Death Wore White

3

Wednesday, 11 February

Shaw swung the Land Rover over the Ouse Bridge, skimming above the estuary, looking back at the Lynn waterfront a mile distant, the tide running out now, revealing banks of mud the colour of Bisto. They turned north when they reached the far bank, past the canning factory and into West Lynn, a sleepy dormitory suburb with the one road in doubling up as the one road out, 1930s semis arranged in a maze of concentric cul?de?sacs, a church tower scarred by damp, and the ferry carrying commuters and shoppers over the water to the medieval quayside on the far side of the estuary.

They followed the street signs for the West Lynn ferry. ‘Let’s make sure we do this one by the book,’ said Shaw, skirting a line of commuters’ cars. He bit his tongue, knowing it had been an unnecessary reminder. It was a scab he couldn’t help but pick.

Valentine sniffed loudly, the phlegm in his throat bubbling. Then he looked out of the side window, his eyes narrowed in the harsh light, making sure the DI didn’t see that he’d spotted the inference.

Fred Parlour’s house was just by the ferry office. Parked outside was an Express Plumbers van, identical to the one still in the pound at St James’s. They’d arranged for

‘I don’t like this bloke,’ said Valentine, parking up. ‘Great,’ said Shaw, watching the net curtains twitch. ‘So we can count on you for some objective observations then.’

‘He’s got the victim’s blood on his hands.’ Valentine had spent a few waking hours the night before trying to find an innocent scenario which explained the blood on Parlour’s clothes. There wasn’t one. Even with a fancy degree, it just wasn’t there.

‘Thigh actually — the left. One smear. With traces of animal bone.’ Shaw liked details, because it was when they didn’t fit that you had to stop and think.

‘He’s a busy?body. Gets his nose into everything.’

‘Remind me — what’s the tariff on that these days? Life, or just ten years?’

Valentine coughed into a grey cotton bundle. ‘He’s a liar.’

‘Yeah,’ said Shaw. ‘So let’s start with that.’

Shaw’s mobile rang and he got out of the car to answer. It was one of Tom Hadden’s CSI team. They’d completed the dental checks on all those in the convoy. No match to the apple biter, not even close.

Valentine could tell it was bad news.

‘Zero on the apple. No match to anyone in the convoy.’

‘Leggy blonde, then,’ said Valentine.

Fred Parlour was on the step before they got to the top of the path. He turned abruptly, leading the way along a hall into a lounge which looked out through French windows, the lawn rolling down to the river. The ferry was crossing, butting the tide, crowded with shoppers. Flags flew over the Guildhall in Lynn while an undersized barrage balloon advertised petrol on the quayside, sea gusts making it dip and dive.

‘That’s quite a view,’ said Shaw. He ran his eyes over Parlour’s face, making an inventory of salient features, including the single plaster on his forehead where the door of the Mondeo had caught him that night on Siberia Belt.

‘So how can I help, Inspector? The paper’s full of it — this body on the beach, and now one out on the sands…’

They heard a toilet flush upstairs, footsteps, and Sean Harper came in, still fiddling with his flies, then scratching the dimple in his chin. He didn’t know what to do with his arms, which seemed overlong, hanging by his sides. He touched the stud in his ear and nodded by way of greeting.

A copy of the Daily Mail lay open on the coffee table

‘Tea?’ asked Parlour, not waiting for an answer. ‘Or something stronger…?’ He laughed, but Shaw knew he hadn’t been joking.

‘Tea’s great,’ said Shaw.

Parlour pottered in the kitchen, singing along to the faint music from a radio, the voice youthful, light. Shaw stood in the living room trying not to pick things up. A framed wedding photo stood on a shelf in the dresser; Parlour handsome in a narrow?legged seventies suit, the wife embarrassed by a once?in?a?lifetime hairdo. No pictures of children, nephews or nieces. Everything else in its place, the two armchairs: his and hers, hers with a sewing box on a small table. Coasters everywhere. Parlour found one and put down Shaw’s mug of tea, then retreated to get the others. Harper pretended to read the paper.

‘You’ll be delighted to know, Mr Harper, that we will not be taking proceedings over the pornography found in your possession,’ said Shaw.

Harper looked pathetically grateful. He held up a thumb. ‘Brilliant.’ But Shaw didn’t return the smile. ‘As long as you can tell me where you got the magazine.’

‘The Skeg,’ he said. ‘Under the counter.’

They heard a thud from above, then the sound of dog’s claws on the wooden stairs, dry food being tipped into a tin plate.

Parlour came back with Valentine’s tea. ‘Milly’s a bit shy. Shy but hungry.’

‘Please,’ said Shaw, laughing. ‘Sit down if you want — it’s your front room. We wanted a quick word just to check your statement.’ He rearranged a sheaf of papers on the coffee table.

They heard the dog scrabbling at the back door. ‘If she needs to go out perhaps Mr Harper could take her down the garden,’ said Shaw pointedly.

Harper fled, then reappeared on the lawn, lobbing snowballs at the dog as it ran in circles.

