Page 48 of Slack Tide Kill

"I wouldn't be so sure."

He started gathering their papers, but Sally stepped over and put a hand on his arm.

"Mayhew's got history with this case. I don't know what, and it's making her twitchy, but it doesn't change anything. We didn't overstep. She's just pissed we didn't wait for her. But it's not our job to ease her ego or carry whatever chip she's got on her shoulder. We're here to solve a brutal murder, and we just got our best lead yet."

Liam looked at her, then let out a heavy breath. "OK, good point. You want to stay here, then? Camp out?"

She offered a faint smile. "I'm not working out of my car. You've seen the state of it."

"Is that a joke?"

"Maybe. It's also a fact. Mayhew doesn't want us to interfere? Fine. We've got plenty here. We've got the records already. Squads are out in force hunting the rest of the Rooks. By the time they find Jerome, we'll be ready to ask the relevant questions."

"OK. But, these records?" Liam pointed at the files. "I've looked at them. They're ancient history. Well-trodden, nothing fresh, because they never had a real suspect."

"So we read between the lines. We focus on right now."

"Sure. And we have got these boats, but without Jerome Rook, we haven't got any suspects either. I don't know where we–"

"We have got suspects," Sally said, and stepped over to one of the whiteboards, her thoughts churning and her calves throbbing. What they had was thin, but it was something. She felt the boy on the beach watching her with those sightless, cold eyes. Judging her.

"Who?"

She picked up a black marker pen and wrote a single name at the center of the board.

Reginald Rook.

Liam frowned. "Right, but he's dead. Any connection he's got is decades old. And Gabriel just essentially confirmed all his brothers were out running those girls last night."

"Maybe they were, maybe they weren't." Sally added more names in a list.

Jerome Rook: lookout for the Crab Shack from the power station scaffold, saw 2-3 boats on the water around 3 a.m.

Gabriel Rook: saw the boats from the Shack

Roarke Rook: Reactor Logistics allowed access to the CCTV. Led human trafficking through the Crab Shack.

Silas Rook: …

She tapped the pen on her teeth. They had nothing specific on Silas or Roarke Rook yet. The two eldest brothers. Where they were, what they were doing.

"They're criminals, yes," Liam said. "But there's nothing tying them to the victim. They're witnesses at best."

Witnesses. Sally's thoughts kept turning. She returned to the board and wrote out three large capital letters.

MMO.

Liam snorted. "OK. Back to 101. They've all got Means and Opportunity, like you said in there. But there's no Motive. And without motive, we're nowhere."

"You're worse than nowhere," came a sudden, deep voice from behind. "You're in the same shit we were."

Sally twitched and turned. An older but vigorous-looking man stood in the doorway to their suite, tall, with short-cropped silver hair and bright brown eyes. He wore jeans and a snug khaki cardigan, carrying a steaming mug in one hand.

"And you are?" Liam asked.

"Sorry, rude to barge in on you like that," the man said, placed his mug down by one of their file stacks and reached one hand out. "Jack Mercer. Nice girl called Chakrati showed me in. I heard you wanted to talk to me."

Sally stared at him for a moment. Ex-DI Jack Mercer, from the podcast and the case notes. A ghost from 30 years ago.