Death Toll

21

Thursday, 16 December

Lynn’s medieval Shipwrights’ Hall stood on Cross Bank, its red-brick decorated facade looking out across the sea wall, a narrow band of reeds and the black river. Built in the thirteenth century, it was a monument to the fortunes made by the merchants of Lynn. Today a freezing mist clawed at its mullioned win dows, while a rusting German coaster in midstream vented water. The wind had died by noon, so that the damp air just lay in the Fisher Fleet like a ghostly spring tide.

Shaw and Valentine sat in the Porsche. The atmosphere was one of mutual anxiety. A search of the woods and estate at Holkham had been suspended overnight, resumed that morning, but had still failed to find any trace of Voyce. Tom Hadden’s team had crawled over the hire car and found nothing. Shaw had not yet reported to DCS Warren that their surveillance operation on Mosse and Voyce had been a fifty per cent failure, but he had an urgent message from Warren’s secretary on his mobile requesting an update — a request he couldn’t ignore for much longer. He’d sent DC Twine to the magistrates court to obtain search warrants for both Mosse’s house and the BMW.

Shaw had a large-scale map of west Norfolk on his lap, showing the coast road down from Hunstanton that Mosse had taken once he’d left the town at speed. How had Voyce’s hired car ended up further back up the coast at Holkham? He thought carefully about the night they’d lost Mosse and Voyce on the road. The BMW had turned down a side-street before accelerating away from Hunstanton. What if Mosse had dropped Voyce off by his own car? They hadn’t been close enough to see whether Mosse had a passenger, and the glass was tinted anyway. What if they’d made their deal at the Wash amp; Tope. Voyce gets dropped back at his car and agrees to disappear. Did they know they were being followed? Is that why he’d ditched the hire car?

‘You ain’t gonna find him on there,’ said Valentine, looking down the street, waiting for a familiar figure to walk out of the mist. The main doors of the Shipwrights’ Hall were open now, and a steady line of people were filing in, mostly elderly, all smartly dressed. As he watched, a Daimler glided into the kerb and the mayor got out, rearranging a chain of silver links around his neck. A photographer stood by the main doors but didn’t bother to take any pictures.

Shaw snapped the map wider. ‘What do you suggest, George — a seance?’

Valentine held his raincoat lapels closer together. ‘We could take Mosse down town, shake him up.’

Shaw shook his head. ‘Yeah. Once we’ve got the warrant, that’s our next move. But forgive my reluctance, because it’s also our last move. He is a solicitor, George. I think he’ll have a response ready. What d’you reckon — a complaint to the chief constable? Police harassment? Two bitter coppers trying to prove a judge was wrong? Warren will have us off the streets in half an hour.’

‘Hey up,’ said Valentine, pushing open the door, hauling himself up out of the Porsche’s bucket seat. A woman had appeared out of the mist, middle-aged but with a jaunty walk, a raincoat failing to conceal a black waitress’s uniform.

‘Georgie,’ she said when she saw Valentine, stepping closer and taking his head in her hands. Shaw looked away, embarrassed by the sudden intimacy.

‘This is my sister Jean,’ said Valentine, looking at Shaw. ‘Jean, DI Shaw.’

He shook her hand. ‘Peter, please, Mrs Walker.’

She looked at him with frank blue eyes. ‘You look just like your dad,’ she said. ‘Uncanny.’ Then she looked at her brother. ‘I told you on the phone …’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’ve only got a moment.’

‘It’s OK — I’m here for lunch. So, nothing lost,’ said Valentine. He wasn’t really looking forward to the meal; he didn’t usually do food in daylight. But he thought there’d be booze — one of those shiny buckets with ice in the middle of the table, stuffed with wine bottles, maybe a good malt. The ticket was a stiff enough price to warrant something decent — Glenfiddich, perhaps.

