Death

seventy-four alive — thirty-five of them men. We’ve taken samples from all thirty-five — thirty in the mass screening, five from relatives of those who’d died since 1994. There was a police unit on the island overnight, and the whole place was subject to both a fingertip search and a thorough examination by two dog units. The killer has to be in our sample.’ He tried to keep any note of antagonism out of his voice, any trace of a witch-hunt, but the ‘we’ was enough to put the forensic scientist firmly on the spot.

‘What are we missing?’ asked Shaw.

Hadden opened his eyes but avoided Shaw’s face.

‘There’s only one answer,’ said Shaw. ‘Sample X was on the towel when it was taken out on the boat.’

Hadden formed his hand into a fist and tapped it on the table. ‘No, Peter.’ His voice had returned to its usual whisper. ‘The science is clear and persuasive. The DNA sample — Sample X — was co-mingled with the victim’s blood cells on the towel. That’s not a term I’ve picked out of the air. It’s a term I’d use in the dock, in court, giving expert evidence. It means the two trace samples of blood and skin were deposited on the towel simultaneously. It is not possible — in the real world — for that to happen in any other way. If you asked me to re-create that double sample in the lab at The Ark I couldn’t do it. No way.’ He held both his hands out as if warming them at an open fire. ‘OK?’

They’d had this discussion before, when Shaw and Valentine had chosen the East Hills case to reopen. He’d talked it through with Hadden, testing his hypothesis, searching for a loophole in the logic. In the real world there wasn’t one. It was airtight.

‘But is it watertight?’ asked Shaw. ‘It’s a country mile out to East Hills but the rip-tide is so bad you have to swim twice that to be sure you don’t get sucked out to sea. Can it be done? Sure. We only discounted the possibility entirely because of the numbers: seventy-five out to East Hills, seventy-four back plus the victim. It adds up. But it doesn’t add up anymore. So maybe someone swam out then swam back.’

Hadden refilled his wine glass. ‘You’re right, we did go through this. You’d have to be an expert swimmer to do it one way, but there and back again? Without being spotted? You’ve got to come ashore, you’ve got to swim back. White was actually still alive when his body was dragged in. The killer had only just struck. Within minutes you had a police launch out, the lifeboat — we checked all this. Witnesses were looking out to sea, scanning the water. The harbour master came out as well, and he was specifically asked to stand off in the channel while the island was secured. Plus, the lifeboat called out the inshore crew and they went round East Hills, checking to see if someone was in the water. So if we’ve got some latter-day Captain Webb on our hands he’d have had to swim out to sea, straight out. We always said it was theoretically possible, Peter. But it’s a one in a million chance.’ Hadden’s eyes were closed; he pressed his lips to his fist.

Shaw recalled a beach barbecue they’d held at the cafe that spring. He’d invited Tom Hadden and he’d spent the evening drinking white wine and gathering driftwood for the fire. At sundown Shaw had suggested a swim. A group of them — thirty strong — had charged into the breaking surf. But Hadden had stayed ashore, explaining he wasn’t a strong swimmer and had never been an enthusiast for the sea. So that two-way marathon swim might look like an Olympic feat to him, but to Shaw it looked very different. He could have done it. Head down, sideways breaths, and a long series of languid dolphin body strokes. Difficult — dangerous even, but not impossible.

‘What other options have I got?’ Shaw closed his palms together as if in prayer.

‘The mass screening’s not foolproof,’ said Hadden. ‘I’ll check back through the DNA matches.’ He tapped the laptop. ‘I’ve no doubts about the samples we took from the suspects still alive. But those we had to do from the families of the dead — just maybe. I’ll see if there’s any long shots.’

‘So, what are we saying? That our killer might be one of the five men who died between 1994 and now, and that the DNA sample we took from their kids, or their mothers or whatever, didn’t give us an accurate reading across to theirs? Because with them we weren’t looking for a direct match — we were looking for a family match — right?’

‘We were careful but you never know. One family secret can screw up any amount of science. We try to stick to maternal lines: it’s pretty difficult to get the identity of someone’s mother wrong. But it’s not always possible to stick with mothers. So if we went for a paternal line there’s a danger — clearly. Exhumation’s the only foolproof method. And we didn’t go down that line because of the cost, which is pretty eye-watering.’

