Bad Sons (Booker & Cash Book 1) (6 page)

He looked blankly at me and then shrugged. ‘I couldn’t say. If it wasn’t done up it could have come off if she was thrashing about, maybe. Depends what she was wearing, I suppose.’

I remembered Detective Cash saying the pathologist’s report detailed my aunt had suffered a blow to the head. She wouldn’t have been thrashing about if she was unconscious or stunned. And if she wasn’t unconscious or stunned I couldn’t see how she wouldn’t have been able to get out of a shallow swell.

He wasn’t finished: ‘What was a bit strange, though, she was properly snagged on the metalwork of the outfall. Sorry, you probably don’t want to hear something like that, do you?’

‘How do you mean?’ He must have understood something in the intensity of my enquiry and the look I gave him.

‘Well, the top she was wearing had caught on the ironwork. Gone right through the material. It was lucky really. If she hadn’t got hooked up on it, she’d have probably drifted out into the Channel on the falling tide and never been found.’

He stood there awkwardly for a long moment and then dipped his head and left.

As I sat thinking about what he’d said something else occurred to me that seemed strange. I think it had been at the back of my mind for a while, but the fireman’s comments had dislodged it. I had lived beside the sea here long enough to know that when the tide was coming in it came from the west, surging up the narrow English Channel between England and France from the direction of the Atlantic Ocean and when it receded that’s the way it ebbed.

When it rose it would naturally carry any flotsam and jetsam eastwards towards the North Sea and when it fell it would suck any floating debris with it. Just like an unplugged bath. How then, assuming my aunt had gone in the sea at Dymchurch, as the tide was coming in, had she managed to end up at St Mary’s Bay?

It was just a novice’s question. I was no expert on tides. I decided to find out more about the specifics of tide and times the next day. I could buy a tide table at the local shop. Maybe find someone at the fishing club on the sea wall to run it past them. I’d leave out the bit about a dead body.

I didn’t finish my meal and left. The ale had tasted good, but what I needed was spirits and cigarettes.

Fifteen minutes later I was pacing around in the noisy pea-beach out the back of the building and under the stars, feeling quite wretched. I was facing up to the idea that my uncle was probably also dead and his body was likely to be floating at the whim of the currents.

The whisky was doing things to my system that mere ale had no hope of achieving. I decided that I might get properly drunk on it. But not outside. That scraping of metal on metal across the fence was killing me. If I was going to spend my time out here smoking, I might have to clamber over, find the source of my irritation and do something about it.

***

9

Next morning. My head felt like someone had pumped it full of something expanding. I’d slept on the sofa, again. And I’d slept well, again. I should have done; I’d got down to the proof declaration on the label.

I showered, dressed, made coffee, poured it into a Thermos mug, clamped the lid shut and went to the beach. It was for the air as much as anything.

It was after eight. The high street was busy with traffic. It wasn’t raining. A light breeze carried a tepid suggestion of spring with it.

At the baker’s I bought a baguette stuffed with hot meat and oozing brown sauce, then called in at the general store for a tide timetable.

Back on the pavement and looking up at the thin cloud cover, I thought the sun might make a brief appearance before lunch. The air had that feel to it.

I still hated the sea wall. The arrogantly-curled lip of the concrete barrier sneered its contempt at the sea. If I had my back to it, it kept the wind off me and I couldn’t see it. I sat and had my breakfast, then a cigarette. I watched the Channel and the gulls. Not another soul came my way the whole time. Not even a collie dog.

I wiped my hands on the tissue that came with the food and took out the tide timetable. If I was making sense of all the confusing columns and figures, high tide would have been about ten o’clock the night I arrived and then about an hour later every twenty-four hours.

I smoked another cigarette, gathered up my rubbish and my thoughts and walked. I was heading in the direction of the lock-up further east along the sea wall that the Dymchurch Sea Angling Club maintained as a base and store for their boat-launching tractor and other equipment.

A weather-beaten old salt dressed in waterproof dungarees and boots that seemed fashionable with the fishermen was fiddling with something in the engine compartment of the old farm vehicle.

I excused myself and asked him about my theory regarding things that floated on the surface of the water at the mercy of the ebb and flow of the tide. He wiped his hands on an oily rag and eyed me with intelligence from under white bushy eyebrows.

‘Why you asking that, then?’ It was a slow local drawl and I got the impression that his motive for the question was to prolong social interaction rather than for the answer.

I didn’t see any reason to lie to him. ‘The body that was found at St Mary’s Bay yesterday – if it had gone in the water at Dymchurch, say about eight, should it have ended up east or been carried west? High tide was at ten.’

‘I know what time high tide is,’ he said. Then he gave some serious thought to what I’d asked him, or seemed to. ‘Depends. Maybe. Hard to say for sure. Probably should have done but it’s not an exact science. Too many variables.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as weight, shape, strength of the tide, sub-currents created by obstructions like the outfall at Dymchurch and the slipway. Depends where exactly the body would have gone in. What makes you think it went in at Dymchurch?’

‘Just a guess.’

‘What are you? Reporter? Police?’

I shook my head. ‘Relative.’

He raised his heavy eyebrows half an inch. ‘Then I’m sorry for your loss. I didn’t know the lady, but it’s not a nice way to go.’

I agreed, thanked him for his time and walked home.

*

I was standing staring out over the English Channel from the top floor window of my room. The sun was making an effort to get noticed and transform the panoramic view that the aspect offered. My phone rang. It was Detective Cash. We said hello.

‘Any news this morning?’

