Death

of trees, they could hear shouts. He fumbled in his pocket and produced his inhaler, and they heard three rapid breaths.

The shouts in the woods seemed to be getting louder, insistent, and Shaw heard a single police whistle, but a distance away, over the hill, towards the Old Hall Estate.

‘I’d like to take a DNA swab, Mr Osbourne,’ said Shaw, breaking the silence.

‘One of my detective constables will call a little later to take you down to St James’. We’d like a formal statement as well. And if you could stay in Creake — or Wells. If you need to leave the area, even for a few hours, I’d like you to inform DS Valentine here — he’ll leave you a mobile number. Are you able to accept those restrictions, Mr Osbourne?’

He turned then, and Shaw could see he was shaking, his narrow shoulders unsteady. ‘I was at the shop the day the Aussie died. In the back. Dad was busy; if he hadn’t been I’d have gone with her. I’d have been there.’

Shaw logged the denial in his memory, but was unmoved by it.

Osbourne’s eyes widened and he almost fell. ‘And Marianne, and that old man. You think I did that too?’

‘Did you?’ asked Shaw.

‘No,’ said Osbourne, simply. ‘Why would I do that?’ He looked at his own hands. ‘How could I do that?’

‘Because Marianne was a witness to White’s murder,’ said Shaw. ‘She lied to save you, as well as herself. But not this time — this time she couldn’t face it. Did she ask you to help her end it, or did you suggest it? Had she just had enough of life. .’ Shaw looked back down the garden towards the house: ‘Life here, with you. Or just you?’

It was cruel blow but effective. Osbourne raised both hands to this mouth.

‘And Arthur Patch saw you that day in 1994, didn’t he? Saw the wound. So when we drew a blank on the mass screening, as you knew we would, you were afraid we’d start looking for witnesses along the coast that day and in town, and that’s when he’d step forward. So he had to die.’

A shout from the woods made them all turn to the still-open half stable door.

Emerging from the shadows was a man walking quickly towards them: Aidan Robinson, with a beater’s brush, a pair of overalls grimy with ash, the left foot trailing badly. When he got to the door he saw Joe Osbourne’s face and froze.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. The silver-grey eyes were bloodshot from the smoke in the woods.

No one answered.

He looked at Shaw. ‘I’ve been helping up in the woods, keeping the fires down. You need to come up — we’ve found someone.’

TWENTY-TWO

Dead air filled the woods, the midday heat cloying, the trees stifling the thin breeze from the distant sea. The path led through the clearing with the lightning tree and then deeper into the woods, where drifting smoke and steam threaded the tree trunks. The world was reduced to a fifty-yard circle, branches dripped water, the pine tops above lost in smoke, the colours washed out to leave just greys. By the path, nailed to a tree, was a single sign. .

THE OLD HALL ESTATE

PRIVATE PROPERTY

TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

‘Where we heading?’ asked Shaw. ‘And what are we going to find?’

Aidan Robinson turned. He pulled one of his fingers straight, making the joint crack. Shaw was struck again by the stillness of the man, as if time didn’t run as fast for him as the world around him. ‘Down the valley a bit, through the woods. Not far. I don’t know what’s there; one of the uniformed officers said he’d found remains — human remains — and wanted you up fast. They sent me because I know the woods.’

Valentine had caught up: ‘Fresh remains?’

Robinson shrugged, then turned and led the way.

Shaw ploughed on, concentrating on the rough path, watching each boot fall before lifting the next, avoiding the tree roots which occasionally arched over the track. Shaw tried to concentrate on the route ahead but he was worried about Joe Osbourne: he’d left him with DC Twine at the incident room, waiting for a squad car to take him into St James’. The stress had brought on an asthma attack and they’d arranged for him to see a doctor when he got down to police headquarters.

They reached a gully where a stream had dug down through the sandstone rock. Ahead, through the trees, they could see Old Hall far below them — a Georgian ruin, like an abandoned doll’s house, just the four walls left, and a thicket of chimney stacks. Just over the gully, on a stretch of bare hillside was what looked like a stone folly, a rotunda, graced with pillars, and a low dome. On the grass beside it lay something more modern that defied any easy identification — a concrete circle, its surface grooved with what looked like a pair of bronze rails. Shaw filed the image away and set off after Robinson.

The trees here were burnt, smouldering still. Ahead, for the first time, Shaw saw flames — a gout, quickly doused, so that the wood was full of the sound of sizzling steam. Around them now they could see beaters, working in short lines, and a hose crossed their path, leading from the stream up into the woods.

And then they smelt it: instantly, the three of them. Only Robinson kept walking, his limp less noticeable now they’d moved on to flatter ground. Shaw had it in his mouth, nose and lungs before he could retch. Cooked meat, like a hog roast. But sweeter, infinitely sweeter. He heard Valentine retch behind him but he didn’t turn to stare. He just stopped in his tracks and told himself this was a detail he’d have to make sure he didn’t take home.

Robinson came to a halt, looked back, then down at his feet, giving them time.

Shaw and Valentine paused, as if waiting for some hidden barrier to lift, and then they took the next step, together.

A young PC stood guard on the rough path. He held up a hand, searching their faces, relief flooding into his eyes when he recognized Shaw. ‘Sir, over there. .’ He pointed to a small clearing. ‘And there’s loads of this around. .’ In his hand he held a damp wodge of folding money, burnt at the edges, or blackened through. ‘It’s just blowing around,’ he added, as if that was the crime. ‘Twenty-pound notes.’

Whatever lay at the centre of the clearing it was still alight. While there were no visual clues Shaw knew it instantly as a corpse: the smell was beyond argument, but it was the emotional resonance that was indisputable. Even in death it radiated a personal space — diminished, diminishing, but still present. Thick white fumes pumped out of it like a smoke bomb. A single flame flickered on a limb-like projection which stuck up like a wick. The whole body was about the size of a large animal — a sheep, perhaps — and angled, like a collection of disparate bones and in a skin bag. But the surface was charred, furrowed, like wood left in a cold fire. Shaw’s eye skated over the surface, trying to find a face, a foot, a hand, something he could recognize that was human, but all he found was a single unambiguous shape: a semicircular curve — two curves, in iron, almost joined together.

‘Tom’s nearly here,’ said Valentine, taking a step back, working on the mobile.

Shaw took another step closer, put a knee down, and felt the warmth still in the ashes. ‘It’s a trap, right?’ he said. ‘An animal trap.’

Robinson was behind him, over his left shoulder. ‘Not one of the estate’s,’ he said.

‘They lay traps?’

‘Sure. Fox, badger, stoat. Keep the woods clear for the deer.’ Shaw heard Robinson crunch something in his mouth. A mint. ‘But nothing this size.’ Hadn’t Robinson said he didn’t come into the woods anymore — not since he’d been a child?

‘Can’t we put it out. .?’ asked Shaw, angry, but with no one.

They called in a fireman who set a fine spray on the burning corpse, turning smoke to steam. Shaw tried to see the shape of the jaws of the trap, which had sprung, then closed round a limb — a leg, but the foot had seared away, leaving a blackened stump. In the ashes he saw a buckle — metal, like a rucksack brace.

They heard footsteps coming through the trees and the sudden ghostly shape of Tom Hadden in a white SOC