They followed Jean Walker through a narrow side entrance, down an alley and into a service yard. The medieval elegance of the Shipwrights’ Hall’s facade extended to medieval squalor at the back: food bins overflowing, an outdoor staff toilet giving off a powerful stench of stale urine despite the cold air, and a pile of empty catering-size cans of vegetables, all empty, all rusting.

‘Nice,’ said Shaw.

Jean laughed. ‘I wouldn’t eat here.’ She patted her raincoat. ‘I’ve brought sandwiches. If I was you, Georgie, I’d give it a miss.’

Valentine shrugged. ‘I’ll stick to fluids.’ As he said it, though, he felt the stirrings of real hunger. He hadn’t had a proper Christmas dinner in years. Perhaps he’d look at the turkey after all. Or the soup he’d ordered when he’d bought the ticket — he fancied something hot, nourishing. What had it said on Freddie Fletcher’s menu — Olde Lynn Fish Soup?

She led the way through a fire exit and down a narrow set of stairs to the kitchens. Preparations for lunch, they could see, had been under way for hours. Two cauldrons in brushed aluminium bubbled: sprouts bobbing in one, sliced carrots in the other. A man in stained cook’s whites hauled up an industrial oven door to reveal a line of half a dozen roasting turkeys, the sudden wave of heat reaching them from twenty feet. At a long metal table three women were arranging bread rolls and moulded pats of butter, each bearing the Shipwrights’ crest.

On a set of open gas burners soup simmered in three pots, the scent on the air something fishy, with a bite.

‘I’m serving,’ said Jean, shrugging off the raincoat to reveal the uniform underneath, black with white cuffs, a white ruff. ‘Latest fashion,’ she said, pulling the skirt straight. ‘Like I said — I’ve just got five minutes.’ She took them to a small room set off the kitchen where there was a machine to dispense drinks.

‘I wouldn’t touch that, either,’ she said, sitting, smiling again at Valentine.

‘Just tell Peter what you know, Jean.’

They heard a plate crash to the stone floor outside, the curse that followed greeted with a chorus of cheering.

‘George asked if I remembered Nora Melville’s wake. Sorry — Nora Tilden. It’s just that I grew up with the Melvilles, so it’s difficult to let the name go. I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t glad to see the back of her, frankly. And of course, with the murder, everyone gossiped, everyone wanted to be there, at the wake. Place was heaving. I’d done catering for the Flask at weekends when I was at school — washing up, mainly. So I knew they’d ask. I was in the kitchen most of the night, although we came through a couple of times for a fag and to listen to the choir sing, and once to set up the buffet.

‘Anyway, I was standing there listening when Freddie Fletcher came up. This was by the arch — between the bar and the dining room where the choir was singing. I was at school with Freddie. He knew I worked in the kitchens — I think he thought I knew the family, although to be honest Nora treated everyone like a stranger so I didn’t know anything that wasn’t common knowledge. Freddie had been drinking. He tried a bit of conversation but I could see straight off he wanted something. I let him burble on till he got to it.’

In the kitchen something sizzled in fat.

‘He wanted to know if I could tell him where the black kid lived.’

‘Pat Garrison?’

‘Yes. I had no idea, but I didn’t tell him that. I asked him why he wanted to know. He smirked a bit, said there was something they wanted to give him. A present.’

‘What did you think he meant?’ asked Shaw.

‘Freddie was a cruel kid — the girls always thought he picked on other kids to make sure no one had time to pick on him. When he got older he picked on blacks, him and his mates.’

Shaw just let her go on, because he knew she wanted to tell him. He had a sudden insight into life in South Lynn. A life accompanied by the commentary of neighbours, an endless litany of whispers, just on the edge of hearing.

‘Freddie’s mum left home when he was a kid, she found herself a new man down at the bus station where she worked. Freddie’s dad never got over it — let the house go to ruin. And the kids — Freddie had a sister — they just ran wild. This was when we was at school, so Freddie would only have been a teenager — just. His sister …’ she searched her memory for the name, ‘Milly — that was it — she was still in junior school. Those days people just stepped in and helped in situations like that — before the council stuck their oar in. An uncle, I think it was, over at West Lynn took them in, but it didn’t last. So the worst happened — they both went into care, and the council split them up. Milly went miles away — can’t remember where; Freddie was fostered in Lynn, but he moved about, nothing permanent. It’s not an excuse, is it, for what he turned out like, but it’s an explanation.’

