Page 152 of Slack Tide Kill

"So that's what Tom Richter saw? And you killed him for it. Reg Rook ordered the hit. You framed Bledd. So who's framing Bledd now? Who is Reg's hitter, Gerald?"

"I swear, please, I don't know!"

The media team were near now. The camera was up and Sally saw the red light. Finally she clamped one hand on Liam's arm.

"It's over, Liam! We're finished."

Liam's chest heaved, he looked at Sally and for a moment she thought he was going to hit her. Out of control. Wild.

"It's me," she said. "Sally."

Something shifted. Liam seemed to withdraw back inside himself. The mania faded, replaced by something that looked almost like terror.

"It's OK," she said. "You're OK."

Tania Brown and crew set up and started shouting questions.

"Now make the arrest," Sally said firmly. Willing Liam to come back to her. "He's all yours."

Liam shuddered as control came back. The fear dwindled and he gave the tiniest nod, then reached to his waist. Spate shrank backward, but Liam returned with a pair of handcuffs.

"Gerald Spate," he announced, "I am arresting you on suspicion of human trafficking, historical trafficking of children, and conspiracy to murder Tom Richter 30 years ago. You don't have to say anything, but anything you say…"

Liam kept talking but Sally tuned out.

The shape of this whole thing had just turned inside out. Reg Rook the Owler boss, ordering hits? Children getting trafficked on Dungeness? Arthur Bledd the patsy twice over?

But how did it help them now? Reg had died three years ago. His sons would have to be idiots to kill Harrow with cockle shells; and they hadn't been alive to complete the hit three decades ago.

So who the hell was doing the killing?

Liam finished the caution and pulled Spate to his feet.

"How can you justify arresting an elderly man in this way, Officer Rogers?" Tania Brown shouted through the rain.

"He broke the law," Sally answered, "now stand clear." She took Spate by his other arm and helped Liam frog-march him toward the squad car. The media crew trailed behind, asking questions that dwindled under the firestorm playing out in her head.

Nothing about this arrest was clean. Maybe none of the charges would stand. But it was a direction. A name-shaped hole. A buried route leading right back to the death of Tom Richter 30 years ago.

65 THE FIFTH ROOK

Liam secured Spate in the rear of the squad car. He was sobbing now. Sally waited by the passenger side door, oblivious to the rain, calling the arrest in to Rye. Liam passed by, resting one hand momentarily on her shoulder.

"Thank you," he said.

Sally nodded. "You've done it for me."

They climbed in. Sally finished filling DI Gemmell in as Liam pulled away. She noticed his hands were trembling again.

They drove. Rye was 40 minutes away, a box on wheels pushing through a gray world of water. Each lost in their own thoughts, unable to talk because of Spate in the back. She saw that look in his eyes again. The chaos inside. The animal.

But it had retreated. He'd pulled it back. That had to count for something.

Her thoughts spiraled back to Spate's first admission. That Reg had hired a hitman. A friend, someone he trusted, someone he'd known for decades.

The fifth Rook, confirmed. But who?

The coast road past Lydd was wild with the storm. The Channel raged at the beach like a wild animal and the road was underwater in places, shingle encroaching as the cuspate foreland shifted. Tiny specks of gravel fired up from the wheels and hit the chassis, pinging sharply.