Death Watch

Valentine lit up on the kerb. The sun was high now and their shadows crowded round their feet. The street reeked of the town – hot pavements, carbon dioxide, and something rotting in the drains. He spat in the dust. Was he braced for the inevitable question, thought Shaw, or did he think Orzsak’s casual accusations of police brutality would be left hanging in the air between them?

Shaw looked into the distance, up towards the T-junction and the abattoir. ‘So, George – they roughed him up. First night of what looked like a child-murder inquiry, tempers fray, lot of pressure from upstairs, right – to get a conviction, get the press off your back. What’s a couple of broken fingers against the slim chance Norma Jean was still alive somewhere? Maybe you were there…’

Valentine’s eyes were in shadow. His bladder was hurting, and he wanted – more than anything – to walk to the Crane and use the loo. Then buy himself a pint.

‘Wasn’t my case. I wasn’t in the room. I think I did some of the house-to-house next day – maybe.’ But he wasn’t going to let it lie there. Why should he? He looked Shaw in his good eye. ‘But if I had been in the room,’ he said, stepping closer, so that Shaw could see the ash which had blown into his thinning hair, ‘I’d have twisted his little fingers till they snapped just as happily as they did.’

‘Yes. Course he was fucking in the room. For all they knew, Norma Jean was lying out there somewhere…’ He pointed to the docks, then round to the waste ground where Bryan Judd had plaintively called her name that night in 1992. ‘Lying there. Dead, dying, they didn’t know – did they? So you tell me if it’s worth it – sir.’

Shaw went and got in the car, leaving Valentine to finish the cigarette. When the DS joined him he took a deep breath and tried to imagine they hadn’t just had the exchange they’d had. Valentine wanted the conversation to continue, because he hadn’t got to the heart of it, to the fact that Jack Shaw had a nose for scum; for the kind of man who’d take a fifteen-year-old girl from her family, kill her – probably worse – and then spend the rest of his life watching that family rip itself apart in the aftermath of the one moment in their lives they couldn’t forget – the moment they knew she’d gone.

‘Jack –’ he said, but Shaw raised a hand.

‘Leave it.’ They sat in silence for thirty seconds. ‘Let’s think this through. Let’s remember which murder inquiry we’re supposed to be on. If Orzsak killed Bryan Judd last night, what are we saying happened?’

‘My guess is he comes home at about seven,’ said Valentine. ‘He knows it’s Norma Jean’s day. The day she went. All that stuff about being out all day doesn’t wash. He’d be back to check.’ He flipped the seatbelt to give himself room to struggle out of the raincoat. ‘The timings fit nicely – Judd and his mates fire up the electric substation at noon, wait an hour to make sure the power’s staying out, then ransack the house. By the time Orzsak

‘But why Bryan? It’s Andy he’d go for…’

Valentine shook his head, took an extra breath. ‘Andy’s outside the Crane. Beered up. Surrounded by his mates. They’d tear him apart. And anyway he’s not going to listen, is he? No, Bryan’s the one he thinks he can get through to. So he goes up to the hospital to try. He said it himself, Bryan thought his father had killed Norma Jean.’

He turned in the seat to look at Shaw’s face but caught only the moon eye – unseeing. They heard a cow bellow from the back yard of the abattoir, setting off the rest. A kind of keening.

‘He’s had eighteen years of it,’ said Valentine. ‘Being treated like a piece of shit. Kids shouting at him. People spitting. Crossing the street to keep away.’ There was an edge in Valentine’s voice and Shaw wondered if it was how he sometimes felt – an outcast.

‘But this time he’s had enough. He pleads with Bryan to tell the truth at last – but Bryan’s loyal. It is eighteen years since she went missing. If he was going to tell us, tell anyone, he’d have done it by now. So Orzsak doesn’t get what he wants – and that’s when the fight starts. He’s a big bloke, I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong end of a fist – Christ, if he punched his weight he’d kill you.’

He tried a laugh, then pressed on. ‘Orzsak kills him – maybe accidentally in the heat of the fight – then stuffs the body on the moving belt. Back in town he goes down the Polish Club for a shot of the hard stuff.’

Valentine wound the window down. ‘That works.’ He

‘Any evidence you’d like to offer for that scenario – or do we just take your word for it, George? What about Andy? Are we sure – really sure – he was here on the street all day? Perhaps Bryan was going to talk to us at last; perhaps Andy went up the hospital to try and talk him out of it.’

‘Nah,’ said Valentine, looking away. ‘If it’s not Holme and the drugs, it’s Orzsak and Norma Jean. It ain’t Judd – the feud’s too old, the blood’s cooled.’ It was an odd image for Valentine to use, and they waited in silence for him to take up the thread. ‘Andy could have belted Bryan any time he wanted – why go up the Queen Vic when the street’s rocking?’ He pinched his nose, trying to stop a sneeze. ‘No – the action’s all here for him. On the street. By the time we got here he was out of his tiny warped little mind, content that he’d made sure his little vendetta rolled on another year.’

‘Maybe,’ said Shaw.

Across the street they could see Fiona Campbell on the doorstep of the Bentinck Launderette with two PCs.

‘Ring Twine,’ said Shaw. ‘Get him started on checking Orzsak’s alibi. Let’s talk to the family.’