Death Wore White

Colin Narr had made many mistakes in the last week of his life, but telling Jillie Baker‐Sibley that her father had died that night on Styleman’s Middle was his last. In the warmth of the BMW she’d listened to him recount what had happened. How he and her mother had only wanted to protect her, to bring her home. But that her father had been stupid, to tell the men who came to get her that he had cash on board. So little money to die for: £50,000. He said she had to understand, that lies were necessary. Neither he nor her mother had planned that James should die. It had been Lufkin and Fibich’s fault. Narr said he’d been horrified when Lufkin told him what had happened; and he’d kept it from her mother. But it was too late – James was dead. They had to do what was right for Jillie and Sarah. Jillie had smiled then, because it was really about what was right for him.

How had he found her? Mother’s intuition. James had a cottage near East Midlands airport, a village close to the motorway. Sarah had never been given a key, even after they were married. But if they’d made a plan – daughter and father – then that would be it. To meet there. Jillie had some money of her own, a bank card. But they knew she’d keep clear of the trains and coaches. And Sarah knew she loved hitch‐hiking, because she’d been forbidden to do it. She’d gone into Lynn once with

And they were right. When those men had come aboard the Hydra to take her away they’d let her have a minute alone with her father. He hadn’t argued with them because the little man had a gun. He kept passing it from hand to hand, the sweat glistening on the cold metal. But he’d asked for some time alone. That’s when he’d given her the key, told her to get to the cottage when she could. He’d be there. Then the foreign one had rowed her ashore. She’d waited for her moment to leave home and then stuck to the plan. And she would have seen it through, up until the moment she’d climbed into Narr’s black Jag. He’d told her that her father was dead. And that had changed the world. She’d lost a brother, and now she’d lost her father. It was about time someone paid the price.

They sat in silence during the rest of the ride back to Narr’s house. Jillie’s hands clenched and unclenched, imagining revenge. All the anger she’d harboured during her young life had finally found a target. Someone upon whom she could focus her hate.

The tide was out so they’d driven over. She’d said she wasn’t in a hurry to get home, her mother would be in the shop, so he could eat, have a bath – he’d been out all night; she’d text her mum. They’d had eggs on toast. He’d broken the eggs scraping them out of the pan, but the bread had popped up nicely browned from the toaster with a silver anchor on the side.

Sarah Baker‐Sibley was on her way. So he’d filled the bath and she’d made tea. He said to leave it outside the

Had she said anything? Shaw had asked.

She’d thought about that, coolly reconstructing the moment of murder.

‘No. Nothing.’ She’d smiled then, running her hand through her short hair. ‘I know what I thought. I thought that I had a brother once and that I’d forgiven Dad for killing him. But I couldn’t forgive anyone any more, not for anything. Either of them. You can’t spend your whole life forgiving people.’ She’d crossed her hands on her lap. ‘That’s taking advantage.’

There was silence round the table in the Red House. The jukebox had run dry while Shaw was briefing them. DC Twine tilted his head back and finished his bottle of Chimay.

‘Will she talk?’ asked Mark Birley, one of his ham‐sized hands wrapped round a pint.

‘Sarah Baker‐Sibley? She’s talking already,’ said Shaw. ‘She rang Narr from Gallow Marsh the night of the storm. She didn’t know what they’d do, of course. Her crime was not telling us what she’d done. Jillie’s given us a positive ID on Lufkin – so it’s all over for him. We can put him on the boat, the forensics are watertight, and the motive comes in fifty‐pound notes. I’m recommending a murder charge tomorrow when I see Warren.’

‘What happens to Jillie?’ asked Twine.

‘And her mother?’

‘Sedation. Then we’ll see. If Jillie ever gets out she’ll need her mother. She’ll have to face charges, but I can’t see any court sending her down.’

They all drank in silence.

‘So – we started with three dead men. Two down – one to go. Lufkin killed James Baker‐Sibley. Terry Brand died of curiosity while smuggling for Narr. But Harvey Ellis is still on the books. His killer is our priority. But that’s for tomorrow.’ Shaw finished a pint of Guinness and handed Valentine the empty glass.

