Death

THREE

The narrow hedge-lined lane flashed past in a double blur. Shaw had bought the Porsche 633 second-hand because of the narrow A-bar — the stanchion between the windscreen and the side window — which allowed wider vision to anyone with only one working eye. It was all part of living with the disability, developing skills, avoiding excuses. He’d lost his sight in a freak accident on the beach three years earlier, a canister of chemical waste washed up on the tide line, a kid playing with a stick, stirring the Day-Glo green goo seeping out of the rusted metal, then waving it in Shaw’s face. He didn’t want an artificial eye: he didn’t want to fool anyone, least of all himself, which was a decision which held a hidden, secret danger — one that he’d never shared with Lena. Keeping the blind eye meant that there was a risk the good eye would begin to deteriorate in sympathy — a not uncommon reaction which led most people to have damaged eyes removed. It meant that Shaw was vigilant for the slightest indication his remaining sight might be failing.

They slowed, approaching a police checkpoint as they climbed a hill half a mile beyond the village green. The line of cars ahead was being directed into a side street. As they crept forward they caught sight of a row of cottages, one of them charred, the windows black rectangles, smoke still drifting from the beams of the roof. Two fire tenders stood on the cobbles, a single hose playing a mist over the facade of flint and brick. A West Norfolk gas van and support vehicle were parked in the street.

At the roadblock a uniformed officer approached, saluting Shaw. ‘B road’s closed ahead, sir — gas explosion in the house, and it’s ruptured the gas main under the road.’

Shaw recalled the dull percussion he’d mistaken for a gunshot when he’d been standing in Marianne Osbourne’s bedroom. ‘Anyone hurt?’ he asked.

The officer nodded. ‘Haven’t found the body yet but the old bloke who lived in the house is missing — floor’s ripped out, might never find him.’

Shaw checked his watch. ‘Can we sneak past. .’

The PC shepherded the Porsche up on the pavement and round the cracked road surface, which was slightly buckled, as if disturbed by a giant mole. Just beyond was another row of cottages, all with broken windows, two women on one of the doorsteps, clutching elbows.

‘Hell of a bang,’ said Valentine. ‘Poor bastard’s probably still in orbit.’

The Porsche effortlessly scaled a straight incline to the final brow of Docking Hill and the open high grassland which hugged the coast. To the right a security fence ran beside the road, mowed meadow on the far side, and in the distance three giant wind turbines, turning slowly, one of which had been visible from The Circle. Along the perimeter fence, by the gates, a crowd of demonstrators stood, spilling into the road, slowing the traffic to a crawl. Beyond, on the open downland, was a small group of tents. Shaw had passed the spot several times that summer and noted what a disparate group they were: belligerent pensioners, middle-aged bird watchers with their binoculars and Alpine walking sticks, teenagers out of school and college for the summer, a few more seasoned campaigners, and the odd ‘usual suspect’ he recognized from the magistrates courts in Lynn, plus a couple of activists from the local animal rights movement.

What did unite them were the placards they held — each one off a production line, each one carrying the same slogan:

Save Our Unspoilt Landscape.

SOUL

Valentine had the passenger window down as they inched past. ‘Nutters,’ he said. He was still annoyed Shaw had pulled rank and insisted they go in the Porsche. He’d have preferred twenty minutes on his own.

Shaw had to stop as several demonstrators stepped into the road and one leaned in the open passenger side window, offering a leaflet. He had a kind of Brideshead Revisited mop of hair, a T-shirt marked ANARCHY INTERNATIONAL, and a birthmark on his left cheek. Valentine noted an understated, expensive watch on his tanned wrist, the kind that shows the phases of the moon, and a ‘bum bag’ wallet on the belt of his black jeans, which were slung below his hips. He wasn’t as young as he’d like people to think. Up close Valentine guessed thirty, maybe more.

‘Thanks for your support,’ he said, trying to make eye contact.

