The Salt Marsh (37 page)

‘Shit, it's a fucking sewer out here tonight.'

Crawford. She couldn't move.

‘Coyle,' he said.

Her heart thumped. Had he spotted her?

‘Bloody Coyle,' he continued. ‘She must have realized we were on to her and done a runner from the Vauxhall address. I'm sure she's in the vicinity.'

‘What makes you say that?'

‘Instinct. I can almost smell her. They were always coming down here, her and her Irish buddy. Hanging around the power station. As we know.'

He laughed and his sidekick snickered too.

‘So she'll be around somewhere. We could flush her out.' He paused. ‘Or we could leave her to her own devices, see if she manages to do something really stupid.'

There was silence then, apart from the beat of the rain, the rumble of the thunder and the palpitations of her heart. She wanted to vomit. She was too close to the cops, separated by a thin screen of withy stems, one of them only had to look in the right place at the right moment.

‘Fucking Coyle. Like father like daughter, a pain in the sodding arse.'

The words winded her, caught her unawares. Crawford knew Jim. Was that unusual? Maybe all the cops in the Force knew each other, talked about each other. But Crawford not only knew Jim, his voice revealed he hated him. A lightning bolt hit the marsh and forced a wood pigeon out from between the willow trunks, cooing in distress.

‘What was that noise?' Crawford asked. ‘I saw something move out there in the field.'

‘I can't see anything.'

‘Pheasant, I think. Stupid bird. Bred to be killed. Should have brought my rifle. I could have done a spot of shooting.' There was a long pause. ‘I could always use my pistol.'

The hairs on the back of her neck bristled, her insides dropped. She held her breath.

‘I need a beer,' Crawford said.

She heard retreating footsteps, exhaled and dared to lift her head. Crawford looked round as he lowered himself into the passenger seat. Lightning flashed. She caught a freeze-frame glimpse of his face, a crescent-moon scar. She gasped and inhaled the scent of elderflower, dog rose, the sugary sweetness of candyfloss. She retched. He looked in her direction. Colourless eyes. She dropped her head, rammed her face into the grass, soil, petals, willed herself invisible. She felt his gaze searching, locked in a moment for eternity, watching, waiting. The car door slammed, the engine revved, the car dawdled along the road, its tyres sloshing on the surface water. She rolled over and lay on her back, oblivious to the drenching of the passing storm. All she could think about was the candy man, the face that had scared her all those years ago, the face that Jim had told her she should never forget. He was still alive. He was still chasing her. And he was a cop, but he wasn't Flint. The candy man was Crawford.

*

Ten minutes, twenty; she wasn't sure how long she lay there winded. The stars spiralled in the clearing indigo sky. A nightingale sang. She levered herself up, trudged through the meadow back to the Lookers' Hut.

‘I was worried,' Sonny said. ‘The storm passed right overhead.'

‘It wasn't the storm that got me. There was a car.'

‘And?'

She shook her head. ‘Give me a minute. I need to get my breath back.'

She sat on the sodden ground.

‘Who was in the car?' Sonny asked.

‘Crawford.'

He removed a fag from his packet, lit it, inhaled, let the smoke drift aimlessly from his mouth. His eyes were damp. She sighed, pulled her hand through her hair. ‘Crawford's out to get me,' she said.

Sonny didn't reply.

‘I mean, he's not just after me because he wants to talk to me about Dave's death and the gun and this supposed plot to hijack a bloody transporter of nuclear waste. He's not a straight cop trying to get to grips with a load of dodgy evidence supplied to him by Spyder. He's a psycho. He's after me. He wants me out the way.'

Sonny stubbed his fag on the ground. He stood. She wanted to pummel him with questions; she paused, trying to work out where to start.

‘I'll go and check the field, patrol the borders,' he said. ‘In case Crawford comes back.'

