Page 123 of Slack Tide Kill

He pushed a piece of paper across the desk. "You won't take legal blame. Sidestep all the tribunals. Spare yourself the pain of this playing out in the press. Watching all of us tumble and trying to fight it, one by one."

"Fall on my sword," she breathed.

"Take the heat out of this thing. Give us a real chance to catch the killer. Give Dungeness a chance at healing."

Words and thoughts cascaded within Sally. Turbulent. Ever-flowing. Neverending.

"Home on a plane tomorrow," McMaster went on. "No formal misconduct finding. No suspension splashed across every front page. You'll still give statements where required. You'll still answer questions if the inquest calls. But you won't be the story for the next six months. Sure, back home they'll know. But this is not a dishonorable discharge. You're just stepping down."

Sally's guts twisted. "What's the alternative?"

McMaster sighed. "I think you know. I can't just fire you, not without a full investigation. So it's back on desk duty while that plays out. Not here, though. We'll send you somewhere remote, somewhere the press won't want to follow. We've got an office in Aberdeen, Scotland. I think that's worse for you, honestly. Long. Drawn out. Isolated."

Sally felt the reality sinking in. "It brands me either way. That I'm a failure."

McMaster offered a slow shrug. "So rip the bandage off, and fly tomorrow. Leave all this shit as far behind as you can. Start over."

Sally felt like she was back on Bledd's houseboat, rocking on the tide. Whatever she did now, this was permanent. It would leave a lasting mark on the rest of her life.

Heat built in her throat. She swallowed bile and forced out words. "I need to think about it."

"Take the night. Tomorrow, 9 a.m. sharp, I want your answer, or I'm shipping you north at 9:01 a.m." He leaned close. "And for what it's worth, Rogers, I don't blame you. I am, in fact, genuinely sorry this happened to you."

There was a strange warmth in his eyes. "You're sorry?"

"You've moved the investigation forward. You just screwed up plenty along the way, and I can't protect you from those repercussions." He stood, and the cold of his office settled back over him. "Dismissed."

53 BLACK WATER

Sally glided from the office and took the stairs down. Nothing broke through to her. She barely felt her feet on the ground, like she was drifting along on a slack tide.

Back into the cold gray London air.

Long semi-trucks were driving into the parking lot now, disgorging figures in hi-vis jackets, marked with the logo for 'Thames River Removals'. Sally stood by the gate and watched these blips of color spread out and head into the buildings. Soon they came out again carrying office desks, chairs, monitors, server racks.

She remembered the signs around campus in the last few months. NCA headquarters was moving this week. 30 years in Citadel Place, and now its time was done.

The figures flowed back and forth before her, like a time-lapse on fast forward. She thought of Heraclitus, raving in his dung pile. Soon these buildings would be demolished and new developments would go up. Residential blocks. A mall. No sign she'd ever been here at all.

She left the complex and turned right to the Thames. The river's black waters stretched to either side, ferrying low concrete barges piled with scrap metal, pleasure yachts stacked with tourists, a fast blue taxi boat. The far bank thronged with new, skeletal construction work, while off to the right stood the square Gothic bulk of Westminster Abbey, Big Ben itself and the Big Eye Ferris wheel, slowly revolving.

All done now.

This was disgrace.

McMaster had tried to soften the blow, but she knew the black mark next to her name would never clear. No more active cases with the FBI. Desk duty wherever she went. An emptiness yawned open like the bleakness of Dungeness.

She started north at a run.

She wasn't wearing the right clothes or boots, but it didn't matter. Past the Big Eye and the Houses of Parliament, past a busker crooning Peter Gabriel's 'Solsbury Hill', chased by a litany of failures.

The truth was, she'd brought this on herself.

Past the Tate Modern and St. Paul's, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, running faster now, her legs burning with lactic acid, her chest tight, the miles passing by, until an hour or so later she sank to her knees in a broad, paved courtyard, panting heavily.

A carousel of golden horses turned before her, fairground music twinkling gaily. Her heart rate began to slow. People milled through a row of food trucks nearby, buying American-style hot dogs and Korean Fried Chicken wraps. A large wooden sailing ship loomed before her, seemingly embedded in a bubble of glass fixed into the paving slabs.

Children waved from the deck above. Masts and rigging overlapped in a loom-like lattice of ancient power.