22

In the murder inquiry room at St James’s a Christmas tree still stood by the window. A pair of handcuffs hung from one branch, scene‐of‐crime tape wrapped in a spiral up to a star made from a tin ashtray. Beneath it were three crates of beer bottles where the presents should have been, all now empty, and all originally care of the landlord of the Red House, the CID’s regular watering hole, a back‐street boozer with a quiet snug bar and a remarkably law‐abiding clientele.

The team stood in a circle, letting the phones ring, ready for Shaw’s briefing. He stood, his feet spaced to match his shoulders, his voice as confident as his body language. In his hand a set of black‐and‐white prints from the morgue. Beside him a bottle of mineral water. The silence was respectful: they all knew Peter Shaw, and his reputation for fast, smart, exhaustive police work. And they knew he always kept his distance. Even as a young DC he’d always managed to draw a sharp line between friendship and the often excessive camaraderie of the CID.

But there was admiration, especially for his skills as a forensic artist. Until now these had been exhibited in a series of classes for recruits, and articles in the force magazine. This was the first time anyone had seen him in action on a live case. Three A‐frame easels had been set out, the contents covered by blank sheets of paper.

‘Right. Let’s keep it short and simple,’ said Shaw. ‘We have three violent deaths. Two are clearly murder victims. But first – our man in the raft.’ He flipped back the sheet of paper to reveal a large mug‐shot of the man they’d found on Ingol Beach taken in the morgue.

‘Passport ID, George?’

‘Terence Michael Brand, birthplace King’s Lynn. Aged thirty‐one,’ said Valentine.

‘So,’ said Shaw. ‘Brand was poisoned, possibly a snake bite.’

‘Sir…’ It was DC Fiona Campbell. ‘Just on Brand,’ she said, standing, all six foot two of her, shoulders rounded and slightly stooped, trying to look smaller than she was. She’d come straight on to the force five years ago from school, just like her father, a DCI in Norwich, had done before her, despite having the academic qualifications to go to just about any university.

‘His name was on the national database. Address in Nuneaton. Local police got a squad car straight round. Looks like our man. He’s known to them. Various scams, never violent, but plenty of victims. All to finance his hobby, apparently.’

‘Hobby?’ asked Valentine.

‘Surfing. He’s got a job poolside at the municipal baths – a lifeguard. But the contract’s flexible and he disappears here and there for a few weeks chasing waves – Cornwall, Australia one summer.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘Two things. He was due up at Lynn Magistrates end of this month on a charge of ABH – a fight in the town centre. He was bailed at his first appearance last week – £500, paid in cash on the day by Andrew John Lufkin.’

Shaw recalled the cockle‐picker’s face: the childlike curly blond hair crammed under the woollen hat. He caught Valentine’s eye, and they exchanged a nod. That put the cockle‐pickers at the heart of the smuggling operation.

‘And?’

‘Currently he’s away for a month. He lives with his aunt, his father’s sister, a rented flat near the station. She could ID him but she’s housebound. He’s never said who he stays with, and she hasn’t asked. She says that’s how they get along. She says he takes his wetsuit. Left a forwarding address in Lynn – she says he’s got friends here.’ She flicked the piece of paper in her hand. ‘The Emerald Garden Chinese takeaway.’

Shaw made an effort to see the links clearly: Stanley Zhao at the wheel of his Volvo on Siberia Belt, the food going cold in the back, while Brand’s body floats in to Ingol Beach.

‘OK. George and I will make a second visit to Stanley Zhao. It was obvious he was lying; now we know what he was lying about. And let’s keep the link with Lufkin up front – that’s a direct link between the raft and the cockle‐pickers. Either way Brand could be the key. You don’t need to be a mathematician to work out the chances that Brand’s death is unconnected to our two murders. But you need to be a copper to know they might not be. So let’s not tangle ourselves up with theories until we’ve done the legwork.’

Outside they heard a bottle smash in Greyfriars, the first sign closing time was approaching. One of the DCs at the back stifled a yawn. It had been a long day, but Shaw knew it was vital to sum up, keep the team’s objectives clear, avoid the debilitating drift into information overload.