Shaw looked him quickly in the face, noting the birthmark — a naevus flammeus, or port-wine stain. He’d studied facial disfigurements as part of his forensic art studies. This type was treatable using lasers, but rarely with a hundred per cent success. The worst long-term effect was emotional. But in this case the young man seemed to have suffered no damage to self-esteem or confidence.

‘There’s plans for two hundred of these things along the Norfolk hills — and more than five hundred at sea. There’s a petition — the details are on the leaflet. . ’ He tossed two on to Valentine’s lap.

As Shaw edged the Porsche forward the young man kept pace with the car. He’d already sensed Valentine was hostile so he was talking to Shaw. ‘This kind of thing happens because of apathy. I mean, look at it. . ’ He pointed at the nearest turbine.

Shaw did; he thought they were beautiful. Elegant, Aeolian, immensely unhurried. They always made him think of the plastic windmills he’d stuck in the sand as a child.

‘And the bird strike’s horrific. Geese alone — thousands of them cut to pieces. They won’t release the figures but you can see the dead ones out at sea, after an offshore wind. Plus the noise. . Not now. But in winter it’s, like, constant.’

‘Beats a nuclear power station,’ said Valentine, pressing the button so the window went up.

The crowd cleared, ushered out of the road by some bored-looking security guards. Shaw accelerated away but he beeped three times and the little crowd cheered, because he admired anyone who could be bothered to demonstrate about anything.

Half a mile further and they saw the sea, revealed like a backdrop on stage, as if the marine blue was a vertical painted board. The wide arc of the horizon was unbroken, stretching east to west along the north-facing sands. Out almost on the edge of vision they could see another wind farm, thirty, forty turbines, off the unseen Lincolnshire coast. In the mid-distance a school of yachts was bunched in a tight U-turn around a distant buoy.

A mile from Wells they slowed to join a queue of holiday traffic. Valentine dropped his window, letting the breeze cool the sweat on his scalp. On his lap was the file on the inquiry they’d selected to reopen and were about to reveal to the press. While there was a decent chance they’d find the killer, even after an interval of eighteen years, he knew the real reason they were here, why they’d be on this case for the next few weeks, pretty much full-time. West Norfolk’s new Chief Constable, Brendan O’Hare, the former No. 2 from the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was a high-flyer amongst high-flyers. He hadn’t taken the job on to be forgotten. He wanted the world to know the West Norfolk was there, fighting crime on the front line with the latest scientific techniques. That morning he’d had the press over to the West Norfolk’s HQ, St James’, for interviews — his aims, methods, targets. This afternoon the press got their sweeties to take home — a nice juicy cold case to write up under embargo for Monday’s papers. A fat little maggot of a story just right for the so-called ‘silly season’ when the news dried up from Westminster, the Law Courts, even the City. This was all about publicity, and netting O’Hare his next chief constable’s ribbon, preferably a big metropolitan appointment: Manchester maybe, or Bristol. Then he’d be poised for the final run-in, the big push for the only job he really wanted: Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, with a gleaming office looking out of New Scotland Yard at the London Eye and Big Ben. Then, arise Sir Brendan.

Which is where Shaw came in. Valentine glanced in the rear-view mirror at the DS’s face. Young, good-looking, sharp. The face of modern policing, the face O’Hare wanted to present to the media. Because putting yourself right up front was dangerous. If anything went wrong, it was Peter Shaw who’d take the flak. Valentine didn’t often look in mirrors to see his own face. In fact, sometimes he couldn’t recall it — not in detail. But he was pretty certain it wasn’t the face of modern policing.

The quayside at Wells-next-the-Sea was crowded with small boats. The press already aboard the Osprey, a modern sixty-seater, which spent most of its time running parties out to Blakeney Point to see seals. Today it was rigged out to keep journalists happy, with an icebox full of bottled beer. Shaw parked in a reserved police bay by the harbour master’s office and retrieved a box file from the boot containing information packs and a CD with pictures, a map and cuttings from 1994 — the year the cold case broke. All the journalists had to do was sit back, drink a cold beer and listen to the story. Then they could tap it out on their laptops as they took the train back to London. Like water, Shaw thought, most journalists took the path of least resistance.

