Death Toll

12

Tuesday, 14 December

The car park at St James’s was full so Shaw parked the Porsche behind the Ark on a narrow side-street behind the Vancouver Shopping Centre. When Shaw cut the engine he and Valentine could hear the tinny soundtrack of piped-in Christmas carols leaking from the back of Wilkinson’s. An inflatable Santa flew over the multi-storey car park. In the road two cats pulled at a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken in the snow. The clock on St Margaret’s chimed the quarter hour. Mid-afternoon, but the December light would soon be dwindling fast. They had fifteen minutes before the autopsy on Pat Garrison. It was the third day of the inquiry, and they were little nearer finding his killer. They knew so much about him, so much about his family and his life, but the truth about that night twenty-eight years earlier remained elusive. It was like having a family photo album from which the vital picture had been torn out.

Shaw felt thwarted, frustrated, and worried that despite setting in train a textbook murder inquiry he was missing something obvious. For now all he could do was stick to his basic rules: keep it simple, check everything and share everything. He’d spent the morning getting everyone up to speed on the tangled history of the Melville family — including Tom Hadden and Max Warren. Then he’d organized a trawl through the list of guests Lizzie Murray had given them of all those she could recall being at her mother’s wake. They needed witnesses, and after twenty-eight years that was going to be their biggest hurdle. Every name had to be tracked down, even if some of the trails led only to the cemetery. So far DC Lau’s door-to-door operation had yielded little: a couple of people had been at the wake but memories were shaky, detail scant.

Valentine had contacted the secretary of the Whitefriars Choir and they had a volunteer trawling through old cine-film tins to see if they still had the one filmed on the night of Nora’s wake. A few members of the choir remembered the evening and they’d be giving statements — but so far they’d uncovered nothing substantial, nothing new.

Overnight, Twine had made contact with the FBI and the state police department in North Dakota, based in the capital, Bismarck. He’d requested the paperwork on Pat Garrison — including his birth certificate and medical records. Shaw obtained clearance from Warren for DNA tests to be undertaken by the Forensic Science Service on the bones they’d found in the grave on top of the coffin and on a saliva sample provided by Bea Garrison. That was one relationship they needed to nail. Formal statements had been made by Bea, Lizzie Murray and Kath Robinson. Valentine had taken all three and reported that Robinson appeared to have learning difficulties — she seemed often confused and was unable to read her own statement. She was nervous and disorientated before being reunited with Bea, who had driven her home.

Shaw had talked to the coroner, who’d agreed to open an inquest, using Bea Garrison’s identification of Shaw’s forensic reconstruction as the basis for a preliminary identification of the victim. The brief hearing, scheduled for the following day, would be used as an appeal for witnesses to come forward, then adjourned until the police inquiry was over. To maximize publicity the opening hearing would be held at the Flask — which would also allow the coroner to visit the scene of the crime. It was a rare example of the coroner using an ancient power — to call an inquest close to the place of death, rather than in the characterless surroundings of the courts. The rarer the better, thought Shaw, because it would guarantee coverage in the local media and possibly even make the national newspapers. It was a long shot, but it was just possible, in a tight-knit community like South Lynn, that it would encourage witnesses to step forward whom they’d otherwise have missed.

Shaw checked his watch: 2.30 p.m. Low tide.

Valentine worked a finger into the hole on the dashboard that had once held a cigarette lighter. His mind constantly drifted from the case in hand to the Tessier case. He briefed Shaw on the surveillance units he’d set up for the scheduled evening meeting between Robert Mosse and Jimmy Voyce: a textbook operation — three mobile units, a back-up on standby and the police helicopter on call.

‘Anyone farts, we’ll have it in triplicate,’ said Valentine.

Shaw left the heater running. He was aware that through the chassis of the car he could feel the gentle rumble of cars queuing on the ramps of the multi-storey car park, busy with less than nine full shopping days to Christmas. He made an effort to focus on Pat Garrison’s death, trying to file away any anxieties he had about that coming night’s operation at Hunstanton. There was nothing more he could do until the two men met. Meanwhile, any real progress in the hunt for Pat Garrison’s killer remained elusive. As cold cases went it was beginning to feel icy. They needed to breathe life into the dead.

‘So what do you see, George — that night, in the Flask? In here,’ said Shaw, tapping a finger to his temple. ‘Was the killer there?’

