Page 22 of Slack Tide Kill

Sally set off over the shingle at a jog. Her feet and legs ached; all her muscles, tendons and ligaments worn out from the Mud Beast. A deep tiredness was settling in, but she had no time for it, and sped up.

The curtains of rain opened as she advanced. The reactors receded. Soon a slim matchstick structure appeared through the gloom ahead, taking on definition and shape. It stood at the end of a cracked black road, solitary as a lighthouse, with no cars, buildings or people nearby.

The lamp post. Sally reached it, wrapped both hands around its corroded black metal, slick in the heavy rain, and began to shimmy up. Her running sneakers held their grip well.

At the top hung the lamp, its refractive glass as cloudy with salt deposits as the window to the Crab Shack. Beneath it hung the camera, a simple black box with a clean lens. Cleanliness suggested regular maintenance. A single black wire looped from the box's rear into a slot in the post.

There was a single clean sever-line through the rubber sheath, the braided cables and the copper wires within. No fraying, no tears, no rust, which signaled it was recent.

Cut.

Rain slashed Sally's face. She adjusted her grip and brought up her phone, leaning back to take a photo of the wire, then she slid back down the pole, mind turning over the possibilities.

Mayhew was right that other people could have done this. But it fit her developing theory of the killer perfectly: they'd blinded the reactor camera 9, cut this line, but what about the Crab Shack?

That was an aberration. Its red light was still flashing. Had the killer missed it? Dismissed it?

Now it was her only possible source of CCTV. Distant from the beach and the place the boat would have come in, but it might have seen something. A profile. The boat itself.

A sense of urgency lit in her chest. She slid down the pole and started jogging back toward the reactor, but something struck her right ankle. The pain was sharp and sudden, like a snake bite. She looked down but there was nothing there, only the driving sheets of rain crashing diagonally into the shingle.

Then another sharp strike stung her left calf. She ran her hand down and it came back spotted with blood. The thin neoprene of her running leggings was torn. She stared for a moment, trying to understand what could've caused this. Then a powerful blast of wind swept along the beach, raking up a low wave of pebbles and propelling them toward her.

They bounced and scattered along the road, and one struck her on the left ankle. She let out a small cry as the stone smacked bone, sending a flash of the Mud Beast pipe through her mind; the grip, the dark water, the seconds mounting.

Assaulted by the land itself.

She shook the feeling off and ran. The shingle crunched and the wind fired waves of small stones into her ankles and calves. The impacts became steady, the stinging pain constant.

By the time she reached the reactors, her legs were numb and the forensics tent was in chaos. One corner had come loose from its pinion and whipped loudly in the wind, like some chained banshee. CSM Akilota was halfway up the beach, seemingly fleeing from the storm, along with his team.

Sally glimpsed the body within the remains of the tent. The young man had been tipped onto his side, half-rolled onto the black sheet. Alone again. Sally scanned the beach and spotted DCI Mayhew breaking for the fences. She ran to intercept her.

"DCI!" she shouted, barely audible over the wind. "We have to collect the body!"

Mayhew turned, stared for a second then shook her head. "Akilota's gone for sandbags. The tent will hold, we just have to–"

A scraping shriek came from the forensics tent as a second pinion sucked free from the stones. The wind hammered up into the tent's interior, swelling it into a bulbous distortion then spilling free like a ruptured pulse, each blast yanking at the remaining pegs.

One more tore loose, then the rest plucked out like uprooted teeth. The wind snatched the whole tent and hurled it up the beach, its shape convulsing, its trailing edges raking the ground.

Sally dragged Mayhew down.

The tent thrashed by inches above them, then caught a crosswind and shot upward into the sky, torn out of sight.

"The body!" Sally shouted.

Mayhew nodded and they ran back into the storm together.

The young man lay on his front on the shingle now, stones crashing off his side. Sally went to the shoulders and squatted. Small stones thudded into her stomach and chest. Mayhew dropped by his ankles.

"Flip him over!" Sally shouted, her voice clawed by the wind, then hoisted his left shoulder. Mayhew helped and his weight thumped over onto his back, empty eye sockets staring up at her through the rain, scant inches away.

Her gorge rose but she couldn't look away.

Without the shells, he looked more human. More hurt. She'd imagined his face in the dark, the hands above him, the first shell going in. Now the shells were gone and hers was the face above him, rain dripping from her chin onto his cheek, and he was still just as helpless.

The wind crashed into her like a wall.