Rush of Blood (10 page)

Jeff Gardner walked downstairs and into the kitchen, where his wife was at the counter throwing a salad together. He watched
her for a few seconds, enjoying the view, until she turned and saw him in the doorway.

‘She gone down?’

‘Finally,’ he said.

‘Dinner in five minutes, so make yourself useful.’

‘Want me to set the table?’

‘I was thinking about a good-sized glass of wine.’

‘Coming up,’ he said.

He walked to the fridge and took out the bottle, reached up for two glasses and started to pour. Truth be told, he needed
one himself,
at least
good-sized, after a day during which the only time he had sat down was that twenty minutes by the pool at the Pelican Palms.

‘Same story?’

‘Excuse me?’

Michelle nodded up, towards their daughter’s bedroom. ‘She want the usual story?’

Gardner rolled his eyes. ‘Yep. Stupid talking tiger.’ One more reason
he wanted that drink. His daughter was going through a phase of needing to hear the same bedtime story every night, read to
her in exactly the same way, with nothing skipped and with the same voices for each character. If Gardner tried to change
so much as a word – for no other reason than to keep himself interested – he was chastised in the comically severe tones that
only a five-year-old princess can summon. He had mentioned it to his sergeant a few days before and the man, who had a daughter
a few years older than Gardner’s, had told him to grin and bear it. The time will come, he had said to Gardner, when she doesn’t
want to hear that story any more. When you
want
to read it to her, but she thinks it’s stupid and babyish. It’ll come sooner than you think and that’s when you’ll miss it.

Gardner saw the sense in that, so he kept on reading the story.

He took a sip of wine then handed a glass to his wife. She leaned forward to kiss him, glass in one hand, knife in the other,
and said, ‘
Now
you can set the table.’

They ate outside, beneath the lanai. The fan overhead was jacked up to the maximum, but even at eight o’clock in the evening
the temperature was in the mid-seventies. Gardner had changed out of his work clothes within minutes of walking through the
door, had felt the stresses of the day begin to recede just a little as he climbed into baggy shorts and put on an old Tampa
Bay Rays T-shirt. There were inflatables floating in the small pool: a green dragon; a multi-coloured ring; a ride-on turtle.
There were wet towels draped across one of the loungers and the deck was still slick with water.

‘I swear she was in there nearly all day,’ Michelle said. ‘Didn’t want to come out. I couldn’t get anything done because I
had to watch her all the time, you know? Rushing whenever I had to go to the bathroom.’

‘You left her in the water when you went to the bathroom?’

She set her fork down. ‘I was inside for like, one minute and she had her swim-bands on, plus I can see her with the bathroom
door open.’

‘OK, just …’

‘Just what? Listen, I’m the one that’s with her all day.’

His wife had not raised her voice and when he glanced up he could see that she was smiling, but still Gardner knew his wife
well enough to see that he was better off leaving it alone. He said, ‘Good to know she’s going to be a swimmer.’

When they had finished eating, he carried the plates inside and Michelle took their wine glasses through into the living room.
She turned on the television and a few minutes later he joined her on the couch. He said how much he’d enjoyed the meal and
she asked if he’d had enough to eat.

‘I had a big lunch.’

‘Let me guess …’

‘The place is convenient.’

‘You’re going to look like a stupid sub,’ she said.

The local news anchor announced that there were still no leads in the hunt for the killers of two elderly French tourists.
He talked over clips of SPD officers – a couple of whom Gardner knew – interviewing people at the murder scene. Then, in an
oddly upbeat voice, the female co-presenter introduced footage of the murdered couple’s grown-up children arriving in the
city. A pair of grim-faced young men shook hands with the Chief of Police, who kept his best side to the cameras and, in a
tone of voice reserved for stupid people and foreigners, assured his visitors that everything possible was being done to apprehend
their parents’ killers.

When they switched to a story about a local fruit festival, Michelle began channel-surfing. She reached for her wine and said,
‘So, is she going home? Patti Lee Wilson?’

