Free Bad Sons (Booker & Cash Book 1) by Oliver Tidy

prevented curious children from exploring further a potential danger while also acting as a screen-filter to prevent the flow from either direction of debris washed out from the marsh or in with the tide.
    I pushed myself hard, harder than I should have for a first time out and the outward leg. I crunched over a tide-line of broken shells and I scattered gulls picking at whole, closed ones. I jumped little streams and detoured around the deeper pools and the irregular deposits of the slate grey gault clay of the Early Cretaceous middle and upper Albian periods that could spoil the purity of the golden sands. In the summer months these exposed islands of mire both horrified and thrilled screaming children who walked barefoot through it to have it squeeze disgustingly and warmly up through their toes. As kids we would tell the summer visitors it was raw sewage disgorged from the public toilets on the sea wall.
    As I narrowed the gap between me and the outfall I noticed a solitary figure standing directly on top of it. They weren’t using the structure as a viewing platform, as most did; something to lean on and gaze out and dream. They were bent over, apparently interested in or examining something. Normally, this wouldn’t arouse a second glance but the day before someone had been found dead there and today there wasn’t another soul in sight along the whole expanse of beach or wall.
    The figure stood to watch me cut up from the shoreline and approach their position. My lungs burned and struggled to satisfy my need for oxygen. I made it to the outfall under the watchful attention of the observer without faltering and with some dignity, even though my calves, quads and lungs were protesting at their abuse.
    I wiped the sweat out of my eyes, used the moment to suck as much air into my lungs as I could find, put my hands on my hips and said, ‘Hello again, Detective Cash,’ in one quick rush of noise.
    Her lofty advantage over me seemed to exaggerate her appearance of not being particularly impressed with my efforts or pleased to see me there. At least the unhappy look I let her drag out gave me time for a couple more quick breaths.
    ‘You seem a little out of condition, Mr Booker, if you don’t mind me saying so?’
    ‘I don’t mind. It’s my first time for a long time. I’ll run back as well. And I bet I’ll do it quicker than someone I could touch with a short stick.’
    I was surprised to hear myself say that. It didn’t sound like me. I blamed those endorphins I’d been manufacturing that altered my thinking to make me appear stupider instead smarter.
    ‘I understand that as a man you must have your fantasies.’
    She still wasn’t smiling but I could detect something approaching amusement at the corners of her mouth. I was. It was quite funny and well delivered. With her deadpan expression she could’ve done stand-up if she ever got bored of playing cops and robbers. I kept that to myself.
    ‘What are you doing here, Mr Booker?’
    ‘At the risk of falling foul of the law, what does it look like I’m doing? Besides, at the further risk of talking in clichés, A, it’s a free country, and B, I could ask you the same thing.’
    She wasn’t in the mood for playing and I wondered seriously if her dislike of me might go deeper than simply finding me hard work.
    ‘I’ve been running on this beach for longer than I care to remember. Dymchurch to St Mary’s Bay is my exercise track. I’ll admit that when I set out it didn’t occur to me to think about why I shouldn’t be running this way but when I did I thought that with the low tide I might have a look around where my aunt was found.’
    ‘Look around for what, exactly?’
    ‘Her shoes that she wasn’t wearing, or the coat that she didn’t have on.’
    She ignored that. ‘Mr Booker, I understand you’ve had a shock and a loss. I understand you want to know what happened. But don’t start getting involved in something that is essentially a police