The Restless Dead

20

As Lundy related it later, Coker had gone back home to confront his daughter after storming out of Creek House. His wife had divorced him years before, so now he and Stacey lived alone in a bungalow not far from the marine salvage yard. When he found his daughter wasn’t there, he’d tried calling her without success. Then, opening a pack of beer, he sat fuming while he waited for her to come home.

Except Stacey never arrived.

To begin with Coker wasn’t worried. Even when phone calls to her friends failed to locate her, he was angry rather than concerned. It wouldn’t be the first time his daughter had persuaded friends to lie for her. Only later, as their repeated denials began to ring true, did he start to realize this was different. Even so, convinced his daughter was simply putting off facing him, it wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that he went out looking for her.

After banging on the doors of the friends most likely to be harbouring her, Coker remembered I’d seen Stacey driving past the boathouse. There were two ways back to Cruckhaven from there. One was what passed for the main road, which Coker had taken himself earlier. Not having seen any sign of his daughter then, he now took the other route. This cut further into the Backwaters, less accessible but better for anyone who didn’t want to risk their distinctive car being seen. About a mile before he reached the boathouse, Coker’s headlights picked out a gap in the hawthorn hedgerow by the roadside. Even then he almost drove past, but some instinct made him pull over. Leaving his engine running so his headlights shone on the gap, he got out and found fresh breaks in the branches. The creek beyond was full and dark, but he made out a paler shape sticking from the black water.

It was the rear bumper and one back wheel of a car.

By the time the police arrived the tide was ebbing, and enough of the car was visible to see that it was small and white, with a red racing stripe. Tyre marks showed where it had left the road on the bend, before tipping over as it went down the shallow bank. It had come to rest upside down in the creek, on its roof but canted at an angle. The driver’s door was open, but — as Coker had already established after plunging into the water himself — there was no sign of its occupant. Only a handbag remained inside the car, containing Stacey Coker’s purse and driving licence.

‘It looks like she took the bend too fast, lost control and then rolled it down the bank,’ Lundy told me.

It was the following afternoon and we were in the hospital cafeteria, at an isolated table set away from any other diners. Not that there were many: it was after the lunchtime rush and half the tables were empty. Lundy had dropped into the mortuary unannounced to tell me what had happened. He’d seemed ill at ease as he’d stood by the examination table, rattling the loose coins in his pocket as I’d cut away the decomposed soft tissue from the second body and begun to cut through the connective tendons and cartilage of the major joints. It was unusual for a police officer to be bothered about such things, and he’d showed no such qualms when either of the bodies were being recovered. But he’d seemed relieved when I suggested we take a break for lunch, so we’d headed for the cafeteria.

‘The seat belt was unfastened, so it’s possible she managed to undo it and crawl out,’ he went on, emptying a second sachet of sugar into his polystyrene cup of tea. ‘Or she didn’t bother fastening it and got thrown through the door as the car flipped. Either way, we’ve got to assume she got carried out by the tide or we’d have found her by now.’

I was still trying to absorb this new tragedy. I’d taken the more direct route to the mortuary that morning, and so missed the cordoned-off area of the Backwaters where Stacey Coker’s car had been found. So I’d been unaware of what had happened until Lundy arrived, wanting to hear my version of events the previous evening. Coker had told the police about his daughter speeding past the boathouse, which made me the last person to have seen her before the accident. And, quite possibly, the last to see her alive.

‘How fast was she going?’ Lundy asked.

I remembered the tug of air as the car flashed past, almost clipping me. ‘She was gone in a second, so it’s hard to say. But fast.’

Lundy nodded, morosely. He looked tired, his eyes more pouched than normal and an unhealthy colour to his face. But then he’d had a late night. ‘Figures. She’s a bit hot-headed by all accounts, and she’d just had a row with Jamie Trask. She’s already got points on her licence for speeding.’

‘So what’s happening now?’

