Death

Electricity crackled in the damp air over the quayside. When he turned to look at her she’d covered her mouth with both hands. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘A Saturday?’

‘Yes. I always drove into Wells, for the week’s shopping. Usually after lunch — no, always after lunch. Then the library. We’d be back by six because we’d stop on the way and get fish and chips for everyone. Saturday treat. So he wasn’t there that day — he couldn’t have been. How stupid of me.’

The rain fell at last: a curtain of almost solid liquid, drumming on the hard earth, the scent of fresh water for once overcoming the tangy salt of the sea. Shaw said he’d keep in touch if there were any developments, then ran to the car, soaked before he got to the door, so he gave up, and just stood in it, his mouth open, looking up at the falling drops.

THIRTY

George Valentine didn’t take a seat. He stood at the duty desk in Wells-next-the-Sea police station, profoundly unhappy to be back. He’d spent ten years of his working life in this building; he’d hated each room, and the view from every window. In summer he’d watched the thin white wisp of cloud crossing the hills as the steam railway took tourists up to the shrine at Walsingham. It was a sight that had always added to a feeling of dislocation, as if his life had taken a branch line too. He’d been up to Walsingham himself once — way back — before Julie had died, before he’d been busted back to DS, before he’d been shipped out from St James’ to the sticks. By chance they’d chosen a holy day for the visit, and they’d wandered the streets of the town, watching the pilgrims, then crowded into one of the pubs for lunch. Then, on the edge of the old abbey ruins, they’d found one of the churches, the congregation bursting out, following a procession down to the shrine. So the smoke always made him angry too, for what he’d lost.

‘George?’

He turned to find the station sergeant, Ken Blackmoor. He had the decency to flip up the counter flap and come round. He gave Valentine a file.

‘Thanks for coming — you need to see this. Frankly, you should have seen it last week. I understand if you want make a formal complaint. But I thought I’d try to save us all the trouble. .’ He had the decency to look away.

The file cover had a typed note pinned at the top right hand corner which read:

ARTHUR JOHN PATCH

Case No. 4662

IO. DC Rowlands.

‘Problem is Don Rowlands was on leave and no one picked up the link.’ Sgt Blackmoor looked out the plate- glass door, which gave a view into town, so that they could just see shoppers spilling off the narrow pavements into the road. ‘So that’s a fuck up,’ he added. Above them thunder rolled, and the lights in the station seemed brighter in the gloom. ‘It won’t be the last.’

‘Tell me,’ said Valentine.

Blackmoor filled his lungs, squared his shoulders. Valentine recalled that in his ten years at the nick he’d often seen Blackmoor take flak directed at his juniors. ‘Patch was burgled — end of last year. Nasty, actually. Two youngsters in the house, didn’t bother to sneak in, just turned up, cleaned him out of some silver, bit of cash. Both in balaclavas. What do the yanks call it — house invasion? Then knocked him over when he cut up a bit rough. Broke his hip.’

Blackmoor was in his mid-fifties, but Shaw remembered that he played badminton, and kept fit. He bent down easily and picked up an ice-lolly wrapper off the fake wooden floor. ‘And?’ prompted Valentine.

‘And, Rowlands had organized an ID parade here at the station for this Friday morning. Clearly not much point now.’

Valentine joined up the dots. ‘What kind of ID parade — specific suspect, or usual suspects?’

‘Specific. Kid called Tyler. Never been in trouble before — no record. But he’d been trying to flog a piece of silver round the backstreets of Lynn — one of those platters. It was Patch’s. Tyler said he found it in a bag on waste ground behind the station. Plus he fitted the description of the kid who’d knocked Patch down.’

‘How was Rowlands going to get an ID given the balaclavas?’

‘The old bloke had guts. Either that or he was stupid. He spat in one of the kid’s faces, so the kid knocked him down, probably thought he was out cold. But Patch was on his back, looking up, and he saw him take the hood off. Got a good look. He said he wouldn’t forget the face, and that it wasn’t one of the local kids from Creake.’

Valentine flipped the file open. He’d get Twine to run the name through the computer, make sure there was no direct link with East Hills. But what link could there be? He hadn’t been born in 1994.

‘How’d we think he and his mate got out to Creake?’

‘Scooter. Neighbours heard the whine. Tyler’s got wheels. A provisional licence, so he shouldn’t have been carrying a pillion, but you know, sounds like he isn’t exactly a law-abiding citizen.’

He thanked Blackmoor, took the file, and pushed through the door with his shoulder. Outside the rain had started to fall. Drops like paperweights bounced off hot pavements. Valentine shrugged himself into his raincoat, stashed the file into an inside pocket, and began to walk down towards the sea. Water ran an inch deep towards the harbour. Two children in swimsuits were stamping in puddles. He could feel Arthur Patch’s file cutting into his bony shoulder.

Is that why the old man had died? To stop him identifying his callous, teenage, burglar? Senseless crimes happened all the time, he thought. They could happen here, in the sticks, just as naturally as in the back streets of Lynn. Which would leave their nicely honed little theory pretty much in tatters, because it meant Arthur Patch hadn’t died because he could have identified the killer of Marianne Osbourne. But then there was the cyanide capsule: that one small spherical link between the deaths of Osbourne, Patch and Holtby. So there was a link with East Hills. There had to be.

THIRTY-ONE

The town smelt fresh for the first time since the heatwave had begun. The gutters ran with the rain, filling the air with the sound of falling water, despite the stretched-blue sky. The storm had blown through but gusts of wind still rocked the yachts, their masts clacking. Shaw was outside The Ship with just the road and the quay between him and the harbour. A crowd had briefly obscured the view after someone spotted a seal, taking shelter from the choppy waves in The Cut. But now the waterside was deserted. There was no table, so Shaw dragged a seat out of the pub and used the window ledge for his half pint of Guinness. He thought, for the first time, that one of the reasons he didn’t drink much alcohol — certainly not as much as his fellow detectives — was that it meant you had to spend so much time indoors. If pubs were roofless he might have had a different life.

Squinting into the distance he realized he could just see the pines on East Hills across the marsh. The rain had cleaned the air, filtering out the dust, so that the far distance was clear, appearing to telescope the view, bringing the horizon closer. Shaw let his eye traverse it: pin sharp and no pain. He took an inch off his Guinness and closed both eyes, so that he only heard George Valentine’s arrival. The way his DS’ breath rattled in his throat was distinctive, and he produced a peculiar whistle when blowing cigarette smoke out through narrow, dry lips. Shaw heard his footsteps pass and then, a minute later, the DS returned, dragging his own metal seat, the legs screeching on the pavement.

Shaw opened his eyes. ‘First of the day,’ said Valentine.

They heard the church up in the town chime the half hour. The DS hadn’t touched his pint, which he held on his knee at a slightly dizzy angle so that the head threatened to spill over the rim. He told Shaw about his visit to Wells’ nick and the ID parade planned for Friday.