dears while sorting out their finances. One of the relatives spotted that the numbers didn’t add up. Eight counts — down for three years. He’s only just come back to the area; been away a year, here for just a few days. They gave him a spare room. Hostel’s only for the dossers they trust, apparently. They have to be clean — no booze, no drugs, no sex. Martin says Hendre’s got serious mental health issues: paranoia. But he doesn’t touch stuff — any kind of stuff. He hadn’t heard of anyone called…’ She checked her notebook. ‘The Organ Grinder?’
Shaw nodded.
‘But he says the last time Hendre was here he claimed he was being followed by a man in a white coat with a butcher’s cleaver. Mad as a hatter.’
Shaw walked out into the middle of the street. He was
But Shaw had other ideas.
‘Jackie,’ he said. ‘Get some sleep — then seven tomorrow at the hospital. George has set up an incident room close to the SOC. Be there.’
‘Sir.’ She crammed the last of the bacon into her mouth and fired up the Megane, the engine rumble making a few loose windows vibrate.
Shaw watched the car turn the corner by the abattoir. ‘We don’t really need our beauty sleep — do we, George? How about some overtime?’
Valentine’s shoulders slumped. ‘Now?’
‘Yeah — now. Ring the hospital — find me this Kennedy character. If he’s the warden, does he live here, on the street? Find out. See if he’s coming home, and if he is, tell him we want a word. He knows Holme, knows him well. I want to know what he knows, and I want to know now. Holme said something to him — here, in the street. When Holme said he was dying he also said, “I told you” — like he’d predicted it. I want to know what that meant.’ He looked around, bouncing on his toes. ‘If he’s staying at the hospital we’ll go to him.’
As Valentine made the call Shaw listened to the night. It was quiet now, in the witching hour after midnight,
Valentine stood by the car, cut off his mobile, and lit a cigarette. ‘Kennedy’s on his way back now in one of our squad cars — ten minutes. He lives at the church.’
‘Great,’ said Shaw.
And then, sharply, out of the night, came the sound of running footsteps. In the street, nothing moved. But the sound was as unmistakable as a chiming clock. Shaw could see the whole street and nothing in it was moving. Behind the houses on each side ran tarmacked paths. Is that where the sound came from? Not just footsteps. Metallic footsteps. Shaw imagined them conjuring up a line of sparks in the dark. And then they were gone.
Shaw and Valentine stood together in silence, examining the texture of the night for the sound they’d both heard. It was an odd facet of their relationship, one that neither would ever openly admit, that they did have this ability to know, unspoken, that they were thinking exactly the same thing.
‘Get a couple of uniforms to check the back alleys,’ said Shaw. ‘Someone’s about.’ He checked the tide watch. ‘Someone who shouldn’t be about.’ But Valentine went himself, walking stiffly but quickly to the nearest entry and disappearing down into the shadows, already on the mobile summoning assistance.
Then Shaw heard footsteps again, but this time they were scuffed and soft. Looking back at the dock gates he saw a man appear out of the shadows, opening a wire gate, and swinging a torch so that it danced at his feet. He had a badge on the chest pocket of a set of neat blue overalls which read NORTH NORFOLK POWER. Mid-fifties, with academic half-moon glasses, he looked out of place in the utility’s overalls. A professor on a building site. He said his name was Andersen, head of supply, out on call.
‘Police? Senior Fire Officer said I should talk to you — we’re here to get the power back on? We sent out a unit earlier but they’ve just got me out too…’ Shaw recalled
‘I’ll get an officer to you asap. Ten minutes?’
Andersen shrugged. ‘Sure. But I think you’ll regret not taking a look yourself. Believe me.’
Shaw felt the tension buzzing in his bloodstream. He needed to get on, to focus; he didn’t need a pointless distraction. But that, he knew, was an attitude which might lead to disaster. Because it was far too early to separate a pointless distraction from a vital lead, just hours into a murder inquiry. He forced himself to relax, letting his shoulders fall, his neck muscles unbunching, telling himself he was tired, stressed.