He stirred his tea with a plastic spoon. ‘We’ve got the helicopter and marine unit out, and foot patrols searching where we can in the Backwaters. But you’ve seen yourself what it’s like in there. The tide was already going out by the time her dad found her car, so she could have wound up anywhere. Best chance is if the tide took her as far as the estuary, because then sooner or later she’ll wash up on the Barrows.’

He was talking about a body, not an injured survivor. ‘You don’t think there’s a chance she could still be alive?’

‘There’s always a chance.’

His tone made it clear how unlikely he thought that was. Even if Stacey had managed to crawl from the car rather than being thrown out, she’d have still had to fight against the tidal current in the cold water. I’d felt how strong its pull was when my car stalled on the causeway. That had only been knee deep, and I hadn’t been involved in a crash. Stunned and possibly injured, weighted down by waterlogged clothes and probably disorientated in the darkness, it wouldn’t have been easy for her to reach the bank.

The fact that we were having this conversation suggested she hadn’t.

‘How’s Coker taking it?’ I asked.

Lundy turned down his mouth, moustache bristling as he took a sip of tea. ‘As you’d expect. If he’s any sense, Jamie Trask should steer well clear of him.’

I hadn’t thought about that, but Lundy was right. Jamie hadn’t been directly responsible for the accident, but I didn’t think Coker would see it that way.

We fell silent in the echoing clatter of the cafeteria. I dutifully chewed my way through a limp cheese sandwich while Lundy tore the cellophane wrapper from a pre-packaged slice of fruitcake. He’d already eaten lunch but had decided he had room for a piece of cake. To keep me company, he’d said, smiling sheepishly.

‘Funny places, these,’ he said out of the blue, looking around the half-empty room. ‘Hospital cafés, I mean. Always the same, wherever you go. Everything seems normal, but nothing is, if you get my drift.’

I hadn’t really thought about it before, but then I’d once worked and trained in a hospital. That gave you a different perspective. ‘People have to eat.’

‘I suppose.’ He’d finished the cake, and now absently began snapping off pieces of polystyrene from the rim of his cup. ‘I’m here again myself tomorrow. The hospital, not this place.’

I looked across at him, wondering if this explained his odd mood. ‘Is everything OK?’

The DI looked embarrassed, as though he regretted saying as much as he had. ‘Oh, it’s just routine stuff. Endoscopy. They think I might have an ulcer. Lot about nothing, but you know what doctors are like.’

‘Pesky bunch, aren’t we?’

I’d noticed Lundy taking antacids but put it down to indigestion. He gave me a smile, acknowledging that he’d forgotten I’d been a GP myself.

‘How are you getting on with the body from the creek?’ he asked, moving off the topic. ‘Did you manage to look at the post-mortem report?’

‘I did, yes.’ The news about Stacey Coker had dominated our conversation until now, so I hadn’t had a chance to broach anything else. ‘There are a lot more broken bones than I’d expect.’

‘Couldn’t they be from being hit by a boat?’

‘They could, but it would have to have been travelling fast or be pretty big to do that much damage. Hard to see that happening in the Backwaters.’

‘We don’t know where the body came from. It could have been carried in from the estuary, or even further out.’

‘And then stayed afloat long enough to get tangled up in the barbed wire like it was?’

Lundy watched himself break more pieces from the top of the polystyrene cup. ‘I know. Doesn’t seem likely, does it? Hard to see anything other than a boat prop that could have caused those injuries to the face, though.’

‘Perhaps.’

His eyebrows went up. ‘Have you found something?’

‘I might have,’ I admitted. ‘It’s hard to see enough detail from the X-rays. I won’t know for sure until I’ve examined the actual skull.’

‘Well, keep me posted.’ Lundy already seemed distracted again. ‘I checked into Sir Stephen’s driver, by the way. His name’s Brendan Porter. Forty-nine years old, been driving for the Villiers for over twenty years. Bit of a bad lad when he was younger, but then joined the army at eighteen and straightened himself out. Got taken on as a stand-in when the normal driver was ill and wound up replacing him. Seems like an odd fit, but if he’s been there all this time he must have found a niche for himself.’

‘Why do you think he was quizzing me? Trying to ingratiate himself with his boss?’

