The Restless Dead

28

Late that morning, a woman had pushed open the heavy glass doors and walked into the police headquarters building. The young constable behind the desk was on the phone. He glanced at the woman, noting in a not entirely professional assessment that she was attractive and well dressed as he gestured that he wouldn’t be long. The woman waited patiently, but as the call went on the PC detected signs of nervousness. And impatience. One hand was knotted whitely on the shoulder strap of the Hermès bag; the long fingers of the other tapped a staccato rhythm on her arm.

Finally, the young constable ended the call and turned to her. The woman was very striking. Mid-thirties, model tall, with thick, almost black hair and great bone structure. Her clothes were well cut and obviously expensive, and although he didn’t know what perfume she was wearing, the PC decided he liked it. He leaned on the counter, giving his best smile as he asked how he could help.

The woman’s voice was a surprise, low and honeyed. And hesitant. She told him she wanted to speak to either DCI Clarke or DI Lundy. Only those two would do, she said, with a hint of attitude. When he asked for more information, she declined, repeating again that she would only speak to Lundy or Clarke. This time it wasn’t a request, and the PC’s smile dimmed. He stopped leaning on the counter.

There was something vaguely familiar about her, he realized. Retreating behind his usual desk formality, he picked up a pen and asked for her name. When she told him he thought he must have misheard. He asked her to repeat it, and this time there was no mistake. The young PC stared at her, open-mouthed.

Then he snatched up the phone.

Lundy was unavailable. He was on his way to the Backwaters to meet me, and it would be some time before the message reached him. But by luck Clarke was already at headquarters, preparing for what promised to be a terse budget meeting. Distracted and already in a bad mood, when a detective sergeant said there was someone asking for her at the desk downstairs, her response was typically curt. Then he told her the visitor’s name.

Clarke cancelled her meeting.

In the observation booth, Clarke stared at the monitor showing the woman sitting in the other room. The visitor tried to seem calm, but her demeanour gave her away. She drummed her fingers, shifting uncomfortably in her chair as she glanced uneasily at the video camera. By now word had spread, and other officers had crammed into the observation booth to see for themselves. It wasn’t every day someone supposedly dead strolled into a police station, and certainly not like this. Recovering from her own shock, Clarke ordered everyone out except for those directly involved with the investigation. Then, taking a few moments to compose herself, she squared her shoulders and went into the interview room.

The dark-haired woman looked up warily as the DCI entered. They’d met before, although Clarke wouldn’t have recognized the person sitting in front of her. Not in a million years. Now she knew who it was, though, knew what to look for, there was no doubting it. Still, the formalities had to be dealt with.

The woman lifted her chin when Clarke asked who she was. There was a mixture of nervousness and defiance as she met the detective’s gaze.

‘My name’s Lena Merchant,’ she said. ‘But I used to be called Leo Villiers.’

The cold and rain were forgotten as I stared at Clarke. ‘You’re serious?’

It was a stupid thing to say, but I was still stunned. The DCI looked as if she was having a hard time accepting it herself.

‘Very. Villiers is transsexual. Or transgender, I should say. That’s the big secret he’s been hiding. He’s still pre-op but he’s undergoing “transition”, I think it’s called. He — or she, I suppose, now — spent the last few weeks at a private clinic in Sussex. Sort of a retreat for people with gender identity issues who want privacy and space. Those who can afford it,’ she added, with something like her normal acidity.

I was struggling to take this in. ‘That’s where he’s been all this time? Since he disappeared?’

‘That’s how it looks. He’d cut himself off from any outside contact, so he’d no idea what was going on. He was there when Emma Derby went missing as well, that’s why he wouldn’t provide an alibi. He couldn’t admit where he’d been without revealing he was transgender, and he wasn’t ready for that then. I don’t think he intended to come out like this now, except he saw a news report yesterday and read about his own body supposedly being found in the estuary.’

Christ. Lundy had been right about Villiers hiding something. It just wasn’t what everyone thought.

‘Do you believe him?’ I asked, not entirely convinced even now.

