up.’ He’d bookmarked the relevant frames so that the film jumped to a new image, then froze. Twine stepped forward and used his finger’s shadow to point out one of the singers in the back row. ‘I got one of the old guys at the choir to name this lot. That’s Sam Venn, from the church.’
He magnified the image so that Venn’s distinctively lop-sided face almost filled the screen. Shaw thought he’d grown into his disability, accommodated it, because as a younger man the disfigurement was more obvious.
‘Now,’ said Twine, ‘that image was taken at eight thirty. Venn stays in the back row the whole of the first session until nine thirty-five. This next image is the first song of the second session — there’s no digital time on the film but the clock in the room says it was ten thirty. There …’ he used his finger again to trace the whole of the back line. ‘He’s gone. He doesn’t appear again.’
Shaw stared at the image. He’d had Sam Venn down in his book as many things, but outright liar hadn’t been one of them.
‘Anyone else step out?’ asked DC Lau, coming in with a Starbucks coffee in her hand, unzipping her leather jacket.
‘No. Absolutely not,’ said Twine. ‘The rest of the choir are all still there.’
Another image flashed up. The camera had moved slightly so that they could now see the doorway into the main bar — a Moorish arch, a kitsch 1950s addition. But there was another door visible, a side door, marked STAFF. As Twine let the image roll forward in slow motion the door opened and a man came out: early twenties, black, in a yellow silk shirt and jeans. He stood in the half-open doorway, as if protecting his escape route.
‘This is earlier. I think that’s Patrice Garrison — our victim,’ said Twine. ‘I’ve got a grab of the image, so we can get it to his mother for a formal ID. But that’s him, got to be.’
Shaw stood and walked to the screen, keeping the cone of light from the projector to his left. He should be proud of his forensic reconstruction, because the likeness was near perfect. The figure didn’t smile, but his lips were parted, and Shaw could see the tell-tale gap between the front teeth. The structure of the face was very close to that of his son Ian’s — less fine, the skin tone darker. In the background the clock read 9.10 p.m.
‘This is the only time he comes into shot,’ said Twine.
‘Right,’ said Shaw. ‘And Lizzie said they talked at about ten. So at this point he doesn’t know he’s about to become a father.’
They watched him drink from a small shot glass he held easily in his hand. Shaw noted that no one in the room had greeted him, and that he made no eye contact with anyone.
But he’d been noticed, even if he appeared not to notice anyone else. There was a table to the right crowded with five or six men, their hair uniformly and aggressively short. As Pat Garrison opened the door one of them watched him, nudged his neighbour, and they all looked, their heads edging closer, as if conspiring. One, in a T- shirt, had bare arms covered in tattoos: a Union Flag conspicuous. ‘Him,’ said Shaw, touching the screen on the face of a man at the back of the group. ‘Can you blow that image up?’
Twine worked at the laptop, the screen went blank and one of the DCs in the dark whistled. Then the screen lit up again. The face — slightly distorted by magnification — was wide and belligerent, caught in the middle of a snarl. It was Freddie Fletcher.
‘Let’s see if we can get names for the rest of the men at that table, Paul,’ said Shaw. ‘Can we see the shot without Venn again?’
Twine had it up instantly. The crowded group of skinheads at the table was still there, but the camera angle was different, three men nearest the camera blocking the view, playing cards, concealing the spot where Fletcher had sat.
‘Run it forward,’ said Shaw.
For a minute the table was in shot but they couldn’t see whether Fletcher was still at his seat. Then the camera moved, taking up a wider angle to one side, so that the skinheads were no longer in shot at all.
‘Damn,’ said Shaw, taking his seat. ‘And the third thing you want to show us?’
‘Lizzie Murray, sir. Well, Lizzie Tilden then, it would have been. They gave her a framed photo — of Nora with the choir. Here.’
The image froze, then broke into pixels before reforming and flowing on. Lizzie stood on the little stage, most of the men in the room on their feet, clapping.
