the sand: there was a foot, in a deck shoe, and to one side a hand clutching a shred of green seaweed. He took a step forward, almost falling, and saw the seawater pooled in the mouth beyond the sand?encrusted teeth, the dark coagulated red of a split in the lips. He sank to his knees ready to scream. But then came the double shock, as unexpected as the first, and he spilt bile onto the sand.
From the air Styleman’s Middle was an island, ribbed with sinuous lines of sand, like a giant fingerprint. What light there was came between showers of sleet, the low clouds pearlescent, the sea a choppy green. The police Eurocopter came in low from the north, then turned to trace the waterline in a tight circle. Onboard traffic cameras recorded the view below. At the east end a group stood by the cockle boats, scuffed footprints leading away a few hundred yards to an object on the sand: from the air a bucket, a fishing buoy, driftwood.
As the whirling blades slowed Shaw and Valentine jumped down, followed by two uniformed officers they’d rescued from a traffic survey on the quayside. Shaw landed nimbly on one foot, then transferred his weight quickly to both. Valentine landed two?footed, juddering, and nearly pitched head?first. The sand was surprisingly hard and gritty, sparkling with crushed shells. They all walked quickly to the group by the boats and the two PCs began threading scene?of?crime tape in a wide arc round the beached boats, a cordon to keep the people in. The chopper rose, slewed sideways and wheeled towards Lynn.
Fifty yards off the sandbank the Harbour Conservancy’s launch was approaching at speed. It pulled a sudden circle as it skimmed into shallow water, and drifted towards
‘Tom,’ said Shaw, shaking hands. ‘I’ll lead the way — let’s keep a yard off the path trodden. I don’t know how long we’ve got until the tide rubs all this out, but however long it is, it’s getting shorter.’
They set out in line, Valentine at the tail, leaving one of the PCs to stand with the cockle?pickers. Shaw counted his steps. He’d got to a hundred when he stopped, then looked up, prepared to be dispassionate in the presence of death. But he hadn’t expected this: the sand?filled mouth set in the skewed O of a silent scream; the rest of the victim’s body, except for the single foot and hand, unseen, imprisoned in the sand. The corpse was lying in its sandy grave, the head protruding, but thrown savagely back.
He forced himself to observe, to stay out of the scene he was a witness to. Most corpses say something: revenge, lust, greed, anger. This one was mute; just a victim, almost sucked out of sight for ever.
Shaw could see that all previous footprints had stopped ten feet short of the victim. None had circled. He looked back along the path they’d made to check that no footprints left the track. Then he took in the horizon; to the west the distant shoreline of Lincolnshire, the hills still white. To the east he knew Ingol Beach was only three miles distant, the low white line of the coastal hills just visible.
‘Right. Let’s do our jobs,’ said Shaw. ‘And let’s do them quickly.’
Hadden’s men walked to one side and quickly erected the lightweight SOC tent over the corpse. White, flimsy, it buckled slightly in the light wind when they lifted it into place, sinking the posts at each corner.
‘Is Justina coming?’ asked Shaw, following Hadden into the tent.
‘On the next boat,’ said Hadden. ‘She was over in Ely. We’ll work our way out from here but it looks like he’s had at least one tide wash over him — so don’t hold your breath.’
They both smiled: grim humour.
The skewed O, screaming for air.
Shaw knelt on the sand six feet from the head, looking at the face, wishing his wounded eye had healed. Without stereoscopy his vision was flatter, less vivid. Hadden mirrored him, kneeling behind. Twelve o’clock and six o’clock. The air in the tent was suddenly close, making Shaw loosen the zip at his throat.
‘The sand’s engrained on the skin,’ said Hadden. ‘In the hair. And…’ He stopped, bile rising in his throat as a small crab scuttled from the hairline, over the cheek, dropping into the pool which had formed like a moat around its neck. ‘Male. Forty? Clothing — what we can see is a polo shirt; that might be a badge on the turned collar. A gold chain round the neck.’
The light in the tent was a pale white, making the dead man’s skin look like meat dripping despite a tan.
