In Dark Water (Detective Shona Oliver 1)

‘No,’ Shona said firmly. It was what she’d been afraid of. If Isla and Marie fled, she’d have no witness and no way of protecting them. The gang would find Isla, even in Spain. Marie and the boys would be collateral damage. ‘You need to stay here. You need to trust me.’

‘Aye, but how can we? You’re not even with the police, are you?’ Marie’s mouth was a firm line. She pointed to the open window above the sink. ‘I heard what you said. You’re not on a day off, are you? You’re suspended.’

‘Is that true?’ Isla looked up at her.

Shona sat down heavily on the end of the banquette. ‘Yes, it is,’ she said quietly.

‘How come?’ The young woman’s eyes were hardening.

Shona propped her forehead on her hand for a moment, the cold fingers a relief against the dull throb in her head. She looked sideways at Isla, who was still studying Shona with her sharp assessing look.

‘I was told to stop investigating your… Siobhan’s… death. But I didn’t,’ Shona said simply. ‘Cumbria Police are chasing Campbell. DC Ridley will get him.’

‘You trust this guy?’

Shona thought of Dan. The earnest schoolboy in his raincoat waiting on Silloth shore for the lifeboat to bring in the casualty. His sometimes fanciful notions of serial killers and political plots. Others might have doubts, but underneath it all Shona saw an officer as committed and determined as she was. More than once she’d offered Dan the chance to walk away. He’d refused every time. ‘Yes, I trust him.’

Isla looked up at her mother. ‘And I trust her, so we’re staying.’

Marie folded her arms and leaned against the sink, her expression set firm. She shot daggers at Shona. Her whole posture said, we’ll see about that.

Shona’s phone pinged. There was a stream of missed texts from Becca. Hurry up. Where are you? Come now. Shona checked the time. The grey day was sinking into a greater gloom. The sun had dipped down unseen behind the flat clouds. Shona considered the frosty stand-off between Isla and Marie and decided Isla was the more determined of the two. Nothing more could be accomplished here. The women wouldn’t be going anywhere tonight. She could safely leave them to smooth things over for a few hours. Coming, she replied to Becca.

‘Look, I’m going to leave you for a bit. I’ll be back later.’ Shona calculated her fuel situation. Tommy had spare jerry cans of petrol for the lifeboat. Would he lend her some? She’d have to explain the situation, her suspension and lack of cash, but she could rely Tommy McCall to keep it quiet.

‘What? You’re leaving us?’ said Marie, who a moment ago had wanted Shona gone.

Shona put her hand on Marie’s arm. ‘I just need to see my daughter. Someone hit her with a car a few days ago. She’s all right but… you know?’

‘It’s fine, Mum,’ Isla said getting up. ‘We’ll be fine,’ She put her arm around Marie and nodded to Shona. ‘Off you go.’

Shona put her head into the bedroom to say goodbye to the boys. Ryan lay back propped up on pillows, eyes fixed on the TV, while Liam dozed next to him. Shona felt a moment of uncertainty about leaving them without an officer to protect them, but if Isla was right about Evan Campbell’s connections then it wasn’t safe to involve social services or even her own colleagues. Murdo. She really wished she could call Murdo, but it was too much of a risk. She would only be a couple of hours at most.

Shona walked quickly between the shuttered caravans back to the car park. She kept a sharp watch for any suspicious vehicles, especially a dark 4x4 Land Rover Discovery, but her own car sat alone in the deserted car park like a shiny black rock left behind by the tide. She jumped in, pulling away with a spray of gravel, and headed inland along the poker straight road. Past a scattering of low, white-washed houses with black slate roofs, their windows bright in the gloaming, along a long single-track stretch between flat fields and up to the junction with the main coast road. On the way she called Becca to say she was coming, but to her annoyance her daughter’s phone went straight to voicemail. The slick tarmac of the A-road began to climb through stands of saplings already bare for winter, their pale trunks whitening like bones in the headlights. To her left, Shona glimpsed the bright silver of Southwick Water snaking its way across the marchlands to the Solway. With each mile, and no news from Dan, her hopes of Campbell’s arrest were evaporating; she saw how far away she was from being reinstated. She tried Becca’s phone again. She wanted her daughter to be ready when she arrived but, as usual,

whatever she was doing was of a higher priority than answering her mother’s calls.

