Shaw said he’d see them there. He wouldn’t, and they knew it, knowing the DI would slip home. But this night, for once, they were only half right. Shaw knew he should go home, sleep well, and prepare for the crucial interview. But first there was something he had to do. Something which, if he’d really had faith in his father, he would have done many years before. He’d avoided even thinking about the Tessier case for a decade, probably — he could admit it now — because he was afraid of what he might find. Doubting his father’s honesty seemed safer than trying
He walked down the back stairs to the ground floor. St James’s had been built in 1926, on the ruins of the old city walls. Permission had been granted for the demolition of a row of Victorian lock?up shops. The problem was what was under the lock?up shops. At that precise point on the old medieval walls the original builders had dug deep to create a series of underground magazines for the storage of gunpowder. Semi?circular vaults, in local clay brick, linked like a tube train. Four carriages in all, each nearly sixty feet in length.
But it was for the last two that Peter Shaw was bound. The custody sergeant let him into the corridor that led to the stairs and the overnight cells. A drunk sang from the first, the voice light and tuneful. At the end of the corridor was an iron door, painted gloss black, with the single word RECORDS in copperplate script.
The door, unlocked, swung easily inward on oiled hinges. Here the barrel roof of the old cellar had been left in its original state, spotlights illuminating the intricate work of the medieval builders, studded now with a network of discreet piping which provided a state?of?theart sprinkler system. The room was full of black metal shelving, stacked with file boxes, the rows arranged like a library. In each row stood a dehumidifier.
A man at a desk sat obscuring the chair which presumably was supporting him. He had agricultural bones from which hung enough weight for two people. Even seated
‘Peter,’ he said, standing, inadvertently heaving the desk forward. ‘Sir.’
‘Timber.’ They shook hands, laughing.
Shaw thought Sergeant ‘Timber’ Woods looked his age, which must have been sixty?six. Woods had retired a year earlier after a lifetime of unblemished, if uninspired, service. He’d been asked back to cover the late shift at the records office, a sinecure demanding only diligence. West Norfolk had switched to computerized records in 1995. But the St James’s budget had yet to find the extra cash to transfer the backlog. Access to information and data? protection legislation demanded the files be kept, preserved, and made available to any member of the public completing the necessary paperwork — as well as for CID and uniformed branch inquiries. So nearly three thousand case box files, bound back copies of the local papers, stenographers’ notes and scene?of?crime evidence boxes had been saved — the collective memory of West Norfolk Constabulary stretching back to 1934.
‘So.’ Woods mashed a tea bag in another mug. ‘George Valentine,’ he said, smiling. ‘Jack would’ve laughed.’
Shaw had known Timber Woods all his life. He’d been one of the few of his father’s friends not to fade out of the picture after the Tessier case and Jack Shaw’s hurried retirement.
‘We went out to the Westmead,’ said Shaw. ‘George and
I. I’d never seen the spot, where they found the kid.’ He paused.
Woods picked up the mug, effortlessly enclosing it within his fist. ‘We spent three years on the beat together — Jack and me — and we broke a few rules, cut a few corners, but I never saw him plant anything, Peter. That’s a rule he didn’t break,
‘Doesn’t mean I don’t want to, does it?
Woods looked at the spot where Shaw’s tie should have been. ‘He’d have been proud of you.’
‘He didn’t want me to be a copper.’
‘He wanted you to have a life. He just didn’t think you could have both,’ said Woods, hiding a frayed cuff. ‘He’d still have been proud of you.’
‘Is there a box for the Tessier case?’
‘A file?’
‘No. A box — a scene?of?crime box.’
Woods took some keys from a metal drawer and led the way down the room. The door set in the far wall was iron, fireproof, the black paint peeling. He reached inside and flicked a switch, a solitary light bulb illuminating the final cellar beneath an identical brick roof.
Open wooden shelving this time, metal boxes, navy blue, stacked in lines, each secured with a small padlock, each with a card inserted in a groove. Shaw turned one to the light:
ATKINS. June 1974.
DI R.G.WILLIS. CN 778/8
TESSIER. July 1997.
DCI Jack Shaw. CN 1399/3
They each took a handle, lugging it to a wide table, scratches polished into the surface. Woods unlocked the box and tipped back the lid. Dust rose like a final breath.
There wasn’t much inside. Shaw held up a plastic bag containing a single black leather glove. The label was in Jack Shaw’s writing. Date. Time. Place. Countersigned by DI George Valentine.
‘And there we have it,’ said Shaw, wanting to believe. Another cellophane bag. Items of clothing cut from the body in the morgue. A football top — Celtic — and a pair of white shorts. Pants, socks (odd, both football, but one green one white), a pair of football boots with the studs removed, and a red sweatshirt. Another held the contents of the shorts pocket: a 20p piece, two 10p pieces, a single wrapped Opal Fruit. A third bag had been set aside for a scrap of paper covered in oil stains.
Shaw held it up to the light. ‘Chip paper,’ he read off the label. ‘Beef dripping — those were the days, eh, Timber?’
Next was a glass phial, empty now apart from a dirty tidemark, but the label said it had held water and oil from
‘The original forensics report will be with the file,’ said Woods, nodding as if the question had been asked. ‘But this is a copy.’ There was an envelope attached to the inside of the box lid, and he slid out a sheaf of papers in close type. ‘You often get those empty tubes with these old cases. Nothing left after a standard set of DNA tests in those days.’
‘I’d like to book the box out.’
Woods heaved a ledger round. ‘Got a bit of spare time, have you, Peter? A coupla murders would keep most DIs busy.’
‘Can’t sleep,’ said Shaw, laughing.
‘Your dad was the same,’ said Woods, locking up.
‘I’d like the box and the copy of the lab reports taken over to forensics — Tom Hadden’s attention. Get a signature there as well, OK?’
Woods checked the entry. ‘You know what this place used to be?’ he asked, looking round.
‘No idea, Timber.’
‘Before we had to bring the records down it was cells
‘So everyone says. But that’s not how it’s supposed to work, Timber.’ Shaw couldn’t keep the edge of anger out of his voice. ‘I’m supposed to be convinced by the evidence. So.’ He tapped the evidence box. ‘Let’s see what twelve years’ worth of advances in forensic science can tell us, shall we?’
They walked back into the records room. ‘I’d like the file too,’ said Shaw, closing his good eye, resting it now that the tiredness was blurring his vision.
Woods took a big breath. ‘The file on Tessier’s out.’ Shaw stopped and looked at his heavy, fleshy face. ‘Who…?’
‘According to the book it was George Valentine,’ said Woods. ‘You two should talk to each other.’
An hour later Shaw was walking back along the line of the dunes towards The Old Beach Cafe. Despite the hour Lena was still working, that day’s delivery of stock spread out on the wooden floor of the old boathouse shop: wetsuits spreadeagled in lines, a rack of swimwear, and a brace of new surf boards encased in bubble wrap.
She was in a tracksuit, her hair pulled back in a stylish knot.