Wisps of ginger hair whipped unheeded across her cheeks as Clarke considered. ‘We still need to verify it. But yes, I do. The clinic backs up his story, and he’s agreed to release his medical records. It’s not surprising his father didn’t want anyone seeing them. It’s all in there, going back years. Villiers was referred to a psychiatrist after a failed suicide attempt, and it came out he’d always felt he was female but didn’t want to admit it. Even to himself, which given his background I can’t say I blame him for. Doesn’t alter the fact he was a shit, but it starts to explain why.’

It did. I’d come across transgender patients when I was a GP. The fact that someone could be born with a gender identity that didn’t match their biological sex was recognized medically, but society was slower to accept anyone it perceived as different. Although there was more awareness now, some people still chose to keep their condition a secret.

But this showed Leo Villiers’ behaviour in a whole new light. Not just the blatant womanizing, which now seemed like a desperate attempt at denial. Suddenly the drinking and depression, even his supposed suicide note, took on a whole new relevance. He hadn’t been planning to end his life, just change it.

As Lundy said, it was all about perspective.

I looked through the blurring rain towards the house on the shore. ‘That’s why he was being blackmailed.’

Clarke nodded. ‘He was sent pictures last year. Someone had photographed him through the windows, putting on make-up and a wig, trying on dresses. There was an anonymous letter claiming there was video footage as well, and that everything would be put online unless he paid half a million within the week.’

‘He didn’t know who sent it?’

‘No, but he guessed Emma Derby was involved. She was a photographer and had access to his house while she was doing the interior design. Villiers had a dressing-up room where he kept his women’s clothes but he left it unlocked one day while she was there. He thinks she must have found it and put two and two together. And I think now he was telling the truth when he denied they’d been having an affair. Not for lack of trying on her part, apparently, so she’d a motive to want to hurt him.’

I thought about what Rachel had told me about her sister, remembered the carefully posed self-portrait in the boathouse. Emma Derby would have been angry and humiliated to be turned down by Leo Villiers, which showed the public scenes and frosty atmosphere reported by witnesses in a very different light. It hadn’t been the end of a relationship, but the rejection of one.

‘What about the half-naked woman the cleaner saw in his bedroom?’ I asked, already having a good idea what she’d say.

‘That was him. Or rather her.’ Clarke shook her head. ‘He’d started to get careless. He was finding the whole charade hard to sustain by then, and when he got the blackmail demand he panicked. He didn’t have that sort of money to hand, so he basically ran away. Took himself off to the clinic to try and decide if he wanted to transition or not. In the end he didn’t feel ready to commit, and came back home expecting the shit to have hit the fan. Which it had, just not how he expected.’

God, I thought, trying to imagine it. Villiers had exchanged one nightmare for another. Instead of having his secret made public he’d found himself the main suspect in Emma Derby’s disappearance. And he couldn’t prove his innocence without revealing his secret. For the first time I felt something I wouldn’t have believed myself capable of feeling for Leo Villiers.

Sympathy.

‘So why did he wait so long before going back to the clinic?’ It was still too much of a leap to think of Villiers as ‘she’.

‘He was a mess,’ Clarke said simply. ‘He’d no idea what was going on, and now there were all these questions and pointed fingers to cope with as well. He was drinking and on tranquil-lizers, and says he really did consider suicide. We were almost right about that much, at least. The final straw was when his dog died.’

‘His dog?’

‘I know.’ Clarke gave a wintry smile. ‘He got it as a pup when he was kicked out of university, and according to him it was the only thing that didn’t care who or what he was. When it had to be destroyed he says something snapped. He stayed long enough to bury it and then just walked away. Literally. Got on a train and left everything behind. House, car, money, the lot. He says he doesn’t want anything to do with any of it any more.’

Clarke sounded sceptical about that much, at least. But put in this new context Villiers’ reaction didn’t seem hard to understand. Sometimes all it takes is one final stress to bring everything crashing down. And while our circumstances were very different, I didn’t find it hard to imagine a life becoming so unbearable that the only way to survive was to walk away from it.

I’d once done the same thing myself.

Still, while this explained why none of Villiers’ bank accounts or credit cards had been used since he’d disappeared, it posed a different question. ‘If he wasn’t using any of his own money how did he pay for the clinic?’

‘Oh, he’s not exactly penniless.’ Clarke irritably brushed the flapping strand of hair from her face. ‘His mother left him a trust fund that’ll see he doesn’t starve. Merchant was her maiden name, so cutting himself off from his old life obviously doesn’t extend to that. It’s only anything connected to his father he doesn’t want anything to do with.’