‘No sign of my uncle, if that’s what you mean?’

‘That’s what I mean.’

‘I was in the pub last night. I spoke to the man who fished my aunt out of the sea.’

‘What did you do that for?’ I couldn’t tell how she meant that to sound, but I got the idea she didn’t want me involving myself in their investigation, being amateurish and being a problem.

‘I didn’t go looking for him. I was getting a quiet dinner and a pint. I hoped to be left alone. He was in the other bar. He’s a retained fireman in the village. Probably couldn’t wait to get down his local and be the centre of attention. He came and spoke to me about it. He said something about her being caught on the metalwork of the outfall and that if she hadn’t been she might have ended up in the middle of the Channel and never recovered.’

‘What’s your point?’ She maintained her tone.

Ignoring her question, I said, ‘The tide would have been coming in about the estimated time of death you gave me. If she’d gone in at Dymchurch, it’s likely she wouldn’t have ended up at St Mary’s Bay, she’d have been carried the other way towards Hythe. The tide rises west to east. She should have washed up on Hythe Ranges.’ I was exaggerating only a little. Because of how I was viewing the disappearance of my relatives, I needed her to be taking notice of me. ‘The only way for her to have ended up in St Mary’s Bay would have been if she had gone in the sea there. And what would she have been doing all the way down at St Mary’s Bay at that time of the evening with no coat, in her slippers and with my arrival – that she knew all about and hadn’t forgotten – imminent?’

‘Firstly, we don’t know she was in her slippers, not for sure. Secondly, how sure are you about your tide theory? Thirdly, you don’t know she didn’t forget about you.’

‘Her slippers aren’t here. She must have been in her slippers when she went out. As for the tide theory, very,’ I lied. ‘I checked with a tide timetable and someone from the local sea-angling club. For the time of death you gave me, when she would have gone in the water, the tide was coming in. I still find the idea she was wearing no coat strange, too.’

Detective Cash came back with a poorly-considered riposte. ‘Perhaps she could have ended up in St Mary’s Bay when the tide ebbed and she was drawn west with it.’

And I had her. ‘When the tide ebbs, Detective, it also retreats from the shore. By the time her body would have been dragged down as far as St Mary’s Bay there would have been a wide band of sand between the sea and the outfall.’ Checkmate.

She changed the subject. ‘You’re sounding like you think there is something suspicious about your aunt’s death.’

‘Of course I do. Don’t you? Everything points to it not being an accident. I can’t believe it doesn’t seem that way to the police.’

‘Who said it doesn’t?’ There was a quiet pause before she said, ‘With your uncle still unaccounted for, you’re doing a good job of implicating him, don’t you think?’

‘Yesterday you told me to expect the worst. By that, I thought you meant he was probably drowned too, not responsible for my aunt’s death.’

‘I did.’

‘So why have you changed your mind?’

‘I haven’t, necessarily. We’re just keeping an open mind. Until he shows up he can’t be eliminated from our enquiries.’

‘Well, you can think what you like because you didn’t know either of them. I did. There is no way my uncle would have had a hand in my aunt’s death. He’s missing because he’s dead too. There is no other explanation. Did the pathologist’s report say anything about broken bones or other bruising? The fireman suggested she must have been forced on to the ironwork with considerable force. I wondered if there was any evidence of that.’

‘Look, Mr Booker, I understand why you might want to believe that this is not an accident, but they do happen. In the strangest of circumstances, sometimes. There is nearly always a reasonable explanation.’

‘I wish you’d make your mind up – accidental death or suspicious.’

‘We will when we have all the facts to make that decision.’

‘In the meantime, would you do me a favour?’

‘Mr Booker, we’re not in the habit of doing favours for members of the public.’ It wasn’t said with irritation.

‘Could you just ask the pathologist to look at the sleeve of the top she was wearing? There should be a hole in it where she was snagged on the outfall’s ironwork. And then can he look at her corresponding arm to see if there is any physical damage to suggest she had hit the structure she was found snagged on with any force?’

‘What do you think that will prove? She was in the water for some time. You’ve got a lot of sea wall, scores of groynes and the outfall that she could have been thrown against by the tide. All might have caused injuries to her. In fact, I’d be surprised if her body didn’t show signs of her having been battered by the sea and the geography of the place.’

‘I think you know what I’m thinking, Detective.’

‘Then, with your uncle still missing, don’t you think he could be involved in some way?’

‘Not for me. I don’t think my aunt’s death was an accident and the last person in the world who would have done my aunt harm was my uncle.’

‘Under normal circumstances.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘When I asked you before, you said you weren’t aware of either of them having a serious illness. Your aunt had cancer?’

I sat down. ‘What?’

‘The pathologist’s toxicology report found traces of a cancer-fighting drug and physical examination showed evidence of puncture marks to indicate regular injections.’ A brief silence. ‘You didn’t know?’

‘No. I didn’t.’

‘It could change things. How would you feel about a mercy killing angle?’

‘Disparaging. Come on. Not on the day I was due to arrive. Not with the business in limbo. And certainly not like that.’

‘I’ll find out what you asked and let you know, Mr Booker.’

‘Thank you. I’d appreciate that, Detective.’

I waited for her to hang up but she didn’t.

‘My DI wants to speak with you. Will you come here, or shall I send a car?’

That was unexpected. ‘What about?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I can drive my uncle’s car in. When?’

‘An hour suit you?’

‘All right. About an hour.’ I put my phone away and wondered what that was all about and why the hurry.

***

10

Standing against the wall to my left, Detective Cash had been babysitting me.