was going to see that day. And Marianne didn’t say if she had met him. And no names.’
They heard light steps on the tiled floor. ‘DI Shaw?’ Ruth Robinson was in a tracksuit and her skin was dry and flushed despite the heat, so that he guessed that she’d just done some lengths and showered. The subtle reflection of Marianne’s Pre-Raphaelite looks was stronger in daylight. Shaw actually shook his head, trying to dislodge the image of Marianne on her deathbed. Ruth had to be twice the weight of her sibling, possibly three times. Despite that she had a strange buoyancy, as if she could float in air as easily as she no doubt could in water. She held her arms and hands away from her body as if they too were floating free. Mass she had, he thought, but not weight. An attractive woman, because she seemed to wear her size well. Happy, thought Shaw, in her own skin.
The pool was crowded, inflatables clashing, children toppling off airbeds, balls being lobbed into screeching clusters of school friends. There was no shade except a single slash across the blue water — the silhouette of the high diving board. A grass perimeter was crowded too, this time with sunbathers, older teenagers, young adults. A cluster of toddlers with armband floats were being shepherded along the poolside and Robinson gently cleared a way forward with the calm assurance of an adult confident in the company of children.
Three sides of the pool were open, with the perimeter wall providing a windbreak. The fourth side was changing rooms. There was a single-storey cafe built into the perimeter wall — a long glass window displaying a rack of ice-cream flavours. Robinson went in through a side door and emerged with a cafetiere on a tray and three large cups.
‘I wanted to talk about Marianne,’ said Shaw. ‘But mostly about your brother-in-law, Joe.’
She didn’t look at him, but at the children in the shallow end. It struck Shaw that this woman, childless, spent much of her life with kids. He wondered if she’d tried for children with her husband Aidan. Ruth smiled, cradling the coffee. Shaw was struck that someone so benign, the word was difficult to avoid — wholesome — could also hint at something else, something slightly darker, because there was a calculating facet to her stillness: a stillness so like her husband’s. She looked up at the sky where a line of geese were heading out to the marshes.
‘Joe,’ she said. ‘Why would you be interested in Joe?’
Shaw ignored the question. ‘Your sister said, in her original statement back in 1994, that she’d planned to go out to East Hills that day with a friend, Julie Carstairs. But that, we now know, is a lie. Julie didn’t know she was going out that day. Why would Marianne tell that lie?’
‘I loved my sister very much, Inspector. But I don’t think I ever understood her. I don’t know why she told that lie. She told lots. I think she thought it was one of the privileges of beauty.’ She held one hand down on the table top with the other as if it might float away. Her voice was very light, lighter than air, and musical.
‘We think she met someone out on the island — a lover,’ said Shaw. ‘And we think there’s a good chance she was being blackmailed by White — the lifeguard who was murdered. Or, possibly, White
Ruth’s eyes were small and quick and they were on Shaw’s now, or glancing, sideways, at Valentine. ‘You don’t think Marianne was the killer, surely. .’
‘No. But someone killed White. Which was good news for Marianne.’ Shaw let the espresso slip down his throat, following it quickly with the tap water. ‘Do you think Joe knew what was going on — that Marianne was playing the field?’ Shaw noted that despite the calm exterior the colour had drained from the woman’s face. He wondered if she really didn’t know about her husband and Marianne Osbourne. Could such secrets survive in a small town?
‘Marianne told him later about the others,’ she said. ‘Once they were married, once Tilly was born. She was proud of it — the lovers. I always thought that was a calculated cruelty because she didn’t have to tell him, did she? She made out that she wanted total honesty. I think
‘But Joe might have known at the time?’ pressed Shaw, aware she hadn’t answered his question.
‘Yes. I think Marianne was torn — she wanted secret lovers, but she wanted people to know. Well, most of all she wanted me to know.’
‘Why did she want you to know about her success with men?’ Shaw asked.
