When he saw the small shambling figure with thin, lank hair, he thought he must be wrong. Giddy would be twenty?three, twenty?four, a young man still despite the horrors of his short life. This man was as ageless as all those who lived on the streets, hidden from the world like a leper, wrapped in a formless heavy coat. Clutching a plastic supermarket bag to his chest with one hand, he
It took him too long and Shaw guessed that he’d seen him and that he always sat on this bench; although there was another.
So Shaw stood. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I know this is your place at this time. My name’s Peter. I’m a policeman. I just wanted a word, Giddy.’
The man turned, a knee on the wet grass. His face was fine, a thin nose, delicate cheekbones, and a high, brittle forehead. A miniature face, stunted. Acne disfigured the skin and a half?hearted moustache straggled over his mouth, hiding his upper lip.
He didn’t respond and Shaw wondered if he was shivering or shaking. ‘Giddy. Can I talk to you?’ Shaw opened a small rucksack he’d put at his feet, taking out a thermos flask. ‘It’s tea, would you like a cup? Bernard said you liked tea in the morning.’
Bernard Parkin was the man Shaw had spoken to the previous day. He was Giddy’s social worker, and the closest thing he had in the world to a friend.
A pigeon flapped around the headstones and Giddy stood quickly, walking sideways to the bench. He sat hunched against the armrest.
‘I always sit here,’ he said. ‘It’s under the sky.’
Shaw leant back and looked directly up. He was right, the edge of the roadway above was twenty feet to one side, giving a clear view of the clouds of dawn.
‘Mum’s grave,’ said Giddy. ‘Yes,’ said Shaw.
‘I’m sorry, Giddy. It’s about the boys who locked you up.’
Giddy tried to look into Shaw’s face. The eyes were dove?grey, and one of them oscillated slightly, as if struggling to focus. ‘I never talk about that.’
‘I know. I’m going to speak to those boys soon — the three that were caught and punished. Do you want me to say anything to them?’
Giddy thought about it. ‘Tell them I’m happy now. Better.’
Shaw nodded. ‘And the fourth one — I just thought you might have known who it was. Did you, Giddy?’
Giddy looked at him then, the grey eye wandering. ‘Stop following me.’
‘I’m not following you.’
He stood, one arm jerking suddenly, the plastic bag gyrating. ‘Fucking are.’ He walked away, then turned. ‘Dark glasses yesterday,’ he said. ‘But I know. You were in the stairwell last night, and then by the park this morning. I don’t like it, it’s like being trapped outside. Stop it.’
He walked back to Shaw, looked him in the face. ‘Stop it.’ He looked at the graveyard as if seeing it for the first time. ‘I don’t want you here, but I can’t leave.’
Shaw nodded. ‘I’ll go. If you want to talk, or you need help, ring this number.’ He put a card on the seat, and a?10 note, weighing it down with one of the limpet shells.
As Valentine drove east along the coast road, a hoar frost had the countryside in its grip, adding bone?white trees to a landscape of fresh snow. Shaw tried to focus on the events on Siberia Belt the night Harvey Ellis died. The central mystery remained: who had killed him, and how? They’d now interviewed everyone in the line of stranded cars at least twice: all except the teenager who had run from the scene that night as the helicopter had swung in to land on Ingol Beach — young Sebastian Draper. His solicitor had phoned to say he’d be available for interview at nine that morning — but that his client wanted to meet at a scrap?metal yard on the edge of Wells. He had something to show them, as well as tell them.
John Kimbolton amp; Sons was a graveyard for cars. It lay a mile out of town on the saltmarsh, the tottering piles of wrecked chassis only partly hidden behind an ugly hedge of leylandii tinted with frost. They flashed their warrant cards at a mechanic working with a welding torch by the entrance.
‘Just looking for a vehicle,’ said Valentine. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
Draper arrived on the stroke of the hour in a powder?blue Bentley driven by his solicitor. The 18?year?old hadn’t chosen his own clothes that morning: a charcoal?grey suit, the blue tie knotted savagely tight, the shirt as white as
They shook hands; two detectives, solicitor and client.
‘OK. Sebastian? Why here?’ said Shaw, the snow beginning to fall. They stood by a little column of six crushed cars, one on top of the other. Shaw rested an ungloved hand on the nearest chassis, then pulled it back as he felt his skin freeze to the metal.
Draper had rehearsed his story, which didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
The gap?year idea had been a disaster. All his friends except Gee Belcher had left the village. He didn’t want to travel abroad, not alone. His parents were in London during the week. Sarah, his girlfriend, had left for university at Durham. His father paid him an allowance but it wasn’t much and so he’d got a summer job with the council, filling holes in the road. He’d made friends, the wrong kind of friends, and stayed on when winter came. He’d get into Lynn by bus, or if he could he’d borrow Rod Belcher’s car, the BMW. They’d sus out likely cars, drink enough to overcome the fear they’d be caught, then pile in and drive out here to Kimbolton’s. Never before seven, the only rule, and cash in hand:?100 per vehicle — any vehicle. They never knew what happened to them but it was easy to guess: there was a paint shed,
Valentine noted that the mechanic had stopped welding and was now on a mobile phone.
‘They gave us the cash in an envelope. Twenties, always twenties. Then we had to go back and wait by the office for a lift into town. That was it, every time.’
The snow was heavier now, settling on the lawyer’s cashmere coat. There was a partly wrecked bus parked by the leylandii — a double?decker, its windows out. Shaw led them on board and they sat on the stiff icy seats. It was out of the snow but somehow colder, like sitting in a fridge.
Draper told them what had happened that night on Siberia Belt. He’d stolen a car, got caught on Siberia Belt, panicked when the police arrived and fled the scene. One unexpected detail. Draper might have stuck it out for longer that night, but he said he’d recognized Sarah Baker?Sibley. He said she always picked her daughter up from the discos at Burnham Thorpe. It was a small world, he said. That was the problem with growing up in it.
The interview was, as Shaw had suspected, a depressing dead?end. He let Valentine take over the questions while he rang St James’s and got put through to the car?crime unit. They’d need to check out every wreck on the yard before the management had time to cover their tracks.
Valentine was shivering now, holding his raincoat to his thin neck. ‘That night — how’d you get home?’ he asked.
‘In the snow? I got down to the coast road… I fell
‘You memorize that?’ asked Valentine, offering him a smoke.
Draper looked at his lawyer, then the Silk Cut, then took one. ‘I don’t need to. I can’t forget numbers — not once I’ve seen them.’ Shaw recalled Parlour’s description of the teenage driver of the Mondeo on Siberia Belt; the T?shirt logo
‘Why’d you take the steering?wheel cover with you when you stole the car?’ asked Shaw, taking an interest now, realizing that Valentine had been right to probe.
‘I didn’t have gloves,’ he admitted. ‘I’d been along for the ride before, nicking cars. But they said this one was mine. That way I got the money — all the money. I didn’t want to leave any prints. I used my T?shirt when I opened the door.’
Draper smoked the cigarette cupped in his hand. ‘We don’t need to go to the station,’ said Shaw. Barrett nodded, catching his client’s eye with a wink.
‘I think you’ve been honest with me, Sebastian,’ said Shaw.
‘Seb,’ he said, then bit his lip.
‘Seb,’ said Shaw. Valentine jiggled his dice key ring. But Shaw hadn’t finished. Something about Seb Draper intrigued him. He wondered what it was like to have the kind of brain that couldn’t forget a number.
‘Seb, we’re trying to find out what really happened out there on that road on Monday night. You know what