Walking the gangplank to the Osprey he thought he’d judged the event perfectly: he hadn’t just netted the familiar faces from the local weeklies, the evening paper in Lynn, and the Eastern Daily Press in Norwich, he’d also snared three nationals and the regional man for the Press Association, who’d put it out to the rest of Fleet Street and the big regional dailies. As long as nothing broke through on to the news agenda for the UK over the weekend he thought they had every chance of getting a page lead in half a dozen nationals.

Shaw nodded to the skipper and the Merlin inboard engine coughed into life.

Osprey swung away from the stone quay, leaving behind a line of children and parents on the quayside crabbing — plastic see-through buckets dotted between them, full of skittering silhouettes. Behind them the little car park was crammed full, heat radiating from metal bonnets making a mirage of the shop fronts, the council attendant’s caravan office adorned with a large sign which read: CAR PARK FULL.

Shaw settled with the sea view, his back to the town, drinking his beer, and talked to the woman from the Guardian: dangerously thin, with long, bare legs, a short grey skirt and a white collarless shirt. Her name was Nikki — Nikki Tailor. She squinted at him through narrow, horizontal glasses which were electric pink. Her hair was short and expensively cut, but she fiddled with it, brushing it back from her forehead whenever she spoke. Seated, she wrapped one leg round the other so that her ankles were entwined.

She stubbed a biro on her notebook, mildly smug that she’d worked out that if the West Norfolk was reopening a cold case after nearly eighteen years — as the press invite they’d all got stated — then the science they’d used to open it up was almost certainly DNA analysis. She was right, wasn’t she?

Shaw gave her a surfer’s smile. He was aware of the effect he could have on some women. Her own smile broadened, a flush of colour rising on her narrow, elegant neck, and her legs crossed and uncrossed, locking again at the ankles. ‘Ten minutes you’ll know everything,’ he said.

She scratched some shorthand and readjusted the pink glasses, then dropped her notebook. ‘It’s John, isn’t it?’ she asked, when she’d retrieved it from the deck. ‘DI John Shaw.’

‘Peter,’ said Shaw. He thought this woman radiated a kind of perpetual low-level anxiety. ‘And we’re off the record, as I think your letter of invitation made clear.’ She nodded. ‘The information pack, which I’ll give you later, contains a statement from us — feel free to use that.’ He smiled, but she didn’t smile back because she’d got the point. All the quotes on the record would come from the chief constable. The last thing Shaw needed was to discover he’d stolen the boss’s limelight. Shaw’s time to take centre stage would only come if the inquiry turned into an expensive fiasco.

Osprey threaded its way through moored yachts. The boat had a canvas sun-cover but the sparkling seawater reflected light up, dappling the shadowy interior with light.

They’d been at sea for ten minutes and the quayside was almost out of sight, although they could still hear a one-armed bandit shuffling in the amusement arcade, the sound bouncing over the mirrored water of the long harbour. To the right the marshes stretched out of sight, deep channels of chocolate mud wandering through the reeds. To the left ran the sea wall, holidaymakers on the top walking out to the beach rather than taking a ride on the miniature railway which ran, unseen, on the far side. The smell of fish and chips lingered. But the air was cooler out here and the soundtrack was fluid — the screw turning, the water slapping the fibreglass hull and, just audible, the thud of waves falling on an unseen beach.

Shaw stood on one of the bench seats which circled the deck, his hand gripped to one of the poles which held up the awning. Valentine noted with irritation the DI’s stance: his weight down one leg, the shoulders relaxed, the face devoid of any trace of stress. It was one of the many facets of DI Peter Shaw that got under his skin — the effortless ability to be at ease.

‘Ladies, gentlemen,’ said Shaw, the voice lighter than you’d expect. ‘Thanks for coming. I have to remind you at this point that in accepting this invitation from the West Norfolk today your editors signed the embargo notice, so nothing can appear in print until after one a.m. Monday — and we take that to mean that nothing will appear until your Monday print editions. Websites can carry the same information, but only from one a.m. The information is being released only to print media — radio and TV will get the press release by email on the Monday morning at nine a.m.’

