Death Toll

17

The incident room at the Flensing Meadow chapel was dark within, each of the Gothic windows shuttered, the only illumination coming from the bulb inside a digital projector. The room was damp, despite the antiquated heating system, which they could hear pumping steaming water around creaking radiators. Outside the early morning mist had coalesced into a solid wall of earthbound fog, the pale disc of the sun which had briefly shone now lost, Shaw guessed, for the day. The fog muffled the whisper of traffic on the ring road, leaving the cackle of the cemetery crows to provide the only clear soundtrack.

DC Twine flipped open a laptop on the desk beside the projector and the cool blue glow showed a tidy desktop.

Shaw sat on one of the pews cradling a double espresso, trying hard to relax, picking at a sandwich. He checked his mobile, as if the mere action would spark it into life. He hadn’t heard from George Valentine for three hours. After their interview with Fletcher the DS had taken personal charge of the hunt for Jimmy Voyce, who had failed to return to his hotel overnight. Mosse’s BMW had got back to his street at eleven the previous evening. It was impossible to tell if he had a passenger. He’d left for work at six. His wife at eight. But there was a light on in the house. Shaw was worried, more than worried, and he’d stay that way until he had a positive sighting of Voyce — alive. In a few hours’ time he’d have no choice but to confront Mosse and report Voyce’s disappearance to Warren: a double hit which could indeed signal the end of his career.

DC Twine tapped the keys on the laptop. ‘Our luck was in, sir,’ he said. ‘The choir’s archive is in a mess — hundreds of recordings, mixed up with cine tins. Most of them are unmarked. This one just said “Tilden”. One of the conductors was a film buff — but it’s not Zeffirelli or anything. Strictly a one-tripod shot, although they do move it. We’ve had it transferred to DVD.’ Twine spoke for the audience he couldn’t see: Shaw’s squad — eight DCs, two PCs from uniform branch and the three civilian admin/phone bank operators. ‘Here we go …’

The screen was set perfectly to catch the rectangle of projected light. They saw a room, beamed, people crowded round tables, and the choir on the higher step, about forty men in three lines. Shaw recognized the dining room in the Flask. In the corner, on a plinth, sat Alby Tilden’s gold Buddha.

Twine let the first sea shanty get under way — ‘The Captain’s Chair’, a Lynn favourite. A few faces in the audience on film turned inquisitively to the camera.

‘I’ll run the whole thing for you if anyone wants, but there were just three things I’ve spotted I wanted to flag up.’ He’d bookmarked the relevant frames so that the film jumped to a new image, then froze. Twine stepped forward and used his finger’s shadow to point out one of the singers in the back row. ‘I got one of the old guys at the choir to name this lot. That’s Sam Venn, from the church.’

He magnified the image so that Venn’s distinctively lop-sided face almost filled the screen. Shaw thought he’d grown into his disability, accommodated it, because as a younger man the disfigurement was more obvious.

‘Now,’ said Twine, ‘that image was taken at eight thirty. Venn stays in the back row the whole of the first session until nine thirty-five. This next image is the first song of the second session — there’s no digital time on the film but the clock in the room says it was ten thirty. There …’ he used his finger again to trace the whole of the back line. ‘He’s gone. He doesn’t appear again.’

Shaw stared at the image. He’d had Sam Venn down in his book as many things, but outright liar hadn’t been one of them.

‘Anyone else step out?’ asked DC Lau, coming in with a Starbucks coffee in her hand, unzipping her leather jacket.

‘No. Absolutely not,’ said Twine. ‘The rest of the choir are all still there.’

Another image flashed up. The camera had moved slightly so that they could now see the doorway into the main bar — a Moorish arch, a kitsch 1950s addition. But there was another door visible, a side door, marked STAFF. As Twine let the image roll forward in slow motion the door opened and a man came out: early twenties, black, in a yellow silk shirt and jeans. He stood in the half-open doorway, as if protecting his escape route.

‘This is earlier. I think that’s Patrice Garrison — our victim,’ said Twine. ‘I’ve got a grab of the image, so we can get it to his mother for a formal ID. But that’s him, got to be.’

Shaw stood and walked to the screen, keeping the cone of light from the projector to his left. He should be proud of his forensic reconstruction, because the likeness was near perfect. The figure didn’t smile, but his lips were parted, and Shaw could see the tell-tale gap between the front teeth. The structure of the face was very close to that of his son Ian’s — less fine, the skin tone darker. In the background the clock read 9.10 p.m.

