Blackwater (DI Nick Lowry) Read online

  Blackwater

  Also By

  Also by James Henry

  THE DI JACK FROST PREQUELS

  Morning Frost

  Fatal Frost

  First Frost (with Henry Sutton)

  Title

  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by

  riverrun

  an imprint of

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 2016 James Gurbutt

  The moral right of James Gurbutt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  HB ISBN 978 1 78087 977 2

  TPB ISBN 978 1 78087 978 9

  EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78429 981 1

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset by CC Book Production

  You can find this and many other great books at:

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  Dedication

  For my mother.

  Map

  Epigraph

  ‘A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on. A psychotic is a guy who’s just found out what’s going on.’

  – William S. Burroughs

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  Saturday, New Year’s Day, 1983

  -1-

  -2-

  -3-

  -4-

  -5-

  -6-

  -7-

  -8-

  -9-

  -10-

  -11-

  -12-

  -13-

  -14-

  -15-

  -16-

  -17-

  Sunday, 2 January, 1983

  -18-

  -19-

  -20-

  -21-

  Monday, 3 January, 1983

  -22-

  -23-

  -24-

  -25-

  -26-

  -27-

  -28-

  -29-

  -30-

  -31-

  -32-

  -33-

  -34-

  -35-

  -36-

  Tuesday, 4 January, 1983

  -37-

  -38-

  -39-

  -40-

  -41-

  -42-

  Wednesday, 5 January, 1983

  -43-

  -44-

  -45-

  -46-

  -47-

  -48-

  -49-

  -50-

  -51-

  Thursday, 6 January, 1983

  -52-

  -53-

  -54-

  -55-

  -56-

  -57-

  -58-

  Friday, 7 January, 1983

  -59-

  -60-

  Acknowledgements

  PROLOGUE

  10.45 p.m., Friday, New Year’s Eve, 31st December, 1982 Blackwater Estuary, Essex

  Though they couldn’t have been travelling at more than six knots, the din when they unexpectedly beached the boat was horrific. The older man’s panic subsided once the racket of the small outboard motor was silenced and he realized they weren’t going to sink; that they had in fact run aground. Now all was quiet. And eerily dark.

  ‘Jesus, weren’t expecting that,’ his younger companion said, shaken.

  Boyd grunted. He flashed the torch uncertainly around them. He couldn’t see a thing in this fog. The boat gave unsteadily as he moved to the stern, water lapping gently at the hull. They must have hit a sandbank.

  ‘Right, Felix, you go first,’ he said. The boat rocked as his companion hauled one of the two rucksacks on to his back.

  The late-night tide, being a high one, must have drained quickly, as if a plug had been pulled. He sensed they were far from their planned destination and cursed quietly. He should have known the boat was too small to hold its own against a strong ebb tide. They had been travelling for what felt like hours; a more powerful engine would have had them here quicker, before the tide had run. But where was ‘here’, exactly? There were no lights visible on the shore. He had thought originally the foul weather would give them extra cover under which to land, but he had not foreseen the possibility of getting lost.

  ‘You comin’, Jace?’ Felix called, already ashore and invisible in the icy darkness, though he couldn’t have been more than a few feet away.

  Boyd hauled the second army rucksack on to his back, making the waist straps secure, almost toppling with the weight. He let out a groan. Fifty kilos was, unsurprisingly, fifty kilos.

  ‘Come on!’ Felix called again, his footsteps crunching over what must be oyster shells.

  ‘Right, here goes.’ He drew in a breath that was pure sea mist before clambering off the tender and – Christ! – into freezing-cold water up to his waist. The boat had swung with the tide and he’d misjudged which side to jump. The sudden ice-chill caused a wave of panic; he waded desperately towards his companion’s torch, fearing for his cargo, which, though vacuum-packed, he couldn’t risk getting damp.

  ‘Fucking ’ell, mate! What you doin’, garn swimmin’?’ The small torch beam bounced erratically in his direction.

  ‘Piss off!’ Boyd spat breathlessly, infuriated at the piercing cold numbing his groin. Regaining his composure, he looked desperately around him, but could see nothing. ‘Where the fuck . . . ?’ he muttered. Turning to the right, he could just make out faint lights twinkling in the mist, like dimmed Christmas-tree lights, but that was . . . too far away? He’d anticipated lights to the west, not to the east. This wasn’t good – they must be way off course. He reached into his snorkel-jacket pocket for the compass, his numb fingers unable to differentiate the various objects: lighter, knife, keys – there, he had it. But he’d left his torch behind. Fuck. It was only a torch, though, and he wasn’t going back.

  ‘Give me that!’ he snapped quietly, though the caution was unnecessary – he could have screamed and nobody would have heard. He flashed the torch beam on the compass, the sudden brightness off the glass hurting his eyes and causing him to blink rapidly. ‘Brightlingsea? Must be . . .’

  ‘We lost, skipper?’ He felt his accomplice’s warm breath at his ear.

