Page 141 of Slack Tide Kill

"That's a lie. You were his best mate, right? So do we arrest you as the fifth Rook? The one who blew up Bledd's boat and killed a police officer?"

"What? No, of course not! I told you, I don't get on with Reg's boys. They're wankers; I'm not taking a bullet for them."

"So give us something, Gerald. Take us back to the old days, if you have to, back to you and all Reg Rook's hangers on. Name names."

"Name names," Spate muttered under his breath, then poured a third shot and held the tumbler tight, like he was drawing strength from its presence. "Listen, it's the trafficking you want, right?"

"Good place to start. Who was close with Reg then?"

"Nobody who's alive still!"

"What about you?"

"I told you, I wasn't ever involved in that side of things. I heard a bit about it, that's all. Mostly boasting down the pub."

"Boasting? That's all you've got?"

Spate shrugged. "I'm telling you what I heard from a mate in his cups. All the routes across the Channel, through the marsh, up into the mainland? Reg used to say he built them all himself, alone."

"Alone?"

"Working with the trafficking gangs, sure. But I never met any one of that lot, never saw them, and as far as I know, they never set foot on our shores. They handled the Channel, Reg handled the land side. That's it."

"And all that came from a mate in a pub?"

"Whispers across the marsh," Spate said, and sipped his whisky. "Besides, it were all 30 years ago. I barely remember."

"Thirty years ago," Sally said, changing tack. "Back to Tom Richter's death. Is this what he saw that got him killed, then? Reg meeting the gangs, casing his routes?"

"I don't bloody know what that thick twat Richter saw, do I? I only know what the rest of us knew, which is that he weren't right in the head and kept getting himself into shit, which finally got him killed. And not only that, but he lost his eyes to boot, and your lot never really clocked what that meant."

Sally's eyes narrowed, but she held back. Liam kept going. "He died because he was a witness. Snitches get stitches, right? That's really why Richter died, because he saw something he shouldn't?"

Spate stared for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Of course it bloody ain't! You think Reg would ever let that numpty close enough to see something he shouldn't? Rooks these days may be a pack of needle dicks, but not Reg. Reg didn't fuck about. He was a smart, vicious bastard, and he was my mate. Only one man on this Earth that he feared, and that was Arthur Bledd."

Sally felt that clock home, bringing all the threads together again. "Bledd? Bledd only punched him once for littering."

"Punched him? Arthur Bledd did whatever he wanted, and Reg wouldn't do a sodding thing! He was such a mental case, nobody wanted to mess with him." He sucked in a wheezy breath. "Reg was a lot of things, but he wasn't an actual psycho. But Bledd? He'd cut your finger off if you tickled one of his precious marsh warblers wrong. And God forbid if you sicced dogs on a fucking fox."

Liam turned to Sally. She had no idea what to make of that either. It was all new, but maybe in keeping with what they'd seen.

"Did someone sicc dogs on a fox?"

"Yes," Spate spat defiantly. "Trevor Gibbs did, back in 2006, a year after it was banned, after Bledd carpet-bombed the marsh with photocopies of the law. No one saw Gibbs again after that."

Sally blinked. "You're saying Arthur Bledd murdered this Trevor Gibbs?"

"No doubt. He's an eye for an eye man, if you take my meaning."

"Hang on. Now you're saying Bledd killed Tom Richter, too?"

"Isn't it bloody obvious, by now? After he blew up his own boat to kill one of you lot? He did it then, he's doing it now, end of sodding story."

Sally tried to put all that together. "Did you witness any of this?"

"Bledd killing that lad?" He heaved a sigh. "No. I didn't. Nobody did, nobody would have. But I can tell you what I heard down the pub."

Sally restrained a sigh. Hearsay would never be admissible in court. "What did you hear, Gerald?"