DI Walker

THE DAY AFTER THE SOLSTICE

IT'S A SHORT DRIVE FROM the cove to The Manor, the road looping inland for a mile before it rejoins the coast. SOCO are focused on moving the body before the tide comes in and DI Walker has had a call from DS Fielding, one of the team already over at The Manor, saying they've got the fire under control. Smoke still fills the sky, though. The sun's a pale thin disc through it, the light dull. Nothing like the crushing heat of yesterday.

"Dairy Milk?" Heyer asks from the passenger seat, pulling a bar out of her pocket and thrusting it at him.

"No thanks. Can't stand the stuff."

"That is not normal, boss."

"Never said I was normal."

She shrugs, pops a chunk into her mouth. "Low blood sugar. But for a moment I'd thought I'd never be able to eat again. After that... the face. It was..." She trails off, words failing her. Walker knows what she means. "Did you see a lot of that sort of thing, boss? When you were in the Met?"

"Lots of death. Nothing... quite like that."

"Yeah—I heard you were more cold cases."

He shrugs. "I've worked on a few."

"What's it like?"

He thinks. "Frustrating. Slow. Laborious. Often bloody thankless, picking over old ground."

"Sounds like hard work."

"Yeah, it is. You have to go back through all the evidence. Sometimes you have to be seriously creative, as you have so little to work with. But when you solve a case—there's nothing like it. Righting a historic wrong. Getting justice for the victim and their family when it's been denied for so long."

Walker's good at the attention to detail. Leaving no stone unturned, doing the legwork, going the extra distance—all the clichés.

"How come you transferred down here?" Heyer asks thickly, through a mouthful of Dairy Milk. "Pace-of-life type thing?"

He shrugs. "Felt a kind of calling, you could say. And something opened up."

"You live with anyone, or—" Heyer breaks off. It's the question you're not meant to ask, isn't it? Are you normal, do you have people, or are you a loner weirdo?

"Nope. Just me." There's no way to make it sound less sad. Less like the dysfunctional cliché of a police detective.

He's not desperate to get into an in-depth conversation about all of this and he's also sure Heyer regrets asking, so it's something of a relief when a figure materializes in the road, just ahead. In the smoke-filled light the girl looks like an apparition. Maybe it's the silver dress, torn and grubby at the hem. She's barefoot, carrying her shoes. Long hair, a dark red that can only have come out of a bottle. Her head's down but it snaps up at the sound of the engine and Walker spots the moment she clocks them: she mouths a silent "FUCK." He actually sees her shift her weight as though working out if she can peg it in the opposite direction, then realize she doesn't have a hope.

He pulls over, climbs out of the car, and shows her his badge.

"I don't have to speak to you," she says with a jut of her chin. "I'm not under arrest, am I?" The whole bolshy attitude is at odds with the smudged eye make-up, the sooty tear tracks down her face.

"No," Walker says, gently. "We just stopped to check you're OK. And ask whether you might have seen anything last night that might help us work out what went on."

"But that's just what you lot try and do, isn't it? Get people to say stuff without a lawyer present." Ah, Walker thinks. Someone's been watching too much TV.

"It's nothing like that," he says. "We're not trying to trick you. We're just on our way to the hotel and happened to see you. Were you there last night?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Well," he says, reasonably, "the road ends at The Manor. There's nothing else there. And you seem pretty dressed up. I heard there was a bit of a do there last night."

A short pause. She shrugs. "Yeah. I was there. What of it?"

"You're a hotel guest?" Heyer asks.

The girl runs a hand down her grubby face. Finally shakes her head. Gulps.

"Are you OK?" Walker asks.

"I was... we were..." Her voice trails off. Then she starts again. "He said... he said it would be a laugh. It was meant to be just a bit of fun—"

"What was just a bit of fun?" Walker asks.

"Nothing," she says abruptly, as though remembering where she is, who she's talking to. "Just... had a bit of a fight with my boyfriend. Why are you asking me all this?"

"There was a death," Walker says. "Last night. Someone went over the cliffs, not far from here."

He sees the sudden tiny dilation of her eyes, catches the hitch of her breath.

"We're trying to work out what might have happened." He softens his tone. "Perhaps you can help us. We'd just like to know whether you saw anything. The smallest thing could help."

The girl's eyes flit from Heyer to Walker and back. "Nope." She shakes her head. "I didn't see anyone."

Heyer shoots him a look. He gives a little nod. "You didn't see anyone?" Heyer presses, a subtle emphasis on the last word.

The girl's eyes widen. "I didn't see anything," she corrects. "Just a frigging figure of speech, innit?" Suddenly all the fight goes out of her. Her shoulders slump and somehow the change in posture makes her look much younger. She starts to cry, fresh tears tracking clean paths through the grime on her face. "I just want to go home," she says, words hitching on a sob.

"Can we give you a lift?" Walker asks. "We're en route to The Manor now. Or we could send some of our colleagues—"

Her eyes widen. "Fuck no. I'm not getting in the back of any police car. I didn't do anything wrong. I just want to go home. I'm so frigging tired." Her shoulders slump. "Last night... it wasn't meant to be like that. It..." She catches herself, trails off, and then sobs, "It was meant to be... like, special."

"WELL," HEYER SAYS, as they climb back into the car, after they've managed (with some difficulty) to extract Delilah Rayne's details. "Did you see the look on her face? She's hiding something, for sure. What was all that about ‘it was meant to be special'?"

Walker nods. "Yup. Definitely something off. We'll get her in for a formal statement soon as we can."

He drives past a five-bar gate. A peeling sign. A tumbledown barn housing a herd of watchful cows.

"Seaview Farm," Heyer says, reading the sign. "Think we should ask them if they saw anything?"

"Not now," he says. "It'll take too long."

"Look at the state of the place. What a dump. You'd think if you lived in such a beautiful spot you'd keep your gaff a bit nicer. Stinks, too."

Maybe it's the way she wrinkles her nose that makes Walker say: "You're better than that, Heyer."

She straightens in her seat like he's just slapped her. Did he cross a line? "Sorry," he says. "But compassion's underrated in this job. You never know about people's lives, what they might be going through."

Heyer doesn't answer, just sullenly bites off another chunk of chocolate. Suddenly her eyes widen and she shouts, "Boss, look!"

As they round the corner he can see it fully: the wreck of a very beautiful, very expensive silver Aston Martin convertible. Someone has plowed it into the bracken-tangled verge at the bend of the road, one front wheel reared up onto the bank. Shards of glass litter the tarmac. The bonnet's a mess of corrugated metal.

Walker crawls the Audi closer. Reads the numberplate. A fancy personalized one: D4CRE.

The driver's door hangs open, the front seat empty. No one in sight. And just visible through the shattered windscreen: a smear of blood on the pale leather of the steering wheel.