And the shotgun had gone off.
‘It blew Anthony Russell back into the water,’ Clarke said with a sigh. ‘It was a spring tide that night, so the body must have been carried over the Barrows into the estuary rather than out to sea. Probably ended up in the fringes of the Backwaters, which is why it wasn’t found for weeks.’
Four of them, in fact. Once in the maze of creeks and channels, the body would have sunk to the bottom. Exposed to air and seabirds twice a day at low tide, and picked over by aquatic scavengers, eventually it had refloated and drifted back out into the estuary.
And then Lundy had called me.
‘What’ll happen to Jamie?’ I asked.
Clarke stared moodily into her polystyrene cup. The sight reminded me of Lundy doing the same thing only a few days before. ‘Porter was self-defence, no one’s going to blame him for that. But intentionally or not, he still shot Anthony Russell. He’d have been better off coming to us straight away. As it is …’
She hitched a shoulder, indicating it was out of her hands. Which it was: Jamie had killed an innocent man and then concealed it. Although he hadn’t intended to, he’d helped set in motion a series of events that had claimed yet more lives. Even allowing for mitigating circumstances, he’d be facing a custodial sentence. With luck and a sympathetic court, he’d be young enough to reclaim his life afterwards. But any plans for university and a normal life were now a long way in his future.
And yet, if not for the shotgun he’d had hidden, Porter would in all likelihood have killed Fay and Rachel, as well as Jamie himself. I was too tired to decide if that was fortuitous or ironic.
‘Have you found the shotgun Porter used at the sea fort?’ I asked.
‘Not yet, but we’re still searching his flat. He lived in quarters in Sir Stephen Villiers’ main house, so you can imagine how well that’s gone down,’ Clarke said drily. ‘There was an empty cartridge box in his bin, though. Number five bismuth birdshot, the same brand as Villiers used.’
And the same type of shot that had killed Lundy. But Clarke wouldn’t need reminding of that.
‘The thinking at the moment is that Porter took a shotgun and shells from Leo Villiers’ house when Sir Stephen sent him to clean up at Willets Point,’ she continued. ‘We knew there could be a second gun missing from the gun cabinet, but since Villiers had it moved into the cellar when the house was renovated no one could say for sure. We’re still trying to locate the shotgun, but my guess is Porter would have dumped it in the sea on the way back from the fort.’ The DCI looked across the table at me, the harsh overhead lights emphasizing the shadows under her eyes. ‘Lucky for you.’
It was, although I didn’t feel that way. On an intellectual level I realized I’d had two narrow escapes inside twenty-four hours. Emotionally, though, too much had happened for it to have sunk in.
But I thought Clarke was probably right about Porter getting rid of the shotgun. The weapon tied him to the shooting of a police officer, and he’d just had his face peppered with shards after firing it point blank at a rusted steel door. Even if the blowback hadn’t damaged the barrel, he must have decided it was too risky to keep.
Looking back, I could see how events had slipped out of his control ever since he’d gone out to the sea fort to confront Emma Derby and Mark Chapel. And when Leo Villiers, who must have seemed the perfect scapegoat, returned from the dead Porter’s own situation had become untenable. I could well believe he was telling the truth when he’d said things had got out of hand. But that was small consolation to the people whose lives had been destroyed because of it.
‘The empty cartridge box wasn’t the only thing we found at his flat,’ Clarke went on. ‘He was a magpie. The place was full of stolen items. Nothing big or obvious, mainly stuff like watches and jewellery. We’re still checking records, but we think at least some of them came from burglaries reported in the area last year.’
‘Around the same time Creek House was broken into?’ I asked.
Clarke tipped her head in acknowledgement. ‘It looks as though you were right about them being a smokescreen. Porter would have known there’d be copies of the photographs on Emma Derby’s computer, but he didn’t want anyone thinking the Trasks had been specifically targeted. There weren’t any stolen computers in his flat, so he must have got rid of those. But we did find a USB flash drive hidden behind a loose skirting board. We’re still going through the files, but the blackmail photographs are on there. Shots of Leo Villiers dressing in women’s clothes, all taken at long range through the windows of his house. There’s some film footage we think is from the video camera Mark Chapel took from work, but it’s poor quality and doesn’t show much.’