Shaw ran through the statement Fred Parlour had given Valentine at Gallow Marsh Farm. ‘I just need to be clear on one thing,’ said Shaw. ‘And I know this is labouring the point. But you didn’t, at any time, go further forward than the Alfa Romeo? I need to check that point.’

Parlour worked at a zip on his cardigan. ‘Well, that’s true. Actually, I didn’t go any further up than that poor man’s Corsa. She came back to get me — the woman — and we went to see if the old bloke was dead. Then you sent me back to the van.’

They heard Harper laugh in the garden, the dog barking like an unoiled hinge.

Shaw wondered how his father would have conducted the interview. The frontal assault perhaps, with Valentine offering him a lighter sentence if he made a full and rapid confession. He blew on the surface of the tea.

‘Anyone say much while you were all at the Corsa? There’d be you, Mrs Baker?Sibley and Mr Zhao.’

Parlour looked blank.

‘She was worried about her daughter?’ prompted Valentine.

‘Yeah. I said kids were a lot more independent than parents thought. Like I know.’ He laughed, looking round the room.

‘What did she say?’

‘She said I was right but she’d let her down before — that she’d promised it would never happen again. She was upset. I mean really upset. But she didn’t seem bothered if the old bloke was dead or alive.’

There was silence and Parlour swished the dregs of his tea in the mug, humming an echo of the tune he’d sung in the kitchen. Out in the garden a pile of snow slid off the shed and thudded onto the lawn, burying the toy windmill. The dog dashed after snowballs.

‘Why are you lying to us, Mr Parlour?’

Shaw watched Parlour’s face, and saw the smile clinging to his eyes, the muscles which held the line of the mouth twitching, a sudden flush of blood to the cheeks. And

‘Pardon?’

Valentine sat back, enjoying the moment, wondering how long Parlour would be able to go on denying the obvious.

‘You said you didn’t know Harvey Ellis. That you’d never met him?’

‘That’s right,’ said Parlour, a hand wandering to find the edge of the armchair for support.

‘Mr Parlour. Traces of Harvey Ellis’s blood were found on the trousers you were wearing on Monday night. Now I’m afraid that means one of two things. Either you did go further forward, which suggests to me that you might have killed Mr Ellis. Or that you met the person who did kill him.’ Shaw looked down the garden to the distant waterfront. ‘Either way the course of events from this point, right now, is pretty much unavoidable.’

Shaw stood. ‘I’d like you to come with us to St James’s, sir — unless you have something to tell us. Did you kill Harvey Ellis, Mr Parlour?’ Shaw was less than two feet away when he asked. He liked to be that close. It was one of his father’s maxims: one of the few things he’d ever said about how he did his job. Get within their personal space, then you can feel the reaction.

Parlour’s eyes were small and grey and they avoided his. ‘I… I don’t know how that could have happened. The blood. I didn’t go forward, and I don’t know Harvey Ellis. I don’t.’

Valentine produced a copy of the family snapshot of

‘No. They showed me the pictures… the constable came round, when they checked my teeth. I said no then.’ He held out his hands, the wedding band catching the light on the ring finger. He looked round the room. ‘I can’t leave now. The wife’s at work, she won’t know, I need to tell her.’

‘Would you like to make a call?’ said Shaw.

There was a phone by the armchair, a flip?up address book. Parlour sat, and Shaw noted that his eyes had filled and his breathing had become uneven. They listened as he got through, waiting while they paged her, and Parlour fumbled through an explanation. When he put the phone down he stood up. They all watched the dog jump in the garden — the joy of the leap, the front paws extended.

‘I’ll put a bit more food down for the dog — she won’t be back ’til lunchtime.’

Shaw went out into the garden where Harper’s footprints had soiled the lawn, revealing winter grass that was straw?yellow. The apprentice dropped a snowball from his hand as if he’d been caught out breaking rules in the playground. The dog, madcap, raced headlong, fell, and went rolling through the snow.

‘OK, Mr Harper, Mr Parlour is coming to the station with us. He’s told us a few lies, I’m afraid, about Monday night. Have you?’

Harper searched for the right answer, looking back at the house, the French windows reflecting a picture of the two of them stood in the snow. ‘Fred always tells the truth,’ he said.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Harper, following Shaw back into the house.

Inside the kitchen door the dog bowl had been piled high. A mixture of chunky meat, slightly purple, and lumps of what looked like a white biscuity meal.

Milly crunched in the bowl, her stub tail oscillating like a metronome on steroids. Shaw watched her, unblinking. His mind raced to the truth.

‘Shit!’ he said, and the dog cowered. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Valentine came into the kitchen and stood looking at the dog bowl with him. Shaw covered his eyes, one hand resting gently on the dressing, then dropped to his knees, a hand on the dog’s back, the fur wiry and slightly greasy.

‘It’s all right, Milly,’ he said.

He’d been a fool, a bloody fool.

Shaw contemplated the large plate?glass window of the Emerald Garden Chinese takeaway. It was fogged with condensation, trickles tracing a pattern like a bead curtain. A Day?Glo poster advertised chips at 50p a portion, 60p with curry sauce.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s try and get this inquiry back on the rails, shall we?’

