Sea of Suspicion (5 page)

“You’re on call?” Susie couldn’t believe the disappointment in her voice.
Go! Please go.

His smile was a slash of white. “Criminals always know when I have a night off.” His eyes slid to her car. “Can I borrow your Mini?” He gripped the back of his neck, looking up at her from under heavy brows. “I’ll get it back to you before morning.”

“Take it.” Susie wouldn’t be accused of getting in the way of law and order, plus it would get him away from her faster. Next time she saw him she’d be sober and prepared. “I’m not planning on going anywhere tomorrow so there’s no rush to drop it off.”

She opened the front door, pulled the keys out of the lock and twisted off the ignition key from her octopus key fob.

“Here.” She threw it to him, not surprised when he snatched it out of the air without even moving his gaze. His intensity was unsettling.

“Susie…I’m sorry.”

She dashed inside and closed the door. Locked it. He could have her car, no problem. But he couldn’t have her. She wanted a relationship, a future, a family. Nick Archer was a lousy bet for anything except orgasms and heartbreak, and not even the orgasms were guaranteed.

Tracy shrugged into her fleece and hitched her canvas bag over one shoulder, pulling her hair free of the strap. The lab was empty tonight. The night-watchman had done his first set of rounds and gone on to the next building with a terse reminder to turn off the lights when she left. She pulled a face. He gave her the creeps with his beady little eyes and smelly flat-cap.

Her footsteps echoed as she walked the quiet corridors. After turning off the lights, it was dark and eerie, totally different to daytime, when the bright Scottish sunshine poured through the skylights and windows. A tremor shivered along her spine and she stopped and glanced around. There was no one there except deep, abiding emptiness.

Tracy crossed the foyer and stared into the darkness outside. She wasn’t scared. She could look after herself. Being raised in foster homes for cash taught you self preservation faster than most kids learned their ABCs. She flicked her hair out of her face and raised her chin. She was used to being alone, but tonight the isolation welled with an overwhelming sense of sorrow. Another Saturday night going back to a sterile apartment in Albany Park shared with five other girls, none of whom she particularly liked. Going home alone. Again.

For some reason her feelings about sexual freedom had disintegrated into self-disgust. Everyone else had someone to share their lives with. Her they just screwed. Maybe the dissatisfaction was because of what she’d done after she’d left the Gatty last night?

She’d bumped into him on her way out of the building and he’d invited her back to his place. To begin with it had been exciting, but afterward she’d felt dirty. Very dirty.

She slammed the lock-release button on the wall, pushed through the glass doors and ran outside, taking a deep breath of fresh air. Maybe she wasn’t as sexually liberated as she’d imagined. She huddled deeper into her jacket. The haar, that ghostly east coast mist that plagued the region, had rolled in off the bay enshrouding the buildings, muting the landscape.

She’d never role-played before.

He’d told her next time she could choose the roles, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to be that defenseless again and she wasn’t sure she believed him. He wasn’t the submissive type.

She rubbed her wrists.

He’d been rough. And then he’d made her beg. And it had hurt and she’d begged anyway until he’d done everything he’d wanted and she’d come so hard she’d nearly had a heart attack.

The heat of humiliation crept up her neck. Hugging her arms tight across her chest she glanced around the car park and started walking. She didn’t hear anything except the sea, but she gripped her keys like a weapon, just in case.

What she needed was a real boyfriend, one who walked her home before spending the entire night cozied up in her bed.

Merciless wind blasted her face and she tucked her nose into the raised collar of her coat, stepping onto the path that ran along the seafront. There was a streetlight farther along the path, an amber beacon. She walked faster toward it.

Crack!

Tracy jolted into the air, dropping her keys. She grabbed her chest where her heart banged against her ribs.
What the hell was that? Shit!
Then she started laughing. It was just a branch slapping the windows of the Gatty, shadows lashing in the mist.

Shaking her head, Tracy bent to pick up her keys. A shoe scuffed the pavement behind her an instant before white-hot pain exploded in her skull. The sound of crunching bone shocked her even as her knees gave out and she fell to the ground.

Icy dew soaked her clothes. Instinct kept her moving, despite her injuries, despite the sharp tang of blood in her mouth. She rolled. Over the grass, then out of control down the short slope toward the beach. The lip of the seawall jarred her to a stop, the pain in her head excruciating, as if someone had bashed her brains with a red-hot poker.

“Please. Help.”

She tried to scream, but her voice came out like a kitten drowning. A foot gave her a shove and for a moment she hovered, weightless, before she smashed into cold sand below. Grit got in her mouth. She spat it out.

