Death

much of Coyle’s cheery nature was manufactured — the shell on the crab.

‘The pots are on the Nor Bank, then we can swing back to East Hills.’

Coyle led them to an eighteen-foot clinker-built fishing boat moored at the foot of a short wooden wharf beside the lifeboat slipway. It was called Ellie-May, and registered at Wells.

They cut out to sea, Coyle expertly judging the angle of impact between the small boat and the modest swell. Half a mile out he cut the Ellie-May’s speed, expertly picking up a series of buoys and lifting the pots, putting crab and two lobsters into white plastic buckets, scallops into trays. Valentine found the plastic clicking of claws unnerving, turning his stomach, where he’d recently deposited a full English breakfast roll and a pint of tea.

Their arrival at East Hills was watched by a curious Sunday crowd on the beach. The scent of burning skin and suntan oil hung heavy in the air. Many of the faces, Shaw noted, were vaguely belligerent, as if they saw the Ellie-May’s as an intruder in a private paradise. Coyle snagged a wooden pile on the jetty with a rope and cut the engine, putting his feet up, and leaning his back on the tiller.

Shaw wondered why they hadn’t got out of the boat. Was he trying to make a subliminal point; that he never got out of the boat, because he was always the ferryman? It was a way of separating himself from the crime. ‘Just for the record,’ said Shaw, ‘can you talk us through that day from your point of view — the day of the murder? We’re just making sure that everything fits together. Routine.’

Coyle had the story pat: it matched the original brief statement. A full boat that day, but for a dozen seats. Tickets sold: seventy-five. Had they ever packed them in over the limit? asked Valentine. Never. They’d swapped a look at that, Shaw and Valentine, because both of them knew that none of the boats along the coast ever turned away the odd extra customer. So that was a little white lie. An indication, perhaps, that they weren’t guaranteed the unvarnished truth.

Coyle said he’d got out to East Hills at a few minutes past eleven, dropped everyone, then sailed along the coast to Morston to run out a charter to Blakeney Point to see the seals. He’d landed them back, then returned to East Hills to run everyone back at 5.30 p.m. As he edged the boat towards the floating dock that day he’d heard a woman screaming. She was at the water’s edge, her arms out rigid, her skin patterned with blood. She kept screaming, pointing into the water. Coyle had stood at the tiller, looking into the blue clear sea until he’d drifted into the blood-clouded waves. Then he’d seen the victim, face down, in trunks, tanned skin and straggly dyed hair.

They knew the rest.

Valentine thought about the little black market that kept seaside places like Wells alive: an economy built on favours, not cash. For the first time he had an idea, and he was angry with himself for not having it sooner. ‘Ever give a free ride to anyone — friends, family? You wouldn’t bother with tickets for them, would you?’

‘Everyone got a ticket,’ he said. ‘I start taking people for nothing I’d have a full boat in a week and nothing in the cash box. It’s fine running a barter system if you own the business. It wasn’t my boat. Not my place to give a free ride.’ He spat in the sea.

Shaw looked to Valentine, indicating that his DS should press on, because that was a line of inquiry he’d missed: the idea that they’d taken seventy-six out, seventy-five back, and the killer had only to swim one way. And it was possible because the boat that day was largely full of visitors. It wasn’t as if anyone would have spotted a missing passenger.

‘Must be tricky, though,’ said Valentine. ‘You get a free pint on the quayside, a round of ice creams on the house when you’ve got the kids in tow, then they turn up in your boat. Like I said,’ Valentine added, when Coyle didn’t answer. ‘Tricky.’

‘Not really,’ said Coyle. ‘I sell shellfish to people who run businesses with a million-pound turnover. They’d cut your throat for another one per cent on the profits. What am I saying — a tenth of a per cent. You think I’m the sucker who gives it away to family and friends?’

Shaw retrieved his wallet and took out the snapshot of Joe Osbourne. ‘So no chance he was on board for the trip out?’

