Day Six
The bloody rain. For twenty-four hours it had fallen, flaying the banks of the river with a tropical fervor. Except it was cold. Granted the summer was officially over, but just two days ago the volunteers had been wearing shorts, while Fleet had stood sweating in his thinnest suit. Since the weather had broken, the water had struck like winter hail. Hard, pitiless, icy. A month's rainfall in barely a day, so they said. Fleet didn't know about climate change, all that, but he knew when something wasn't right. And this weather? It was freakish. As messed-up as everything else that was going on in this town right now.
He paused in the doorway of his hotel to light a cigarette, taking almost as much pleasure from the brief burst of warmth as he did from the nicotine itself. He exhaled a cloud of smoke that was immediately doused by the tumbling rain, then took two more drags and tossed the cigarette into the gutter, knowing it would be ruined anyway the moment he stepped into the torrent.
That's fifty pence down the drain right there, said a voice inside his head. His wife Holly's, unmistakably, and Fleet felt a pang from somewhere in his gut. It was like an ulcer, this constant twinge, and he hadn't yet found a way to stop it hurting.
He thought of home. Was it raining like this there?, he wondered. Because it felt biblical. If he were to get into his car and drive the three miles to the parish limits, would he find himself confronting a ring of blue sky, a rainbow bridge to the world outside?
You heavens above, rain down my righteousness . . .
What was that? Genesis? Isaiah? The quote came unbidden, as powerfully evocative as a familiar smell, and it made him want to light another cigarette.
"Detective Inspector Fleet?"
Just as he'd been about to dash toward his company Insignia, Fleet turned. It was the hotelier, a woman in her late forties to whom Fleet had taken an instant dislike on first meeting her, only to later reverse his opinion completely. She dressed primly, rarely smiled, and wore her hair in a skin-stretching bun. Fleet had marked her down as yet another disapproving gossip, in a town with far more than its fair share, but she'd proved discreet, generous and obliquely loyal. In many ways, she was the closest thing Fleet had in this town to a friend.
"There's a call for you," said Anne, as she pointed over her left shoulder. Her expression was apologetic. She was familiar enough now with Fleet's business to know the news he received was never good.
Fleet checked the screen of his mobile. There were no missed calls, but there was also no reception. The entire town was pocked with dead spots. Which seemed as appropriate an analogy as any.
He followed Anne back inside. The hotel wasn't luxurious, but it was a luxury. Fleet lived only an hour or so along the coast, but rather than traveling back and forth he'd taken a room here, at the Harbor View Hotel. For convenience, he'd told himself. The Harbor View was no more or less than your typical seaside-town B&B, and Fleet might have picked any one of the dozen or so guesthouses that were clustered beside the harbor. All would have had space, and Anne was the only thing that set this one apart. She cleaned his room, fried his breakfast and-now-fielded his calls. She did so much it made Fleet feel guilty, to the extent he'd started making his own bed. Not that he used it much anyway. Most nights, since checking in just under a week ago, he'd sat up gazing at the harbor, imagining what might be hidden beneath the water.
Anne showed him to the little office behind the reception counter, and gestured to the receiver lying unhooked on the desk. She nodded when Fleet offered his thanks, and then closed the glass door to give him some privacy.
"Robin Fleet," he announced into the receiver.
"Boss? It's Nicky."
The line was poor, the reception wherever Nicky was clearly only a fraction better than it was in the black spot that covered the area around the harbor.
"What's up, Nicky? I was just on my way to the river."
Detective Sergeant Nicola Collins took a breath. Even through the crackle she sounded excited about something.
"We've found them," she said.
Fleet straightened. "You did? When?"
"Just now. And, Rob? Brace yourself. It's a fucking shitshow."
So much for the rainbow bridge.
Fleet had to follow the river inland to get to where he was heading-passing the current search site on the way-and though something inside him lifted when he reached the final dilapidated houses of the town itself, the clouds did not. The sky was gray to the end of the world, and on the roof of Fleet's car the rain persisted with its relentless beat.
