He was standing on the concrete walkway above the beach, smoking and gazing out to sea when Jessie stalked down the garden and joined him.
‘Bastard,’ she said.
‘Good morning to you too.’
‘Not you. Though I doubt if you’ll take long to earn that moniker today either.’
‘You wouldn’t be down here if you didn’t have a niggling doubt,’ Marilyn said. ‘Callan did the right thing.’
Shutting the garden gate behind her, Jessie swung round to face him, hands on her hips. ‘He did the right thing for you. He betrayed me. Bastard.’
‘Lots of B’s being bandied about this morning. Let me think of another one. Breakfast? My treat.’
Jessie rolled her eyes. ‘What’s the old adage? “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Make that, “There’s no such thing as a free breakfast” – I assume you’ll want something in exchange.’
‘I’ll take you for the best pancake you’ve ever had and it will be worth whatever I ask for in return.’
‘The surf café? I went there yesterday.’
‘With Carolynn Reynolds?’
‘With Laura.’
Marilyn looked momentarily crestfallen. ‘Is that what she’s calling herself nowadays?’ he said, as realization dawned.
‘For my sessions, yes. In public? I didn’t ask.’
‘And she’s living in Bracklesham Bay?’
‘My my, Callan was a thorough stool pigeon.’
Though it was barely past seven a.m., the sun was already high in the sky, reflecting off the hull of yet another container ship ploughing its way towards Portsmouth docks. How many a day? Scores of them, enough to keep up with the relentless British consumer. It promised to be another hot day, a day for pottering on the beach, collecting more shells for her mother’s wedding. She’d planned to call Callan, ask him to join her here for the weekend. Her room in the B & B was free tonight, she’d already checked in anticipation. Not now, though.
‘I’ve already found her,’ Marilyn said.
Jessie’s eyes swung back to meet his. ‘Fast work, Detective Inspector. I’m impressed.’
‘I got the team to put the hard word on all the cash-in-hand, ask-no-questions-and-I’ll-tell-you-no-lies landlords we know who own properties in Bracklesham Bay.’ He winked. ‘I’ve been in Surrey and Sussex Major crimes for twenty years and many of my team have been in it far longer. We know most of the low-level scrotes on our patch and know how to push their hot buttons when we need to. The threat of a tip-off to the Inland Revenue works wonders.’
‘The perils of living in a small town.’
‘They probably should have chosen to hide out in Birmingham or Manchester, though to be fair, this place has worked well for them for the past nine months. Seaside towns have a certain transient, touristy anonymity …’ He paused. ‘And this place has connections for them, doesn’t it? History. Something I’d like to talk to you about. I don’t understand why they’d choose to come back to where Zoe was murdered.’ Marilyn held out his arm. ‘Shall we? I’m starving.’ Grinding out his cigarette on the top of Una Subramaniam’s garden wall, he tossed the butt into the bushes at the end of her garden.
‘Biodegradable,’ he muttered, in response to Jessie’s admonishing frown.
‘No, they’re not.’
‘Thick bushes. They’ll never see it. Serves her right for lying to me.’
They walked side by side along the promenade towards the Fisherman’s Hut and the start of Shore Road, which would take them from the beach to East Wittering village centre.
‘She was looking out for the emotional welfare of one of her guests,’ Jessie said. ‘I told her that I’d just broken up with my fiancé and had come down here to get away.’
Marilyn laughed. ‘And who did she think I was? Your fiancé’s grandfather, or did she think you’d left your white stick in the car?’
Tilting sideways, Jessie nudged his shoulder with her own. ‘Don’t be so harsh on yourself, Detective Inspector. You have a certain weathered charm.’
‘Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?’
They fell silent, the only noise the flap of Jessie’s summer dress against her bare legs. Though she was still furious at Callan’s betrayal, another emotion had seeded itself alongside the first, an emotion she recognized as relief. She realized now how much the dilemma of whether to tell Marilyn about Carolynn had weighed on her mind – not that she was going to admit that to either him or Callan.
At the surf café, they found a table in the high-walled rear patio, so they could talk without being overheard and Marilyn could smoke. Jessie ordered a breakfast pancake and a latte, and Marilyn the same to eat with a strong black coffee, two sugars.
‘Thanks for coming, Jessie. I do appreciate it.’
She gave a non-committal nod. ‘Just don’t do anything that is going to make me regret taking you up on your offer of breakfast, however good the pancakes are.’
35
Carolynn was tying the laces on her running shoes when she heard the sound of knuckles against glass. Looking up, she saw Jessie Flynn, wearing black run capris and a sky-blue vest that matched the colour of her eyes, standing at her kitchen window.
‘Come for a run,’ Jessie mouthed through the glass.
Carolynn joined her outside. ‘I didn’t know that you ran.’
‘I don’t, but you can motivate me. I spend far too much time sitting on my arse talking and listening. Come on!’
They jogged across the road, climbed on to the wooden sea defence wall and jumped down the other side, landing on the beach in unison. Though the sun had risen, the early morning air was chill and Carolynn noticed goosebumps on Jessie’s bare arms.
‘Let’s run,’ Carolynn said, meeting Jessie’s smile with one of her own, a smile so genuine that she felt as if she would burst with it. ‘Warm you up.’
Jessie was lithe and strong and though she had said that she wasn’t a runner, her movements were fluid and confident and their pace and strides matched as they ran across the flat sand. Jessie’s jet-black ponytail was streaming out behind her like