‘Sir Stephen hardly needs his driver to tell him what’s going on,’ Lundy said drily. ‘I dare say he’d have reported back if he’d learned anything juicy but my guess is he was just fishing. Maybe he hoped you’d open up more if he badmouthed Leo.’

I thought about the man’s knowing smile as he’d insulted his employer’s son. Watching to see how I’d react. ‘Taking a chance, wasn’t he? What if it got back to Sir Stephen?’

Lundy snorted. ‘Would you tell him something like that?’

No, I had to concede I probably wouldn’t. Still, this Porter must be either very blasé or confident of his position to risk it. ‘What about him knowing we’d found a second body?’

‘Not much we can do about that. People are always going to talk, and the local press have picked up on it now anyway, which was always going to happen after Trask took his daughter to hospital. The official line is that the body’s an unknown male and pre-dates Leo Villiers’ disappearance, so they’re running with the idea it’s an accidental death unconnected to any other investigation. Which it still might be.’

I gave him a look. He smiled.

‘I know, I don’t believe in coincidences either. But it’s better not to make too many waves at this stage. Except for Sir Stephen, who’s still refusing to believe us anyway, everyone still assumes the body from the estuary is Leo Villiers’. We’d rather keep it that way, at least until we get confirmation from the DNA results. If Villiers is still alive, we’ve got more chance of finding him if he believes he’s safe.’

‘You think he could still be in the area?’

Lundy had gone back to snapping chunks off the edge of his cup. ‘I doubt it, but it’s possible. We’ve got the National Crime Agency looking into the possibility he’s abroad, but there haven’t been any hits on his passport. So if he’s left the country he didn’t cross any checkpoints. Not under his own name, anyway.’

That didn’t necessarily mean anything. Someone with Leo Villiers’ money and resources could always forge a new identity, and there was no shortage of isolated creeks and coves along this coast where boats could come and go unobserved.

But there was something else that had been bothering me.

‘If Villiers staged all this to make it look like he’d killed himself, he was taking a hell of a risk,’ I said. ‘He couldn’t know how long it would take for the body to be found, or even that it would be. It might have washed up in the first few days, when it still had fingerprints or before it lost its feet. We’d have known straight away it wasn’t him.’

‘We would,’ Lundy agreed, nodding slowly. ‘But we don’t know enough about the circumstances. Maybe Villiers wasn’t thinking clearly. Not many people do when they’ve just killed someone.’

That was true enough, and something I’d seen for myself before now. Few murderers have enough presence of mind — let alone the know-how — to plan for everything. In that heightened, adrenalin-stoked state even obvious details are overlooked.

I just wasn’t convinced that was the case here. Although I disliked the whole notion of ‘instinct’, I’d come to realize that experience created its own form of muscle memory. Our minds are constantly processing information that we aren’t conscious of. Even though we might not recognize it as such, on a subliminal level an awareness can still filter through. I felt that now. I couldn’t say why, not yet, but something about this didn’t sit right.

‘Is that what you really think?’ I asked.

‘Me? Doesn’t matter what I think, I’m just a DI.’ Lundy scraped the mound of broken polystyrene into his hand and pushed himself to his feet. ‘For what it’s worth, though, I reckon we’ve only just scratched the surface.’

It had started to rain when I left the mortuary for the day. I stopped off at a supermarket on the way back, and spent longer than I should deciding what wine to buy. Rachel hadn’t said what she planned to cook, so in the end I bought both red and white, hoping that wouldn’t make it look as though I were trying to get her drunk.

By the time I reached the Backwaters the rain had increased and a stiff wind was blowing in off the sea. Unhindered by the flat landscape, it whipped across the sand dunes and marshes, making the long grasses thrash bad-temperedly. Parking outside the boathouse, I grabbed my bags and hurried inside. I showered and changed, doing my best to ignore the nerves gnawing at my stomach. When I set the little table by the window and realized the boathouse didn’t have any wine glasses, I actually considered going back out to buy some before I caught myself. So use tumblers. For God’s sake, relax.

