Death Watch

15

Norma Jean Judd was fifteen years old when she disappeared; fifteen years nine months. Her home address was number 14 Erebus Street — the house occupied by her twin brother until his violent death. Norma Jean was last seen alive on a summer’s afternoon in 1992. She was at Lynn Community College but on a day-release scheme in hairdressing — NVQ Level 2. She’d been at Fringe Benefits, the hairdressers on the London Road, from 10 o’clock that morning until 3.45 that afternoon. Colleagues said she’d always been tidy, dutiful, and polite. That day, however, she’d been unusually quiet — a trait which had been deepening for several weeks. She’d explained that she was worried about her exams. She’d walked home. A neighbour saw her in Erebus Street at 4.30, talking to a neighbour, a man called Jan Orzsak. The witness said their voices had been raised and that Norma Jean appeared upset by the encounter. She ran home to number 14. She was never seen again by anyone

It was not a happy house. The problem was Norma Jean: attractive, precocious, and independent, and four months pregnant. The father was Ben Ruddle, of number 31 Erebus Street. He was nineteen at the time, in a young offenders’ centre up the coast at Boston, awaiting trial for burglary. Andy Judd wanted her to keep the baby. Marie, her mother, wanted her to have a termination. A brief note from Norma Jean’s doctor was included in the file; it confirmed that another GP had been asked to review the case notes on the grounds that a request had been made by the patient — on 1 September — for the doctors to consider a termination under the 1967 Abortion Act, on the grounds of the damage it would cause to the mental health of the mother.

In his statement to police Andy Judd said he’d gone home, found Norma Jean crying on her bed, and had comforted her. Norma Jean said — according to her father — that she was upset and confused about what to do about the child. Andy said he’d run himself a bath because he and his wife were planning a night out at St Luke’s — the Catholic club in nearby Roseberry Street. While he was in the bathroom he heard Norma Jean going down the stairs — he said he presumed she was making herself a cup of tea. But when he came down he

Marie Judd, in her statement made that evening to DCI Jack Shaw, corroborated her husband’s version of events. She’d said she’d seen Norma Jean crossing the yard at about 5 o’clock — it had to be before that because one of her friends had come into the launderette to listen to the local weather forecast on the radio. They both wanted to hear it because they’d planned a trip to the beach at Heacham the next day — a Sunday.

Andy Judd went back to the Crane. The landlord said he was certain he was back by 5.30 p.m. It was the mother who raised the alarm when she went home to get ready to go out at 7.30 p.m. There was no sign of her daughter. She rang friends, and — after dragging her husband out of the pub — they checked neighbours as well. At 9.30 p.m. they called the police.

The prime suspect was Jan Orzsak. Aged forty-eight. An engineer. Polish. A bachelor whose mother had died two years previously. When she was much younger, he’d made friends with Norma Jean and a few of the other children in the street. They went to his house to see his tropical fish. Orzsak said he’d asked Norma Jean to feed the fish while he’d been out of the country on an assignment for the company he worked for — in Africa, installing a power plant in a village near Lagos. When he got back the fish were dead. She’d lost the key he’d given her. He admitted they’d argued in the street. Orzsak said he’d simply expressed his disappointment. CID had him in that first night while an extensive house-to-house search was conducted. He was released without charge

Nothing was ever heard of her again.

Jack Shaw had next hauled the father — Andy — into St James’s. Marie Judd, re-interviewed, admitted that there had been family arguments about the baby. The issue was deeply divisive. Marie Judd was from a sprawling Irish Catholic family. She’d watched her own mother worn down by bearing eleven children: three boys and eight girls. Her death at fifty-eight had been a release from grinding poverty. It was a fate Marie was determined her daughter would not share. Her father, a teetotal wages clerk at one of Dublin’s linen mills, had seen in the size of his family the only evidence that his life had been a success. Andy, as devout a worshipper at the Sacred Heart as his wife, could walk away from the consequences of childbirth; he considered all forms of abortion to be infanticide.

The CID team asked themselves the obvious question: had Andy, on that last evening, discovered that his daughter had finally decided to take her mother’s advice? Had an argument turned to violence?

