‘Ill try London Zoo. And Traffic, the wildlife charity.’
‘Maybe,’ said Shaw.
‘I should tell Hadden,’ said Valentine, searching for the radio in the raincoat over his shoulder. ‘He’s got people out on the beach.’ Above them they heard snow sloughing off the roof, thudding on to the cars parked up in the lee of the old chapel.
‘But it won’t be alive,’ said the pathologist. ‘Whatever it is. The venom that killed him is tropical. Ten minutes in zero temperatures would be enough to kill whatever animal bit him.’
‘But then if he’s smuggling it in — and there may be more than one — he’d have it in something to keep it alive,’ said Shaw. ‘That’s what we need to look for, George. A canister, something that would retain the heat.’ Shaw’s skin crept.
Valentine retreated to the office beyond the partition. Shaw stepped back from the corpse, trying to get the death in perspective. They heard the clock at St Margaret’s chime the half hour. The pathologist took it as a cue to move on.
Harvey Ellis lay on the final table, the ruptured eye black, disfigured. Shaw noted that in death the narrow face appeared adolescent, resembling that of his son Jake, the child pictured on the photo in the victim’s wallet. It was difficult to see Harvey Ellis as a father of three when he looked more like their elder brother. The shroud was drawn up to his Adam’s apple, both feet exposed, a label attached to one of the toes.
She pulled down the shroud revealing the military tattoo in blue and red: a castle on a many?pointed starburst in silver. The badge of the Royal Anglians. ‘And the defence wound.’ She pulled the shroud down further and picked up the right arm.
‘So our modus operandi stays the same?’ asked Shaw. ‘Yes. I’d say so. He died from the stab wound in the eye socket with the chisel, having fought off one earlier thrust. I think he just about bled to death on his back, or certainly with his upper body twisted down, then he was moved to the truck seat. As I said, there isn’t enough blood at the scene. I’d say we were three to four pints short of a full measure. But death occurred in the sitting position, and that’s where rigor set in.’
‘He had a passenger,’ said Shaw. ‘A girl. Any trace — hairs, lipstick, a kiss? Any traces of semen on the victim?’
She thought about that for thirty seconds, more, walking slowly round the table. ‘No one told me that,’ she said.
‘We just found out,’ said Shaw quickly.
‘OK. No, absolutely not, no traces at all. Which doesn’t mean she wasn’t there, of course. I’m looking at the body. The cab’s not a pristine environment. It’s a working one. There’s something like thirty sets of prints on the fascia inside. CSI will check them all out. But on the body, or near the body, nothing really intrusive. And no prints on the murder weapon.’
She pulled off the forensic gloves. They looked at Harvey Ellis’s face.
‘You think he attacked her?’
She walked to a desk under one of the lancet windows and returned with a clear envelope. ‘Silver. A single word —
‘Right,’ said Shaw. He wasn’t looking forward to meeting Grace Ellis.
Shaw led the way out through the swing door into the laboratory beyond. Valentine was sitting with his feet up on one of the computer tables, his eyes closed. The pathologist coughed and his eyelids slowly opened.
‘And this may not help either,’ she said. On one of the desks beside a computer was a vacuum cupboard containing a single glass dish holding a half?eaten apple. Valentine made an effort to look interested. Forensics wasn’t his forte. People committed crimes. It was all about getting to grips with people.
‘Tom said you wanted to make sure the apple was the victim’s last supper,’ said Kazimierz. ‘Not so.’
‘Someone other than Harvey Ellis ate this apple?’ asked Shaw. ‘Don’t suppose you can tell me if it was a leggy blonde, can you?’
‘Given proper funding.’
Valentine peered through the glass at the apple. ‘And you can tell that — just from that?’
Kazimierz’s back stiffened. ‘I’d put my reputation on it, Detective Sergeant Valentine.’ The inference was masterful. She had a reputation worth the bet.
‘Back to Siberia Belt,’ said Shaw, as the Mazda pulled out of the shadow of the Ark and slipped into the traffic sweeping past on the inner ring road. It was his father’s golden rule — if in doubt, go back to the scene of the crime. Walk the job, don’t talk it. Shaw held a hand to the dressing over his eye, feeling his pulse behind the bruised lid.
‘Everything’s changed,’ he said, as Valentine tried to get the hot air vent to clear the windscreen of condensation. ‘There’s a passenger in the murder victim’s vehicle, but she’s gone. There’s an apple in the murder victim’s vehicle, but it’s not his. The corpse on the beach is involved in some form of illegal trade in wildlife, and that’s gone too. It wasn’t a simple inquiry to start with.’
Shaw decanted the shells from his pocket and ran eight along the dashboard. The Mazda came to a halt at a set of traffic lights by the soaring Gothic spire of St Anne’s. A branch of Curry’s had a dozen TV sets in the window, each showing the local news. Shaw’s sketch of Harvey Ellis’s female hitch?hiker flashed up. They studied it until the car behind beeped as the lights changed.
Out of town they joined the coast road near Castle Rising Castle, the snow?topped Norman keep visible over the trees of the park. It wasn’t yet dusk, but already there was more light in the fallen snow than the sky. Ahead
Siberia Belt was windswept and looked deserted until they got round the bend. Ahead they could see some of the vehicles still on site, a CSI forensic tent pegged over one.
‘Come on,’ said Shaw, getting out. ‘Talk me through it, George.’
Valentine got out, braced against the icy breeze. They walked along the bank, Valentine listing the eight vehicles from the tail end of the line, starting with the Mondeo.
‘By the way — for the record.’ He stopped, tapping his toe on the spot. ‘The Morris. I checked out the old dear first thing this morning. Early?stage Parkinson’s Disease. The weed helps, apparently. I said she should see a doctor about painkillers. She said she had.’
He shrugged, moving on, listing each vehicle.
Tyres crunched and they looked back at the farm track to see a white van at the junction. It flashed its lights once and they saw Izzy Dereham, the tenant farmer, at the wheel, two men squeezed onto the passenger bench beside her. A wave, and she pulled out, heading down to the coast road.
Just four vehicles were left of the original convoy on Siberia Belt — the plumber’s Astravan, the security van, Stanley Zhao’s Volvo and John Holt’s Corsa. Shaw slapped his hand on the roof of the Astravan. One of Tom
She flicked off the vacuum and lowered the mask. ‘We’re expecting him — he’s bringing drinks.’ She smiled but Shaw could see that her lips were blue, the temperature in the van low enough for her breath to hang between them.
‘We’re walking the line,’ said Shaw. ‘It’s all been dusted?’
‘Sure. It’s signed off — help yourself. But exteriors only, please. Don’t open any doors.’
They heard the vacuum again, a whine as high?pitched as birdsong from the marsh. As they passed John Holt’s Corsa Valentine stopped, studying the vandalized paintwork.
‘Tom says it’s a proper job — a diamond cutter,’ said Shaw.
Valentine ran a finger along one of the lines. ‘It’s a picture,’ he said, shaking his head. Shaw stood at his shoulder, thinking he might be right, but he couldn’t see it. Valentine took his battered notebook and sketched the six savage cuts which made up the scrawl. He had an idea what they might be, but he kept it to himself.
They walked on past the butchered pine stump, the crime?scene tape still attached, flapping in the breeze like a Buddhist prayer flag.
‘Let’s get a clear picture,’ said Shaw. He tried to imagine it, conjuring up the scene from his memory, the cars steaming in the moonlight, white and red light splashed on the snow.