I managed to for a while, but the nervousness began creeping back as the time ticked by. I began to wonder if I should have checked to make sure Rachel was still coming. The news about Stacey Coker would have hit them all hard — the police would certainly have spoken to Jamie about their argument, as well as to Trask about Coker’s barging in the evening before. But I’d decided against phoning, wanting to give them space and reasoning that Rachel would call me if she’d changed her mind.

Now I wasn’t so sure. I’d just resolved to give it another ten minutes when I heard a car pull up outside. I opened the door in time to see Rachel hurrying from Jamie’s white Land Rover, carrier bags in one hand and her coat held over her head against the rain with the other. I stood back to let her in.

‘Hi. Sorry I’m late,’ she said breathlessly, shaking off her coat outside before closing the door. She was still wearing jeans but these were newer and less faded, and her V-neck top revealed a thin gold chain lying on her skin. I caught a faint hint of perfume, something light and subtle.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I told her, taking her coat.

‘I just wanted to make sure Fay was OK before I left, and then Andrew… Anyway, it took longer than I thought.’

I hung up her coat, wondering what she’d been about to say about Trask. ‘How is everyone?’

‘You mean because of Stacey?’ She sighed. ‘Still in shock, if I’m honest. The police came round earlier to take a statement from Jamie. He blames himself, which is pointless. But there’s not a lot you can say when something like this happens.’

Nothing that would do any good, I knew that well enough myself. ‘Would you like a glass of wine? There’s Pinot Noir or a Sauvignon Blanc.’

‘I’ll have the Sauvignon, please.’ Rachel’s smile was tired and grateful. She began unpacking the bags. ‘I made crab cakes, so I hope you like shellfish. Dessert’s only dog food cake, but what with one thing and another I didn’t have a chance to make anything else. And you didn’t get to have any last night, so you can try some now.’

‘I can’t wait.’

Her laugh was strained but sounded genuine. ‘OK, just for that, you don’t get to have any.’

‘I meant it!’ I protested, opening the wine.

‘Sure you did.’ She accepted the glass I offered and took a drink. Her shoulders relaxed as she sighed. ‘God, that’s welcome.’

There was still a tension about her, and I didn’t think it was all down to Coker’s daughter. But I knew not to press: she’d tell me — or not — in her own time. Whatever was bothering her, she seemed to push it from her mind as she cooked the food she’d brought. Rain drummed against the window as we ate at the small table, but in the warm glow from the lamp the boathouse felt snug and warm. We talked about trivialities, not so much avoiding the topic of Stacey Coker, or Rachel’s sister and the investigation, as postponing any need to discuss them. She told me more about her previous life, about the sun and outdoor lifestyle she’d lived while diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Without self-consciousness, she told me a little more about how her relationship with the marine biologist had ended when he slept with a post-grad student.

‘Looking back, it was almost funny. The same morning I confronted him, we had a submersible camera get stuck on rocks forty feet down. Rick was so keen to avoid me he volunteered to dive for it, even though we’d sighted a tiger shark nearby.’ She grinned evilly, cupping the wine in her hand as she remembered. ‘Normally we’d have waited, but I think he thought that was the lesser of two evils rather than stay on the boat with me.’

‘Are you that scary?’

‘I have my moments. And I was pretty mad at him. Just before he went over the side I brought a bucket of fish guts on deck and told him I was going to chum the water while he was down there.’

‘That’s mean.’ I hesitated. ‘You didn’t, did you?’

‘No, but it wiped the smug look off his face.’

We cleared away the dishes and I made coffee while Rachel unpacked the dessert. I eyed the dog food cake as she offered me a piece.

‘Remind me again what’s in it?’

‘Basically processed sugar and saturated fats. Here.’

She cut a small piece and held it out. I bit into it warily. ‘God, that’s delicious.’

‘Told you,’ she smiled.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this comfortable with anyone. It wasn’t even the wine, because we hadn’t drunk very much. But then she paused, and I could feel the subtle change in mood. I knew what was coming before she spoke.

‘Sorry if I was a bit tense earlier,’ she said. ‘You know, when I first got here.’