‘I think so,’ Gardner said. ‘She told me she’d think about it.’

‘She’s basically in denial, right?’

‘I guess so.’

‘That’s not good. You have to face up to these things.’

‘I guess.’

‘Listen, don’t get me wrong, I have sympathy for her. I mean how could anyone
not?
But, you know …’

Gardner nodded, but he was thinking that the manager of the
Pelican Palms had said more or less the same thing. He tried to remember the man’s exact words.

Some shit about passing the hat.

Michelle was a sucker for old-fashioned British mysteries, and they settled for an episode of
Poirot
. The one on the fancy train. After fifteen minutes or so, she turned to him and asked what the matter was.

‘Amber-Marie Wilson would have had a story that she wanted to hear over and over again,’ Gardner said. ‘Same as any other
kid, right? She had a favourite story and a favourite toy and a TV show she loved. God willing, we’ll have all those things
to remember and laugh about or whatever and we’ll
still
have our girl. But now, all Patti has is those memories. How can that ever be enough?’

Michelle put her head on his shoulder, rubbed his arm.

‘I don’t want to let her down, that’s all.’

‘How could you let her down?’

‘I made a promise to her today,’ he said.

She raised her head. ‘What did you do that for?’

‘I’m not sure.’

Michelle nodded towards the TV. ‘You want to leave that kind of thing to your boss. He’s the politician.’

‘This wasn’t about trying to say the right thing or whatever,’ he said. ‘I meant it.’ He thought about those French boys whose
parents had been murdered. It was terrible, but it was the right way round.

How the hell did you bury a child?

He’d thought about that a great deal, not just since he’d been working on the Wilson case but since the first time he’d ever
investigated the death of a young person. It was a question he’d asked himself a good many times after that. Once, sitting
up late with a bottle in front of him, he’d typed it into Google. Wasn’t that how everyone found the answers to tough questions
these days? All he found were a lot of adverts for ‘quality urns and caskets’ and for ‘memorial jewellery’ companies offering
to turn your loved one’s ashes into diamonds.

He’d begun to feel queasy and had closed the website down.

‘Jeff …?’

He took his wife’s hand. On the television, the fat detective with the silly moustache was questioning a suspect. Gardner
knew that in an hour or so he’d have the crime solved and the killer put away, that justice would be done.

He relaxed back into the couch.

Right now, it was just what he needed.

They drive back from the Bonefish Grill in two taxis: Ed, Sue and Marina in one car, Angie, Barry and Dave in the other. It’s
only a ten-minute journey to the Pelican Palms and the cabs stay together all the way. Arriving in the village, there’s a
little good-natured argy-bargy about who is paying the fare, then once the cabs have left, the three couples walk slowly back
into the resort, none of them seemingly keen for the evening to end.

Though there is no sign of any officers, there are three police vehicles in the car park.

‘Wonder if there’s any news?’ Angie asks.

‘Nothing good,’ Dave says. He takes Marina’s hand and nods towards the police cruisers. ‘Or they wouldn’t still be here.’

Ed says that they should have gone on to a bar somewhere, last night of the holiday and all that, but Sue reminds him that
they have a long trip home the following day and they still have some packing to do. Angie confesses that she started packing
two days earlier. Marina claims that she and Dave have done nothing and are just planning to throw their stuff into cases
right before they’re due to leave.

‘I wish I could be that casual,’ Angie says.

‘It’s not casual,’ Marina says, ‘so much as being disorganised.’

‘Right then …’ Sue says.

There are hugs between the three women, and between the women and men. Barry and Dave shake hands, then are both pulled into
an embrace by Ed, who tells them that they need to relax and get in touch with their feminine sides.

‘Or latent homosexuality,’ he says, winking at Dave.

They start to separate, then, as the goodnights drag on, they drift back together and talk briefly about plans for the following
day. There is some suggestion of seeing each other the next morning, grabbing a final hour or so by the pool, though nothing
definite is arranged. Each couple has a hire car to return and some are planning to set off for Tampa airport earlier than
others, but there is general agreement that they will all see each other in the departure lounge before the flight home.

