41BIRDY
More than one person in Hope Falls is lying. What I don’t know is why.
COME SEE ME IN MY OFFICE BEFORE YOU GO HOME.
I send the text to Carter and hope he comes to The Smuggler’s Inn soon. It’s late and I want to go to bed. He’s been avoiding me since the beach earlier, but I don’t feel bad about what I said. If he wants to do my job one day then he needs to wise up.
It’s been one hell of a first day and it’s almost midnight. The pub is in semidarkness. Maddy locked up and left hours ago, and I suspect most people in Hope Falls are asleep. I wish I was, but there is still so much to do. I left Carter to it at Blackwater Bay. A tent was put up around the body to prevent any lookie-loos from seeing more than they should, and the forensics team are on the case. Things are definitely slower here than they are in London, and we won’t get confirmation of it being Eden Fox until at least tomorrow. Sunday is already snoring on the floor beneath the pub table and I don’t blamehim, I’m tired too. Exhausted. I close my laptop, then close my tired eyes just for a second.
“Sleeping on the job, boss?” Carter says, startling me.
I didn’t hear him come in.
“I thought your sister locked the doors when she went home. How did you—”
“I have a key. I used to live here, remember?”
Years ago.
It seems odd that the locks were never changed. I can’t put my finger on it, but it often feels like Carter is keeping something from me.
“Where have you been all night?” I ask. “I told you to come here when you were done, and I thought the forensics team left hours ago.”
“They did.”
I frown. “Then where the fuck were you?”
“I drove to the coroner’s office to give them the hairbrush we took from Spyglass. Just in case they need extra help trying to match the DNA of the missing woman with the victim. Given that—”
“Her face was smashed in. Good thinking. But I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“You said I needed to be more assertive. That I should—”
“Fake it till you fuck it.”
“Something like that.”
“Most coroners I know don’t work this late, so what else have you been up to?”
“I was at the station,” he says, the tone of his voice suggesting he thinks that’s where I should have been too. “Someone had to do all the paperwork. No joy with the husband then?”
“No,” I say, hoping he didn’t get any silly ideas about trying to question Harrison by himself again. “I went up to the house three times. Harrison isn’t answering the door or his phone, but his car is still in the driveway. He’s the kind of man that won’t think twice about filing a police harassment complaint, so you just leave him tome. Until we know the identity of the woman on the beach for sure I think we need to tread carefully. I’ll try again tomorrow.”
“What about the daughter?”
The pain starts small. Just like always.
“I told you already. She’s in a secure facility—”
“According to Harrison. Shouldn’t we verify that for ourselves? At leasttryto talk to her?” he asks but I can’t answer. The pain spreads and it hurts so bad I feel sick. I realize that with everything going on I’ve forgotten to take my medication. I need Carter to leave. Now.
Nobody can see me like this.
“I’m going to bed. You should go home and get some rest too,” I say.
“What? Why did you summon me here if you just wanted to—”
I try to stand up and a new wave of pain floods through my body. I grip the table and squeeze my eyes closed, hoping it passes quickly but it doesn’t. The pain only gets worse and I feel as though I can’t breathe. I am such a fool. I forgot to take my pills and I haven’t eaten since lunchtime; after seeing a faceless corpse on the beach I didn’t have much of an appetite. I try to move but it hurts too much. I used to have a high threshold for pain—the physicalandemotional varieties—but I am not who I was and I’ll never be who I wanted to be. Everything I ever was or might have been will be gone soon.
