Red Station

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Death came in at three minutes to four on a sluggish morning tide, and changed Harry Tate’s life forever.

It edged up a shrouded Essex inlet, a scrubby white fifty-foot motor launch with a fly bridge, its engine puttering softly against the slow current. The exhaust sounds were muffled by a heavy, early mist rolling along the banks, blanketing the dark marshland like cold candyfloss.

Three figures stood outlined by a flush of refracted light from the open cockpit. One was on the forward deck, a swirl of dreadlocks framing his head like a war helmet. He was holding a thick pole balanced on one shoulder. Number two, the helmsman, was a bulky shape up on the fly bridge, head turning constantly between the instrument panel and the banks on either side.

The third man stood on a swimming platform at the stern, inches above the murky wake. Skeletal, with long, straggly hair under a baseball cap, he had one hand down by his side, the other bracing himself on the rear rail.

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