Death's Door (21 page)

As he reread the headlines Shaw felt a slight pain in his damaged right eye. That morning, at eight precisely, he’d seen the eye specialist at the Queen Elizabeth. There was no sign of deterioration in his good eye, and no indications of disease in the blind one. But the blurred vision was clearly a worrying symptom. Any repetition would warrant consideration of enucleation – surgical removal of the blind eye. If he was really worried about what a ‘fake’ glass eye they could fashion one to mimic the damaged one – a synthetic moon-eye. He’d given Shaw numbers to ring if the symptoms returned. With flexibility on his part they could have him in for the operation within forty-eight hours. There was no guarantee the procedure would arrest any decline in the good eye, but in eighty-five per cent of cases it did. As odds went, for Shaw, they were good enough. He looked up through the charred rafters of the house and saw the daytime moon: mountains, craters and seas, in sharp focus. Natural optimism, his default setting, reasserted itself, like a caffeine rush.

Valentine walked into the hall and down into the kitchen. The oven was still in place, held by the heavy cast iron of the range. The door had gone, the steel box of the oven itself distorted into a ragged hole. Shaw crouched down on his knees and looked inside.‘So, George. Off you go . . .’ he said, his voice echoing slightly. ‘Tell me what happened.’

Valentine wasn’t particularly interested in playing games. ‘Killer gets in – walks in, ’coz this kind of street no one locks their doors,’ he said. ‘He forces the pill down him – maybe cracks his jaw too. We’ll never know because every bone he had is now cracked like an old teacup. Then the killer carries the body up to the bed – let’s say that’s Thursday night – sets the candle, then turns on the gas. It took all night and half the next day for the gas to build up in the loft, the ceiling space. My guess is that’s a lot longer than he thought it would take. But he’d closed all the windows so it was gonna blow eventually. When it does it takes Arthur into space. Our good luck was that some of him came back down.’

Valentine thought about the picture he’d painted then shook his head. ‘Only thing that doesn’t work is the candle – it’d have to be eight foot tall to burn all night. So maybe the killer came in the night? But then, that doesn’t work, ’coz the old bloke’s in his daytime clothes. That morning, perhaps – the Friday. Same day Marianne Osbourne died.?’

‘That’s better,’ said Shaw. ‘The key question is why – why did Arthur Patch have to die?’

They’d been advised not to climb the stairs but Shaw said he’d take a chance, edging up, the wood creaking. Valentine stood at the foot, dizzy with sympathetic vertigo. Ten steps up Shaw could see into what was left of the back bedroom. Part of the floor was left; on it stood a small bedside table on which they’d found the saucer and all-night candle. Part of the headboard of the bed was left imbedded into the wall. There were stains there, on the dark wood, so Shaw looked away. The glimpse reminded him they were dealing with death, and as always that focused his mind, making the real world clearer.

‘Why’d he die?’ asked Shaw again, feeling the gritty dust on the banister.

‘He saw something . . .’ offered Valentine, opening a file he’d got biked out from the council offices in Wells. Arthur Patch’s employment records: 1951–1994. His last day on the payroll was October 1 – two weeks after the East Hills murder. He’d been the senior car park attendant at the quayside for eighteen years. ‘Imagine what he had in his head,’ said Valentine. ‘All the locals, plus their cars. ’Coz it’s the only place to park on the quay, so it’s not just tourists. Most of the towns got double-yellows, so even the residents have to use it. He’d know everyone, they’d know him. Dangerous man if you’re a killer trying to cover your tracks.’

‘So you’re saying Patch died so he couldn’t come forward and give us an ID, and that the same man helped Marianne Osbourne take her life to stop her telling the truth when she got into St James?’ It made sense but Valentine didn’t react, so Shaw tried another question. ‘If that’s what happened why didn’t Patch die in 1994?’

Valentine didn’t miss a beat. ‘Because in 1994 everyone thought the killer was one of the seventy-four people taken off East Hills. Whatever Patch saw wasn’t suspicious in itself, only in retrospect. The killer knew we’d draw a blank with the mass screening – that we’d widen the net. There’d be publicity. We’d want witnesses, fresh witnesses, who’d seen anything suspicious that day. That’s when the killer feared Patch would come forward.’

Shaw was quietly impressed. It had taken him an hour in bed just before dawn to work that out. ‘You remember Patch?’ he asked.

