A Dark and Twisted Tide (22 page)

LACEY STARED AT
the man she loved, would always love, whatever he’d done. There was just enough light coming down the stairs for her to see him. He hadn’t shaved in days. His clothes looked as though they’d seen several days of wear.

‘I should arrest you,’ she told him.

Joesbury’s eyebrow went up. ‘Try it,’ he countered. ‘Might be fun.’

Something about the half-twist of his lips hit her harder than anything. After everything he’d done, he could laugh at her.

‘I don’t know who you are any more.’

‘You’re putting us both at risk by being here,’ he said. ‘I need you to leave now and not come back. Promise me?’

So cold. Had she fallen in love with a man who didn’t exist? ‘I think you lost the right to extract promises from me when you killed a man.’

She could never look him in the eyes for long. Even here, when there was barely enough light to see them properly. Even here, where they were little more than a glint in the darkness. When Joesbury made a noise in the back of his throat, somewhere between a sigh and cough, and stepped towards her, she backed away, almost falling on to the bunk.

‘When I was on the brink of the worst thing that could happen to anyone,’ he said, ‘you asked me to trust you. Do you remember that?’

Three months ago. A winter night. A bridge over the river. The man she adored on the point of despair. And he was asking if she remembered?

‘I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t know how I was going to make it through the next hour and you asked me to trust you.’

Joesbury, collapsing in front of her, sobbing. Was that the sort of thing she could forget? Ever?

‘You gave me no reason, no hope, just demanded unconditional trust. Ringing any bells for you?’

She snapped at him, ‘Of course I remember.’

‘Good. Then you’ll also remember that I did.’

He had, too.
Do you trust me or not?
she’d said to him.
Because if you do, you have to let me go.

He’d let her go.

‘I still trust you. So I’m going to tell you what nobody else can know. Not even Dana.’

That pounding noise might be her heart beating.

‘Police Constable Nathan Townsend is as alive as you and me. Probably with a much better chance than either of us of staying that way, given the way you’re carrying on.’

She’d heard the words, but the processing of them took a little longer. ‘What?’

‘Alive and well. Or rather, alive with a very sore shoulder and seriously pissed off with me.’

‘You shot him.’

‘Yes, that I do admit. If I hadn’t shot him, someone else would have done and they’d probably have been aiming to do a lot more damage. I shot the daft git to keep him alive, although I doubt he’ll see it that way.’

‘He’s alive?’

Something in Joesbury’s face softened. ‘Alive and under guard at a convalescent home somewhere in Northumbria. Whilst the people I’m investigating think I’m a cop killer, they’re more inclined to believe I’m on their side. And for the time being, it’s very important they think that.’

It couldn’t be true. She could not let herself hope. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Has there been a funeral? Have you seen his weeping mother on television? Has there even been anything on the frigging news?’

‘You haven’t killed anyone?’ Shit, that was hope, wasn’t it? You just couldn’t keep it down for long.

Joesbury sighed. ‘I haven’t killed anyone. I’m an undercover police officer on an excruciatingly difficult job and starting to feel a bit sore that the women in my life can give up on me so easily.’

She sank down, the fabric of his sleeping bag smooth and slippery beneath her bare thighs. At her surrender, something in Joesbury’s stance seemed to relax. There was a softening, a warming about him.

‘I’ve imagined you many times in my bedroom. Never quite like this.’

The cabin wasn’t much more than six feet long. Could he even stretch out his legs? ‘You’re actually living here?’

When he sat down beside her, she took his hand, holding it tight between both of hers.

‘The people I’m dealing with need to believe I’m on the run,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, I can’t leave London and lose the chance of finding out what they’re up to. I need to lie low. I thought about this place the other night when I was with you.’

She could smell sweat on him. Unwashed clothes. She thought about the cavernous space all around them, the darkness, the smell. ‘All this time, you’ve been just across the creek?’

Those turquoise eyes were warm now. Even in the dark of the cabin, she knew it. ‘I creep on deck when it gets dark,’ he said. ‘Look for the lights on your boat.’

Something was going to happen. Something she’d dreamed about so many times. Was she ready for it?

‘I should go.’ That was nerves talking. Leaving was the last thing she wanted to do.

‘You should.’ He ran a finger up the bare skin of her arm.