Perhaps, though not a good enough one, thought Shaw.

‘And for all the talk, d’you know what? Freddie was pretty much all mouth. I don’t know what I thought that night, when he asked about the Garrison kid, but I imagined, I s’pose — that they’d break his windows. Piss through the letterbox. They weren’t the Ku Klux Klan. And the kid was right up himself. I don’t care what colour he was, it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve a thump.’

A woman in a suit appeared at the door. ‘Jean, you’re needed, please. Soup’s going up.’

Jean mouthed a silent ‘cow’ and hauled herself to her feet. She said she’d be serving for twenty minutes, then there’d be a gap before the main course — but she didn’t know anything else that might help. Shaw said he’d wait, because he had a few more questions. Valentine stood, buttoned up his jacket. ‘Right. Lunchtime for me, then. I’ll see what I see.’

Alone, Shaw listened to the staff in the kitchen plating up the soup. He tried to rationalize what they knew about Pat Garrison, and what Jean’s evidence, and that which had come to light at the inquest, told them about his death. Superficially, Shaw thought, the picture was clearer. They had three suspects — Fletcher, Venn and John Joe Murray — all with motives. They could have struck individually or collectively. The person who’d been heard typing at the victim’s flat that night could easily have been one of them. Whoever it was could have taken the key from Pat Garrison’s body, which would account for none being found in the grave, then gone back to his flat to type the notes designed to allay suspicion when he went missing. But Shaw was increasingly unhappy with the emerging picture. Garrison’s own character was as difficult to grasp as the winter fog lying in the streets — twisting, insinuating itself into the alleys and yards of the Old Town. Was he a devoted lover, determined to stay with his new child, the victim of prejudice for his colour, his nationality, his youth, his looks; or was he a cynical womanizer, arrogant and calculating? It was as if all the hatred which seemed to obscure Pat Garrison was obscuring something else as well.

His mobile rang. It was Jacky Lau. In the background he could hear a wind, surf and an engine running.

‘Sir. I’m on Holkham Sands. There’s a club — strictly illegal — they run hot-rod cars on the sands after the tide’s gone out. I know someone who knows someone. They had a meet down here night before last. They ran a few cars, then called it all off because they saw lights in the woods, thought it might be traffic division. They’ve been busted before and they didn’t want a repeat. But I’ve checked with both Burnham and Hunstanton; they had nothing up here after dark.’

‘Who’s with you?’

‘Paul’s got two cars on the way, sir. It won’t be an easy search — it’s got to be ten, fifteen square miles of woodland.’

Shaw told her to start searching where the lights had been seen and work their way outwards, then he cut the line. He knew the spot — a mile west of the nature reserve, a stretch of pine woods where hardly anybody ever went in winter. There was a road in — a forest track, but part metalled. Voyce’s hire car had been dumped two miles away. It wasn’t good news, and the stench of roasting turkey flesh didn’t make him feel any better.

Jean Walker was back. She washed her hands at a grimy sink, then looked at Shaw. ‘You can smoke in here,’ she said. ‘Nobody gives a damn.’

‘Don’t smoke,’ said Shaw.

‘No,’ she said, trying to push a fringe of untidy hair back under her waitress’s cap. ‘You’re not really like Jack at all, are you? Just the looks. He broke a few hearts, too.’

She took a Silk Cut Valentine had left on the table for her, holding it as if it was the first cigarette she’d ever seen. She lit it with her eyes closed, and didn’t open them until she’d expelled the smoke from between her lips.

‘Who were Fletcher’s friends?’ asked Shaw.

