Page 3 of Slack Tide Kill

Real. Imagined. She didn't know what it meant. Just as she was lifting her head to rub the drying grit from her eyes, her phone rang.

The sound was sharp. She rooted through the bundle of towels, clothes, old food packaging and paperwork on the passenger seat to dig it out. When she saw the name on the display, she straightened and answered at once.

"Director."

"Rogers, I've got something for you here," came the deep northern tone of Deputy Director McMaster. "Proper effed up case, just the way you like them, and breaking now. You're off in Kent, aye, personal day?"

The way he said ‘personal day' pissed Sally off. Like it rhymed with ‘weak'.

"I'm in Kent, sir, that's correct."

"Bully for you. Looks like you're finally getting off that desk, your partner too; just in time for the big move this week. Are you up to it?"

Sally blinked. The big move. She'd hardly been paying attention to her email inbox, but there were signs everywhere around NCA headquarters in Vauxhall. The HQ was moving after 30 years in place, somewhere north of the river.

"Yes, sir, of course."

"Champion. Now, there's been reports of a macabre death scene down at Dungeness; ever heard of the place?"

"No, sir."

"Don't blame you, it's a godforsaken hellhole, used to be a nuclear power plant, now it's just angry fishermen and small boat arrivals; your standard dinghies full of the world's lost souls. The body's a young man, down on the shingle in the shadow of the old power station."

Sally instantly refocused. "What's macabre about it, sir?"

"You're going to love this. Apparently the lad's got no eyes, popped clean out, and some bright spark's stuck cockle shells in there instead. Hardly my idea of innovative plating, but then I'm no Michelin-star man." He took a hard breath. "Get to Dungeness and liaise with DCI Gloria Mayhew, she's Kent Constabulary out of Rye, SIO on this. I know her; she's a proper ball-ache, don't quote me on that, and she'll likely have it in for you from the off. So don't screw it up."

Sally tried to process all of that. "Why would she have it in for me, sir?"

"She despises the paparazzi, and we all know you're clickbait for this country's greasiest rags. So head down, put in the hard yards and no showboating this time. Do I make myself clear?"

Sally's fist tightened on the phone. "Perfectly."

"This is your ticket back into the big show. And one more thing; a kill like this, it's not the first for Dungeness. Thirty years back another boy turfed up on the beach, same designer eyewear. There was a true crime podcast on it a while back. Despicable voyeuristic shit, if you ask me, but maybe it stirred up a copycat. I suggest you start listening on the way down. But keep your head about you. It's storm season right now, and they always get hit something rotten."

He hung up.

Sally remained with the phone by her ear, looking out through the windshield at the rain-bleared forest. Mud Beasters shambled by, battered but transcendent, glowing with the endorphin rush.

Her ticket back into the big show.

She needed this. She also dreaded it; another plunge into the dark, another chance for the mud-slinging press to try and bury her. But that was fear talking, and there was only one thing to do with fear.

She brought up her phone, pulled up her podcast app and ran a search for ‘Dungeness shell murder'. The lead result made her skin crawl.

‘The Cockle-Eye Killer.'

The podcast's cover art showed a washed-out beach scene overlaid with blood-red lettering. Beneath it were thousands of five-star ratings.

People had binged this. Loved it.

A cool, sour sensation rolled in Sally's gut. She hit play and spun the Mustang out of the lot.

3 THE COCKLE-EYE KILLER

The podcast began with a harsh piano note, clanging discordantly, followed by a man's low, deliberate voice.

"They say the eyes are the window to the soul." A beat of silence. "So what does it mean to have your eyes torn out and replaced with something as cold, hard and unblinking as a cockle shell?"