51

By the time Shaw reached Blickling Cottages with the search warrant one of Tom Hadden’s CSI units was parked in the lane by the sports field. The windows of the house were as dark as sockets in a skull. Shaw got out, the snow creaking underfoot. But the wind from the sea had lost its polar edge. The snowflakes were fat, spidery, falling lazily like leaves.

He’d left the duty DI from St James’s at the scene of Giddy Poynter’s untimely death. He hadn’t had time to fill him in on the background to the case but he urged caution: it might look like a lonely and desperate suicide but the rat’s tail had unnerved Shaw. It was too pointed a reminder of Giddy’s childhood nightmare. Had Giddy been deliberately driven to his death? He remembered Giddy’s fear, the figure stalking him from the shadows. Shaw left as quickly as he could, promising a witness statement when he got back to the station. Giddy’s corpse had left at the same time, a life reduced to an anonymous black body‐bag, shuffled into the back of a silent ambulance.

Headlights swept across the football field and settled on the front of Blickling Cottages. Valentine’s Mazda rumbled along the lane at a steady 10 mph. His overcoat flapped at his knees when he got out but he didn’t seem unhappy to be in the fresh air. He smoked a cigarette with enthusiasm, his shoulders hunched forward, his face turned away from the snow so that large flakes were left in his thin hair.

‘There was a fire by the boat,’ he said, looking Shaw in the eyes. ‘Tom got to it before it was cold. Snowfall had saved a bit. Material – looks like a set of blue overalls. They’re stained. Tom says it’s definitely blood. In fact the material’s soaked in it, and a belt. He’s doing a type test now. He’s got the stuff back at the Ark. And we can link Sly with the fire – there’s ash in the boat, round the sink, on his hands.’

‘Boots?’

‘In the fire too. But there’s not enough to get a footprint.’

‘What’s he said?’ asked Shaw, trying to keep the inquiry balanced, trying not to let it turn into a lynching.

‘Fuck all, really.’ Valentine watched the smoke drain out of his nostrils into the night air. ‘Denies killing Ellis. He wants his lawyer.’

‘What’s his story?’

‘That they didn’t go out on the sands on Monday – tides were wrong. Spent most of the day on his fishing boat down on the Boal, overhauling the engine. Says he didn’t see anyone. Says he doesn’t do friends. Bitter man, seems to think life owes him something.’

‘Might he kill to get it?’

Valentine pinched out his cigarette and put it in his raincoat pocket. ‘Yup.’ He smiled, holding Shaw’s gaze. ‘What’s the hurry here?’

‘Holt had a spare pair of boots in the back of the Corsa out on Siberia Belt. Steel toecaps. We need to find them – even if it’s to rule him out. Surveillance unit says Holt’s here – but he ran the wife home earlier to town. I’ve got a unit down there too.’

Shaw told the CSI team to wait while they woke the family. Valentine knocked, the double rap bouncing back off the distant white pavilion beyond the football pitch: snow clung to its cupola domes, but the roof was clear, icicles hanging along the gutter.

In the cottage lights came on, one by one, voices in the hallway before the letterbox opened.

‘Who’s that?’

‘DI Shaw, Mr Holt. And DS Valentine.’

Shaw shone his torch on the newly painted door. They could see the scratch marks now, despite the layers of paint; a perfect replica of the symbol etched into the side of the car. Holt opened the door on a chain. ‘It’s four o’clock in the morning.’

‘Sir. I have a warrant for these premises. Can you open the door?’

Holt had a camp bed by an open fire where logs burned, the winter‐red flames reflected in ceramic tiles. Upstairs they could hear a child asking sleepy questions. Valentine walked quickly to the fire and used a poker to pick amongst the ashes.

‘Stay in bed,’ called Holt up the stairs. ‘Sasha’s upset,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘So I said I’d stay over. She likes that.’

The CSI team bustled, collecting shoes from the hallway.

‘They’re going to have to go upstairs, Mr Holt.’ Holt’s shoulder slumped and he sat on the edge of the camp bed, his pyjamas damp where he’d been sweating in the night.

‘What are they looking for?’ he said, adjusting the glasses. The eyes, magnified, were bloodshot and rheumy.

A spark flew from the fire. They both watched it turn to ash on the carpet.

‘Mr Holt,’ said Shaw. ‘You and I and DS Valentine are going back to St James’s. We’ve been talking to Izzy Dereham. Your niece. So you’ll need an overnight bag.’

Holt’s face crumpled and he rested it in his hands. ‘Can I get dressed? I’d like to walk for a while, could we? I’d like the air before we go to the station.’

‘All right,’ said Shaw. ‘Five minutes, Mr Holt – no more.’

They heard running steps on the stairs and Sasha burst in. She was laughing, but she stopped when she saw her grandfather’s face. Michelle Holt followed her in, and gathering her hand took her to sit in front of the open fire.

She looked at her father. ‘Dad?’ she said, the tears already flowing.

Holt stood. ‘I need to dress. I’d like some privacy. Take Sasha to bed, Micky. Now.’ She lifted his granddaughter up and carried her out. Shaw and Valentine waited out in the snow.

‘George, do me a favour,’ said Shaw. ‘That sports pavilion.’ He nodded across the snowy football field.

‘What about it?’

‘Why’s there no snow on the roof?’

Valentine shrugged. ‘It fell off?’

‘Too shallow. Snow’s still stuck to the domes. Just check it out. Force the door if you have to.’

Valentine set out on what he clearly judged to be a fool’s errand, his shoulders hunched against the damp.