As the last few buildings disappeared from his rearview mirror, Fleet found himself in countryside. The forest thickened, obscuring the river. And although Fleet remembered the area far better than he would have liked, he twice took a wrong turning. He blamed the satnav, which was insistent that he should cut across a field. He switched it off, turned up the radio-the local station, playing modern pop tunes, teenage stuff, until he dialed to something classical instead-and relied on memory, together with the directions Nicky had given him at the end of their patchy phone call.
It took him half an hour longer than he'd expected, and in the end even the radio signal gave out. Had they really come this far? This deep inland?
The Insignia wasn't built for country lanes, even less for muddy fields, so he had to park it short of the pair of police Land Rovers. Nicky was waiting for him, wellied and dripping. Somehow, though, DS Nicola Collins always managed to look like she was fresh from a good night's sleep and her second cup of coffee. It was those frost blue eyes of hers, clear and crisp against the frame of her short black hair. Also, she was young. Twenty-six? Twenty-seven? A decade younger than Fleet, and Fleet's true age, he always felt, was his own plus the number of cigarettes he'd smoked that day.
But what Fleet had mistaken for excitement in Nicky's voice when he'd spoken to her on the phone was something else, he quickly realized. It was adrenaline, yes, but Fleet could see she was rattled. And DS Collins didn't rattle easily.
"Boss," she said, in greeting. She looked down at his shoes, which were already sinking into the mud.
Fleet flipped the hood of his anorak over his head. "You can always give me a piggyback if I get stuck," he said. Fleet was six-three, and at least fifteen kilos overweight. Nicky was trimmer than a greyhound, and weighed about as much. Even so, Fleet had no doubt she could have managed it. She was tenacious as hell, which was part of the reason he'd given this particular assignment to her. Others would have seen it as being sidelined, but Nicky seemed to appreciate how crucial it was likely to be.
"If it carries on raining like this, we'll both be swimming soon anyway," Nicky said.
Which might actually have suited Fleet better. When he'd been a teenager he'd swum competitively, and even though it was years since he'd been in a pool, these days he'd probably still show more grace in the water than he did on dry land. Wasn't body fat supposed to help with buoyancy, after all?
They started across the field toward the woods.
"How far have we got to go?" Fleet asked.
"Far enough," Nicky answered. "Especially in brogues. But they were closer to the edge of the forest than they apparently realized."
"They were lost?"
"To be honest, I'm not sure. When they called, they struggled to pinpoint their location. On the other hand, I've got a feeling they knew where they were heading. But their stories are . . . garbled. Which is understandable, given the circumstances."
Fleet turned, but could see only the tip of Nicky's nose past the solid yellow wall of her hood.
"You said they called in," he said, prompting her.
"That's right. About two hours ago. It took us an hour to find them. Would have been longer if we hadn't already been on their trail. The ambulance is apparently on its way, but I guess it got stuck behind a tractor or something. And . . . Well. There's no rush." She looked at him meaningfully.
"Sadie?" Fleet asked. It was all he could say, all he needed to.
But, "No," said Nicky. "Not Sadie."
They passed through the tree line. Even at the edge of the forest the foliage was dense, but there was something like a path cutting through the undergrowth.
About a mile in, they reached a clearing, and Nicky moved to one side. Unlike most of the cops assigned to the investigation, she'd worked with Fleet before, and she knew him well enough to appreciate that the time for commentary had passed. It was important to Fleet that he be able to make his own assessment. When he wanted more from Nicky-or from anyone-he would ask.
The first thing Fleet noted was how well Nicky had preserved the scene. Unexpectedly, this far from the road, there was a clutch of buildings on the other side of the clearing-all long abandoned, by the look of them. There was a small cabin, as well as two large barns, presumably for crops or farming equipment, not that anything was being cultivated out here now. All the structures had been taped off, as indeed had the entire area. Patches of the open ground between Fleet and the buildings had also been marked, and covered with tarps to protect them from the rain. Footprints? Fleet wondered. Or blood?