Shaw watched as the reporters exchanged smug looks of contentment. It was what they called in the trade a ‘beat’ — not quiet a scoop, because they were all being given the story, but they were going to be firmly one step ahead of TV and radio. He paused as the man from the Daily Mail rummaged in the cool box for a bottle. He had clearly decided, thought Shaw, this was a day off. He was in a pair of moleskin shorts with a shiny brass buckle, and a Polo shirt: baby blue, with a Lacoste brand label of the little crocodile. He’d once been able to fit into these clothes. Shaw guessed he was sixty, perhaps older. His skin was shiny, without surface tension. His name was Forbes — the first name Shaw had already forgotten.

‘So,’ continued Shaw, ‘just so that you can get your bearings. .’ He pointed back to Wells. ‘The town’s to the south of us; we’re just leaving the harbour, marshes to the east, reclaimed land behind the sea wall to the west. Over there — coming into view beyond the Lifeboat House — is the beach.’ They could see a line of beach huts in seaside colours, a wide expanse of sand, room enough for several thousand holidaymakers. Even now that they’d picked up the sea breeze, you could hear the sound of a summer beach: the whisper of a crowd punctuated with children screaming, a dog barking, the flutter of kites. On the steep sandbank beside the channel a cluster of seals basked in the sun, roped off from a small crowd of inquisitive holidaymakers by a flimsy fence of tape and sticks.

As Osprey slipped past the Lifeboat House Shaw trained his binoculars on the window in the mess room, on the second floor. Two figures in RNLI work overalls were at the glass, looking back at him. He waved once and both responded. Shaw had been on the lifeboat at Old Hunstanton, along the coast, for nearly ten years, having joined the RNLI while at university in Southampton. But he’d done shifts at Wells, which was one of the few full-time stations left on the coast, so he knew his way around. The doors of the main boathouse were open, revealing the blue and amber, sleek-hulled boat within.

‘And there,’ he said, raising his voice over the sudden cawing of seagulls, ‘is our destination,’ he added, pointing out to sea. The marshes turned inland here, to the east, to follow the coast. At the far point, about a mile off land, was a low island, crowned with dunes, marram grass and cowed pines. ‘East Hills,’ said Shaw. ‘That’s the scene of the crime — it’ll take us twenty minutes to get to the jetty. So do help yourself to a drink, and we’ve got some food too. .’ Shaw nodded to Valentine, who heaved a picnic basket up on to the engine cowling in the middle of the deck. The journalists descended like the gulls — all except Forbes, from the Daily Mail, who insinuated himself into a seat next to Valentine and tried to listen to his conversation with the man from the local paper.

Shaw studied the distant island. He had come here many times with his father as a child on the little ferry boat that ran out from the quay. Like most of the locals they’d avoided the trip in the high summer because the boat was crowded out with tourists and the ticket prices were steep. They’d gone at the weekend, spring and autumn. Despite the inconvenience — there was no drinking water, no shop, no nothing — it was one of the few places he’d ever seen his father relax. Even as a child he’d understood why, standing, holding his father’s hand, watching the ferry depart. Six hours before it came back. Six hours when the island was theirs. But even back then East Hills had a racy reputation — a kind of insular lover’s lane, with couples disappearing quickly off into the grassy dunes and pine trees as soon as the boat left. Shaw had stumbled on one pair, up in the pines, and the memory still brought the blood to his cheeks. He’d have been ten, maybe a year older, so the tangled naked limbs had made some kind of illicit, thrilling sense. But he didn’t know what to say — just a mumbled apology before running back to his parents. He’d sat, guiltily, feeling like a Peeping Tom who’d been caught out. He’d seen the couple, loose limbed, emerge from the dunes when the boat had come back, sounding a claxon as it bobbed off the floating landing stage, and they’d laughed at him — openly, and he’d felt that sickening adolescent certainty that he was never going to be admitted to the adult world.