‘Definitely,’ Angie says. ‘Don’t forget we need to swap those email addresses.’

Half an hour later, one of the couples is in bed and both he and she are reading: a novel that was discussed on a television
book club and the autobiography of a northern comedian. Another couple is making love, and, although the cabins are detached,
the walls are thin and on a still night such as this one the sound carries easily from one to another, so they take care to
keep the noise down.

The third couple is arguing.

‘Why did you lie? In the restaurant.’

‘It was what I told the police, so—’

‘That’s what I mean. Why did you lie to the police in the first place?’

There is anger, plenty of it, but the volume is deliberately muted. Like the couple making love in the cabin just behind their
own, they are making sure that they are not overheard.

‘You know why.’

‘I
know
that because of you
I
had to lie as well.’

‘It was sensible, all right?’

‘
Sensible?
’

‘You know what the police are like, you know the way they think. They’re the same all over the world. It just felt like the
simplest way of getting crossed off the list or whatever and making sure we could get out of here tomorrow without being held
up.’

‘It was stupid.’

‘Keep it down.’

‘It was
stupid
because it’s easy enough to check.’

‘I don’t see—’

‘For heaven’s sake, cameras, a witness,
anything
.’

For half a minute, neither of them says anything. One of them sits on the edge of the bed, working with clippers at their
toenails. The other walks around, from one side of the bed to the other and back.

‘Look, it doesn’t really matter, does it?’

‘No?’

‘It was nothing important, it was just a detail.’

‘We’ll have to see. It depends if they find that girl, doesn’t it? And what state she’s in if they do …’

Pete and Andy pushed their rented kayaks into the water just before 8.00 a.m. They had flown down from New York for a week’s
R&R away from college; seven days of sun and beer and hot Florida girls and so far things had been going pretty well on at
least two of the three fronts.

Andy had not been overly keen on the kayak trip, preferring to spend his days sleeping – in bed or by a pool, he wasn’t choosy
– but Pete had finally convinced him that this was a good way to keep that chest of his nicely toned, which would surely increase
his chances of scoring later on.

‘Let’s face it, you need all the help you can get,’ Pete had said. ‘Besides, the wildlife’s awesome out there. We might even
see a manatee.’

‘Great,’ Andy had said. ‘That’s all we need, getting the frigging canoe turned over … and there’s alligators, right?’

‘This isn’t the Everglades, you moron. And it’s a kayak, not a canoe.’

Following the map provided by the rental company, they paddled south into Blind Pass, the channel no more than seventy-five
feet wide for the first ten minutes or so. There were houses on either side.
Apartment blocks or pricier, detached places, all with wooden docks alongside and boats of various sizes raised up out of
the water.

They passed a sign in the water that said MANATEE ZONE, and Pete said, ‘Told you.’

‘What the hell are they anyway?’ Andy asked, already out of breath in the kayak behind him. ‘Giant seals or something?’

The day was bright and warm, same as every other day had been since they’d arrived. It would get even hotter as the morning
wore on, so they each had bottles of water and cans of beer in their boat, along with tubes of sunblock in plastic bags next
to their cameras and wallets.

‘Just an hour, right?’ Andy shouted. ‘Then breakfast.’

‘Yeah, yeah …’

They made steady progress through the shallow brown water, thick with weed. There were birds everywhere: blue herons, spoonbills
and cormorants; snowy egrets in the branches of the trees on either side and the occasional osprey looking down on them from
higher up, or perched on the signs reading
Slow Down
or
No Wake
. After twenty minutes or so, Pete pointed to the shoreline on their right and they paddled across. They hauled the kayaks
up on to the shore, grabbed towels and walked over a ridge and down on to Turtle Beach. They drank their beer and swam for
a while, the ocean calm enough that they were able to watch a group of dolphins breaching, black against the horizon a hundred
yards away from them.

Even Andy was forced to concede that it was pretty cool.