It was a rhetorical question, because the only person he blamed was himself. They’d left Milly the Jack Russell running round Fred Parlour’s garden. Valentine had taken a plastic bag of the dog food to the Ark. The CSI team was still finishing up out on Siberia Belt, so they wouldn’t have the results for twenty?four hours. But in Parlour’s kitchen they’d found the still unopened cans of meat he used to make up Milly’s food, and the bag of bonemeal biscuits: reduced from sheep carcasses. The other organic material was likely to be the mixture of turkey and cow’s offal in the dog meat.

Which only left one maddening question. How had the dog got blood on its snout, given that Ellis’s car doors had been shut, with the windows up, until the body was discovered and the dog locked up in the plumber’s van?

Valentine pretended to study the front window of the takeaway. He hadn’t been able to work out why Shaw was so upset with the contents of a dog bowl. When he’d

Shaw pressed the dressing to his eye, silently thankful that he hadn’t derailed the entire inquiry when Tom Hadden had discovered the blood traces on Parlour’s overalls. They did need to get back on track. Terence Brand, the man found dead in the raft on Ingol Beach, had given his aunt in Nuneaton a forwarding address: The Emerald Garden. That Stanley Zhao had been on Siberia Belt that night was a coincidence too far. Was anyone else in the little convoy involved in Brand’s smuggling? Had Harvey Ellis died because he’d been part of a plan, or because he’d been cut out of a plan?

The front door of the takeaway was closed, so they walked down a side alley. There was a clatter of a wok on the high gas flame, the cracking of eggshells. They pushed open the fire exit by the storeroom and came into the kitchen from the back. Stanley Zhao didn’t jump an inch, just slipped an egg on to a plate.

‘Sorry,’ said Shaw. ‘Back door was open. A few more questions.’

Zhao didn’t say a word, but led them upstairs, his six foot?plus frame slightly stooped. The sitting room was about as Oriental as a fish?and?chip supper: a shag?pile carpet, a sideboard covered in family photos, and a flat?screen TV.

Valentine took Zhao through his original statement, letting them think it was all routine. Shaw sat forward in a wicker chair, watching their faces.

‘You’re quite sure you’d like your wife to sit in on this, Mr Zhao?’ he said when Valentine had finished.

Zhao adjusted the steel?rimmed spectacles, dabbed a paper tissue on his lips now that he’d finished his breakfast. ‘I just want to help,’ he said.

Valentine filled in their biographies. Gail had been born in Lynn, in the North End, before the old streets had come down. Her father was in the Merchant Navy and the family had gone to Hong Kong, where he’d put his savings into a boat?building business: little launches in wood for the rich to picnic on the water. She’d been sixteen. The Zhaos had built boats too: junks for the harbour trade. She’d met Stan when she was eighteen. Her father had died two years before the territory had reverted to the Chinese. They’d sold up, come home. Stan had come with her. Four years on the Westmead, four years they didn’t want again.

‘It’s the crime we didn’t expect,’ said Zhao. Valentine stiffened, taking it personally.

‘Yes.’ Zhao’s eyes had hardened.

‘Fine. So where did Terence Brand sleep?’

‘We’ve never heard of Terence Brand,’ said Gail Zhao, too quickly, her voice an octave too high. ‘Have we, Stan?’

‘I’d like your husband to answer the questions, Mrs Zhao — for now at least. Mr Zhao?’

‘I know the name. The local radio had a story. He was found on the beach?’ Shaw spotted it that time, the fleeting micro?expression, like a shadow moving across the face’s tiny muscles and tendons, a glimpse of the truth. He’d seen fear, before Zhao had reimposed a look of polite confusion.

‘Yes. The beach below Siberia Belt. Where you were stranded on Monday night. His aunt has this restaurant as a forwarding address. That’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?’

From the kitchen came the rhythmic rattle of the wok being shaken on the gas hob.

‘Why were you helping these people, Mr Zhao?’

‘I don’t understand,’ he said, giving up on the smile. ‘Do you know what I’m going to do if you don’t answer my questions truthfully?’ asked Shaw, and Valentine recognized the buzz of stress in the voice, the almost imperceptible segue from patience to menace.

Zhao licked his lips.

‘I’m going to get a forensic team from our headquarters at St James’s and I’m going to seal off your spare room

‘I can answer if I want to,’ cut in his wife, taking her husband’s hand. ‘We don’t know what Terry did.’

‘Terry?’ said Valentine.

‘He’s my son,’ she said, the chin jutting out. Downstairs they heard the sound of chips being thrown into hot oil. ‘Was my son.’

She took out a scrap of tissue and began to dab at her mouth, the eyes already swimming in tears. ‘Brand is my maiden name. I was just fifteen when Terry was born, here in Lynn.’

They sat in silence, letting the truth settle like dust. ‘Why are you only telling us this now?’ asked Shaw. Mrs Zhao tried to look through him. ‘Terry’s life was his own. We didn’t ask questions. I’m his mother, that’s what I do. I don’t ask questions.’

It wasn’t good enough, but Shaw let it go.