She nodded, sat there in the mud and cinders, rocking, trying to stay calm, stop her jaw from chattering. She hugged her shins, rested her cheek on her knee. She didn't care if Harry thought Crawford was a good cop doing a difficult job, tough but fair. Jim had told her that he was an evil bastard, that she should never forget his face. She hadn't, even though she had tried. Pushed it down, along with all those other memories of Jim's shadow life it was safer to forget. And now she'd seen his face again, and she was scared. He had chased her out on to the marshes, cornered her. He was after her. Why? Was she marked because she was Jim Coyle's daughter? Was it revenge, pursued beyond the grave, for some slight of Jim's she could do nothing about? The half-life of the dead undercover cop, contaminating his daughter. It had to be more than that. What was it Sonny had said when he had caught her out on the saltmarsh?
You don't always know what you know, but other people might.
Perhaps he was right; perhaps she was holding some piece of information about Crawford she didn't even know she had. But Crawford did. What could she possibly know about Crawford? She had only seen him once before, at a fair, holding a stick of candyfloss. It didn't make sense. There had to be some connection she was missing. Sam. Jim. Crawford. Flint. Patterns danced in front of her eyes – particles, petals, fractals, spirals – she could see them clearly, but she didn't know what they meant. All she knew was that she was running out of time; Crawford was after her. Perhaps the American and Regan were after her too. So many enemies closing in, was there anybody she could trust? She stuffed her cold hands into her pockets, touched the penknife, her token of love from Luke, and it gave her comfort.

NINETEEN

S
HE WOKE WITH
the sun on her face, hand still on her penknife, and Sonny sitting by her side. She had intended to stay up all night, but she must have dozed despite the intensity of her fears, her lingering doubts about Sonny. Perhaps she had been able to sleep because her mind had resolved to keep looking for Luke, whatever the risks. The dangers of doing nothing were now greater. She was no longer certain that Harry knew what or whom she was up against. She needed to find Luke, make sure he was safe from Regan and her heavy mob, and then they could deal with Crawford together. She took a deep breath, held it; in the stillness of the air she could hear the flap, flap of the rooks flying overhead.

Sonny had been busy while she slumbered. He had found a fallen willow tree, chopped off two slices for stools. He was perched on one drinking coffee. She sat up, eyed the short axe at Sonny's feet.

He said, ‘You know, I think on the inside, people are like the trunk of a tree; the core is your heart, and every year you grow another ring. But where there is a childhood trauma, it marks the core. And then the scar tissue grows to cover it, and ever afterwards the rings of the trunk follow the lines of the scar.'

He pointed at the cut surface of the vacant trunk; the bark, the cortex, the sapwood, the heartwood. ‘Look, you can see, the wood is scarred, but it's still growing; it's not rotten. The scarring makes it stronger.'

‘That's a good way of putting it,' she said.

The problem she had with Sonny was that whatever her doubts, she couldn't help liking him. He had stuck by her, helped her. He passed her a mug of coffee. She felt the warmth in her hand, blew the steam across the surface of the black liquid, watched it evaporate and wondered whether she had the power to conjure a mist with her mind, draw the vapours from the water. She became conscious of Sonny observing her. He lifted the fag to his mouth, inhaled, cracked his jaw. A smoke ring wobbled and floated above his head, luminous in the morning sunlight, a burnished ring. And then it dissipated – his halo slipped. She wasn't so sure now, in the morning light, that he was working with the American and Regan, but she was certain he had killed Flint. She didn't care whether he confessed or not, she wasn't a witch-hunter. She wanted him on her side – pissing out, as Jim would have said, not pissing in. She wanted information that could save her life, and Luke's, so she had to take him for what he was rather than condemn him. Jim. Flint. Crawford. Sam. She needed to understand the connections.

She took a deep breath. ‘Do you remember that newspaper cutting Harry gave me, the one about the ex-cop, the Westie, the old lady and the hitman with a halo?'

He rolled his eyes heavenwards.

She said, ‘Flint. That was the name of the ex-cop who was shot.'

Sonny nodded to the sky.

‘Harry told me Flint left the Force because there were rumours he'd been taking cuts from these bullion launderers who were trying to convert their stolen gold into drugs money.'

Sonny played with his Zippo, turning it in his hand, chucking it in the air and catching it.

She continued. ‘Flint was working with Crawford at the time. Crawford was in charge of the laundering case. So he must have dealt with the corruption allegations against Flint.'

