The Red Shore, page 2
Eden looked around but could see nothing. From where he stood in the middle of the old waterworks, trees and scrub blocked his vision. Two men said the suspect was a good match. That was enough. Eden didn’t want to risk Ronan getting anywhere near Lisa.
‘Move,’ he said into his mic. ‘All officers.’
Abandoning his position, Eden jogged over to where he could get a better view of the land to the south. He lifted up his binoculars and scanned the vegetation, looking for movement.
There was the suspect, walking towards them, just a silhouette against the tree trunks. Eden broke into a run – not towards him, but towards Lisa, to make sure that he was between the suspect and her. There were two officers behind the man, closing in.
They had discussed in detail how they would detain Ronan. They needed to make sure they had Ronan surrounded before they let him know they were police. They didn’t want to risk his getting away.
Lima One would be out of the van and running towards them. The other two were closing from the opposite side. Now he was in open ground, Eden could see the man wore a pale grey mac and black trainers. As soon as Eden saw that Bailey was behind the man, taser at the ready, Eden said quietly into his radio, ‘Go!’
‘Stop. Police!’ called out Bailey.
The figure stopped, turned to see a man holding a warrant card in one hand and a taser in the other.
‘Stop. Police. Get down on the ground,’ ordered Bailey, voice loud and clear.
Instead, the man turned again and ran, lunging straight towards Eden – towards PC Ali – then darting to Eden’s left.
Eden threw himself at him, but the man was quick. Eden only managed to grab his calf but it was enough. The man fell heavily onto the gravel path. He screamed.
Catching up with them, Bailey threw himself on top of the prone man, landing heavily.
‘What the fuck?’ squealed the man, kicking the leg Eden was holding.
‘Ronan Pan,’ Bailey panted, ‘we are arresting you under Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act—’
‘What you bloody on about?’ Face down, the man was wriggling under the weight of them both.
‘2015 . . .’
Eden was up on his knees, cuffs out. Lima One had arrived too, panting.
‘You broke my bloody nose,’ the man was complaining loudly.
But something was wrong, Eden realised. The man they had wrestled to the ground was talking in a Midlands accent. Eden had heard Ronan’s voice on Hasina’s voicemail. It didn’t fit. ‘Roll him over.’
But before they could do that Lisa screamed.
Two
Afterwards, in the Escape Bar, where the whole team had gathered to celebrate the arrest of Ronan Pan, Eden bought the first round, then the second.
Lisa was on Aperol Spritz. ‘You can drink as much as you like of this stuff and it never makes you drunk,’ she said. ‘Apparently.’
‘“You broke my bloody nose!”’ Bailey was laughing, recounting the afternoon’s events again to the officers and PCSOs who had joined them in the pub. ‘Poor guy. He was fucking furious.’
It was like this on the rare days when the Major Investigation Team scored a success. Everyone was jubilant, drunk on the sense that they had done a dark job and that the world was better for it.
Eden handed Lisa the drink and led her away from the crowd towards an empty table in a quieter corner. It had been a busy evening, completing paperwork, conducting preliminary interviews. There had not been a chance to talk to her properly.
Lisa sat at the table, pulled the slice of orange from her drink and sucked on it.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Eden asked her.
‘Bit shaky. I still got loads of adrenaline going round inside. It all happened so fast.’
‘I’m sorry about what happened,’ he said. ‘It was my fault. I take full responsibility.’
‘I mean, he didn’t actually do anything to me.’
Ronan Pan been the one wearing a woman’s red overcoat and headscarf. He was the one who had been carrying a pair of binoculars. Just as they had been watching out for him, it turned out he had been observing Lisa and the dog, Diesel.
‘He could have, though. You must have been scared,’ he said.
‘I screamed pretty loud, didn’t I?’ She smiled lopsidedly, and for a second Eden thought she was going to cry.
‘It certainly got our attention.’
She laughed, but she was looking at him more warily now. ‘What about you?’ she asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Me?’ Eden blinked. ‘I’m fine. We got him, didn’t we?’