‘And I owed him, I suppose.’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘I went to Hong Kong for a new life. Aunt Ruth was his father’s sister. She brought him up. His father didn’t stick around.’ She took her hands away, damp with tears. ‘She never wanted to know anything about me. But I kept in touch with Terry, she was OK about that. He was unhappy at Ruth’s; rebellious, I suppose. I

‘But the room he slept in, Mrs Zhao, it’s newly decorated, for a child,’ said Shaw.

‘Yes. I was seven months pregnant, Detective Inspector, but I lost the child. Last year. We shouldn’t have done that, tempted fate. But I guess we got excited. It was a girl,’ she added, attempting a smile.

Mr Zhao was looking at the sickly pattern on the shag pile.

‘OK,’ said Shaw. ‘I’m sorry.’ He thought about it: losing two children in a year — one a grown man, the other unborn. ‘But I’d still like to know what your husband was doing on Siberia Belt the night Terry’s body was washed up. What did Terry do when he was staying with you — for money?’

Mr Zhao raised a hand to his mouth. ‘In the summer he surfed, wind sports. He spent money, I didn’t ask where it came from. We were fond of him.’

Shaw thought of the blood?caked teeth. ‘Did you give him a ring, Mr Zhao? A man with a dragon’s tail carved in jet?’

He nodded, his eyelids almost closing. ‘Hsi, the first emperor.’

‘And in the winter?’

‘He had a wetsuit — and he fished at night, on the long lines. He hung around that cafe on the front by the fair.’

Shaw thought of the wetsuits swilling in the sea spray off Hunstanton, the fishermen huddled at night by lanterns, the magazines under the counter at the cafe, sticky fingerprints on the glass. Another lucrative trade for Terry Brand. A parcel on each trip perhaps, a little extra money.

‘How did he get down to the beach?’ asked Valentine. ‘Nearest surf is — what — fifteen miles. And he’s got all his kit. You’re not going to get sea rods on the bus, are you?’ Key question: Shaw bit his lip.

Mrs Zhao had frozen but her husband had an answer; the wrong answer. ‘His friends had a car.’

‘Who are they — these friends? What do they look like?’ said Valentine, flipping open the notebook, biro in his teeth, playing the role perfectly.

‘We didn’t see them,’ Zhao said.

‘They’d stay in the car — sound the horn,’ said Mrs Zhao, joining in.

‘In the car,’ repeated Valentine. ‘What sort of car?’

‘A white van, dirty,’ said Zhao.

Shaw zipped up his coat. ‘I think you were the transport, Mr Zhao. I think that’s why you were there that night. To meet Terry. I think you’d done it before. And I think you know he wasn’t sea fishing, or looking for the perfect winter wave. He was smuggling. Dangerous work — so dangerous it killed him. I think he was curious about what he was bringing in, curious to know what price it would fetch. Did he talk to you about that, Mr Zhao? Mrs Zhao? And the merchandise? Did he bring it here?’

‘Merchandise?’ said Stanley Zhao, shaking his head.

‘A suitcase perhaps,’ said Shaw. ‘Reinforced, aluminium probably, so it wouldn’t weigh too much. Or plastic containers, baskets — what did they use, Mr Zhao? You tell me. Is that why you didn’t contact the police when we released his name?’

Mrs Zhao rubbed her eyes and looked at Shaw for the first time. ‘If Terry was dead… is dead… what’s the point in contacting the police? Terry never brought anything home, Detective Inspector,’ she added. ‘Never.’

Shaw guessed she was telling the truth, or nearly the truth. The magazines came home. But no, he didn’t bring the consignment home. So where did it go?

‘Whatever he was smuggling that last night probably killed him. I’m going to have to ask you to identify the body, Mrs Zhao. Can you do that for me?’

Shaw watched her face collapse, watched her lose control of the nerves that held the line of her mouth.

‘No, I don’t think I can,’ she said, but she reached for her coat.

Shark Tooth’s plant was on the single?track road beside the Wash at Wootton Marsh. Snow at sea had smudged out the horizon, and the reed beds were frozen. The plant’s buildings were flat?pack sheds, between which tractors scurried, buckets aloft, seawater draining from the shellfish within. From the main processing shed the sound of cockles rolling on a conveyor belt was punctuated by the hissing of a cheap radio. At the corner of the yard a flag flew, the blue clamshell on a white background.

Shaw watched the flag unfurl in a slight breeze, then smelt the salt on his fingers from his early morning swim. ‘Terry Brand’s body was found at the beach below Gallow Marsh Farm. Shark Tooth owns the farm. It also employs the cockle?picking gang which works on Styleman’s Middle. It runs boats through the sandbanks off Ingol Beach. On the night of the murder I saw a yacht off the beach — a blue clam insignia on the sail.’ They both looked at the flying flag. ‘Part of the answer’s here. Got to be.’

