Page 194 of Slack Tide Kill

"I already know you're lying. Both of you, bugger off, shut your faces, and I'll see you back in London as soon as this little bout of annual leave is done."

The line died.

Liam looked at Sally solemnly.

"Cake-holes," he said.

She started laughing. It hurt but she didn't care.

The morning of the third day, NCA officers came to take their statements in painstaking detail. They particularly lingered on the interview of Gerald Spate. Neither gave anything incriminating. There was mention of a recording, taken in heavy rain, that suggested the two officers were not actually arresting Spate as he lay in the freezing water of his caravan park.

Rather, it suggested that they were interrogating him.

But the quality was poor. The audio non-existent. And maybe that was enough.

When it was over, they talked. Bantered. Laughed. The warmth they'd discovered late on Dark Peak slowly came back. On the fourth day, they were discharged. Sally hobbled along with her arm in a sling and her right leg in a brace. Liam was down to a sore neck from seatbelt whiplash, a few cracked ribs and some residual exhaustion.

They got in a taxi waiting by the door, which took them 10 miles south to Lympne, a church just up the hill from Meeks' house, St Stephen's. After a short walk through an old wood they reached a viewing point over Romney Marsh that was magnificent.

Sally just stared. The sky was a brilliantly pale blue, the land a great black mirror stretching as far as she could see, broken only by the odd contours of hedges, trees, bramble patches and houses. No roads were visible, but several bright boats plied fresh paths across the marsh.

Further afield, Sally picked out the contours of Dymchurch on the coast, the holiday park at Greatstone and even beyond that, the tiny gray blocks of the reactors standing on the horizon.

It was beautiful. Like nothing she'd ever seen before.

"Flooded, still," she murmured. Her voice was airy, her breathing still shallow.

"They say it'll be another week before Scots Float is back up," Liam said. "About the same for the sea walls. Then, and you won't believe this, three months to drain just half of all this."

Sally grunted softly. Three months. About as long as they'd drifted apart. "That's a lot of pumping."

"A hundred million cubic meters of water, the news said. I think they were just guessing, though."

"A hundred million sounds like a lot. Even if it is in meters."

They remained a little longer. Sally wondered about the end of Arthur Bledd and Nia Mensah. Maybe they were out there somewhere, resting beneath the water and the mud. She hoped it had been swift.

"Mercer's still not talking," Liam said, as if reading her thoughts.

"He never will."

"So the hunt goes on."

"I think Mayhew can handle it."

Liam grunted. "You want to go see her again? Back to Rye. I heard she's taking visitors."

Sally considered that. She wouldn't know what she'd say, and besides, they'd already said everything they needed to back at the car as the tide crashed in. "We already spoke. I'm good."

"Me too. Well, then. Logan?"

She punched his arm. "I'll call Logan on my own time, thank you very much. I'm not seeing him while chaperoned by you."

"I'll wait outside."

"You'll shut your face. Come on."

They got back in the taxi and rode to Ashford train station. The media were everywhere on the route, still. Cameras taking long panning shots of the lonely marsh. Reporters standing on boxes while their hair tossed in the wind, the drowned land prominent beyond them, a character in itself.