  ‘No. Just further east than I thought. And very, very late. The tide must have carried us. Poxy boat. We’re off East Mersea – on the mudflats, at least half a mile from the beach and two miles east of where we should be. We haven’t a hope of making the meet tonight – or seeing anyone else, for that matter.’ He turned sharply, directing the torch into the young man’s brown eyes, the pupils shrinking in alarm. ‘There’s only you, me and one hundred kilos of high-class party powder.’

  Saturday, New Year’s Day, 1983

  -1-

  1 a.m., Saturday, Colchester CID, Queen Street

  The telephone’s sudden ring jolted DI Nick Lowry awake and he knocked over a mug of coffee. Lowry, thirty-nine, ex-Divisional athletic and boxing champion, was too big for the 1950s wooden desk he’d slumped asleep on, and
he started as the cold liquid reached his prone elbow. Realizing where he was, he yawned and scratched his dark brown hair, glancing sheepishly at his younger colleague, opposite, who was scribbling notes under a grimy Anglepoise lamp.

  The telephone had stopped ringing. He checked his watch. He was late. Very late. He’d been expecting a call from his in-laws – hours ago – to summon him to collect his son from their house. They’d taken him to a panto in London starring Rod Hull and Emu. He’d told them he’d be working late so they should call him at Queen Street once they got back to their place in Lexden. Perhaps that had been them on the phone – but why so late? Traffic, snow, accident – the possibilities raced through his mind in ascending order of potential danger and parental panic rose in his throat. Shit, why did he have to nod off!

  ‘Made a mess there,’ DC Daniel Kenton tutted, without looking up from his paperwork, his glasses sliding precariously close to the edge of his nose. Kenton was twenty-five and far too young to be wearing specs that made him look quite so studious. University educated, Kenton was considered to be exactly what the force needed in the modern age, according to Essex County HQ. And, though County’s dictate on progress was not always Colchester Chief Superintendent Sparks’s view on progress, in young Kenton they did in fact meet, for Kenton could box, and box well. Not that you’d guess it to look at CID’s most recent recruit. He flicked back his too-long foppish hair in a vaguely feminine way; Lowry thought him too big a lad to carry it off. Kenton probably thought it made him look intellectual.

  ‘What were you doing, letting me doze off like that?’ Lowry yawned, shuddering involuntarily in the cold of the Victorian building. ‘What’s happened to Matthew? I should’ve heard from him ages ago!’

  ‘Don’t panic. Your son is in Lexden with your wife’s parents. The night sergeant took the message. They’ve only just got back. Fog on the A12.’

  Lowry grunted with relief. ‘What are you even doing here at this time of night? No New Year’s Eve parties for you?’

  Kenton looked up from his writing, taking off his glasses to reveal handsome, boyish features. ‘No. Making the most of it now things appear to have quietened down, so I’m getting the paperwork on the Mersea post-office job out of the way.’

  ‘Right, well, no point me hanging around here,’ said Lowry flatly, getting up. Just then, the phone started to ring again.

  Kenton was meticulously fitting the cap on what Lowry knew to be an expensive fountain pen – a graduation present. ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ he said. ‘The night sergeant knows you’re still here. It can’t be anything as bad as last night.’

  Lowry glanced at the obstinate phone vibrating on the desk. Not the in-laws, then. His mind flickered back momentarily to the violence of the previous evening. He snapped up the receiver, glaring at the satisfied Kenton as he did so. ‘Lowry.’

  ‘At last,’ the night sergeant replied. The line was terrible, as though there lay a continent between them instead of a single storey. He could only make out the last word: ‘ . . . body.’

  ‘Beg pardon?’ Instinctively, he reached for his cigarettes, forgetting he’d given up as of now.

  ‘A car’s run over a body. The vehicle was travelling at speed. On the Strood.’ This was the local name for the causeway between the mainland and Mersea, an island that lay seven miles to the south of Colchester. It was often hit by high tides, which could cut the five-thousand-strong populace off from the mainland for up to three hours at a time. ‘Wait, why are you calling me?’ Lowry asked. ‘Get the Dodger’s boys out. They can handle an RTA, surely . . . I know it’s late, but still.’

  ‘The Mersea lads are on it, but this ain’t no RTA – the body is lying in six inches of water. It’s missing its head. And an arm.’

  Lowry swallowed hard. ‘The body’s headless?’ Kenton caught his eye.

  ‘Yep, shaved clean off . . .’

  Lowry hung up.

  ‘Problem?’ Kenton asked disingenuously.

  1.10 a.m., Colchester General Hospital, Lexden Road

  Jacqui wriggled on the bed and hoicked down her uniform. The mattress let out a sigh, signalling her lover’s imminent departure. The lights remained off. She swung round and felt with her toes on the cold, tiled floor for her shoes; the room was pitch black. She could just make out the luminous marks on her Timex watch. Her break was nearly at an end – she’d have to make for the nurses’ station straight away, no time for a cigarette. She heard the distinctive sound of his trouser zip, always the final step after realigning his shirt and tie.