She couldn’t stop shaking. Terror froze all thought except survival, but she couldn’t make her muscles work. Each beat of her heart pumped blood from her body, but she refused to die. She would not die before she’d got what she wanted out of this damned life. A scream of fury and frustration roared through her mind, but her vocal cords didn’t work. She couldn’t get enough breath.

She twisted onto her belly and began to crawl even though it
hurt
. Sand was smooth and cool between her fingers. She dragged herself forward, sweat pouring off her forehead, arms shaking with exertion. Then running shoes appeared before her and she stopped, raising her head to look at her attacker. It didn’t make any sense.

Her life was cursed. “Why? Why me?”

“Because nobody cares about you.”

That awful truth punched Tracy as hard as any blow. She was going to die and nobody would care. The hammer came toward her—death in slow motion—and she could do nothing but watch.

Nick sat in the car, his gut churning like a combine. He’d done worse things in his time, scarier things, but they hadn’t made him feel this wretched. He put his fingers on his lips feeling the murmur of betrayal that had crossed his mouth. He’d wanted to keep kissing Susie Cooper until dawn broke.

Instead he’d stolen her wallet.

He flipped open the turquoise suede. Ignored the ID card with Susie’s smiling face staring up at him from the clear plastic window. He pulled out a slim electronic keycard that opened the front door of the Gatty Marine Lab. Lily had one identical. Dropping the wallet to the passenger seat, he started the engine and noticed a light was still burning in Emily Heathcote’s cottage.

Did she have trouble sleeping at night too?

He tossed the keycard onto the dash and started driving. Tried to ignore the fact his fingers itched in a way they hadn’t itched in a long time. He didn’t like the knowledge he’d had to force himself to let go of Susie Cooper once he’d finally got his hands on her. He’d been tempted to go for goal and abandon his scheme for another night, but it had already waited twelve long years.

Father Mike—the man who’d raised him after he escaped his mother’s hellhole—always told him he had too much pride. As a teen he had been dumb enough to think that was a compliment. But that’s what they said, right? Pride before a fall? And he had fallen long and hard, and was still struggling to get back on his knees.

Chrissie had shaped his life from the day he’d first met her, but what had he known about marriage?
Nothing
. Not a goddamned thing. And when he discovered she’d slept with Sizemore, he’d kicked her out.

His first mistake.

He drove to his flat in town to gear up. His dog, Rocket, whimpered and threw himself into a whole-body wag as Nick pushed open the door.

“Sorry, boy.” Nick rubbed his thick fur and tossed him a biscuit from the tin on the kitchen counter. “You can’t come.”

Nick grabbed what he needed, tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans along with a small flashlight. He debated over the knife he habitually carried. Having it would increase the potential for charges if he was caught, but he had no intention of getting caught. He had lived in the real world for too long to play nice. He played big boy rules for big boy games. He pulled on a black sweater and a black watch cap to cover his hair and ears, swapped oxfords for trainers, the dog licking his face as he bent to tie the laces.

“Oh no, you don’t, you wee bugger.” He gave Rocket one last pat, touched a hand to Susie’s wallet and checked the time. One-fifteen.

He drove to Albany Park and slid into the crowded car park behind blocks of student housing. A couple of students were heading home for the night. He hung tight for a moment, watching them go inside their box-like little flats. Then he got out and pulled his toque low, the wool itching his forehead, reminding him of other times he’d done this sort of thing and all the reasons he’d quit.

The haar smothered this stretch of coast like a clingy lover. Mist kissed his face, the vapor from his lungs mixing with the atmosphere like dry ice. He couldn’t see anyone on the path, but kept his head bent, checking for lights inside the Gatty building. Nothing.

Good
.

He turned the corner, noted there weren’t any cars in the car park, nor lights in the newer structure that rose up behind the original nineteenth-century building. Excitement made his blood pound in his ears and his mouth felt parched. The night-watchman was due back in a couple of hours, but Nick would be in and out in twenty minutes tops.

He’d given the force most of his adult life, three years so deep undercover there were days even he’d forgotten he was a police officer. And now he was risking everything, his career, his reputation, his honor, all to prove Jake Sizemore’s guilt.

His fingertips felt numb inside latex gloves as he swiped Susie’s card through the electronic slot at the door. He waited for the buzzer to click and quickly entered the Gatty.

If anyone checked, the computer log would show Susie Cooper worked late. With a little luck nobody would ever know or care she hadn’t been there at all.

