Death Toll

7

‘Jason’s pretty much a tosser,’ said Michael, leading Shaw away through the tombstones, across the soaking grass. ‘But he’s right — you know, we’re all human. But it’s rare — really rare. It’s just in this job the perks are few and far between. So, chance of a free bevvy, course we go. But we’d be back in, what, an hour? Less. And we’d see, we’d look — if there was anything there, we’d see it.’

Shaw didn’t answer as he followed the track Michael was making through the grass. He doubted very much that they would notice if the level of the grave was higher than they’d left it. And after a skinful of free beer he didn’t think they’d be at their most observant. A winter’s afternoon, the light fading, keen to get by a fire, or back to the wake. It might have happened like that. It could well have happened like that. He’d left Campbell to take a statement from Jason, just for the record.

He rang Valentine on the mobile for an update. The surveillance squad on Voyce had struck lucky — he’d gone out first thing for breakfast in town so they’d slipped in and wired the single room — two mics, one in the light fitting, one in the bedside phone. They’d set up in a room on the same floor and were monitoring round the clock. Shaw decided not to ask if the warrant had arrived in time. They arranged to meet at the Flask in an hour.

The mist in the cemetery seemed to be closing in, and all Shaw could see was gravestones and the figure ahead, making a track through the snow.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Shaw. ‘It’s Michael …’

‘Brindle,’ he said, stopping suddenly and looking around at the tombstones in the mist. ‘There,’ he said, pointing to the outline of a stone wall which had come into sight. ‘The east gate.’ He led the way to an ironwork door set in the wall and selected a key from the bunch hanging from his belt.

‘It’s a short cut,’ he said, motioning Shaw through. They emerged onto one of South Lynn’s dead-end streets, one of many in a dead-end town. To the left Shaw could hear the traffic on the distant London Road, lorries churning gears in the mist, but to the right the street ran into a wall of white, where he knew the edge of the Nar would lie in its deep channel. Opposite was a small cafe Shaw had never seen before: a converted front room, the condensation obscuring the interior.

A handwritten sign above the door read tinos.

Inside, eight tables were crammed full, largely with council workmen in road-digger gear. Full English breakfasts congealed on off-white plates, while behind the metal-topped counter a man in a vest was squirting steam into a pot, the sound obliterating the nasal whine of KL.FM — the town’s local radio station.

Brindle nodded to the man, ordered three breakfast baps and led Shaw through a door marked toilet into a hallway, then doubled back up a narrow staircase. The door at the top was preceded by a metal security frame on which had been fastened a hand-painted sign.

P.E.N.

THE PARTY OF ENGLISH NATIONALISM

LYNN FOR OUR OWN FOLK

‘Keeps Freddie busy,’ said Brindle, grinning at Shaw but giving up on the conspiracy when he saw the expression on the DI’s face. As they waited outside the locked door he looked down at his feet.

Their footsteps had announced their arrival, and Shaw could hear someone turning a key. By the time the office door was open he had his warrant card out, straight-armed, in the occupant’s face.

‘DI Shaw, King’s Lynn CID. Just a few questions, sir.’

Freddie Fletcher was bald, a sculpted head, bony, like a clenched fist, the skin shiny as if it had been polished. In contrast, the visible skin that wasn’t on his head was covered in black hair — his chest where the shirt was open, his wrists, and the backs of his hands. He was in his fifties, perhaps younger, and remarkably alive — grey eyes, dove-grey, which locked onto Shaw’s without flinching.

Shaw looked around the room. In the centre was an oak desk. One wall was dominated by a map of Lynn, the various council wards marked out. He knew that in the last district elections the BNP had done well in Gaywood, one of the wards on the outskirts of town. The town was on the edge of the new BNP heartland — rural East Anglia — where the party could tap into anxieties about migrant farm workers. And there had been a charm offensive, too; an attempt to play down the party’s violent and racist past — lots of community work, helping the elderly, fundraising for the local working-men’s club. Not a word about repatriation for blacks and Asians — but then in Lynn, as in much of the surrounding area, that wasn’t an issue. But he’d never heard of the PEN. A splinter group, perhaps.

‘Give me a sec,’ said Fletcher, walking away to the window with a mobile to his ear. Shaw judged his height at five-eight, five-ten at most.

On the desk was a pile of leaflets, fliers for a forthcoming concert:

THE OLD SONGS ARE THE BEST

Hear some of Lynn’s famous sea shanties

performed by the Whitefriars Choir

Nar Bank Social Club

Monday, 3 January 2011

All proceeds to local charities

The PEN motif was in the bottom right-hand corner, the size of a thumbprint.