‘Yeah, we did, but that’s not what I meant. I mean, I was scared, but you . . .’
‘Me what?’
She took a gulp from her glass. ‘Only you were hitting him pretty hard.’
Eden wasn’t expecting that. ‘Was I?’
When Lisa had screamed, Eden had leapt up – and off the legs of the man he had tackled. There wasn’t much time to think.
When he turned, he saw that Ronan Pan had grabbed Diesel’s lead but was staring at Lisa. ‘Who the fuck—?’ Ronan had exclaimed, realising that the woman holding the dog was not his ex-girlfriend.
He must have heard Eden running towards him. Looked up. Figured out in that moment that it was a trap. Ronan’s mistake had been to hold onto the dog’s lead, wrapping it round his wrist. When he had tried to run, Diesel hadn’t. Maybe Diesel wasn’t as stupid as he looked. Maybe he had liked Lisa more.
Eden was on him before Ronan could disentangle himself from the dog, colliding with the man, his head down, shoulder into his stomach, hitting so hard he knocked Ronan right off his feet.
‘He was trying to get away,’ said Eden.
Lisa nodded. She took another mouthful of her orange-
coloured drink. ‘Only he was already down when you began to hit him.’
Eden remembered now, the shock in his fist as it connected with Ronan’s cheekbone. He looked down at his hand holding the glass. The knuckles were swollen. He tried to remember how many times he had hit him after the first time, kneeling on the man’s chest.
She pursed her lips.
‘I was worried he’d get up,’ Eden said, though he was not sure that was true.
‘Right.’ Lisa dipped her finger into the glass. ‘It was just quite a lot, that’s all. I understand he’s dangerous. But.’
He looked at her. ‘And have you said that in your report? That I used excessive force?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’ She looked nervous though.
Eden had been in the Major Incident Team for three years. Domestic violence was a specialism. He loved the work. He loved helping vulnerable people. He had a mortgage on a nice cool flat. All that could vanish with a word to Professional Standards. ‘You saw it,’ Eden said. ‘You should have put it in your report. If that’s what you think happened, you should say so. You’re a police officer. I wouldn’t stop you.’
By the time the other two officers reached them, getting off the unfortunate man they had mistaken for Ronan, it was all over. Only Lisa had witnessed him punching Ronan.
‘I was just a bit shocked, that’s all,’ she said. ‘I mean, I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it – the things he’s done to women… I just didn’t think you were that kind of bloke.’
‘A man who hits people?’
She nodded. ‘It wasn’t just hitting him. You looked, I don’t know…’
‘Angry?’
She shook her head. ‘Not really angry. Upset, I suppose. Confused. Sad, really. Yeah. So that’s why I asked whether you’re OK or not. What was all that about?’
He looked down at his lager. Though he had bought two rounds for the team, he’d hardly touched his own drink.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Lisa said. ‘I’m dead proud of what we did there. That whole thing was your idea and it worked. Yay for that. He’s a terrible man.’
‘But?’
‘Yeah. But. So… are you OK?’
Before they could talk more, DI Sammy Kadakia – Eden’s boss – was next to them, grinning. ‘Hope I’m not interrupting?’
Immediately, both Lisa and Eden shook their heads.
‘Wow. I really was interrupting something!’ Kadakia laughed.
‘No. No,’ said Lisa. ‘Nothing like that.’
‘Woman of the hour.’ Sammy addressed Lisa. ‘We are so grateful to you, Constable Ali. We couldn’t have done it without you. Let me buy you a drink.’
She held up her glass. ‘Aperol Spritz, please, boss. You can drink loads of them without getting drunk.’
‘Right you are. Eden?’
Eden shook his head. He never really enjoyed long drinking sessions with his colleagues.
‘Eden Driscoll,’ said Sammy, putting his hand round Eden’s shoulder at the bar, ‘you did good. When I told Hasina Hossein that we had him in custody, she danced.’ Grinning, he raised his palms, pushing them skywards, and did a little dance of his own. ‘The SIO is taking all the credit, obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ said Eden.
