Death Wore White

Which only left one maddening question. How had the dog got blood on its snout, given that Ellis’s car doors had been shut, with the windows up, until the body was discovered and the dog locked up in the plumber’s van?

Valentine pretended to study the front window of the takeaway. He hadn’t been able to work out why Shaw was so upset with the contents of a dog bowl. When he’d

Shaw pressed the dressing to his eye, silently thankful that he hadn’t derailed the entire inquiry when Tom Hadden had discovered the blood traces on Parlour’s overalls. They did need to get back on track. Terence Brand, the man found dead in the raft on Ingol Beach, had given his aunt in Nuneaton a forwarding address: The Emerald Garden. That Stanley Zhao had been on Siberia Belt that night was a coincidence too far. Was anyone else in the little convoy involved in Brand’s smuggling? Had Harvey Ellis died because he’d been part of a plan, or because he’d been cut out of a plan?

The front door of the takeaway was closed, so they walked down a side alley. There was a clatter of a wok on the high gas flame, the cracking of eggshells. They pushed open the fire exit by the storeroom and came into the kitchen from the back. Stanley Zhao didn’t jump an inch, just slipped an egg on to a plate.

‘Sorry,’ said Shaw. ‘Back door was open. A few more questions.’

Zhao didn’t say a word, but led them upstairs, his six foot?plus frame slightly stooped. The sitting room was about as Oriental as a fish?and?chip supper: a shag?pile carpet, a sideboard covered in family photos, and a flat? screen TV.

Valentine took Zhao through his original statement, letting them think it was all routine. Shaw sat forward in a wicker chair, watching their faces.

‘You’re quite sure you’d like your wife to sit in on this, Mr Zhao?’ he said when Valentine had finished.

Zhao adjusted the steel?rimmed spectacles, dabbed a paper tissue on his lips now that he’d finished his breakfast. ‘I just want to help,’ he said.

Valentine filled in their biographies. Gail had been born in Lynn, in the North End, before the old streets had come down. Her father was in the Merchant Navy and the family had gone to Hong Kong, where he’d put his savings into a boat?building business: little launches in wood for the rich to picnic on the water. She’d been sixteen. The Zhaos had built boats too: junks for the harbour trade. She’d met Stan when she was eighteen. Her father had died two years before the territory had reverted to the Chinese. They’d sold up, come home. Stan had come with her. Four years on the Westmead, four years they didn’t want again.

‘It’s the crime we didn’t expect,’ said Zhao. Valentine stiffened, taking it personally.

‘Yes.’ Zhao’s eyes had hardened.

‘Fine. So where did Terence Brand sleep?’

‘We’ve never heard of Terence Brand,’ said Gail Zhao, too quickly, her voice an octave too high. ‘Have we, Stan?’

‘I’d like your husband to answer the questions, Mrs Zhao — for now at least. Mr Zhao?’

‘I know the name. The local radio had a story. He was found on the beach?’ Shaw spotted it that time, the fleeting micro?expression, like a shadow moving across the face’s tiny muscles and tendons, a glimpse of the truth. He’d seen fear, before Zhao had reimposed a look of polite confusion.

‘Yes. The beach below Siberia Belt. Where you were stranded on Monday night. His aunt has this restaurant as a forwarding address. That’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?’

From the kitchen came the rhythmic rattle of the wok being shaken on the gas hob.

‘Why were you helping these people, Mr Zhao?’

‘I don’t understand,’ he said, giving up on the smile. ‘Do you know what I’m going to do if you don’t answer my questions truthfully?’ asked Shaw, and Valentine recognized the buzz of stress in the voice, the almost imperceptible segue from patience to menace.

Zhao licked his lips.

‘I’m going to get a forensic team from our headquarters at St James’s and I’m going to seal off your spare room

‘I can answer if I want to,’ cut in his wife, taking her husband’s hand. ‘We don’t know what Terry did.’

‘Terry?’ said Valentine.

‘He’s my son,’ she said, the chin jutting out. Downstairs they heard the sound of chips being thrown into hot oil. ‘Was my son.’

She took out a scrap of tissue and began to dab at her mouth, the eyes already swimming in tears. ‘Brand is my maiden name. I was just fifteen when Terry was born, here in Lynn.’

They sat in silence, letting the truth settle like dust. ‘Why are you only telling us this now?’ asked Shaw. Mrs Zhao tried to look through him. ‘Terry’s life was his own. We didn’t ask questions. I’m his mother, that’s what I do. I don’t ask questions.’

It wasn’t good enough, but Shaw let it go.

‘And I owed him, I suppose.’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘I went to Hong Kong for a new life. Aunt Ruth was his father’s sister. She brought him up. His father didn’t stick around.’ She took her hands away, damp with tears. ‘She never wanted to know anything about me. But I kept in touch with Terry, she was OK about that. He was unhappy at Ruth’s; rebellious, I suppose. I

‘But the room he slept in, Mrs Zhao, it’s newly decorated, for a child,’ said Shaw.

‘Yes. I was seven months pregnant, Detective Inspector, but I lost the child. Last year. We shouldn’t have done that, tempted fate. But I guess we got excited. It was a girl,’ she added, attempting a smile.

Mr Zhao was looking at the sickly pattern on the shag pile.

‘OK,’ said Shaw. ‘I’m sorry.’ He thought about it: losing two children in a year — one a grown man, the other unborn. ‘But I’d still like to know what your husband was doing on Siberia Belt the night Terry’s body was washed up. What did Terry do when he was staying with you — for money?’

Mr Zhao raised a hand to his mouth. ‘In the summer he surfed, wind sports. He spent money, I didn’t ask where it came from. We were fond of him.’

Shaw thought of the blood?caked teeth. ‘Did you give him a ring, Mr Zhao? A man with a dragon’s tail carved in jet?’

He nodded, his eyelids almost closing. ‘Hsi, the first emperor.’

‘And in the winter?’

‘He had a wetsuit — and he fished at night, on the long lines. He hung around that cafe on the front by the fair.’

Shaw thought of the wetsuits swilling in the sea spray off Hunstanton, the fishermen huddled at night by lanterns, the magazines under the counter at the cafe, sticky fingerprints on the glass. Another lucrative trade for Terry Brand. A parcel on each trip perhaps, a little extra money.

‘How did he get down to the beach?’ asked Valentine. ‘Nearest surf is — what — fifteen miles. And he’s got all his kit. You’re not going to get sea rods on the bus, are you?’ Key question: Shaw bit his lip.

Mrs Zhao had frozen but her husband had an answer; the wrong answer. ‘His friends had a car.’

‘Who are they — these friends? What do they look like?’ said Valentine, flipping open the notebook, biro in his teeth, playing the role perfectly.

‘We didn’t see them,’ Zhao said.

‘They’d stay in the car — sound the horn,’ said Mrs Zhao, joining in.

‘In the car,’ repeated Valentine. ‘What sort of car?’

‘A white van, dirty,’ said Zhao.

Shaw zipped up his coat. ‘I think you were the transport, Mr Zhao. I think that’s why you were there that night. To meet Terry. I think you’d done it before. And I think you know he wasn’t sea fishing, or looking for the perfect winter wave. He was smuggling. Dangerous work — so dangerous it killed him. I think he was curious about what he was bringing in, curious to know what price it would fetch. Did he talk to you about that, Mr Zhao? Mrs Zhao? And the merchandise? Did he bring it here?’

‘Merchandise?’ said Stanley Zhao, shaking his head.