‘This is the only time he comes into shot,’ said Twine.

‘Right,’ said Shaw. ‘And Lizzie said they talked at about ten. So at this point he doesn’t know he’s about to become a father.’

They watched him drink from a small shot glass he held easily in his hand. Shaw noted that no one in the room had greeted him, and that he made no eye contact with anyone.

But he’d been noticed, even if he appeared not to notice anyone else. There was a table to the right crowded with five or six men, their hair uniformly and aggressively short. As Pat Garrison opened the door one of them watched him, nudged his neighbour, and they all looked, their heads edging closer, as if conspiring. One, in a T-shirt, had bare arms covered in tattoos: a Union Flag conspicuous. ‘Him,’ said Shaw, touching the screen on the face of a man at the back of the group. ‘Can you blow that image up?’

Twine worked at the laptop, the screen went blank and one of the DCs in the dark whistled. Then the screen lit up again. The face — slightly distorted by magnification — was wide and belligerent, caught in the middle of a snarl. It was Freddie Fletcher.

‘Let’s see if we can get names for the rest of the men at that table, Paul,’ said Shaw. ‘Can we see the shot without Venn again?’

Twine had it up instantly. The crowded group of skinheads at the table was still there, but the camera angle was different, three men nearest the camera blocking the view, playing cards, concealing the spot where Fletcher had sat.

‘Run it forward,’ said Shaw.

For a minute the table was in shot but they couldn’t see whether Fletcher was still at his seat. Then the camera moved, taking up a wider angle to one side, so that the skinheads were no longer in shot at all.

‘Damn,’ said Shaw, taking his seat. ‘And the third thing you want to show us?’

‘Lizzie Murray, sir. Well, Lizzie Tilden then, it would have been. They gave her a framed photo — of Nora with the choir. Here.’

The image froze, then broke into pixels before reforming and flowing on. Lizzie stood on the little stage, most of the men in the room on their feet, clapping.

Again, a whistle from the dark. ‘She’s amazing,’ said Shaw. Her figure was sinuous, in a simple black dress, the black hair loose. Of the starched stiffness of the woman she’d become there was no hint. She rubbed the palm of her hand down the line of her waist and hip. The noise of the applause seemed to unsettle her, the smile a nervous one. Shaw thought she was an exotic figure, the only female in the shot, her young face an almost painful contrast to those around her. At one point she looked to the door marked STAFF, but it was closed.

Twine ran the film back, but too far, so that Lizzie Tilden was gone. ‘Sorry — I’ll run up to that image if you like.’

The image of the choir returned, the choirmaster speaking …

‘Thank you. Thank you. It’s been wonderful for us to sing here tonight for Nora. She was a real friend to the choir and we’ve always felt this is our home.’ There was a perfunctory round of applause and someone said something on Fletcher’s table that caused a scandalized hushing. The choirmaster looked around, searching faces at the back of the room. ‘We have something for Lizzie — but I understand she’s gone to ground.’ There was a shout from the back of the room. ‘Is she there?’

Applause filled the room, genuine this time, the volume sustained.

Lizzie stepped up on the stage and accepted the framed photo. ‘Thanks. I know Nora loved the choir, and their singing. I’m sure you know you’ll always be welcome here.’ The choir applauded that — and Shaw realized that was the point. That the choir had turned out to perform in order to stake their claim. This had been their home while Nora was in charge. They wanted the same commitment from Lizzie, and they’d got it.

Lizzie’s voice rang out again. ‘She used to say that when the choir was here it was the one time the Flask really came alive.’ She turned to the choir. ‘You made her very happy.’

The room was silent, waiting to see what she’d say about her mother, and whether she’d say anything about her father. Cigarette smoke drifted from hands, swirled round spotlights. Shaw had to remind himself that this was a wake, that the woman they’d gathered to honour had died just a few feet away, through that door marked staff, murdered by her husband.

‘Some of you sang with her, didn’t you? Years ago. She had a good voice. It was a shame we didn’t hear it more often.’ There was a scattering of applause. ‘Well, we won’t hear her again now.’

Shaw thought she was struggling to bring emotion, any emotion, into the little speech.

