The Restless Dead

19

It was as though a bubble had burst. For a second or two no one reacted, then Trask recovered.

‘Who the hell’s that?’ he said, turning towards the stairs. Whoever it was, they wanted to attract our attention. I could feel the floor vibrate as the banging continued. The dog started barking, adding to the din.

‘I’ll go. Shush, Cassie,’ Rachel said, starting to rise. Trask waved her back, a look of annoyance on his face.

‘No, you stay here.’ I got the impression he was glad of the excuse as he hurried downstairs. ‘All right, all right!’

The banging didn’t let up. Rachel turned to Jamie. ‘You OK?’

He nodded, but his colour still hadn’t returned to normal. ‘Yeah.’

‘They’re going to break the door,’ Fay said, sounding both indignant and scared as the hammering grew even louder.

‘Jesus, I said all right!’ Trask’s voice carried up from the hallway. The noise stopped as the front door was unlocked. ‘OK, what’s the—’

‘Where is the little fucker?’

There was a sudden commotion. I jumped up as heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs, and then Coker appeared at the top of them.

The oil-stained overalls and cap had been replaced by jeans and a short-sleeved shirt pulled tight over biceps and gut. The burly owner of the marine salvage yard came straight at Jamie, his face savage.

‘You little shit, I fucking warned you!’

I stepped in front of Coker, intending to try and calm him down. I wasn’t given the chance. He barged me aside, and whether by accident or design his hand caught me in the face. A flashbulb went off in my vision as I grabbed on to him, trying to pull him back. It was like trying to slow a bull. There was solid bulk under the fat, but instead of knocking me away he abruptly stopped. Blinking my eyes to clear them, I saw that Rachel had an arm around Fay, her other hand gripping the barking dog’s collar. Jamie stood in front of them, his face now pale but determined.

In his hand was the long-bladed bread knife.

‘What you going to do with that?’ Coker sneered, but he didn’t go any nearer. I still had hold of his arm, breathing in his odour of oil and sweat. As I wondered what to do next Rachel thrust the dog’s collar into Fay’s hand and advanced on him.

‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’

Coker seemed taken aback by her outrage. He jerked his chin at Jamie.

‘Ask him!’

Jamie looked confused, then he stared past Coker and his expression changed. ‘Dad? Are you OK?’

Trask had emerged at the top of the stairs, shaken and dishevelled but unhurt. His fists were clenched tight as he took in the scene.

‘You’ve got five seconds to get out before I call the police.’

Coker jerked his arm away from me. ‘Fine! Call them. Tell them what your fucking son did!’

‘And what did he do?’

‘He tried to rape Stacey!’

Jamie gaped at him, then his face suddenly coloured. ‘What? That’s bollocks!’

‘She phoned me up, terrified!’ Coker snarled. ‘She said you’ve been pestering her for weeks, wouldn’t take no for an answer! And when she wouldn’t change her mind you tried to force her!’

‘Me, force her? You’re joking, she’s been begging me to—’

Trask’s voice was like a whip. ‘Enough!’

‘But Dad—’

‘I said that’s enough. And for God’s sake put that bloody knife down!’ He turned to Coker. ‘When’s this supposed to have happened?’

‘There’s no supposed, it was after she left work this afternoon!’ Coker spat. ‘She called me in tears. Made me promise not to tell the police, didn’t want to get the little bastard into trouble!’

Jamie threw his arms up. ‘Oh, come on! She came out here wanting me to go to some crappy party tomorrow, and when I said no she slapped me and drove off! She’s just causing trouble!’

‘She should have ripped your balls off, never mind slap you!’ Coker’s fists were clenched, but he managed to restrain himself. ‘Stacey wouldn’t come here again, she knows better than that! You called her pretending there was something important you had to say, got her to meet you outside town and then you were all over her! Nearly ripped her top off!’

‘Dad, this is bullshit!’

‘Jamie was home all day,’ Trask said stonily. ‘I can’t say what your daughter did, but I can tell you he hasn’t been anywhere.’

‘How do you know? Been watching him all the time, have you?’ Coker sneered. ‘You stuck up for him before and you’re doing it now!’

This wasn’t my argument, but I couldn’t keep quiet when I knew something they didn’t. ‘What time was this?’ I asked.

Coker glared at me. ‘The fuck’s it to do with you?’

‘A white Fiesta with racing stripes nearly ran me over outside the boathouse about an hour ago,’ I said. ‘It was heading away from here, going back towards town.’

Coker’s mouth worked as he processed the information. ‘Fuck off! Stacey wouldn’t be seen dead in this place!’