Shaw went back to the Mazda and used the radio to check with the murder room. Hadden had phoned through some preliminary results from Gallow Marsh – no joy on Izzy Dereham’s boots, but her teeth matched the apple from Ellis’s pick‐up exactly.

Holt appeared wearing a full‐length beltless overcoat, which looked new. They trudged down the cleared path to the lane and through the gateway into the playing fields. The snow was a foot deep, reflecting the cold light of the stars.

‘The wood’s a good walk,’ said Holt, setting off uphill towards a line of dark, leafless trees. The stars overhead brightened as they got away from the CSI lights. Holt walked stiffly, his breath coming hard.

‘We know what happened that night on Siberia Belt, Mr Holt,’ said Shaw, his footsteps crunching now on the twigs beneath the trees. ‘Izzy Dereham has made a full statement. Sly organized it – recruited you and Harvey Ellis. You knew each other through football, right? You run the club here – and Harvey Ellis played for the TA team. Did he bring his kids? Did they play with Sasha? And Duncan Sly runs the works team for Shark Tooth – Wootton Marsh. It’s the same league – I checked.’

Holt didn’t say he was wrong. The starlight lit the path ahead like crazy paving. ‘And then – the final piece of the jigsaw – you recruited Izzy.’

Holt didn’t look back but Shaw heard what he said, almost a whisper. ‘She’ll never forgive me.’

‘James Baker‐Sibley was a rich man, and one who wanted his daughter at any cost. What did he promise you?’

‘He cleared the debts,’ said Holt, turning. ‘An interest‐free loan. But it was a loan. And I’ll pay it back.’

‘Who to?’

The old man shrugged.

‘The real question,’ said Shaw, ‘is who killed Harvey Ellis. You were down there with him. He did lose his nerve, didn’t he? And you were all smart enough to realize that he could fulfil his part of the bargain just as well dead as alive. The body would be found – but so what? There was nothing to link him to you, to any of you.’

‘When I left him, Harvey was alive.’ Holt licked his lips. ‘We saw him waving as we came out of Gallow Marsh. But I’d told him it was dangerous – what he was doing, what he planned to do.’

Holt walked on and within a few hundred yards they emerged on the crest of the hill. Over by Blickling Cottages members of the CSI team were in the upstairs rooms, the curtains pulled back.

‘What was he going to do that was dangerous?’ said Shaw, recognizing that he’d been invited to ask the question. He reminded himself that Holt and Izzy were family. Sly was the outsider, the fixer, the boss’s man.

Holt spat, took an extra breath. ‘Some people are greedy once they get their snouts in the trough. Harvey was a fool. His children made him a fool, anyway, and they’re all he cared about. He knew there was money to spare, so he said he was going to screw them for it.’

Shaw watched the last of the snowflakes falling, outsized and feathery. There was a wind up on the hill and it promised rain.

Holt laughed, adjusting the spectacles. ‘He said he’d put it to Duncan Sly, that he hadn’t realized the risks. He wanted ten thousand – double what we’d agreed. I left him about four thirty. He’d been in a mess all day, kept saying he was putting his arse on the line, whatever Duncan said, and he deserved a bigger cut. Harvey said if he got caught he’d be inside when Jake died. That’s what really freaked him out. That was the big risk, the only one he really cared about. But if he was taking it, he wanted paying for it.’

Holt’s top lip curled back to show the ill‐fitting dentures, the first time Shaw had seen the old man sneer. ‘If Duncan didn’t promise him more he said he’d reverse back, take the sign down, stop her coming up the lane.’

Shaw took in a breath of the air, damp now. To the east dawn was bleeding into the sky.

‘I saw Duncan coming along Siberia Belt,’ said Holt. ‘He’d walked up from the far end. He had his car down there ready to put out the no‐entry sign. I didn’t want to be there for that. Harvey was a weak man, I reckoned he’d toe the line. Duncan could switch the spark plugs. So I left them to it.’

Shaw imagined Ellis and Sly in the cab of the pick‐up, dusk gathering, the toolbox between them, the young father delivering his threat.

Shaw touched the dressing on his eye, the nerves behind suddenly jumping, making his jaw tremble.

Holt stood, shaking his head. ‘Harvey didn’t deserve to die like that. He loved that kid, all of his kids, and Jake most of all.’ He gazed out over the field. ‘He used to bring them to matches – they’re good kids, they deserve a father.’

He looked back at Blickling Cottages. ‘I couldn’t have done that, lived with that kid’s illness, knowing he was going to die, and not hating him for it.’

The rain was falling now, sheets of water like net curtains. They walked through the slush on the field. In the garden the carapace of snow had shrunk back, the dead stems of Brussels sprouts stuck through, the line of bricks which marked the path, a border of globe artichokes, the blackened fern‐like leaves arching out of the snow and back to earth.

John Holt trudged to the door not looking back. Hadden stood on the step, gave Shaw a quick shake of the head – no boots.

Shaw stood his ground in the rain. ‘Ten minutes,’ he said to Holt.

Holt climbed the last two steps an old man. Shaw’s mobile beeped. A text from Valentine.

BLOOD AB

Shaw smiled. They had Sly now: they’d get a DNA match as well. He had the victim’s blood on his clothes. Ellis had threatened everything Sly wanted – his own boat, his own life, and freedom from a low‐life existence out on the sands. He might have been an honest man, an honourable man, but he’d kill to stay one. However, something about Holt’s story made Shaw hesitate. He’d told so many lies, and told them so well, that Shaw was reluctant to believe he’d finally been able to spit out the truth.