Death Wore White

A hearse purred in the dark outside the Ark, like a black cat with the milk. A body in a grey bag was slid in from a gurney by two lab assistants, the tailgate closing with a visceral, oily click.

‘Goods out,’ said Valentine, lighting up on the step as they watched the hearse creep out of the yard. ‘Anyone we know?’

‘Styleman,’ said Tom Hadden. ‘Next stop, undertaker’s morgue until you sign it off. Can’t bury him without a name, right?’

Shaw stubbed the toecap of his boot against the kerb. ‘So no progress – any forensics off the boat?’ he asked. The yacht at Morston Creek discovered by DC Jacky Lau had been towed into Lynn’s Boal Quay, where a full forensic examination was under way.

‘Bit early,’ said Hadden. ‘But Jacky’s got a briefcase off the boat – she’s inside.’

DC Jacky Lau had a pile of documents on a trestle table, a pair of anglepoise lamps burning into the pages. She was working with gloves, sifting into piles, a mobile‐phone mic at her lips. She looked confident, in control, every micro‐movement charged with adrenaline.

‘So far?’ said Shaw.

She held up a finger, finishing a call. ‘Thanks – that’s great.’ She unhitched the earpiece and threw it on to the

She paused for a second, long enough to let them know that she’d made the connection too.

‘Address in the Barbican, London. Electoral roll puts him in a house in Burnham Overy Town in 2005. Local family, one of them was something big in the Royal Navy back in the sixties. Documents back up the ID – including a passport. A British passport – with plenty of Greek entry stamps from the nineties. But most of this stuff…’ She pushed a glossy company report aside to reveal a set of faxed figures. ‘Looks like business transactions – there’s a due diligence report on a company purchase, share certificates. But it’s a maze. Yard’s offered us a forensic accountant, so I’ll get it all down to London by courier.’

Shaw and Valentine exchanged looks.

Hadden had made the link too. ‘She drove the Alfa, right – Baker‐Sibley?’

‘Yeah,’ said Shaw. ‘Wife, ex‐wife. Widow. Ex‐widow.’

‘Ex‐wife?’ asked Hadden. ‘She won’t be that upset, then.’

‘She’ll have the fucking flags out,’ said Valentine. ‘And a band.’

‘If it’s him,’ said Shaw, unable to resist the note of caution. ‘Passport?’

Lau handed it to him. He flicked to the picture. ‘That’s him, even if I say so myself.’ Shaw’s sketch had caught the ‘lifelong look’ – the bland, handsome symmetry of the face’s main features. At last, he thought, they’d stopped finding pieces of the jigsaw, and started fitting them together.

‘First off, there’s plenty of evidence at the scene. The side of the yacht’s got some pretty bad scratching and a smear of paint – heavy‐duty marine, dark blue. I’d say there was a collision, something coming alongside in rough weather? Maybe. Anyway, something big. A sea boat. Trawler? Not a yacht – the marks are too high, and the paint’s all wrong.

‘And there’s what we’ve got here…’ He held the plastic envelope up to the light and Shaw could see the sickly glint of strawberry smearing the sides, the fish gaff a deadly black.

‘Same blood group as our man on the sands, and the hairs match on colour.’ He tapped a glass demijohn full of rose water. ‘This has got plenty of blood in it too – contents of the washing‐up bowl. I’ll try and match DNA for you.’

He’d had the skein of blonde hair bagged too. He passed it to Shaw, who weighed it in his hand. He thought of brushing Francesca’s hair before school, the subtle smell of the natural oils, the irritable tugs as his daughter wriggled at the imposition.

‘We’re still doing the tests on that,’ said Hadden. ‘Nothing yet – but it clearly isn’t the dead man’s.’

Shaw remembered the pink plastic frame attached to Sarah Baker‐Sibley’s dashboard in the Alfa. The snapshot of her daughter with luxuriant, nearly waist‐length hair.

‘Rest of the boat?’ he asked.

‘Some blood, certainly – on a rug that’s been turned

Hadden pulled off his forensic gloves. His hands were as pale as his eyes, the freckles anaemic, the nails short and white.

The final bag: the framed snapshot unscrewed from the wooden panelling of the Hydra’s cabin. The sky an Aegean blue, a single white domed chapel on the rocky hillside beyond a beachside taverna.

Shaw held his thumb on the girl. ‘That’s Jillie Baker‐Sibley. Who’s the boy – question one. Where’s Mum – question two. Taking the picture? Maybe.’ He held the picture closer, studying Jillie’s face, the tomboy’s shorts and T‐shirt, the hair cut back to shoulder length. The boy was darker, older, the stance – one forearm across his knee – a mirror to his father. The son shared the father’s facial keystone, the balanced features. The girl had inherited the eyes and nose, but the bone structure was Sarah Baker‐Sibley’s.

He handed the picture to Valentine. ‘Let’s get Baker‐Sibley in first thing for interview,’ said Shaw. ‘And Jillie. Let’s do it out in the sticks – Burnham Market. That way she might not panic. Then we’ll bring her back here to ID the body from the sands.’

They heard the bell at St Margaret’s mark ten o’clock. ‘And I’ll pick you up at seven, George – your house.’ Valentine stood his ground, irked to be dismissed, sensing there was something else to say that he wasn’t going to hear. Hadden worked at a PC. Shaw helped himself to coffee.

‘Sir,’ he said, turning on his heel, slamming the door.