“Yeah, it did actually, Chris. It happened to Neil an above-average amount of times. So, yeah, it did warrant the extra uniform,” Graceford says with the weary authority of a recurrent eyewitness.
“Okay, then.” Poole nods mock-sagely. “Fair enough in that case, I suppose.”
She rummages around in the back of the car. “Not sure why he left it, though. Maybe ’cause of all the vomit that’s been on it? Size nine boot okay?”
“Humph, guess they’ll have to be.” Chris takes the boots and, leaning against the patrol car to brush the gravel from his feet, he slides his sockless feet into their cold leather. “I suppose we should go look for this guy’s stuff then. What do you reckon his story is? Homeless? Attempted suicide?”
“Nah, neither, I don’t think. He didn’t look homeless.”
Chris nods. “No, he didn’t.” Chris wouldn’t ever say it out loud, but he’d been surprised, the guy had been good-looking—well, all-right-looking, for a bloke. Not that good-looking guys didn’t try to commit suicide too, he supposed.
Graceford locks the car. “It all had a bit of a weird vibe, don’t you think? I don’t know. Anyway, let’s see what we can find.” She sighs. It’s a big stretch of beach. “I’ll call it in and you make a start, Chris.”
Chris climbs to the crest of the dune and the wide flat expanse of Holkham Beach spreads into view. It’s even windier up here. Still, he can hear the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears from the exertion. Inside his new boots his toes are reluctantly coming back to life.
He can see right out to the offshore wind farm a mile out to sea, the monolithic forest of turbine arms rotating with the weight of the North Sea wind. He closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, then lets it out.
Best make a start, he decides. He opens his eyes and scans the landscape, looking for anything the man might have left behind. A pile of warm clothes, a bag.
But there isn’t anything. Nothing but outcrops of seaweed littering the beach, dark clumps of debris washed to shore. It’s hard to pick out details from this distance; it’s possible any one of them could be clothes, perhaps, shoes, a rucksack containing a wallet or a phone or keys.
He turns back to Graceford, still on the edge of the forest path, radio in hand. He can’t hear what she’s saying but he watches her mouth move. She’s probably talking about Zara, about Zara and Mike. About how the local press always seem to arrive suspiciously early these days, just after a police call goes out, in fact.
Chris wishes he’d never mentioned the whole thing to Zara in the first place.
They’d been at home watching a Netflix true crime; he’d been trying to impress her and he’d stupidly mentioned that it was, in fact, possible to hack into the UK police radio system too. It was just a stupid passing comment, he’d been showing off. That had been about a month ago now, but after they’d binge-watched that show, Zara had started showing up places right after Chris got there. And it hadn’t been only Chris’s callouts either. Other people had started to notice too.
He hadn’t asked outright how she was doing it, because he didn’t want her to tell him, because then he would definitely have to arrest her. Which wouldn’t be great after only a year of marriage. God knows how she got hold of the illegal radio equipment she must be using.
He watches Graceford in the distance.
But what can he do? It’s hard not to speak to the press when you wake up next to it, he thinks. When it crawls all over you in its expensive underwear. When you do your morning pee while it brushes its teeth. It’s hard not to talk to the press when it looks like Zara and you’re married to it.
Best to focus on the job at hand. Finding out who this guy is. Graceford looks up from the walkie-talkie and sees him staring. She raises her hand. A thumbs-up.
It’s okay for now, Chris decides. Maybe he’ll try another chat with Zara tonight.
He looks at the beach, at the dark clumps scattered along its two-mile stretch, and makes his way down the steep dune to the first one.
10
DR. EMMA LEWIS
DAY 7—INTO THE WOODS
It’s a long drive to Norfolk, but the morning traffic loosens after London and cool January sunlight streams across the miles of empty English countryside as they roll past my car window. As I get closer, motorways turn into A-roads, then B-roads, and soon I’m winding right out onto the coastal way flanked on one side by ancient oak forest and on the other side by the vast planes of salty beach marshes that stretch out into the North Sea.
I collected the rental car early this morning; someone from Peter Chorley’s office arranged it, it’s all been made very easy for me. I just have to follow the reassuring voice of the satellite navigation toward the accommodation someone else has booked for me in Norfolk.
Above the glittering wet marshes, flocks of birds soar as I drive past, thousands of black pixels continually reconfiguring against the crisp blue winter sky, always almost on the verge of making sense. I crack my window and let the scent of the countryside roll in. Salt sea air, mixed with warm earthy forest mulch, and on its edges, the rich scent of bonfire. It hits me before I can anticipate it, the memory. The smell of burning leaves in the cold air, the crackle and spark. I try not to think of it and the sharp sad ache that always comes with the memory. I close the window and blast the heater on.
When I get to the postcode Peter emailed me all I can do is pull up on the verge of the B-road and stare at it, engine burring along, indicator clicking out time—it’s not what I expected, but the GPS reassures me I have reached my destination. I don’t know what I was expecting exactly, perhaps sterile student digs or a room in the hospital’s on-site student-nurse accommodation.
In front of the car sits a little wooden sign. The sign points off of the main road and down a thin graveled track leading into the heart of the woods. The sign, at a slight angle, reads CUCKOO LODGE.
Hmph. Okay.
No one mentioned that name in the email, which is slightly strange. But then, everything about this situation has been strange so far, so why break with tradition?
Luckily, there’s no other traffic on the main road, so I have a moment alone to reassess. I turn off the engine and scroll through Peter’s texts to check the postcode again. Did he mention a Cuckoo Lodge in his text message? His email gives only the satnav coordinates and the address: 1 Market Lane. I look up at the gravel lane through the windshield. Is that Market Lane? It definitely doesn’t look like it leads to market. Unless it’s a market in the woods. Did I type the postcode in wrong? I check the satnav postcode against the text info. No, it’s all correct.
I look down the bumpy little lane again. Dark woods rise high on both sides. It’s literally in the middle of nowhere.