Death Wore White

They took the Eurocopter to the pad on top of the A&E department. Shaw radioed for the Land Rover to be brought there, then spent the rest of the flight with his forehead pressed to the window. He’d left Hadden and the CSI team working against the clock. Valentine had briefed the murder team back at St James’s and they were checking missing persons. But for now Shaw needed to focus on John Holt. He could see how the murder on Styleman’s Middle might be linked to the body in the raft – smuggling perhaps, trafficking, rival gangs fighting for a pitch. But if there was a link to the murder of Harvey Ellis in his pick‐up truck then it had eluded him. Two violent killings within a few miles, and a few hours, demanded that Shaw searched for one. And Holt was his key witness.

As they swung round in low cloud over the roof of the hospital Shaw tried to re‐focus on the line of cars in the snow that night. Harvey Ellis in the lead vehicle, John Holt in the Corsa behind Sarah Baker‐Sibley’s Alfa. He quickly re‐read the statement Baker‐Sibley had made when re‐interviewed that morning. Yes: she’d watched Holt go forward to the pick‐up truck. But had she taken her eyes off him? No. Not for a second.

But that didn’t mean John Holt was not important. He

Holt’s room was hospital‐hot – a cloying dry warmth suffused with the aromas of disinfectant, custard and stewed tea. The metal bed, the ubiquitous NHS bedside cabinet, the single seat, the grey linen washed a thousand times. As a doctor checked John Holt’s temperature Valentine tried not to touch anything, aware that his life would probably end one day in a room like this. He took a deep breath, trying to force air into shrivelled lungs, then retrieved the packet of cigarettes out of his raincoat pocket and dropped it in the bin.

The doctor finished, thrusting her hands down into the pockets of her white coat. She looked like she’d been on her feet for a week, dank hair held up in a Caribbean headscarf. ‘Ten minutes,’ she said to Shaw. ‘No more. No arguments, please. He thinks he’s as strong as an ox…’ Holt laughed, eyes owlish behind the heavy black‐rimmed spectacles, his white hair lifeless, stuck to his scalp in the hot still air of the room.

On a chair beside the bed sat a robust woman, upholstered, grey hair too thin to hide the dome of the skull beneath. Respectable was the word that seemed to sum her up – but then Shaw remembered Holt’s address, the dockside slum. They’d clearly fallen on hard times.

Mrs Holt looked at her hands, then at her feet. ‘He’s not well. It was a dreadful night – his blood pressure’s really bad. He had a haemorrhage so he’s lost a lot of blood.’ Shaw could see the broken blood vessels in the old man’s nose and a bloodstained wodge of cotton wool. ‘He’s not been well for a long time,’ she added.

Martha Holt flushed. ‘Michelle’s our daughter – she’s worried about her dad. She wanted to make sure he stayed in hospital until he’s well. He’s sixty‐eight this year – we both think he should take it easy.’

‘My daughter thinks I’m going to die on her,’ said Holt. ‘Worried she’ll have to pay a bill for the first time in her life.’

‘John,’ hissed his wife. She turned to Shaw. ‘Families,’ she said, smiling thinly.

‘My wife’s too forgiving,’ said Holt.

Shaw wondered if he always talked about people as if they weren’t there.

Valentine began asking questions. It was his interview, Shaw had said on the way up in the lift. Step by step the DS tried to find out what the witness had seen, what he’d heard, what he’d felt. So far the interrogation was faultless.

Sweat gleamed on Holt’s upper lip. ‘Michelle lives in Hunstanton,’ he explained, the voice healthier than his body. ‘With Sasha – my granddaughter. I was driving over to finish pruning some trees – they cast shadows on Sasha’s window when the moon’s out. It’s frightening in winter. She’s had nightmares.’

‘A regular visit?’ asked Valentine. ‘Couldn’t your daughter prune the tree?’

He laughed. ‘Michelle’s unwell.’ He said it in a way which made them understand he didn’t believe it. ‘She gets an

Martha Holt stiffened, but didn’t interrupt.

‘I’m retired, Sergeant. Ill‐health. This heart of mine,’ he said, tapping a hand on his chest. ‘Although I can still get up a set of stepladders. But I had to close down the business. Dizzy spells on hundred‐foot scaffolding isn’t a very bright idea, is it? There’s no real routine. But like I said, I’d been over on Sunday to trim the sycamore – but Sasha said to leave the magnolia because she likes to climb the branches. But then Sunday night she had a nightmare – the shadows again. So I went back on Monday to finish the job.’

Martha Holt touched a card on the bedside table. A piece of folded A4 paper, a child’s picture of a house. Beside it another card, more expertly drawn, of a black cat curled on an Aga.

‘That’s hers,’ said Holt, catching the movement. ‘That’s my Sasha.’ He touched the first card, ignoring the second. He rubbed his arm where a drip had been fed into the vein.

‘You live in town?’ asked Valentine briskly, keen to get the besotted grandfather off his favourite topic.

‘Quayside.’ He held the DS’s gaze while his wife watched her hands.

But it wasn’t the quayside. The quayside was renovated warehouses looking out over the water, rabbit hutches for the upwardly mobile at London prices. Devil’s Alley was a world away, just round the corner.

‘Is that where the car got vandalized?’ asked Valentine.

‘Right.’ He held his hand to his forehead, confused, trying to focus. ‘I went along the quay, then out by St Anne’s to the ring road. Just past Castle Rising the AA sign was out on the road so I turned down the track. Came up behind that woman.’ There was no mistaking the note of dislike. ‘Well spoken, in a hurry. She thought I should check if we could move the tree. She wasn’t worried about the driver, mind you. She didn’t seem to care about anyone else – she just wanted to make her next appointment. Like the whole world has to stop for her.’