Fletcher killed his call and took the captain’s chair behind the desk. Shaw and Brindle sat on a short bench against one wall.

‘Can I help?’ He picked up a pen and leant back, like a bank manager considering a loan. But his fingers were a working-man’s fingers — fat and inflexible. On the desk was a framed picture, turned to face visitors, showing Fletcher at a back-garden barbecue, his arms round two children.

‘Maybe,’ said Shaw. ‘It’s about a burial on Flensing Meadow — 1982. The graves are being exhumed because of the flooding, and something has been found — something that shouldn’t have been there. A body.’

‘It’s a graveyard — what did you expect to find?’

‘An unidentified body,’ Shaw continued, ‘on top of the coffin in one of the graves.’

Fletcher’s fleshy eyelids slid down, fluttered, as if he’d been asked a tricky maths question. ‘Oh, right. Where, exactly?’

‘Down towards the riverbank, a few feet from a big Victorian stone tomb.’

‘Yeah, I know where you mean. Well, in that case there’s a good chance it’s one of mine.’

Brindle shifted on the pew. ‘It’s Nora Tilden’s — Lizzie’s mum.’

Fletcher’s eyes widened. ‘Christ. Of course — yeah. I was on that.’ He laughed, bringing both hands together to cover his mouth. ‘The husband killed her, you know that. Alby, they called him. Scum. Nobody ever understood why she took him back. He’d been off on the ships, sleeping with blacks. Came back with what he deserved as well — riddled with it. Christ! And she took him back into her bed.’

He leant forward, as if to share a secret. ‘He even had a picture of one of the women — a tattoo, on his back. A black.’

Fletcher tried a smile of incredulity on Shaw, a glint of gold dental work catching the light.

Shaw tried hard to make sure Fletcher didn’t see him swallow, his mouth dry with anger. ‘So you went back for a drink that day — to the wake at the pub? The grave would have been left open?’

Fletcher worked his palm over the black stubble on his face.

‘Yeah. Course. We all knew Nora. And he’d been banged up for it — so that was a celebration. We’d have covered the grave — but if you’re asking if someone could have chucked a body in and we’d miss it, then I guess the answer to that is yes, it’s possible.’

Brindle shifted in his seat.

‘So you would have filled it in by nightfall? It was November — so before five?’

‘Problem was,’ said Fletcher, ‘it wasn’t really a wake — like I said, more of a party. Nora ran a strict house, Inspector. No swearing, no dancing, no singing. If she caught you enjoying yourself, you were barred for life.’ The glint of dental work again. ‘Fact is, while she was a pillar of the community, the pub was like a morgue — had been since the war. Alby used to drink down the Albatross on his night off, that’s how bad it was. So when she died the great and good turned out, but they fucked off as soon as the cucumber sandwiches were gone. Then the party kicked off. Lizzie’s not her mother’s daughter …Lizzie likes a party. Still does. So we had one. A corker.’

Shaw had decent radar when it came to listening to a witness. So far he felt Fletcher had worked with the truth. But he sensed something else, a guardedness.

‘None of which answers my question, Mr Fletcher. The time that you filled in the grave.’

‘We didn’t. At least, not that night. I went back up next morning — me and the hangover. Filled it in by spade with Will Stokes.’ He held up a hand. ‘He’s dead — has been for years, so he’s not getting any better. You’ll have to take my word for it. That would have been ten, maybe half ten, the morning after.’

Shaw looked at a poster over Fletcher’s shoulder; it was of Fletcher’s face, jaw set, a Churchillian squint. ‘The corpse that we found — there’s every chance the man in question was black. That would have been rare then, in Lynn?’ asked Shaw.

Fletcher leant back, hands behind his head, revealing grey patches of sweat at his armpits.

‘You’d be surprised. We had ’em all right. Still do. The bus company took on some from Peterborough, the Queen Vic’s got ’em on the nursing staff — few of the doctors. But not many — you’re right. Spot on a domino.’ Cruelly, Shaw wished Valentine had been there to hear that coming from Fletcher’s mouth. ‘But there’s a touch of the tarbrush in a few of the schools — even round ’ere.’

