Page 142 of Slack Tide Kill

"Something about that lad, Richter, catching a seal on the beach." He lowered his voice. "Nobody likes to talk about this, but he was messed up that way. And he had a knife." He shifted uncomfortably. "So he's torturing it. Carving it up for fun. Taking its eyes."

Sally's jaw dropped. "Tom Richter tortured a seal?"

"A seal, aye. We get them on Dungeness, sometimes. Come in on the tide, wash up on the shingle, sometimes get stranded by slack tide."

Sally could only stare. Torturing a seal. If Arthur Bledd had seen Richter doing that, what would he have done?

Kill him? Take his eyes and force in seashells, a true eye-for-an-eye punishment? Then leave him on the beach as a warning where everyone could see, like one of his fly-posted pamphlets?

Her belly ran cold. It suddenly seemed plausible. It didn't explain everything, but it married up; something Bledd might actually do.

"Why the hell didn't you tell us this the last time we were here?" she demanded.

"The last time?" Spate asked. "Police roll up asking after Roarke Rook and his boys, and I should start digging out pub stories from three decades back?"

"Then why tell us now?" Liam asked.

Spate stared. Then he started to laugh. "Because this time you asked, son. You fucked up my hot tub, and you asked pretty damn hard, so now you're gonna get."

Liam's jaw clenched. Sally could feel him readying to lunge across the coffee table and snatch up Spate.

"And that's it?" she asked, trying to head off further violence. "That's the best of your pub stories?"

"I could tell a dozen more, darling," Spate grinned. "Some of them real belters. About what a slag Nancy Cagen was. All the fellas who knocked her up. About the time Reg put three darts in the bullseye then one right in Crawford Meeks' Adam's Apple." He laughed again. "Oh, we bloody rolled about after that one. Not old Meeks though. Had to go to hospital."

Sally looked at Liam. He was red-faced with fury. This was going nowhere good.

"No other names? Nobody who'd kill for the Rooks now?"

Spate laughed again. "Haven't I just told you it's Arthur bloody Bledd? Find that nutcase before he comes around here and decides to Trevor Gibbs me too."

Sally stood.

"See yourselves out then," Spate called, as she ushered Liam out of the mobile hovel and back into the rain.

62 PRE-HERACLITUS

Sally and Liam ran in silence through the rain, over the sopping artificial grass and back to the squad car. By the time they'd gotten in, Liam barely seemed any calmer.

"That was a complete waste of time," he said, starting the engine.

Sally just grunted. She wasn't sure. There were too many pieces in the air still. Liam reversed the vehicle, a hard half-circle through the mud that shot water to either side, then gathered speed to shoot up the incline to the coast road.

The rain lashed down as they flew toward Dymchurch.

"Coffee?" he asked. "I'm starving."

"Sure." Just a few minutes along they stopped by the Martello Tower, parking on a single yellow line. Sally said nothing. Liam was different, more reckless, and she wasn't sure if she liked it.

They found a coffee shop in the shadow of the tower. There were seats inside; it was humid but at least warm.

"You're quiet," Liam observed. "Latte?"

"Yeah, thanks."

He went to order. Sally sat, thinking and surfing the menu. She wasn't really hungry, she realized, though she hadn't eaten anything yet today. Probably she should. She picked out the blandest thing she could find and went up to place her order at the counter.

"Egg-white omelet?" Liam repeated.