‘I’d guess he drowned, got washed on to the sand bar; the weight of the corpse begins to take it down through the sand after a tide or two. Another six hours and he’d have gone for ever.’
He stood, a knee joint cracking. ‘But there’s something else — on the back of the head.’
Shaw walked round, respecting his circle in the sand. The hair was parted at the crown, showing the scalp. Shaw took two strides forward and knelt. Hadden joined him and with a metal spatula parted the hair where blood had congealed. A wound, the colour of a maple leaf in the fall. No bone showing, but the flesh ruptured, rucked. Shaw bent closer and smelt the seawater in the man’s clothes, and the first hint of decay, the sweet aroma of evaporating sweat.
Valentine brushed aside the flaps to enter the tent. ‘Nothing on the sand,’ he said. ‘Chopper’s coming in with more manpower.’ He caught Hadden’s eye. ‘Your office radioed — they’ve got a portable generator from the lab.’
Shaw studied the victim’s face. The skin, as dead as pork rind, was tanned lightly, the features narrow and fine with the red double claw marks of a pair of spectacles on the bridge of the nose. The hair was well cut, short but with a foppish fringe which dragged down over one eye. Given time, Shaw could bring that face alive, iron out the swelling to the left side where the blow had fallen, lift the cheekbones, repack the features which had been stretched out in the terror of the victim’s final minutes.
Shaw stood, thinking that he’d missed that. ‘Justina will want to see him in situ.’
‘Low tide’s in two hours,’ said Hadden. ‘This isn’t a high point — it could be under water in five, six, possibly less. We’ll have to lift him then?’
It was a question, but there was no doubting the answer. If they let the tide wash over again the corpse might not be there next time, sucked down perhaps, or lost in the folds of sand. Even if they marked the spot they might lose him: heavy objects drifted in the liquid sand; wrecks wandered, sinking, resurfacing.
Valentine stepped outside, his radio crackling. Shaw left Hadden in the tent and went back to the cockle? pickers.
Duncan Sly, the gangmaster, stepped forward to meet him, taking charge, displaying authority. His skin was like burnt leather, a smoked kipper, the product of a lifetime spent in the wind and rain. Despite a slight stoop which had come with age he was still the biggest man in the group — six one perhaps, but broad, a barrel chest, with fists that looked lifeless, just hanging from the arms. The seaman’s blue jacket was new, the lapels uncurled.
Sly’s account was straightforward. The five cockle boats were from Shark Tooth, the shellfish company that ran Gallow Marsh Farm’s oyster beds.
‘The sand was clean on the lee shore when we landed — no footprints, nothing. We keep an eye out for that, in case another gang’s been working our patch. And
Shaw buttoned up his coat and bent down to retrieve a razor shell from the sand, as sharp as a cut?throat. He considered the coincidence that Shark Tooth owned Gallow Marsh Farm and ran the cockle boats, and filed it away with the other things that worried him.
The pickers stood around an impromptu fire: driftwood off the sandbank, old newspapers from one of the boats, and something else glowing on a bed of pebbles. ‘Coal?’ asked Shaw, knocking the charred wood with his boot.
‘Always bring a bag,’ said Sly. ‘It’s bitter out here late afternoon, we take breaks.’
Despite the warmth from the blaze they all stood stiffly. Sly thrust his hands out almost into the flames, then back into the pockets of his jacket. ‘We should work, otherwise it’s a wasted day.’
‘A few questions,’ said Shaw, shaking his head. ‘Then we’re going to have to ask you to go back to Wootton. This is a crime scene, we need to secure it. It’s the third unexplained death in the area in twenty?four hours, Mr Sly. It may be a while before you can work here.’
Shaw saw glances exchanged. Besides Sly there were ten of them, two to a boat with Sly presumably in the larger one — a smart inshore fishing smack which had dropped anchor about twenty feet out. It sat at an angle now, beached, the radio mast tilting towards the moon which had appeared in a clearing blue sky. Six of the men were ethnic Chinese, standing together, smoking the same brand of cigarettes, looking everywhere but at
