Page 155 of Slack Tide Kill

"Right," Mercer said. "This philosopher, Heraclitus?"

"That's the one. So, you're going to consult on Spate's interrogation?"

"I believe that's the plan. I already sat in on one with Roarke Rook, yesterday, at your DCI's request."

"With Roarke Rook?"

He shrugged. "I knew Reg reasonably well. I think she hoped my presence would knock him off his track."

"But it didn't?"

"No. I'm afraid he has Reginald's obstinacy."

Sally sat back. Her soaking clothes dripped on the floor. She needed to change, get warm, get moving. "Any avenue you're recommending with Spate? We got a lot out of him, but it's not admissible yet. We need evidence."

"I can already think of a dozen avenues she'll want to take her questioning. Rook had his hands in lots of pies, and Spate was right there with him. Hopefully one of them pans out."

Sally nodded. Hawlin returned with the coffee. She nodded her thanks and took a sip. It helped. It felt like, along with the storm dumping rain, they'd just been hit with a mountain of evidence. But what really mattered most?

Not charging Spate. Maybe he was an accomplice 30 years ago. What she needed now was the fifth Rook.

She refocused on Mercer. His own eyes had wandered, and she followed his gaze to the twin photographs pinned to the wall: her photograph from the Gaze, blurred with hundreds of dart holes; Emily Chakrati, her shrine of flowers now overflowing to the floor.

"It's never fair," Mercer said. "That she should die. That you should be vilified." He looked at her, eyes shining now. "I've always struggled with that. Why some are chosen, and some are not. Fate. Luck, really."

Sally didn't know what to say. It seemed like she was intruding on a private moment. But there was a question she wanted to ask.

"Just one thing, Jack. Do you have any idea who Reg Rook considered his closest, oldest friend? Someone he trusted implicitly?"

Mercer's head tilted slightly. "You think this person may have killed Tom Richter?"

"Maybe. And the recent deaths. We're calling him the 'fifth Rook'."

Mercer leaned back slightly, taking a moment to think, but the effort only seemed to bow him further. He shook his head and shrugged. "Sorry. I've racked my brain for decades over this. Thus are the rags of time."

Sally barely registered the odd phrasing. "OK. Thanks, Jack."

He managed a faint smile, eyes flicking over her sodden clothes. "Storm still raging out there?"

"Oh, yeah. It's a killer."

His eyes took on a haunted look. "It knows no season. Sometimes I wonder if it'll ever end."

He turned back to PC Hawlin.

Sally headed to the changing room, where she stripped and showered. The hot water massaged some life back into her. They'd come close to the line, at Dymchurch. Beyond the line, really.

It couldn't be like that again. But it all boiled down to that one question. Who was the fifth Rook?

She toweled off, dressed and headed over to the small enclave their new team had carved out, at the side of the bullpen. Liam was already there alongside Jack Mercer, poring over a whiteboard pinned with photographs and old case file pages. The desk nearby continued the display, with numerous documents laid out in stacks of varying sizes.

DI Gemmell looked up as she approached. "The DCI wants to know if you're going at Spate again?"

A shudder ran up Sally's spine, and she looked at Liam. She saw the same answer in his eyes. "No. Let someone else."

"OK. I know the DCI wants it. I'll go in with her, Mr. Mercer here advising, if you brief me."

They spent the next 10 minutes going through the theory of the case. Meeks, Rook, Spate, Bledd. At times one of the team, Simms or Hawlin or Flaherty would grab a piece of paperwork and hold it up, adding it to a fresh stack of evidence to deploy against Spate. Occasionally Mercer would chime in with a point of detail, a recollection that wasn't in the papers.