Valentine’s stomach rumbled. Breakfast had been a single round of toast and a mug of tea in the canteen at six that morning, the brew laden with enough tannin to keep a shoe factory supplied for a month. He didn’t really do lunch in terms of solids. His main meal of the day was usually administered after the pubs closed — a tray of chips and curry sauce, or a Chinese takeaway, noodles crammed into a silver-foil container. He played with his packet of Silk Cut, setting it at 90 degrees on the dashboard, then 180, then back to 90. He wanted to get a smoke in before the autopsy, but he forced himself to concentrate on Shaw’s question. He knew the DI didn’t ask questions unless he wanted answers. This was team-work, and as much as neither of them wanted to be in a team, they had to make it work.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I think the killer was at the party. I don’t think anyone in the family is telling us the whole truth — but that’s because there are family secrets, and they’re not sure what’s coming out in the wash and what isn’t. But the heart of it’s clear …’ He heaved in a lungful of air, but it wasn’t enough, so he flicked a switch to drop the passenger side window to cover up a second breath. ‘It’s dynamite, isn’t it? Black kid …’ He held up both hands. ‘Black American kid starts pawing white barmaid,’ he said. ‘We know Fletcher was there — maybe some of his chums share his political beliefs. Pat Garrison was just the perfect target — black and foreign. How excited can a bunch of bigots get? It’s racial — I know Max don’t want to hear that, but you know, it’s pretty much screaming at us.’

‘Go on,’ said Shaw, knowing he was right, knowing this is what he could learn from Valentine, the ability to hold on to the obvious in the middle of a complex murder inquiry.

‘Pat leaves the pub,’ said Valentine. ‘A couple of people who think like Fletcher are beered-up; they follow him out along the riverbank through the cemetery. Maybe Fletcher goes too. They confront him — they’d do that, right? That’s how they think — they need to tell him why they want him out, to his face, like it’s a form of courage or something, even though they’ve turned up mob-handed. So they tell him that he’s trash. Spit in his face. Then — from behind — one blow. Lights out. Then they chuck the body in the grave and shovel in some topsoil off the pile.’ He pointed forward through the windscreen, suddenly animated. ‘In fact, Fletcher was there — had to be, because he knows the grave is still open, and knows he’ll have to fill it in.’

Shaw found he could imagine it happening. ‘We need to see if that works — on the ground. Let’s get an address for Garrison’s flat. See if it makes sense that he’d walk home that way.’

Shaw closed his eyes, his nerves were making him fidget. One of the reasons he was finding it an effort to concentrate was that he hadn’t had his early morning swim, and he hadn’t run to the Porsche, because the tide had been too high and he’d had to pick his way through the dunes, so there was a lot of bottled energy in his system that needed to be dissipated. He’d spent the morning doing what he hated most: admin. Running a murder inquiry from behind a desk. His foot jiggled uselessly on the accelerator.

‘What about the cousins thing?’ said Shaw. ‘Nora was a regular at the church. It’s only a guess, but I reckon the Free Church of Christ the Fisherman doesn’t take too kindly to that sort of relationship. Sleeping with your relatives. It’s all part of the don’t do list. So, don’t marry your cousin. And Lizzie told her dad, who probably told everyone else, which was helpful.’

Valentine thrust his head forward, his narrow shoulders squaring off. ‘So the Elect, or whatever, they get to know about it and they get uptight. Perhaps one of them decides to stop it — dead.’ He hit the dashboard with the heel of his palm. But it was a halfhearted blow. He didn’t believe it himself.

‘Doesn’t add up, does it?’ said Shaw. ‘It’s been legal to marry your cousin in this country since the reign of Henry the Eighth. Back then, big issue. Now — no issue. OK, this isn’t now — it’s 1982 — but it’s still thirteen years after we put a man on the moon. I’m not saying it wasn’t a principle that was important to the believers. But killing someone? I don’t think so. If this lot think Leviticus bans marriage between cousins then they sure as hell know their ten commandments. I don’t think murder’s an option.’