Valentine flipped open the file he’d got one of the DCs to put together on the late shift. He rubbed his eyes, forcing them to focus. He’d spent a second night in the house on the corner of Greenland Street but this time he’d run out of luck, and that always made him tired. Three hours sleep, maximum. He’d read the file at the kitchen table by dawn’s light, and he summarized

Now the company employed between fifty and eighty people, depending on the season. They had a dozen boats, with the focus on commercial shellfish, although they still ran fishing trips in season. There’d been a wodge of newspaper cuttings in the file following the Morecambe Bay disaster — in which a gang of ethnic Chinese cockle?pickers, mostly illegal immigrants, had died when they’d been cut off by the treacherous tides off the Lancashire coast. Colin Narr, CEO of Shark Tooth, had told the press all his workforce — Chinese or other — had legal papers, a fact verified by Lynn CID. But the Conservancy Board that regulated the harbour had brought in new safety rules for the cockle boats: limiting numbers, requiring a manifest of those going out on each tide, enforcing a licensing system for gangmasters. Ownership of the privately registered company was obscure: Colin Narr described himself as a minority shareholder. Five years ago they’d bought Gallow Marsh Farm to develop the oyster beds.

‘And that’s what we know,’ finished Valentine, taking a breath which made one of his ribs crack. He ran a hand over an unshaved chin. He felt better, keen to get in amongst the cockle?pickers. Shaw was right: somewhere at the centre of all three deaths was Shark Tooth.

Shaw got out and let the gritty snow blow into his good eye. Ahead he could just see the distant white line

He wasn’t looking forward to the interview with Colin Narr. He’d never understood business, found the environment intimidating, antiseptic, and foreign. Plus Narr was a town worthy — an alderman, and a member of the county council’s Police Committee. Which in an odd way made him Shaw’s boss. Shaw felt the familiar surge of defiance in the face of authority, loosening the top button of the tie?less shirt.

The office was a Portakabin, a posh one, but a Portakabin nonetheless, with a black Jag parked outside. Inside there was a carpet and a six?bar electric fire, a secretary in a thermal jacket. Behind a partition they could hear a mumbled telephone call. A long window onto the yard stood half open. They heard a receiver crash down and Narr came out, calling them back through into the office.

‘Red tape,’ he said. ‘That was Defra. It’s a full?time career dealing with bloody jobsworths.’

Narr wore canvas trousers and a weathered oilskin jacket. He had the kind of skin that’s been marinated in fresh air, the texture of overcooked bacon, the colour of a kipper. His head was small for his body, compact and round, but he held it low, as if it were dense and heavy, and he didn’t quite have the energy to hold it up. One oddity: his hair was short and mousey, receding, revealing ears without lobes, which Shaw could imagine gently shrivelling away when exposed to the sun out on the sands.

The office had a desk, a metal filing cabinet and a sixties

‘You like fresh air,’ said Shaw.

Narr looked at the window as if he’d never seen it before, one hand rising, touching his ear where the fleshy pod of the lobe should have been. ‘I’m in and out, there’s no point.’ He smiled without showing his teeth. The Norfolk accent had been ironed flat, but the ghost of it was still there, marking him out as a local.

The wall behind the desk held a large noticeboard covered in cuttings and pictures. Shaw noted one of Narr and the rest of the Police Committee on a visit to St James’s to meet the Home Secretary. An old print of the Fisher Fleet, packed with the jostling masts of the herring boats. But the dominant image was a photo of a football team in blue?and?white hoops, the team badge enlarged at the foot showing the blue cockleshell and the name: Wootton Marsh FC. Duncan Sly, the gangmaster he’d met out on Styleman’s Middle, stood to one side in a smart black tracksuit, carrying a physio’s bag.

‘Hope you two don’t mind, but we’re gonna have to do this on the run,’ said Narr, stuffing some papers into the pockets of his jacket. As they walked out to reception he stooped down and moved the fire nearer to his secretary, closing the window. ‘I’ll be gone a bit,’ he said. ‘You might as well enjoy it.’

They all walked briskly across the yard into a large shed which reeked of ozone. Thousands of oysters lay in metal trays, water splashing over them. Shaw breathed it in, feeling his pulse rise, the stench of the sea almost narcotic.

Shaw kept precisely one pace behind. ‘Have you seen this?’ He produced his sketch of the man recovered from the sands at Styleman’s Middle. ‘You don’t recognize the face?’

‘Uniformed copper came round yesterday with it, we all had a look. There’s something familiar about it — but who knows?’

Narr picked an oyster out of a bucket, took a short knife from his pocket and expertly slid the blade into the folds of the shell, twisting his wrist and opening it out to reveal the flesh within, the colour of a summer cloud. He rolled it down his throat. ‘That’d be your job?’ he said. ‘Finding answers.’

In the next shed thousands of cockles were being turned gently in vats of water.

‘Stookey blues,’ said Narr, picking one out and prising the shell open to reveal the clam?like creature within, milky white with a hint of opalescence. But he didn’t eat it, tossed it instead into a pail of broken shells.

Shaw was tiring of the lecture. He noticed they’d left Valentine back in the last shed chatting to one of the factory women.

‘Mr Narr, is it conceivable that someone, some group, could be smuggling merchandise onto Ingol Beach without the cooperation, possibly tacit, of your men on Styleman’s Middle?’

