I followed the road out towards the mouth of the estuary. With the tide out all that was left was a muddy plain dappled with pools and runnels of water. I began to wonder if I’d missed a turn-off, but then up ahead on the shoreline I saw a row of low buildings. There was an assortment of police vehicles parked outside, and if I was in any doubt the wooden sign a little further along confirmed it: Saltmere Oyster Co.
A PC stood by the gate. He spoke into his radio before letting me through. I pulled on to a crumbling patch of tarmac, alongside where the other cars and a police trailer were parked behind the derelict oyster sheds. After the warmth of the car the cold morning was as bracing as a shower when I climbed out, stiff from the drive. The air carried the mournful cry of gulls along with a smell of rotting seaweed and the salty, earthier scent of exposed seabed. I took a deep breath, looking out over the tidal landscape. The drained estuary looked as though a giant had gouged a long scoop out of the ground, leaving behind only a muddy plain dappled with trapped pools. There was a lunar bleakness about it, but the tide was already beginning its return: I could see rivulets snaking back along channels etched into the estuary bottom, filling them up even as I watched.
A change in the wind brought the rhythmic thrum of a police or coastguard helicopter. I could see the distant speck tracking back and forth across the water. It would be making the most of daylight and the low tide to carry out a visual search of the estuary. A floating body wouldn’t ordinarily give off enough heat to be detected by infrared and would be hard to spot from the air, especially if it was drifting below the surface. There wouldn’t be much time to find the remains before the tide returned and carried them off again.
So don’t stand about daydreaming. A policewoman at the trailer told me DI Lundy was on the quayside. Skirting the shuttered oyster sheds, I walked around to the front. The tubular hull of a police RHIB — a rigid-hulled inflatable boat — was on a trailer at the top of a concrete slipway, and I saw now why the search was being carried out from here. The slipway ran down to a deep channel in the mud immediately in front of the quay. The returning tide would fill it first, allowing a boat to be launched without waiting for the estuary to flood completely. The water wasn’t high enough yet, but from the swirls and eddies ruffling its surface it wouldn’t be much longer.
A group of men and women stood by the RHIB, talking in low voices as they held steaming plastic cups. Several wore almost paramilitary-looking outfits, dark blue trousers and shirts under bulky lifejackets that identified them as marine unit, but the others were in plain clothes.
‘I’m looking for DI Lundy,’ I said.
‘That’s me,’ one of the group responded, turning towards me. ‘Dr Hunter, is it?’
It’s hard to gauge how someone looks from their voice, but Lundy suited his perfectly. He was early fifties and built like an aging wrestler running to fat; out of shape but with bulk and muscle still there. A bristling moustache gave him the look of an affable walrus, while behind the metal-framed glasses the round face managed to look good-humoured and lugubrious at the same time.
‘You’re early. Find us all right?’ he asked, shaking my hand.
‘I was glad of the directions,’ I admitted. ‘You were right about the satnav.’
‘They don’t call it the Backwaters for nothing. Come on, let’s get you a cup of tea.’
I thought we’d go to the trailer, but Lundy led me back behind the sheds to his car, a battered Vauxhall that looked as durable as its owner. Opening the boot he took out a large thermos flask and poured steaming tea into its two plastic cups.
‘Better than the stuff from the trailer, trust me,’ he said, screwing back on the lid. ‘Unless you don’t take sugar? I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth.’
I didn’t, but it was welcome all the same. And I was keen to hear more about the case. ‘Any luck yet?’ I asked, blowing on the hot tea.
‘Not yet, but the helicopter’s been up since dawn. The SIO — that’s DCI Pam Clarke — is on her way with the pathologist, but we’ve been given the OK to recover the body as soon as we find it.’
I’d wondered where they were. The senior investigating officer and a pathologist always attended when remains were recovered on land, where the site where they were found was potentially a crime scene and had to be treated as such. But that wasn’t always practical for sea recoveries, where the operation was at the whim of tides and currents. The priority in situations like this was usually to recover the remains as quickly as possible.
‘You said you’d a good idea where the body might be?’ I asked.
‘We think so. It was spotted out in the estuary around five o’clock yesterday afternoon. The tide would have been ebbing, and it’d have carried the body out at a fair old lick. If it’s made it out to sea then we’re wasting our time, but we’re betting it’ll have grounded before then. See out there?’
He levelled a thick finger towards the mouth of the estuary, perhaps a mile distant. I could make out a series of long humps rising from the muddy bed like low brown hills.
‘That’s the Barrows,’ Lundy went on. ‘They’re sandbanks, stretch right across the estuary. This whole region’s been silting up ever since they put in sea defences further up the coast. Buggered up the currents so that now all the sand that gets washed down ends up dumped on our doorstep. Only small-draught boats can get in and out, even at high tide, so there’s a good chance the body won’t have made it past either.’
I studied the distant sandbanks. ‘What’s the plan for recovering it?’
I guessed that would be where I came in, advising on how best to handle the remains without damaging them if they were badly decomposed. I still couldn’t see that my help would be strictly necessary, but I couldn’t think why else they’d want me there. Lundy blew delicately on his steaming tea.
‘Going to be a case of suck it and see once we know where it is. If it’s in the Barrows we won’t be able to winch it up to the chopper. The sandbanks are too soft to land on, and there’s too big a risk of anyone lowered down getting stuck. A boat’s the best bet, so we’ll just have to hope we can get out to it before the tide floats it off.’ He gave a grin. ‘Hope you’ve brought your wellies.’
I’d gone one better and brought waders, knowing from past experience what water recoveries could be like. From what I’d seen this promised to be worse than most. ‘You said you’d an idea who it might be?’
Lundy took a slurp of tea and dabbed at his moustache. ‘That’s right. Thirty-one-year-old local man called Leo Villiers, reported missing a month ago. Father’s Sir Stephen Villiers?’
He made it into a question, but the name meant nothing to me. I shook my head. ‘I’ve not heard of him.’
‘Well, the family’s well known around here. All that land over there?’ He gestured across to the far side of the estuary. It looked marginally higher than where we stood, and rather than salt-marshes and waterways there were cultivated fields clearly marked with dark lines of hedges. ‘That’s the Villiers estate. Some of it, at least. They own a lot of the land on this side as well. They’re into farming, but Sir Stephen’s got his fingers in all sorts. Shale oil, manufacturing. These oyster sheds belong to him as well. He bought the fishery out about a decade ago and then closed it six months later. Laid everyone off.’