Page 61 of Slack Tide Kill

"When were you out here yesterday, Nancy?"

"Oh, from around 5, I'd say."

Sally thought back to the tide tables. "High tide was around 3 a.m. Low comes six hours later. So you wouldn't have been able to reach the slack tide then."

Cagen gave Sally an appraising look. "More than just a pretty face. You've been studying up."

"Tides and tent pegs. I'm a quick study. 5 a.m. would put you four hours shy of slack tide."

"True, but then I walk for hours, my love. Talking to the Lady. Musing on the past. Get to my age, you spend more time in the past than you do the present."

Sally let that hang for a moment. The salt breeze rubbed her cheeks and the gulls cawed chaotically above.

"How long have you been combing on Dungeness, Nancy?"

"Well, 50 years, at least. Since I was a lass."

"Did you see the first body? 30 years ago?"

"Not on the beach. On the news, of course. Our Ephraim's lad, that was."

That name tweaked in Sally's memory. "Ephraim Richter? The victim's father?"

Cagen nodded. "My nephew. Ephraim was a shit, of course. My sister's man. Beat on her something rotten. The lad too." Her tone turned wistful. "You didn't know that? Figured little Glory Hallelujah would've told you."

Sally felt like she'd just touched a live wire. Mercer had said something similar, at least the first half of that nickname. "You mean Gloria Mayhew?"

"Yes. Just what we called her around here."

"So you know the DCI well?"

Cagen shrugged. "Some. And it ain't so surprising I guess. We've all got our pasts, all interwoven." She sighed wistfully. "That boy, though, Tom? Such a sweet little tyke. Used to bring me worn old slips of glass from the beach for jewelry. I'd call them amber and give him a pound each time. Still got a little bucket filled with those pieces."

Sally considered. "One moment. You're saying you're the original victim's aunt?"

A smile played on Cagen's face. "I am. I suppose I could've led with that, eh? Glory didn't want me to, though, did she?"

Sally just stared. It felt like the beach was reshaping around her. Mayhew had held this back, which seemed bizarre. Then for Cagen to find the body this time? She didn't know what to make of any of it.

"Why wouldn't she want you to?"

"Oh, who knows. Glory's tied up in this like the rest of us, tangled like the Strangler's victims."

Sally blinked. "The Seafoam Strangler?"

Cagen tilted her head. "You've heard of him? Ask me, if my whole family went into the Boils, I'd have dunked myself too."

Sally forced herself not to shiver, remembering Dean Whateley's cloudy gaze.

"So how's DCI Mayhew tied up in all this?"

Cagen eyed Sally. "That's for her to say, isn't it? I'll gossip on my own tales, but not on others."

Sally absorbed that. "I see. Well, on that. Yesterday, you were about to tell me who you thought killed your nephew?"

Cagen cackled. "Aye, of course I was. I tell it whenever I can, and no bugger listens. Told them all back then, didn't I, like Glory said, but your lot never looked into him properly. The sot's dead now, along with Ephraim and my sister too."

"Who was it?"