Death Wore White

The door to the farmhouse was on the latch, the hallway warm, full of shadows. Upstairs they could hear a child’s voice, Izzy Dereham’s comforting murmur running in counterpoint. Valentine shouted up that they were there, that they needed to talk. She said she’d be a minute, so they sat in the kitchen by what was left of a log fire, watching the clock creep towards six. Three rabbits, a hare and a brace of pigeon hung gutted from a rafter. She must be good with a gun, thought Shaw, and imagined her out on the marsh, the birds wheeling over her head. There was a child’s drawing pinned to the door — a black cat again, on a raft at sea. Shaw walked to the window and shivered. Outside the clouds had finally closed over Gallow Marsh. The night snow was sporadic, in the wind.

When she appeared in the kitchen she seemed distracted, harassed. She considered taking the rocking chair by the Aga, but stood instead, leaning against the warm rail.

‘Detective Inspector. Sergeant.’ She tried to find pockets for her hands but gave up the struggle. She wore heavy?duty boots, green canvas trousers, a smock in blue, blotched with chemical stains.

‘We found something in the ditch.’

She crossed her arms.

‘The AA diversion sign. We wondered where it had

‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

‘Was it just for the money?’ He looked round the kitchen. ‘The lease is up next year? Things must be tough. And then John Holt turns up on the doorstep one day — bringing a present for his godchild?’

She looked at her feet. Shaw thought how it was always little lies and omissions that were the real clues to guilt. Valentine got out his notebook and began to scribble a note.

‘Holt’s got your daughter’s picture at his daughter’s house. Bit like that one…’ Shaw nodded at the snapshot framed on the wall.

She shrugged. ‘John’s my uncle. It’s not a crime, is it? I’m a Holt too — I kept Pat’s name after he died. It’s all there was.’

Shaw braced both hands around his knee. ‘You’ve been formally interviewed about the events here on Siberia Belt — you didn’t mention the connection. Neither did he. What was there to hide?’

She ran her wrist across her lips and Shaw could see the rhythmic tremble in the fingers. Water began to pump out of her eyes and she grabbed a chair, the legs scraping horribly on the cork tiles.

‘Your parents lost their farm, didn’t they?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ she said, her head dropping. ‘Dad couldn’t take it — he killed himself, in the car with a pipe to the exhaust. I was seven. Uncle John helped Mum for a while, but it was no good. We gave it up.’

‘And then it looked like it might happen again. Your

The line of her mouth broke, a sudden flush in her face squeezing out the tears, fully formed, like a child’s crystal beads. ‘It wasn’t a crime,’ she said, throwing her head back. ‘No one was going to get hurt.’

Shaw winced at the cliche, because it was never true. ‘John said James Baker?Sibley owned Shark Tooth — and Shark Tooth owned Gallow Marsh. I’d get a year, rent free, time to get back on top of things.’ She stood suddenly, pacing the kitchen. ‘All I had to do was put the sign out at the right moment, then fetch it back in. They had to do it on Siberia Belt because there’s no phone signal — and it’s the only spot on her route that’s remote enough. It’s always her route — that was something else I had to do, down on the coast road, I timed her each Monday for a month. Five o’clock, a few minutes either way. She never missed.’

She went to the mantelpiece over the fire. There was a family picture, framed in black wood; she turned it face down.

‘It wasn’t the only…’ Shaw searched for the right word, ‘enterprise you were involved in, was it? You were already working for Colin Narr, helping get his smuggled merchandise ashore. The light on the dovecote to guide the boat in. Did they bring the stuff here?’

She nodded. Valentine scribbled.

‘I didn’t have a choice. Narr said he’d make it his business to push for the rent arrears on the farm. Get me Skolt — over to Ostend. It was always timed so that they could slide back in to Lynn on a tide at dusk. They’d get in close — using the light on the barn — then drop the raft for the last few hundred yards. It’d be dark by then. I’d meet Terry down on the sands, stow the raft by the oyster beds, bring the stuff back here. Terry always had a lift waiting, up on Siberia Belt.

‘He was due Sunday. The day after the consignment comes ashore Narr’s men are always out on the delivery run — it’s the only day I know they won’t be here. That’s why we timed Siberia Belt for the Monday — we knew the coast would be clear. But first Terry didn’t appear, then you turned up looking for the drums. It was a nightmare, but we couldn’t stop it happening.’

She rubbed her hands on the skin of her cheeks. ‘We just had to keep our nerve. The plan was too complicated to ditch. If we wanted to get her off the road, and out of mobile contact, it had to be that night. Mr Baker?Sibley was ready as well, and the tides were right for him to sail before dawn.’

‘Take me through what happened,’ said Shaw.

‘We met here first — me, Uncle John, and Harvey Ellis. Harvey was sick with worry over that kid of his.’

‘Jake,’ said Shaw.

‘Harvey put the pick?up truck in the barn out of sight and we sat in the cab, going through it all one last time.’

‘What time was this?’ asked Shaw.

She shrugged, and Shaw noticed that her eyes had lost

Apples, thought Shaw.

‘Harvey was in a bad way. Nervous. He was sick, throwing up, shaking. He said he couldn’t do it. We said he had to. John said it was too important to all of us. And no one was going to get hurt. Then they drove down to Siberia Belt in the pick?up — the two of them.’

The key. At last. Shaw sat back: ‘So Harvey Ellis’s van was already parked up on Siberia Belt — he didn’t arrive there with the rest of the convoy?’

‘That’s right. They were going to switch the plugs — fake a breakdown. That’s why John went: Ellis said he couldn’t do it on his own. I guess they took the tree down to make sure. They were pretty nervous. Then John came back. Things were OK then — I could see it was going to be all right. John said he’d talked Ellis round, that once he was out in position he’d calmed down. Then it was our turn to get in place. When I got the van down to the junction just here by the farm I could see Ellis standing by the pick?up out on Siberia Belt — he waved. That’s the last time I ever saw him.’

Shaw nodded. The confession had been smooth, almost effortless. Too smooth?

‘Then?’ asked Valentine.

‘It was simple, really. We got in position on the coast road in a lay?by. When Baker?Sibley’s Alfa went past John had to stay behind her, I got in front. When I reached Siberia Belt I had time to drop off the sign, then drive back here.’

‘So Sarah Baker?Sibley followed your lights up the track?’ him there, all the way from Castle Rising.’

The wings of a gull scuffed at the window and left a feathered imprint in the ice.

Izzy Dereham jumped at the noise. ‘When I saw a few more cars go past at the junction I walked down, on the far side of the trees, and dragged the sign in. We needed to keep Baker?Sibley there for an hour — that was the deal. If she’d tried to reverse John was going to put his back wheels over the ditch and keep her in. But the snowstorm made it easier. We knew she was trapped for hours.’

Valentine closed his notebook. ‘But when you and John Holt left the farm Harvey Ellis was alive?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And alone?’

‘No.’ She turned to Shaw. ‘It wasn’t just the three of us. There was a fourth: someone to put the sign out at the other end of Siberia Belt. He was going to meet Harvey at the pick?up — just to double?check everything was OK. When I drove off there were two figures out on the track. John said this other man had planned the whole thing, and sorted the money side, but he wouldn’t tell me his name. All he said was that he was James Baker? Sibley’s man. His eyes and ears — that’s what he said. Baker?Sibley’s eyes and ears.’