Sonny was still playing with his lighter; there was something irritating about his obsessive fidgeting, something niggled as she watched the Zippo spinning. Harry said Crawford was a good cop, but Jim had told her he was an evil bastard. Flint had been done for corruption, yet Jim had a meeting with him about something. It didn't add up. The Zippo glinted in the sunlight as it twirled through the air, pitched over and fell – like Alastair's alchemy vial, the bellarmine tipped upside down. Curse and counter-curse. Then it clicked. ‘Oh god,' she said, ‘I see it. He flipped it. Crawford flipped the accusation. That's what coppers always do. Flint was saying Crawford was bent, so Crawford turned the accusation on its head and accused Flint, discredited him, stirred up allegations of corruption, and he had to leave the Force. But then perhaps Flint wouldn't shut up, said he had some evidence.'

Sonny stood, pocketed his Zippo, stepped across to the doorway of the Lookers' Hut, scanned the surrounding meadow, returned, sat down on his willow trunk stool.

She formulated her question carefully, searching for the solid ground. ‘Could it have been Crawford who ordered Flint's hit?'

‘Crawford?' He dragged deeply on his fag butt, squeezed the filter between finger and thumb. ‘A senior cop commissioning a hit? A superintendent the trigger man? He wouldn't be so stupid.' He exhaled smoke jets through his nostrils. ‘And anyway, he doesn't have to commission, because he can engineer.'

‘How would he do that?'

‘He could use information.'

‘What kind of information?'

‘Names. Who is on the case. What they know. Who they are about to collar.'

She opened her mouth, furrowed her brow, then she said, ‘Crawford is a mole. An informer. He leaks information that could provoke somebody else, one of his criminal contacts, to commission a contract on another cop or ex-cop. He issues a death warrant.'

‘If they are about to expose him, then yes.'

‘Like Flint?'

‘Maybe.' Sonny nodded. ‘But like I said, he wouldn't ever do anything directly. Leaks here and there. He nudges. He drops a name, twists an arm, pulls in a favour, prods a raw nerve, a fear, a debt – and then a deal is set in motion.'

‘That's appalling.' Shafting your colleagues, lining them up for a hit, was about as low as you could go, she reckoned.

Sonny snorted, rocked. She gave him a quizzical stare. ‘What's so funny?'

He stopped laughing. ‘I'm surprised you are surprised. Your father was part of it, after all.'

He was right. Jim was part of it. She pictured the entry in Jim's diary.
Meet Flint 9 p.m.
The image of a candyfloss stick doodled underneath. And then she saw it, the point of the doodle. The meeting wasn't with the candy man – it was about the candy man. She was sweating, her hands clammy. ‘Do you think Flint passed some information on to Jim about Crawford, and Crawford found out?'

Sonny closed his eyes, shook his head. ‘I don't know.'

She said, ‘But it's possible. And it's possible Crawford leaked some information about Jim, which he knew was almost certainly a death warrant.'

‘It's possible.'

‘Why didn't you tell me about Crawford?' she asked. ‘Why didn't you warn me that he was a hit-engineering psycho?'

He locked his fingers together, twisted his hands, revealed his palms. ‘I didn't know. Not for sure anyway. The hitman is at the bottom of the command chain, and doesn't always know who is at the top, especially if it's an indirect order. Somebody contacts you in a dingy bar, gives you the details. So I didn't know, I could only guess. I thought your guess was as good as mine. And anyway,' he said, ‘sometimes it's safer not to know. Not knowing is protection. It's better to keep the walls in place.'

She remembered how he had lied about shooting Spyder, trying to keep her out of it.

He shrugged. ‘Too much knowledge can be dangerous. As you've discovered.'

‘Yes, but I don't know anything about Crawford. So why is he after me?'

Sonny said, ‘You don't always know what you know.'

She rubbed her birthmark. ‘Do you know what I know?'

‘No. I don't.'

She wanted to cry – frustration, anger.

‘I've only ever seen Crawford once before, when I was eleven.' Her voice quavered. ‘It was ages ago. 1978. I was with Jim at a fair out beyond the burbs, in the criminal belt. You know, near the place where Jim was buried. Jim disappeared and I realized this man was staring at me. He tried to stop me leaving. Jim told me he was evil. That's all I know. It's nothing.'

‘There must be some detail there that you don't realize is significant. But Crawford does.' Sonny shrugged. ‘It's enough.'