Death Wore White

Thursday, 12 February

Burnham Market lay tucked up in the snowy hills of north Norfolk, the rooftops as white and crisp as on any Christmas card. In the police station Shaw and Valentine waited for Sarah Baker‐Sibley’s Alfa Romeo to pull into the car park. Jillie Baker‐Sibley, it appeared, held the key to what had happened that night on board the Hydra. But the leading question now, as Sarah Baker‐Sibley was led into the interview room, was where was she?

‘I asked for your daughter to attend for interview,’ said Shaw, adjusting the dressing on his eye.

A PC brought tea. Sarah Baker‐Sibley sat at a table, knocking out a menthol cigarette from a fresh pack. She looked around, her shoulders rolling slightly in the chill air. Through the window she saw a fox break cover in the high hillside above the town, running over the bare furrowed earth, suddenly clear against the snow.

Shaw sensed that the elaborate display of insouciance was a mask. Her face was puffy and she kept trying to rearrange her mouth, trying to hide an emotion very close to fear.

‘She’s on a sleepover. Clara’s – her best friend. A house at South Creake. I’ve phoned and left a message.

Valentine pulled up a chair, the legs scraping on the bare wooden floor. He’d spent three years at Burnham Market and had taken hundreds of dreary statements in this room. The stench of institutional cleaning hung about the place, the only decoration a Day‐Glo poster in yellow for Neighbourhood Watch, a burglar in black slipping through an open window, and a no‐smoking sign nailed to the door. Being back made him realize just how much he’d hated those ten lost years. ‘Can I have the address, Mrs Baker‐Sibley?’ he asked, taking a note. He told Shaw he’d organize a squad car to check it out, leaving the door open when he went.

Shaw leant against the single heavy iron radiator which cracked and thudded with the strain of the hot water dribbling through clogged pipes. ‘You don’t mind?’ asked Shaw, nodding at the tape. ‘And you don’t want a solicitor? Only, the last time we spoke…’

She shook her head and lit the menthol cigarette. Shaw pointed to the no‐smoking sign.

‘Jesus.’ She stubbed it out in a saucer that had been left on the table.

‘Did you tell your daughter she was expected for interview?’

‘Yes, yes of course I told her. What’s this about?’ she said, checking her watch. ‘I open at ten. Sharp. I’ve said all I’m saying about Colin Narr, so, as my daughter would say, Inspector Shaw, let’s not even go there.’

Shaw stood, switched a shell from his trouser pocket

‘Have you any idea why the Hydra is moored at Morston Creek, Mrs Baker‐Sibley?’ he asked.

Valentine had come back and he watched her face as she heard the question. She managed to construct an expression of mild curiosity.

‘I have no idea. My husband’s movements are of no significance to me, Detective Inspector.’

‘You said you were divorced, I think?’

‘Did I? Good, that’s right. Legally, emotionally, spiritually, and – until you informed me otherwise – geographically. My husband lives on Kythera, a Greek island. He has a flat in the City, as I think I told you only yesterday. My happiness soars with every mile that stretches between us.’

‘And Jillie?’

‘What about Jillie?’ The chin came out, the eyes hardening protectively.

‘When does she see her father?’

‘My husband is not allowed to see his daughter. There’s a court order to that effect.’ She touched the damp dogend in the saucer. ‘My husband killed our first child, you see, so he’s not getting another chance.’

Snow fell against the window and the silence was so deep Shaw thought he could hear the muffled impact of the flakes.

‘How?’ asked Valentine, taking Route One.

‘James always wanted a boy, someone he could leave

‘Thomas was none of those things. But that didn’t stop James. He took him to Greece, on the Hydra. They camped on the mainland, a few miles across the strait, and James taught him how to sail the little wooden dinghy she carried. Then he sent him out to sea one day. Thomas was thirteen – Jillie’s age. This was three years ago. Jillie was with me at our villa. James told Thomas he had to make the crossing. A halcyon day – that’s what the Greeks call it. Hardly any wind. Thomas got hot and decided to go for a swim. He just jumped in. He’d never been on his own before, so he didn’t think. There was no way back onto the boat, you see, and he couldn’t climb the sides.’

She sipped the tea, the cup steady.

‘I found the body. It was extraordinary, actually, because the boat, when they found it, was ten miles along the coast but his body had floated back to our house. We had a stretch of beach and I saw something from the house – I was by the phone waiting for news, James was out in the Hydra, searching the coast. I waded in. It was summer, so the body had begun to decompose. I didn’t know it was him – not for a certainty – until I was a few feet away. It’s not something I’m going to forget. And it’s something Jillie can’t forget. I didn’t see her but she followed me into the water.

‘I burnt the dinghy after the Greek police had finished the inquiry. There were scratch marks all round it, cutting into the wood.’

‘An accident then,’ said Shaw.