Remembering Sir Stephen’s behaviour I guessed that might be mutual. I thought about the cold-eyed insistence that the body found in the estuary was his son’s. Lundy had said all along that Villiers’ father was hiding something, and now we knew what. My son is dead.

As far as Sir Stephen was concerned, perhaps he was.

‘Does Villiers know who it was we found in his clothes?’ I asked.

Clarke nodded tiredly. ‘That’s why he came back. Anthony Russell, twenty-six-year-old former model and dancer. Indonesian on his mother’s side, worked at a dressing service in London where trans men and women can try on clothes in private. He was another of Villiers’ secrets. They usually hooked up in London but he’d occasionally come out to Willets Point. He was the same sort of size as Villiers and used to borrow clothes when he stayed. Except for his shoes. Russell’s feet were bigger.’

And had hammertoes, I thought. It was a common complaint for dancers. I’d told Lundy I thought the dead man could have been athletically built, but I’d not made the connection. I felt dully annoyed at my mistake. Still, the part-Indonesian ancestry could well explain the skull’s mix of characteristics. As well, perhaps, as the gardener’s sighting of a prowler on Willets Point. Not a burglar or a refugee, just another part of Villiers’ private life he wanted to keep secret.

Something else occurred to me. ‘Was Russell colour-blind?’ I asked, thinking about the garish purple sock in the cheap training shoe.

‘I’ve no idea. Why?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ I felt too tired to explain.

Clarke gave me an odd look as she continued. ‘Russell was the only person who knew Villiers was transgender. But they fell out when Villiers told him he was going to transition. Apparently Russell had expensive tastes and a recreational drug habit, so the idea of a poor, transitioned Villiers was a lot less attractive than a rich, closeted one. Villiers ended up throwing his house keys down and storming out, telling Russell he could help himself if that was all he cared about. He didn’t expect to be taken literally, but when he read about the body he guessed who it was.’

‘Does Villiers have any idea who might have killed him?’

‘No, but Russell used to like playing around with his shotguns. Shooting bottles, taking pot-shots at seagulls. Although Villiers doesn’t think he would have shot himself intentionally, he thought he could have done it by accident when he was drunk or high.’

‘Is that what you think?’ I asked.

‘I think if it was that simple we’d have found the gun by now. And I’m a long way past believing anything about this case is accidental.’

The sound of someone climbing down the ladder made us both turn. But it was only Frears. Awkward in the bulky coveralls, the pathologist made an ungainly descent before coming over. He gave an awkward shrug.

‘What you’d expect.’ There was none of his usual flippancy. ‘Single shotgun blast to the abdomen and lower chest, massive trauma and blood loss. Looks like the gunman surprised him halfway down the steps. Minimal spread, couldn’t have been fired from more than six or seven yards away. The pellets we’ve found look like bismuth birdshot, probably number four or five. Not huge, but at that distance it wouldn’t make much difference.’

The shotgun cartridge found at Edgar’s home had been number five birdshot, and bismuth rather than lead. The same as the cartridges at Leo Villiers’ house.

‘If it’s any consolation I doubt he knew much about it.’ Frears sounded almost apologetic. ‘With an injury like that his system would have started to shut down from shock almost immediately. Frankly I’m surprised he survived as long as he did.’

As though on cue there was activity above us. We fell silent as Lundy’s body was carried out from the tower. Strapped to a stretcher, the body bag was brought down on to the upper gantry. Then, while one officer went down the ladder first to steady it in the wind, it was slowly lowered on a rope to the platform. I started forward to help as it neared the bottom, but the area around the ladder was already crowded. Hands reached up to take the weight as the stretcher and its burden were set down on the platform.

Clarke watched, tight-lipped, as Lundy’s body was carried over to the waiting launch.

‘What’ll happen now?’ I asked her as Frears headed after it.

‘Now?’ she echoed bleakly. ‘Now I go to see Sandra Lundy. Then I’m going to continue questioning Leo Villiers, or Lena bloody Merchant, to find out what else he knows. There’ve been too many assumptions made in this investigation from the start, especially about Emma Derby’s role in all this. When it comes down to it we still haven’t found her body, which is starting to make me wonder. And after what’s happened today I’m not taking anything for granted.’

