards his colleague, but had only moved a few steps when more rocks followed. A trickle became an avalanche. It was as if the cliff was collapsing in on itself and falling towards the shore. Venn stepped further back from the onslaught and found the water almost covering his boots. The tide would be sweeping in very quickly soon. He looked up at the clifftop but the shower of rocks blurred his view.

Suddenly everything was still. The avalanche, if that was what it had been, stopped as suddenly as it had started. Ross was lying motionless. Venn climbed towards him, panicking, thinking he must be dead and knowing that he was responsible. He didn’t see the final boulder until the last moment, and then his boot was caught in a cleft in the rock. He couldn’t shift out of the way in time. It hit him in the chest, and he lost balance and fell.

+++

He was woken by the water lapping his cheek. The approaching tide, icy cold. He must have lost consciousness for a while, but despite the headache and the nausea, he found that he was already thinking clearly. The stone that hit him had been hurled out from the clifftop. Aimed. It hadn’t rolled and bounced like the others. The person throwing must have been a good shot. Or been lucky. Venn thought that he’d been lucky too – if the stone had hit his head, he would surely be dead. Because he’d been standing away from the cliff, the earlier tumbling rocks had missed him. He sat up, and the world swam for a moment and then settled. Ross was further away from the water, safe from drowning but lying still. Venn scrambled to the man’s side, felt for a pulse, and began to breathe again when he realized that his sergeant was alive.

One of Ross’s legs was pinned down by a mound of boulders. Venn started to move them and saw that the bone was broken and twisted. Ross stirred, groaned. Opened his eyes. They were hazy, unfocused and he closed them again almost immediately. Venn had fallen with his face towards the sea, and his clothes were still mostly dry. He took off his jacket and put it over Ross.

All the time he was thinking. Here, in the growing dusk, his mind was startlingly clear. This was meant to look like an accident. A rockfall. It must happen all the time. Fissures in the cliff weakened by frost or storm would cause a mini-avalanche. But this was no accident. Venn could picture the boulder thrown towards him. No rockfall would send a boulder flying out like that.

Fuelled by superstition, the locals would believe the theory, though. Two detectives, drowned while they were investigating the suicide of a man who’d killed himself in the same spot. An unlucky place. They’d put it down to supernatural influences, to the skulls and the bones and the white, white light. But Venn had stopped quite believing in the supernatural when he’d renounced his faith at eighteen.

He and Ross were still alive, however, and whoever had let loose the rockfall couldn’t be sure that they were dead. Surely the killer would check. Venn couldn’t do anything now, while the tide was coming in and getting higher by the minute. He was stranded. Even if he waded, it wouldn’t be safe to make his way to the cliff path to get help for Ross. He thought the killer would be waiting too, and they’d know the tides better than he did. They’d make their way down the cliff as soon as the water started to ebb again. They’d want to make sure that neither of the detectives were living to tell the story.

 

Chapter Forty-Seven

JEN SPENT THE AFTERNOON in Morrisham with a team of uniformed officers, checking for witnesses who might have seen the Scully Maid leave the day before. While they moved along the promenade, talking to the dog-walkers and runners, she stood at the entrance to the marina. It would be other sailors who would have noticed the boat go out, not passers-by who knew nothing of the sea.

An older, grey-haired man unlocked the gate onto the pontoon, and started making his way along to his mooring. He was wearing baggy jeans and a threadbare jersey, heavy boots and carrying what looked like a bag of tools. She called him back, and introduced herself.

‘One of these boats belong to you?’

‘Ha! As if I could afford one of these. I’m just doing a bit of work on this beauty. Tarting it up for the owner, like.’ He nodded fondly towards a gleaming hull.

‘One was found anchored off Scully Cove yesterday. Empty. Were you working here then?’

He nodded. ‘I came around lunchtime.’

‘Did you see anything go out?’

‘One or two. Making the most of it while the wind had dropped.’

‘I’m interested in the Scully Maid.’

He looked up sharply. ‘Belonged to the commodore? He’s dead, you know. It wouldn’t have been him.’ His accent was so thick that she struggled to understand him, and he looked at her as if she was from another planet.

