Death Watch

Lena was asleep in the cottage, so Shaw let himself into the small office behind the Beach Café and switched on the iMac. He wouldn’t sleep yet, so he might as well do something. The likelihood that Gavin Peploe had been murdered meant the inquiry had to be reappraised. The whole squad had been paged and told to attend a briefing at 6.30 the following morning on Level One. Outside he could hear the tide washing in, and a night breeze in the tall grass in the dunes.

As the iMac screen blossomed he tried to push Peploe’s face from his mind: the saliva in a colourless line across the tanned skin, the crowded eyes. He tapped into Google, then to the local council website, following the links to the Burney Housing Association which now ran the Westmead Estate. Garage rental was outsourced to a private company called OffStreet. It had an online register listing the sixty-three lock-up garages on the Westmead. Eight were empty and available for rental at an annual fee of £40. Management of the service on the ground was provided by a warden – Mr D. Holden. An address in the nearby Shinwell Flats was listed, together with a telephone number.

Shaw checked his watch: low tide, and 10.36 p.m. It was late, but patience wasn’t his strong suit. He rang and a woman answered, who said Don wouldn’t mind the Newsnight. Shaw assured her it was a routine inquiry.

Don Holden’s voice was a surprise; high and reedy, happy to help. Shaw had four names and wanted to know if any of them matched the tenants on the current roll. Four names: the three Askit apprentices he suspected were on the CCTV of the crash at Castle Rising, and Robert Mosse. Don said he’d be a minute and came back with the register. It was all on paper, always had been, because he’d been on a course for the computer but his fingers were too big for the keys. Shaw waited.

No match.

Did he have the register for past years? Yes – back to 1995. Before that he’d burnt the lot because it was a small flat and they had a cat to swing. Could he check back? Shaw sat, breathing in the sea air through the open window, as Holden went over the old registers.

No match.

Shaw laughed, thanked him, and rang off. He walked out on the sand and watched the distant white line of surf breaking out towards the horizon. He took a small rubber ball from his pocket and began to bounce it up against the wooden side of the café, catching it despite his one-eyed vision by gently moving his head a few inches from side to side – a technique which effectively gave his brain two images of the moving ball from which he could build a 3D image. He caught the ball three times perfectly, but missed the fourth by a good foot. It was a skill he’d have to hone.

He pocketed the ball and glanced up at the small sign set over the entrance to the café. It had been a big step Lena Margaret Hunte; licensed to sell beers, wines and spirits to be consumed on the premises.

Everything to do with the business was in her name – and she’d never taken his. He went back to his desk and found the file he wanted in the top drawer. The records on a juvenile court case from 1996, a case he’d been drawn to because of its links to the death of Jonathan Tessier. Three young men – Bobby Mosse’s gang – had admitted terrorizing a small boy called Giddy Poynter. The boy’s mother had tried to set up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme on the Westmead to try and curb vandalism on her floor of Vancouver House. The gang locked Giddy in a rubbish bin overnight, having tossed in half a dozen rats to keep him company, just to teach his mum a lesson.

Shaw read through the note on the proceedings until he got to a section in which each of the three gang members had been given the chance to produce an adult to speak on their behalf. They’d admitted the charges, but this was in mitigation. Two had produced fathers but the third – Alex Cosyns – had called his mother, a woman who described herself as the common-law wife of his father. She’d kept her maiden name. And there it was – Roundhay.

Shaw rang Holden back and asked him to check Roundhay in the list of tenants – but he didn’t have to.

‘Yes. Of course – that’s a big family on the Westmead, Inspector. They’ve always owned a lock-up – that’s

Shaw told him not to bother; one number was enough.

The picture in Shaw’s head was like a snapshot from a family album – in 1990s colour, brash and glaring. A hot Sunday afternoon, the lock-up garages baking, a small boy standing at an open roll-up door, a puppy yelping. At the side of the door two numbers screwed into the woodwork: 51. Then the snapshot moved, coming to life, so that the child was free to move. Someone said something and he took a step inside, out of the sunlight, then another, and then he was gone. For ever.