Page 19 of Deep Waters

From the lifeboat station, he could see all the way downriver to where the twin piers stretched out into the sea. The gossip he’d heard earlier proved to be true, and there were indeed police officers working on the south pier. It was too far away for him to see anything other than the minute figures of a forensic team in white coveralls. If he was going to apply journalistic methods to his book research, the pier was the first place to start.

Christian followed the course of the harbour in that direction. A sailboat glided along the river, its gentle wake disturbing the grey mirrored surface of the water. Everything was calm and quiet, a dramatic contrast to the conditions just twenty-four hours earlier.

There were more sailboats and several high-powered yachts and pleasure cruisers moored, and at the end of the dock, Christian realised he could go no farther. A row of ancient holiday homes stood on the bank. Refurbished fisherman’s houses, he guessed. The location provided them with an excellent view of the harbour, but there appeared to be no public footpath around them. Christian looked about, wishing he’d bothered to pick up a town map from the hotel reception. Because Nyemouth was relatively small, he’d assumed it would be easy to navigate.

There had to be an access road behind the cottages.

He retraced his route, as far back as The Fisherman’s Arms, and found a tourist sign pointing to Pier Street. Now, that sounded promising. He followed the direction into a narrow, cobbled street that seemed to run parallel to the harbour. There were shops, restaurants and bars on either side. Christian guessed they must be listed buildings, as all the fronts were designed in a similar style, in keeping with the old town.

He would have to spend some time researching the history of Nyemouth itself. This must be one of the oldest parts. He already knew from the guidebooks that the port dated as far back as the 1600s, and the stone buildings on this narrow street were most likely from that time.

The path was on an incline, and soon the muscles in his calves ached with the upward trek over uneven cobbles. There were many tourist shops and a lot of small cafes. There was no time to explore in any detail right now. He wanted to get to the pier before the police packed up but would check them out on the route back.

He came upon another sign. To the right, it pointed to a steep set of stone steps—South Bank. The arrow for South Pier pointed straight ahead.

There was something atmospheric, almost gothic, in these ancient streets. He would have to pay them a visit at night and discover just how moody and mysterious it could be. His mind was already busy with scenes of potential danger and intrigue that the setting provoked.

At the end of the shopping street, he found what he assumed to be the back entrances to the holiday cottages and followed the road. At the end, there were two police vans and another two cars. There was still no sight of the pier from this location, but he was clearly on the right trail. He continued on a footpath along the foot of the imposing cliff. Thirty yards on, the path descended towards the pier.

Entry to the pier had been cordoned off by police tape and a uniformed officer kept the public at bay. A crowd of around twenty were idling around, trying to see what was happening farther out, where the forensic team had assembled a tent. Christian spotted a cameraman and journalist, clearly from the local news station, and headed in their direction. The cameraman was busy filming the action on the pier, so he moved in on the journalist, a woman in her mid-thirties with short brown hair. She wore a red puffer jacket over her smart TV suit.

“Hi,” he said. “Christian Costner, from theManchester Gazette. Any developments?”

The woman gave him a dismissive glance before turning her attention back to the forensic team. “Manchester? This is a little far from your beat, isn’t it?”

“I’m off duty,” he said, hoping to win her over with breezy charm. “Here on holiday, in fact. But you know what it’s like. Our curiosity is never really switched off.”

She looked at him again. “You’re not the tourist who was on the boat with the first victim, are you?”

He shook his head. “Afraid not. I only got here last night.” A shitty move, but the facts of what he experienced onThe North Starwere not for mass consumption. He owed Niko’s family that much.

She sucked her teeth. “Too bad.”

“So, who are you with? TV? Radio?”

The woman looked him over, weighing him up, then seemed to relax. “Marie Baxter-Booth.North-East News. We’re waiting for an update that we can put out on the six o’clock edition, though it looks doubtful. The police are giving nothing away.”

“What do you know so far?”

She gestured to the pier. “They seem to think this is where the Jasinski boy was attacked.”

“How do they know? And wouldn’t any evidence have been washed away by the storm last night?”

“A witness from one of the cottages claims to have seen him walking out this way yesterday afternoon—and that was the last anyone saw of the boy until the boat picked him up. They must have discovered something to have brought the CSI team in. Maybe some blood soaked into the boards before the storm came? Or possibly fibres got caught there. I don’t know, but they appear to have something.”

As Marie was talking, Christian pressed the advantage. “What about the other guy? The second murder? Are you working on a connection?”

“Too soon to say. My colleague is following that case.”

“It seems like such a huge coincidence.”

Her lips curled back in a bemused grin. “Anywhere else and I’d say you were right but not here, not in Nyemouth. You’ve picked a hell of a place for a holiday. This would be right at the bottom of my wish list. I don’t know what it is—the town or the people—but there’s something off about it. I reported on the Arnie Walker story a couple of summers ago. Then again, last year, when a local businessman tried to kill his ex-husband and his new partner. I was not at all surprised when I got the call out to come here again this morning. This town, I swear to you, attracts bad news.”

* * * *

When he had finished at the boat, Harry hurried home to shower and change into fresh clothes, just in time to meet Christian at five o’clock. Christian was having dinner at Dominic Melton’s house that night, so Harry suggested he join him at his hotel bar to save time.

Quay Hotel had been a landmark in Nyemouth marina his entire life. An old coaching inn dating back to the eighteenth century, it had been heavily renovated sometime in the 1980s, when the owners had purchased the building at the rear of the property and knocked through to create the hotel. It had been modernised again in 2016 to make it the best accommodation in town. Located at harbour level, its views were not as spectacular as the hotels and guest houses up on the cliffs, but it made up for it in grandeur and history.

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