The Rising Tide: the heart-stopping and addictive thriller from the Richard and Judy author(15)

‘I don’t envy them,’ Cooper mutters. ‘Not one jot.’

Abraham can’t agree. If finding the boy is his ordained task, he has far more chance at sea. Of course, he has to find the father too, but it’s the boy he wants to save.

Glancing back at his notes, he spots something there that disturbs him: his initials, inked in shaky capitals, sheltering beneath a dome. He’s been scrawling this motif everywhere recently. Hurriedly, he scratches it out.

Abraham feels a familiar pain spreading out across his back, sharpening when he breathes. He clenches his teeth against it, taking short sips of air. His pills are in his jacket pocket. He’s already swallowed more than he should. He can’t take more without Cooper seeing.

Flipping down the sun visor, he examines himself in the mirror. Like his overlarge frame, every one of his features is supersized: lumpen nose, thick ears, Neanderthal brow. Beneath it his eyes are a strange combination: fierce and sad and dull. A forty-year smoking habit has wrinkled the skin around them.

Sometimes he thinks he was chiselled at speed from the roughest clay to hand. A priest once suggested something similar: that God, knowing the importance of Abraham’s future works, deployed His servant in haste. Abraham might have taken comfort in that, had he thought it true.

He’s grateful, at least, that his face betrays few signs of his disease. Nothing, so far, to alert anyone he’s terminal.

Abraham coughs, too suddenly to catch it. Mustard-coloured sputum spatters against the mirror, along with a pink mist of blood. He grimaces, glancing at Cooper. Thankfully, the DS hasn’t noticed.

The car slows. Abraham tips forward in his seat. He wipes the mirror with his sleeve, flips up the visor and sees a white sign ahead: HEADLANDS JUNIOR SCHOOL. Beyond it, a low-rise modern building stands beside a sports field. Cooper swings the car through the front gates.





2


At a service window inside the reception area, Abraham shows his warrant card. A receptionist buzzes him through.

The school’s head, Marjorie Knox, greets him on the other side. She’s immaculately coiffured and dangerously obese, in a floral-print dress so bright it hurts his eyes. Her make-up-caked face shines with perspiration. Her hand, when Abraham shakes it, is flaccid and wet.

Knox leads him along a carpeted corridor. She spends far longer talking about the school’s security measures than the missing boy. Abraham spends far longer looking at the children’s artworks than listening. On the walls he sees crayoned depictions of Noah’s Ark, Jonah, Moses parting the Red Sea.

The art pleases him. Marjorie Knox does not.

‘Is Headlands a faith school?’ he asks.

‘A Church of England primary. We’re affiliated to St Peter’s.’ Knox’s bosom heaves, as if the short walk has tired her. ‘As I was saying, we take our safeguarding responsibilities very seriously. But we had no reason to believe anything was amiss. Mr and Mrs Locke aren’t separated. There’s no history of abuse of which we’re aware. I’d go so far as to say that the school has acted in full—’

‘“For by your words you will be acquitted,’” Abraham says. ‘“And by your words you will be condemned.”’

Marjorie Knox’s eyes bulge a little at that.

‘Matthew twelve, verse thirty-seven,’ he adds.

Her head retreats into her neck, creating a necklace of double chins. ‘Indeed.’

‘Do you have CCTV here? In the car park or inside the school? I didn’t notice any cameras in reception.’

‘We’ve never had any reason to believe it necessary. We have very stringent security arrangements. As I said, our safeguarding—’

‘Is exemplary, yes. And you’re one hundred per cent certain Fin Locke’s father collected him?’

‘Of course.’

‘I don’t need to point out there’s going to be a lot of attention on this school.’

‘I realize that. Which is why—’

‘Which is why I want to make sure you’re personally certain – and I mean stake-your-career-on-it certain – that it was the father who collected the boy and not some imposter.’

Knox blinks. Her chins bob as her throat contracts. ‘I didn’t personally sign Fin out. Our receptionist oversaw that, along with his teacher.’

‘And your receptionist knows Mr Locke personally?’

‘Well, I don’t—’

‘Does Fin’s teacher know Mr Locke personally?’

‘I’m quite—’

‘I presume they’re both still here?’

Knox gasps for air. ‘My first priority, when I learned of this whole rigmarole, was to ensure everyone remained on-site. If you wish, I can introduce you to the relevant parties right now.’

Rigmarole, Abraham thinks. Fuss and bother. A complicated and unnecessary inconvenience.

Knox’s breath is musky and sweet, and yet under it he detects the whiff of something rotten. Suddenly, he has a very real sense of Satan’s presence stalking the halls of this school. Disturbing and inexplicable – how his faith in God can be crumbling while his fear of the devil remains strong. That pain is back, worse than before. Claws inside his chest. He makes two fists, straightens.

‘Detective?’ Knox asks. ‘Would you like to see them?’