Death Watch

Stillness must be a great virtue in a priest, thought Shaw. He looked Shaw directly in the face. ‘How?’

‘Too early to say,’ said Shaw, deciding it was his turn to be elliptical.

Martin went to the desk and screwed the cup off the top of a small metal Thermos flask. He filled it with black coffee. The aroma in the fusty room was deeply exotic. He walked to the bay window and looked out to the street.

‘I am disappointed in the people here, many we know, many worship here. To do that… to burn down the hostel. They say it was Andrew Judd…’ He laughed, as if the irony was an impossible one.

Shaw studied the walls. There was a framed degree certificate from the Universidade Federal do Parana. And a framed poster in a language he didn’t recognize: a vibrant colourful Christ, armed with a pistol, standing on a barricade in a city street, red flags flying in the mob behind him.

‘A mob,’ said Shaw, touching the frame.

‘A crusade,’ said Martin, looking at the picture. He gestured through the door. ‘That was a mob.’

Shaw checked his watch, wanting to press on. Father Martin’s shoulders relaxed at the prospect of being left alone.

‘You’re a long way from home, Father,’ said Shaw, walking into the hall.

‘I go where I’m needed. I am not needed in my own country,’ said Martin, following.

‘Brazil,’ Martin said at last.

‘Brazil must have its poor parishes,’ said Shaw.

‘It does. But I believe that Christ wants us to fight for the poor, Inspector. Fight. I believe Christ wants us to drag down the rich, and that money is a sin. Once this theology was popular. A revolutionary theology. Not now. So I go where I am wanted.’

‘And your degree? Theology then, or politics?’

Martin took a deep breath. ‘Medicine.’

‘Don’t the poor need a doctor?’

‘Christ wanted me to do this,’ he said, and Shaw thought what a smug answer that was.

Shaw had one last question. ‘What about Neil Judd, the youngest? I don’t see him as a church-goer.’

‘No. Christmas — with his father. They are close. Ally says he holds the family together, despite them. That is sometimes the role of the youngest. I don’t know why.’

Shaw nodded happily, wondering if the priest had noticed his error; replacing the stiff and formal ‘Alison’ with the familiar ‘Ally’.

Shaw stood back to let one of the hospital tugs go past, the electric motor straining, the driver rhythmically hitting the horn with the heel of his palm. Eight trucks, all crammed with yellow bags destined for the incinerator. He held his breath, making sure he didn’t pick up a trace of the smell, then watched it diminish for fifty yards, trundling into the heart of Level One, until it turned a distant sharp left, and was gone.

He stood looking at the face of his mobile phone. He’d just had a short conversation with Valentine, who’d filled him in with a fifty-word summary of what he’d discovered about the disappearance of Norma Jean Judd. Was it relevant? Maybe. But they needed more information, so he’d asked Valentine to track down DCI Jack Shaw’s DS on the case — Wilf Jackson. Retired now, he lived in a bungalow at Snettisham on the coast. But he had a mind like a gazetteer, and he’d remember the case like it was yesterday. Shaw had a specific question: where was Bryan Judd the evening his sister went missing in 1992? And Neil — the youngest? Valentine was to get out to the coast, flesh out the story, then get back for the full briefing at 10.30.

The murder incident room was at Junction 24. Shaw pushed open a pair of double doors marked BIOMECHATRONICS: STORAGE.

The original contents of the room — a series of metal shelves holding artificial limbs — had been pushed back against one wall. Shaw could see rows of arms, lower legs, claw-like hands and feet; in plastic boxes swaddled prosthetics with pink fake skin, tangles of cable and pulleys, balls and sockets in sickly-white and perspex. And a rack of sticks and crutches, some in metal, but many in worn wood. On the wall was a glass cabinet, with shelves like a Royal Mail sorting office. In each, held in cotton wool, was a glass eye. The sight made him look away. He’d avoided having a glass eye himself, but it was always a possibility, as over time his doctor had warned him that healthy single eyes often deteriorated in sympathy if their injured partners were left in place.

Shaw took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt, nodding at the watching eyes. ‘Are they all looking at me, or what?’ he asked.

Twine handed him a short report summarizing developments since they’d last talked by mobile just after

‘DS Valentine asked for a shakedown on Potts and Bourne — they’re the incinerator workers who were there when the victim was found,’ said Twine, holding a sheaf of statements. ‘Potts was the last to see Judd alive at 7.45 — but he wasn’t alone. There was a third man on early duty — Kelley. He saw him too. By the way, all of them had noticed he’d picked up a black eye recently, but none of them can recall when he got it.’

Twine’s summary had brought silence to the room, but his voice didn’t alter. ‘We know Judd was dead at 8.31 when the furnace was stopped by Bourne. Between 7.45 and the arrival of Darren Wylde, Potts and Bourne were with Kelley in the control room. They were brewing up some tea on a gas burner after the power went out. Bourne got on the line to the electricity company to see what had gone wrong, and Potts was on a mobile to the generator room — checking that they could go on taking up the demand. Then Potts went down to see what the situation was on the incinerator belt. So — unless they’re all in it together — they’re all in the clear.’

Shaw sat on the edge of a desk and reread the statements, looking for a loophole. There wasn’t one. Valentine had been right to insist on a fast-track check because the odds on a killer being the person who found the corpse were surprisingly high. A fact almost constantly overlooked in those first anxious hours of a murder inquiry.

The core of the CID team had been on site since five

‘Anything?’ Shaw asked.

Birley swung round, his six foot two inch frame and fifteen stone of rugby-playing muscle crammed into a plastic bucket seat. His wrists seemed to bulge where they emerged from his suit. He’d spent a decade in uniform and his outfit was still hanger-new. There was a plaster over one eye.

‘Match?’ asked Shaw.

‘Argument with the fly-half’s boot. I lost, but you should see him. He could do with one of those sticks.’ Birley nodded at the rack. ‘And no — nothing yet.’ Birley had been on Shaw’s team before in a major inquiry and he’d learnt one good rule early: if you’ve got nothing to say, keep it short.

Twine handed Shaw a coffee and a printout of personnel. ‘That’s everyone, with mobiles.’ The young DC had been a good choice for ‘point’ — a key role, the lynch-pin between Shaw and the team, channelling information, pulling everything together, then sifting out what needed to be shared, keeping the information moving. It was like being a human mini-roundabout.

‘Right, what we need to find out, Paul, is this… Is it really possible — feasible — that Bryan Judd was able to is possible, then we have a motive which would put Aidan Holme in the frame for Judd’s murder. We’re told they fought. We’re told threats were made. But all that depends on Judd being able to supply…’

Twine tapped a fountain pen on his teeth, then flicked the screen into life on his PC. ‘I figured we’d want to have a walk-through of the incinerator system — the waste bags. From top to bottom. We can go ahead with that then see where the drugs consignment fits in. I’ve got the man in charge of human waste ready now, for a quick tour. Dr Gavin Peploe — Level 10, Mary Seacole Ward.’

‘Well done,’ said Shaw. That’s what he wanted in his team, the kind of straightforward logic that made a murder inquiry hum. He put a?20 note on the desktop. ‘In the meantime get someone up to Costa Coffee on the main concourse and get everyone a decent coffee — that was truly awful.’ He lobbed his empty cup fifteen feet into a bin.

‘One other thing,’ said Twine. He clicked the screen. ‘Duty book…’ The front desk at St James’s kept an online record of all crime. It was standard inquiry procedure to cross-check with the last forty-eight hours. ‘Familiar litany,’