He followed Andersen to the wire fence, through the gate, and around some dusty shrubs until they could see the electricity sub-station. The building was bathed in the light from a small battery lantern hung from a branch. Shaw guessed the building was inter-war, a confection in concrete thinly disguised as a kind of Greek temple, with a row of half-columns, a decorated arch, and the rendering painted a delicate cream. There was even a frieze depicting naked Greek athletes: a discus thrower, a shot putter, and wrestlers. Genitalia had been added in spray paint to the original graceful classical lines, and a graffiti tag, ‘TOG’, in curled, bloated letters.
‘Bit of a collector’s item, this one,’ said Andersen. ‘Grade II listed; 1949. Renovated in the nineties. Build one these days you’d pick a brick-box out of a catalogue. They had some civic pride then.’
Shaw examined the engineer’s face, noting the bags
Andersen laughed. ‘You’re kidding. This is all part of the job, Inspector. Our contract makes us solely responsible for restoring supply — till then I stay on site.’ He yawned, revealing a pale pink throat.
There was a yard strewn with rubbish: beer bottles, cans, a CD player, and a buckled supermarket trolley. A dead cat lay amongst the litter, its lips drawn back from white teeth.
Andersen opened a reinforced metal door and switched on a torch.
‘They cut the bolts on this,’ he said, indicating a padlock hanging, the shackle sheared through.
Inside, there was a small area of bare concrete, while the rest of the building was crammed with what looked like a giant 1930s radio, or an antique computer: electrical switch gear, insulated wiring, printed circuit plates, brass, aluminium, steel and plastic. Despite the squalor of the yard the machinery was rustless. If electricity has an aroma they were overwhelmed by it now; the thin after-smell of warm plastic and heated metal.
‘This is pretty much museum quality too,’ said the engineer, swinging the torch beam over the scene. ‘Upgraded, like I said, in the nineties. Past it now. We won’t bother to repair it, put it like that. We’ll rip it out. Which means the power’ll be out for some time, so we’re running in a temporary supply now by cable.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We should have the juice any moment now.’
The engineer knelt where someone had drawn a chalk line.
Shaw squatted down. ‘You smoke? Any of your crew?’
Andersen shook his head.
Shaw thought about the habit. You struck the match, you broke it with one hand, then flicked it clear. No ashtray — just on the ground. It was the kind of habit you’d pick up working outside, all day, every day.
Andersen played the torch on the concrete floor, revealing a stain like a spreading head wound. Shaw could smell evaporating fuel — probably paraffin. A bottle lay on its side unbroken — a milk bottle — a half-burnt rag in the neck. Scorch marks ran up into the electrics and a bunch of wires, like disembodied nerves, hung together in a melted mess. Shaw couldn’t stop the flash of memory, seeing again the handless arm of the victim in the incinerator, the flesh fused by the heat.
They heard footsteps behind them, and Valentine appeared. He caught Shaw’s eye. ‘Nothing from the back alleys — they’re checking out the rough ground but it’s deserted out there.’ He stepped forward, assessing the scene. ‘Molotov cocktail?’ he asked.
‘Right,’ said the engineer. ‘Fire officer tells me there’s evidence of others up at that house they burnt out. So there’s a little production line somewhere — someone’s a proper little Guy Fawkes.’
‘I don’t get it — looks like it didn’t explode.’
‘That’s right, I think. They got two things wrong. The bottle didn’t break — perhaps they chucked it in and then ran for it — and they’ve shut the door after them. These things are pretty much airtight. The fire’s used up the oxygen and fizzled out.’
‘But the power went?’ said Valentine, shifting his feet because his back was aching, the tiredness making his head hang even lower on his neck.
‘Yes. If that was what they wanted then they struck lucky. The flames from the rag have burnt those wires there…’ He pointed with an insulated screwdriver. ‘The insulating plastic has melted away and left two of the cables
