Bleak Water. Danuta Reah

the house to house. I’ve covered for you – I said you were heading straight down – so you’d better be there.’

      ‘OK, OK. I’ll…’ As she was speaking she rolled out of bed on to the floor, where she lay for a minute, holding her head and trying to gather the pieces of the day around her. The remains of her dream fell apart inside her head. Something about falling…The phone was still talking at her. Dave, trying to tell her the details of the incident. ‘Yeah, yeah.’ She couldn’t get her head round it. She’d gone clubbing the night before.

      She unravelled herself from the sheets and stood up, promising Dave she’d meet him at the canal basin in half an hour. She felt strung out and sick. It had seemed like a good idea at midnight, a bit of speed to get the party mood going. Now she wasn’t so sure. Ten minutes on the exercise bike might bring her round, but she couldn’t face that. She went through to the bathroom and turned on the shower, then she sat on the edge of the bath, holding her head. She was horribly aware of her stomach, her throat. A cold sweat was breaking out over her body, and she felt lightheaded and dizzy. She didn’t know how she was going to get through the day.

      She toyed with the idea of calling in sick. But that wouldn’t be fair to Dave. He was covering her back, and she’d let him do that a bit too much lately. They’d both been involved in a not very successful investigation into some recent drug deaths. A batch of pure heroin had turned up on the streets and effectively culled three unwary users. The outcome had been the arrest of a few minor players, a slight shift in the hierarchy on the streets and a return to business as usual. The source of the heroin had not been established. It had been an uncomplicated case, but she hadn’t managed to get on top of it. Tina should have had her promotion by now, but her reputation as a good and reliable officer had taken a bit of a hammering recently. She had to get her act together, for what it was worth.

      She struggled to recapture the details of this new case that Dave had tried to tell her. A body in the canal. A murder. He’d said who was in charge, and she couldn’t remember. Shit, she needed to know that. She could phone…no, she’d remembered. DCI Farnham. Roy Farnham. That was the name Dave had said. Farnham had come across to Sheffield from Humberside, and he had a reputation as a high flier who didn’t suffer fools gladly.

      A murder was a good, high-profile case to be involved in. So why did she feel the drag of depression as she thought about the things that the investigation might uncover. And the feeling, at the end, that you had done little, if any good. She thought about a tower block on a summer night, the cars, the lights, the voices shouting, and the flicker above her that became the figure plummeting down from that dizzy height…She shook her head. That had been three years ago. There was a murder case, she was on the team, and she needed to do a good job to try and get her stalled career moving again.

      A few minutes under the shower revived her a bit, but when she looked in the mirror, she still resembled Dracula’s daughter. Fuck it! Why had she let herself get talked into the speed? It would have been OK, otherwise. Today, she needed some artificial aids. She took a small twist of paper out of her bag and opened it carefully. Better than she’d thought. There were still a good couple of lines there. She tipped a tiny bit out, cut it and breathed it in, her eyes watering as the numbness hit then a sharp pain deep inside her nose. Then she felt the magic start to work. Her head cleared and the cold, sick feeling retreated. Her energy was returning – she’d have to be careful not to go hyper when she got to the canal. They’d spot it.

      She crammed her stuff into her bag and went down to the kitchen. Pauline, one of the women she shared the house with, was there, eating cereal and reading the paper. ‘There’s coffee,’ she said, without looking up.

      Tina poured herself a cup. ‘Oh God, last night, I don’t know what I thought I was doing it was stupid crazy but hey there’s something going on down by the canal could be a good case for me so I really, really need to get…’

      Pauline looked at her. ‘I’d come down a bit before you get there,’ she said.

      ‘Yeah, yeah, OK.’ Pauline was right. She’d need to watch herself. She gave the coffee a miss, forced down a slice of bread and marmalade and headed for her car, the energy suddenly singing in her veins. The rain stung her cheeks and she felt a great surge of optimism as though, after all this time, she’d found her real self, that relaxed, confident self that lived inside her and was so often – these days – inaccessible.

      It was half an hour before she’d managed to force her way through the city traffic to get to the place where Cadman Street Bridge crossed the canal. She was aware of Dave’s reproachful glance as she arrived to be given her instructions for the day.

      

      Eliza and Mel spent the first part of the morning moving the display boards around to get the angles right. ‘I want to make a link with the canal,’ Eliza explained to Mel. ‘Look at the water on the Brueghel. And the bridge. It’s just…I don’t want people to look at it and think, “Oh, old master,” I want them to look at it and look out of the window and think, “This is here. This is now.”’ She straightened the enlargement of the hanging man on the display board in front of her and stood back.

      ‘Is that what Daniel Flynn says?’ Mel asked. She brushed dust off her trousers.

      ‘No, those are my ideas,’ Eliza said.

      Mel pulled a face and sat back on her heels. ‘Can we have a break? I’m tired. Shall I go and make some coffee?’

      Eliza translated this as Mel wanting a chance to get away from the drudgery of setting up the exhibition space. Whatever Mel’s motives were, coffee was a good idea. ‘You’ll have to go to the café,’ she said. ‘We’re out of coffee here.’ She reached for her purse. ‘I’ll have a cappuccino.’ Mel was looking out of the window with interest, and Eliza remembered the activity she’d noticed earlier. ‘Maybe you can find out what’s happening,’ she added.

      Mel gave her a bright smile. ‘Yes,’ she said. She went to get her coat.

      While Eliza was waiting for Mel, she went downstairs to see if there were any messages for her and to see if Jonathan wanted her for anything. His door was ajar, and she could see him in front of his computer. She knocked, and pushed the door open. ‘Hi.’

      He jumped and twisted round in his chair. ‘Don’t do that, Eliza. Get some shoes that make a noise.’

      ‘Sorry,’ she said.

      ‘I didn’t train to spend all my days writing reports,’ he said. ‘Eliza, what was that about Cara?’

      So he hadn’t missed her evasion. ‘It’ll keep. Anything new?’

      He shook his shoulders irritably. ‘No. You could write this report for me…No. Let me know when Flynn gets here.’

      There wasn’t too much of the morning left. She was beginning to think that Mel had got the message wrong. She checked her watch. It was almost half past.

      Jonathan’s window caught the sun. The room was light and airy. Eliza thought it would make a good seminar room when they managed to expand the educational side of the gallery. There were posters on the walls from exhibitions Jonathan had particularly admired, including his own big success from over ten years ago now, a photographic exploration of England’s industrial landscapes, abstract shapes against the wildernesses that were encroaching on the urban decay. Jonathan’s skill as a photographer, and the depth of ideas behind it, had attracted a lot of critical acclaim. But he’d never produced anything of a comparable quality.

      ‘About Cara…’ she said. Jonathan needed to know that Cara had got through the gallery alarm system.

      He looked up from his work, his face expressing irritation. ‘What about Cara?’ he said.

      ‘She’d let herself into the gallery last night.’

      He looked at her in silence. He didn’t seem surprised, more irritated and a bit anxious.

      Eliza