Page 159 of Slack Tide Kill

"Yeah. Right here." She read out the lines. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Liam chewed on that as they left the coast road and turned north up toward Lydd. "I don't know. I remember this poem from school, barely. One of those you deconstruct endlessly, until it barely means anything anymore and all the punch is gone. Like explaining a joke."

"It's pretty plainly about blinding eyes, though."

"Is it? Hmm, let me think." He chewed his lip. "I think it's about the guy saying his lover is hotter than the sun? Something like that. Like, her eyes are so bright they eclipse all light? Or all he needs to do is blink and the sun is eclipsed."

Sally looked at the lines again. "I'm getting strong Heraclitus vibes."

"All of Dungeness is Heraclitus vibes, Sally. The whole marsh too. It's all in flux. Look at this crazy storm. It's here, then it's gone, now it's coming back."

"True."

Sally read on, coming to the closing lines:

'Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,

And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.'

The words sent a shiver through her. Half of this ancient poem might be gibberish, but she immediately grasped the idea of yesterday's kings all lying in one bed.

"They're all dead and buried," she murmured.

"The kings?"

"The kings, the paupers, these school boys and sour 'prentices, whatever they are. They're all dead."

"Hakuna matata," Liam said. "The circle of life."

Sally looked at him.

"What? It's a poem, Sally, a really famous one. But OK. You're saying this blinded eye reference, it might have influenced the killer?"

"I think it's possible."

"All right." A few moments passed. "Does knowing that help us any now?"

Sally took a moment to consider then sighed. "Probably not."

"I can quote poems too," Liam said softly. "Something about going gently? Old people not dying easy. About rage and dying light."

Sally snorted. "Nicely paraphrased. That's Dylan Thomas."

"I got it from the movie 'Interstellar'. Very Heraclitus."

Now she smiled. "Order and chaos."

"Right on, sister. And, here we go."

The sign for Lydd lay ahead. Liam checked his GPS and pulled off the main road onto a residential lane. It was lined with dour-looking one-story cottages, all uniform in bright red brick, with square windows and square gardens laid to grass. Few cars sat in driveways, no garages.

"All retirement homes," she said.

"The tide comes in, the tide goes out," Liam said, craning past Sally to count the door numbers on the right-hand side. "Here it is, 53."

He parked and they got out. The black line in the distance had risen higher in the sky, like a reverse sunrise.

"The storm's nearly back," Sally said, pointing.