I hesitated, then decided it was better to tell him. ‘She was here at the weekend as well. I saw her when I was waiting for my car to be repaired.’

If he’d taken the job he might have seen her himself, but I knew better than to mention that. Trask looked angrily at his son.

‘Stacey was here?’

Coker didn’t give Jamie a chance to answer. Now his full anger was focused on me. ‘You’re lying! You’re covering up for them!’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, why would a complete bloody stranger care enough to make it up?’ Trask demanded. ‘And how about you show some consideration for my daughter? She only got out of hospital this morning, and now you come bursting in her home making threats?’

I don’t think Coker had even noticed Fay until then. There was an uncertainty about him as he looked down at the frightened girl huddled behind Rachel, and I saw him take in the dressings on her thin arms.

But he still wasn’t ready to back down. He confronted Jamie again.

‘Stacey wouldn’t make it up for no reason. I know you’ve done something to her, you little bastard!’

That earned a bitter laugh. ‘Oh yeah, because she’s such a—’

‘Jamie!’ Trask stared at his son, then turned back to Coker. ‘You’ve had your say. Now get out or I’m calling the police.’

Coker had been looking cornered; now the anger was back. He levelled a thick finger at Jamie.

‘Go near my daughter again and I’ll kill you.’

He pushed past me and thumped down the stairs. A moment later the front door banged. For a few seconds no one moved or spoke, then Trask turned to his son.

‘What did you do?’

‘I didn’t do anything! You know what she’s like!’

‘Yes, I do, and I’m asking what you did to make her tell her father something like that. What did you say to her?’

‘Nothing, I just…’ He seemed to slump. ‘I called her a fat sow and told her to fuck off and die, all right? She wouldn’t leave me alone! I mean, why can’t she just take a hint and—’

‘In my study.’

‘Dad, I swear—’

‘Now.’

Jamie’s shoulders slumped as he followed his father downstairs. As he passed the table he slapped down the knife he’d been holding.

It clattered on the wood, spinning in a slow circle to a stop.

Rachel walked me back to my car. This time she didn’t even attempt to persuade me to stay. We pretended not to hear the raised voices coming from Trask’s study as she packed up some food to take with me. Watching her spoon casserole into a dish, I felt sorry for her, forced by circumstances and conscience into staying with a family whose only connection to her was through a shared tragedy. I wondered if she’d have stayed as long if she’d had a better relationship with her sister, or whether guilt over their final row had kept her here.

The night had turned cold, the air damp and smelling of marsh. ‘How’s the nose?’ she asked as we walked along the footpath through the trees.

I touched it experimentally. It was still sore from where Coker had caught it, but wasn’t bleeding. ‘I’ll live.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ Her smile faded. ‘Not exactly a relaxing dinner, was it?’

‘It was different.’

She gave a tired laugh. ‘We seem to keep dragging you into our problems, don’t we? You remember I said that Jamie and Stacey had a history? Well, it was a bit more complicated than that.’

I’d already guessed that much. ‘Did she get pregnant?’

Rachel nodded. ‘It was before I came here. Jamie had broken up with her, which was bad enough for Coker. Then Stacey announced she was pregnant and claimed it was Jamie’s. It could have been but… she’s a bit older than him so let’s say he wasn’t the only candidate. Anyway, Coker went ballistic and blamed everything on Jamie. There was an almighty row, and knowing Emma I can’t imagine she would have been a calming influence. In the end Stacey had an abortion, but it left a lot of bad feeling. As you may have noticed.’

‘What do you think she’ll do now?’

‘Hopefully let it drop. I’m just glad you saw her, because if it just had been her word against Jamie’s…’ Rachel let that hang, then gave a weary shrug. ‘Anyway, it’s not all her fault. Jamie shouldn’t have said what he did. “Sow” was one of Emma’s pet insults, so no prizes for guessing where he got that from. God, what an evening.’

‘I’m sorry if bringing the wine made things awkward,’ I said.

‘You mean because of Andrew?’ She shrugged. ‘It isn’t normally an issue. Like I said before, he’s not an alcoholic or anything. He just started drinking more after Emma disappeared, and stopped when he realized things were getting a bit out of hand.’

‘Like going to confront Leo Villiers, you mean?’

‘That didn’t help, no. And you saw how it can get between him and Jamie. They’re very alike so they tend to rub anyway. It’s worse if Andrew’s been drinking’

We’d emerged from the copse and now stopped by my car. Rachel looked back at the house, a dark rectangle with yellow windows visible through the shadowy trees.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

‘Me?’ She shrugged. ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

She didn’t sound it. A tension had been building up in me, and I spoke without thinking. ‘Look, if you’re not doing anything tomorrow night, how about going out for dinner? Or a drink, or something?’