‘Maybe,’ said Valentine. The nick at Wells had a car park at the back so he’d never had to park on the quay. But he remembered the little caravan. He thought Patch had worn a hat – something jaunty – not a Tam o’ Shanter, a Trilby maybe. Then, one day, he was gone with his caravan, and the machines took his place, which no one could operate, so the council lost a fortune, and one day there was a new caravan, smart and modern, with an attendant.

‘Neighbours?’ asked Shaw. ‘Anyone see anything?’

‘They’re all down the parish hall. Jackie’s organizing. I’ve got some copies of Osbourne’s picture down there, just in case.’ They’d seen DC Lau’s Megane parked by the village green, racing red with go-fast stripes and bafflers. Spoilers too.

They stepped out into the backyard. Like most cottages along the Norfolk hills it had a long, narrow garden plot, big enough for a family to grow its own vegetables. A small holding really, to bolster breadline agricultural wages.

Patch was past gardening so it was rough lawn, cut around a line of fruit trees. Hawthorns choked the end of the plot. But a rough path led through, and when they were in the shadows they saw a small caravan, just a box on wheels, rust eating through a coat of white paint.

‘Christ,’ said Valentine. ‘You’d have thought he had enough of the sodding thing. Nearly twenty years and he takes it home.’

‘Not everyone hates their job,’ said Shaw, making a point of not catching Valentine’s eye. ‘Council probably thought they were doing him a favour. Plus it made way for the new machines.’ He tried the door and it gave effortlessly, part of the lock falling to the ground. Inside was a pull-down table, a fold-up picnic chair and an old paraffin heater. On a row of nails hung circular bands of tickets, the colours – pink, blue, and green – faded where they’d caught the sun. On a hook hung a Trilby. Shaw looked at his watch. ‘O’Hare’ll have the DNA results by now from Tom and the FSS.’ He imagined the chief constable opening the lab report with crisp, dry fingers. ‘I better get back – face up. Tell him about this too. Can you go back to The Circle? Let’s put someone on Patch’s friends – with East Hills in the news perhaps he said something. British Legion, neighbours, usual stuff. And see if we can get someone to help Fiona trace the source of these cyanide capsules. Priority. We’ll see Osbourne but not just yet. Let him stew a bit longer. I want to check something first. If he’s our man he’s a swimmer. So I’ll meet you at Wells Lido at ten. Ruth Robinson’s on duty.’

TWENTY

T
he lido was just beyond a fifties housing estate on the edge of Wells. A white art deco wall threw a sinuous embrace around an oval pool, a blue dolphin emblem over the entrance. Climbing out of the Porsche Shaw heard the unmistakable sound of an outdoor swimming pool – the splashing, the mock screams, the tinny jangle of musac over a public address system. And the smell, an instant Proustian rush as he walked towards the little ticket window – ozone and chlorine and damp towels.

Valentine was sat by the ticket booth on a bench, his angular frame crowded into a tiny area of shade. Shaw showed his warrant card to the woman behind the grill and said they’d like to see Ruth Robinson – Marianne Osbourne’s next-door sister.

She was just finishing a lesson, so could they wait?

Valentine’s mobile rang and he walked away into the car park where the metal chasses baked under a rippling mirage. Shaw took the vacated seat on the wooden bench, watching the summer clouds build over the unseen sea.

He tried to clear his mind of the interview he’d just had with Brendan O’Hare. The chief constable had summarized the paperwork on the East Hills mass screening and listened to Shaw’s own analysis of the state of the inquiry.

It had taken O’Hare less than ten seconds to formulate a response. ‘The papers will be asking us about East Hills by when, Peter? I haven’t checked but I bet the press office has had calls already. We need to respond. The junior league approach would be to slip out a press release saying the mass screening had drawn a blank but that we were following up leads, etc., etc . . . But this lot are Fleet Street, not the local rag. They’d crucify us –
me.
No, what we need to do is give them a story. That’s your job, Peter. Let’s say 3.30 p.m. here at St James’, the Norfolk Suite, Thursday,’ he said, flicking open a laptop and tapping in a diary entry.

‘Any inquiries before that we can tell them to wait for the presser. Best-case scenario is that you have, by that time, found the killer, or uncovered some concrete evidence which will lead, inexorably, to his identity. Maybe this Joe Osbourne character you seem so struck with. If I was you, Peter, I’d get him in here. Plenty of pressure, see when he breaks.‘I take it we are still looking for a man, Peter? No change there?’

‘Sir. Sample X is a man’s DNA.’

