Blackwater (DI Nick Lowry) by Henry James Page B

dim gloaming of the street lights. A low white rail which had divided him from the darkness beyond stopped abruptly as the road levelled out. He paused under a street lamp in a pocket of wan copper light and looked seaward but could discern nothing save shingle and clumps of grass. Walking a little further on, he came across a cluster of letterboxes at waist height, just as the fisherman had said. And there it was, painted clumsily on the middle one: Ahab’s Revenge. The shingle to his left had given way to mud, and connecting with the pavement was a wooden gangway leading off into the darkness. Kenton blinked in the mist. Patches of light were vaguely discernible out there, so he stepped on to the narrow wooden planking and headed towards them. The smell of the coast hit his senses with greater force; it always made him think of seaweed and dead crabs, a throwback to his earliest childhood memories, when his mother had taken him on days out to Southend-on-Sea.
    As he moved cautiously on, the unmistakable sound of a piano floated towards him on the cold air. ‘Mozart,’ he muttered to himself. The lights he’d seen from the pavement came into focus as soft red and pink rectangles. Houseboat lights. Under sparse moonlight, he could just about make out three hulls perhaps forty yards apart, resting on the muddy flats. The gangway led to the one in the centre, a large vessel with a dirty white hull and a two-storey white cabin.
    He stopped at the end of the gangway, which had brought him alongside the cabin, level with a door. He could hear water but couldn’t see it. Did the tide come up here? There were no lights on, either inside or outside Ahab’s Revenge. God, it was eerie out here. He had just shaken the feeling off when the light on the opposite boat went out, plunging him into darkness. Brilliant, now he felt unnerved all over again. He knocked gently on the door in front of him, not expecting to get an answer when he called out, ‘Hello?’ but the vessel gave a creak, as if someone had moved inside it. Then he felt the wooden deck he was standing on rock, indicating that there was somebody else on it. ‘Hello, I . . .’ He started to address the darkness but, within seconds, he was flat on his back on the freezing mud, his nose throbbing. Jesus, that hurt! He lifted his head briefly, thinking he could see stars. Sheering white sheets of light crossed his vision before he passed out.

-13-
    5 p.m., Saturday, Great Tey
    Jacqui Lowry admired her features, tilted in the mirror, as she released the hair crimpers. ‘Better,’ she said to the empty room, or perhaps to Bryan Ferry, whose voice was crooning out of the cassette player.
    Replacing the tongs on the dressing table, she picked up her vodka and Coke and took a sip. ‘ Much better,’ she said, and allowed herself an indulgent sway to ‘More than This’. She whipped up a can of hairspray from the dresser and shook it, then shut her eyes as she applied it liberally. The smell was overpowering, almost intoxicating. ‘Gah!’ she exclaimed. Once the spray cloud had dispersed and she’d taken another gulp of vodka, she opened her eyes wide.
    ‘Matthew!’ Her son’s reflection in the mirror took her by surprise. She felt embarrassed by his intrusion into her private, dreamy moment and turned on her stool, feeling annoyed. ‘You’re not a baby any more – you should knock before coming in.’
    He frowned, puzzled. ‘Why?’
    ‘Because. Now, what do you want?’
    ‘Are you going out?’
    ‘Come here.’ She beckoned, holding out both hands. The boy was hesitant, but slowly approached, hand trailing along the wardrobe. ‘Now, let me see that mark.’ She said this kindly but firmly, and he acquiesced, allowing her gently to push back his hair to get a better look. There was no doubt about it: the mark was a fading bruise. It must’ve happened at least ten days ago, coinciding with the last days of term. What sort of bruise would last that long? She