As her meaning sank in, I felt a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold. It had been assumed from the start that Trask’s missing wife was a victim of Leo Villiers. But if we’d been so wrong about that it threw doubt on everything else as well. Emma Derby’s disappearance had started all this, yet out of all the victims her body remained conspicuously absent.

What if Rachel’s sister was guilty of more than blackmail?

‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked.

Clarke tore her eyes away from the scene on the launch. ‘Once you’ve given your statement you might as well go back to London.’

‘London?’ I said, surprised. ‘I’ve still got some things to finish off at the mortuary…’

‘They can wait. You’re too involved now. I can’t afford any more complications because one of my consultants got tangled up with a victim’s family. Not after this.’

‘But I can still—’

‘I’m not asking, Dr Hunter,’ Clarke said, her voice suddenly hard. She sighed. ‘Look, I appreciate what you’ve done, and I know you want to help catch whoever did this. But you can’t. You need to let us handle it from here.’

I was on the point of arguing. Then I saw the strain in her face and remembered Lundy, and any argument drained out of me.

I nodded.

She started to walk away, then turned back. ‘One more thing. Until we know what’s going on, I’d appreciate it if you don’t see anyone else connected with this investigation. That means anyone, OK?’

Ginger hair blew about her face as she stared at me, making sure there was no misunderstanding. Then she turned on her heel and marched to the launch.

Below me on the diminishing sandbank, the gulls fought raucously over the last of the pale crabs.

The weather was filthy as I was taken back to shore in the marine unit RHIB. Gusts of wind blew the rain in near-horizontal sheets, merging it with the spray thrown up by the blunt bow. The open cockpit lacked any sort of shelter, and I was shivering despite the waterproof jacket I’d been lent. It was heavy, but the bright-yellow plastic was unlined. The marine unit officers were politely distant towards me, but I didn’t mind. I wasn’t in the mood to talk either.

The larger coastguard vessel had taken Clarke and Frears further down the coast, where there was a deep-water harbour from which Lundy’s body could be taken to the mortuary. The RHIB was heading back to the oyster quay, where a mobile incident command unit had been set up. Bouncing and pitching on a towline behind us was the small boat that Rachel, Lundy and I had taken out to the sea fort.

It seemed an impossibly long time ago.

The overcast sky was already hastening the day towards a premature dusk as the RHIB bumped against the quayside. I climbed up the same steps as I had the morning we’d recovered the body from the Barrows. There was something dreamlike about walking again across the puddled concrete when I went to give a formal statement in the police trailer. More than once the police officer taking it had to repeat herself when my attention wandered.

‘Sorry, what?’ I asked, realizing I’d drifted away again.

‘I said, do you want to see a doctor?’ The young woman’s round face was professionally concerned. ‘You might be suffering from shock.’

She could be right, but I didn’t need a doctor. The only person I wanted to see was Rachel, and I still had no idea what to do about that. She should have been allowed home by now, but I didn’t think turning up at Creek House would be a good idea even if Clarke hadn’t expressly warned me against it.

But no matter what the DCI had said, there was no way I could leave without speaking to Rachel, at least. I was already taking out my phone as I left the trailer, walking into the lee of the boarded-up oyster factory for shelter while I called her. When it went to voicemail I left a message to ring me and then tried to think what to do next.

The numbness I’d felt earlier had descended again. I knew Clarke would be angry that I’d tried to contact Rachel, but it didn’t seem to matter any more. Objectively, I was aware that the state of suspension I was in was only temporary, that it was only a matter of time before everything that had happened caught up. For now, though, I was running on automatic, focusing only on whatever was directly in front of me.

Which right now was how to get to the boathouse where I’d left my car. None of the police had offered to drive me back, and even if I’d wanted them to I wasn’t going to ask at a time like that. I spent several minutes standing with the rain dripping off the plastic hood of my borrowed coat, staring blankly across the broken surface of the estuary, before I realized the answer was right in front of me.

One of the marine unit officers was in the process of untying Trask’s little boat from the RHIB when I offered to take it back to the boathouse, where it could more easily be collected. There was a brief discussion over the radio, but the police had more important things to deal with than delivering a boat back to its owner.