They’d set up a darts tournament and were taking it in turns to ring Fiona Campbell in hospital, sending pictures by mobile. She’d had another blood transfusion, her condition was stable, but the knife wound across her neck would take a month to heal, a necklace for ever.

Pint glasses covered the pub’s plywood tables. Birley put all his fruit‐machine winnings in the jukebox to stop Jacky Lau playing any more Kaiser Chiefs. Twine was trying to explain the basic science behind lighting techniques to locate blood traces, using a set of beer mats. Shaw sent Lena a picture too, a pint of Guinness on the table, a shamrock in the top. A signal: he’d be late. He hoped she’d understand.

He waited until Valentine had been knocked out of the darts tournament before passing him the pub’s copy

Askit’s Agricultural Engineers

Established 1926

He leant in close, taking an inch off the top of the Guinness. ‘The file’s with Warren. You’ve got a right to know what’s in it. Everything that’s in it.’

Valentine looked at his drink.

‘What would you say if I told you I think Jonathan Tessier may have spent the last few hours of his life at Askit’s factory?’

‘Why not just tell me?’ said Valentine, his jaw set. Shaw checked that nobody else was within earshot. ‘Jonathan’s football kit was covered in a fine spray of a specialist paint. Askit’s is the only local business to take that paint in 1997. Askit’s sprayed on the premises. But the kit’s mobile – I rang them up and talked to the foreman. You can load up a few gallons and get the air gun and gas cylinders into a van. So – maybe on the premises, probably on the premises, but maybe not.’

‘I need a fag,’ said Valentine.

They stood and went down a corridor that smelt of urine and out into a small courtyard. The landlord had bought a gas heater and a small gazebo. Dog‐ends lay in the snow around it and through a plastic loud speaker the jukebox music played. The gas popped, flared, and popped again. Shaw thought it sounded like they were in the basket of a hot‐air balloon, sailing unseen over the city of the sober.

‘But that isn’t all you’ve found out, is it?’ said Valentine.

Shaw closed his eyes. ‘No.’ He edged closer to the gas heater, turning one of the limpet shells in his pocket. ‘I checked Askit’s out through the files. Then I cross‐checked the company with all criminal records online for West Norfolk from 1995. And I got something – a match. A witness at a juvenile court case in the summer of ninety‐six. Timber Woods dug me out the file.’

Valentine didn’t say anything.

‘There was a child, another child,’ said Shaw. ‘Poynter. Gideon Poynter – they called him Giddy. He was twelve, lived on the Westmead. The family used to have money, before the father disappeared, so the Westmead must have been a bit of a shock. Mum had trouble because they were new on the estate and by local standards a bit on the posh side: so, standard welcome party – fire on her doorstep, dog shit through the letterbox, a late‐night thud on the front door. She set up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme. She planned a public meeting and sent Giddy out with posters and fliers.’

‘Quite. Someone suggested she might like to forget the idea. She declined. So they thought they’d teach her a lesson, by teaching Giddy one.’

‘What’d they do?’ asked Valentine, licking his bottom lip.

‘They took him. A Sunday night, after dark. He was out playing on the landing so they bundled him down the stairwell. Four young thugs put him in one of the bins under the flats, one of the metal ones, and tied a bit of rope round the handle so he couldn’t force it open from the inside.’

Shaw leant back, trying to remember that this had really happened, that it wasn’t some sick plot from a TV thriller.

‘But he got out?’ said Valentine. ‘He must have got out.’ When they’d picked up Bobby Mosse that night in July 1997 they’d checked back through the files; reviewed every serious crime on the estate for the last eighteen months. Standard murder inquiry procedure. Valentine didn’t remember anything about Giddy Poynter.

‘Yeah, he got out. Eventually. Before they put him in the bin they showed him what was inside it.’ Shaw looked at the bottom of his empty pint glass. ‘Rats. Half a dozen. That’s what counted as a joke on the Westmead.’

‘How long was he in there?’ said Valentine. The drink had wiped some of the anger and tension out of the line of his mouth, the narrowed eyes.