It wouldn’t have been the first time. Andy Judd had a violent criminal record; often linked to alcohol abuse. In 1984 he’d been convicted on a charge of ABH — he’d coshed a workmate from the docks with an empty beer bottle after an argument over a card game in one of the North End pubs. In 1993 he’d been before the magistrates court on three counts of breaching the peace — all in the Crane. Each time excessive alcohol consumption

But despite an extensive forensic sweep of the house no evidence could be found of a violent struggle, let alone murder. If he had killed his daughter, where had he put the body in the few minutes during which he’d an opportunity to cover his tracks? And there was Marie Judd’s eyewitness account of seeing Norma Jean alive leaving the house. She insisted her husband was not capable of hurting their daughter and had never struck her, despite the bitter family row over the unborn child. Jack Shaw had believed Marie Judd’s statement, although the suspicion would always linger that she might have been persuaded to lie to protect her husband.

If they couldn’t find a killer perhaps there was another possibility: had Norma Jean simply left home? She’d talked to at least one school friend about running away. But extensive checks on buses, trains, and the major roads out of Lynn drew a blank. The Garda visited relatives in Dublin to make sure she had not fled across the Irish Sea. The file on Norma Jean Judd remained open for almost two years. There was a single sighting of the teenager in 1993 after an extensive poster campaign in eastern England. She was ‘seen’ buying Hello! in Peterborough by a woman who ran a newsagent’s. Hello! was Norma Jean’s favourite magazine. The woman said she was ‘nearly certain’ it was the girl in the poster. Lynn police set up a

Valentine finished his cigarette and threw it from the metal fire escape outside the canteen, watching it corkscrew down five floors to the St James’s car park. What did Norma Jean’s story tell him about the dead man — her twin brother Bryan? What did it tell him about the Judds? Only, perhaps, that they were a family who lived with a secret and a question: if Norma Jean was dead, did her killer live amongst them? Or just a few doors away?

He asked himself how many families could withstand that kind of distrust, that intensity of internal tension, before blowing itself apart. And he knew the answer was none.

Shaw had slept fitfully until six, then, relishing the cool air, he’d left Lena in bed, running to the Land Rover along the high-tide mark. The team would be in place at the murder incident room at the Queen Vic at seven. He had an hour. He’d considered a swim, but a single image made him hesitate — the lights going out at the presbytery beside the Sacred Heart of Mary the night before. He’d found the interview with Liam Kennedy unsettling; he sensed he’d been told less than the whole truth, worse — that Kennedy was an unreliable witness, someone unable to see the difference between reality and the world in his own head. He wanted to get to the parish priest before he’d had an opportunity to discuss with the hostel warden what had happened in Erebus Street. Shaw closed his blind eye, massaging the lid. He wanted two views of Aidan Holme, not one, merged.

In the dawn light Erebus Street was desolate, the blackened ruins of number 6 no longer smouldering, the debris cleared from the road, the light outside the launderette, thrown out of sequence by the power cut, flashing now despite the low sun slanting in as it rose above the slaughterhouse on the corner. Shaw picked his way through the headstones in the small walled graveyard to the front door of the presbytery, which was painted locomotive green, and stood open.

He could hear a voice, just one half of a conversation.

‘Yes. Of course. I’ve got the policies out now. Yes — I’ll make the calls. I understand…’

Shaw called again.

‘A second,’ said the voice. A head appeared round the door. ‘Come in, please — I won’t be a moment.’ The voice was high, with an accent, a sibilance which suggested Spain, Portugal, or South America.

The front room held a desk on which was an oil lantern, the flame out, but the room still haunted by the scent of paraffin. The lantern was brass, with an inlaid design and coloured glass panels. The light came from an electric desk lamp which Shaw had guessed had been on since well before dawn. Two walls of books, a Victorian standard lamp and a sideboard which hadn’t seen polish in the reign of Pope Benedict. A priest stood at the desk making a note on a foolscap pad with a fountain pen, the scratch of the nib purposeful, businesslike.

‘Thank you. Every prayer is needed,’ he said, then cut the mobile, slipping it into a wallet on a leather belt. Shaw could see that mentally the priest continued to play the conversation on the phone through his head.

‘I am Father Thiago,’ he said, trying to focus. ‘TEEAR-GO.’ He emphasized the syllables so that Shaw would get it right first time.