‘I’m putting you in danger.’

‘From the moment I first laid eyes on you.’ The finger had reached her neck. His hand cupped the back of her head.

‘Anyone could see my canoe outside.’

His face was very close now. ‘Disaster,’ he said.

She closed her eyes. So many times, alone in the dark, she’d imagined Joesbury’s lips on hers. It had never been like this. Who would have thought he’d be so gentle, that his lips would stroke hers so softly, brushing against first one and then the other? She’d imagined his hands pushing her roughly against a wall, his body heavy, crushing hers; never that his fingers would twist round in her hair, pulling her closer, or that the tips of his fingernails would feel so smooth running up her back.

‘Lacey!’ Someone was banging on the hull. ‘Lacey! Are you in there!’

Joesbury was on his feet, out of the cabin. Needing a second longer to get her head together, Lacey followed him.

‘It’s Ray,’ she whispered. ‘I told him where I was going.’

Joesbury’s shoulders dropped as the tension left his body. He adjusted the waistband of his jeans and sighed. Then he shook his head. ‘Better go call off the dogs,’ he told her.

She pushed past him, ran up the stairs and across the deck. Ray was steering his way around the stern of the dredger. Another couple of seconds and he’d see Joesbury’s boat.

‘I’m fine,’ she called down. ‘False alarm. Sorry.’

Saying nothing, Ray gave her a wave and turned his boat around.

Joesbury was on the steps, just out of sight. She ducked down to join him.

‘There’s something I need to ask you. That night you stayed over, you left a heart on the table. That was you, wasn’t it?’

Joesbury’s eyes narrowed. ‘I couldn’t find a pen. Why, who else—’

‘Sshh. Did you come back the next day and leave another one?’

Bewildered was quite a good look for him. He looked younger, rather cute, when he was baffled. ‘I haven’t been back since. It’s too risky for both of us. What’s going on?’

She stepped down until their faces were level and kissed him, lingering against the skin of his face for just a second longer than felt wise. ‘I have to go. Can I at least phone you?’

He was holding her again. ‘Phone calls leave a trace. Too risky.’

She sighed, could almost see her breath wrapping itself around his neck. ‘Any chance this will be over soon?’

‘God, I hope so.’

If she kissed him again, she’d never stop. Lacey turned, ran up the steps and across the deck. As she climbed over the side and back down to her canoe, she looked back. The deck of the old ship was empty.

50

Lacey

AS THE SUN
disappeared behind the old mill building and the golden light started to fade, Lacey was sitting on the deck of Madge and Marlene’s naval ship at Skillions, thinking about toy boats, shapes made out of pebbles and glass and whether she’d boxed herself into an untenable corner by not mentioning them sooner.

And yet there was no way of telling Tulloch about them now without explaining why she’d kept quiet for so long.
I’m going to tell you what no one else can know. Not even Dana.

Three toy boats now. One yellow, one blue, one red. What the hell was all that about? She took another sip of the gin mojito she’d been offered on arrival, which was definitely a lot stronger than she’d been promised. Ahead, she could see the Theatre Arm, her own boat rocking against its moorings. If she turned her head to the right, which she was trying not to do every couple of seconds, she could see the dredger. And you know what? She was not going to worry about toy boats. She was not going to sweat the small stuff. Not tonight.

‘What are you doing tomorrow, Lacey? Would you like to come and have lunch with Alex and me?’

Lacey turned to smile at the old lady by her side. Just minutes
after she’d got back from the dredger, Thessa had pitched up in her small, pretty motor boat, hammering on the side of Lacey’s yacht, insisting they’d both been invited to a party by the skanky old lesbians and there was no way she was going alone. When she’d run out of arguments, Lacey had locked up her boat and climbed down. The two of them had motored across and then Thessa had been hauled aboard by means of a harness and pulley, with every appearance of having done it many times before. Madge and Marlene had even produced a wheelchair for her.

The party was small but noisy. Around two dozen people, all of whom seemed to work in the theatre, and many of whom looked as though they’d come straight from a performance. Also, to Lacey’s surprise, Eileen, Ray’s wife. There was no sign of Ray. A little further along the deck, a wind-up gramophone was playing Buddy Holly tracks and a small, thin person of indeterminate sex was swaying to the music.

And Thessa had just invited her to lunch.