She ignored him. ‘I took Jillie home. James led his own life, there was another woman. He didn’t contest the divorce. But he did try to get custody of Jillie.’ She laughed. ‘The court threw that out. Then, last month, he tried to take her back,’ she went on. ‘She’d been down to London to see her grandmother – that’s my mother – and she’d got back to Lynn early. She rang me for a lift. She rang her father to chat. They used to talk.’ She pushed the saucer away. ‘She’d forgiven him, you see. Something I didn’t think he deserved. I was late; James was in town – he still has business interests here, although he never trusted me enough to tell me what they were. He drove to the station. He was flying back to Greece that afternoon; his company has a private jet, there’s a landing strip on the island but no customs. Why didn’t she come? He said it would be a new life for her.’ She arched her pencilled eyebrows. ‘There’s a pool – heated.’

She crossed her legs. ‘There’s no choice now, you see.’

‘Choice?’ asked Shaw.

‘A girl will have to do. James’s…’ She searched for a word, enjoying herself. ‘James’s ability to have children is restricted. A medical condition affects his fertility, and that gets worse with age. We did try for a third, but it was impossible. So it’s Jillie who’ll inherit. And she’s a tomboy really – he always wanted that. So she’d love to go with him, Daddy’s little cabin boy.’

would have gone?’ asked Valentine.

‘That’s immaterial. Because that’s when I turned up. They were sat in James’s BMW. I got her out of the passenger side but James came round. He hit me. Quite hard, actually. So I hit him back. Harder. There was a witness – a taxi driver on the rank. Jillie screamed, and he tried to get her back in the car. It was quite a scene.’

She forced herself to smile and Shaw guessed she’d relived it many times.

‘I pressed charges, assault. ABH. He was sentenced to six months, suspended. And James was banned from seeing her, or from coming within ten miles of Burnham Thorpe. So if he’s at Morston Creek he’s broken the court order – I hope you’ll take the appropriate action. The judge made it clear he would go to prison if he breached the conditions.’ Nobody said anything so she went on. ‘We’ve been very happy ever since,’ she said, dispensing with another unasked question.

‘He must love his daughter,’ prompted Shaw. ‘Actually, I think his feelings towards Jillie are irrelevant, Inspector Shaw. He needs her. She’s his immortality. She’s the vehicle for his wealth, a receptacle for his money.’

Shaw produced an evidence bag from the holdall: clear plastic with the sheaf of long hair curled within.

‘He tried again, didn’t he?’ asked Shaw, standing at the table, his fingertips splayed on the Formica surface.

She tried to touch the hair through the plastic.

‘We found the hair on the Hydra, Mrs Baker‐Sibley.’ She ran a nail along her bottom lip. ‘Yes,’ she said, looking at the tape. ‘I think I need that solicitor now, Inspector Shaw.’

She sat.

‘Do you have a picture of your husband, Mrs Baker‐Sibley?’

She laughed, her head thrown back.

Shaw took a file from the desktop and, flicking through, found the animated sketch he’d made from the corpse retrieved from Styleman’s Middle. He placed it neatly before her, put the saucer on a corner as a paperweight.

‘Is that James?’

She looked at it and Valentine could see the calculations going on behind her eyes. She took a cigarette out of the packet and just held it in her hand. ‘Unless he’s got a twin brother.’ She tried to set her lips in a line but failed.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Baker‐Sibley, but this man’s body…’ Shaw tapped the drawing, ‘was found on Styleman’s Middle – the sandbank a few miles off Ingol Beach – on Tuesday. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to see if you can identify the body later today. There is evidence your ex‐husband was attacked on board his yacht. I’m sorry.’

Valentine watched as the blood drained from her face, leaving a livid patch of blusher exposed, like a death mask.

‘He’s dead?’

‘Three o’clock,’ said Shaw. ‘St James’s. And then we’ll need to talk again. I’d like Jillie to be there.’

‘Of course.’ She’d worked it out now. ‘I’ll make a

‘Sure.’

Outside a car alarm pulsed. She placed both palms on her face and stretched the skin back, lifting the wrinkles out of her neck.

‘Yes. He did try again. Which I find hard to believe because generally he’s a coward, I think, and if he’d been caught – even just talking to her – he’d have gone to jail. Jillie said he was waiting outside the school in his 4x4 the night I was stranded out on the coast road in the snow. She said he just wanted to talk, that he’d get her home, so she got in. I’d told her a hundred times to text me if her father turned up. But he persuaded her to listen to what he had to say first. He drove her to Morston and said that if they wanted to they could catch the tide. He stopped in the village and posted some letters, then drove down to the quay. She wouldn’t have to go back to school, that’s what he told her. They could take the Hydra over to Ostend – he’d done it before with her when she was young. He said he’d bought a property on the Turkish coast. There’s an International School in Smyrna; they wouldn’t ask questions if he paid the fees. They’d disappear. Even if the police found them he had the money to tie it up in the courts. He said it’d be like Jarndyce and Jarndyce. She’s done Bleak House at school – she thought it was funny. So she said yes.’