Susie was the perfect patsy. He didn’t allow his thoughts to stray to her soft scent or the feel of her lips. He had no intention of adding to her reasons to hate men, although he was pretty sure if she knew he’d stolen her wallet, he’d be top of her shit list.

Putting thoughts of Susie aside, he moved along the dark corridors which hummed with electricity from unseen machines. If he was caught, Dr. Susie Cooper would protest with enough honest indignation to convince even the most hardnosed cop she was not involved; whereas Lily, whose card he had contemplated borrowing on more than one occasion, would have ’fessed up and sent her career down the crapper.

And he’d already done enough damage to the Heathcote family.

He headed up a flight of stairs, risked his flashlight in the stairwell. Inched the door open carefully, wincing as its hinges squealed. He slid through the gap, along the corridor to the open-plan office that housed the secretaries’ desks. Skirted hulking masses of photocopiers and file cabinets and found Jake Sizemore’s office door.

It was locked.

Nick took the lock pick kit from his back pocket, held the torch close and blocked the light with his body. It took three seconds to open the lock and Nick crossed into Jake’s private sanctum.

If there was any proof Jake had dumped Chrissie into water teeming with great whites, it would likely be in this room. Nick started with Jake’s desk, careful not to disrupt the order in which things were placed as he rifled through file folders. There was a copy of
A King’s Treasure Lost
by Howard J. Murray on the desk. Nick eyed it speculatively and moved on.

Mountains of paperwork produced nothing, but there was a half box of condoms in the bottom drawer. Nick wondered what Mrs. Sizemore thought of that, given Jake had had his gonads snipped nine years ago.

“Dirty bastard.” The words rolled around Nick’s teeth, more habit than malice. He looked at the walls, stood with his flashlight pointed at the pictures, his body blocking the light from the windows as much as he could. His heart pounded as he found a picture of Chrissie and Jake, both of them standing on the prow of a sailing boat, smiling at whoever was taking the photograph.

He touched his finger to the curve of her cheek, swallowed the knot of anguish that welled up inside him and choked his throat. Chrissie’s hair was jet black, plastered flat against her skull as if she’d been diving. Her dark eyes sparkled, lips bowed in a cheery smile that still affected him like a bullet to the heart.

She’d betrayed him.

Then she’d died.

Nick turned away, frustration winding its way through his muscles and squeezing his gut. There had to be
something
. But what? A confession? A bloodstained knife? He walked over to the filing cabinets, pulled open the top drawer, staring at the internal report the university had compiled after Chrissie’s death. A tedious piece of bullshit exonerating Professor Sizemore and laying the blame squarely on Chrissie’s bloodless shoulders. She’d taken a boat on her own. Gone diving in dangerous waters without a buddy and paid with her life.

Which was bollocks because Chrissie was the most safety-conscious person he’d ever known. She was a queen bitch Divemaster and would never have taken off alone. And that left one alternative. Murder.

But there was no evidence.

He rifled through the rest of the drawers, hope draining with each heartbeat. Suddenly blue lights flashed outside the large plate glass windows that looked over the bay.

Busted
.

The door locked behind him, Nick raced down the stairs through to the old part of the building where Chrissie had had a cubbyhole office in the good old days. After passing the electron-microscopy suite, he lit out of the rear fire exit, hopped over the fence and was in Susie Cooper’s Mini warming the engine when his cell phone buzzed for real.

What the…?

Pulling off his toque, he answered dispatch, trying not to sound out of breath. “D.I. Archer.”

“Sir, I know you’re not on call, but we’ve got a report from East Sands of a dead body.”

Jesus
.

While he’d been searching Sizemore’s office, someone outside had tripped over a corpse. It was probably a floater, grim even without being a reminder of Chrissie’s death.

“I’ll be there in five minutes.” He rang off, cold sweat drying on his forehead that he wiped away with an even colder hand.
That had been close and for what?
Perhaps there was no way of getting justice for his wife’s murder, at least no way that was legal.

He speed-dialed Ewan, who answered with a muffled, “Ugh?”

“We’ve got a dead body, East Sands. I don’t have details.”

Nick heard Ewan rubbing the sleep from his eyes, grumbling and groaning. “I’ll call Amy’s sister to come over. Should be there in twenty minutes. God, I hope it isn’t a kid.”

Nick shuddered. He hadn’t thought of that. “I’ll call forensics.”

Nick rang off. He reversed the Mini, phone in one hand as he called the Forensic Pathology Team in Dundee, then drove to the main entrance of the Gatty Marine Lab and pulled up on the embankment overlooking the beach. A uniform on nightshift was tying off the area with police tape.

