Page 79 of Slack Tide Kill

They filed past him, up to the bank where the Mustang waited. Sally looked back once, and Mercer waved cheerily.

"He wears it lightly," she said, climbing inside the car.

"Wears what?"

"All this." Sally rumbled the Mustang into a tight U-turn. "The weight of the murders."

"Right. I guess retirement helps with that."

"I guess it does."

They drove southwest toward Rye, Liam checking his phone.

"Scots Float Sluice," he read off the screen. "Looks like it controls the outflow from the Romney Marsh drainage network into the River Rother, one of a handful of industrial pumps along the RMC."

"Fascinating."

On their left the River Rother grew wider and looser, more overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. They reached Scots Float Sluice after around 10 minutes, barely a mile away from Rye.

"Think we've just circled the whole marsh," Liam said.

Sally pulled into the compound. A sign showed the Environment Agency crest. There was no gate until they reached the site office; beyond lay a wide dry channel running south into the marsh, its flat concrete floor stained with watermarks and moss.

A man in a hi-vis jacket approached them at the gate. The name badge on his chest read 'HOSKINS'. "You can't come in here," he said flatly, his accent strong and local. "What you looking for?"

Sally showed her badge. "You've got a consultant with you today. Arthur Bledd. We need to talk to him."

Hoskins frowned. "You're after Art? What's he done this time?"

"Can you open the gate please?"

He sighed, then shook his head. "Gonna set us right back, this is. We're already battling to process all this bloody rain. But all right, fine. He's down at the pipes. Pop on out and I'll take you down."

Liam frowned. "Pop out?"

Hoskins gave him a worn look. "Son, the footing's shit down there, all right, and I'm not going to let this muscle car sink, because I'll be the muggins towing it out again, won't I? So you're with me in the tractor. Today, if you please."

Sally and Liam exchanged a look, then she pulled into a vacant space and exited the Mustang.

"Bloody Norah," Hoskins muttered. "Not even got on wellies. Come on."

He ushered them into the office, where they signed in and had their warrant cards photocopied. Then they were issued hard hats and hi-vis jackets, and Hoskins led them to a yellow digger with a large bucket scoop, ushered them into a Plexiglass cab mounted on the back, then took up the controls. "We save this one for VIPs," he explained. "Duke of Kent's sat where you're sitting, believe it or not. He loved our trapezoidal channels. Here we go."

The digger started away. It was a surprisingly smooth ride, though Sally clung to the seat back in front. They drove across a broad, empty stretch of orange clay then continued alongside the dug-out channel. It was wider than it looked on the map, perhaps 40 feet across, the floor slick with dried sediment and the odd clump of marsh grass.

At the end, at least a dozen large gray pipes sat half-submerged in the stagnant water of an inlet, their mouths gaping. The air smelled of silt and sewage.

"Recently raised all our sea walls half a meter," Hoskins said. "Pipes down there can churn a few hundred cubic meters a minute, if rain fills us up. And there's your man." He pointed.

Arthur Bledd was standing atop the pipe dam, a map spread on a folding table beside him, speaking to two younger Environment Agency staff with focused intensity. He wore a waxed olive jacket with many pockets, a hard hat at a slight angle and cargo shorts that met black wellies at the knee. He was perhaps 60 and lean, with a white ponytail and a beard braided into a single knot.

Hoskins dropped them off and they waited at the edge of the channel while Bledd finished his point. "The problem isn't the pipe diameter, it's the gradient differential between Yokes sewer and here. You've got three feet of fall over a quarter mile and you're asking it to shift winter surcharge from the whole western Romney system. In a serious flood event, that's like pushing treacle through a straw, a single bloody point of failure! I've been crowing about it for decades, and still nobody's done it. So get it bloody sorted."

"Mr. Bledd?" Sally called.

He turned to Sally and Liam, then looked at them for a long moment. At their clothes. At their shoes.

"What the hell do you pair want?"