beginning to blot out the moon.
Booting up the laptop, he’d scanned in the pictures from the camera, then printed them out at precisely life- size. He’d taped up two of the pictures on an easel retrieved from the deckchair store, and illuminated them using an anglepoise lamp from the office, then stood back with his coffee to study them.
He’d covered the two images on the easel with sheets of tracing paper and opened his copy of Rhines Tables: the standard set of multiples which would allow him to put flesh on bones. Then he’d worked on each set of features using Krogman’s Rule of Thumb to add fleshy details not dictated by skull structure — the mouth set at six teeth wide, the angle of the nose extrapolated from the nasal spine. He’d modified the rules, using some educated guesses based on the mixed ethnicity — for example he’d set the nose at 16mm wide compared to the standard 10mm for Caucasians. He’d made the eyes dark in the black-and-white image, but left the hair indistinct, reduced to just a few pencil lines. The pathologist had considered the clothing to be of good quality, so Shaw presumed a healthy weight, and he’d taken her guesstimate of the age at between twenty and twenty-five.
He’d been brushing in the tonal shadows, adding art to the science, when Lena had wandered down the connecting corridor and stood at the door in a short silk nightdress the colour of antique silver. They’d kissed and stood back from the easel, Shaw holding her waist close, so that he could feel their hips touching.
‘A brother,’ she’d said, and they’d laughed. Lena’s own skin was darker than the tone he’d chosen for the victim: Jamaican brown, though not so lustrous as it would be in the summer months, when it picked up a distinct bronze tint.
‘The pills — in the bathroom?’ he’d asked, looking her in the eyes, one of which had a slight cast.
‘Oh, yeah — for Fran. We’ve got to try each one — see what she’s allergic to. One a week.’
Their daughter had been allergic to milk at birth — but the reactions, once violent, had dimmed over time. Then, suddenly, the previous September, she’d had a full-blown anaphylactic reaction to a pot of yoghurt.
‘It’s the milk — right?’ asked Shaw, aware that there was too much aggression in his voice, which betrayed the guilt he felt for being absent that day, out on a case. No — that was self-delusion, out on
‘No, Peter, it isn’t the milk,’ said Lena, failing to hide her anxiety. ‘She still has a slight sensitivity to it but now there’s something else, probably something benign, and when you put the two together you get the reaction we got. So it’s milk plus X. We just don’t know what X is. It could be anything in the yoghurt I gave her. Flavourings, colourings — the usual stuff. So we’re trying them out. Till we find out, she has to keep off real milk. It’s back to soya and rice substitutes.’
Her shoulders had sagged and Shaw had guessed she was thinking about the first few months of Fran’s life — the endless vigilance required to make sure a small child didn’t ingest anything containing milk.
He hugged her too hard. ‘OK.’
‘Handsome,’ she’d said then, nodding back at the picture. ‘Innocent.’
‘Interesting word,’ said Shaw, adding shadow beneath the broad chin. ‘Why innocent?’
‘It’s a presumption — the dead are innocent, aren’t they?’
They’d chatted for a while over fresh coffees before going to bed. An hour together before the day began. When Shaw had walked back into the cafe to retrieve the sketches at dawn he’d stopped six feet from them, aware that he’d recreated someone who had once been alive. The face of this man who had died so violently looked at him over the twenty-eight years separating that last terrifying moment from this one.
‘All you need is a name,’ said Shaw out loud. Then he’d held out his hands, as if pleading before a jury, laughing at himself. ‘And justice.’
And now, sitting in Max Warren’s office, he looked again at the sketch. The adrenaline of the murder inquiry had dispelled all tiredness, despite the lack of sleep, but he did feel that nauseous buzz, his blood rushing with the effects of several doses of strong coffee.
He handed the frontal view to Valentine, who took it, then held it out at arm’s length.
‘Get it out for me, George. Usual suspects — TV, radio,
Valentine pushed his bottom lip forward. ‘Reckon the Old Man will pay up? Posters cost a fortune.’
In the outer office Max Warren was finishing his dictation.
‘He won’t know until it’s too late,’ said Shaw, flicking over the sketch pad to work on the side view.
Valentine rubbed his eyes, feeling a gritty resistance. He hadn’t slept after leaving St James’s either. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to — he’d walked into South Lynn by the towpath until he’d reached the ruins of Whitefriars Abbey, then turned into the network of streets in which he’d been born, married and widowed, and where he still lived. The cemetery in which they’d found their victims that night was less than half a mile away. He’d considered returning there, but thought better of it. Instead, he’d walked to the church of All Saints and stood before his wife’s headstone:
JULIE ANNE VALENTINE
1955–1993
Asleep
The stone was mottled with moss and the inscription partly obscured by the charity lapel stickers he’d stuck on it. He added wood green animal shelter, thinking how, like him, she’d hated dogs. It always annoyed him, that cloying euphemism —
On the corner of Greenland Street he’d stopped outside an old shop. His house was in sight, but he often lost the will to go home at this precise point. The old shop’s double doors were glass and curved gracefully. Within was a second door, with a fanlight, from which shone a green light. And a sign hung from a hook up against the glass. Chinese characters, but ones that Valentine could pronounce.
He’d looked up and down the street, then knocked twice and waited; then twice again. A man had quickly opened the door, and Valentine had slipped in like a cat. Inside, enveloped in the scented warmth, the man they called the sentinel had taken his raincoat. Valentine had held on to his wallet, keys and mobile. The den was on three floors, but he always went down to the basement for fan-tan. He’d taken a glass of tea from the pot set on a table in the hall — there was no alcohol at the house on Greenland Street — and that suited him well, because he’d always liked to enjoy his vices serially.
In the basement room were a dozen men sitting on high stools around the gambling table. There was a room to one side for smoking, but Valentine never went over the threshold.
On the table he’d bought?60 worth of chips and put?5 on the number 2. The dealer had swirled a pile of golden coins and covered them with an ornamental lid. Then the sharing out began — in little collections of three — until only three or fewer were left. On the table sat two coins. Valentine had picked up his winnings and bet again — this time on 1. An hour later he’d won?30. He’d taken a break, going upstairs to drink more tea, then returning to stand on the edge of the circle of light which blazed down on the fan-tan table. His bladder had been aching so he’d slipped out of the basement door into the yard. There had been ice in the toilet pan, and as he’d stood there he’d felt that his life was raw, and that he’d never wanted it to be like that — he’d sought warmth, but it had been denied him.
He’d cashed his winnings and walked out into the street, the snow falling steadily now, muffling the noises of the town at night. Sleep had become a distant dream. He’d walked briskly past his house. In the next street there had been a single light in the bedroom of number 89 — his sister Jean’s. He didn’t see her much. He told himself he didn’t like her husband, but the real reason was that she was an echo of his past, because she’d been a good friend to Julie, and so a reminder of what might have been. But he found the light comforting because he liked to know she was still here, in the streets where they’d all grown up.
He’d walked on down to the quayside. Greyfriars Tower provided the only light in the sky, a lighthouse in a gentle snowstorm. He’d checked his watch: 2.30 a.m. The St James’s canteen opened at 5.30 a.m. and the thought of a cooked breakfast made him feel better about the day to come. He’d zigzagged towards the tower through the Old Town, past the Jewish Cemetery where the fine blown snow lay in the chiselled Hebrew inscriptions. When he’d reached St James’s he’d taken the curved steps two at a time and breezed past the front desk, where the duty sergeant had nodded once before returning his attention to the previous day’s