She looked at the picture they’d given her. ‘But this is how she’d have wanted us to remember her.’ Applause again, a voice crying out, ‘A song!’

But she held up her hands. ‘Not me. I inherited a lot from Mother, but not her voice.’

There was laughter again, dutiful, confused. ‘A toast …’ She held up a small green glass. ‘To Nora.’

Relief flooded the room, feet stamped and they all stood, drinking and clapping. Lizzie left the stage through the Moorish arch to the bar. Matches flared as fresh cigarettes were lit.

Twine tapped away at the laptop. ‘Do you want to see the whole thing?’ he asked Shaw.

‘Please, Paul. First — coffee. Updates?’

The neon flickered back on as they refilled mugs.

‘One thing,’ said Mark Birley. ‘I had a look back through the log book at St James’s to see if there were any incidents in the last year in or near the cemetery. In June, the eighteenth, there was a report from one of the houses overlooking the graveyard — on Gladstone Street: lights at night. The incident sheet has the time down as three fifteen a.m. Woman up with a sick teenage daughter. Said she looked out the balcony window and saw a cluster of lights — two, maybe three, over down by the river. Her brother-in-law’s on traffic. She rang him, he rang the incident room. They got a car out, and the cemetery warden who had the keys for the gates. The archaeologists had started by then, so there were open graves, some digging gear. Best guess was it was someone trying to lift some of the plant. Anyway, no trace by the time they got there. But they went back — it was on the squad-car schedule for a month. They’d check twice, three times, a night. Nothing.’

‘OK,’ said Shaw. ‘Let’s get the notes on that call. And we need to talk to the cemetery warden. How’d these characters get into the cemetery — given they’re probably carrying spades and lanterns? Or did they borrow the tools — or take them? Let’s check that out with the Direct Labour boys and the Cambridge unit …Anything else?’

Lizzie Murray and Bea Garrison had already put together a list of all those they thought had been at Nora Tilden’s graveside — and later at the wake. DC Twine said he’d try to match the lists with the film, see whether there was anyone they’d missed. The rest of the team would continue interviewing those people still alive who’d been at either the wake or the funeral or both. Two key questions for them all: had they seen Patrice Garrison leaving the pub that night, and had they seen anyone leaving at around the same time. Shaw reckoned they could clear the list in twenty-four hours: then they could liaise, get a 3D picture of the night.

‘While all that’s in train let’s get Sam Venn off the street and down to St James’s,’ said Shaw. ‘We need to get him on the record telling us he was in the pub till closing time. Then we show him this. He wanted to know if he was a suspect. Well, he is now.’

For an hour they watched the Flask coming alive again on film. The colour was poor, the film quality patchy, but the atmosphere was perfectly rendered: a close-knit community coming together to celebrate a life lived amongst them. Nora Tilden had been born in the Flask, and she died on its wooden stairs. She’d given birth to two children in a bedroom with a view over the cemetery in which she and her lost child would lie. These people may have despised her, ignored her, or even hated her — but they’d lived their lives with her. By the time the choir sang the last song the whole room was on its feet, the sound thunderous, making the soundtrack crackle.

From his viewing of the film Shaw had made two mental notes. First, in the break between the two choral sessions, sandwiches and food had been served by five people: Lizzie, two men Shaw didn’t recognize and two women he did. The first was Kath Robinson, the second was George Valentine’s sister, Jean. He must prompt his DS to track her down.

Second, and more importantly, when Patrice Garrison had come into the room, or at least stood on its threshold, he had at first indeed been ignored by everyone except those at Fletcher’s table. But then someone else had noticed him, a man standing by the stage, cradling a pint. He had long black hair, swept back, a fine pointed face and a thin poised body, which he held stylishly, one leg angled behind him so that the sole of his shoe rested against the wall. With his free hand he kept the beat; over his shoulder was draped a white dishcloth. In a room of hard faces it was an outsider’s face: watching, not taking part. He wore a T-shirt, the front of which carried a slightly faded picture of Elvis Costello. When this young man did notice Garrison he didn’t take his eyes off him, not once, until he turned and left. And despite the intervening twenty-eight years Shaw had little trouble putting a name to the troubling face: it was John Joe Murray, later to be Lizzie’s husband, a surrogate father to Ian and landlord of the Flask.