Revenge of the Tide by Elizabeth Haynes Read Free Book Online Page B

can tell you any more,’ I said. ‘It woke me up, I went to look, and I found it. That’s it.’
    ‘Yes,’ he said, giving me his card. Detective Sergeant Andrew Basten, Major Crime . ‘But you never know. You might remember something else. Like the car in the car park. Your brain does funny things when you’ve had a shock; it’s like it only lets you remember one thing at a time.’
    He led the way up the steps on to the deck of the Souvenir . Sally and Josie were sitting on the wooden bench, with Sally’s petunias and pelargoniums, just starting to look autumn-bedraggled, in pots around them.
    ‘Alright?’ said Josie when she saw me coming up the steps.
    ‘I’m fine. Thank you.’
    ‘You look terribly pale,’ said Sally.
    Basten cleared his throat. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said. ‘Let me know if you think of anything else in the meantime.’
    He didn’t head for the car park; instead he climbed off the Souvenir and headed towards the pontoon where the Revenge of the Tide was moored. There were still lots of people around; crime scene tape fluttered across the start of the pontoon and he lifted it and ducked beneath it. At the end of the pontoon, two figures dressed in white boiler suits were on their hands and knees doing something. The whole area was illuminated by lights on metal rigging, as though they were preparing to make a movie. It was daylight, and yet still cloudy enough to make the lights necessary. I thought about what they were illuminating, down there, and shivered. The space between the end of the pontoon and the side of the hull was draped in a huge blue tarpaulin.
    The tide was out now.
    ‘They’ve not taken anything away,’ said Sally. ‘I think the body must still be down there.’
    Along with all the other cars in the car park, a black Transit van with ‘Private Ambulance’ in grey letters on the side had arrived. At the main gate, two police officers were standing guard to prevent vehicles entering or leaving.
    ‘I heard one of them say they were going to move it soon. Before the tide turns.’
    We watched the activity as people came and went. The road filled up with spectators and a constable was stationed there to move people on. Then the press arrived, and spent the rest of the morning hanging around trying to take pictures of anything interesting. Sally made sandwiches. Josie ate two. I stared at them because I didn’t want to look at anything else. In the end I lay on the sofa in the saloon of the Souvenir and tried to sleep. I could hear them talking, on the deck, commenting on the action in the marina. I tried to block out the sounds, but they still came through.
    What seemed like hours later, I heard Basten on the deck of the Souvenir , telling Sally that I could go, if I wanted to.
    I went up to the deck but he’d already left.
    ‘He said you can go back,’ Sally said. ‘They’re still working down there but you can go back if you want to.’
    I looked doubtfully down to the pontoon, where the Revenge was still surrounded by people in white boilersuits. Josie pulled me into a hug. She was big and warm and soft. ‘You poor girlie,’ she said into my hair. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’
    ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I think I’ll just go back to bed and try and get some sleep. I’m so tired.’
    I was tired, it was true, but there was no way I was going to be able to sleep. I just needed to be alone. I needed them all to leave me on my own, so I could think. So I could work out what to do, without having to worry about accidentally giving something away.
    ‘Alright, then. I’ll come and look in on you later.’
    I stepped off the Souvenir gingerly, my legs shaking. I felt as if I’d been ill, or asleep for a long time. The bright lights lit up the scene dramatically; I couldn’t think of a time when I’d seen so many people in the marina.
    A young policewoman tried to stop me when I got close to my boat.
    ‘He said it would be okay for me to