His skin was dark, the hair lustrous, receding from a high academic forehead. Shaw noticed a gold signet ring

‘Thiago Martin,’ he added.

Shaw showed the priest his warrant card.

‘The fire,’ said Father Martin, a hand covering his eyes. ‘That was the bishop. There’s so much to do. Insurance — I’m just checking our policies. I’m afraid our affairs are not in the best of order.’

‘Any news of the two men from the hostel?’ Shaw asked.

Martin shook his head. ‘And Bryan Judd — killed, murdered? Can that be true? The radio hasn’t given a name.’

‘Yes. Nothing’s cast in stone, Father,’ said Shaw. ‘But we found a body, and Bryan is missing. Still missing.’ He broke off, walked to one of the bookcases and teased out a spine. ‘The men in the hostel, Father — Holme and Hendre. It’s Holme I’m particularly interested in. Specifically his relationship with Bryan Judd. You know Holme?’

Father Martin sat, holding both hands to his face to cover a yawn. ‘Aidan? Of course — he’s been with us some time, although the hostel is really Liam’s kingdom. Liam Kennedy — the warden. I have a parish to run, there’s no time to duplicate our responsibilities. Liam’s a young man, but very able.’

Shaw was always shocked at how businesslike religion could be. He could have been interviewing the MD of a you know, Father?’

‘About Aidan? What can I tell you? An intelligent man who regretted his past. A teacher once, I think. Science. I spoke to him at Christmas, about how beautiful science was — that it was one of the proofs of God’s presence. All that order out of chaos.’

He looked down at his hands. Out in the street they heard a beam crash from the roof of the burnt-out house and splash into the basement. The priest looked to the window, distracted.

‘He took drugs, sold drugs, did you know that?’ asked Shaw, irritated by the priest’s miniature sermon.

‘Yes. But Aidan had professed a desire, a determination really, to reform himself, and his life. We encouraged that. And we believed in it.’

Before Shaw could ask another question the priest pressed on. ‘It was, and is, Liam’s responsibility to choose those men offered the privilege of a room in the hostel. Most sleep in the church — we run a shelter there. I’m very busy running the parish, as I’ve said. I’ve always been happy to cede that duty to Liam.’

Shaw noted how expertly he’d suggested that he might not be so happy to do so in the future.

‘But you must remember that almost all the men who come to us for help have a criminal record.’

‘So Holme’s intelligent — anything else?’ asked Shaw. ‘He feared death, didn’t he? Why was that?’

Martin searched for the right words. ‘It’s not an uncommon emotion, is it, Inspector? The fear that just

‘I see. And Bryan Judd?’

‘I don’t know him well. The mother died — some years ago, before I came here. She’d been a stalwart apparently; my predecessor had felt the loss greatly. Marie, I think. It is a broken family. The father is broken most. But he has faith. Andrew. But a deeply troubled man.’ He nodded to himself, pleased that he’d retrieved both their names from his memory.

‘But Bryan…?’ asked Shaw.

‘We know Alison — his wife.’ He stopped, and Shaw sensed he’d talked himself into an awkward cul-de-sac. And the use of the royal ‘we’ was beginning to grate.

‘Why do you know her?’ he asked.

The priest licked his lips. ‘Alison does the laundry for us, and for the hostel, and the church. Also, a little housekeeping. She sings as well, when we can muster a choir.’ He shrugged, still distracted, perhaps, by his conversation with the bishop. Shaw recalled the first time they’d seen Ally Judd, appearing out of the darkness with a mop and pail. He wondered how efficient that was — house cleaning in a power cut.

‘But Bryan?’ he asked, aware it was the third time he’d asked the question.

‘No. I’m sorry — just a face. He certainly didn’t attend Mass.’

Stillness must be a great virtue in a priest, thought Shaw. He looked Shaw directly in the face. ‘How?’

‘Too early to say,’ said Shaw, deciding it was his turn to be elliptical.

Martin went to the desk and screwed the cup off the top of a small metal Thermos flask. He filled it with black coffee. The aroma in the fusty room was deeply exotic. He walked to the bay window and looked out to the street.

‘I am disappointed in the people here, many we know, many worship here. To do that… to burn down the hostel. They say it was Andrew Judd…’ He laughed, as if the irony was an impossible one.