‘Goodo. If you find yourself discernibly short of giving the press a thumping good story I would suggest you concoct one. Anything you like. Perhaps we can glean a lead from the statements taken as part of this exhaustive – and expensive – inquiry? Make it good. The press will run with it, we’ll knock it into the long grass and then we’ll have to rely on the goldfish-like attention span of Fleet Street news desks. I want something in writing three hours before the presser to my secretary or my email.’ O’Hare closed the laptop. ‘Great timing, by the way, Peter. We’re trying to cut ten million pounds out of the force budget without impacting on frontline services and you contrive to blow half a million quid on a dud DNA sweep. Well done.’

Shaw had thought about interjecting the correct figure, but let it go.

‘Next month, if we don’t have the killer in custody, I will put out an internal memo to say that the senior officer in charge of the East Hill’s inquiry has requested a transfer,’ said the chief constable. ‘That’s you, by the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, because I certainly might have missed it. The internal memo will leak inexplicably to the press. George can pack his bags too. Wells’ nick is up to compliment – but I’m sure we can get him back in somehow.’ O’Hare glanced at his diary. ‘You can both attend the presser on Thursday. In fact, I insist on it. Back row. I’ll do the talking if there’s something to say. If not, you’re giving the presser and I’ll be in Whitehall; otherwise known as the West Norfolk golf course.’ He pushed his chair back on oiled castors and stood. ‘I think you should consider your future. Maybe a transfer isn’t for you. Your wife runs a business, I think, locally. Long-distance marriages do work, of course. Mine didn’t – twice.’ O’Hare smiled inappropriately and then touched the file on his blotter. ‘I see that following your unfortunate accident you were required to attend annual medical checks and a thorough ophthalmic examination. Should you fail to satisfy the police committee of your ability to continue in the job, certainly at an operational level, we would be in a position to recommend a disability allowance and pension.’

O’Hare looked at him for the only time in their interview. ‘You’re a good copper, Peter. But even good coppers have to be lucky. Get lucky by Thursday, or you’re out. One way or another.’

Shaw requested authorization to spend a further £7,000 on asking the lab to run a familial search through the national DNA database to see if there was a close match to Sample X, rather than a direct match. As long shots went it was pretty much intercontinental. The chances of the East Hills killer being randomly related to someone on the main database by family were slight. But could they afford not to do the obvious? It was the standard next step. If they got a close match at least they’d know where to start looking for the killer.

O’Hare turned him down flat; in fact, he’d make a point at the press conference that he’d refused a request to chuck good money after bad. The next time the West Norfolk paid for a DNA mass screening the officer in charge of the inquiry would do his homework first, said the chief constable, talking to his blotter, and make sure they weren’t frittering away taxpayer’s hard-earned income.

Shaw had been wordlessly dismissed. The anger he’d felt at the humiliation was still with him. The sound of a bell echoed round the lido to mark the hour.

Valentine reappeared, texting on his mobile.‘Lincoln CID,’ he said, waving the phone. ‘They tracked down Julie Carstairs – the girlfriend who stood Marianne Osbourne up on the day of the East Hills murder. She says that was a little white lie. She never intended to go out that day, and there’d been no agreement to meet. Marianne came to see her – she lived in Wells – the
evening
of the killing, after she’d given her statement to us at St James’. Told her what she’d told us: that she’d planned to meet Julie but she hadn’t turned up. She told Julie she’d lied because she was meeting a boy out there and she didn’t want her parents to know. Apparently she’d been out with Marianne a couple of times to East Hills because her Dad wanted her to have a chaperone. Julie was eighteen. She admits she didn’t exactly watch her every move out there. So I think we can read between the lines. She says the boys followed Marianne like gulls after a trawler. She’s got no idea who she was going to see that day. And Marianne didn’t say if she had met him. And no names.’

They heard light steps on the tiled floor. ‘DI Shaw?’ Ruth Robinson was in a tracksuit and her skin was dry and flushed despite the heat, so that he guessed that she’d just done some lengths and showered. The subtle reflection of Marianne’s Pre-Raphaelite looks was stronger in daylight. Shaw actually shook his head, trying to dislodge the image of Marianne on her deathbed. Ruth had to be twice the weight of her sibling, possibly three times. Despite that she had a strange buoyancy, as if she could float in air as easily as she no doubt could in water. She held her arms and hands away from her body as if they too were floating free. Mass she had, he thought, but not weight. An attractive woman, because she seemed to wear her size well. Happy, thought Shaw, in her own skin.