Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [269]
“We’ll chance it, all right,” the officer cut in. “But she’s a dead woman, sir, and we both know that. Meanwhile, ring the lifeboat service to see what they can do to assist. You might want to phone the Guide to the Sands for his opinion as well.”
The Guide to the Sands was established across the water to the south of Grange-over-Sands, near a little enclave called Berry Bank. He sounded a kindhearted soul when Lynley rang him. But in over fifty years of walking curious day-trippers across Morecambe Bay and after a lifetime spent between cockling from the fishing village of Flookburgh to trawling for shrimp in the River Leven, he bloody well knew how to read the sands, sir, and if a lady was out there in the fog for any reason on God’s good earth— and he didn’t much care to know the reason— she was well on her way to being a corpse and “that’s the unfortunate truth of the matter, I’m sorry to tell you.”
Was there nothing to be done? Lynley asked. For the Coast Guard was setting out from Walney Island and he was about to ring the RNLI for a lifeboat as well.
Depends on how many corpses you want to look for when the fog lifts, was how the Guide to the Sands put it. But he made one thing clear: After all his years of reading the sands and knowing the safe routes from those fraught with danger, he wasn’t about to join the foolhardy who went out now in search of anyone.
Nor, it turned out, was the RNLI. They were volunteers, after all. They were trained to help and they wanted to help. But they needed water to launch their boats, sir, and the bay was at present empty. While it was true that it wasn’t going to be empty for long, when the water rushed in, it was going to take that woman quickly because if she didn’t drown, hypothermia would get her. They’d set off with the tide as soon as they were able, but it was useless. We’re so sorry, sir.
So the fire roared and someone thought to bring a loud-hailer from which Alatea’s name was shouted continuously. In the meantime, out in the distance somewhere, the phenomenon that was the tidal bore was coming. Awesome to witness, Lynley heard someone murmur. But deadlier to encounter.
WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
The burglar alarm was loud enough to raise skeletons from tombs. They had to shout to each other to be heard above it. They used all their force to wedge the wheelie bin into the shop in order to give themselves a means of access, and once inside, Freddie turned to Manette and yelled, “You wait here,” which, naturally, she was not about to do.
He went for the inner door and rattled its handle. It was locked, and although he yelled, “Open this! Police!” and then “Tim! Tim Cresswell!” it was clear to them both that whoever was within the other room wasn’t about to cooperate.
“I’ll have to break it.”
Manette read his lips rather than heard him. She said, “How?” because of all the things Freddie was, he was hardly a man in possession of the brute force that was needed to break in a door. And this door wasn’t like a telly door or a film door, substantial in appearance but in reality flimsy enough to be kicked in with a single thrust of a manly foot powered by an even manlier thigh. This was a door with intentions, and those intentions were to keep out trespasssers.
Nonetheless, Freddie went at it. First with his foot. Then with his shoulder. Then they took turns and all the time the burglar alarm kept howling. It was a good five minutes— perhaps more— when they finally broke the lock through the doorjamb. Freddie stumbled inside the inner room, shouting over his shoulder, “Manette, you must wait.”
Again, she ignored him. If he was walking into danger, she wasn’t about to let him walk into danger alone.
They were in a digital printing room that gave onto a storeroom. Two aisles comprised this, at the end of which strong lights were shining, although the rest of the place was in darkness. The alarm’s noise continued unabated, so they watched for movement from the shadows. But a cold breeze