Valentine set the cigarette packet on its head. ‘What about money? You’ve got a nineteen-year-old girl like Lizzie — she’s not bad looking now, back then she must have been turning heads since she was fourteen. All of a sudden her mum dies and she’s left the pub. That ain’t gonna make her look any uglier, is it? I bet the likely lads were all over her like a horse blanket. This black kid was lining himself up for the money too, right? If he marries Lizzie, he gets the lot. And don’t give me any of that “it’s all a secret” tosh, either. I don’t think anyone had to tell anyone else what was going on — including the mother — Bea Garrison. She knew, betcha. Which means she’s lying. If they fancied each other then everyone knew — it didn’t need Alby to let his mates know from jail. I bet they all knew — just no one said. That’s what they say, right — you suspect it, then it’s happening. That’s a powerful motive.’

‘Maybe.’

Valentine put a cigarette in his mouth but didn’t light it.

Shaw took pity on him, kicking open his door. ‘Let’s get some air,’ he said.

They stood together in the street, their feet on the circumference of an imaginary circle six feet wide, their bodies angled in different directions. Flecks of snow began to fall.

Shaw took a fridgeful of cold air into his lungs. Valentine inhaled half of his Silk Cut.

‘Couple of things,’ said Shaw, holding up a handful of fingers. ‘Press Twine to track me down Alby Tilden, will you — it’s a loose end, and I don’t like loose ends. In her statement, Lizzie says her dad stopped seeing visitors in the late eighties. She said his mental condition was poor, and he was ashamed of what he’d done. He wanted her to remember him as he was. According to Paul, the Prison Service says he got out in the late nineties. Since then, nothing. Lizzie gets letters — his are postmarked Peterborough. She keeps them — it’s all pretty innocuous stuff, and no hint as to where he is. Return post goes via Bea Garrison to an address up north — then they’re passed on. Nothing for a year now, by the way. We’ve got the address off Bea Garrison and Paul’s been on to the local nick; they’ll go round, see if we can get the forwarding details. But he clearly doesn’t want to be found. And he’s got the perfect alibi as he was banged up in Lincoln jail on the night of his wife’s wake — but I want words, if he’s alive. Paul said he was going after the pension records — see how far he got.’

He thrust his hands down deep into the pockets of his RNLI jacket.

‘But the key is that night: the wake. The problem is, we can round up witnesses — and we will — but they’re all family and friends; that’s why they were there. Who do we trust? What we need is a reliable witness with nothing to gain from lying. Still no luck with the choir?’

‘It’ll take time,’ said Valentine. ‘One thought. My sister, Jean? She knew your dad. I think she did some kitchen work at the Flask, right through the eighties. Functions, parties, that kind of thing.’

Shaw remembered her: when Shaw’s father was alive his DI had been a regular visitor at the house, usually late at night, so that Shaw would hear them downstairs, talking over a whisky bottle, worrying away at a case. Jean had come to family celebrations because she’d married a copper: a DS from Peterborough. Shaw recalled a stoical woman, always in the background, helping in the kitchen, the kind of woman who only spoke to annotate her husband’s stories: a series of well-rehearsed asides.

‘She about?’ asked Shaw. A pair of seagulls dive-bombed the squabbling cats.

‘Yeah. Don Walker — the copper — he died years ago. But she’s about. Lives in the next street. I’ll ask her. Even if she wasn’t there, she might know someone who was. South Lynn’s a tight community — there’ll be someone.’

Shaw’s mobile buzzed. It was a text from Twine. Sam Venn at the Free Church had given them the names of two black men who’d been members of the Elect in 1982 and might have been at Nora Tilden’s funeral. St James’s had tracked them down through the old electoral roll and found a relative at the same address. Jesse and Emmanuel Rogers, father and son, were both alive and well in Northampton; Jesse retired, a widower, Emmanuel working as a hospital porter.

He handed the phone to Valentine to read.

‘They both lied,’ said Shaw.

‘Who?’

‘Venn and Fletcher. Venn was happy to track down the two black men — but he didn’t mention, when he could have, that there were three. Pat was at the graveside. So was Venn. An oversight — maybe? But what about Fletcher? He said there were two faces — and only two. He led us away from Pat Garrison.’

Valentine shrugged, judging whether he had time for another smoke. ‘It’s twenty-eight years. People forget.’

‘Maybe — like I said, maybe Venn forgot. But Fletcher? There’s a lot of things wrong with Freddie Fletcher, but being colour blind isn’t one of them.’