Narr picked up a handful of the cockles, turning them

‘This is a jumbo,’ he said. ‘When you get out on the sand you put it down and then rock on it, like this.’ He swayed vigorously from side to side. ‘The movement sucks the cockles towards the surface, then you rake it to get ’em out.’ He stood. ‘You don’t get a lot of time for sightseeing. Believe me — I did it for ten years and I don’t remember enjoying the view much.’ The hand again, rising to touch the missing earlobe.

‘But on a good day, with clear visibility, you can see ten miles out there. You only have to straighten your back once. Or do they learn to turn a blind eye?’

‘Ask ’em,’ Narr shrugged. ‘But don’t forget we don’t go out in low light, let alone darkness — not since Morecambe. So unless you’ve got daylight smugglers — then yeah, they could miss them.’

‘We did ask the men,’ said Shaw.

‘Then you’ve got your answer.’

Shaw wondered how Narr would react if he suggested they continue their conversation at St James’s. If he didn’t get a bit more cooperation he’d do it, and sod the consequences.

‘Lufkin, Sly. How long have they been on the books? Ever had a Terence Brand on the payroll?’

Narr held up both hands. ‘Duncan Sly’s born and bred Norfolk fishing. Father ran oyster beds, he spent fifteen years in the Merchant Navy. Falklands War, South Atlantic

Shaw wondered what that was supposed to be a euphemism for.

‘And Terence Brand?’

Narr shook his head.

‘That’s a no?’

Narr looked him straight in the eyes for the first time. ‘That’s a no.’

‘And the Chinese workers? The Czechs?’

‘They’re all legal — they’ve all had their papers checked by the Board. One Czech, by the way. Bedrich — he’s legal, an EU migrant worker. The other two east Europeans are Serbian.’

Shaw stepped a foot closer and wiped what was left of a smile off Narr’s face. ‘I didn’t ask if they were legal. I asked if you trusted them.’

Narr’s eyes hardened. ‘They’re good workers,’ he said, turning on his heel and heading across the yard. Back in the office he took the sheaf of messages his secretary handed him, ignoring Shaw.

‘Does the company own a yacht, Mr Narr — with the blue clam emblem on the sail?’

‘A yacht?’ Narr laughed. ‘You’ve seriously overestimated the profit margin on shellfish, Inspector. No — we don’t own a yacht.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’d like to ask him the same questions I asked you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I might get a different answer.’

‘You won’t.’ Narr sighed. ‘There are four minority shareholders — all local men with the knowledge and the contacts and the experience. But the capital’s foreign, and they like to keep their business to themselves. Any questions, try the company secretary. But I wouldn’t hold your breath.’

He flipped open a wallet and took out a card; one of Lynn’s long?established high?street solicitors. Shaw took it but let his eye scan the still?open wallet, a snapshot visible in the clear plastic window: Narr in a white shirt under a tropical sun, a woman’s face pressed to his, plenty of make?up despite the swimsuit top. It was Sarah Baker?Sibley, smiling at the sideways kiss.

Snow fell in Burnham Market like old white five?pound notes; extravagant flakes, accruing, silently transforming the town square into a picture postcard, complete with the winking white lights of the Farmers Market. In the fishmonger’s, turbot was sold out, and at the butcher’s a queue had formed despite the weather to buy partridge and lamb shank. A pair of elegant Afghan hounds waited patiently outside the wine merchant’s. Shaw parked outside Sarah Baker?Sibley’s shop: it had just her name on the sign, with a motif of a mobile phone; the window was crowded with them: expensive, up?market models, with cameras, radios, and Bluetooth included. A flat?screen TV showed an advert for a model including GPS.

During the drive Shaw told Valentine about the picture in Narr’s wallet. He wondered if any of Narr’s employees thought their boss had a secret life.

‘He’s well liked,’ said Valentine. ‘Wife left last year. Nobody thought much of her. A bitch, apparently; used to swan round the place like it was her kingdom. No one mentioned a new bird on the block, so must be hush?hush.’

‘Anything else off the shop floor?’

‘Sly’s been around for years, isn’t happy unless he’s out on the sands.’ Valentine put a hand on his heart as if taking an oath. ‘There’s no love lost with Lufkin, he’s only

‘Otherwise it’s happy families?’

‘And something else. One of the old blokes said there was a rumour they were going to give Izzy Dereham the push at Gallow Marsh. The oysters aren’t making what they should make. She’s struggling on her own, and the lease is up next year.’

‘Good work,’ said Shaw.

‘How we gonna play this?’ asked Valentine, trying not to feel pleased about the compliment.

‘Baker?Sibley? Well, it isn’t a crime, not telling the police you’re having an affair. I presume there’s a Mr Baker?Sibley — although she didn’t mention anyone when she needed Jillie picking up. Divorced? So I guess we take it carefully, keeping in mind Mr Colin Narr’s — excuse me, Alderman Narr’s — position as chairman of the Police Committee. She doesn’t have to reveal her private life. However, I think we now have cause to ask her about it. Plus I’d like to give her another chance to tell us the truth about that phone call she made from Gallow Marsh. There was

‘Could be Narr,’ said Valentine.

