Page 4 of Slack Tide Kill

Sally's grip tightened on the wheel and a faint briny taste touched the back of her throat.

"This is the Cockle-Eye Killer, episode one: The Boy with Shells in His Eyes. Today, we travel 30 years back in time, to the coastal Kent community of Dungeness in 1996. A scattered settlement of shingle lanes and weather-beaten houses, spilling into the low-lying bogs of Romney Marsh. A place where the map looks smudged, like the sea was never quite persuaded to stay within its borders."

The wipers dragged across the windshield, smearing thin streaks of mud as Sally merged onto the A274 bound for Dungeness. Trees gave way to open fields the color of tarnished copper, blurred through the downpour of rain. Her ankle still ached where the hand had clamped around it. She flexed her foot against the gas pedal as the narrator went on.

"Dungeness in the 90s is a world away from today, home to fishermen who still mend their nets by hand; to the quiet army of workers who keep the nuclear power station going; to smugglers who've plied the cold Channel waters and the marsh for centuries; and to the sort of recluse artists who believe the land speaks to them."

A truck blasted past on the opposite lane, rocking the Mustang and blinding the windshield with a deluge of spray.

"Dungeness was an area used to burying its secrets, until one washed in on the tide that could not be hidden, ultimately destroying countless lives; a young man, found on the shingle at dawn, with cockle shells pressed neatly into his empty eye sockets. The body was discovered by a local dog walker, who later said…"

A woman's reedy voice, recorded decades ago, crackled through the speakers:

"…he looked like he was staring right through me. Those shells, like he was trying to see into my soul. I still dream about it. Nightmares, more like."

"The investigation began but soon stumbled," the narrator returned. "Witnesses contradicted each other. Evidence went missing. Some say the authorities didn't want the Dungeness reactors tarnished. Others whisper about the ghosts of the Owlers; smugglers wreaking their revenge on a more ordered world that left them behind. But one truth is indisputable. Somewhere between the fishermen, the criminals, the artists and the drifters… a pitiless killer slipped through the cracks."

Sally swallowed and hit pause.

For several moments she just drove, a knot of anger swelling in her chest. The narrator was wringing out every drop of melodrama and it pissed her off.

She hit dial and called her partner, Liam O'Connell. The phone rang then went to voicemail.

"Liam. En route to Dungeness now." She paused a moment, wondering if there was any point saying more. "See you down there."

She ended the call and pushed the pedal down. After the intensity of Dark Peak, she'd thought they'd grown closer. But now there was a distance. Maybe it was the mountain of paperwork they faced every day. Maybe it was her side investigation into the Lincolnshire spree killer; she'd hinted at it numerous times, but he'd never once offered to help.

Now they felt like strangers within the partnership, hardly trusting each other at all.

She restarted the podcast, making mental notes of key details. The original victim's name was Tom Richter, discovered at dawn at the high tide ‘strand line' on Dungeness beach, just below Reactor A. DI Mercer, a Rye cop assigned to the case, told the podcasters he'd felt something was off with the investigation but couldn't explain why. The DCI in charge of it all, Robert Stewart, committed suicide three weeks after the investigation started, for reasons linked to the stress of the case.

They had ex-DI Mercer on audio; he sounded older, wiser, perhaps careworn.

"Frankly, I wouldn't like to speak about Rob's death. It's too painful. He was like a father to me, took me under his wing as a young DI. I'm not from around these parts, but thanks to him I started to feel like I belonged. It's a beautiful, historic place; kind of like the whole country's here, in microcosm."

The narrator continued, and occasionally sentences snagged in Sally's mind: the marshes as an otherworldly wild space; the ear-like stature of the old Royal Air Force sound mirrors; the drowned village of Broomhill, lost five centuries earlier in the rising marsh waters.

The miles slipped by and the green Kent landscape flattened steadily into the flatness of Romney Marsh. There were fields and homes, then reed-swollen waters lying dark beneath a leaden sky. She passed through the village of Lydd: a scattering of homes with shingle yards; a café with a faded sign for cockle barm cakes; a village museum in an old red-brick fire station; a worn three-story hotel called the Albion.

After Lydd, the marsh transformed into a deserted expanse of gray gravel spiked with odd metal scaffolds. The sea was a gray smear on the horizon, interrupted by three huge rectangular structures, like giant Lego blocks dropped across the horizon, visible for miles. A branch road to the right proclaimed: ‘Dungeness Power Station – Private Road.'

She turned in. The road stretched over shingle and scrubby dunes to a large fence, guarded on the left by a tall black lighthouse and a security booth on the right. Three security officers in yellow hi-vis jackets manned the station, and two came out to meet her.

Sally clicked off the podcast and withdrew her badge.

"Good morning," the first officer said briskly, a man with deep lines in his face, as if carved by the sea. He scrutinized her badge, her face, then checked his tablet and spoke into his shoulder-mounted radio.

"What's the problem?" Sally asked.

"No problem," the man said flatly. "Standard security applies. Open your boot, please."

Sally pushed the button and the trunk catch released. The other officer went around and studied the contents, then came back around holding two items: a silver metal baseball bat and a spray canister.

"Why do you have these?" he asked.

"I play baseball."

The man frowned and held up the canister. "And this?"