Shaw touched the dressing on his wounded eye. ‘OK. Next: the body on the sands, on Styleman’s Middle. Let’s call him Styleman for now.’ He flipped back the next sheet of paper and there was an audible intake of breath. Shaw had taken Justina’s morgue shots and ‘reanimated’ the face, sketching in a random expression on the features – an understated laugh, just revealing the teeth, lifting the facial skin, deepening the crow’s feet. He’d used the tortillion to give the skin lustre, and then 3D lighting to give it substance. It was a face with as much life as any in the room, and seemed about to turn to look at its creator.

‘Earlier tonight, George and I attended the internal autopsy.’ Valentine fought not to conjure up the image that had made him retch: the lungs held up to the light. ‘There was water in the airway and stomach, and the lungs were swollen, so death due to drowning – but the wound to the back of the skull was traumatic. He’d have been out cold by the time he hit the water.

‘Jacky – I want you to concentrate on this.’ DC Jacky Lau was ethnic Chinese, a tough operator with links well established in the local community, and an ambition to become West Norfolk’s first female DCI. She was short, compact, but you’d never call her petite. She’d joined the force late, in her mid‐thirties, chucking in a job with her father’s taxi firm. Outside the job her life was stock‐car racing, and a series of boyfriends she’d dragged along to CID parties in the Red House, all with leather jackets, tattoos, and engine oil under their nails.

‘Is he local? Or is he a floater from up the coast? Let’s do a check with all forces – Lincolnshire, Tyneside, Northumberland – even Lothian and Borders. But if he’s one of ours then my guess is it’s something to do with the sands. We need to know what’s going on out there. That’s got to be what this is about. Is it linked to smuggling? Let’s dig away at the cockle‐pickers.’

In his memory he saw the bone‐white yacht slipping into the creek the night Harvey Ellis died. A blue clam motif on the sail. He’d sketch it, see if Lau could find the yacht along the coast.

‘Let’s get copies of this face along the docks, the marinas, see if we can get an ID,’ he said. ‘We need background, context, that’s your job. Check everything.’

DC Campbell dropped her chin and smiled. They’d had a sweepstake before the briefing, trying to guess how many times Shaw would use the word ‘check’.

‘And finally,’ said Shaw. The last evidence board. A photo of Harvey Ellis, cut from the family shot his wife had provided, smiling into the sun with the sea behind, the water dotted with swimmers. CSI shots of the inside of the victim’s pick‐up. A close up of the dead man, slumped forward on the wheel.

‘Last case – but this is where we sink the resources in the next twenty‐four hours. We have a firm ID – we can do some solid work here. But it’s not easy. At the moment this case makes the Murders on the Rue Morgue look like a traffic offence.’

Shaw let the laughter run, a few of the team refilled their coffee cups.

‘According to forensics,’ said Shaw. ‘Harvey Ellis died sometime between 4.45 and 7.45 p.m. The convoy pulled up at around 5.15. Ellis was driving the first vehicle – with him was a hitch‐hiker. John Holt talked to him. Sarah Baker‐Sibley saw him moving about in the truck – saw someone moving about in the truck anyway. He switched to the radio from the CD about seven – according to Baker‐Sibley again. I found him dead at eight fifteen. The snow around the vehicle is untouched by another human footprint. Oh – and there’s a half‐eaten apple on the dashboard – but Ellis didn’t eat it. The hitch‐hiker’s disappeared and the pathologist says Ellis didn’t die in the cab. If anybody can make sense out of all of that I’d like them to speak up, right now.’

He let the silence linger.

‘Could Holt have done it?’ asked Campbell.

‘We can’t rule him out but it looks very unlikely. He couldn’t have known the woman in the Alfa – Baker‐Sibley – wasn’t watching him. Did he really risk two thrusts through the open window? She says his hands never came out of his pockets. And no blood on his clothes? And someone was still playing with the radio and CD ninety minutes later. Plus – the evidence tells us he didn’t die in the cab.’

Another silence.

‘We know someone was out to divert traffic on to Siberia Belt,’ said Shaw. ‘The two AA signs were put out, at either end, and then taken back in. The AA is sure it’s not one of their crews, same goes for the police and County Highways. Plus there was no flood on the coast road.

‘The question is – who was the target? Ellis? There’s a pair of blown spark plugs to hand. If he’d put them in the engine he’d be going nowhere. Was that the plan? To use the pick‐up to block the road? If so, why’d they change the plan? Either way it’s a trap – we just can’t be sure Harvey Ellis was the fly. If he wasn’t – who was? The security van?’

