‘I know.’ She hugged herself. ‘Charmers’ boat, along there. .’ She nodded east to an empty berth. An A-board was up, not in chalk, but sign-written. .
‘Always has been Charmers’ boat.’ She thought for a second. ‘The
‘Same boat?’ he asked.
‘No, new. Couple of years now. That’s the old one. .’ She pointed across the channel to the marsh where a wide inshore clinker-built boat lay half sunk in the mud. It had a single stand-up cabin for the skipper and a central engine cowling, the twin flaps broken off to reveal a rusted fuel tank.
Valentine tried to imagine it chugging into the beach at East Hills that afternoon in 1994. A slick of arterial blood still mixing with the salty water.
‘New one’s smart. Sonar. Radio. Automatic life rafts,’ said Jan. ‘Rumour is they’re on to the Wildlife Trust to get permission for a floating dock. Then they could tie up, flog the trippers drinks off the boat. Double the takings.’
‘Skipper?’
‘They change. Move around.’
It was a thought. Valentine tried to recall all the statements he’d read from the suspects the police had lifted off the beach that afternoon in 1994. Had they got one off the skipper of the boat? Did it matter?
She put down the half of cider. ‘Right. Final treat.’ There was an ice-cream van parked by the water’s edge. ‘You?’ He shook his head, draining the pint, thinking he might have a third. He watched her queue for the ice cream until she took a cornet, a ninety-nine, and again, he noticed, no money changed hands.
‘Anyone pay for anything in this town?’ he asked when she got back.
‘They get free chips — it’s the seaside black market. Swings and roundabouts.’ Over behind the quayside amusement arcade they could see a small Ferris wheel turning.
‘East Hills?’ she asked, crunching into the wafer cone. ‘You know Pete was on that — they all were.’
Valentine rocked his head, feeling one of his neck bones grate. It was before his time — three years before he’d been sent to Wells — but even then the case was still open. Every year they’d get pressure from St James’ to re-interview, kick the tyres, make sure there wasn’t something they’d missed.
‘Mass screening’s over,’ said Valentine. He filled his lungs, suddenly short of breath, but with one long, controlled intake he managed to disguise the usual heave of the chest. ‘We’ve counted them all in, and we’ve counted them all out. Come Monday we should have a name.’ They watched a teenager being escorted off the floating pub by a man with grey hair tied in a pigtail. ‘What
‘Not much. He wasn’t exactly driven, was he, Georgie? Just another case; besides, St James’ were all over it like a horse blanket, so none of the locals had much chance anyway. He knew the kid, the Aussie.’ She remembered something, opening both hands out, fingers extended. ‘I know what he did say. The kid had saved some girl out on the sands that summer, out with her pony. Pete went down to the lifeboat house to take custody of the child while they got someone from the riding school to contact the parents. The pony swam for it but the Aussie kid cut its bridle free, case it got caught up. So he had a knife, didn’t he? Pete looked back at the inventory from his flat and what he had out on the beach the day he died. No knife. No sign of a knife. So perhaps he pulled it first? He told your mob — St James’. She narrowed her eyes, watching a varnished yacht motoring down The Cut. Then, not looking, she reached out her hand and touched Valentine’s shoulder. ‘See you again,’ she said, pushing down on the bone to lever herself up. She straightened her back. Valentine watched her go, engulfed by the crowd that was queuing now for a fish supper. He stood, picked up a yellow boat ticket from the ground, and decided against the third pint.
THIRTEEN
Shaw took his coffee and went out on the stoop of the cafe. Inside, Lena was making sandwiches, setting out cakes and fruit, matching chairs to tables. It was a moment which always annoyed him: the cottage wasn’t really big enough for a kitchen of its own so they’d decided they’d eat, as a family, in the cafe. So it was his home, Fran’s too, but breakfasts were always consumed on a conveyor belt. Then the moment would be gone, which was a shame, because it was one of the moments he liked best: a cup of coffee, the day ahead, the sound of the sea through the open windows. Even on a Sunday he had to make way for the paying customers. Later they’d wonder if this little peak of stress and anxiety had sparked what was to follow.
‘Are you really going into work?’ asked Lena, her head at the window, her hands in blue gloves. ‘Look at it.’ she added, glancing at the horizon, where a single fair-weather cumulus was sailing by like a sky galleon.
‘I have too. Tom phoned — he thinks he’s getting the mass screening results early.’ He wanted to explain but she’d gone. The lab in Birmingham had been in touch, a job had fallen through so they’d been able to put all their resources on the DNA checks. They were just running double-checks before emailing coded results.
He’d have swum if the sea had been in but it was low tide, dead water, and all he could see was sand, with blue bands of trapped water, running parallel with the coast, right out towards the horizon. If he walked a mile he might get into five feet of water. This was the reason Old Hunstanton had a hovercraft as well as an inshore lifeboat: so that it could operate in this strange landscape of nearly-land, threaded with nearly-sea. It wasn’t his favourite time on the beach. The view was bleak, bleaker for the sun and the sky which both needed the sea to provide a reflection.
To break his darkening mood he walked out, still holding the small china espresso cup, to the edge of the first lagoon. Technically, he knew, this was a ‘lead’ of water — an open stretch, but pronounced as a dog’s lead, not the metal. Navigating the North Norfolk coast was all about knowing how these leads joined up or, more to the point, didn’t. What was a real surprise to many sailors was just how undulating this landscape could be. Down in the water you could be several feet below the nearest sand bar and unable to see beyond it, to the next lead. In its own way it was a maze.
He stood at the crest of the nearest sand bar and, using his good eye, tried to locate his three regular landmarks — to the south, about two miles, the small stump of the lighthouse on the cliffs at Hunstanton. Then the Boston Stump, the 270-foot-high parish church in the Lincolnshire town on the far side of The Wash, a landmark so unmissable Winston Churchill wanted it blown up during the war to stop German bomber pilots using it to navigate their way to London. And finally, the single breakwater at Holme to the north, the only unshifting feature on the exposed outward curve of the coast, as it turned to face the open North Sea. This routine — configuring his own position from these three points — was a ritual that helped. It made him feel rooted, as if he had some innate, onboard GPS.
He turned to look back at the cafe. Fran was sat on the stoop, morose, unhappy to face the rest of the weekend with her parents both working. She held something on her lap and Shaw guessed it was a DS, her favourite game, SinCity, loaded up. It was Shaw’s favourite too — a complex 3D fantasy in which you were able to build a city and watch it grow, spreading a latticework of streets and highways across an imaginary landscape. He wondered, for the first time, whether she’d have been happier growing up in a real city. Summers were fine because she had the beach and a steady stream of visiting friends, but the winters were lonelier and, perhaps for a child, dispiriting. And he wondered, but had never shared the anxiety with Lena, if they were robbing her of the magic of the sea by giving it to her every day of her life.