It was half-ten, and Eden was just going to slip away home when one of the PSCOs approached him and said, ‘That PC, Lisa. She’s being sick in the bathroom. I think someone needs to take her home.’
Eden looked around. All the women had gone home apart from the PSCO, who was drunk herself. ‘I have a babysitter to get home to,’ the PSCO protested.
Outside in the cool May air, waiting for a taxi, Lisa said, ‘I think someone must have put something in my drink.’
‘Alcohol, probably,’ answered Eden.
‘Oh, yeah. Probably that too.’
Before letting them in the cab, the taxi driver looked at Lisa suspiciously. ‘Is she OK?’
‘She’s fine,’ said Eden. ‘Just a tough day.’
Lisa lived on the fourth floor of a yellow-brick apartment block in Rotherhithe. Eden led her from the cab towards the front door. He had to use her key to open the door and then hold her up when the lift came.
It was a nice flat, if small, and it smelled of mandarin air-freshener. There was a bowl of fresh fruit on a table in the middle of the room and photos of smiling friends and relations crowded onto the shelves.
‘I’m going to put you in your bedroom. Is that OK?’
‘I’m so ashamed,’ she said miserably.
It was only a one-bedroom flat, so it wasn’t hard to guess which room it was. The bed hadn’t been made. There was a white carpet on the floor and her pyjamas were lying on it.
‘Shoes off,’ he said. ‘Just lie down and I’ll get you a glass of water, then I’ll let myself out.’
He found a bowl under the sink to put by her bed in case she was sick in the night. He was expecting her to be asleep by the time he returned with the water and the bowl, but she wasn’t. She was still lying on the bed, fully clothed.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she slurred. Tears were running down her cheeks. ‘I really am. I’m just so fucking embarrassed.’
‘Happens to all of us. I’ll leave you now. OK?’
‘It’s just so awfully sad,’ she said quietly.
‘What is?’
‘That boy in the boat. Out on the sea. All on his own. It’s just so sad.’
For a second he wondered what she was talking about, then he remembered the news she had been reading on her phone.
‘Go to sleep, Lisa. I’ll let myself out and post the key back through the letterbox.’
She rolled onto her side and curled up like a baby. ‘I keep thinking, what would that have been like for that woman, falling overboard, knowing her child was still on the boat?’
Walking to the door, he turned out the light.
‘Go to sleep now,’ he said.
‘Would you ever have kids, Eden?’ she asked in the darkness.
‘I’d be no good at that.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you would.’
He paused at the door. ‘I’m sorry about hitting the man like that,’ he said, backing out. ‘I shouldn’t have. Maybe I can explain.’ But she was already snoring gently, so he locked the door behind himself, pushed the key through the letterbox and called another taxi to take him home.
The next morning he woke in his own bed, in his own flat in Manor House, his phone buzzing gently on the bedside table.
He picked up the mobile. It was just after seven, but he would be getting up soon anyway for a Park Run. It was Sunday morning. He wondered if it was Lisa Ali calling to apologise. Peering at the number, he didn’t recognise it, so he ignored the call.
The phone buzzed again. This time it was a message.
Please call me at your earliest convenience. Mike Sweet, Devon and Cornwall Police.
He frowned. It would be something to do with work. Odd for him to be calling so early on a Sunday morning, though. Eden was awake now, so he went to the kitchen and made himself a coffee, pulled open the blinds onto a sunny May morning, and returned Mike Sweet of Devon and Cornwall Police’s call.
‘Detective Sergeant Eden Driscoll,’ Eden said when the man answered.
‘Oh. You’re a police officer?’ There was surprise in Sweet’s voice.
‘Yes.’ Eden was puzzled now, too. He had assumed he was being called on police business.
‘Are you the brother of Apple Driscoll?’
‘Yes.’ As a police officer he was suddenly aware of the role he was about to play in this conversation and he knew from experience that it was not a good one.