He unscrewed the top of the water bottle and drank half of it. ‘OK. We’re nearly done,’ said Shaw. ‘We better stop soon before everyone explodes with anxiety about the approach of closing time.’

Valentine pretended to laugh with everyone else. He really could do with a drink.

‘But…’ added Shaw, ‘we also need to find two missing people. First. Ellis’s passenger.’

Shaw flipped the picture of Harvey Ellis back over the board to reveal his sketch of the hitch‐hiker Holt had described. ‘We’ve got this out to the media now, as you’ll have seen. This is John Holt’s best guess. Female, young. Sexy. She said she was heading for Cromer – let’s check that. She’s our first priority. She could be our killer.

‘Then there’s the runaway kid in the stolen Mondeo. Perhaps he’s the backstop, put there to make sure no one can get out. Because the Mondeo’s the last car. What do we know about the kid? He’s just stolen a car. He’s drunk the best part of a bottle of vodka – if you think the best part is the bit with the alcohol in it. He’s not very good at driving the car – if the position of the Mondeo is anything to go by – but perhaps that’s the vodka. He wears a baseball cap. He talks like he’s off the estates, but George spoke to him and we think there’s a middle‐class kid inside trying not to get out.’

‘And there’s this rubber‐stamp thing on the back of his hand. BT. Do we check with them?’ asked Campbell.

‘Telecom?’ said Shaw.

‘It wasn’t anything fancy,’ said Valentine, shaking his head. ‘Kind of thing you get on your hand at a nightclub.’

‘We need to find this witness. He’s important. So let’s think of ways to find him, shall we?’ said Shaw.

They heard footsteps in the corridor and the double doors swung open. Tom Hadden held a single sheet of computer paper, a tracing across it like a read‐out from a seismograph.

Under the neon light he looked ill, his eyes pink, matching the strawberry‐blond wisps of hair above his ears. Hadden always reminded Shaw of a laboratory rabbit, pink ears, pale flesh under thin white hair, and the eyes set back, as if glimpsed under ice.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘Go ahead – just winding up,’ said Shaw. ‘Anything?’

‘Yeah. Fred Parlour, the plumber. He hit his head on the door of the kid’s Mondeo. We did all the checks. The blood on the door is Group O, as is Parlour’s. But there was a smudge on Parlour’s overalls… here.’ He put his right hand over the left thigh of his cords. ‘It’s not O. It’s AB – same as the victim.’ He held up the print‐out. ‘I’ve done some checks using antigen analysis. The blood’s Harvey Ellis’s.’

One of the DCs clapped slowly.

‘Is that definite?’ said Shaw.

‘Well, it’s more likely you’ll be hit by a meteorite on the way home, Peter, than this blood belongs to someone other than Harvey Ellis.’

Everyone started to talk but Shaw raised a hand. ‘Tom. Thanks.’

‘Unfortunately…’ Hadden was looking at the printout. ‘It’s never that easy. I can match the blood, no problem. But the smear isn’t just blood. There’s something else and I can’t ID it, not 100 per cent. Spectrometer says it’s organic. The nearest match I’ve got is bone.’

‘Ellis’s eye socket was chipped,’ said Twine. ‘The pathologist’s report mentioned fragments.’

‘Yes,’ said Hadden. ‘But not fragments of sheep bone.’

Valentine snapped a pencil.

‘As I said, I haven’t got it exactly right. But it’s an animal bone. Possibly more than one. Anyway, you’ll have it in writing in the morning.’ He was already retreating through the doors. ‘I’ll be in the Ark if you want me.’

There was a moment of silence as the doors banged shut. Shaw took a deep breath.

‘OK. That could be the breakthrough we don’t deserve. On the other hand it might not be – so let’s keep our heads. We do the legwork tomorrow. George and I will deal with Parlour.’

Valentine cracked the joints in his left hand. ‘He’s got the victim’s blood on his trousers.’

‘Yeah,’ said Shaw. ‘But the problems are still the same – only worse. No footprints. How does that work? How does he get forward, kill Ellis, get back, without being seen and without leaving footprints. Anyone?’

There was a silence that made all the other silences sound like the Hallelujah Chorus.

‘And carrying a dead sheep,’ added Valentine.