Page 45 of Slack Tide Kill

Rook turned to his lawyer. The man was studying the paper closely. "This is all bullshit, right? Used cooking oil could come from anywhere. My own effing kitchen, maybe? Anybody's kitchen."

"In this particular combination with the Dungeness grit and the plywood fibers?" Sally narrowed her eyes. "Possibly. But the black mold's the kicker."

"Kicking what?"

"You've got to maintain your facilities," Liam chimed in. "Damp treatment's a serious business, Mr. Rook. Keeping those girls in the shack for hours, maybe the whole night at a time? It's bad for their health, all kinds of respiratory issues."

"Respiratory issues? And I told you, they're women, not girls."

"Stachybotrys chartarum," Sally pushed on, reading smoothly off her notes. She'd rehearsed the pronunciation. "Black mold's not unique, but there are multiple strains. This one, it seems, pops up where there's been substantial, lengthy water ingress and neglect." She looked up. "You been in many other abandoned plywood kitchens on Dungeness beach recently, Gabriel?"

His jaw dropped slightly.

His lawyer laid the paper down firmly. "These findings are preliminary. Pending full analysis, which I happen to know could take days, especially in the case of this black mold speciation. It's far from enough to place my client at any particular location at any particular time."

"We'll get there, though, won't we, Gabriel?" Sally said. "Plywood. Mold. Dungeness sand. Cooking oil. In your boots, in the girls' boots, in your van. We haven't even mentioned the Labubu doll."

"The fucking what?"

Liam produced a photo. It showed the silvery doll, its rainbow hair incongruent against the dark chipboard floor of the Crab Shack. "You missed it in the dark. One of the victims dropped it. She confirmed it's hers. Those girls were in that shack last night and this morning. You personally collected them. We have the whole timeline."

Rook stared.

"Now's the time to get ahead of this," Sally said. "Before you take not only the full weight for the abduction, rape and trafficking of those girls, but also the murder of that young man."

"Those are two fully disparate charges." The lawyer leaned in. "You may or may not have evidence here to support the former charge, but you have none for the latter."

"We have your client placed on the beach at the time of the murder," Sally said. "He has a history of violence and cruelty. We're simply following the evidence."

"We don't have to respond to any of this," the lawyer cautioned. "You're fishing, and you're wildly off base."

"Then let's get back on track," Sally said.

Liam produced another sheet of paper and slid it over. "That's the full record of your father's business interests. Reginald Rook. Amongst them you'll notice Reactor Maintenance Logistics, a company that began operating 33 years ago." He paused, eyes locked on Rook. "That's the same time period as the first victim turned up on the same beach."

Rook frowned. "What's my Dad got to do with any of this?"

"Indeed, where are you going with this, officers?"

"Gabriel knows where we're going," Liam said. "We've checked all the records. Way back then, they never figured out how the body got onto the beach. Boat? Land? The one thing they never counted on was someone within the reactor blinding the CCTV cameras while the body was brought in by sea and dumped at the fence, like some Amazon delivery."

The lawyer's nose wrinkled.

"Amazon what?" Rook asked.

"This company, Reactor Logistics, gave your father access to all the reactor's electrical systems, didn't it?" Sally raised her notes. "It was contracted to maintain parking lots, exterior facilities, drainage, electrical connections, pipework and shifting the encroaching shingle with a digger. A contract that was maintained until three years ago, at the time of your father's death, and continued ever since." She looked up. "Reg Rook died with access, which you still have."

Rook stared. The lawyer shook his head. "This is a line of inquiry built on shifting sands. You're trying to steamroll my client, but his family's access to electrical systems is not evidence of tampering. You need to end this line of questioning or get on solid ground."

"Very well. Let's be clear. We agree that your family had the capability to shut off the CCTV systems that overviewed the beach, where you were conducting human trafficking. But there's something more, isn't there, Gabriel? You also have one of your family working on the decommission scaffold."

Rook flinched.

"What?" the lawyer blurted. "Where did you get that from?"

"Master list of the workers." Liam pushed one more paper across the desk. "A warrant provided the full duty rota. Your brother got out this morning before we started taking details at shift change, but his name's on the duty list." He paused for effect. "Jerome Rook. He was there on the scaffold last night."

Rook paled slightly.