his short summary.
The key forensic evidence at the scene was a set of footprints on the stairs, along the landing and into Venn’s bedroom. While the prints — too large to be Venn’s — were now dry, a muddy imprint remained of each step, indicating that they had been made by wet boots. Since it had been dry for twenty-four hours before the hailstorm at 4.35 p.m., and given the route the steps took, it appeared that this unknown party had entered the flat, gone to Venn’s room and left immediately. The entrance door to the flat hadn’t been forced. Cause of death was unknown but there were no exterior wounds. The locum pathologist, Dr John Blacker, had given them a preliminary cause of death as myocardial infarction. The symptoms exhibited matched those for poisoning and a preliminary examination of the vomit revealed traces of an aluminium-based contaminant. There were no bruises, no abrasions of any kind except a slight scuffing of the skin on the knuckles of the right hand consistent with stumbling on the stairs.
Shaw rang off and punched in Tom Hadden’s mobile number.
Hadden was back at the Ark with forensic samples taken from Venn’s flat and others from Fletcher’s — principally a packet of sausages in the fridge, an opened can of tuna fish, some cooked chicken and a piece of salmon wrapped in tinfoil.
‘Fletcher first,’ said Hadden. Shaw imagined him closing his eyes, concentrating on the detail. ‘If we’re looking for a cause of his first bout of illness — that’s the day before the Shipwrights’ Hall lunch — then we need look no further than the fridge. Tuna fish was six weeks past its best-before date and was standing in the tin — not good practice. We’ve sent that off for analysis at the FSS. The sausages were pretty high too, and uncooked, and were sitting next to the chicken. We’ll get the lab to look at everything, including the salmon — although it’ll cost. So I’d duck when you see the bill.’
‘And Venn?’
‘Nothing. I understand Paul’s given you a run-down, so you’re up to speed. The poison’s definitely aluminium based. I’m trying to get something out of the dried prints we lifted from the floor. They’re muddy, so there’s dirt, a few bits of gravel, but there’s other material. It’s early days, but I’d say some sort of organic dust — maybe flour, maybe dried milk. Foodstuffs — industrial, maybe. But the amounts are tiny — I mean really minute. And yeast — definitely yeast — and live yeast, too.’
‘I’m standing outside a canning works,’ said Shaw.
‘Maybe,’ said Hadden. ‘Or a baker’s?’ he added. ‘Venn worked at the homeless shelter and I know there’s a kitchen because they had a death last year — heart attack at one of the tables. But the yeast’s a bit odd — unless they bake their own bread.’
Shaw rang off and continued to climb the concrete staircase in the cannery to the shopfloor. There were two stationary production lines: serried rows of cans on both.
Valentine joined him, a bundle of papers under one arm. ‘The soup was a one-off order — twenty-five cans. It’s a tradition — the local soup. Twenty-five catering cans cover the lot.’
‘So they did that — canned just twenty-five for the lunch?’
‘Manager says that’s their market niche,’ said Valentine. ‘Small runs of canning and bottling orders, speciality foods, organics, health foods, fruit juices — stuff like loganberry, for Christ’s sake! Who drinks that?’ Shaw thought about the bottle standing in his fridge. ‘Then there’s local specialities: mussels, scallops, prawns, samphire.’ Valentine took a rapid extra breath, the lists draining his lungs. ‘That’s what the manager calls the “business model”,’ he added with obvious disgust, looking around the old factory. ‘More like an out-of-business model.’
‘So the cans are open like this — then shuffle forward?’ asked Shaw.
‘Chargehand says the idea of sabotage during production is crazy — no one could do it. Everyone can see — there’s half a dozen men on the line at any one time. So he thinks it was done overnight or in the kitchen at the Shipwrights’ Hall. Then again, he would say that — he’s the shop steward, and one of the men fingered by the management as a troublemaker. The fish-soup order was the first of the day — that’s three days ago. So those cans would have been out of sight — under the canopy there …’ He pointed at the place where the conveyor belt slid under a metal awning. ‘If someone got in, put the stuff in the cans, then that was it. Next time you’d see it would be in your soup bowl.’
Shaw looked around. ‘So — at night? Security staff?’
Valentine shook his head. ‘Contracted out. Chargehand says the whole site comes under Ouse Security — that’s the cannery, the self-storage site, the industrial units, and the sugar factory. We’re getting a list of names. One man with a CCTV screen over at the industrial units covers the lot — never gets off his arse. The manager here knows his name, but he’s on the phone to the company lawyers. Could be some time. They do still have a night watchman, though — old bloke, lives in the basement. He does his rounds after dark, so maybe he saw something. He’s downstairs, if you want a word. Stairwell floods, so they use a lift — it’s over there.’
Shaw almost left that for back-up to deal with. He had a profound sense that the answer to this puzzle wasn’t here in the cannery, but over the river at the Flask — that it wasn’t about cans laced with poison but the intricate cat’s cradle of emotions that linked the Tildens and the Garrisons back to the Melvilles. But he remembered what his father had told him — that if he had a chance to see with his own eyes, he should take it. Crime scene, witnesses, forensics: always see them for yourself.
When the lift doors slid apart Shaw saw him: the boiler door open, the red fire within the colour of cherries, his half-naked body on a seat, watching the flames. Shaw was struck immediately by the advanced age of the man — obvious even when seen from behind: the spine slightly buckled, the skin loose, the head — a weight — suspended forward on the neck. But although he stood at the sound of the lift arriving he didn’t turn away from the fire, and they could see his sweat-drenched back clearly, the skin tightening, so that they could appreciate fully the tattoos that covered his body, and especially the Nubian courtesan, dancing slightly with the judder and spasm of the old man’s muscles.
An illustrated man.
31
‘Albert Tilden?’ said Shaw, not really needing an answer. The coincidence was overpowering.
‘Who wants to know?’ asked Tilden. His voice was stronger than his body, and his body was that of a sixty- year-old. But Shaw felt the combative edge was manufactured, as if he was preparing only a token resistance.
Shaw showed his warrant card. Tilden didn’t bother to look. ‘DI Peter Shaw,’ said Shaw. ‘DS Valentine.’
Behind Tilden was a tarpaulin over a doorway, and they let him lead the way. Inside was a room. Almost a cell. Two of the walls were concrete, but the other two were made entirely of cans. Set into one wall was a narrow window vent, the view beyond obscured by frosted glass.
Tilden took the only chair, his chin held up as if denying an accusation they’d yet to make.
Shaw looked him in the eyes, which swam slightly but brimmed with intelligence. ‘Sam Venn’s dead,’ he said.
Tilden nodded, but he didn’t want to talk about Sam Venn, he wanted to talk about his room, his hidden life. Like many people who spend their lives alone, Tilden spoke more or less constantly — a commentary on almost every movement, a vocalization of every thought. Shaw looked around, aware that he could take his time, that finding Alby Tilden here, with access and opportunity and motive for the murders of Fletcher and Venn, was close to an open-and-shut case: a situation which left him feeling deeply ill at ease. So he listened to the old man talking — telling them how it had come to this.
When he’d left Lincoln he’d come back to Lynn and got the night-watchman’s job. The man in charge of security was one of his old cronies from his days at the Flask. He’d been offered a purpose-built flat high in the factory, but it had big Crittall windows, metal-framed, with a view down the Cut to the sea. He’d had enough of the sea. He’d spent the war at sea — on the
So he’d asked to live in the basement.
He’d built this room himself. By picking a corner he’d got himself two ready-made concrete walls for his new