‘I know he’s dead. But his boat ended up in the cove so somebody took it out. Any idea who that might have been?’

‘Could have been the bloke in the hat.’ A pause. ‘Must have been him, because nobody else came this side of the marina. And that’s where the Scully Maid was moored.’

‘Which bloke?’ She was almost wishing she had Ross with her. He was good with the locals.

‘Came along in the afternoon. I started chatting, but he just walked on. Rude really. Odd because most of the owners don’t mind a natter.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Like I said, he was wearing a hat. Woollen. Dark blue. I didn’t really see his face. He walked so quickly he had his back to me before I had a chance to look.’

‘It definitely was a man? It couldn’t have been a woman?’

‘Nah. Wrong build. And the way he was walking. Heavy.’ He paused. ‘And he was wearing boots. Rubber sea boots. His feet were too big. Couldn’t have been a lady.’

So, Eleanor hadn’t taken the boat out herself.

The man started to walk on. She called after him again. ‘One last question!’

‘What now? I’ve got work to do.’

‘Was he carrying anything? Your man in the hat?’

He stopped in his tracks, thinking for a moment. ‘He had a bag. One of those black plastic bin bags. Heavy duty you’d use for rubble or garden waste. Might have been planning to dump it overboard. Save paying for the tip. But I don’t know what he had inside. Could have been anything.’

+++

Excited, Jen phoned Matthew and Ross, but she received no answer. They must be somewhere with poor reception. They’d talked about going down to Scully Cove, but they should be back by now.

She headed back to Greystone. It seemed even more sensible now to follow up Mary Ford’s suggestion to talk to Sammy Barton – he might recognize the description of the man with the hat – and Venn and May might be there. She parked outside the Maiden’s. It was darker than it should have been. Only early evening, but there was a mountain of low cloud and the first spots of rain. The wind making a noise around the chimney pots. There’d been the forecast of another deep low coming in from the Atlantic. She drove slowly through the village, but there was no sign of Venn’s car. Perhaps he’d given up and gone back to Jonathan, and she’d had a wasted trip. She could have gone straight home, enjoyed the peace of an evening with a bottle of wine and crap telly; she could have invited Cynthia to join her. She phoned the mobile again. The same message. She tried Matthew’s landline. Jonathan answered.

‘Nah, he’s not here. He stayed in Eleanor Lawson’s house last night and I’ve not heard from him since lunchtime. Everything okay?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘All fine.’ Because what was the point of ruining Jonathan’s evening by making him anxious too?

Out of the vehicle, she hesitated, wondering if she should be worried about Matthew, if she should alert the team to look for him. But he was with Ross, and they were adults. What could have happened? The wind was increasing and she pulled up the hood of her coat, hiding her red hair, making herself as anonymous as she could. She couldn’t face questions from the locals about the progress of the investigation. Walking past the Maiden’s Prayer, she glimpsed in. The door was a little ajar, and she could see a couple of elderly men in the bar, with Harry Carter behind it. No sign of Ross or the boss.

There was a light on in the doctor’s surgery, and, as she walked past, Jen saw Matilda Gregory and Ruth Smale inside, so deep in conversation that they wouldn’t have noticed her, even if her face hadn’t been half hidden by the hood. Matilda was crying, and Ruth had her arm around her friend. There was no sign of the doctor. Surgery must be over, because the reception desk was unmanned. There was no sign of Ruth’s kids either, so presumably Peter Smale was at home babysitting. Rows of strange knitted animals stared down at the scene, a weird audience to the theatre playing out below.

Jen walked on past to allow herself time to decide what to do next. While there seemed to be some drama happening between the women, she thought there was no certainty that it concerned the murders. Jen had spent enough time at the school gate to know that some women enjoyed a little excitement, and could create it out of nothing. She paused on the corner of the street, with its view of the quay and the lifeboat station, the tide breaking over the shingle, and tried to work out whether she should talk to these women, who were on the edge of the investigation, or whether the conversation would be a distraction.

Before she could make up her mind, the light in the surgery was switched off and both Ruth and Matilda appeared on the pavement. Just in the way that they made their way up the street, Jen had the sense that they’d come to a decision, and were determined on some course of action.