Back in their kayaks, they paddled out towards Casey Key, where the channel widened and there were a few big boats moving
around and the shoreline was nothing but mangroves on either side of them.

Pete pointed to a house in the distance, its flat grey roof just visible above the treeline. ‘I think that’s Stephen King’s
place,’ he said.

‘Wow, really?’

‘It’s round here somewhere.’

Andy looked and shrugged. ‘Looks pretty ordinary.’

‘What were you expecting? The Munster house?’

They paddled around a narrow spit of land and back on themselves
into a small inlet, no more than fifty feet across. It was suddenly very quiet and they drifted for a while, birds occasionally
taking flight as they passed and fish jumping all around them.

‘That means something’s after them,’ Andy said.

The only sounds were the splashes as Pete paddled across to the furthest corner where a narrow channel was all but obscured
by low branches.

‘Come on, let’s go into the tunnels,’ he said.

Andy looked towards the scattering of narrow, overgrown inlets that snaked away into the trees. ‘Are you kidding? How are
we going to get in there?’

Pete reached up with his paddle and pushed the branches out of the way, lying low in his kayak and easing himself in. The
mangrove roots twisted into the water all around them. Looking up, they could see enormous spiders waiting to eat on webs
spun from tree to tree and translucent crabs scurried across the mud just inches away on either side. After only a few feet,
Andy was complaining, saying that there were probably snakes. Insisting that it would be impossible to turn round, that they
were going to get trapped and there was
no way
he was getting out of the boat.

The channel narrowed still further until it was barely wider than the kayaks themselves. ‘This is stupid,’ Andy said.

‘Come on.’

‘Jesus, what’s that stink?’

There was a smell like rotten eggs as their paddles dug into the black, sulphurous sludge. Andy’s kayak got tangled, hard
to the bank, and, irritated, he told Pete to wait up. Pete paddled on. ‘Don’t be such a pussy,’ he shouted.

A few yards ahead, Pete saw something wedged against the bank to his right, just below the waterline. A black mass of crap
held fast in the tangle of roots. He pushed himself towards it, reaching up to keep the branches off his face. When he was
close enough, he nudged tentatively at the black shape with the tip of his paddle. It felt like rubber. He saw that whatever
it was had been wrapped in trash bags. The
plastic was torn in places and he glimpsed a flash of red below the water. A sliver of something else: mottled, like a dead
fish.

He leaned out of his boat and wrestled the package until it was released from the cage of mangrove roots and floated free.
Sweating from the effort, he dragged it to the side of his kayak.

‘Andy, come here …’

He prodded at it and felt something give. He pulled his hand away.

‘Andy.’

Using his paddle, he pushed the blade into one of the tattered holes in the plastic and shifted it hard from side to side.
He watched a crab scuttle out of the hole, saw the pale mass it had left behind. Stared at what was left of a foot.

Pete shouted. Screamed.

Behind him, his friend – still desperately trying to release his kayak from the mess of roots and branches – shouted back.

‘What is it, man? A gator? I fucking told you—’

From:
Angela Finnegan
[email protected]

Date:
25 June 11:17:09 BST

To:
Susan Dunning <
[email protected]
>

Edward Dunning <
[email protected]
>

Marina Green
[email protected]

Subject:
Amber-Marie

Hi Everyone,

Not sure if any of you have been keeping up with this on the web, but just seen that they found that poor girl’s body last
week. Here’s a couple of the stories I found online if anyone is interested.

http://www.mysuncoast.com/news/local/story/missing-girl-found-inmangroves/PbuFJfJgJOoyA.cspx

http://bradentonsarasota.com/content/amber-marie-body-discovered

Probably been in the water since the day she went missing, that’s what they reckon. Now I can’t stop thinking about that woman
and what she must be going through. There but for the grace of God etc etc.

See you all in a couple of weeks at Sue and Ed’s. Sue, are you sure there’s nothing I can bring? Happy to knock up a starter
or a pudding or something.

Love to all,

Angie xx