Page 76 of Slack Tide Kill

Sally felt Pike's strong baritone bearing her like a ferryman toward this murky, shifting past.

"It only looks as it now does thanks to generations of human manipulation, beginning with mass drainage in the medieval era, followed by a great leap forward in the early 1800s."

"The Royal Military Canal," Liam chirped in brightly.

"Correct," Pike said, clearly pleased with his new student. "Five house points to you, Officer O'Connell. The RMC fully tamed this land, stitching it back into the greater mass of Britain." His gaze returned to the map. "But to your question. Where would the Rooks go?" His eyes roved the display. "I would assume they'd hide in one of the wilder patches. Not the obvious farm tracks. They'd need somewhere wet enough to discourage pursuit, dry enough to sit out the hunt, but connected to a sewer wide enough to traverse in a shallow boat."

"Sewer?" Liam asked.

"Not what you're thinking," Pike said. "Out here it just means drainage canal. They crisscross the old marsh everywhere."

"Are there old Owler hideouts, still?"

Pike waved his hand. "Most of those are nonsense. Invented by pubs, resorts and men with books to sell."

"But some aren't?"

"No." He touched the glass over the map. "Some aren't." His finger moved across the marsh, tracing channels Sally could barely distinguish. "There were always landing places in the marsh. Channels where flat-bottomed barges could ply a path between ruined churches and old sheepfolds." He shook himself and looked back at them. "Most are gone now, as the marsh shifted. Many are on private land."

"Where?"

Pike went around the display and unlocked a narrow cabinet. From inside, he took an Ordnance Survey map and unfolded it across a nearby display table. It showed a modern take on the marsh, already marked with pencil circles and handwritten notes.

"This is not for general use," he said.

"Understood."

"It is my personal copy, marked with old crossing points and supposed Owler storage sites. Half are speculative. Some are dangerous. One or two are private enough that the owners would shoot you before asking questions."

Sally leaned over the map.

Pike tapped one pencil circle near a tangle of channels and marsh symbols. "If Roarke Rook were pretending to be an Owler, he'd like this one. Old sheep shelter near Giggers' Green Road. No legal access. The ridge should be dry if the water isn't high. Invisible from the main track. Local boys used to dare each other to sleep in the old shepherds' cote. Rook boys among them, if memory serves."

Sally felt the search spotlight narrowing.

He tapped another spot. "Waterways around the St. Thomas Beckett church. The church itself draws a few tourists, but the land around it is vast, boggy and inhospitable. Just along here," he traced a thin blue line, "near Puddledock sewer, there's a ruined hay croft. No sightlines. Could be a good place to hole up, especially if the landowners are paid off."

Pike pointed to several more locations, each in a wilder portion of the marsh. The Black Gutter. Daleacres. The Listening Ears near Greatstone.

Sally took photographs of each and jotted down notes.

"Could you guide us to these?"

Pike laughed once. "Absolutely not. I have two artificial hips and a healthy fear of drowning in a drainage ditch. Besides, my knowledge is academic, limited to what used to be." He folded up the map. "You need someone who knows the marsh as it is now."

"And do you know someone like that?"

Pike hesitated. Sally waited. He looked toward the closed museum door, as if the Rooks might be listening from the high street.

"There is a man," he said eventually. "Not a friend to the Rooks, but not exactly respectable, either. He knows the marsh better than anyone alive."

"Name?"

"Arthur Bledd."

Liam wrote it down. "Address?"

"He's got a converted steel Dutch barge for a houseboat. That thing's shallow-draughted and ugly as mud, built for the marsh and short coastal hops. He berths mostly on the River Rother, just south of Appledore. He's an eel man, self-declared naturalist, and a royal pain in every committee he has ever attended."