Page 172 of Slack Tide Kill

"It's our best shot at beating them there." She made a tight right turn onto a rattling gravel track alongside the River Rother.

"Where are we going now?"

"Shortcut to bypass the road block. Call Mayhew and try to warn her."

"Good idea." Liam placed the call while Sally wrestled with the wheel. Water streamed down the track, while off to the right the River Rother had spread into a wide delta, filling the floodplain basin.

It was an incredible sight. Like the river was becoming the sea.

"Can't get through, there's no signal."

Sally cursed. "Try the radio. See if Gemmell has anything from the reactor."

Liam switched the radio on and it crackled to life. Someone was speaking rapidly; Sally couldn't tell if it was DI Gemmell or somebody else, but it seemed urgent.

"Can you make that out?"

Liam shook his head. "Let me try…" He switched channels to the tactical set, then the county control channel. The signal fractured, came back, fractured again but improved a little, swerving in and out of crackly focus.

"… repeat, we cannot reach the reactors … phones are down, hardlines not functioning, and…"

The signal was lost in static.

Sally felt blood drain from her face. No signal. No warning. The reactor was a sitting duck, and Mercer already had a 20-minute lead on them. If he'd come by the coast road too, they'd never catch him. If he was on the circle route up around Appledore, then maybe–

"Sally!" shouted Liam.

She glimpsed the blurry gray line of the sea wall dead ahead, barely visible against the storm-tossed Channel beyond, and wrenched the wheel left. The squad car skidded through a lake of spreading water, the side slammed into the wall then they screeched away as the wheels caught.

"Bloody hell," Liam said. "That thing was invisible."

"Sorry," she said. "But I can't slow down."

"I know. Sounds like we're on our own."

Her thoughts churned for a moment. "I think Mercer's cut the hardlines. He's done it before, with the reactor CCTV, and that lamp post? I think everything he's done, it builds up to this storm."

He looked at her. "You think he's been waiting for this particular storm?"

"Yeah." She glanced his way. "My bet is, he's been waiting ever since Reg died. That was three years ago, right?"

"Right. So?"

"Same time Mercer retired and came back from London."

Liam said nothing for a long moment. Then he cursed. "We had that! Three years, he said it right at the start. It was there the whole time!"

"As if his father's death gave him permission to come back. Finish this. But lots of things were there the whole time, Liam. The name of his boat, Ephesian Tears? That's Heraclitus. Then that fake alibi at the Conundrum, provided for Reg Rook? And quoting Donne at me?"

"He was showing off."

"Exactly. Remember what he said when you mentioned numbers on the body?"

"Uh. Shit! Right. He told us to go look at the Bible, didn't he?"

"Classic misdirect. But he also said go look at Donne! It's not Heraclitus, but he couldn't help but slip something in there."

"The son of a bitch."