‘She told you that when you phoned from Gallow Marsh Farm?’ said Valentine.

‘Yes. I called her mobile. She told me what had happened, said she’d decided to go with her father. She

‘But you rang a second time,’ said Shaw, looking out at the snow, a hawk over the hedgerow.

‘James answered. He said they’d sort it out together. That I wasn’t to come after them and that if I went to the police I’d never see her again. That’s why I told you she was at home. He said if I kept quiet then he’d work something out, I could see her abroad. Which was nice of him,’ she added, not smiling. ‘I could hear Jillie crying in the background. I think she realized then that it wasn’t a game. That we might not see each other again.’

‘Did you go after them?’

‘I didn’t need to. Your squad car dropped me home. I went inside, got changed and set off for the creek – it’s only a mile. I met Jillie coming up the lane. She said James had rowed her ashore. She’d told him she wanted to go home, to me. She said he’d cried when she said goodbye – which is sweet, isn’t it?’

DC Mark Birley knocked, came in. ‘Squad car says Mrs Baker‐Sibley’s daughter isn’t at her friend’s house.’ Birley’s new shirt was too long in the arm so that he had to keep readjusting the cuffs. Shaw wondered if he’d kept his uniform, still hanging in a cupboard at home.

‘Mrs Baker‐Sibley?’ asked Shaw.

She stood. ‘I’ll check her other friends. The school.’

‘We’ll give you an hour,’ said Shaw. ‘Then we’ll put out an alert. We need to find her.’

Anger flashed across her mother’s eyes. ‘I know that. Christ – I know that.’ She took one last look at the sketch

It was only after Valentine had walked her to the car park that Shaw realized her perfume still dominated the interview room: an astringent citrus. Shaw watched as she drove the Alfa out into the street, the gravel screeching as she made the turn, wrestling with the steering wheel.

‘It makes sense,’ said Valentine from the door. ‘The diversion on to Siberia Belt, the mobile black spot, everything. All set up to stop Sarah Baker‐Sibley picking Jillie up, and then stranding her out of mobile contact long enough to get to sea.’

‘Let’s get out to the scene, see if it works on the ground.’

‘Mark wants a word,’ said Valentine, nodding down the corridor towards the front counter.

The DC was filling in the station logbook. He gave Shaw a black plastic box, about the size of a brick, and flipped open the hinged top. Inside was a porous pad. In the lid was a stamp. He pressed it into the ink, turned his hand over, and printed a neat BT on his skin, just like the one Valentine had seen on the skin of the driver of the Mondeo, and just like the one on Jillie Baker‐Sibley’s narrow wrist.

‘We’ve had some luck,’ said Birley. ‘Forty‐one tickets were sold for the dance. Security for the disco, and the running of the bar, was handled by a private company…’ Birley checked a neat note, ‘called SoundEvent, based in Lynn. The parish council chairman is Rod Belcher – he’s outside if you want a word. He says his son went and he said there was no trouble. The bar was beer and lager

Birley worked a finger inside his shirt collar, easing the material away from his neck. ‘So: forty‐one names, twenty‐nine blokes. I’ve got the lot. One of them has to be our runaway driver.’

He unfolded a file and arranged the snapshots. Birley had dragooned two uniformed PCs from Burnham to help build the photo gallery. He laid them out in rows, then stood back, admiring his work. Valentine studied the faces. Then he did it a second time, but it was just for show. ‘Nope. ’Fraid not.’

Birley blew out his cheeks. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

‘Our kid got in for nowt,’ said Valentine.

‘How?’ said Birley, looking at Shaw.

‘You said the parish council chairman had a son?’ asked Shaw.

Birley searched the faces, found the one he was looking for, and stabbed it with his index finger. ‘Gerald Belcher – known to his friends as Gee.’

‘It’s not him,’ said Valentine. ‘Believe me.’

‘There was someone else at that disco, Mark. We need to find him. Let’s speak to Gee’s dad. He’s here?’

Birley outlined their problem with the photos but Belcher couldn’t help. His son was a regular at the discos, which were monthly, and he was sure there was no one there who was a stranger.

‘Bit of a mystery,’ said Belcher, checking a mobile. ‘You never go?’ asked Valentine, his head wreathed in cigarette smoke.

‘No. Well, sometimes. But kids at this age are best left to themselves. There’s been no trouble.’

‘We’d like a word with Gee,’ said Birley. ‘Just to double‐check.’

‘OK,’ said Belcher, ditching the cigarette and getting back in the car. The dashboard bristled with the calm, sophisticated telemetry of a £45,000 motor car. The engine purred into life. The finish was teak, a SatNav unit attached to the windscreen, the seats in tan leather. Valentine reached in and turned the ignition key, killing the engine, because around the steering wheel there was a snakeskin cover, the design unmistakable – black chevrons on a silver background.