The haar had lifted with the receding tide and hovered like some malevolent beast, observing the proceedings from a prudent distance. Two girls, students probably, sat on a park bench farther along the footpath.

“What you got, Lewis?” Nick asked the square-faced policewoman. Her expression was serious. P.C. Julie Lewis was slow to smile, but smart and dedicated, with no pretensions.

“Those two found a body.” She indicated the girls, who sat crying. “I think we’re looking at a murder, sir.” At his raised brow, she added. “Pretty hard to smash in your own skull.”

Nick’s stomach clenched. Murder?

He looked along the footpath, dread digging claws into his stomach and trying to find purchase. He knew homicide. He’d done four years’ homicide after he’d finished his undercover stint, but St. Andrews hadn’t seen a murder in years.

Had this poor bugger been bleeding to death when he had broken into the Gatty? Had he tracked the vic’s blood into the building? Into Susie’s car? Could he have saved a life if he’d been paying more attention to the present, rather than wasting his time trying to avenge the past?

Nick looked up at the overcast sky and thought for one split second he heard Chrissie’s laugh. He was going to hell for a little B&E. Or maybe for wanting a woman in a way he hadn’t in more than a decade.

The wind blasted his cheeks, icy and raw. Twin flashlights beamed into his eyes and he was instantly blind.

“Get those things out of my face,” he yelled.

“Sorry, sir.” Two synchronous replies.

Nick smelled blood in the air, sharp and cuprous. His intestines flip-flopped as he took another step down the grassy slope. P.C. Eric Mosel and Sergeant Hammy Soothill ran their beams over the body of a young woman.

Christ
. “ID?”

Both men shook their heads.

“We tried not to disturb the locus.” P.C. Mosel, or Mouse as he was known in the station, was normally a bit of a twat, niggling away at the division between CID and uniform coppers—the filth and the woodentops as they were called. But not tonight. Tonight he was all business. “I thought she might still be alive.”

The back of her skull was smashed like a broken eggshell, pale bone gleaming amongst gore. The flashlights picked out blood matting her hair, streaking her neck, staining the sand beneath her body a rusty brown. It was bloody obvious she was dead, but they’d still need a doctor for verification. A body could be trailed from one end of the beach to the other, but police officers still needed a doctor to confirm death. Rules and regulations of the God-almighty handbook.

Sobs reached him, but all Nick could do was stand and stare. This woman was his first homicide victim since leaving the crime-ridden streets of London. He hadn’t expected to feel quite so appalled, but St. Andrews was the one pure spot in a life of brutality and it had just been violated.

He nodded toward the wailing girls. “They report it?”

“Yes, sir.” Sergeant Hammy Soothill waved his flashlight as if looking for footprints, but the sand was too dry. There wouldn’t be any tracks down there worth saving. “The one lassie slipped and fell in the blood.”

The distaste on Hammy’s face was echoed by Nick’s stomach. There was none of the usual black humor that accompanied sudden death and no one prodded the corpse with a ubiquitous black boot.

They were all somber as they got on with the job, maybe because no matter how many cases they’d had in other places, this was the first of its kind in St. Andrews.

“Get the photographer down here when the doctor’s finished. See if we can get hold of floodlights for the forensics team. Mouse, we’ll need a scale drawing, and Hammy, I want you to oversee every piece of evidence and make sure it is catalogued like the Crown Jewels.” He glanced at his watch. His boss would want to be notified, and the Procurator Fiscal.

His gaze lingered on the young woman’s body. Her skirt was hiked up around her thighs, suggesting a possible sexual assault, arms outstretched over her head as if she’d tried to crawl away.

All that blood…

She’d taken time to die.

Why her? How had she attracted a killer’s attention? Or was she simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? Cursing, he walked on the tarmac, trying not to step in blood. But it was everywhere, glistening thickly in the dim light. Had he missed it earlier, or had the girl been attacked when he was inside the Gatty?

“Hey!” He turned and yelled to P.C. Lewis and pointed along the path he’d just walked. “Get this area roped off too. There’s blood everywhere.”

The sobs grew louder and Nick resisted rolling his eyes at his witnesses. The fine line of irritation was about to trip his temper. Lucky for him doing the job was as automatic as breathing, and muscle memory had him jerking out a notebook and stabbing a pen in its center. He thought he’d escaped this crap. This was St. Andrews, not Stoke Newington. He’d thought he was finished with death and destruction.