Page 31 of Dead in the Water

“How do you mean?” the sergeant asked, his eyebrows lifting suspiciously.

“What’s your take on it all?”

The sergeant sank into the chair behind the other desk, frowning deeply. “He slipped on the wet steps. It was an unfortunate accident.” His words were deliberate, as though addressing a child. “There’s nothing to suggest otherwise.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Good. We agree for once.”

“No, I mean that’s what I was expecting you to say, but I suspect you’re missing some vital information.”

The sergeant leaned onto his desk, clasping his hands in front of him. “Such as?”

“There’d been a disagreement,” Lily said, taking the chair across the desk from the sergeant and placing Flynn out of her sight line. “Between Joseph and his friends.”

The sergeant nodded. “He wanted to sell the yacht. They were already on their way for a six-week sail when he broke the news to them that he didn’t want to make the trip. Tempers were strained and there’d been some heated words.”

“You already know?” Lily asked, surprised.

“It doesn’t seem to be a secret.”

“Who told you?”

“His friends. They all mentioned it when we spoke to them. There was some guilt that their last days together hadn’t been easy ones.”

“Okay,” Lily said. “And you don’t think that gives them motive?”

The sergeant’s gaze flicked to Flynn before landing back on Lily. “Motive for what?” he asked, once again sounding as though he were indulging a child’s questions.

“For one of them to kill Joseph?”

“No. I don’t.”

Lily’s temper flared. “You haven’t even considered the possibility?”

The sergeant’s eyes darted across the room once again. Lily felt Flynn beside her before he perched himself on the corner of the desk in front of her. She couldn’t avoid looking at him then.

“We’ve asked all of our questions,” Flynn said calmly. “There’s nothing to suggest it was anything other than an accident.”

“But he’d been arguing with his friends,” she said. “They were all angry with him. It doesn’t seem much of a stretch to think one of them wanted him dead.”

Except, as the words flowed out of her, she could hear how unlikely it sounded. But while her brain told her she was being irrational, her gut told her that something wasn’t right.

“Look,” she said before either of them could get a word in. “I spoke to Joseph the evening he died. We watched the sunset together. He was a good man and if someone killed him, we owe it to him to find out who.”

“Flynn mentioned you spoke to Joseph before he died,” Sergeant Proctor said. “It must have been upsetting to find out you were one of the last people to speak to him.”

Lily sucked in a breath, hoping it would calm her but feeling no such relief. “I’m mostly upset because he was a nice guy and I don’t think you’re investigating his death properly.”

Neither of them said anything and the looks on their faces were entirely condescending.

“You didn’t even consider that it wasn’t an accident, did you? The steps he fell down were open for people to use again almost immediately. You should have secured them for a proper forensic investigation…”

“We followed proper procedure,” the sergeant said. “But it had rained heavily in the early hours and people had already been using the steps, so even if there had been reason to think it wasn’t an accident, we weren’t going to find anything more from the scene.”

“Do you really believe he just fell?” Lily asked, her gaze fixed on the sergeant.

“The sun had only just set,” he said. “The pub was still open. There would have been people around. It’s highly unlikely that no one would have heard or seen something had there been any kind of scuffle. You know what it’s like around here… people notice things… and they talk. But no one has come forward to report anything.”

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