rear-view mirror. As he trundled the car past a row of small lock-up shops he noted Joe Osbourne’s locksmiths, a grubby window display showing inscribed pewter tankards, keys and handles. The facia read simply:
KEYS CUT
while you wait
emergency lock out service
0770 870 1938
Open Monday-Saturday 9.00am to 5.30pm.
Above, over the window, was an old fashioned hand-painted sign that read:
Valentine stopped outside the shop and took a note of the number. The shop was shut; a sign turned in the glass doorway gave no indication of when it might reopen. There was a single window above on the first floor, and one above that in the roof, but neither had curtains, and the lower one was obscured by what looked like the back of a cupboard.
The lane gave into a small courtyard. The one-storey building which dominated the space was a shop, with nothing in the large plate-glass windows but two arrangements of white lilies, under a black facia carrying the words:
Shaw pulled himself easily out of the bucket chair and stood listening to the distant sound of the crowds on the quayside. Valentine parked the Mazda, the offside wing nudging the stonewall.
Inside, they both noticed the cooler air — unnaturally cool. Shaw searched for the sound of an air conditioning unit and discovered the persistent note almost immediately, the vibration making a vase of plastic flowers hum on the counter.
A man who came through a door had white hair framing a middle-aged face, with an expression of half- hearted condolence already in place. Italian heritage, there was no doubt, the darkness of the features striking against pale olive skin. He hadn’t been expecting business, not in the hot dead airless hours of a summer’s Saturday, so he was knotting a black tie hurriedly in place.
Valentine put his warrant card in his face. Shaw said they were there about Marianne Osbourne. Had they heard? The man held both palms out sideways, and his eyes flooded, an eloquent if silent answer.
‘Mr. .?’ asked Valentine.
‘Assisi.’ He set his head to one side but didn’t offer a first name.
‘She worked here?’
‘Yes. Poor Marianne,’ said Assisi.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ said Shaw. ‘We just needed to check a few facts. You must have known her well.’
Shaw watched as genuine emotions rippled over the man’s face, dislodging the professional facade. Grief? No. But certainly sadness, and maybe even loss. Shaw wondered if that was going to be the standard reaction to the death of this woman, as if she was simply a beautiful object that people wouldn’t see anymore.
‘My wife is best. .’ Assisi flipped up part of the counter and indicated the way, through the door he’d come in by, down a corridor painted institutional pink. Assisi walked in front. ‘Always unhappy, Marianne,’ he said, over one shoulder.
‘Did you take the call yesterday, Mr Assisi, to say she wouldn’t be in?’ asked Shaw.
Assisi paused with his hand on the next door. ‘Yes,’ he said, frowning, dark eyebrows drawn together. ‘Joe — her husband. She is often not well. But that is the first time he phones. .’
‘Joe’s never phoned before?’
‘No. Always Marianne. But always too before we open, so a message, on the answerphone. My job is to listen — first thing.’ He shrugged slightly, reluctant to articulate any criticism of the dead.
They followed Assisi through the doorway, down a second corridor of peeling lino, through an empty chapel of rest into a small room. Shaw guessed the public, the grieving, never got this far. It was utilitarian, almost industrial, with steel sinks and a tiled floor. The blare from the radio was so loud it was distorted.
There were two metal tables, and two coffins, but only one was occupied, by an elderly woman with unnaturally black hair.
Assisi introduced his wife Ella. She was sitting on a high stool beside the corpse. She was Italian too, but perhaps not first generation, because the genetic photofit, thought Shaw, was clouded with other influences.
‘I’m not surprised,’ she said, before Shaw could speak. ‘It’s Marianne, isn’t it? We heard. Everyone’s heard. But I am sorry,’ she added, as if that might be in doubt. ‘And poor Tilly. .’ She shook her head, then smiled at Valentine as if she knew him. ‘Suicide, of course,’ she said.
‘We’re just tying up loose ends,’ said Shaw, avoiding an answer. ‘A few questions. A minute of your time.’
She thought about that, her long fingers fidgeting with her hair, and then said she’d have to keep working because the funeral was first thing Monday and they had another one coming in, and that they’d been relying on Marianne.
Her husband looked at his polished black shoes, then fled.
‘You’d known Marianne long?’ prompted Shaw.
‘School — secondary school here in Wells. Met first day.’ As she talked she worked, selecting cosmetics from a box and applying them to the skin of the deceased. ‘You collect friends that first day, don’t you? One you think’s funny, one you think’s loyal. Marianne was beautiful, so we collected her too. We were in a crowd but, you know, never really close, the two of us. Our lives just got mixed up together. Like bits of washing in a drier.’ She was happy with that image, examining the cosmetic red on her fingertips, studying the face of the dead woman who lay before her.
‘Was she close to anyone, other than family?’ he asked. ‘She doesn’t seem to be that kind of person. Private?’ he asked, pleased he’d avoided the gaping cliche:
‘I’m not sure she was even close to Joe,’ she said. Her chin came up, defying the convention that she shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, and unable to stop herself adding more: ‘All the years she’s worked here you know they never met for lunch — I mean, how far is it? A hundred yards — less?’ She shook her head, working some powder into a paste in the palm of her hand. Shaw thought about Joe Osbourne, arguing with a prostitute on Lynn docks after dark. ‘She liked men,’ she said, and Shaw realized she wasn’t being coy. It was just a fact, as if she liked them in the same way that you can like sliced bread. ‘And she saw all women as rivals,’ added Assisi. ‘God knows why.’ She drew back some greying hair from her forehead and tucked it under a hair band. ‘She was in a league of her own. No competition.’
‘There were lots of men?’ asked Shaw, leaving the time frame deliberately unspecified, fascinated at how this conversation had suddenly drilled down into the private life of Marianne Osbourne.
Assisi began to work the pale red cosmetics into the skin of the dead woman, working out from the centre of one cheek. ‘I don’t think so — not now, not for years. She suffered from depression — we understood that. It made her a cold person. Also, I don’t think she had the energy for other people. She liked to be admired, but even that seemed. .’ She searched for the word: ‘Passive. Like she thought she was an oil painting, which I suppose she was. A vase. Something brittle.’ Shaw caught it then in the woman’s voice — not just the emotional distance, but a little electric charge of hatred.
Valentine coughed, realizing some kind of chemical was getting down his throat, into his eyes.
Shaw noted that despite the mundane surroundings the presence of the corpse was making his heart beat race. He licked dry lip. ‘You’ll remember the East Hills killing — the Australian lifeguard. You know Marianne was out on the island that day?’
She leant back from working on the dead woman’s face. ‘Of course — is that why she did it? We’d heard you were calling people back in — we’ve got friends on the lifeboat. She wasn’t good at dealing with stress. Always
