Page 113 of Slack Tide Kill

"Just stay here," Mayhew spat, then turned to the others. "Come on. DI Gemmell, watch her. Do not let her out of your sight."

She led the squad away over the beach. Liam didn't turn. Only Chakrati cast a backward glance, almost apologetic, then they were receding over the shingle.

Sally's limbs went weak. Liam first. Bledd next. If she'd been wrong about both of those, what else had she been wrong about? Maybe all of it. Maybe everything. Maybe she really was the liability Mayhew thought she was.

She thought back to John Logan, following her around Rye. The notion made her sick. His next pet project, Mayhew had said. Like she needed saving. Blind to her own partner turning on her. Deaf to the killer sitting right by her side.

Another barbarian soul.

One knee went out and she dropped to the shingle. They were just small mistakes, a voice inside her said. Liam had been faithful until now. Bledd had seemed genuinely harmless.

An eccentric. An eel man. An eco-warrior.

But a murderer?

The words of the poem danced on the black wall before her.

'Busy old fool, unruly sunne,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?'

The words felt like a mockery, like she was another busy old fool, so wrapped up in herself that she couldn't see the truth: that she simply wasn't wanted.

The realization hit like a punch in the stomach. Did it explain Liam? Did he pity her too?

She felt herself coming apart within, broken by two truths she hadn't seen coming. The Fates had warned her; her partner was not what she'd thought, and the killer belonged to this place in a way she'd never belonged anywhere.

The poem reeled on, taunting her.

'Go tell court huntsmen that the King will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices,

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.'

Sally laughed, a wild bray escaping her lips. Any sign of order was a mirage, and maybe it always had been. For hours, days, months… Dungeness yawed around her, the vastness like a mouth opening wide. She tilted sideways and caught herself on the shingle; cockle shells and granite crunching beneath her fingers.

Maybe this was right? Maybe this was where she'd always been headed?

A hand came on her shoulder.

"Hey, you OK?"

She looked up. Stephen Gemmell. His eyes widened when he saw her face.

"Shit, Sally," he said. "What can I do?"

Sally just looked at him. This was kind, she thought. He was a kind man. "Nothing." She managed to get her feet back under her, standing again. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine. I don't know what just happened between you, but forgive me for being blunt; the DCI can be a real bitch sometimes."

Sally looked at him. "You don't have to–"