‘And in the cab you found…’ prompted Shaw.

Holt shrugged. ‘The driver.’ He let his fingers drum an annoying rhythmless tattoo. ‘And the passenger.’

Shaw and Valentine locked eye contact, and in the silence they could hear the Rolex ticking.

‘Let’s take them one at a time,’ said Shaw quickly. Valentine took out his notebook.

‘Driver was a young man,’ said Holt. ‘Nervous type, said he was doing some work at Hunstanton – a bit of extra, he said. That’s exactly what he said – I’ve got a good memory, you see.’

His wife nodded dutifully.

‘He said the tree was too heavy to move so I went back to reverse out.’

‘Nervous type?’ pressed Shaw, trying to slow him down.

‘Yes. He had a tape on… Well – or one of those CD

Shaw raised a finger. ‘And the passenger?’

‘Young girl. Twenty‐odd, I reckon. I think she’d hitched a ride.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I asked where they were going and she said she was heading for Cromer. “Heading”, that was the word. I think she was trying her luck, you know – seeing where I was off to. But as I said, no one was going anywhere for a while. She said she had a job, that she was an artist. Bubbly type. She had a bag, like a knapsack, on her lap, and she sort of hugged it when she said that – like she had something in there.’

‘What kind of knapsack?’ asked Valentine.

Holt looked at the DS, his eyes shifting out of focus behind the glasses as if he was seeing it again: ‘Multicoloured, yellow and black patches, with a kind of drawstring. Not very big.’

‘This girl – was she good looking?’ asked Shaw.

‘I think so, yes.’ Holt re‐focused on a point just above his toes. ‘I didn’t get that good a look because I had to bend down to see in the cab – my back’s not what it used to be.’ He paused. Shaw thought it wasn’t a hopeful sign,

Shaw gave him some time, trying not to push too quickly for information. ‘How did she seem? You said Ellis – that’s the driver by the way, Harvey Ellis – you said he was nervous. Was she?’

‘No – bit excited if anything. Flushed.’

‘Any accent – was she a local girl, d’you reckon?’ asked Valentine.

‘No. I’d guess the Midlands, you know – sounded like she had a bad cold.’

They laughed and Mrs Holt withdrew her hand from the counterpane.

‘How did he die? The driver,’ countered Holt, suddenly, the tone of voice wrong, as if he were asking a question at a supermarket checkout.

‘Someone pushed a chisel into his eye socket, into his brain,’ said Shaw. ‘Although I’d like you to keep that to yourself at the moment – we’re not giving the details out to the press.’ Martha Holt looked at her husband, but his face just froze.

‘Who would do that?’ he asked, blinking behind the glasses.

‘How about a leggy blonde?’ said Valentine, coughing up some phlegm.

They stood.

‘Mr Holt, it would be really helpful if we could put

Holt shrugged. ‘Soon as you can get your artist, Inspector, I’m happy to help.’ He smoothed down the counterpane.

‘I’ll be five minutes,’ said Shaw.

He was four. Shaw always kept his basic kit in the back of the Land Rover in a black attaché case: a sheaf of high‐quality cartridge paper – Bristol, with a slight pink tint, and a rough texture like skin. Then pencils, woodless plastic‐coated leads, chisel‐point, and a range of H, F and B hardnesses. A piece of J‐cloth for blurring, a set of tortillions – cone‐shaped sticks made from compressed paper used to blend graphite lines to produce a smooth finish. Erasers, eraser shields, brushes and pastel chalk sticks. Shaw had studied art at Southampton University. He’d always drawn as a kid, an only child’s escape, encouraged by his mother. What his father didn’t know was that the course at Southampton offered a year out in forensic art at the FBI’s college in Quantico, Virginia.

He opened his dog‐eared copy of the FBI Facial Identification Catalog. Over the years he’d added to the basic catalogue. Thousands of mugshots compressed by category: bulging eyes, broken noses, pouting lips, lantern jaws, providing the basic building blocks for composite imagery. He’d added his own, cut from newspapers, brochures, and magazines. There was also a recorder for the cognitive interview, so that later he could reconstruct the order in which the witness had accessed their memory. Recall first, then if that failed them, the catalogues for

Twenty minutes later Shaw had the basics of the face established.

‘I’m not much good, am I?’ said Holt. ‘I just can’t see her face. Not clearly.’

‘You don’t have to – the memory’s not like that. You’ll see her in flashes, we just have to wait for them. Each time try and take something new from the image. Don’t force it. It’ll come.’

And it did. They talked about that night, about the snow, about walking forward in the icy wind. Slowly Holt’s memory gave up its secrets. Another twenty minutes and they were done. Shaw was pleased. The face looked out at him: dominated by the wide arched eyebrows, the small mouth with too many teeth.

Holt had closed his eyes while Shaw worked, sketching in the features, adding a light source from the right to add the 3D effect.

‘Oh – yes, yes, that’s her. That’s terrific.’ Holt sat up, holding the sketch book.

There were other last‐minute changes. They darkened the hair at the parting, lowered the ears, added a shine to the teeth as if they’d been polished.

Finished, Shaw fetched the ward sister and she counter‐signed the sketch, with Holt and Shaw. They used a date stamp off the ward desk, the hospital motif underlaid by the symbol of a ship at sea – the Lynn badge. Shaw gave it to Valentine, who bagged it in cellophane and signed it as evidence received. He’d book it in with the desk at St James’s, then they’d use photocopies.

Sitting in the Land Rover, Valentine looked at the sketch through the clear envelope, trying not to let his admiration for the skill of the artist show.

‘Next step?’ he asked.

‘TV, papers. Posters too – along the coast. Let’s give it all we’ve got. She’s either a killer, or she knows who is. So let’s find her.’