  ‘One day we’ll have to try it with the lights on.’ She laughed quietly. But there was no response – instead, a vertical slash of light appeared as the door to the private room opened.

  ‘Got to go. Bleeper,’ came a whisper from the darkness, and without a pause his slender frame slipped through the crack in the door.

  ‘Of course. Saved by the bleeper,’ she muttered to herself. She knew what they were doing was risky, but it was still curiously convenient how the bleeper always seemed to go off as soon as they’d finished. She sighed and slid off the bed.

  Reclipping her hair hurriedly, she crept out into the green-lit corridor, closing the door softly behind her. She padded along and turned into the dark hospital ward, her heart racing as the thrill of what she had just done resurfaced amid the sterile normality. She stopped short of the light of the nurses’ station to adjust her tights.

  ‘Jacqueline,’ an authoritative voice barked behind her, causing her to jump. She turned and saw the dour, familiar face of the ward sister.

  ‘Yes, sister?’ she replied demurely. The sight of her brought her up cold. She fiddled nervously with her wedding ring.

  ‘Where have you . . . ? Never mind. Private Daley is in Resuscitation.’

  One of the young soldiers.

  ‘Cardiac arrest,’ the sister added. ‘You are needed there.’

  Jacqui turned to leave.

  ‘Nurse, your tunic,’ said the ward sister.

  Jacqui adjusted her uniform, feeling herself flush and hoping that the ward sister wouldn’t have spotted it in the low light. The other nurse on duty looked up knowingly from the station desk. Jacqui ignored the smirk forming on her lips.

  The sister turned on her heels and marched off at a clip. Jacqui refocused her mind and recalled the injured young soldier admitted during the hectic hours of the previous night. He seemed little more than a boy; she’d almost laughed when she heard he was a soldier. He was nineteen, apparently, but lying there unconscious in a nightgown, bum fluff on his soft cheeks, he looked barely out of puberty. The boy was now in the best possible hands, the very same hands that, only minutes earlier, with a different sense of urgency, had pinned her to a hospital bed. At least, she thought, hurrying past the ward sister towards her patient, Paul had a genuine call this time.

  -2-

  1.15 a.m., Saturday, The Strood, Mersea Island side

  The Land Rover groaned to a halt, throwing Jason Boyd’s unbelted accomplice towards the dashboard with an unpleasant crunch. Ten feet in front of them was a police vehicle, a jam-sandwich Cortina, parked side on where the Strood road met the East Mersea road. Visibility was almost nil, and Boyd hadn’t seen the other car until they were practically on top of its languidly rotating blue light. He threw the vehicle rapidly into reverse and backed up to a respectable distance.

  ‘Fuck!’ he said under his breath. Fog or no fog, he should have seen the blue light.

  ‘Nearly cracked me head open,’ Felix moaned, rubbing his forehead.

  ‘Well, you should belt up, then,’ Boyd retorted unsympathetically. ‘Clunk click and all that bollocks.’ The fluorescent police tape was now just visible, floating in the mist before them. But not much else. Beyond the police car the thick night made the causeway invisible.

  ‘This is all we need,’ Boyd sighed, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Nuisance,’ Felix added.

  ‘Nuisance? Contact with the Old Bill
? More than a nuisance, you plum.’ He shook his head in the dark cab.

  ‘Where’s the panic, Jace? We just say we’re trying to get home across the Strood . . .’

  ‘Er, yeah, mate; with what we’re carrying, we better bloody hope so. Maybe the smell of us will put him off hanging around.’

  Boyd fidgeted uncomfortably in his mud-covered jeans, now beginning to dry but itching like hell. After trekking across the mudflats for what must have been two miles, they were exhausted; even with a map, it took an age to find their Land Rover in the pitch-black winter. The plan was to land under cover of darkness around six, and be in Colchester by seven; even if they’d got ashore on time, he’d still not allowed enough time for walking by foot – if they ever did this again, the whole approach would need a rethink.

  The Land Rover’s ancient idling diesel engine stuttered suddenly, as if choking on the wet, prompting a uniformed officer to materialize out of the gloom.

  ‘Fuck! He’s coming over!’ Felix exclaimed.

  ‘Well, just say we’ve been bait-digging, and then stopped off in the pub,’ Boyd said, half wondering if it was worth a try if they were questioned.

  There was a rap on the glass. Boyd wound the window down and smiled. A torch beam scanned the cab and settled on Boyd’s face. ‘Happy New Year, officer. Problems?’ he asked, squinting in the light.

  ‘I’m afraid I have to tell you to turn back.’ The policeman, young and thin-faced, looked chilled to the bone. ‘There’s been a fatality.’

  ‘Not surprised, in this weather,’ Felix replied.

  ‘Where are you boys heading this time of night?’ the officer asked.

  ‘Colchester,’ Boyd answered coolly. ‘We’re just on our way home. We’re not from Mersea.’