But East Hills, like all his childhood haunts, looked smaller now. About six hundred yards long, a narrow ribbon of high dunes cut off from the coast by a deep channel and a persistent and lethal rip tide. Shaw noted the stone pines, the navigation buoy off the point, the pillbox: at an angle now, subsiding into the sand on the distant point. And the small wooden floating dock, beyond which the crowd on the beach was thickest.

He heard a question being asked and realized it was being asked of him. It was the man from The Daily Telegraph: a three-piece suit in a green country cloth. He’d be fifty-five, maybe sixty, radiating a kind, avuncular personality. But Shaw perceived something else beneath the unthreatening exterior. Accents quite that perfect were almost always manufactured. And when he’d got a hip flask out of his leather briefcase Shaw had seen a sheaf of cuttings on the West Norfolk force and its new chief constable, annotated in a neat, pencil, copperplate. So he’d done his homework.

The question he posed was a simple one: why the three day embargo until Monday? It was a good question — sharp, businesslike, despite the attempt to bumble his way through it. He tried to recall the reporter’s name from the briefing sheet he’d sent Valentine. Smyth — that was it, and now he wondered if the ‘y’ was an affectation.

Shaw sipped his iced beer. ‘That’s a good question — and the answer’s coming, I promise.’

Smyth smiled, nodding, but there was nothing jovial about his eyes, which were slate grey.

Osprey’s engine changed its note, the speed dropping, edging into East Hills past swimmers — most of them, despite the summer heat, in wetsuits, bobbing like tadpoles. The sea breeze had picked up once they’d got beyond the sand bar at the mouth of the channel and the breakers drummed on the sands, so that Shaw almost didn’t hear his text alert on the mobile. It was from Inspector Jack Craxton at Wells Police Station.

NO SIGN OF DAUGHTER. Shaw looked at Valentine, who’d got the same text.

‘Trouble, Inspector?’ asked Smyth from The Daily Telegraph, on Shaw’s shoulder.

‘Routine,’ said Shaw.

Osprey dropped anchor fifty yards off the beach. In the late-afternoon sun about sixty people lay on the white sands. The ferry ran just two trips a day: out and back. The last time Shaw had been in Wells with Fran, his daughter, in the early summer last year, he’d checked out the price: twelve pounds. So you got social exclusion as well as spatial. Plus the lack of facilities kept kids and families to a minimum. A woman stood, topless, and waded into the sea, shoulders back.

With the exclusivity of East Hills came one other major benefit on a north-facing coast: the south-facing beach, which attracted serious sun-seekers, dedicated heliophiles. One man stood close to the landing stage, towelling a flat stomach, one foot on a cold box, drinking from a plastic bottle covered in icy condensation.

Shaw leant on the little capstan house where the skipper of Osprey was now theatrically filling a pipe.‘OK, everything I’m gonna say is in the briefing pack, as I said. So sit back, enjoy the sun and I’ll tell you a story.’He opened a bottle of fizzy water as the sea slapped the hull of the Osprey. ‘In 1994 there were seventy-five people on this beach one Saturday afternoon in August,’ said Shaw. ‘We know it was seventy-five by the way because the boat which ferried them out sold tickets. Still does. One of those tickets went to a young Australian called Shane White; he was twenty, travelling in Europe. He’d picked up a summer job as a lifeguard, employed by the local council. Back home — that’s a small place up the coast from Sydney called Barrie Bay — Shane had been the school swimming champion, and he had all the certificates you needed: life saving, endurance, first aid. It was his job to make sure no one got into trouble out here on East Hills. On the boat he’d have briefed all the tourists, the message clear: it’s a good beach to lie on, you can even have a paddle and a dip, but don’t try to swim out, especially back to land, because the currents are treacherous and when the tide’s running you’d need to be Mark Spitz to have any chance of making it alive. It doesn’t look it, but it’s nearly two thousand yards to safety. A country mile.’