Curious, she was tempted to follow them, but she continued walking down the quay towards Sammy Barton’s house. Her phone rang. There was a moment of relief. It must be Venn. They might meet up for dinner and she could pass on the news from Morrisham marina.

It was Jonathan on the end of the line. ‘I’ve tried to call Matthew but he’s still not answering. Busy, I guess. I’ve been with Guy, the teacher at Morrisham High. He was able to identify those kids in the photo he found in Rosco’s flat. I thought it might be important. Can you pass on the message?’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘No probs.’ But a worm of unease had squirmed its way into her head and it wouldn’t come out.

 

Chapter Forty-Eight

ROSS WAS CONSCIOUS ALMOST all the time now, but obviously in such pain that he drifted off occasionally, scaring Venn until he came back to life, groaning and swearing. Venn sat with him, trying to shelter him from the weather with his body, but wary and frustrated. He needed to get Ross treatment, but with no phone signal and trapped by the tide that had already reached the spur of cliff separating them from the main cove, there was nothing he could do. It was dark now, but as soon as the water was low enough, he’d get up the cliff and phone for an ambulance, even taking the risk of bumping into the killer. Because Venn still thought that the killer would need to know that the detectives were dead. At some point they’d be here to check.

We must be close to an answer, Venn thought, for them to risk killing us. Or they must be mad. He shivered, and thought the cold must be stopping him thinking this through properly. His mind slid over possible outcomes, not coming to grips with anything substantial or real.

When the light appeared, it came not from the land as he’d been expecting, but from the sea.

Of course, Venn thought, the killer wouldn’t wait for the tide to go out before coming to find us. This part of the world, the sea is the natural way to travel. It came to him that their only chance was to play dead, to hope the attacker wouldn’t come too close, that seeing the bodies would be enough. Ross seemed to be sleeping. Venn took his jacket from his constable and put it back on, then lay where he’d fallen after the boulder had hit him. The tide was ebbing now, but his head and shoulders were still in the shallows. He tried not to move, even when the cold seeped through his clothes, and he prayed to a God in whom he no longer believed that Ross too would keep still and quiet.

There was the hum of an engine. They weren’t creeping in. He supposed they’d see no point in silence if their victims were already dead, and if they were alive, there was no place yet for them to escape. Then the engine stopped and all he could hear was the lapping of waves on the shore. If it weren’t for the light, he’d believe he was imagining it all. As the light came closer, he heard the splash of oars in the water. And then voices. He strained to listen but couldn’t make out what was being said. There was more than one person then, and neither was making any effort to be quiet. Quite the reverse. He became aware of another sound: the keel scraping against the shingle and then a woman’s voice shouted his name.

‘Matthew! Are you there?’

It was Jen Rafferty, Scouse and miraculous. He sat up awkwardly, raised his hand and was blinded by the white light of her torch. ‘Yes! We’re here!’

+++

Jen was carrying dry clothes, blankets and flasks of coffee. She started to take his wet jacket off, and then his jersey. Her hands were on his skin. He was still disorientated and thought he’d never been so intimate with a woman close to his own age.

‘No!’ He could hear the panic in his voice. ‘We need to help Ross. He’s badly hurt.’

‘Sammy’s done the first responder training.’ Jen’s voice was gentle. ‘He’s checking him out.’

There were a few moments when the only sound came from the waves on the shore.

‘There are a few bones broken,’ Sammy said. ‘But we need to move him. Quickly. He’s cold already and hypothermia could kill him.’

Venn finished putting on the dry shirt and jumper. They must have belonged to Barton because they were too big. The jumper was hand-knitted, the wool a little scratchy on his skin. He turned down the tracksuit bottoms. He’d rather be wet and cold than be seen in those.

Gently they lifted Ross into the boat. Again, he seemed to slide in and out of consciousness.

‘What made you come to look for us?’