‘I didn’t notice.’

She gave me a wry smile. ‘Yeah, right. It’s just that today’s been a nightmare. And I keep thinking about last night, that if Coker had come the other way to the house he might have found Stacey in time. Can you imagine what he must feel like, knowing his daughter might still be alive if he’d gone a different route?’

I could, only too well. ‘It’s no good trying to make sense of things like that. It’s like being struck by lightning. Sometimes it just happens.’

‘I know, but that doesn’t make it any better. And then this afternoon I ended up having a row with Andrew. I said he should get Fay away from here, take her somewhere where there are kids her own age. Where there’s some life, for God’s sake! I want to know what happened to Emma too, but we might never know. And there’s Jamie as well. You heard him last night, saying he isn’t going to university now. He thinks he needs to stay to look after Fay. And his dad as well, although he wouldn’t admit it. In some ways he’s more protective than Andrew, but him staying here won’t do any of them any good. You can’t put your life on hold indefinitely, waiting for something that might not happen. Sooner or later you’ve got to move on.’

‘Are you talking about them or you?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. Both, I expect.’ Rachel stared into her wine glass. ‘Andrew told me it was none of my business, and that any time I wanted to leave I could. We were both angry and upset, but maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s time I left. I don’t know how much good I’m doing here any more. Maybe I’m just another reminder of Emma, and God knows there are enough of those around.’

She didn’t sound bitter, just resigned. The wind blew a gust of rain against the boathouse. It sounded like handfuls of gravel hitting the roof. I found myself looking at her sister’s framed photographs leaning against the wall. The one of silhouetted geese against a Backwaters’ sunset was uppermost.

‘I rest my case.’ Rachel said, seeing what I was looking at. She got up and went over to the pictures. ‘I don’t know if these are any good or not, but it seems a shame to just hide them away. Do you know much about photography?’

‘Not really.’

‘Me neither. Emma was the arty one, but she was always impatient. She liked things to look spontaneous, and if the shot wasn’t right she’d just stage it. This one, with the geese flying into the sunset? She told me she set up her camera and then threw a stone into the water to startle them. And this one.’ She pulled out the photograph of a motorbike on a beach, the gleaming machine incongruous in that setting. ‘Somehow I don’t think it just happened to be parked on a sand dune like that.’

Something stirred at the back of my mind. I hadn’t given the photographs much thought since I’d gone through them on my first morning. I got up and went over to where Rachel was continuing to flick through the stack.

‘Can I take another look?’

‘Sure.’ Rachel moved to one side to make room. ‘I wasn’t hinting, you know. You needn’t buy one.’

I smiled, but distractedly. I went back to the motorbike photograph. ‘When was this taken?’

‘I don’t know. It must be one of her older ones because I think that’s her ex-boyfriend’s bike. You know, the poser I told you about? He used to have a macho boy’s toy like that. A Harley-Davidson or something.’

‘So it wasn’t taken around here?’

‘No, it must be some other beach. Emma hadn’t been here until she came with Andrew, and she’d already split with her ex by then. Why?’

‘No reason.’

I’d been thinking about the sodden leather biker jacket and boots on the body recovered from the barbed wire. But if this were an old photograph taken somewhere else, it couldn’t have anything to do with the remains we’d found in the Backwaters. I started to put it back but Rachel put her hand on my shoulder to stop me.

‘Hang on a second.’

She was frowning as she stared down at the photograph. I looked back at it but couldn’t see what had caught her attention. ‘What is it?’

‘Probably nothing,’ she said, but didn’t sound convinced. ‘It sounds stupid, but I’ve never really looked at any of these before. Not properly. They’re just… Emma’s pictures.’

I waited. Almost reluctantly, she pointed at something in the background of the motorbike photograph.

‘I’m not sure, but… doesn’t that look like the sea fort? The one by the estuary?’

I took a closer look. There was something there, an angular silhouette rising from the sea, but it was too out of focus to make out. ‘It might be. Or it could be an oil rig or derrick?’