Shaw studied the walls. There was a framed degree certificate from the Universidade Federal do Parana. And a framed poster in a language he didn’t recognize: a vibrant colourful Christ, armed with a pistol, standing on a barricade in a city street, red flags flying in the mob behind him.

‘A mob,’ said Shaw, touching the frame.

‘A crusade,’ said Martin, looking at the picture. He gestured through the door. ‘That was a mob.’

Shaw checked his watch, wanting to press on. Father Martin’s shoulders relaxed at the prospect of being left alone.

‘You’re a long way from home, Father,’ said Shaw, walking into the hall.

‘I go where I’m needed. I am not needed in my own country,’ said Martin, following.

‘Brazil,’ Martin said at last.

‘Brazil must have its poor parishes,’ said Shaw.

‘It does. But I believe that Christ wants us to fight for the poor, Inspector. Fight. I believe Christ wants us to drag down the rich, and that money is a sin. Once this theology was popular. A revolutionary theology. Not now. So I go where I am wanted.’

‘And your degree? Theology then, or politics?’

Martin took a deep breath. ‘Medicine.’

‘Don’t the poor need a doctor?’

‘Christ wanted me to do this,’ he said, and Shaw thought what a smug answer that was.

Shaw had one last question. ‘What about Neil Judd, the youngest? I don’t see him as a church-goer.’

‘No. Christmas — with his father. They are close. Ally says he holds the family together, despite them. That is sometimes the role of the youngest. I don’t know why.’

Shaw nodded happily, wondering if the priest had noticed his error; replacing the stiff and formal ‘Alison’ with the familiar ‘Ally’.

Shaw stood back to let one of the hospital tugs go past, the electric motor straining, the driver rhythmically hitting the horn with the heel of his palm. Eight trucks, all crammed with yellow bags destined for the incinerator. He held his breath, making sure he didn’t pick up a trace of the smell, then watched it diminish for fifty yards, trundling into the heart of Level One, until it turned a distant sharp left, and was gone.

He stood looking at the face of his mobile phone. He’d just had a short conversation with Valentine, who’d filled him in with a fifty-word summary of what he’d discovered about the disappearance of Norma Jean Judd. Was it relevant? Maybe. But they needed more information, so he’d asked Valentine to track down DCI Jack Shaw’s DS on the case — Wilf Jackson. Retired now, he lived in a bungalow at Snettisham on the coast. But he had a mind like a gazetteer, and he’d remember the case like it was yesterday. Shaw had a specific question: where was Bryan Judd the evening his sister went missing in 1992? And Neil — the youngest? Valentine was to get out to the coast, flesh out the story, then get back for the full briefing at 10.30.

The murder incident room was at Junction 24. Shaw pushed open a pair of double doors marked BIOMECHATRONICS: STORAGE.

The original contents of the room — a series of metal shelves holding artificial limbs — had been pushed back against one wall. Shaw could see rows of arms, lower legs, claw-like hands and feet; in plastic boxes swaddled prosthetics with pink fake skin, tangles of cable and pulleys, balls and sockets in sickly-white and perspex. And a rack of sticks and crutches, some in metal, but many in worn wood. On the wall was a glass cabinet, with shelves like a Royal Mail sorting office. In each, held in cotton wool, was a glass eye. The sight made him look away. He’d avoided having a glass eye himself, but it was always a possibility, as over time his doctor had warned him that healthy single eyes often deteriorated in sympathy if their injured partners were left in place.

Shaw took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt, nodding at the watching eyes. ‘Are they all looking at me, or what?’ he asked.

Twine handed him a short report summarizing developments since they’d last talked by mobile just after

‘DS Valentine asked for a shakedown on Potts and Bourne — they’re the incinerator workers who were there when the victim was found,’ said Twine, holding a sheaf of statements. ‘Potts was the last to see Judd alive at 7.45 — but he wasn’t alone. There was a third man on early duty — Kelley. He saw him too. By the way, all of them had noticed he’d picked up a black eye recently, but none of them can recall when he got it.’