‘You haven’t found the camera itself?’
‘Not yet. Porter was too savvy to keep anything that could easily be traced back to Emma Derby, but he obviously decided to hang on to the photographs. Makes you wonder if he planned to use them himself someday.’
Porter had been indignant when I’d suggested he was a blackmailer, but then he’d also denied being a thief. Although he might not have seen himself as either, he’d evidently left his options open in case he changed his mind.
‘He told me he wasn’t going to let them “muscle in” after all he’d done for the Villiers,’ I said. ‘What do you think he meant?’
Clarke raised the polystyrene cup again before thinking better of it. She set it back down with a sour expression. ‘I’m not sure, but the whole set-up seems odd. There doesn’t seem to have been any love lost between Porter and Leo Villiers, yet Sir Stephen sent him to clean Willets Point when he realized we were going to search the house. And why send his driver to deliver half a million pounds in blackmail money rather than one of his security team?’
‘He’d been employing Porter for twenty-odd years. He must have trusted him.’
Clarke gave me a sceptical look. ‘Exactly. But Sir Stephen doesn’t strike me as naïve, and Porter wasn’t what you could call the trustworthy type. We know he kept his boss’s money, and there were various bits and pieces at his flat we think he lifted from Leo Villiers’ house. Silver cutlery, gold cufflinks, a pair of high-end Zeiss binoculars, stuff like that. So how come a hard-nosed business leader like Sir Stephen put so much trust in his light-fingered driver?’
I rubbed my face, trying to organize my thoughts. Clarke was right, there was something wrong. I just couldn’t see what it was. ‘What does Sir Stephen say?’
‘Do you mean about his employee being a mass murderer or his son coming back from the dead as a woman?’ She pushed her cup of tea away as though it were to blame. ‘He’s making no comment about Leo, but he must have known he was transgender or he wouldn’t have stopped us seeing his medical records. Maybe he thought Leo really had murdered Emma Derby, as well. It’d explain why he was so keen for us to believe his son was dead. He knew there was a big fat can of worms waiting to be opened, and he was hoping to keep a lid on it.’
‘And what about Porter?’
‘Sir Stephen doesn’t have much to say about him at all. His lawyers have assured us how shocked he was, and said their client isn’t responsible for the independent actions of his employees. Oh, they also pointed out that Sir Stephen had his car stolen, so he’s a victim himself.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘I kid you not. I offered them the number of Victim Support, but funnily enough they declined.’ She gave a snort of disgust. ‘As far as the blackmail goes, they’re refusing to confirm or deny anything. My feeling is they don’t want people knowing Sir Stephen gave in to blackmail, so they’re hoping to bury it.’
‘Can they do that?’ I asked.
‘They can try. There’s no concrete evidence that Derby and Chapel actually blackmailed Sir Stephen, except for Porter’s version of events. And even that’s second-hand.’
Jesus, I thought, sickened. Blackmail or not, I couldn’t feel any sympathy for Leo Villiers’ father. There was a coldness to him that was unnatural, and
a sense of entitlement and arrogance in the way he thought he was above the law. But then, with his money and connections, perhaps he was.
‘There is one more thing,’ Clarke said slowly. ‘The RSPCA took away the birds and animals from Holloway’s house before the fire. But when we made a start clearing the garden yesterday afternoon we found a sports holdall in the undergrowth. Looked like it’d been used for a sick seagull or something. As well as bird shit it was full of fifty-pound notes.’
I stared at her. ‘He used the money for a bird’s nest?’
A faint smile tugged at the corner of Clarke’s mouth. ‘I know. It was close to one of the trees that caught fire, so if it hadn’t been so wet it’d probably all have gone up in smoke. The notes were pretty scorched but it looks like most of it’s there. Five hundred thousand pounds propping up a seagull’s backside.’
Christ. I sat back, stunned. Porter had been wrong when he’d said Edgar wouldn’t have any use for the money. At another time it would have been funny. ‘What’s going to happen to it?’