‘Joe? I think I’d remember,’ said Coyle, laughing at Valentine.

‘You know him?’ asked Shaw.

‘Sure. I’ve got family up at Creake. Next door, in fact. Aidan Robinson’s my cousin. He’s Tug’s other grandson. The favourite grandson — the son of the favourite daughter. Old Tug went to live with them after grandma died. So they were close.’

‘Right,’ said Shaw, re-computing his view of Aidan Robinson.

‘Aidan would have inherited the boat if he hadn’t had that accident — he’s pretty much a dead weight in water and he never could swim. Mind you, that doesn’t stop ’em — plenty of the older generation never bothered to learn. They concentrated on not falling in.’ He laughed, showing small childlike teeth. ‘But you need to be good on your feet in these small boats. Aidan’s a liability.’

Shaw climbed up on to the floating dock, a fluid movement without any apparent effort. The family link to The Circle was intriguing. But did it really lead anywhere? He’d soon learnt that once you left the urban sprawl of Lynn the North Norfolk coast was a complex matrix of family and community; a hidden pattern, just below the surface.

Then he realized Coyle hadn’t answered his question.

‘So, for the record. You didn’t give Joe a lift that day. A free trip?’

‘Nope. I know the family now; back then, they were just locals to me.’

‘So when you dropped everyone here that day, before you left for Morston, there was no time to stick around, have a break?’ he asked.

Coyle shook his head.

‘Return trip?’

Coyle licked his small bowed lips, putting both hands behind his neck in an exaggerated show of ease.

Valentine tried to recall the statements he’d read from the East Hills witnesses. He thought one, maybe two, had mentioned seeing the boat offshore. He drew savagely on his Silk Cut, aware he’d missed that, failed to think it through.

‘I guess I had a few minutes to play with. I usually do because you can’t be late. Kids, families, they need to be back, and people get anxious. So I was on the dot at five thirty here, at the jetty. Never late. To be that punctual I have to leave some time.’

‘How much time?’ asked Shaw, his voice sharper.

Coyle swallowed hard. ‘Twenty minutes. Less.’ Shaw thought he was going to leave it at that, but he went on: ‘I don’t come in. If you hit the dock they all get on board — well, some of ’em. Then they have to wait around. So I stay out, have a fag.’

‘Where?’ asked Shaw.

Coyle indicated the northern point. ‘Nor Bank, where we dropped the pots, just round the point. I’m out of sight mostly, so no one gets excited. Perfect.’ But the smile was curdling on Coyle’s face. He knew as well as Shaw and Valentine that he’d painted them a picture. The Andora Star, just offshore, for the last twenty minutes of Shane White’s life, hidden to the north.

‘See anyone in the sea that day, out beyond the point, swimming maybe?’ continued Shaw. ‘Anyone swim out to the boat?’

‘Nope. Like I said, it’s a break, about the only one I get. I usually close me eyes. I didn’t see a thing that day.’

‘And you didn’t bring anyone else in — from Morston maybe? Let them swim ashore?’ asked Valentine.

‘No way. I can’t let anyone swim off the boat; we’re not covered on the insurance. So no, I didn’t. Never.’ Coyle unlaced his boots but didn’t get out of the boat. Shaw was again struck by the power in his upper body, the broad carapace of shoulder and back. He knelt and dipped a hand in the sea, feeling the warmth, the slightly viscous saltiness.

‘We’re going to be five minutes, Mr Coyle — you OK with that?’ He didn’t wait for an answer but walked away, along the floating decking which led on to the beach. When he got past the high-water mark he turned to see Valentine following.

They made their way up to the grass on the edge of the pinewood, past a ten-year-old doing cartwheels. Valentine felt uncomfortable in his suit and noted that most of the people on the beach were watching them.

‘He’s sweating like a pig,’ he said, looking back to the boat where Coyle had pulled a blue fisherman’s hat