‘You sure you’ll be OK handling it in this?’ the marine unit sergeant asked, looking at the white-flecked waves in the estuary.

‘I’m only going to the creek.’

‘OK, but don’t hang about.’ He glanced at the moody sky, water streaming from his yellow waterproof. ‘It’s a spring tide, and the weather’s going to get worse before it gets better. We’ve been told to get everyone off the sea fort in the next hour whether they’ve finished or not. You don’t want to be taking a boat far.’

I told him I wouldn’t, but I didn’t really care about the weather. I’d sailed in bad conditions when I was younger, and I’d be running with the returning tide rather than against it. The engine started on the second go, and as soon as I pulled away from the quayside I felt the current take hold. Even though I’d been expecting it I was almost caught out. I fought the boat as it tried to get away from me, then brought the bow round and headed up the estuary towards the creek.

Once I was out in the middle it was easier. The estuary was rougher than I’d seen it, but not so much so that it threatened to overwhelm the small craft. I was glad to have something to occupy my mind, and the waves’ grey rhythm was hypnotic. Rocking with the boat’s motion I found myself thinking of absolutely nothing beyond the simple task of keeping the bow on course. Then a larger swell thumped against the fibreglass hull, and I flinched as the shotgun’s boom seemed to echo in my head again.

As quickly as that, the numbness was gone. I took deep breaths of the cold salt spray as the full impact of what had happened finally hit home. There was too much to process. The revelation about Leo Villiers, my dismissal from the investigation and uncertainty over Rachel. All of it faded beside Lundy’s murder. The memory of that made me feel physically winded. No matter what Clarke had said, someone had come out to the sea fort with the intention of killing everyone on it. Someone who had already murdered four people, at least two of them only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And now that Leo Villiers had been ruled out, we had absolutely no idea of who had done it.

Or why.

Distracted, I almost missed the opening to the creek. When I realized how fast it was coming up I quickly steered towards it, but I’d misjudged the strength of the tide. The engine pitch rose as I opened the throttle, turning at a sharper angle to compensate. Now the waves were hitting the boat side-on. I clutched at the seat as a larger one smacked into the hull, sending freezing water over the side and almost overturning it. As the little boat settled I looked around, only now noticing how conditions had deteriorated. The estuary was a mass of frayed waves, already lapping close to the top of the banks, and the level was still rising. I’d been too preoccupied to worry about the marine unit officer’s warning. I couldn’t afford to ignore it any more.

The mouth of the creek was sliding past at an alarming rate. There was no way I could make it, not without exposing the side of the boat to the full force of the waves, and I’d come close enough to tipping over once as it was. Wiping the spray from my eyes, I turned the bow away until I was running with the tide once more. By now I’d passed the creek, but there was no helping that. Looking back, I tried to gauge the rhythm of the swells before gunning the engine and swinging the boat into a tight turn. It began to roll, lurching as waves slapped against its side, but then the bow came round and I had it aimed directly into the waves, heading back up the estuary towards the creek.

It meant I was fighting against the full force of the tide and wind. The engine laboured, and the boat barely seemed to make any headway as it slammed into one wave after another. For agonizing minutes the creek didn’t seem to come any closer, and I thought I’d have no choice but to either run higher up the estuary or try to make for the nearest shore. Gradually, though, the whipping grasses that fringed the mouth of the creek drew nearer, until at last I was in its relative shelter.

The chop here was still heavy but nowhere near as rough as it was in the more exposed estuary. I tasted salt as I wiped the mingled rain and seawater from my face, relaxing my grip on the tiller as the tide carried the boat towards the Backwaters. Now it was less of a struggle to keep on course, I could appreciate how abnormally high the waters were. The swollen creek was already topping the lowest sections of its banks, spreading out on to the surrounding fields. And the tide hadn’t peaked yet.

Even though I’d known this part of the country was prone to flooding, had seen the evidence in the high-water marks left on trees and buildings, it hadn’t really struck me before how quickly it could be inundated. The weather wasn’t even especially bad: compared to an Atlantic storm I’d once been caught in on the Outer Hebrides this was no more than a squall. But the Hebridean islands were fortresses of cliff and rock. Here the low-lying ground was subject to the whims of the sea, vulnerable and easily overwhelmed.