Twine’s summary had brought silence to the room, but his voice didn’t alter. ‘We know Judd was dead at 8.31 when the furnace was stopped by Bourne. Between 7.45 and the arrival of Darren Wylde, Potts and Bourne were with Kelley in the control room. They were brewing up some tea on a gas burner after the power went out. Bourne got on the line to the electricity company to see what had gone wrong, and Potts was on a mobile to the generator room — checking that they could go on taking up the demand. Then Potts went down to see what the situation was on the incinerator belt. So — unless they’re all in it together — they’re all in the clear.’

Shaw sat on the edge of a desk and reread the statements, looking for a loophole. There wasn’t one. Valentine had been right to insist on a fast-track check because the odds on a killer being the person who found the corpse were surprisingly high. A fact almost constantly overlooked in those first anxious hours of a murder inquiry.

The core of the CID team had been on site since five

‘Anything?’ Shaw asked.

Birley swung round, his six foot two inch frame and fifteen stone of rugby-playing muscle crammed into a plastic bucket seat. His wrists seemed to bulge where they emerged from his suit. He’d spent a decade in uniform and his outfit was still hanger-new. There was a plaster over one eye.

‘Match?’ asked Shaw.

‘Argument with the fly-half’s boot. I lost, but you should see him. He could do with one of those sticks.’ Birley nodded at the rack. ‘And no — nothing yet.’ Birley had been on Shaw’s team before in a major inquiry and he’d learnt one good rule early: if you’ve got nothing to say, keep it short.

Twine handed Shaw a coffee and a printout of personnel. ‘That’s everyone, with mobiles.’ The young DC had been a good choice for ‘point’ — a key role, the lynch-pin between Shaw and the team, channelling information, pulling everything together, then sifting out what needed to be shared, keeping the information moving. It was like being a human mini-roundabout.

‘Right, what we need to find out, Paul, is this… Is it really possible — feasible — that Bryan Judd was able to is possible, then we have a motive which would put Aidan Holme in the frame for Judd’s murder. We’re told they fought. We’re told threats were made. But all that depends on Judd being able to supply…’

Twine tapped a fountain pen on his teeth, then flicked the screen into life on his PC. ‘I figured we’d want to have a walk-through of the incinerator system — the waste bags. From top to bottom. We can go ahead with that then see where the drugs consignment fits in. I’ve got the man in charge of human waste ready now, for a quick tour. Dr Gavin Peploe — Level 10, Mary Seacole Ward.’

‘Well done,’ said Shaw. That’s what he wanted in his team, the kind of straightforward logic that made a murder inquiry hum. He put a?20 note on the desktop. ‘In the meantime get someone up to Costa Coffee on the main concourse and get everyone a decent coffee — that was truly awful.’ He lobbed his empty cup fifteen feet into a bin.

‘One other thing,’ said Twine. He clicked the screen. ‘Duty book…’ The front desk at St James’s kept an online record of all crime. It was standard inquiry procedure to cross-check with the last forty-eight hours. ‘Familiar litany,’ said Twine. ‘Two house burglaries in Gayton — next door to each other, that’s cheeky. A mugging in Greyfriars Gardens, an affray outside the Matilda, some vandalism in the town centre during one of the power cuts — six shop windows gone in the Arndale. Local paper wants to know if that’s looting, which is a good question.

‘Keep an eye on the floater,’ said Shaw. ‘Whose case?’

‘Creake,’ said Twine. DI William Creake was a slogger, with a reputation for wearing cases down by sheer bloody footwork. Inspired detection was not his strong suit. ‘I’ll get the basics off him, then make sure he gets an update from us too,’ added Twine.

‘Get me a copy, Paul. And I’d like a summary on the Arndale — anything to do with the power cuts we should see too. OK — press office? What are we telling the great unwashed of the British media about Bryan Judd?’

‘Bare details for release.’ Twine hit a key and a sheet of A4 slipped out of the printer. ‘We’ve stuck to suspicious death at the Queen Vic, no name yet, or address. The fire brigade released the basics on the blaze in Erebus Street and listed it as suspicious. If anyone finds a link we’ll stonewall for now.’