‘The council emptied the bins at seven the next morning. The kid was traumatized, couldn’t speak. He needed help, probably still does. But it was just another

‘So how’d they catch them?’

‘The kids wore gloves but one of them had a hole in the finger. There was enough to get a match – that was…’ He checked his notebook. ‘Kid by the name of Cosyns. He was on file, even then. Another two stepped up for it when he was charged. Proud of it in fact. Bunch of little heroes.’

‘But just the three?’

‘Yeah. They never got the fourth.’ They both thought about that for a second, thinking the same thing, that it could have been Bobby Mosse. ‘The three got suspended sentences and community service. Nothing custodial. Know why?’

Valentine jiggled his empty pint.

‘Employer took the stand, said they’d all got decent jobs, prospects, and if they got sent down he’d have to let them go.’

‘Askit’s,’ said Valentine.

‘Askit’s. A year later we’ve got forensic evidence linking Askit’s to Jonathan Tessier’s murder. And Tessier’s body’s found in the underground car park, a hundred yards from the waste bins where Giddy Poynter spent the worst night of his life.’ It was the kind of coincidence, thought Shaw, that didn’t happen in the real world.

‘Is there a link to Bobby Mosse?’ asked Valentine. ‘Other than the fact Mosse lived on the Westmead – none.’ He watched as Valentine’s hooded eyes closed. He knew what his DS was thinking; that Warren would use

They heard the last bell ring and went back to the party. Half an hour later they were walking through deserted backstreets towards the car park at St James’s. Opposite the police station was a park, stone griffins on each gatepost, the Gothic ironwork hung with icicles. Inside a necklace of white lamps led through the darkness across unblemished snow. On a bench a tramp slept, the snow a blanket.

Shaw checked his mobile. He had one message – Justina Kazimierz. The US Wildlife laboratory in Ashland, Oregon had identified the venom she’d extracted from Terry Brand’s arm. A spider: the Indian white jacket. Very rare, very nasty. On the black market they’d fetch $3,000 each.

‘Justina,’ he said to Valentine. ‘She says our man on Ingol Beach was bitten by a spider. Rare, valuable, fatal bite.’

‘Terrific,’ said Valentine. British household spiders made him jump. Anything bigger and he’d be running before he knew he was scared.

Shaw looked through the park gates. ‘I used to meet Dad here sometimes in the summer holidays,’ he said. ‘A half‐hour lunch hour. I’d walk in from the North End, wait for him down by the pond. I had a sailboat. It was the one place he’d go without the radio – here and the beach. I’d bring a football, or a Frisbee, like we were by the sea. He’d sit and describe the view from Gun Hill, as if he was there. He’d bring chips. A can of beer. I’d play in the shadows, fight dragons under the trees.’ He laughed. ‘I miss him.’

Shaw took a deep breath. ‘George. I told you how this is going to be.’ The snow was driving in again from the docks, so they turned their backs and looked through the ironwork gates. ‘It’s Warren’s call. He’s got everything I know, everything you know. We’re off the case.’

‘You too?’ asked Valentine, a smile disfiguring his face.

‘Me too.’ Shaw tasted a snowflake on his lip, caught the acid hint of carbon dioxide. ‘I’m the son of the investigating DCI. The officer explicitly censured by the judge in the original trial. Any juror would accept that I had an interest in clearing Jack Shaw’s name.’

‘And do you?’

Shaw clenched his fists, stamped his feet, spooking a raven which rattled into one of the snow‐laden trees. He felt trapped, and that made him angry. And when he was angry he needed exercise, needed to dissipate the energy. But he couldn’t run.

‘I have an interest in finding out who killed Jonathan Tessier.’

‘But you’re not sure that’s the same thing, are you?’

‘No. That’s right,’ he said, aware that he’d been cornered into the implied accusation. Because if he didn’t trust Jack Shaw, then he didn’t trust George Valentine either.

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ said Valentine, flapping the raincoat like a pair of furled wings. ‘I’m done for,’ he said, suddenly deflated. ‘I’m going home.’

But he didn’t mean it.