Again, a whistle from the dark. ‘She’s amazing,’ said Shaw. Her figure was sinuous, in a simple black dress, the black hair loose. Of the starched stiffness of the woman she’d become there was no hint. She rubbed the palm of her hand down the line of her waist and hip. The noise of the applause seemed to unsettle her, the smile a nervous one. Shaw thought she was an exotic figure, the only female in the shot, her young face an almost painful contrast to those around her. At one point she looked to the door marked STAFF, but it was closed.
Twine ran the film back, but too far, so that Lizzie Tilden was gone. ‘Sorry — I’ll run up to that image if you like.’
The image of the choir returned, the choirmaster speaking …
‘Thank you. Thank you. It’s been wonderful for us to sing here tonight for Nora. She was a real friend to the choir and we’ve always felt this is our home.’ There was a perfunctory round of applause and someone said something on Fletcher’s table that caused a scandalized hushing. The choirmaster looked around, searching faces at the back of the room. ‘We have something for Lizzie — but I understand she’s gone to ground.’ There was a shout from the back of the room. ‘Is she there?’
Applause filled the room, genuine this time, the volume sustained.
Lizzie stepped up on the stage and accepted the framed photo. ‘Thanks. I know Nora loved the choir, and their singing. I’m sure you know you’ll always be welcome here.’ The choir applauded that — and Shaw realized that was the point. That the choir had turned out to perform in order to stake their claim. This had been their home while Nora was in charge. They wanted the same commitment from Lizzie, and they’d got it.
Lizzie’s voice rang out again. ‘She used to say that when the choir was here it was the one time the Flask really came alive.’ She turned to the choir. ‘You made her very happy.’
The room was silent, waiting to see what she’d say about her mother, and whether she’d say anything about her father. Cigarette smoke drifted from hands, swirled round spotlights. Shaw had to remind himself that this was a wake, that the woman they’d gathered to honour had died just a few feet away, through that door marked staff, murdered by her husband.
‘Some of you sang with her, didn’t you? Years ago. She had a good voice. It was a shame we didn’t hear it more often.’ There was a scattering of applause. ‘Well, we won’t hear her again now.’
Shaw thought she was struggling to bring emotion, any emotion, into the little speech.
She looked at the picture they’d given her. ‘But this is how she’d have wanted us to remember her.’ Applause again, a voice crying out, ‘A song!’
But she held up her hands. ‘Not me. I inherited a lot from Mother, but not her voice.’
There was laughter again, dutiful, confused. ‘A toast …’ She held up a small green glass. ‘To Nora.’
Relief flooded the room, feet stamped and they all stood, drinking and clapping. Lizzie left the stage through the Moorish arch to the bar. Matches flared as fresh cigarettes were lit.
Twine tapped away at the laptop. ‘Do you want to see the whole thing?’ he asked Shaw.
‘Please, Paul. First — coffee. Updates?’
The neon flickered back on as they refilled mugs.
‘One thing,’ said Mark Birley. ‘I had a look back through the log book at St James’s to see if there were any incidents in the last year in or near the cemetery. In June, the eighteenth, there was a report from one of the houses overlooking the graveyard — on Gladstone Street: lights at night. The incident sheet has the time down as three fifteen a.m. Woman up with a sick teenage daughter. Said she looked out the balcony window and saw a cluster of lights — two, maybe three, over down by the river. Her brother-in-law’s on traffic. She rang him, he rang the incident room. They got a car out, and the cemetery warden who had the keys for the gates. The archaeologists had started by then, so there were open graves, some digging gear. Best guess was it was someone trying to lift some of the plant. Anyway, no trace by the time they got there. But they went back — it was on the squad-car schedule for a month. They’d check twice, three times, a night. Nothing.’
‘OK,’ said Shaw. ‘Let’s get the notes on that call. And we need to talk to the cemetery warden. How’d these characters get into the cemetery — given they’re probably carrying spades and lanterns? Or did they borrow the tools — or take them? Let’s check that out with the Direct Labour boys and the Cambridge unit …Anything else?’