‘Well, that’s an interesting question. Obviously if the money belongs to Sir Stephen it should be returned to him, bird shit and all. But for that to happen he’d have to admit to being blackmailed. So unless he does we’ll have no choice but to regard it as Holloway’s property.’
We shared a smile at that, both of us appreciating the poetic justice. And for me there was also an element of relief. Although I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it, Porter’s accusation had lodged like a thorn at the back of my mind: If you don’t know where it is, that leaves Derby’s sister. I wondered what it said about me that I’d still harboured a doubt about her, even now.
Clarke was getting to her feet, signalling the interview was at an end. ‘I think we’re done here. Are you OK to get yourself back to London?’
I said I was. My car was a write-off, but I still had my wallet. I could catch a taxi to the train station and be back at my flat within a couple of hours. There was no longer any point in staying here, even if I’d had anywhere to stay. Rachel would have enough to deal with at the moment, and I needed sleep. Just the thought of it made my body feel twice as heavy as it should.
But there were still things I didn’t understand, frayed threads of questions that tiredness and caffeine only seemed to tangle more. ‘How would Porter have known about Edgar’s house in the first place?’ I asked, pushing back the chair as I stiffly stood up. ‘Has Leo … I mean Lena Merchant said anything about that? There must have been some reason why the Villiers estate let him live rent free.’
‘Sorry, I can’t discuss that.’
The sudden curtness surprised me. Clarke hadn’t seemed to mind talking about other aspects of the case. But I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t slept, and the DCI still had this unholy mess to sort out. Perhaps she felt she’d already shown me enough courtesy for one night.
Or day, as it turned out. I’d lost track of time in the windowless room, but when I left the police headquarters a thin grey dawn was breaking. It was far too early to call Rachel, and my waterlogged phone wasn’t working anyway. Clarke told me they’d need to hold on to my bags and belongings from my car for the time being, so I took a taxi straight to the station.
I dozed fitfully on the train, and caught another cab to my flat rather than contend with the morning rush hour on the Tube. It seemed strange to be back in the bustle and grime of London after the reedy isolation of the Backwaters. There was an unnerving sense of disorientation as I walked up the familiar garden path to unlock the front door. The sticky smell of fresh paint threw me until I remembered the attempted break-in before I’d left. It seemed a long time ago.
There was a bill from the decorator on the floor among the junk mail, courtesy of my upstairs neighbour. I dropped it on the kitchen table, feeling restless and out of sorts. My head hummed from fatigue, but I’d reached that fretful stage of tiredness I knew wouldn’t let me sleep. Putting on the TV more for distraction than any desire to see the morning news, I filled the kettle to make coffee.
When I turned round again the sea fort was on the screen.
Seeing it here, in my flat, felt utterly surreal. For a moment or two I thought I was hallucinating as an overhead shot from a helicopter showed tiny white-clad figures moving about underneath the tower. But of course the murder of a DI would be big news, more so than ever after the shooting of his killer.
I switched off the TV. There seemed no air in the room. An image of Lundy bleeding out on the metal steps came to me, so vivid I could almost smell the blood and gunpowder. I tried to busy myself making coffee, but a nagging disquiet persisted. I was familiar enough with the way my subconscious worked to know that the TV news had shaken something loose. It wasn’t just the shock of seeing the sea fort, or the reminder of Lundy’s death. I was overlooking something. I just didn’t know what it was. Come on, what is it? What have you missed?
I poured myself a coffee, picturing the fort again. I visualized the ladder climbing to the gantry and how the sea had boomed and echoed underneath the tower. Waves breaking against its hollow legs, the wet drape of seaweed as gulls fed on the exposed sandbank …
That’s when I realized. I put my coffee down, cursing my stupidity. Like so many things, it had been staring me in the face.
Crabs.
32
THE MARINE UNIT had to wait until the next low tide before they went out to the sea fort. Clarke hadn’t wanted me to go along. Her initial scepticism had faded as I’d made my case, but her reluctance had been harder to break down.