‘Because it was a competition she could win. I was the clever one. I was the better swimmer, although Marianne was good, very good. But swimming was Mum’s passion and so we were close. That left Dad. She wanted his love, his affection, and she got it. And somehow she turned that idea — that she could compete for affection — into competing for sex. I was a bit bookish, shy. So she told me in her letters about the boyfriends. Not everything, but enough. She lied to Dad, said it was all just a kiss and a cuddle. So I guess that’s why she lied about that day, so he wouldn’t cause a fuss.’
‘Swimming was a big part of Marianne’s life?’ said Shaw.
‘Before East Hills — after that I don’t think I ever saw her in the water again.’
‘Anyone ever swim out to East Hills?’ He’d been saving the question. Robinson’s reaction was half- puzzlement, half-understanding.
She looked out over the pool. ‘It’s been done. Childish, really,’ She tugged at the tracksuit collar. ‘But when you’re young you never think you’re going to die.’
‘You’ve done it — swum out and back?’
‘No. We’d go one way — back, usually. It’s very difficult to go there and back because of the tides. So we’d all go out on the boat and whoever was up for it would leave their stuff for us to bring back. I did it once; I’d have been sixteen. No lifeguard back then so that made things easier. It’s actually pretty scary. We’d have a word with the boatman because they always check the tickets, to make sure they’re not leaving someone out there.’
Another lie, this time Tug Coyle’s.
‘What about the rip-tide?’
‘Golden rule: never swim against the tide. You have to go with it. The trick is to swim out, away from the island towards the north-east, and then catch the current back towards the main beach at Wells. So maybe half a mile out, a bit more, then all the way in. Mile and a half to two miles in total. It’s a challenge.’
‘And Joe — he doesn’t look like he could swim a length,’ said Shaw, smiling, looking out over the water, proud of the way he’d constructed the interview in reverse, so that the crucial question came last.
‘Joe was one of the best,’ she said. ‘Champion here — age of fourteen, fifteen. Long-distance freestyle. Sickly kid — really bad. Asthma and stuff. But that’s how some people react, isn’t it? They’re kind of aggressively fit, to compensate. He’s skinny, not much muscle, but it’s stamina you need and guts. That’s Joe. I think he did it a few times.’
TWENTY-ONE
Shaw had the whole team assembled beneath the cool shade of the cedar tree, the midday heat penetrating only in a scatter of sunspots on the beaten grass. A thick cable of PC wires, taped together, had been slung out through one of the stone arrow-slit windows of the Warrenner’s House to the mobile incident room. The temperature back in the metal box was 110 Fahreneheit and still rising. Twine had two nests of desks set out in the shade, a Perspex information board covered in SOC shots from Osbourne’s bedroom and Arthur Patch’s house, plus a poster from the original East Hills inquiry showing Shane White’s handsome, if forgettable, face.
Overhead, ash drifted from the woods above The Circle. Another fire had sprung up, sparked by the gas explosion, as the fire brigade had feared. It had been doused, but the woods were still thick with clouds of acrid fumes from the smouldering pine trees. The drifting embers had kindled at least one other blaze — over the hill, deeper in the woods, beyond the reach of the fire brigade’s hoses. The council beaters had been sent in, the workmen in dayglo jackets picking up gear and clothing from an open lorry parked on the narrow lane which led up to The Circle from Creake village. Under the cedar tree, inside the thick walls of the medieval ruin, the air was breathable enough. But they could all taste it, despite the thick, dark coffee from the St James’ mobile canteen: a bitter burnt essence of pine needles on the lips and tongue.
The team had been told the result of the East Hills mass screening, or rather, the lack of a result. They all knew the inquiry was in trouble. So Shaw had called them together to tell them that it was time to refocus. They had three days — just — to find the East Hills killer. Their prime suspect was now Joe Osbourne.
‘We need to drill down on this guy,’ said Shaw. ‘I want to know everything about him and I want to put