‘You’ve always said this place was important and we knew where you were heading for. It’s not like you to be out of touch for so long; you trained us to maintain contact. Mary suggested I talk to Sammy about the Scully Maid. She thought he might know who could have sailed her and how she came to be abandoned. I tried phoning again while I was chatting to him, but you still weren’t picking up, so I asked if there was some way to try and find you.’ Jen made it all sound very simple. Very normal. ‘We didn’t want the whole of Greystone knowing what was happening so we decided against the lifeboat.’ After the drama and anxiety of the previous hours, her calm explanation was just what Venn needed.

Barton was standing in the shallow water, holding on to the boat, the water lapping around his long rubber boots. ‘We need to get this chap back to Greystone. The doctor will be waiting for us.’

‘Smale?’

‘Yeah. We work with him all the time. He’s on standby. He doesn’t know all the details, of course, but he’ll have realized it’s not a usual lifeboat shout.’ Barton looked across to Venn. ‘That is okay?’

Venn thought for a moment, but then he nodded. Getting Ross treated was the most urgent priority. ‘Sure.’

He stood at the water’s edge while Barton settled Ross as well as he could in the dinghy. His headtorch moved, throwing weird shadows, picking up odd details, but it seemed to Venn that, warmer and drier, the sergeant must already be more comfortable. Matthew turned to Jen. ‘Any news on Eleanor?’

‘Nothing. Jonathan phoned, though, with some news for you.’ She passed on the message about the photo of the teenagers. ‘That’s the real reason why we came. It seemed very odd that you hadn’t been in touch with him.’

‘You coming then? I want to get this chap back,’ Barton interrupted, impatient.

‘Someone tried to kill us.’ Venn was still talking to Jen. ‘The rockfall wasn’t an accident and we were deliberately targeted. I think they’ll come back to check that we’re dead. I want to be here to see.’

‘We could have people staked out at the top of the cliff.’ She was horrified. ‘No need to have you here as a kind of decoy.’

But Venn had already thought through the options. He shouted to Barton. ‘How long until the tide goes out far enough so someone could get round the cliff to where we were lying?’

‘An hour if you didn’t mind getting your feet wet.’

Venn turned back to Jen. ‘How many people could you round up to be here in an hour? You won’t have any phone signal until you’re almost in Greystone. One officer? Two if you’re lucky? And even if they caught our killer at the top of the cliff, there’d be no proof of what they were up to.’

‘But then at least we’d know,’ she said, ‘who we were looking for.’

‘Oh, I believe I already know.’ Because the thoughts that had been sliding away from him, slippery as the kelp on the shore, had made sense at last, and Jonathan’s message had confirmed it. ‘Not the details, not yet. But why. At least I know why.’

‘You’re injured,’ she said. ‘You can’t sit here for the rest of the night. You need to see a doctor.’

‘I had a bit of concussion. It’s Ross that we need to worry about, and if we don’t get him treated, Oldham will kill me.’ A pause. ‘Get me sacked at least.’

Oldham was their superintendent, idle and incompetent, and Ross was his favourite. Venn had meant it as a joke, but it wasn’t far from the truth.

‘I’ll stay too.’ Her voice was strong and resolute and he could have kissed her. He was a coward and he didn’t want to be here on his own. ‘They’ll be looking for two bodies,’ she went on. ‘And while we’re waiting you can tell me what this is all about.’

Venn knew that if he was any sort of boss, he’d send her back in the boat with Barton. He was the senior investigating officer and she had two kids. But he was grateful. He only nodded and shouted across to the man. ‘You can manage Ross on your own?’

‘Of course I can. Peter will be waiting at the other end.’

Barton might have had more to say, but they couldn’t hear, because he’d already tugged the cord to start the outboard, and the boat disappeared into the darkness.

‘Where did he get the dinghy?’ The thought only occurred to Venn once they were back under the cliff. ‘The Moon Crest tender is still in Appledore with the forensics team.’

She hesitated for a moment. ‘He nicked it. From one of his neighbours. He said he could get it back before anyone noticed.’ Another pause. ‘Not his fault. I told him to do it.’

