December 1928

The two bodies lay about twenty feet apart on the mud flats. The receding tide had dropped them unceremoniously on the shoreline further up towards the mouth of Otterham Creek and, according to the sailorman who had spotted them and dragged them to this end of the creek, beyond the reaches and the tidal flow, it was likely that they'd been dumped in the Medway further upriver. The ebb and flow of several tides had probably brought them to rest on that bend, in the shallows at the edge of the water. The man gave his name as Frederick Garth. He and his boy, he said, had been unable to haul them safe to shore where they had first been spotted. They had used their tiny boat and, with the man handling the single oar and the boy keeping tight hold of the boat hook looped and twisted into clothing, brought them laboriously further into the creek. Eventually they had found a spot where they could bring the bodies ashore and had hauled them out with boat hooks; the mud showed clearly their passage through the stinking silt. But, the skipper told the silent and rather austere looking policeman, he'd tried not to disturb them more than he had to, grabbing the dead men by their belts and pulling hard in to shore. He'd touched nothing else and neither had the boy. He'd spotted them floating, he said, adding more detail in a vain attempt to elicit a response. He and the boy had dropped anchor, got themselves into the boat, and the boy had caught hold with the boat hook while he'd hauled in to shore. Then they'd gone back for the other. Two trips they'd made in as many hours, the bodies dragging in the water something fierce and the boy, not having the strength of a grown man, had struggled with the task.

'And no blame on him for that,' the man said fiercely, the lack of response rousing him to anger. 'He almost lost hold, so we drifted a little off course on the second run.' He spread his arms wide to indicate the distance between the two bodies on the foreshore. 'But he did his best, the lad did.'

Getting very little response from the man he understood to be a detective inspector, he turned to the shorter, broader and more forthcoming companion.

'It was hard to hold our course. You c'n see that for yoursen. So one ended up there and the other over yon.'

'You did a fine job,' Mickey reassured him. 'I wouldn't have known how or where to begin. Neither of us would, not having your skills.'

The sailorman clearly had no doubt of that. He nodded rapidly. 'Then we had to go to the farm for help. They sent to the constable and he had a telephone and brought you here, but if you've done with us, suh, we'll be going. I've got the load to deliver and the wind is shifting. I'll be losing pay.'

Mickey Hitchens, detective sergeant with His Majesty's Metropolitan Police, nodded agreement. 'You'd best be going.' The man had already been delayed for too long, waiting for Mickey and his boss to make their slow way from London to Rainham and then from Rainham to this godforsaken spot.

The man stomped off and the boy, about ten or twelve years old, Mickey judged, made to follow. Mickey beckoned him over. He slipped a few coins into the boy's hand. 'Give these to your master,' he said. 'Compensation for his lost time.'

The boy clenched his hand around the coins and ran off to join his elder. Mickey watched him go and then turned his attention back to the two bodies.

His boss, Chief Inspector Henry Johnstone, had bent from his great height and crouched over the closest of them. 'You should have told him to fill out a compensation form,' he said wryly.

'And have them wait six months just to have the claim rejected? They say no good deed goes unpunished. He could have left well alone and we'd have been none the wiser. As it is, he's lost time, and time means pay.'

Henry considered and then nodded slowly. He stood, drawing his heavy coat, a recent gift from his sister, tightly across his chest. The hem had dragged in the mud and Henry flicked at it ineffectually with a gloved hand. A damp and bitter wind blew in across the water, loaded with moisture from way out at sea, and the gathering clouds, Mickey thought, presaged an equally cold and bitter rain.

'We should get them moved,' Mickey said. 'Soon as we can before the weather turns. If they've washed down from upstream, there's not much we can learn from here.'

'If,' Henry said, but he nodded. The boatman knew the river; chances were he was right. Henry too looked up at the sky, black clouds roiling and twisting into thunderheads. 'We'll get them packed up and into the wagon and we'll head back. You recognize him?' He gestured towards the body he had been examining.

'I do indeed,' Mickey said. 'Billy Crane, one of Bailey's men. I'm guessing the other will have a similar provenance.'

He extended a hand to his boss and hauled him back on to the firmer ground of the bank. They had brought wellington boots with them and Henry's were caked in foul smelling mud, almost to the tops.

Mickey beckoned to the local constable and gave instructions for the removal of the dead men. The man looked worried.

'You need extra hands,' Mickey told him. 'We'll gladly lend them.'

The constable looked even more troubled at the thought of his superiors helping out. 'Thank you, sir, but my lads can manage that. Trouble is, if we load both bodies into the cart, I'm not so sure the horse can handle them as well as your two good selves, not over such sucking ground. I can send one of the lads to rustle up some extra transport?'

Mickey shook his head. 'It's only a mile or so back to the road, Constable. The inspector and I, we're well used to walking. You see to the dead; the living will make shift for themselves.'

The constable looked from Mickey to the senior detective and then back again. A more direct glance from Mickey prompted Henry, reminding him that he ought to make a response.

'Walking back will do us no harm, Constable. But you and your men had best make shift before the weather closes in.'

The constable, finally reassured, nodded and made off back to where the bodies lay, his three associates in tow.

'Best move ourselves, sharpish,' Mickey observed. 'We're in for a soaking, that's for sure.'

Henry nodded and turned away from the scene of activity by the river, settling his hat more firmly on his head. Over their serge uniforms the uniformed officers wore heavy oilskin capes which would hamper their movements in bringing the bodies to the cart but stand them in good stead for the walk, escorting the wagon back to the settlement of Upchurch where it had been arranged to lodge the bodies in the church overnight until proper transport could be arranged to take them to the railway. The farmer whose cart they'd borrowed would have a longer journey and the sacking he had used to swathe his head and shoulders would be soaked through by the time he reached home. They'd best give him something for his trouble as well, Henry thought.

A car, the one and only allocated to the Kent Constabulary, had been sent to fetch them from the station and had brought them to a point a mile outside Upchurch, but it had been obvious it would be of little use thereafter and they had left it and the driver back on what passed for a main road. Mickey, feeling the first drops of heavy rain sliding down the back of his neck, was relieved to think they'd not have to walk the entire way back. He fell into step beside his boss. His...