Several of the reporters squinted into the distance.

‘At about four twenty p.m. that afternoon — the return boat was due at four thirty p.m. — Shane White’s body was found floating in the water just over there. .’ Shaw pointed along the beach towards the open sea. ‘He’d been stabbed in the midriff and had lost a lot of blood. The wound was a slash, about eight inches long, delivered by a blade at least five inches long. The woman who found him got help and he was dragged ashore. He died about ten minutes later. The boat which arrived to take everyone off the sands had a radio, and so assistance was called. The RNLI launched and came across the channel. A police launch came out too. Officers took everyone off the beach and back to police headquarters at Lynn — St James’ — to take statements. Shane was a good-looking lad. .’

Shaw nodded to Valentine but he was already on his feet handing out the press briefing packs. The first print in a set of photographs was of the victim. The local paper had done a story that summer when he’d helped save a horse and rider who’d got caught out on the sandbanks beyond Holkham. Shane had swum out while the lifeboat launched. He’d gone out to comfort the rider — a ten-year-old girl who’d got separated from a riding school outing. Shane looked like a lifeguard: two-tone dyed blond hair, muscled, in red and gold shorts marked WDC — Wells District Council. His face was as forgettable as most handsome faces — too symmetrical to be really interesting, like the computer-balanced features of some comic strip hero. The ten-year-old looked mortified and clutched White’s hand without enthusiasm while he held the wrecked bridle of her horse.

‘From the statements we were able to piece together Shane’s last few hours alive on East Hills,’ said Shaw. ‘He’d chatted up a few of the girls on the beach. Subsequent interviews revealed he did that a lot, and didn’t always stop with the chat-up line. At the funeral, which was held at Hunstanton, there were half a dozen heartbroken teenage girls in the congregation. All of them thought they were Shane’s one and only. Anyway, when he wasn’t sorting out the local talent he sat up on the dunes, near the ridge with a pair of binoculars, keeping an eye on the swimmers.’ Shaw glanced to the beach and they all saw a lifeguard sat on a high chair below a single red and yellow flag. ‘About an hour before Shane’s body was found he swam out and dragged a kid back to shore on an inflatable dolphin. There hadn’t been any real danger — the winds were very light — but it was the right thing to do. The kid’s father apologized and offered Shane a beer, which he declined. The next thing we know about Shane is he’s floating in the water leaking blood.

By 6.45 p.m. that evening we had evacuated East Hills. Each person on the beach — all potential suspects — were asked to take with them everything they had brought over from the mainland: towels, picnic baskets, kites, the lot. We took seventy-four people off the beach. Shane’s body went later after the pathologist had finished an examination at the scene. The preliminary cause of death — confirmed at autopsy — was drowning. He’d lost nearly three pints of blood due to the puncture wound. There was also a wound to his eye, possibly caused by a fist, but not a knife. Once we had his corpse off the sands, and his stuff, the beach should have been empty. It looked empty. We let the sniffer dogs lose and they found a spot up in the dunes where there was fresh blood in the sand, and buried in the sand they found something else — again, there’s a picture in your pack.’A threadbare towel, blue and white stripes, bloodstained, in a polythene evidence bag. ‘None of the seventy-four people left alive on East Hills would admit to recognizing this towel,’ said Shaw.

‘And they all had their own towels?’ asked Smyth, from The Daily Telegraph. Again, sharp, businesslike.

‘Yes. Everyone — but then some had two. Lots of people take spare towels. So that’s no mystery.’

They all looked along the beach. Shaw was right; the nearest couple were lying on two wide coloured towels but they had others drying from a parasol stuck in the sand.

‘We examined the towel thoroughly but it yielded nothing but bloodstains — a match for the victim. There were several layers of footprints at the spot — too many to be of use. But given the progress being made in forensic science at the time, especially in DNA analysis, it was thought wise to keep the towel in a secure environment in the long term. .’

‘What kind of secure environment?’ asked the man from the Daily Mail.