Hadden began to tap out some emails. Shaw retrieved his wine and stood at the edge of the balcony, letting the breeze cool his skin. Was there an upside to bad news? It did mean they could now consider suspects for the killing of Shane White who were not amongst those they’d taken off the island. So who was the obvious suspect now?

‘Joe Osbourne,’ said Shaw, out loud, but Hadden didn’t respond, focusing instead on the statistics on-screen. Joe thought he was Marianne Osbourne’s sweetheart back in 1994 but she was playing the field. That was a motive — the most common and most lethal motive of all: jealousy. What if Marianne was wandering off into the dunes to meet White? Maybe it wasn’t blackmail; maybe it was just sex. Plus Joe had an alibi no one alive could support or disprove. Had he really been in his father’s workshop that afternoon? And when they’d reopened the case and called Marianne in to double-check her statement it had been her husband who’d been the last person to see her alive. And it was Joe who’d phoned in to the funeral parlour to say she wouldn’t make work that day before taking his BSA Bantam down into Wells to open up his shop. What if Marianne had been dead before he left the house?

Shaw phoned Twine at the incident room at The Circle, Creake, and filled him in on the results of the lab tests. The young DC was all for interviewing Joe Osbourne that day. But Shaw counselled caution: by the morning they’d have some idea if their mass screening results were copper-bottomed, and the rest of the team would be in place. And their suspect wasn’t going anywhere. He told Twine to check on Osbourne: nothing heavy, but tell him Shaw and Valentine had some loose ends to tie up and they’d be at the house first thing. And for elimination purposes they’d like to take a DNA sample. ‘Play it softly, Paul,’ said Shaw. ‘Just routine.’

Shaw felt better, energized. But his memory threw up a sound, not an image this time. The chief constable’s grey Daimler, the engine ticking. It had been unpleasant giving Brendan O’Hare good news. Telling him the North Norfolk Constabulary had wasted?400,000 on an abortive mass screening was most definitely bad news.

Shaw’s mobile trilled and he checked a text from Valentine. OVERTIME. I’VE FOUND THE BOATMAN. WELLS RNLI — 4.

When Valentine had mentioned trying to track down the ferryman who’d taken the Andora Star out to East Hills on the day of the murder it had seemed like an academic loose end. Now, suddenly, it seemed like a very good idea. Any idea looked like a good idea. The ferryman had been one of the first on the scene when White’s body was found. Inexplicably he’d not been asked to make a full formal statement back in ’94 — just a cursory one page outline. That mistake had been compounded by Shaw’s own error: leaving him out of the request to attend at St James’ with the other witnesses.

I’LL JOIN YOU. Shaw went back into the flat and worked through the case files on Hadden’s desk until he found a snapshot of Joe Osbourne. He put it in his wallet, patted it once, and left without a word.

FIFTEEN

The lifeboat house at Wells stood a mile from the town, out along The Cut where the channel met the sea, on a bluff of sand. Beyond it the beach opened up, miles of it, running west and dotted with a Sunday crowd, families clustered round tents and windbreaks. Most of the beach huts on the apron of the pinewoods were just in shadow — many open, deckchairs clustered by the wooden steps, which led up into each. The tide had turned, the water draining into Wells’ harbour like sand in an egg-timer, covering a patchwork of sandbars which had been drying in late afternoon heat. Dogs ran in great circles, lapping up the space. A few kites flew, catching the breeze which always sprang up with the turn of the tide, their plastic tails crackling like firewood.

Shaw tapped on the hot roof of the Mazda, startling Valentine, who was listening to the local news. The car was parked by the lifeboat house, with a view north over the sea. The DS got out, as stiff as one of the deckchairs along the sand.

‘You didn’t need to come — I can do this,’ said Valentine. ‘The text was just for info.’ He flexed a hand, trying to get the circulation back. ‘Radio’s picked up the appeal on the cyanide capsule,’ said Valentine. ‘The papers will run it tomorrow. BBC website too.’ They listened as the local commercial radio news broadcast the item. Anyone