Page 80 of Slack Tide Kill

"Officer Rogers," Sally said. "NCA. This is Officer O'Connell. We need your help locating someone on the marsh, Mr. Bledd."

Bledd snorted. "I don't think so. Not interested."

"Edwin Pike sent us," Liam said. "Something about a cabinet."

Bledd pulled off his hard hat and ran a hand over his ponytail. "I'll never hear the end of his precious bloody cabinet. He mention the eel?"

"He did."

"That eel had every right to be there! It was a living specimen, far more educational than anything in that case." He put the hard hat back on and walked toward them. "All right. Who are you looking for?"

Sally lowered her voice. "We're looking for Roarke Rook and his brothers. We think they're hiding in the marsh. Edwin Pike said if anyone could find them, it was you."

Bledd looked at her steadily for a moment. Something shifted behind his eyes; not reluctance exactly, more like calculation. "What've the Rooks done now?"

Sally looked at Liam. This time, he gestured for her to go ahead. "We think they may be involved in the murder on Dungeness somehow."

"Murder, huh?" He thought a moment then brushed past them. "All right, come on."

"Come on where?"

"Fetch the Rooks, of course. I already know where they are."

"You already know?"

He turned. "I know everything on the marsh. There's been a boat in the Black Gutter sewer since yesterday. Marsh boat, flat-bottomed, little outboard engine, and no business being there. That'll be them."

Sally's pulse picked up. "You saw them?"

"Not the boys. Was just a drone overpass. But it's them, I'd put money on it."

"Can you take us to them?"

He laughed. "I already am. Come on, you've got one hour."

31 EVERYONE'S GOT A NAME

Bledd reached a small black SUV with mud-splattered sides and shouted at the two staff members. "I'm just borrowing this, aye?"

They looked back at him vacantly.

"Come on in." Bledd folded the seat forward and shoved Liam into the cramped back seat. "Before they realize they're slogging back through the mud without this."

He climbed in, Sally followed, and he started the engine. One of the young men raised an arm and called out, but Bledd just waved and shouted back. "I'll leave her at the front!"

"Damn it, Arthur, not again," the man replied, then they were off, rear wheels firing geysers of mud behind.

"Love these little beauties," Bledd said, racing too fast over the orange dirt. Neither Sally nor Liam had time to pull their seat belts on. "Don't drive much anymore, after the accident."

"What accident?" Liam asked.

Bledd waved a hand. "Three car pile-up at the Brenzett car boot fair. Wasn't my fault. Some short-cock was trying to carry a Regency side table by the legs. I stopped to tell him how to do it, like anyone would, and somebody rammed into my back."

They passed through the gate in a spray of mud and raced over the lock to the Military Road, where Bledd braked.

"All right, we're here. Helmets and jackets."

He dropped his helmet on the seat then got out and started walking.