‘Could be. Did we check on the daughter?’

Valentine pulled out his notebook. ‘I had a word with the head at the school, snotty cow. Didn’t want to talk. I said we’d come down with a blue flashing light on the roof of the squad car and park it in the drive at going?home time. She coughed up pretty quick then. So — Jillie Baker?Sibley.’ He heaved in a lungful of air. ‘Bright, wired for nerves. The pupil from hell. Disruptive, uncooperative, occasionally violent.’

‘Violent?’

‘Bullying, mainly — always younger girls. There’s been complaints but they’ve kept it all in?school. Parents don’t want publicity either. Last time she boxed some ten?year?old round the head, broke an eardrum. Argument over who got to sit on a bench in the sunshine. Head thinks she’s disturbed, has been since she got to the school two years ago. She says she’s on her last chance, doesn’t matter how clever she is. One more foot out of line and they’re gonna bite the bullet and tell her mum where to stick the fees.’

As they threaded their way through the drifts on the pavement Shaw recalled what Parlour had said about Sarah Baker?Sibley, how nervous she’d been that night on Siberia Belt, desperate not to let her daughter down again. Parental anxiety, or something more?

Baker?Sibley’s shop was immaculately minimalist. The walls were whitewashed, mobile phones set like jewels on polished glass shelves. The flat?screen TV was now

Sarah Baker?Sibley was talking to a customer but an assistant, a teenager called Abigail with long flowing blonde hair, showed them into a back office and produced a cafetiere and three cups, each with a small sinuous kink in the circular rim.

When Baker?Sibley joined them she looked elated, her eyes catching the pinpoint halogen lights strung in a line across the ceiling. A sale, thought Shaw, taking out his notebook, despising the thrill of money.

‘You’re early,’ she said.

She sat behind a desk, the harsh light adding ten years to the carefully made?up flesh of her face. Valentine struggled with the kinked rim of his coffee cup, slurping loudly.

‘I’m sorry to take up your time, Ms Baker?Sibley,’ said Shaw pointedly. ‘We just wanted to check a couple of points in your statement. DS Valentine has the note, I think…’

They’d agreed this on the drive over. Valentine would pitch some questions while Shaw waited for the right moment. It was becoming their favoured strategy. She told them the story she’d told them that first night: she always picked Jillie up from school, always at 5.30 on Mondays, and she always drove along the coast road. She’d seen the AA sign, took the diversion, and the rest they knew.

Valentine set his cup down. ‘Then you called your

‘Yes. I knew you’d only got a message through to an answer phone when we were out on the marshes so I was still worried. Jillie always looks at the incoming number before answering, so I wasn’t desperate; but, you know, she’s only thirteen. I caught her at home,’ she added. ‘I think anyone with a child would know how it feels.’ She tried a smile but got nothing out of George Valentine.

‘And the second call?’ asked Shaw.

‘I rang her back — I got cut off.’

‘But you asked her to pass the phone at one point, on the first call, I think — who to?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Nobody else.’

So one lie at least, thought Shaw. ‘Couldn’t have been her father, for example?’

She folded her hands on her lap, scrunching slightly the heavy velvet black dress. ‘We’re divorced, Detective Inspector. James lives in Greece now, when he’s not in the City. He has a flat in the Barbican.’

‘And your daughter…’

‘She’s thirteen and I have custody of her, naturally.’

‘Right. And you pick her up each evening?’

‘Yes. St Agnes’ Hall at Burnham Westgate. Just along the coast road. I usually pick her up earlier but Mondays it’s later because she has a clarinet lesson after school. I’ve always picked her up, even when James was with us.’

She made the family sound like a corporation, thought Shaw. ‘But not last Monday night?’

‘So what did she do?’ asked Shaw.

‘She walked home. She has a key.’ She folded and unfolded her hands, a little dance of exaggerated patience.

‘But your house is where?’ He made a pretence of checking his notes; the address was in Burnham Overy Town, a hamlet just inland. ‘There must have been three feet of snow on the road by the time she got there.’

‘Did she have a choice?’ she asked, the aggression in her voice misplaced.

‘Is she at school today?’ asked Valentine, closing his notebook.

‘No.’ Baker?Sibley stiffened. ‘She’s doing school work here, she’s not well enough to go in.’

‘Anything serious?’ asked Shaw.

‘Just a chill.’

‘Can we see her then, briefly?’ Shaw sat back, while Valentine leant forward, helping himself to a fresh cup of coffee.

‘Why?’ she asked, but Shaw guessed she regretted it immediately.

‘We don’t want to have to bother you again,’ said Shaw, pleased at the elegance of the implied threat.

‘This is a waste of time — principally my time,’ she said.

She was gone a long time and they both wondered why, but said nothing. Shaw’s pager buzzed and the call?back number was the RNLI station at Wells, along the coast. That meant their boat was out, and that Hunstanton had to stand by. Shaw was less than five miles from home

‘We might have to wind this one up, George,’ he said. ‘There might be a shout.’

