Death

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.