Shaw’s temper, never that far from the surface, flashed briefly. ‘A secure one.’ That was the problem with his temper: it came and went so quickly hardly anyone noticed. He swigged some water, letting the lack of control recede, then pressed on. ‘Fresh tests, undertaken in the last six weeks at The Ark, West Norfolk’s own forensic laboratory, using the?400,000 Home Office grant the chief constable has, I think, told you all about, and later under contract at the Forensic Science Laboratory, have revealed several skin cells on the towel from which a DNA profile has been drawn. It is not the victim’s DNA profile. We can assume, I think — an assumption we’re confident a court would accept — that the person whose cells are on the towel shed the cells as they cleaned the victim’s blood from their own skin. The DNA sample — Sample X — is that of a man. It has no direct match on the National DNA Database. We believe, with some confidence, that Sample X belongs to the killer of Shane White.’

Shaw ducked as a seagull flew under the awning.

‘Of the seventy-four original suspects eight have died. We have invited the remaining sixty-six to St James’ tomorrow. The majority will be travelling some distance — most of the boatload that day were here on holiday. Thirty of those sixty-six are men, and they will be asked to give a voluntary DNA sample — cheek cells by swab. Then, they will join the thirty-six women in being invited to read their original statements given in 1994. If they wish they can amend those statements. Each will be re-interviewed. Of the eight who died between 1994 and today five were men and their DNA has been determined with the cooperation of family members. All the samples will be analysed and compared to our scene-of-crime sample — Sample X. All seventy-four original witnesses are accounted for; all those alive have agreed to attend.’ Shaw smiled at Smyth, the man from The Daily Telegraph. ‘Hence the embargo. We want to get all the potential suspects into St James and out again before the publicity kicks in.’

Smyth coughed, and Shaw could see a glint of real excitement in the soft eyes. The reporter undid a button on the green cloth waistcoat. ‘So, Inspector. Let me think this through, if I may. The chances are — given that seventy-five people went out on the boat and seventy-four came back plus our victim’s corpse — that when you complete these tests you will know the identity of the killer. You will have a DNA link to the towel, a blood group link to the victim, and the original statements of the seventy-four that they didn’t recognize the towel. Right?’

Shaw inclined his head in recognition of the summary.

‘And the lifeguard’s towel?’

Shaw glanced at Valentine, because it was a good question and he didn’t know the answer.

‘Recovered on the day,’ said the DS. ‘From up by the dunes. Along with water, biscuits, sun tan lotion, a book. .’ Valentine closed his eyes. ‘Airport, by Arthur Hailey. And his camera. Nikkon — with a telephoto lens.’

Shaw had to remind himself that George Valentine had been on more murder inquiries than he’d had skinny dips. Behind the cynical, antagonistic exterior there lurked a first-class brain, even if he didn’t always know how to use it.

Osprey’s passengers were silent. Every one of the journalists was wide awake and paying attention. They knew a good story when they had one. And this was a good story, even if it was embargoed until after the weekend. But that was fine — they’d all worked that out, because by then there was no way the police would have announced the results of the screening. So the story stood: the police would have their killer’s DNA, the public wouldn’t know which one of the thirty-five male suspects was in the frame. Perfect.

‘How, exactly, do you know the skin cells were not Shane White’s?’ asked Smyth.

‘We took a sample from White’s brother, care of Sydney CID and Interpol.’

Shaw swigged fizzy water. ‘Which brings us to motive,’ he said, moving quickly to regain the initiative. ‘And that camera that DS Valentine has just helpfully mentioned.

When we developed the film in the camera we found some disturbing images. Shane White took pictures of couples in what we like to refer to as compromising positions.’

Forbes started rifling through his briefing pack.

‘None of which are in your press pack,’ said Shaw.

Some of the reporters booed.

‘Mostly they were taken in the woods and sand dunes along the coast, a few on East Hills. When you think about it he was well placed. He spent his time looking through binoculars. He’d spot a couple slipping off somewhere private. Then he’d follow, get his snaps. The real question is what did he do next? We considered the possibility at the time that he may have tried to blackmail some of the people he photographed.’