‘Fine,’ said Shaw, not bothering to read the release through. That had been one of his father’s maxims — trust people in a big inquiry, because if you try to do everything yourself, you’ll fail. ‘Going forward, Paul, I want to keep back the initials on the torch — MVR. The torch isn’t Judd’s, so there’s a good chance it’s the killer’s. If we get any nutters claiming they did it I want something to catch ’em out with. That’ll be it. And I don’t want the killer knowing for sure he’s left it at the scene.’ He saw a millimetre jump in Twine’s left eyebrow. ‘Or she, for that matter.’ Twine smiled. ‘And something for the door-to-door on Erebus Street, Paul. See if there’s any gossip about the Judds’ marriage. Something’s not right there -

‘Housework’ done, Shaw took the lift to the tenth floor of the main hospital block. The view over the town was already lost in heat and smog, a toxic layer of pollution like a blanket, deep enough to obscure everything but Lynn’s own skyscraper — the Campbell’s soup tower, down by the river. A tug was bucking the tide coming down the Cut from the sea, a wake behind like a slug’s trail. Out at sea a summer storm cloud like a giant chef’s hat drifted east. It would be a fine day on the beach, thought Shaw, squinting to see a distant line of surf.

Mary Seacole Ward was for infectious diseases, so he took care to squirt plenty of gel on his hands before entering. Dr Peploe met him by the nurses’ station. He was a paediatric surgeon, and the Lynn Primary Care Trust’s spokesman on the disposal of human tissue, a post required under the Infectious Diseases Act. A neat Glaswegian with a widow’s peak, Dr Peploe possessed one of those asymmetrical faces that the Celts seem to breed: one eye slightly more open than the other, the mouth off the horizontal. Handsome enough, with taut healthy skin stretched over a muscular face. And there was nothing Hebridean about his tan, which was an Italian brown. Stern, but playful — an image enhanced by the small cuddly toy sticking out of one pocket.

He laughed at himself, stuffing the teddy bear’s head out of sight.

‘Sorry — Human Tissue isn’t my day job. It pays to

‘We think someone, somehow, infiltrated the waste system to steal street-haul drugs before they were incinerated,’ said Shaw. ‘Consignments from law enforcement, customs, the lot. Is that possible?’

Peploe thought about it, and there was a long intake of breath. ‘Right. You want the Cook’s Tour or just a run-through?’

‘For now, just the basics please,’ said Shaw.

Peploe picked up an empty yellow waste bag from the room behind the nurses’ station. Each bag, sealed, had a metal tag. This one read NHS: W 10.

‘This bit’s pretty obvious,’ he said. ‘Every ward gets its own supply.’

On the bag itself was a plastic label on which had been printed a further code: 1268. Non-R. Non-C. I.

Peploe took him through it: the label was filled out by a nurse, 1268 was a patient number. Non-R — no radioactive material. Non-C — no chemotherapy residue. I — infectious.

Twice a day the bags were taken by a ward orderly to the metal chute in the cleaners’ room. A drawer, opened then shut, tipped the bag down a gravity-driven pipe system. They listened to it rattle away.

‘Let’s go get it,’ said Peploe, light on his toes. As they walked down the corridor he slid a hand in his pocket and pulled out something small, plastic and colourful; then he tapped it quickly, twice, in the palm of his other hand and quickly swallowed whatever he’d dispensed. Self-medication, thought Shaw, or a sweet tooth.

‘The young man who found the body said he was sent down to Level One with a waste bag,’ said Shaw.

Dr Peploe nodded, as if that fitted the system he had just described, which it didn’t.

‘Anything that might stick in the system, or break, goes by hand delivery — but never through the public areas of the hospital.’

The lift dropped to Level One and he followed Peploe through the maze of corridors to the tug depot, beneath the hospital’s main concourse. A metal chute descended into the depot room, cut off in mid-air, so that they could glimpse up into the darkness. They heard a sigh, then a rattle, and a yellow bag fell out of the darkness and into an angled bin below, which deadened the impact, then allowed it to slide down an aluminium ramp into a waiting tug.

‘That simple,’ said Peploe. He walked to the tug truck, looked amongst the yellow bags, and retrieved the one he’d put down the chute on Mary Seacole Ward. ‘Tugs take it all to the furnace. Then we monitor what goes up the chimney in terms of chemical composition. We can — broadly speaking — match input and output. It’s a good system.’

‘Tell me they didn’t just put the drugs down the chutes?’ said Shaw.