Twenty-five minutes after she’d left the caravan park, Shona came in on the back road to Kirkness, dropping down between two big Victorian villas which had travelled from private homes to nursing homes and back again, only to be carved into holiday flats.

It was almost dark, the estuary was quiet and calm, a streak of indigo between inky shores. The main street lay empty. At the far end, the bare bulb above the shop door of the lifeboat station was unlit, but Shona saw the glow of the crew room lamp upstairs. Tommy’s van was parked across the road between tourist 4x4s. She slotted the Audi next to them.

The roller door of the boat hall and the shop entrance were both locked so Shona made for the side door that led straight into the crew changing area. Inside, all was dark. Tommy and Becca were obviously too busy gassing in the cosy crew room to come down and attend to the lights. She felt for the switch, but nothing happened. The building was 140 years old and, despite rewiring, intermittent faults with the electrics were becoming a regular feature again. Her eyes were slowly adjusting. She saw the glimmer of white helmets high above the hanging forms of dry suits, their yellow wellies, monochrome in the gloom. Shona huffed, her hands stretched out in front of her. She took a step towards the door at the far end that led direct to the boat bay and the stairs to the mezzanine level, but her foot caught. She tumbled forward onto the bags someone had left on the floor. She swore under her breath. As she put out her hands to right herself, her fingers touched not plastic or canvas but skin and hair. She flinched, scrambling back, fumbling for her phone. The ghostly glow showed a horror scene; a slumped body, a red-smeared floor.

Tommy lay on his side. Shona gasped and leaned quickly forward, feeling for a pulse. It was slow but strong beneath his chin. She searched for the source of the blood. A deep gash above his eye running into shadowy streaks down his blue overalls, but she couldn’t find any other wounds.

‘Tommy? Tommy, can you hear me? What happened?’ Shona shook him. He didn’t look like he’d fallen. Where was Becca? Had she gone home? Tommy only groaned, blood and saliva bubbling from his nose and mouth. Shona wiped his face with the sleeve of her jacket, then bundled the garment under his head to keep his airways clear. ‘Tommy?’ She shook him again as she dialled 999.

‘This is Detective Inspector Shona Oliver.’ She fought to keep her voice steady. Becca? Where was Becca? ‘I need an ambulance. Kirkness RNLI station. A fifty-year-old man with head injuries, possible victim of an assault.’ They never kept cash at the shop but he could have disturbed thieves. Her phone went silent, the battery exhausted, but the ambulance was on its way. She prayed Becca had gone home, but then a noise came from upstairs, a muffled scrape and thump of something dragging across the floor. Becca? Shona jumped to her feet and felt her way to the door that led from the changing room to the boat hall. Light and voices spilled from the crew room above. Becca. She could hear Becca.

At the top of the stairs she stood blinking in the sudden brightness, then gasped. A nightmare tableau greeted her. Across the room, beside the crew table, Becca was slumped in a chair, her eyes closed. Six feet away, hands outstretched in a gesture of propitiation, was DCI Gavin Baird. Between them, a gun levelled at Becca’s head, his sharp suit creased and bloody, stood the man with the skull-like face. The man DC Dan Ridley was hunting fifty miles away in Carlisle. The man Isla said had killed Siobhan. Evan Campbell.

Chapter 34

For a second Shona stood frozen. A single upturned chair seemed too little for the latent violence, the brimming brutality of the scene. Shona recognised Campbell immediately as the man from the STAC reception. She’d been right all along. Blocks were shifting into place. Campbell, Baird, Kenny Hanlon, they were in this together.

Campbell pulled Becca to her feet, his arm around her neck. Her phone lay on the table by Campbell’s elbow. There were smudges of blood on her jeans and yellow T-shirt. Her sling had been used to tie her good hand to the splint on her broken arm. A muffled ‘mum’ escaped the gag across her mouth. It took every ounce of Shona’s training not to rush forward and tear her daughter from his hands. Stop, she told herself. Stay calm. She didn’t doubt for one minute that Campbell might kill them all.

‘Okay, okay Evan.’ She raised her arms in a placatory gesture. ‘What do you want?’