light-stained sky. She seemed to be whispering to herself, and Shaw wondered if she was praying. Tom Hadden stood by Shaw’s Porsche, a file of papers spilt across the bonnet.
Doors creaked on a squad car and Valentine appeared with Chris Roundhay.
The thin fair hair was damp and untidy across the wide forehead. Shaw was struck again by the way the lantern jaw unbalanced the face, an unsettling contrast to the blue eyes.
‘What is this?’ said Roundhay, looking around. He looked tense, the shoulders bunched, but as each car’s lights flickered by he could see that his skin was dry, his expression mildly inquisitive. ‘What do I tell my wife?’ demanded Roundhay. ‘My family. I’ve left them all — we were having dinner, for Christ’s sake.’
Shaw checked his watch, but his hand moved so slowly to turn the face that he managed to convey the truth — that the hour, for him, didn’t matter. Which was, in a way, true; because when Shaw entered a graveyard he always felt the slackening of the leash of time. ‘So you didn’t attend your friend Marc Grieve’s funeral?’
‘No. Why. .’ Roundhay’s eyes widened. ‘Is he here — Marc?’ He looked around at the gravestones and settled on the forensic tent, lit now from within. They could hear the sound of spades slicing into clay. Roundhay looked at his well-polished shoes.
‘Mr Roundhay, did you speak to Marc in the years after East Hills? I’m talking since he married. See each other? Ever?’ Shaw asked.
Roundhay’s hands were hidden in a long coat, the night air ruffling his thin blond hair. ‘He had another life. I left him to it.’
Hadden’s head appeared in the tent doorway. ‘Ten minutes, Peter.’
Shaw lifted apart the plastic leaves of the forensic tent and gestured for Roundhay to go first. He was aware he was being cruel, that he had no real right and certainly no good
When they were all inside, Shaw read out the inscription on the stone, which had been hauled out of its position and set back. The design was modern, ugly, asymmetrical and decorated with a bunch of craved grapes.
Three council workers were digging out the grave. The passing headlights on the ring road created a light show on the tent’s side. Roundhay rearranged his feet as if he might fall over, but his face was still utterly expressionless, a passive mask. ‘I didn’t know he was here,’ said Roundhay.
The labourers had already dug down three feet creating a dark slit. Valentine had been to exhumations before and was struck by the resemblance to a judicial hanging: the grave as the drop, the witnesses clustered, the air of almost electric anticipation and growing dread.
‘I want to know what happened on East Hills that day,’ said Shaw. ‘And I don’t want any lies. And if you can’t tell me the truth — and I mean right now — then we’re going to dig up what’s left of Marc’s body and take a DNA sample from his bones. Because I think you’ve lied to us. I think it’s Marc’s skin on the towel we found on the beach at East Hills. I think you killed the lifeguard together because he’d taken pictures of the two of you, in the dunes, and he wanted money. I don’t think you meant to do it. Or planned to do it. But I do want the truth.’
Roundhay rubbed his chest, where he’d built up the muscles, and Shaw guessed his heart was racing. Guilt or lost love? ‘I’ll say anything you want to stop this,’ said Roundhay. ‘But I’ve told the truth already.’ He looked at Shaw, his eyes dead. ‘What do you want me to say?’
It was an impressive performance, thought Shaw. He’d brought Roundhay here to put him under pressure, to drag him closer to an emotional edge. Instead, somehow, Roundhay had switched the pressure on to Shaw. ‘Well?’ asked Roundhay.
One of the men jumped into the grave to start digging from inside. Roundhay didn’t flinch, but the colour had drained from his face.
Shaw had had enough. ‘Get him out of here,’ he said.
Valentine held the plastic tent flap open. Roundhay hesitated, as if it had become his duty to stand and watch his lover’s bones revealed.
‘Unless you wish to stay?’ asked Shaw.
Roundhay fled. Shaw let the tension bleed out of his shoulders, into his back, down his legs, into the grave. Then the sound of a spade hitting wood made him jump. He went outside and watched the tail lights on the squad car carrying Roundhay recede through the dark, eventually joining the coursing flow of cars on the ring road.
A liar then, certainly. But a killer — not just of Shane White, but a multiple killer? The deaths of Marianne Osbourne, Arthur Patch and Paul Holtby were linked to East Hills — even if they couldn’t, as yet, uncover the link. Was Roundhay capable of killing them all just to save his own skin? Shaw had met several murderers, shook their hands, given them tea to sip, listened to them talk, watched them cry. He didn’t think there was a single, common telltale sign that someone was a killer. No cold eyes, no preternatural calm, no twitching facial muscle. But in each case he’d felt just like this: a
He felt empty, but most of all, hungry. Not just for food but for human company. He watched Valentine appear out of the dark. A bone saw buzzed from inside the tent.
‘George. Let’s get something to eat.’
THIRTY-THREE
‘George, parmesan?’ said Lena, passing the dish to Fran.
They’d put Valentine at the head of the table so that he was looking out to sea towards the light that was still in the sky. It was the guest of honour’s chair. The heavy heat of the long drought had returned after the storm so they’d all agreed to eat outside, the table set on the wooden stoop of the cafe. Shaw had hoped the deluge marked the beginning of autumn, his favourite season. But it seemed that the summer would cling on, weakened by a series of storms, each one only sapping a little heat from the landscape.
Somewhere out at sea, beyond the horizon, thunder and lightning still crackled.
Valentine prodded at the shell-like pasta in its rich anchovy sauce. It was a small helping because he’d served himself from the large pottery bowl in which Lena had put out the meal. A bowl decorated with painted chillies which had made him wary. Fran stood at his elbow and shaved some cheese over his plate until he raised a hand.
They drank iced water poured from a jug and Valentine tried not to think how long it had been since he’d eaten a meal with another human being. He shared his chips with the gulls every night, although they always dropped the ones with curry sauce on. And in the canteen people would sit at the same table, but only if the place was packed, and even then you weren’t sharing a meal, you were just sharing the table. His last meal with Julie had been fish and chips out of the paper. They’d sat on the front step and shared the chips, which meant he’d had to do without salt, and she’d had to do without vinegar, which was sweet, but annoying.
Shaw had invited Valentine home because his DS said he’d taken a room in Wells. And besides, he didn’t want to be alone in the car driving the coast road after the exhumation: there was something about reversing the process of burial — hauling someone’s bones into the light — which unsettled him. More practically, his DS must be hungry. Shaw rarely saw Valentine take solids, but he presumed he did eat. He imagined greasy breakfasts in one of Lynn’s many cafes. The question
The atmosphere was tense, not so much because of Valentine’s unexpected presence, but because Shaw had shouted at his daughter; a very rare flash of visible temper. They’d been close to the house, walking in the exquisite light of dusk, when they’d seen her digging a hole out on the wet sand; just her head showed, and she was still shovelling gritty sand, which flew out in fan-shaped fusillades. Beside the hole the child’s old dog barked.
