Revenge of the Tide (6 page)

T
he cabin was still a mess. I’d been staring at it for half an hour and not seeing it, my brain trying to process the image of Caddy in the water through a fog of tiredness and alcohol.

I set to work clearing up, sweeping up the breadcrumbs, soaking the dishes in the sink and then working my way through them methodically, my back to the scene of chaos behind me. The clouds had cleared, and through the porthole above the sink I could see the river, peaceful and sparkling in the bright sunshine. It looked like it did on every other sunny day, and for a moment I could focus on the task in hand and forget about last night.

When everything was washed and dried I was almost tempted to wash it all again, just so I could stay in the warmth and safety of that moment. I put it all away, leaving the lasagne dish on the table in the dinette. I would take it back to Joanna later on. The bathroom smelled very bad, but I had no intention of emptying the toilet cassette while the pontoon outside was swarming with police officers. I used the bucket again, and closed the door behind me.

The new room was just as I had left it, the woodwork soft with the last of the sanding, a shaft of sunlight dancing with specks of sawdust. It smelled of fresh timber. It would almost be a shame to paint over it all.

The smell of the wood reminded me of my dad, as it always did. Certain smells took me back to his workshop, a large shed behind our house built of corrugated asbestos and breeze blocks: linseed oil, turps, pickled onions, barley sugars, and engine oil. My dad was a practical man. He could fix anything, build anything and repair anything. He scoured car boot sales for lonely and discarded items that could be recycled, reworked or otherwise brought back to life with a bit of care and attention. His workshop had rows of old pickle jars half-full of screws, nuts, bolts, nails, capacitors, resistors and fuses, nailed by their lids to the cobwebby beams overhead. As well as random bits of machinery, he collected cars that now would be called classic: a Ford Escort Mark II, a Citroën 2CV, and a Lotus which, even with his best effort and constant tinkering, never travelled another mile under its own power. My mother tolerated it all, since it kept him out of the house and out of her way.

I was never excited by the cars. I watched him as he tinkered and fixed, but I never felt that same drive to see those old things working again. But when he got out his workbench and the woodworking tools I was always there, ready to help. I built a chair when I was nine years old. There was something about the transformation from the rough wood to the beautiful, practical lines and curves of the finished article that I found inspiring.

He died the day I sat my final exam at university. I’d rung home when I’d finished, but there’d been nobody there. He had suffered a massive heart attack in the shopping centre at lunchtime. My mother had told me she knew he was dead the moment he fell.

I went back into my bedroom, looking for something to do. This was turning into the longest day of my life, and it felt as though I’d been awake for a week. It was too early to go to bed, but it looked so tempting, the duvet thrown back. Just as I had left it last night when I went to investigate that noise.

I took off my jeans and lay down on the bed, pulling the duvet over myself. I was shattered, my head aching with the remains of what was probably a hangover from all that beer I’d drunk last night.

I lay there for a while, dry-eyed, wondering why I wasn’t crying. Caddy’s body was outside, probably less than two metres away from where I was lying, in the mud of the river Medway. Dylan had answered me as though I was the last person on earth he wanted to speak to. There were so many things wrong with this that I couldn’t begin to understand what could have happened.

Thinking about it made my head hurt. And my heart.

It was impossible to sleep, to rest, even to think. I could hear them talking out on the pontoon – just the impression of voices at first, but when I sat up in the bed I could make out phrases.

‘…could be worse, at least it’s not been raining…’

‘…get out of here before it starts…’

I wanted to know how she’d died. I wondered if they would tell me, if I asked.

She couldn’t have been there when the party started. It must have been afterwards, after everyone had gone. I’d sat in the saloon, looking at the mess, and Caddy was – where? Outside, on the pontoon? In the car park?

Had she come for the party after all, slipped and fallen into the river? No, she hadn’t. I remembered that first glance, what I’d seen in the beam of the torch, the shock that it was Caddy – and her face had been misshapen, her head – some kind of wound, too deep for an accidental blow – she’d been hit.

Why hadn’t I heard anything? Why hadn’t she made a sound, screamed?

She hadn’t just fallen in the water. She hadn’t floated downriver from Cuxton or anywhere else upstream. Someone had killed her, and dumped her body in the water, next to my boat.

Outside, on the pontoon, a mobile phone rang.

It was no use. There was no way I was going to sleep. I got out of bed and went back to the saloon, got a clean glass out of the cupboard and ran the tap. The water still didn’t take the taste away. Last night’s beer, last night’s panic.