Fletcher placed his hands flat on the desk, a visible effort to maintain his self-control. ‘But they’re not a concern to us.’ Fletcher’s tone of voice had lightened, and Shaw sensed he’d slipped into a stock stump speech. ‘It’s the Poles, the Portuguese, the Serbs — all kinds of Eastern rubbish. And we sympathize with you, Inspector. All the policemen who have to deal with ’em — ’cos your hands are tied, right? The law — that’s one of the things we need to change. ’Cos you have to admit — ’

‘Actually, I don’t,’ said Shaw. It was one of the many things he found distasteful about people like Freddie Fletcher, the need to find converts. ‘I’ve never heard of the PEN,’ he added.

‘You will. BNP’s gone soft round ’ere. Someone needed to keep the flame alive. So I left — set up in South Lynn. They’ll want me back one day.’

Shaw wondered if Fletcher had been booted out. That was a grubby badge of honour. ‘And for future reference, Mr Fletcher, Portugal is in western Europe. So that would make them Western rubbish, if any kind. But for the record — that night at the Flask, or at the funeral, were there any black faces?’

Fletcher pinched his fat chin. ‘Yeah — two of them, from the Free.’

Shaw could see that his witness had become hostile.

‘Which is?’ asked Shaw, standing, going over behind Fletcher to look out of the window. In the street a council Scarab was parked in the gutter. And behind Fletcher’s desk he noted a box in the corner, cardboard, full of second-hand toddlers’ toys.

‘Church,’ he said, throwing a thumb over his right shoulder. ‘The Free Church, on Tope Street. Nonconformists. Reformed Baptists. Nora was one of ’em …one of the Elect.’ He lingered on the word, as if it was of value in itself. ‘That’s what they call ’em — “the Elect”. Anyway, blacks go — always have done. They were against slavery, see? So they had to let ’em in when they were free. Bit fucked-up like that.’ He faked a belly laugh.

‘Could you give me some names?’ said Shaw.

Fletcher swung round in the seat, looking at Shaw, the hint of a smile in the eyes. ‘Didn’t know they had names. What next, eh?’

Brindle shifted in his seat again, and Shaw noticed the blood had drained from his face.

But Fletcher couldn’t stop himself now. ‘I got six hundred votes last time, less than fifty the time before that. The BNP got thirteen per cent of the vote in one ward. Twice what the Greens got. It’s coming, Inspector. Doesn’t matter what the party’s called. It’s the message that counts. It’s a message that’s getting through.’

Shaw didn’t respond, but stood, studying a notice-board crowded with posters, business cards, a few snapshots of what looked like BNP outings: one on the beach at Hunstanton by the funfair, everyone pale white, trying to get a tan.

‘How about a ticket for the annual Christmas fund-raiser, Inspector?’ Fletcher waggled a bunch of multicoloured raffle tickets. ‘Nice bit of grub at the Shipwrights’ Hall. I’ve taken a whole table on behalf of the Flask — shows we support our local community.’

He came round the desk and tapped a finger on a printed menu he’d pinned to the wall. ‘Good British fare,’ said Fletcher. ‘Better than that, even …’ He stabbed a finger on the starter. ‘Local fare.’

Shaw let his eye run down the menu — each item accompanied by a brief account of its sourcing.

Norfolk Turkey

Supplied by C. J. Tilte amp; Sons of West Norfolk

‘Food this community has been catching and eating for centuries. None of your foreign muck,’ added Fletcher, standing at his shoulder, as Shaw noted the starter.

Olde Lynn Fish Soup

Supplied by Fisher Fleet Shellfish, and the

Clockcase Cannery, West Lynn

Shaw thought about the turkey they’d had last year — Jamaican-style jerk turkey, marinated in scallion and garlic.

‘I’ll stick to Christmas dinner with the family,’ he said. ‘One’s enough for me.’ He was astonished to see that of all the things he’d said to Fletcher, this was the one that made him break eye contact.

‘We’ll need to take a statement, Mr Fletcher,’ he added, avoiding a handshake. ‘You’ll be here later?’

Fletcher spread his hands as if he never left the room. ‘If not, there’s always a note on the door.’

They left him and clattered down the bare wooden steps into the steamy fug of the cafe. Brindle collected three greasy bags from the counter, their contents now cool and congealing. Shaw thanked Brindle and walked up the street, opting to take the long way round to the cemetery gates where he had left the Porsche. It was a bit early to be assessing suspects, he thought, but there was every reason to keep a close eye on Freddie Fletcher. But despite the fact the man had had opportunity, and his own twisted motive, he felt there was something profoundly ineffectual about Fletcher, something fundamentally weak. He couldn’t imagine him delivering that fatal blow — although, he reminded himself, buttoning up his coat against the chill wind, it had been from behind.