‘You need to get some rest. You’re no use to anyone half asleep, and you’ve been up all night,’ she argued.
So had she, but I knew better than to mention that. So I countered that I felt fine, that I could snatch a couple of hours’ sleep while we waited for the tide. She knew as well as I did that, if we found what I was expecting, they’d need a forensic anthropologist. And even if they could find someone at such short notice, a newcomer wouldn’t know the case half as well as I did.
Finally, Clarke agreed. After we’d finalized arrangements, I set my alarm and then collapsed on to the bed for two whole hours. I woke feeling grainy and far from rested, but a hot shower and breakfast helped. By the time I caught the train back to police headquarters for Clarke’s briefing I felt almost human again.
But going back out to the sea fort was more unsettling than I’d thought. The marine unit launch slogged through the post-storm waves, forced to anchor a little way off from the mooring platform. The police tape tied around the ladder and upper gantry made a low thrumming in the wind as we were ferried across by dinghy. I looked up at the rusted tower high above me, but my business wasn’t up there today.
It was lower down.
The sandbank around the tower was still underwater when we arrived, but by the time the forensic teams and equipment had been disembarked, a smooth brown curve had broken through the surface. It quickly grew, and as the CSIs stepped out on to the soft sand the first of the small crabs appeared.
I should have pieced it together sooner, although when I’d watched the tiny creatures the day before I’d still been in shock from Lundy’s shooting. But the information had still registered in my subconscious, gradually working its way out like a splinter until it could be plucked free. Crabs were scavengers. They fed on dead flesh, even when it was badly decomposed. And for so many of them to have colonized the sandbank meant there must be a plentiful food source buried inside it.
Like a body.
‘Are you sure about this, Hunter?’
Frears stood next to me on the platform, watching the pale crabs scuttle away from the CSIs’ spades as their refuge was destroyed.
‘Sure enough,’ I told him.
Ordinarily I might have had some anxiety that I was wrong, that I’d brought all these people out here on a fool’s errand. Instead I felt a quiet certainty. The crabs had been a catalyst, bringing together all the separate pieces that were already there. You’re
half right, Porter had mocked when I’d asked if he’d hidden Emma Derby’s body in the Backwaters after dropping her from the tower. I hadn’t known then what he meant, but when he’d gone out to the sea fort to confront the blackmailers it had been in Leo Villiers’ boat. I’d seen it at Willets Point, a small dinghy moored to the wooden dock at the rear of the house.
Too small to carry Porter and two bodies.
He wouldn’t have realized his mistake until after he’d let them fall onto the mooring platform, sixty feet below. Once he’d done that he was committed. It wouldn’t have been practical to carry their dead weight back up a near-vertical ladder, so when he found there wasn’t room in the boat for both, his options had been limited. If he let the tide carry one of his victims away, he knew they’d eventually be washed ashore and discovered. But the low tide would have revealed another alternative.
He could bury one of the bodies in the sandbank.
Porter would have chosen Emma Derby for practical reasons. He would have been exposed out in the open under the fort, in a hurry to get away, and she was the smallest. She wouldn’t need as big a grave. I doubt he’d have had a shovel with him, but the wet sand would have been soft enough to dig with an oar blade. He wouldn’t have had to go down very far. Only deep enough for the tide not to uncover what was buried there.
Seawater seeped into the hole as the CSIs scraped the sand from what was left of Emma Derby. The crabs had been busy during the months she’d lain under the sea fort’s tower. Most of the exposed skin and soft tissue had been picked away, leaving behind bones and cartilage crusted with dirty-white adipocere. The sand-caked hair had sloughed off but it was still long and dark, plastered about the empty eye sockets and bones of the face. Although there was no resemblance to the beautiful and confident woman whose photograph I’d seen in the boathouse, I wasn’t in any doubt.
We’d found Rachel’s sister.
I didn’t attend the post-mortem. That had been one of Clarke’s conditions of my being present at the recovery: I could observe and advise on handling the delicate remains but that was all. Although I was loath to admit as much, it was probably for the best. I’d been getting by on reserves and adrenalin, and by then both had run out.