I heard the sounds of footfalls on the deck above and then a sharp knock on the door to the wheelhouse.

‘Yes?’

The door opened and a man in a suit appeared at the top of the steps. But it wasn’t Basten: this one was younger, with dark hair and dark eyes and – unexpectedly – a nice smile.

Just as I was thinking how easy it was to spot police officers, I realised he was looking me up and down. Knickers. Cropped T-shirt, displaying an expanse of midriff.

‘Sorry. Didn’t realise you were – er…’

‘I was just trying to get some sleep,’ I said, even though I was patently standing in my saloon and not in the bedroom.

‘Miss Shipley?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m DC Jim Carling.’ He showed me his badge. Like Basten’s, it was scuffed and worn so badly that the image was unrecognisable.

‘I already spoke to somebody.’

‘I know. I just wanted to let you know that they’re bringing the body up now. Didn’t want you to get another nasty shock.’

‘Oh,’ I said, my voice rising. I looked across to the porthole without thinking, at the several pairs of legs that had now gathered on the pontoon.

He came down the steps into the cabin, so he was on my level. ‘I’ll stay with you for a bit, if you like,’ he said gently. ‘Here.’

He’d taken the crocheted blanket from the sofa and put it around me, guiding me to the sofa to sit down so my back was to the porthole. For the first time I felt tears starting.

‘It’s alright, Genevieve,’ Carling said. ‘It’ll be fine.’

He was nice, really, I thought. He had a kind face.

Like Dylan. Dylan had a kind face. He had a face that only a mother could love, he’d said once. He did look like a right bruiser, broken nose from boxing when he was a kid, misshapen ears, shaved head – but then, an unusually sensual mouth, and beautiful eyes, kind eyes. He wasn’t what any girl would describe as handsome. Maybe that had been a blessing, otherwise I would have fallen for him sooner than I did, and then everything would have been different.

As it was, I only really realised how special he was once I’d left London and it was too late to go back. And now, five months later, he didn’t sound as if he wanted to know me any more.

Carling was in the armchair, looking around the saloon. I wondered if he’d ever been on board a houseboat before today.

‘Do you want to have a look round?’ I asked.

‘Hm? Oh.’ He looked curiously embarrassed, as though I’d caught him out, looking at something he shouldn’t. ‘That’s okay. I just – I think it’s nice in here. You’ve done a good job.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What made you want to live on a boat, then?’

I smiled at him. ‘I don’t know. Just something I always wanted to do: buy a boat, spend a year doing it up.’

‘Cost lots of money?’

‘I had a good job in London for a few years, saved up.’

‘What are you going to do when the year’s up?’

‘I don’t know. I might stay on the boat, try and get a job around here. Or go back to London.’

From the pontoon came noises, shouts. They were hauling up the body. Josie told me afterwards that there were four of them were in the mud, wearing waders. Another four on the pontoon. She watched the whole thing from the safety of
Aunty Jean
. They’d put a tent up, perched on the end of the pontoon and rocking in the wind because they had nothing to anchor it to, because the car park was starting to fill up with press. Cameron was talking to the journalists, while next to my boat they lifted her out of the mud and on to the pontoon. She was tiny, Caddy, probably weighed no more than seven stone, but it took eight of them to lift her up.

‘It’ll be strange, going back to a nine-to-five after this, won’t it?’ he asked. His voice was jovial, a little forced. I think he was trying to distract me.

‘It will. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it. But the money will run out soon enough.’

‘Does this thing work? I mean – does it go anywhere?’

‘It could do, I guess. I’ve never tried the engine but it does have one. That part of it is beyond my technical capability at the moment.’

‘You should take it on a journey, before the money runs out.’

‘Maybe I should.’

There was an awkward pause. I wanted to ask about him about his job, what it was like. I wanted to ask if he was married, what he did when he wasn’t working. But none of it would come out. It sounded wrong, to be asking such things, given what was happening outside.

‘Would you like a drink, Mr Carling?’ I asked at last. ‘Coffee?’

He smiled, a warm smile. ‘That would be great. Thank you. And call me Jim.’

‘Jim. Alright, then.’ I pushed the blanket to one side and went to the galley, filling the kettle from the sink and putting it on the gas burner. At least I’d managed to clean the kitchen this morning. If he was going to spend time on my boat, he might as well see it at its best.

‘It’s an odd name for a boat,’ he said. ‘In the circumstances.’

‘I guess so. It was already called that when I bought it. Apparently it’s bad luck to change the name.’