Rachel didn’t answer. She began flipping through the other framed photographs until she stopped at one. She started struggling to pull it out. I took the weight of the stack to make it easier for her. The second photograph was of a seagull, imperiously glaring at the camera from a tuft of spiky grass on a sandy ridge.

‘There.’

She tapped the glass. What looked like the same structure could again be seen in the background. It was still in the distance, but clearer this time.

The distinctive towers of the Maunsell sea fort.

‘This was shot from a slightly different angle, but I recognize where it is now,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s the sand dunes out by the end of the sea wall. You get a good view of the fort from there.’

‘Are you sure?’

Lundy had told me the old Second World War forts were dotted along the entire south-east coast. But Rachel was emphatic.

‘Positive. I’ve walked there often enough. And look, you can see there are only three towers left, and one of those has partially collapsed. It’s the same fort, I’m certain of it. Shit, I can’t believe I never noticed before. When I saw the bike I just thought it must be one of her old photographs!’

She sounded upset, and I couldn’t blame her. Rachel had already known her sister was having an affair with Leo Villiers. Now, if she was right about the motorbike, it looked as though Emma Derby had also continued to see her ex-boyfriend after she’d married Trask. That had all sorts of unpleasant implications, and not only for the family. It meant there might be someone else involved in all of this, someone the police knew nothing about. A man who owned a motorbike and might well have worn biker leathers.

Like the remains on the barbed wire.

Rachel didn’t know anything about that, though. And this could still be a false alarm. ‘Did your sister use digital or film?’

A few photographers still used film, but if Emma Derby wasn’t one of them then the original jpeg should show the date when the photograph was taken. Rachel shook her head.

‘Digital, but we lost most of Emma’s photographs when the computers were stolen in the burglary. The only reason we’ve got these is because she had enlargements made before she disappeared, and the print shop still had them on their system.’

‘Even if the photo was taken here it might not be her ex-boyfriend’s bike,’ I said, not really believing it myself. ‘Would you know it well enough to recognize it?’

‘No, but how many other people could she have known with a stupid bike like that? Let alone who’d want its picture taken on a bloody sand dune!’ Rachel seemed angry now. ‘That’s exactly the sort of thing Mark would do. He’d love having his bloody status symbol photographed and framed.’

‘Mark?’

‘Emma’s ex. God, what was his surname? Something religious, Vickers or Church.’ She shook her head. ‘No, Chapel, that’s it. Mark Chapel.’

I made a mental note of the name. ‘It’s probably nothing, but you still need to tell Lundy about this,’ I said gently.

‘God, I suppose so. Shit! Just when you think things can’t get any worse.’

She looked so unhappy that I reached out and put my arm around her. She leaned against me, resting her head on my shoulder. I was very aware of the scent and warmth of her body. She lifted her face to look at me. Neither of us spoke, and then a gust of wind suddenly buffeted the boathouse. The structure shifted and creaked, and as quickly as that the moment was gone.

Rachel sighed and moved away. ‘It’s getting late. I’d better be going.’

I didn’t trust myself to speak as she put on her jacket. The smile she gave me was both wry and regretful.

‘Thanks for the wine and… you know. Listening.’

‘Anytime.’

A blast of wind pushed the door back when she opened it, sending a cold spray of rain inside. She grimaced. ‘They got the weather report right for once.’

‘Hang on, I’ll get my coat.’

‘It’s OK, there’s no point us both getting wet.’

I didn’t insist, knowing she didn’t want me to. Framed in the pitch black of the open doorway, she gave me another smile. Slanting rain bounced down behind her.

‘Well. Goodnight.’

Then she was gone. I heard her crunch across the cinders, but it was too dark to see. I closed the door, feeling the wind fighting me before it clicked shut. I stood in the sudden quiet, unable to decide if I was angry at myself for being tempted or because I hadn’t done anything.

With a sigh, I picked up the coffee mugs and took them to the sink. As the water splashed on to the metal bowl I thought I heard something outside. I turned off the tap to listen. There was only the blustering wind. Then, as I reached for the tap, there was another noise, this one unmistakable. A short scream, quickly cut off.

It was Rachel.