Forbes’ eyes widened. Violence, death, and now sex. ‘Did you put any names to the pictures?’ he asked.

‘A few, but as far as we could see at the time none of the people pictured were among the seventy-four survivors that day on East Hills, or indeed, related to them in any way. As I said, the vast majority of the trippers were on holiday. Not locals.’

‘Other rolls of film?’ asked Smyth.

‘We turned over his digs and found a makeshift dark room and developing gear. CID in Australia confirmed he’d done a photography course at school. But there were no photographs like the ones in his camera, or negatives. The answer may be in a detail — White’s neighbours insisted Shane had been burgled a week or so before his death. Door broken in, bit of a mess. He told the neighbour he’d report it. He didn’t. So maybe that was the killer’s first stop. He stole the pictures. Then decided to seek a more permanent solution, deliver a warning, in person. Scare him off.’

‘Burglary suggests premeditation,’ said Smyth.

‘To some degree,’ conceded Shaw. ‘But it’s always dangerous to think that one premeditated act leads to another. Life’s like not like that, or death.’

Smyth scowled, unhappy at the public lecture.

‘If the killer’s alive he’ll just run. .’ cut in Nikki Taylor. ‘Surely?’ She looked at her colleagues for support, but they were all looking at Shaw. ‘He’s not going to walk into a police station. .’

‘The Home Office funding is?400,000 — not four million,’ said Shaw. ‘We can’t watch them all. But if they run — well, that kind of answers our question. All the surviving witnesses were given the invitation to attend at St James’ in person. All were asked to stay in the country until the results are processed, so we collected passports. We understand from the FSS that processing will take approximately forty-eight hours, although, clearly, if they get a match in the first batch they’ll let us know. But you’re right. We are prepared for a no-show tomorrow. In fact, I think it’s odds-on. So we’ll be ready.’

‘And you’ll let us know, of course, if that happens?’ Smyth again, closing his notebook, smiling to himself.

‘That’s an operational matter,’ said Shaw, thinking on his feet. ‘But I can’t see why not.’

It wasn’t an answer and the reporter knew it. Smyth carefully unscrewed the top of a small hip flask and drank.

‘Questions,’ said Shaw. For the next ten minutes he fielded their queries, while Valentine texted DI Craxton, telling him they’d be back up at The Circle in an hour. He didn’t have the exact statistics in his head but he knew that the chances of finding a missing eighteen-year-old six hours after they’ve gone missing are a lot shorter than after one hour. If there was still no news then the dismal prospect of another self-inflicted death became ever more likely.

The tourist ferry boat turned away from East Hills, packed — literally — to the gunwales. ‘OK. Let’s head home too,’ said Shaw. ‘Unless anyone’s desperate for a dip.’

The skipper of Osprey hauled the anchor and they drifted offshore into deep water before the engines fired into life. As the boat turned Shaw didn’t move his head, so that the motion of the boat gave him an exhilarating tour of the northern horizon.

Once they were moving forward Shaw noticed that Valentine was stood alone, a bottle of beer in one hand, a set of briefing notes in the other. It was a rare sight, but he had a smile on his face, the genuine article. Shaw was reminded of a black and white snap his father used to keep on the sideboard at home: a Christmas party at St James’, DCI Jack Shaw clinking glasses with a young detective with a career in front of him — DI George Valentine.

Valentine came and sat beside him. The journalists were huddled at the other end of the deck, comparing notes, double-checking. Valentine had received a list of the seventy-four people taken off East Hills that hot August evening — a list the press did not have. He scanned down it, then pressed a grubby thumb on one of the names in the ‘P’s. Shaw read the name twice, then took the file to make sure he’d read it right. Marianne Pritchard. Shaw saw the victim’s face again, white against the pale pillow, looking out at the swaying sunflowers: Marianne Osbourne, nee Pritchard, on her deathbed.