+++

There was the first grey light of dawn when Venn heard the sound of pebbles rattling down the cliff path. The breeze was blowing back the waves and the first light caught the foam, forming white lines against the grey water. He’d been dozing and his first response was panic. Was this the beginning of another manufactured rockfall? Another attack? The fear of the previous day returned, a sharp jolt of adrenaline, a kind of muscle memory, but almost immediately he realized that this was the sound of someone scrambling down the cliff path. Jen was sitting beside him. Quiet. Waiting too. They’d decided not to play dead. Now it was light that would fool nobody.

From where they were sitting, beyond the spur in the cliff, they couldn’t see where the path hit the shingle. The first they heard of the approaching person was whistling. Joyful. Some song Venn had heard as a child. A traditional tune that they’d learned at school. Something about morning and dew. Appropriate. They must be walking on the pebbles now because they could hear footsteps. Then there was the splashing of boots in rockpools. Wading birds disturbed from their roost and calling. Only then did he realize that there were two sets of footsteps, and he saw very clearly that this plan to entrap the killer had been folly.

‘Inspector, you shouldn’t be here. It’s a dangerous place, Scully Cove. Us locals know that.’ Davy Gregory sounded genuinely sorry. ‘You should have taken notice and stayed away.’

‘I’m sure you’d have found another way to scare us off.’ Venn paused. ‘Or to stop the inquiry altogether. You tried to kill us last night.’

The other man, in the blue knitted hat, stood a little apart and said nothing.

‘You can’t hope to get away with this.’ Venn knew he sounded desperate.

Now the man in the hat did speak. ‘We don’t need to get away with it. We just need time. A bit more time.’ The voice was high-pitched, a little manic. He started to move, to circle behind Jen, who was sitting, apparently calm and quiet on a rock, a little distance away. He was carrying a scarf, each end twisted round a hand. A weapon. Venn watched him, waiting. He knew Jen would be aware of him too and wondered why she didn’t stand to confront him.

‘My team know that we’re here,’ Venn said. ‘They’re on their way.’

‘We’ll be gone before they get here,’ Davy said. ‘And they’ll have more than enough to keep them busy with two officers injured. They’re terribly fragile, the rocks on these cliffs. Anything can happen.’

The other man was edging closer to Jen with every step. She was looking at Davy, seeming not to realize the danger she was in. Venn was about to shout a warning, but she looked at her boss and gave a slow, imperceptible wink. She knew exactly what was happening and was prepared to take the risk.

She knew there was no proof to convict the man in the blue hat. Who would believe that a pillar of the community could be guilty of two murders? She wanted to force him to show his hand. Jen turned her attention to Gregory.

‘What would your wife make of all this?’

Davy Gregory stared at her. ‘This has nothing to do with my Tilly.’

‘I think she’s guessed, though. I saw her yesterday afternoon, talking to Ruth Smale. In tears. It must be hard to believe that the man you love is involved in a murder. Did you see her last night?’

‘I was working until late.’ He too sounded as if he was almost in tears. ‘I wouldn’t hurt her for the world.’

+++

Venn got to his feet slowly. He’d only have one chance and the rocks were slick with weed. He’d have to wait until the man was behind Jen, slipping the scarf around her neck. He thought that Davy would remain a bystander, not a killer, but he’d have to take that risk too.

Now Jen did attempt to confront the danger, to challenge her attacker. She tried to stand up, to step away, but the shingle shifted under her feet and threw her off balance. The man had thrown the scarf around her neck and was pulling it tight. Venn moved towards him, a large boulder, heavy and smooth in his hand. The man saw him coming but not the weapon he carried. He continued to twist the scarf around Jen’s neck and shouted to Davy. ‘Do something, man! Stop him.’ Imperious.

Still, Davy made no move.

Venn was behind the strangler. Everything seemed to be happening very slowly. Venn lifted the boulder and brought it down very hard on the man’s head. He watched his victim crumple and fall onto the shingle. Jen pulled the scarf from her throat, coughing and spluttering. Venn looked at the blood on the rock he was still holding, and then down at Alan Ford, sprawled at his feet. In his head, there came a plea, a prayer, that he hadn’t killed the man.

From the top of the cliff came the sound of sirens.

Before Rainston and the others arrived, Venn turned to Gregory. His voice was as imperious as Ford’s had been. ‘Where’s Eleanor Lawson?’ A pause. ‘Where will we find her?’