She looked taken aback, and I felt my stomach lurch. Where did that come from? Less than an hour ago I’d been regretting accepting Trask’s invitation: now here I was asking Rachel out. If I could have snatched the words back I would.

Then she smiled. ‘I’d like that. But there aren’t exactly many places to go around here.’

‘It’s OK. It was a bad idea anyway.’

‘No, I’d love to. It just means driving for miles.’ She hesitated. ‘If you like, I could cook something at the boathouse?’

‘Uh… Yes, if you’re sure…’

‘Great. How about seven?’

I said seven was fine.

Driving back to the boathouse, I swung between euphoria and apprehension. I told myself not to read anything into it, that Rachel was probably glad of the chance to get away from Creek House for an evening. Still, I knew I was potentially complicating things, involving myself even deeper in the Trask family’s problems.

It didn’t matter. Regardless of the circumstances, I couldn’t remember feeling like this in…

Well. A long time.

I’d only been in one serious relationship since Kara had died. I’d been a GP at the time, and it hadn’t survived the transition from my working with the living to the dead. But it meant I’d long ago resolved any guilt over becoming involved with someone else. I was glad for that much, at least, though it didn’t make me feel any less nervous. I smiled ruefully as I caught myself. It was only dinner, after all. Don’t get carried away.

Back at the boathouse I turned on the heater to counter the night’s chill and took the still-warm casserole over to the table. With the soft whirr of the blown air as a background, I turned on my laptop and ate as I opened the files Lundy had emailed earlier. As well as the post-mortem report on the remains from the barbed wire, the DI had also sent a photograph of the custom-made shotgun that had disappeared along with Leo Villiers. I didn’t like guns and had never been a fan of shooting as a sport, but even I had to admit that it was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. The Mowbry was double-barrelled, with an over-and-under configuration rather than side-by-side. The stock was a burnished mahogany, while the barrels themselves were a smoky blue-black that seemed to glow. Most distinctive of all were the silver side plates, intricately whorled and engraved with the letters LV.

Leo Villiers.

I wondered if the man lying in the mortuary had appreciated the aesthetics of the weapon that killed him.

Lundy had attached a short note with the image: FYI — barrel 32 inches. Frears says too long for estuary body to reverse and reach trigger. Assuming the shot had come from Leo Villiers’ missing Mowbry, as seemed likely, that ruled out any lingering question of suicide. Not that there had been any serious doubt once we knew the body wasn’t his.

I went to the file containing the post-mortem report. It wasn’t ideal reading material to accompany food, but my work had long since cured me of being squeamish. Even so, for once I found it hard to concentrate. My mind kept drifting to Rachel, until the words on the glowing screen finally snared my attention. I lowered the fork, a piece of chicken still speared on it, as what I was reading began to sink in. The broken arm and leg I’d noticed when the body was on the barbed wire weren’t the only damage it had sustained. There were more injuries. A lot more, I realized, reaching for a pen and paper. I’d noticed that the head seemed to hang unusually loose, even for the length of time the remains had been submerged. With its thick layers of muscles and tendons, it’s usually the last extremity to fall away. Now I saw that two of the vertebrae in the neck were broken, with what was obviously extreme force. And the right tibia and fibula weren’t only snapped mid-shin, they’d been fractured at the knee as well. That same leg also had a dislocated hip, the ball-like head of the femur wrenched completely from its socket.

I tapped my pen against my chin. It was possible the multiple trauma could have been caused by the drifting body being struck by a boat, which might also explain the propeller-like wounds to the face. But it would have to have been a very forceful impact. Probably more than one, I thought, considering the extent of the injuries.

Then I saw something that really made me sit up.

I re-read it, then opened the file containing the mortuary X-rays. The extent of the sharp trauma injuries to the facial bones were evident even from the ghostly 2D images. The boat propeller — if that’s what it was — had inflicted massive damage, making any potential reconstruction a complicated task.

But that wasn’t what interested me. The world shrank around me, ceasing to exist outside the glow of my laptop screen as I enlarged the X-ray of the cranium. I zoomed in on one particular area of damage, chafing at the restricted views the flat X-rays provided. Then, like a pattern emerging from a puzzle, I saw it.

‘And how did you get there?’ I murmured, the half-eaten casserole forgotten as I stared at the screen.

I was too wired to relax after that. My mind was still buzzing when I went to bed, thoughts of Rachel flitting around with ideas about the case. For the first time I felt as though a chink of light was beginning to break through, that things were falling into place for my own life as well as the investigation. I should have known better.

Stacey Coker never came home that evening.