Death Wore White

pick their way forward on stepping?stones.

‘We could drive,’ ventured Valentine, looking hopefully at the Land Rover.

‘It’s fifty yards, George — not a walk in the Hindu Kush.’

Shaw set out, his boots splashing. The causeway ran in an elliptical path, resting on the tail of the original gravel bar, so that as they walked they began to see the front of the house, built to face the open sea. There was a lawn, a flagpole freshly whitewashed, a wooden veranda.

Valentine saw her first. He was moving slowly, picking a dry path. He stopped to take a breath and looked up: there was a shadow moving in the stand of old pine trees, where a swing had been hung from the great branches. Someone on the swing, moving in time with the metronome.

Eeeeeer Acttttttttt.

Eeeeeer Acttttttttt.

Across the lawn their footsteps were silent, but even when they went under the trees, crunching through iced twigs, she didn’t take her eyes off the sea. She was bare?headed, close?cropped. Shaw was struck again by the contradictions in her: the swinging carefree playtime of a child, but the fixed gaze, the self?possession of the adult.

‘Jillie?’ he asked.

She didn’t stop, didn’t look at them. Shaw caught the swing by the rope and the seat, setting her back to the vertical.

Through a break in the dunes they could see white water, a dog running on a beach a mile wide on the mainland.

‘We need to take you home,’ said Shaw.

She fished in a quilted jacket decorated with sewn flowers, then held up a mobile.

‘I’ve phoned. Mum’s coming. She was waiting for the tide.’

‘Mr Narr?’ asked Shaw.

She snapped out of it, jerked her head back as if throwing the long hair she’d once had out of her eyes.

‘He’s home.’

‘Where have you been?’ asked Shaw. ‘Your mother’s been worried. We all have.’

‘I was going to see Dad,’ she laughed. ‘But Colin spotted me on the road. And now I know that I’ll never see Dad.’ She looked at Shaw for the first time and he saw that the incredible violet eyes were dimmed, as if sunk beneath

Valentine stayed with her while Shaw went to check the house. When he opened the door he smelt food. Pork? And something else, a fused plug, a shorting wire?

He called for Narr. From the garden he heard the return of the swing’s rusted motion.

Eeeeeer Acttttttttt.

Eeeeeer Acttttttttt.

He climbed the stairs, the smell of the cooked meat getting stronger, knowing that must be wrong. A stained?glass window lit the central stairwell. A fisherman on a biblical boat, hauling in silver fish. On the landing a bedroom door stood open. A double bed, both bedside tables holding alarm clocks, books, a mobile phone on one.

He called again. The bathroom door was open too and he could see into a mirror set above the washbasin, clear, cold, unblushed by steam. In the corridor outside a mug stood on the carpet, full of tea, a thin scuddy film on the surface, and a plug in the socket, the lead trailing away into the bathroom. Shaw pushed at the door and walked in. A shower unit stood empty. The stench of meat was tangible, as if he’d bent forward to get the Sunday roast out of the oven. He turned to look down into the bath.

‘Jesus.’ He took a single step to the toilet bowl and vomited.

Colin Narr lay in the bath, his limbs contorted into an agonizing semaphore. In the water lay a toaster: silver,

The only sound was the swing in the garden.

Eeeeeer Acttttttttt.

Eeeeeer Acttttttttt.

Colin Narr had made many mistakes in the last week of his life, but telling Jillie Baker?Sibley that her father had died that night on Styleman’s Middle was his last. In the warmth of the BMW she’d listened to him recount what had happened. How he and her mother had only wanted to protect her, to bring her home. But that her father had been stupid, to tell the men who came to get her that he had cash on board. So little money to die for:?50,000. He said she had to understand, that lies were necessary. Neither he nor her mother had planned that James should die. It had been Lufkin and Fibich’s fault. Narr said he’d been horrified when Lufkin told him what had happened; and he’d kept it from her mother. But it was too late — James was dead. They had to do what was right for Jillie and Sarah. Jillie had smiled then, because it was really about what was right for him.

How had he found her? Mother’s intuition. James had a cottage near East Midlands airport, a village close to the motorway. Sarah had never been given a key, even after they were married. But if they’d made a plan — daughter and father — then that would be it. To meet there. Jillie had some money of her own, a bank card. But they knew she’d keep clear of the trains and coaches. And Sarah knew she loved hitch?hiking, because she’d been forbidden to do it. She’d gone into Lynn once with

And they were right. When those men had come aboard the Hydra to take her away they’d let her have a minute alone with her father. He hadn’t argued with them because the little man had a gun. He kept passing it from hand to hand, the sweat glistening on the cold metal. But he’d asked for some time alone. That’s when he’d given her the key, told her to get to the cottage when she could. He’d be there. Then the foreign one had rowed her ashore. She’d waited for her moment to leave home and then stuck to the plan. And she would have seen it through, up until the moment she’d climbed into Narr’s black Jag. He’d told her that her father was dead. And that had changed the world. She’d lost a brother, and now she’d lost her father. It was about time someone paid the price.

They sat in silence during the rest of the ride back to Narr’s house. Jillie’s hands clenched and unclenched, imagining revenge. All the anger she’d harboured during her young life had finally found a target. Someone upon whom she could focus her hate.

The tide was out so they’d driven over. She’d said she wasn’t in a hurry to get home, her mother would be in the shop, so he could eat, have a bath — he’d been out all night; she’d text her mum. They’d had eggs on toast. He’d broken the eggs scraping them out of the pan, but the bread had popped up nicely browned from the toaster with a silver anchor on the side.

Sarah Baker?Sibley was on her way. So he’d filled the bath and she’d made tea. He said to leave it outside the

Had she said anything? Shaw had asked.

She’d thought about that, coolly reconstructing the moment of murder.

‘No. Nothing.’ She’d smiled then, running her hand through her short hair. ‘I know what I thought. I thought that I had a brother once and that I’d forgiven Dad for killing him. But I couldn’t forgive anyone any more, not for anything. Either of them. You can’t spend your whole life forgiving people.’ She’d crossed her hands on her lap. ‘That’s taking advantage.’

There was silence round the table in the Red House. The jukebox had run dry while Shaw was briefing them. DC Twine tilted his head back and finished his bottle of Chimay.

‘Will she talk?’ asked Mark Birley, one of his ham?sized hands wrapped round a pint.

‘Sarah Baker?Sibley? She’s talking already,’ said Shaw. ‘She rang Narr from Gallow Marsh the night of the storm. She didn’t know what they’d do, of course. Her crime was not telling us what she’d done. Jillie’s given us a positive ID on Lufkin — so it’s all over for him. We can put him on the boat, the forensics are watertight, and the motive comes in fifty?pound notes. I’m recommending a murder charge tomorrow when I see Warren.’

‘What happens to Jillie?’ asked Twine.

‘And her mother?’