Death Wore White

order — I hope you’ll take the appropriate action. The judge made it clear he would go to prison if he breached the conditions.’ Nobody said anything so she went on. ‘We’ve been very happy ever since,’ she said, dispensing with another unasked question.

‘He must love his daughter,’ prompted Shaw. ‘Actually, I think his feelings towards Jillie are irrelevant, Inspector Shaw. He needs her. She’s his immortality. She’s the vehicle for his wealth, a receptacle for his money.’

Shaw produced an evidence bag from the holdall: clear plastic with the sheaf of long hair curled within.

‘He tried again, didn’t he?’ asked Shaw, standing at the table, his fingertips splayed on the Formica surface.

She tried to touch the hair through the plastic.

‘We found the hair on the Hydra, Mrs Baker?Sibley.’ She ran a nail along her bottom lip. ‘Yes,’ she said, looking at the tape. ‘I think I need that solicitor now, Inspector Shaw.’

She sat.

‘Do you have a picture of your husband, Mrs Baker?Sibley?’

She laughed, her head thrown back.

Shaw took a file from the desktop and, flicking through, found the animated sketch he’d made from the corpse retrieved from Styleman’s Middle. He placed it neatly before her, put the saucer on a corner as a paperweight.

‘Is that James?’

She looked at it and Valentine could see the calculations going on behind her eyes. She took a cigarette out of the packet and just held it in her hand. ‘Unless he’s got a twin brother.’ She tried to set her lips in a line but failed.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Baker?Sibley, but this man’s body…’ Shaw tapped the drawing, ‘was found on Styleman’s Middle — the sandbank a few miles off Ingol Beach — on Tuesday. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to see if you can identify the body later today. There is evidence your ex?husband was attacked on board his yacht. I’m sorry.’

Valentine watched as the blood drained from her face, leaving a livid patch of blusher exposed, like a death mask.

‘He’s dead?’

‘Three o’clock,’ said Shaw. ‘St James’s. And then we’ll need to talk again. I’d like Jillie to be there.’

‘Of course.’ She’d worked it out now. ‘I’ll make a

‘Sure.’

Outside a car alarm pulsed. She placed both palms on her face and stretched the skin back, lifting the wrinkles out of her neck.

‘Yes. He did try again. Which I find hard to believe because generally he’s a coward, I think, and if he’d been caught — even just talking to her — he’d have gone to jail. Jillie said he was waiting outside the school in his 4x4 the night I was stranded out on the coast road in the snow. She said he just wanted to talk, that he’d get her home, so she got in. I’d told her a hundred times to text me if her father turned up. But he persuaded her to listen to what he had to say first. He drove her to Morston and said that if they wanted to they could catch the tide. He stopped in the village and posted some letters, then drove down to the quay. She wouldn’t have to go back to school, that’s what he told her. They could take the Hydra over to Ostend — he’d done it before with her when she was young. He said he’d bought a property on the Turkish coast. There’s an International School in Smyrna; they wouldn’t ask questions if he paid the fees. They’d disappear. Even if the police found them he had the money to tie it up in the courts. He said it’d be like Jarndyce and Jarndyce. She’s done Bleak House at school — she thought it was funny. So she said yes.’

‘She told you that when you phoned from Gallow Marsh Farm?’ said Valentine.

‘Yes. I called her mobile. She told me what had happened, said she’d decided to go with her father. She

‘But you rang a second time,’ said Shaw, looking out at the snow, a hawk over the hedgerow.

‘James answered. He said they’d sort it out together. That I wasn’t to come after them and that if I went to the police I’d never see her again. That’s why I told you she was at home. He said if I kept quiet then he’d work something out, I could see her abroad. Which was nice of him,’ she added, not smiling. ‘I could hear Jillie crying in the background. I think she realized then that it wasn’t a game. That we might not see each other again.’

‘Did you go after them?’

‘I didn’t need to. Your squad car dropped me home. I went inside, got changed and set off for the creek — it’s only a mile. I met Jillie coming up the lane. She said James had rowed her ashore. She’d told him she wanted to go home, to me. She said he’d cried when she said goodbye — which is sweet, isn’t it?’

DC Mark Birley knocked, came in. ‘Squad car says Mrs Baker?Sibley’s daughter isn’t at her friend’s house.’ Birley’s new shirt was too long in the arm so that he had to keep readjusting the cuffs. Shaw wondered if he’d kept his uniform, still hanging in a cupboard at home.

‘Mrs Baker?Sibley?’ asked Shaw.

She stood. ‘I’ll check her other friends. The school.’

‘We’ll give you an hour,’ said Shaw. ‘Then we’ll put out an alert. We need to find her.’

Anger flashed across her mother’s eyes. ‘I know that. Christ — I know that.’ She took one last look at the sketch

It was only after Valentine had walked her to the car park that Shaw realized her perfume still dominated the interview room: an astringent citrus. Shaw watched as she drove the Alfa out into the street, the gravel screeching as she made the turn, wrestling with the steering wheel.

‘It makes sense,’ said Valentine from the door. ‘The diversion on to Siberia Belt, the mobile black spot, everything. All set up to stop Sarah Baker?Sibley picking Jillie up, and then stranding her out of mobile contact long enough to get to sea.’

‘Let’s get out to the scene, see if it works on the ground.’

‘Mark wants a word,’ said Valentine, nodding down the corridor towards the front counter.

The DC was filling in the station logbook. He gave Shaw a black plastic box, about the size of a brick, and flipped open the hinged top. Inside was a porous pad. In the lid was a stamp. He pressed it into the ink, turned his hand over, and printed a neat BT on his skin, just like the one Valentine had seen on the skin of the driver of the Mondeo, and just like the one on Jillie Baker?Sibley’s narrow wrist.

‘We’ve had some luck,’ said Birley. ‘Forty?one tickets were sold for the dance. Security for the disco, and the running of the bar, was handled by a private company…’ Birley checked a neat note, ‘called SoundEvent, based in Lynn. The parish council chairman is Rod Belcher — he’s outside if you want a word. He says his son went and he said there was no trouble. The bar was beer and lager

Birley worked a finger inside his shirt collar, easing the material away from his neck. ‘So: forty?one names, twenty?nine blokes. I’ve got the lot. One of them has to be our runaway driver.’

He unfolded a file and arranged the snapshots. Birley had dragooned two uniformed PCs from Burnham to help build the photo gallery. He laid them out in rows, then stood back, admiring his work. Valentine studied the faces. Then he did it a second time, but it was just for show. ‘Nope. ’Fraid not.’

Birley blew out his cheeks. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

‘Our kid got in for nowt,’ said Valentine.

‘How?’ said Birley, looking at Shaw.

‘You said the parish council chairman had a son?’ asked Shaw.

Birley searched the faces, found the one he was looking for, and stabbed it with his index finger. ‘Gerald Belcher — known to his friends as Gee.’

‘It’s not him,’ said Valentine. ‘Believe me.’

‘There was someone else at that disco, Mark. We need to find him. Let’s speak to Gee’s dad. He’s here?’

Birley outlined their problem with the photos but Belcher couldn’t help. His son was a regular at the discos, which were monthly, and he was sure there was no one there who was a stranger.

‘Bit of a mystery,’ said Belcher, checking a mobile. ‘You never go?’ asked Valentine, his head wreathed in