Thursday, February 5
“I’m okay,” John said. “I just wish I’d blocked the boat hook with my left arm, there’s certain activities I really need my right arm for, you know, where the left just won’t do.”
“You’re gross,” said Dan, shaking her head.
“What? I meant golf and writing. Don’t blame me because your mind’s in the gutter.”
They both laughed, and Dan looked down at John’s arm.
It was in a temporary cast to immobilize it after surgery, too swollen to be put in a permanent cast yet.
“How long will you be malingering in here, then?” she asked. “We’ve got work to do, you know, proper work, and I need you back.”
“You need me back?” he said, frowning. “I call bullshit on that.”
“Well”—Dan paused and looked at him—“I’d really like you back.”
“Well, they’re operating again tomorrow, reattaching some muscles or some such thing, then I’ll be in a few more days until the swelling calms down and they put some kind of protection on it,” he said. “Then, eventually, they’ll let me go home, but I have to come back every day for checks. I can kinda feel my fingers again, so that’s good news, so they tell me, and the bone’s back in a good place now, like, where it actually should be, so all may yet be right with the world.”
“I’m sorry,” said Dan.
She slumped down into an uncomfortable blue plastic chair next to his bed.
“No, you’re not,” he said. “And I wouldn’t expect you to be. If things had turned out different, we’d be heroes.”
“But they didn’t turn out different, did they?”
He shrugged.
“Ifs and buts. I’ve never met a patient Danielle Lewis, the sort of girl who waits around and does things right. To be honest, if I did meet her, I’m not certain I’d like her much. She sounds dull, predictable, not the sort of person I’d enjoy hanging out with at all.”
Dan nodded. “She sounds dull as you like.”
“And,” said John, nodding toward Dan. “I assume that the panda jokes will all be stopping now, seeing how your chin makes you look like a chimpanzee.”
Dan touched her jawline gingerly.
“She got me good. Between us, we’d be like the Elephant Man,” she said. “It’s like we’re heading out to a fancy dress night themed as the guy from Goonies.”
They laughed.
There was a sound behind them and they both turned to see Roger Blackett come in.
“How you doing, John?” Roger asked, looking down at John’s arm but not yet acknowledging Dan. “You know we can bring charges against malingerers in the navy, right?”
“I already did the malingering gag,” said Dan.
Roger grudgingly turned toward her and smiled, but she could see he wasn’t happy.
“Anything more from the yacht?” asked John.
“Well, she was leaving. It was stored for a long journey. Torching it seems last-minute according to the way the fire spread. Seems she had a jerry can of fuel there and just kicked it over and lit a candle. The fire caused a lot of damage.”
He paused, then turned around and shut the door to John’s room.
“I’m led to believe that a body’s been found on board. It’s badly damaged, though they’re sure it’s a male.”
Dan looked down at her hands.
There was silence among them for a long while.
“People’ll say she was burying victims at sea,” said Dan. “That’s still what some people say about Hamilton.”
“Well, people, whoever they are, will just need to accept that it’s all speculation at the moment,” said Roger.
“Anything else?” John asked.
“There was a tattoo on the yacht victim’s body,” said Roger. “It looks very much like one Mark Coker had; I think we know it’s him.”
Dan shook her head, at a loss for words.
“Any trace of Cox?” asked John.
Roger shook his head. “She left her mark on you two, but nothing else. We’ll get her, though. She can’t hide forever, and she’s a remarkable woman, she’ll be noticed.”
“And Black?”
“Awake and saying very little for now. He’s a big dumb animal, but smart enough to lawyer up. The Hampshire police are talking to him today, but their, and my, gut feel is that he doesn’t know where Cox is. He’s saying she was blackmailing him, wanted him to do things he didn’t want to. I’ll let you know if I hear more.”
John nodded and tried to sit up in his bed a bit more.
Dan and Roger both rose to help, looked at each other, and then Roger sat back down as Dan continued to assist John, moving his pillows and helping him settle.
“I could get used to this treatment,” said John, smiling at Dan as she adjusted his pillow.
“I wouldn’t,” she said, sitting back down.
“Dan, might we chat outside for a moment?” asked Roger.
He looked at John, who raised an eyebrow.
“You need your rest, John,” said Roger as he stood and opened the door, gesturing for Dan to pass through. “I’ll send her back shortly.”
They stepped outside and Dan saw instantly that Roger wasn’t just annoyed, or even angry, he was furious.
He turned toward her, the rage seething out of him, the words whispered, but through gritted teeth. His eyes were dark and wild, and Dan, though she’d known him more years than she could remember, stepped back in surprise.
“Jimmy. Fucking. Nash!” he seethed at her, leaning in close, invading her personal space.
“What about him?” asked Dan, recovering herself and leaning toward Roger, closing the small gap to show she wasn’t intimidated by him.
“You went to see him?”
“Yes.”
“And never thought to mention it?”
“I was going to. It happened quickly.”
“And pray tell, Danny, which investigation was it in relation to?”
Dan paused, thinking.
“I was following up on what Hamilton said to me when I met him. Following up on William Knight.”
They both straightened up and smiled as a nurse walked past and entered John’s room, then leaned back in again.
“An investigation you’re not on,” said Roger.
“It was just a follow-up, a favor, John knows him. We didn’t go in under official credentials.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“Yes.”
Roger took a step back.
Dan could see that his anger was dissipating, as it often did with Roger. His temper spiked and manifested in short but visual explosions, then quickly returned to normal, and that was happening now.
“And what did he tell you?” asked Roger, his voice calmer.
Dan considered the answers she could give.
“It ruins your lies when you have to work them out, Danny,” said Roger, his anger rising again like a small aftershock.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Roger. But it’s complicated.”
“I bet it is,” he said.
“He did help, though,” she said, pursing her lips. “He helped me in a few ways, but you know what, I might know where Cox could go now.”
“And where might that be?”
“There’s a gun emplacement up on Portsdown Hill. It’s called Defiance, I think she used to go there and observe while William Knight used to…”
They looked at each other for a long time, neither needing the sentence to be finished.
“Useful information to have,” he said. “Makes me wonder how you could possibly have found such knowledge and when you were planning on sharing it.”
“I’m sharing it now,” she said. “I’ve been a bit busy.”
“After this, you and I are going to have a very long talk,” he said, and turned away from her.
Dan waited, watching him go.
“Come on, then,” he said, and Dan followed quickly behind him.