Death Wore White

he’d hoarded the sleepless nights, when exhaustion made him think so clearly, away from the distractions of the day.

Hydra waiting for the tide to turn. He imagined the father cutting his daughter’s hair. A mirror in front of them perhaps. Did they both hear the footsteps together? The first, above their heads, as James’s killers came aboard?

4

Thursday, 12 February

Burnham Market lay tucked up in the snowy hills of north Norfolk, the rooftops as white and crisp as on any Christmas card. In the police station Shaw and Valentine waited for Sarah Baker?Sibley’s Alfa Romeo to pull into the car park. Jillie Baker?Sibley, it appeared, held the key to what had happened that night on board the Hydra. But the leading question now, as Sarah Baker?Sibley was led into the interview room, was where was she?

‘I asked for your daughter to attend for interview,’ said Shaw, adjusting the dressing on his eye.

A PC brought tea. Sarah Baker?Sibley sat at a table, knocking out a menthol cigarette from a fresh pack. She looked around, her shoulders rolling slightly in the chill air. Through the window she saw a fox break cover in the high hillside above the town, running over the bare furrowed earth, suddenly clear against the snow.

Shaw sensed that the elaborate display of insouciance was a mask. Her face was puffy and she kept trying to rearrange her mouth, trying to hide an emotion very close to fear.

‘She’s on a sleepover. Clara’s — her best friend. A house at South Creake. I’ve phoned and left a message.

Valentine pulled up a chair, the legs scraping on the bare wooden floor. He’d spent three years at Burnham Market and had taken hundreds of dreary statements in this room. The stench of institutional cleaning hung about the place, the only decoration a Day?Glo poster in yellow for Neighbourhood Watch, a burglar in black slipping through an open window, and a no?smoking sign nailed to the door. Being back made him realize just how much he’d hated those ten lost years. ‘Can I have the address, Mrs Baker?Sibley?’ he asked, taking a note. He told Shaw he’d organize a squad car to check it out, leaving the door open when he went.

Shaw leant against the single heavy iron radiator which cracked and thudded with the strain of the hot water dribbling through clogged pipes. ‘You don’t mind?’ asked Shaw, nodding at the tape. ‘And you don’t want a solicitor? Only, the last time we spoke…’

She shook her head and lit the menthol cigarette. Shaw pointed to the no?smoking sign.

‘Jesus.’ She stubbed it out in a saucer that had been left on the table.

‘Did you tell your daughter she was expected for interview?’

‘Yes, yes of course I told her. What’s this about?’ she said, checking her watch. ‘I open at ten. Sharp. I’ve said all I’m saying about Colin Narr, so, as my daughter would say, Inspector Shaw, let’s not even go there.’

Shaw stood, switched a shell from his trouser pocket

‘Have you any idea why the Hydra is moored at Morston Creek, Mrs Baker?Sibley?’ he asked.

Valentine had come back and he watched her face as she heard the question. She managed to construct an expression of mild curiosity.

‘I have no idea. My husband’s movements are of no significance to me, Detective Inspector.’

‘You said you were divorced, I think?’

‘Did I? Good, that’s right. Legally, emotionally, spiritually, and — until you informed me otherwise — geographically. My husband lives on Kythera, a Greek island. He has a flat in the City, as I think I told you only yesterday. My happiness soars with every mile that stretches between us.’

‘And Jillie?’

‘What about Jillie?’ The chin came out, the eyes hardening protectively.

‘When does she see her father?’

‘My husband is not allowed to see his daughter. There’s a court order to that effect.’ She touched the damp dogend in the saucer. ‘My husband killed our first child, you see, so he’s not getting another chance.’

Snow fell against the window and the silence was so deep Shaw thought he could hear the muffled impact of the flakes.

‘How?’ asked Valentine, taking Route One.

‘James always wanted a boy, someone he could leave

‘Thomas was none of those things. But that didn’t stop James. He took him to Greece, on the Hydra. They camped on the mainland, a few miles across the strait, and James taught him how to sail the little wooden dinghy she carried. Then he sent him out to sea one day. Thomas was thirteen — Jillie’s age. This was three years ago. Jillie was with me at our villa. James told Thomas he had to make the crossing. A halcyon day — that’s what the Greeks call it. Hardly any wind. Thomas got hot and decided to go for a swim. He just jumped in. He’d never been on his own before, so he didn’t think. There was no way back onto the boat, you see, and he couldn’t climb the sides.’

She sipped the tea, the cup steady.

‘I found the body. It was extraordinary, actually, because the boat, when they found it, was ten miles along the coast but his body had floated back to our house. We had a stretch of beach and I saw something from the house — I was by the phone waiting for news, James was out in the Hydra, searching the coast. I waded in. It was summer, so the body had begun to decompose. I didn’t know it was him — not for a certainty — until I was a few feet away. It’s not something I’m going to forget. And it’s something Jillie can’t forget. I didn’t see her but she followed me into the water.

‘I burnt the dinghy after the Greek police had finished the inquiry. There were scratch marks all round it, cutting into the wood.’

‘An accident then,’ said Shaw.

She ignored him. ‘I took Jillie home. James led his own life, there was another woman. He didn’t contest the divorce. But he did try to get custody of Jillie.’ She laughed. ‘The court threw that out. Then, last month, he tried to take her back,’ she went on. ‘She’d been down to London to see her grandmother — that’s my mother — and she’d got back to Lynn early. She rang me for a lift. She rang her father to chat. They used to talk.’ She pushed the saucer away. ‘She’d forgiven him, you see. Something I didn’t think he deserved. I was late; James was in town — he still has business interests here, although he never trusted me enough to tell me what they were. He drove to the station. He was flying back to Greece that afternoon; his company has a private jet, there’s a landing strip on the island but no customs. Why didn’t she come? He said it would be a new life for her.’ She arched her pencilled eyebrows. ‘There’s a pool — heated.’

She crossed her legs. ‘There’s no choice now, you see.’

‘Choice?’ asked Shaw.

‘A girl will have to do. James’s…’ She searched for a word, enjoying herself. ‘James’s ability to have children is restricted. A medical condition affects his fertility, and that gets worse with age. We did try for a third, but it was impossible. So it’s Jillie who’ll inherit. And she’s a tomboy really — he always wanted that. So she’d love to go with him, Daddy’s little cabin boy.’

would have gone?’ asked Valentine.

‘That’s immaterial. Because that’s when I turned up. They were sat in James’s BMW. I got her out of the passenger side but James came round. He hit me. Quite hard, actually. So I hit him back. Harder. There was a witness — a taxi driver on the rank. Jillie screamed, and he tried to get her back in the car. It was quite a scene.’

She forced herself to smile and Shaw guessed she’d relived it many times.

‘I pressed charges, assault. ABH. He was sentenced to six months, suspended. And James was banned from seeing her, or from coming within ten miles of Burnham Thorpe. So if he’s at Morston Creek he’s broken the court