He skirted the edge of the clearing, as the rain on his hood struck a steady patter-only interrupted every so often by a heavier drop from the branches overhead. Fleet pulled the hood back to release himself from the distraction.
Half a dozen steps from the access path he saw them. While they'd waited for the ambulance to arrive, Nicky and her three colleagues had herded them under cover, beneath the roof of one of the barns. The four kids were seated on the ground, wrapped in silver blankets, and Fleet noted they were even more poorly prepared for the weather than he was. They had on trainers, T-shirts, shorts, and all were soaked to the skin. They looked like Glastonbury-goers on a comedown, long after the music had stopped.
Fleet's attention moved on, his eyes sweeping the shadows in the outbuilding.
And then he saw it. The body at the base of the tree. It was beyond the view of the kids in the barn, but from the way the teenagers were facing, it was obvious they were aware it was there.
"Jesus Christ," Fleet muttered. He looked at the kids again, and then the body.
You heavens above, rain down my righteousness.
For the first time since he'd been a teenager himself, Fleet felt the urge to cross himself.
Day Seven
Abi
We should never have been out there in the first place. We should have . . . I don't know what we should have done. What the hell do you do in a situation like that?
Did he really . . .
Is he really . . .
I mean, we didn't make a mistake or anything? That's all I'm asking. Like, maybe it wasn't as bad as we thought it was, or the ambulance people got to him in time, and-
No.
No.
I know.
I just . . . I can't believe it, that's all. I mean, I can see it, literally see it, right in front of me, every time I close my eyes, but even still it . . .
Oh God. Oh Jesus.
We just . . . we should never have been out there. We shouldn't.
But it was about the act of looking. That's what it was. The not just doing nothing while you lot dredged the river, and searched the allotments, and the old railway cutting, and all the other places that could have hidden a . . . that Sadie might . . . that . . .
Sorry.
I just . . . I didn't expect it to be this hard. I thought I could . . . that I'd just . . . To be honest, I don't know what I thought.
Do we really have to go through it all again? I mean, you know how it ended. How he . . . how he died. And I told you I didn't see. It all happened so quickly, and I . . . I mean, I'm tired, and . . . and there's so much I don't remember, and . . .
Right. Of course.
No, I . . . I get it. I do. Let's just . . . let me just . . . I'm fine. It's fine.
I was saying . . . What was I saying?
Right.
We had a choice, we figured. Sit around waiting for a call or a text or whatever, or for someone to come knocking on the door, with news you knew was going to be a fist into your stomach. Or go out and join in the search. Not the actual search, where you lot were. We knew you wouldn't let us within fifty meters, not a bunch of sixteen-year-old kids who you'd basically already accused of being involved somehow.
But the search. Bigger picture. The Search for Sadie Saunders.
It's like, our mums and dads were out there helping you. And most of them didn't even know her. Not properly. Obviously Sadie's parents did, but . . . Well. I say that. Although I guess they didn't really know her either.
But my point is, we knew her. And me, personally, the whole time I was waiting for news, all I could do was nothing. There was WhatsApp and Facebook and stuff, which helped at first because it felt like you were in touch with what was going on. Not what was actually going on, though, and after a while that became the problem. You realized that nobody had any better idea than you did.
And it started getting nasty. It didn't take long. It was stuff about Mason, mainly. Which I suppose was to be expected, not that it made it any easier to see. And later-not even that much later-it was stuff about the rest of us as well. And some of it I know exactly who was responsible. You do too, you must do, but has anyone done anything about it? Of course not. Which is exactly why people think it's OK. They know they can say whatever they like if it's not out loud. Worst case, they'll get put in Twitter jail or something, not actual jail, which if you ask me is where some of these people, people like Lara fucking Sweeney for example-
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