Page 60 of Slack Tide Kill

The station was only five minutes away; a few lights on within, no press. Her Mustang remained where she'd left it, a dark, low shape in the rear lot, slathered with mud and beaded with rain. She dropped in and rustled in the glovebox, fished out a cigarette lighter charger and plugged in her phone.

The road south out of Rye was empty, alongside the wide expanse of the River Rother's outflow into the Channel. She rolled the windows down and flew southeast, high beams carving white tunnels across the empty road. In 20 minutes she was pulling up to the Dungeness beach.

The Crab Shack lay ahead, wrapped in fluttering police tape, while the tide was halfway out, lapping in the dark middle distance. To the left stood the old black and white-striped lighthouse, to the right lay the glow of the reactor.

She started to run west.

Every footfall slid and crunched in the shingle. Blood pumped hard around her worn body, flushing out her calves and forcing back the sting and the ache. It felt better than she'd expected. In the darkness, in the cold, it felt right.

She ran past the reactors and the lamp post, speeding up as she entered the long desert of beach beyond. Ahead lay only the moonlight bouncing off the wet rocks, glistening seaweed and breaking tide. After half an hour or so, she turned back, jogging more slowly, letting her senses tune into the beach.

The grind of shells underfoot. The spattering of foam. She became aware of the tidal slip as the waters ebbed away. She watched the moon sinking to the side and the pale line of light brimming on the eastern horizon.

Back at the Crab Shack, the lighthouse loomed up into the darkness. The door was heavily barred with a bolted metal plate, the lower reaches graffitied with tags, but further up there were windows.

Something shifted at the top.

Sally blinked, rubbed her eyes and squinted into the darkness. Right at the balcony line, something was moving.

The pulse in her throat hammered and her body moved, drawing swiftly and silently up to the lighthouse's base. This could be nothing. A nesting seagull or a broken shutter. Or it could be something. The Rooks had put a sentry on the reactor scaffold; why not put one here too? It was the perfect place to watch the Channel.

The metal door was impenetrable but the lowest window was within reach. Sally leaped and caught the sill on the second try, then pulled herself up. The window was narrow but she managed to slide through onto the spiral stairwell inside.

The air was dark and noxious, rich with mold, brine and seagull guano. She wiped sweat from her eyes and started upward, the darkness only deepening as she ascended. Three revolutions. Four.

Some light filtered in from above. There were clumps of feathers on the stairs, the emaciated skeletons of gulls, and a sharp whipping sound, like a whip cracking. The final ascent was up a steep ladderway, cresting into the vacant lamp room.

The great glass lamp stood in the center of a tight, circular space. The whipping sound was louder here. Moon shadows flickered as a sheet of thick fabric bulged then spilled wind outside, barring then unveiling the view of the beach like a stuttering eyelid.

Sally's pulse reached a crescendo, until she recognized the forensic tent. She laughed once, loud, more with surprise than actual humor. It must have circled in the storm then snagged on the lighthouse.

"There you are," she murmured.

She pushed through a rusted metal door onto the walkway and looked out over Dungeness under moonlight. The breath left her lungs and for long moments she just stared. It was beautiful. It was hard to distinguish where the sea's endless lapping ended and the shingle shore began; leaving her with a sense of constant motion, the whole world churning and turning in the dwindling dark.

A light flickered on at one of the homes down below. Sally watched as Dean Whateley hobbled out of his home and stood amongst his dirty garden gnomes, watching the tide.

After a time, Sally unhooked the forensic tent from the railing, bundled it as best she could then dropped it over the edge. It thudded on the beach below. She headed back down, slipped from the window and dropped back to the shingle.

There was a figure approaching. Up from the tide line, dressed in long green waders, a plastic bag in one hand, a heavy fabric jacket in red and green with a scarf layered over the top.

Nancy Cagen. Sally smiled and went to meet her at the edge of the lighthouse's concrete pad.

"Ms. Cagen. Officer Sally Rogers. We met yesterday."

"I remember that, my love," Cagen said, grinning. "I'm back to combing already, though it looks like you've bagged the best find already."

She pointed at the crumpled ball of the tent.

"Forensics tent," Sally said. "Lost it in the storm."

"You should never peg a tent on the beach. Thought your lot would know that."

"There's plenty my lot don't know." A moment passed. "I'd hoped to speak with you further yesterday, Ms. Cagen, but there wasn't a chance. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions now?"

"Ask away, lovey," Cagen said. There was a warmth to her that Sally hadn't expected to find on the beach. "I want this solved more than anyone. And call me Nancy, please."

"Nancy. Of course. Sally." She took a breath, marshalling her thoughts.