Like now. I barely recognized the landscape around me as I steered the small boat up the creek. Sandy hummocks had become miniature islands, and reeds and long-stemmed grasses sprouted from the water’s choppy surface. It was growing dark, too, as what little daylight remained was choked off by heavy rain clouds.

But I didn’t have much further to go. I still had no idea what I’d do when I got back to the boathouse, and as though the thought had prompted it my phone rang. Easing off the engine, I let the tide carry me along as I took it from my pocket.

It was Rachel.

‘I got your message,’ she said, her voice breaking up from the poor reception.

‘I wanted to see how you were. Are you back at the house?’

‘Yeah. I caught a taxi after I’d given my statement. Where are you? I can hardly hear you.’

I turned my back to the wind, trying to shield the phone from the rain. ‘On the creek. I’m taking the boat back to the boathouse.’

‘You’re out in this?’

‘Not for much longer.’ I broke off while I avoided an entire bush that must have uprooted from the bank and was now being carried upstream. ‘What shall I do with the boat?’

‘It doesn’t matter, just leave it there.’ She sounded upset. ‘Have you heard?’

For a moment I was confused, thinking she was talking about Lundy. Then I realized she didn’t mean the shooting. This was something else.

‘Heard what?’

Her voice faded, then came back loud enough to hear: ‘… police… taken Andrew for questioning.’

Oh, Christ, I thought. Clarke hadn’t wasted any time. ‘I thought he was meeting a client? Can’t they confirm where he was?’

‘The client cancelled at the last minute. Andrew drove into Exeter anyway, but he didn’t see anyone so he can’t prove it. The police picked him up in front of Jamie and Fay, for God’s sake! Did you know about it?’

‘No, of course not,’ I said, correcting the boat.

‘Like you didn’t know about Mark Chapel, you mean?’

I stared at the dirty water pooling around my feet, too weary to respond. But Rachel quickly went on.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I just… I don’t know what’s going on any more! I keep thinking about… about what happened earlier. And now this. It doesn’t seem to stop.’

Rain dripped from my hood, running in cold rivulets down my sleeve as I tried and failed to come up with an answer. ‘Shall I come over?’

‘It’s better if you don’t. Fay’s in a state and Jamie’s beside himself. He almost lost it when the police took Andrew.’

‘Tomorrow, then. I’ll call you.’

Clarke wouldn’t like it, but if I was off the investigation it was none of her business. There was a pause. I thought the signal had died until Rachel spoke.

‘What will you do tonight?’

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I couldn’t bring myself to go back to London, but I didn’t have the boathouse key any more. Even if I did, I wasn’t confident the flat would stay dry if the creek continued to rise like this. Where it had broken its banks it was starting to merge into a single body of water with the smaller channels and ditches. I looked out across the spreading floodplain, its full extent masked by the rain and deepening twilight.

‘I’ll find somewhere to stay.’

‘OK, but the roads around the Backwaters are going to be impassable if this keeps up. Be careful.’

I said I would, wiping the rain from my phone before tucking it inside the waterproof coat. At least Rachel, Fay and Jamie would be safe. These were the sort of conditions Trask had designed Creek House for, and its concrete pillars would raise it well above any flood.

I needed to get to higher ground myself. I opened up the engine again, wanting to get off the creek and away from the Backwaters as soon as I could. But I daren’t go any faster. I didn’t want to run aground, and with the creek overflowing it was becoming hard to see where its banks were. Trees and hedges seem to grow from a spreading lake, and off to one side I saw water streaming across a low stretch of road almost as fast as the boat was travelling. It would be touch and go to get my car clear in time, and I was relieved when I finally saw the boathouse up ahead.

The jetty was already submerged. Only the top half of the timber gate that closed off the boathouse dock was still visible, and waves now covered the lower steps almost to the small landing by the hatchway. But the creek’s bank was higher here, and the flooding hadn’t reached as far as the boathouse itself. That was just as well, since my car was parked behind it. As I drew closer I was relieved to see it was still on dry ground. Then, as the boat approached the jetty, I saw there was another car parked next to mine.

Even in the fading light I recognized the sleek black lines of Sir Stephen Villiers’ Daimler.