Shirley Dander, she thought. Queen of fucking everything.
Let’s see what’s going on round there.
Snowshoeless, she made her way towards the trees.
The first ‘shed’ turned out to be a gun emplacement: a brick shelter half-buried underground, with narrow slits facing the sea, and littered with crushed cans, crisp packets, crumpled silver foil, and sooty embers; with mulled odours of urine, beer and tobacco. Hard to say whether it had been used as living quarters or party space. Either way, it didn’t say much for the local amenities.
River emerged to a now-familiar canvas: the sky, the sea, the cliffside and fields, all varying shades of white.
Despite the weather, he wasn’t the first here this morning. Snow was kicked up in front of him. Maybe the woman he’d seen in her car, with her comedian of a dog . . . Something underfoot rolled and he went down on one knee in the snow, like a pilgrim. It would be so easy—so easy to miss your step, and pitch headlong into a short future. Looking for someone else was tricky when looking where you were going demanded your full attention.
Louisa wouldn’t have come this way unless she had no choice. The path dipped and dawdled, and even in fair weather must have been hard going where it negotiated the ragged edge. And if you fell, to answer his earlier question, you wouldn’t drop straight into the sea; you’d bounce off the sloping face then land on a rocky outcrop far below. River didn’t want to guess how far. Didn’t actually want to be this close to the edge while he speculated. Pretty clearly, though, whatever hostile contact she’d encountered, there were ways and means out here of disposing of bodies.
On the other hand, this was Louisa. If an encounter with her involved someone going over a cliff, you couldn’t rule out it being the hostile. Not entirely.
He brought back to mind the map on Coe’s phone. The gun emplacement had been the first marked construction on this path, the next being a few hundred yards further on. After that there was a hike of maybe a mile to the lighthouse. He had no plans to walk that far, not along a path little more than a suggestion. But the next outbuilding, he’d take a look at.
And then the figure appeared, coming River’s way; moving at a lick suggesting it didn’t find the ground problematic. And familiar enough to warrant River checking the reassuring weight in his pocket.
The figure came to a halt five yards away.
It pulled the hood of its parka down.
“So you found me,” said Frank.
“Hi,” said Coe.
He wondered if that syllable sounded as false in the air as it did in his head. He was not someone who said
It earned a response, though: “Hello.”
“I think I’m lost.”
“So do I,” said the man.
He was dressed like a soldier—combat boots, khaki trousers, a belt packed with Action-Man accessories, and fingerless gloves: okay, a bit hipsterish for the military, but probably an advantage when it came to triggerwork. Annex C material, then—legit/ grey area/ downright nasty—but even as Coe fed in the details, the soldier’s frosting of teenage acne had given him away. He was one of those whose face Coe’s program had recognised, coming through Southampton’s ferry terminal. Cyril Dupont.
Coe had a good memory for names, for faces. An attribute which would have been a boon in his career, if his career hadn’t terminated in trauma and after-shock.
The soldier said, “Where were you heading?”
“Pegsea.”
“That’s back the way you’ve come.”
“Oh. Right.”
His accent was what Coe would have expected: French, but with an American slant. Annex C, he guessed, put you on the kind of career plan where languages were thrown together like socks in a tumble dryer.
He was talking again. “You’re not much of a traveller, are you?”
“What makes you say that?”
The soldier made a vague gesture, head to toe. “You’re not dressed for the weather.”
“I don’t feel the cold.”
“You won’t feel your fucking toes in five minutes. Your boots. They’re ridiculous.”
Coe looked down at his boots. They looked wet, true, with that salty residue boots get when you wander in the snow too long. But ridiculous was a bit strong.
Then again, the soldier’s footwear was serious. Boots you could walk the mouth of hell with, frozen over or not.
He wasn’t here for macho fashion tips, though. “I’m looking for a friend.”
“Well you’re shit out of luck. Because I don’t want to be your friend, and there’s nobody else here.”
He sounded woozy, thought Coe. As if he’d walked into a wall, going faster than average. His boots might be combat-ready, but Coe wouldn’t have put money on him being able to lace them without help. Which was useful information, because this man knew Coe wasn’t a tourist. Sometime soon, that was going to have to be acknowledged.
Coe couldn’t see far into the barn, and there might have been any number of others in there, huddled quiet as mice, or their corpses stacked like firewood.