‘Will Stokes — he’s dead now, but they were thick as thieves. There was Sam Venn. Like I said, Freddie picked on kids at school and Sam was target number one from the start — but Sam’s a survivor: he’d take anything Freddie dished out, then come running back. In the end they were a bit of a double act. Sam could be cruel too. I guess that was the point for him — making sure someone else was the target. Just like Freddie.’

‘Venn was in with the skinheads?’ asked Shaw, worried at an image that jarred.

‘No. No — after school, they weren’t so close, and Sam was in with the church and everything, and Freddie hardly fitted in there. But in an odd way Freddie was family for Sam — what passed for it, anyway. They all kept in touch, all of his mates did, from school, and there’s some club the boys are still in — they all meet for lunch at the Flask, raise a bit for charity, that kind of thing. Masons without the aprons. They’ll be upstairs now, hitting the bottle.’ She looked skywards. ‘Yeah — family. It was all Sam had, and Freddie. Like I said, Freddie went into care. And Sam’s aunt brought him up — the house is in Palmerston Terrace — and she was in the church, one of Nora’s cronies.’

Shaw had another question ready but there was something about the way Valentine’s sister licked her lips that told him she had something else to say first, but that, being a good woman, she wanted someone to drag it out of her.

‘The church …’ Shaw shook his head, searching. Then he had it. ‘Damn. I meant to ask — that’s right, isn’t it? Venn’s father was in the Elect, we were told that by Abney, the pastor. So where were his parents? Why was he being brought up by an aunt?’

She ground the cigarette under her black shoe.

‘Bit of a local scandal,’ she wriggled slightly in her seat. ‘Surprised George didn’t remember — but he was probably playing cops and robbers with his mates from school.’ She laughed bitterly, as if she too had wanted escape.

‘Thing is, Arthur Venn — Sam’s dad — was a bachelor, in his fifties. Then he discovered sex and along came Sam. Problem was, the woman he discovered sex with was a Venn too — his dead brother’s daughter. Uncle and niece, see? So they threw him out of the church — her too. And boy were they smug when they saw young Sammy.’ She shook her head, still appalled, at the distance of nearly fifty years, at how cruel the righteous could be. ‘It’s cerebral palsy, but you know what these people are like. God’s judgement — the face, the arm. It did for Arthur — and the niece — they left town. Rumour was they shacked up together in London — because they don’t care down there, do they? Anything goes in London. Up here we’re still burning witches. So that left Sam and the aunt. And she was a sour-faced cow as well — same pod as Nora.’

They heard plates being set out in the kitchen.

Shaw let this new image of Sam Venn take shape in his head. ‘Did you know, back in 1982, that Patrice and Lizzie were having an affair?’ he asked.

‘Not till the baby came — then we worked it out pretty damn quick, like everyone else. No, I don’t think people knew — not to talk about, anyway. But that’s different, isn’t it — so maybe they did know. I wasn’t really in the in-crowd back then — marrying a copper tends to put the frost on things. And Don thought the place was worth avoiding. He never drank on the manor — just like your dad, Peter. They’d go out of town — or use the Red House, the coppers’ pub.’

Shaw was rerunning the cine film of the wake in his head. ‘And John Joe Murray — he’d been keen on Lizzie, but she didn’t want to know?’

‘Everyone loved Lizzie,’ she said. ‘John Joe tried his luck — sure. But she could pick and chose, could Lizzie, and she chose not.’

‘Bad blood?’ asked Shaw.

‘No — just the opposite, really. Kind of a joke, you know? They’d play up to it with people around — flirting with each other, turning each other down, making out they’d be meeting up later. It’s just that she didn’t want anyone from here — from the town. She always said she’d marry someone who’d take her away. Knight on a charger — that kind of rubbish.’

The radio, which had been blaring out KL.FM from the kitchen, went silent. The manageress appeared at the door with a mobile open.

‘Either of you know first aid?’ she asked. ‘We need an ambulance — for upstairs. I need them now. Really. People are being sick. Jesus!’ She covered her mouth. ‘It’s like they’ve been poisoned.’