‘I’m afraid I have some bad news,’ the officer said. ‘Your sister is missing.’
‘What do you mean, missing?’
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that your sister disappeared from her sailing boat in Lyme Bay some time on Friday night. Though the search is ongoing, at this stage we have to assume that she may have drowned.’
He looked at the bubbles on the surface of his black coffee, trying to understand what he was hearing.
‘Mr Driscoll? Are you still there?’
Three
Eden Driscoll had not spoken to his sister in twelve years and now she was missing. Worse. She was almost certainly dead.
He followed the satnav in a daze of misery and self-reproach for what felt like hours, until finally it told him to leave the dual carriageway and he found himself crossing a mile of heathland, dotted with scrubby pine trees, brown bracken and yellow-flowered gorse. The route descended into a high-hedged road that wound towards the Devon coast. Rounding a corner, a huge green tractor chugged in front of him, flashing orange lights. He slowed.
He had watched the news again on his phone before setting off. This time, with a shock, he had recognised the yacht. It was Calliope. They hadn’t mentioned his sister by name; they would still be trying to get in touch with other relatives. He had wondered if there were any and who they might be. There had been a boy aboard the yacht. Eden hadn’t known that Apple had a son.
The last time he had heard from Apple was when their mother died. She had written him a letter telling him their mother was ill, but it had taken too long to arrive and she had been dead by the time he read it. They had spoken briefly on the phone; she had tried to persuade Eden to return to Greece for the funeral. He had said he was too busy. The truth was he had not wanted to come back. They had not contacted each other since.
He had left the car radio on 5 Live in case there were updates about his sister, hoping she would be found alive somewhere in the Channel, but there was nothing. The story of the yacht was already yesterday’s news.
In his rear-view mirror, he saw that cars had begun to queue behind him. He did not know these twisting roads, so he hung back, reluctant to attempt overtaking the tractor. It turned off, finally, then he rounded a bend and there, at the bottom of a steep hill below him, was the mouth of a large river.
On the far side rose a bulky red cliff, crowned with thick trees. Inside the narrow river mouth lay a curve of water, a wide estuary crossed by a long road bridge, anchored boats dotting the blue.
He was tired. He needed a coffee. It had taken him four hours to get here. He guessed it would take him at least another three to make it back to London this afternoon.
The roads became thinner still as he descended into the seaside town and neared the address Sweet had given him, until he finally turned into one that was barely wide enough to slide his Audi into. As he inched down it, cautious of his paintwork, the noise of a foghorn startled him. The unexpected bow of a large blue ship crossed the end of the street, absurdly massive against the tiny houses on either side of him. He had not expected a place like this to have docks.
He turned into a tiny cul-de-sac that ran behind two rows of houses, a hotch-potch of irregularly shaped yards and extensions on both sides. At the end of the street he got out, grateful to be still for a second, and looked around.
‘You all right, mate? Lost?’
He looked up. At the other end of the cul-de-sac, a young man was hefting an outboard motor in one hand, making its weight look light.
Eden straightened. ‘I’m OK, thanks.’ The man, hair the colour of straw, arms tanned brown, nodded, continued on his way. Eden watched him disappear down towards the estuary.
Detective Sergeant Mike Sweet had told Eden to call him when he was at the address. He pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘Five minutes,’ the voice replied.
Eden checked the house number and looked around. It was not easy to make out which house was his sister’s. According to the address Sweet had given him, his sister’s house was number 14, but the numbers he could see only went up to 13.
He noticed an alleyway at the end of the narrow street, a dogleg that ran alongside an old stone wall. ‘Hello?’ he called out. No one answered, so he made his way down it. It led to the back of a small house that looked like it had been squeezed in between two larger neighbours.
To the right of the door was a small window. He put his forehead against the glass and peered in. His sister’s kitchen was messy, washing-up piled in a sink below the window. On the opposite wall, a child’s drawings – felt-tip dinosaurs and super-heroes.