‘That’s really kind,’ she said, ‘but tomorrow I have to be on a train to Durham.’

‘Long trip. I expect that takes most of the day. Or do you stay over?’

‘No, I always come back the same day. Four hours there, four hours back, one hour in the visitors’ suite.’

She waited for the question that didn’t come. Thessa wasn’t entirely lacking in tact.

‘I visit a woman in Durham prison, the high-security wing,’ Lacey said. ‘She was given a life sentence for murder in January.’

‘Someone very close to you?’

Lacey nodded.

Thessa swirled her drink, letting the ice chink against the sides, waiting until it stopped moving. ‘It isn’t your fault, you know. What she did.’

Being with Thessa was like playing paintball with the SAS – you never knew when the next strike was coming, only that it was inevitable and that it would be bang on target. Lacey opened her mouth to say, of course it isn’t, I fully understand that, everyone takes responsibility for their own actions.

‘Well, actually it is,’ she said instead. ‘But I don’t go out of guilt or as any sort of self-indulgent penance. I go because seeing her makes me happy.’

‘Is she family?’

Lacey had to remind herself to breathe. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘I can see love in your eyes. And tears.’

Ah, now she was on slightly safer ground. ‘I never cry.’ She half smiled, half glared at Thessa.

Who did exactly the same thing back. ‘They may not fall, but they’re there all the same.’

‘Drink up, ladies.’ Madge had stolen up behind them. ‘You have six hours before the tide goes out and you’re trapped here.’

In spite of the heat, Madge was dressed like a gangster from the prohibition era, with a wide-striped suit, red shirt and black tie. A trilby was perched on her short hair.

‘Please don’t give Thessa any more alcohol,’ said Lacey. ‘She’s driving me home. Not to mention herself.’

‘We’re skinny dipping later.’ Madge was giving Lacey the sort of look she normally only saw on the faces of drunken men in pubs she raided. ‘See if we can catch the mermaid.’

Thessa snorted. ‘If that’s a sexual euphemism, you’re wasting your time. Lacey’s in love. With a man.’

Madge squeezed herself down on to the bench next to Lacey. ‘I can’t believe you’ve lived on the river since the old Queen died and you don’t know about the mermaid.’ Her voice was slurred, her eyes not quite focused.

‘I don’t know about the mermaid,’ said Lacey. ‘But didn’t the old Queen die quite recently?’

‘She doesn’t mean the Queen Mother,’ said Thessa. ‘She means that hairy old drag artist from the Duke on Creek Road.’

‘It’s practically a local legend.’ Marlene had crept up without them noticing. As had Eileen. ‘The beautiful dock-worker’s daughter who fell in love with a pirate. When he was hanged at Neckinger Creek she threw herself into the water in despair, but such was the power of her love that she lived, and grew a tail. And now she’s doomed to swim the waters of the
creek and the Thames for all eternity, looking for her lost love.’

Lacey’s eyes couldn’t help straying to the dredger, just yards away from them.

‘She’s been seen lots of times,’ said Marlene.

‘Yes, but it’s always a bloke who knew a bloke who’d seen her one night, usually after a few in the Bird’s Nest,’ said Eileen as Marlene strode away towards the main cabin, tottering on heels that seemed far too high for the deck of a boat.

‘Don’t give me that. Even Ray’s seen her. He told me so himself.’ Madge leaned even closer to Lacey. ‘He was out fishing one night, about twenty years ago. He saw a mermaid sitting on one of those old timber piles near the railway bridge.’

Eileen laughed cynically. ‘Gazing into a mother-of-pearl mirror and combing her hair?’

‘When his boat got closer, she dived into the water and disappeared,’ added Madge.

‘He was drunk.’

‘Ray would never go out on the water drunk,’ said Lacey.

‘He was drunk when he told the story,’ insisted Eileen. ‘He saw a seal.’

Lacey realized that Thessa had fallen quiet. ‘So have
you
seen her?’ she asked.

Thessa shrugged. ‘I’ve seen odd things. Usually in the creek, sometimes in the main river. Very early in the morning, or late at night, just occasionally I see what looks like a face, staring at me.’

For some reason, the story seemed more credible when Thessa, ridiculous old ham that she was, was telling it. The dancing twinkle had completely gone from her eyes.