Valentine knew all about Shaw’s role in the RNLI. He thought most coppers found being a DI was job enough without being a part?time hero. He wasn’t the only one at St James’s who thought it was out of order. He glugged some phlegm, stowing the cotton handkerchief quickly when he heard footsteps above, the floorboards creaking.

When she appeared Jillie Baker?Sibley was a walking contradiction: thin, with fragile bones, a pale face free of make?up. She was hugging a copy of Bleak House to her chest. But there were hints of another life. A single tattoo of a teardrop peeking out from the cuff of a crisp white collarless shirt, and the hair, cut short like a boy’s, was savagely severe, with an uneven fringe. Shaw remembered the little framed picture on the dashboard of the Alfa Romeo: Jillie with long straight hair, the perfect public?school daughter. He guessed there’d been a family argument about hairstyles and that this time, at least, the teenager had won. He also noted the mobile hitched by the buckle: an expensive model in turquoise. Her face was formless, puffy, almost insolent, as if it might resolve itself into something more mature and structured by the end of the day. But the eyes were extraordinary: violet rather than blue. Film stars’ eyes, an extra’s face.

‘Hi,’ said Shaw, trying to hit the same adult tone he used with Francesca’s friends. ‘Studying?’

‘You had to walk home the other night — that must have been frightening?’ asked Shaw.

‘I’ve walked before — it’s not a problem.’ Her eyes didn’t meet Shaw’s. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of in the dark. Dad always says that. And Mum always checks…’ She touched the mobile. ‘Mum and I are always in touch.’ Her voice was flat, emotionless, so that Shaw couldn’t tell if that was a good thing.

‘Clara — my best friend — we’ve walked home before, she lives up the lane. If you go back to school you have to work with the boarders — they do homework early. Losers.’

‘Jillie,’ said her mother. ‘There’s nothing cool about not working hard at school.’

Shaw held up a hand. ‘But this time you set out on your own?’

She shook her head, thinking, so that Shaw could see the confusion behind the eyes. ‘Clara has music lessons too on Mondays. But she does an extra hour. I like snow,’ she added. ‘It was beautiful.’

Shaw thought about the head teacher’s character summary: disruptive, violent. She flicked her head as if to clear a strand of hair from her eyes, a strand of hair she didn’t have. Then she crossed her legs, interlacing the

Shaw looked at her hands. There was a slight tremble in both, a vibration like a taut piano wire. On the top of the left one was a blue mark, a circle with the letters BT at the centre, identical to the one Valentine had described on the hand of the young driver of the Mondeo.

‘What does that mean?’ he asked pointing, unable to keep a note of excitement out of his voice.

Valentine sat forward, realizing he’d missed it. Hands: you should always look at their hands.

‘Oh, Jillie, really — I did ask.’ The annoyance in her mother’s voice was partly manufactured, Shaw sensed. Ritualistic.

Jillie smiled. ‘A disco at the village hall — at Burnham Thorpe. It’s Sodom and Gomorrah when the lights go down.’

Her mother bit her lip.

‘And when was that?’ asked Shaw.

‘Saturday night.’

‘It’s for charity,’ said her mother. ‘For meals?on?wheels. She never washes those things off — it’s to show off at school, isn’t it?’

Valentine hadn’t taken his eyes off the teenager. ‘Have you got a boyfriend, Jillie?’

Her mother snorted like a horse. ‘She needs to rest,’ she said, rising.

‘One last question,’ said Shaw. ‘When your mother phoned you on Monday night she asked you to pass the phone to someone else. Who was that, Jillie?’

Sarah Baker?Sibley took her daughter by the arm, gently letting her stand. ‘Indeed, as I said. Now, Jillie needs to rest.’

When she returned Shaw stood up, giving her the impression the interview was over. But he’d saved two questions. ‘You told Fred Parlour — the man you first informed that you thought John Holt was dead out on Siberia Belt — that you were very keen to get back on the road and see if Jillie was OK because you’d let her down before. When was that, Mrs Baker?Sibley?’

Her eyes danced around the pictures on the office wall — a poorly executed landscape of Hunstanton cliffs, a watercolour of Holkham Hall. ‘It was one of the discos, at Burnham Thorpe. It was stupid of me — I fell asleep at home and when I got to the hall it was all shut up. No one. You can imagine. I just freaked out.’

‘But she was all right?’ asked Valentine, standing too. ‘She’d gone home with Clara — she was fine. I think she enjoyed it, actually — showing me up.’ A bitter smile.

‘Colin Narr,’ said Shaw. ‘You’re friends?’

It had been an act up until now, Shaw could see that, because this was the question she hadn’t expected. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘I ask the questions.’ Shaw smiled the surfer’s smile. ‘And why on earth do you think I should answer them?’

Valentine noted the subtle shift again. The voice shedding its polite sugar coating.

‘Your car was stranded the other night near Ingol Beach; Gallow Marsh Farm owns the land, and Mr Narr’s company both owns Gallow Marsh and runs the cockle?picking business out on Styleman’s Middle, where another corpse was discovered yesterday morning. Plus you’re insisting on telling me lies about the call you made that night at Gallow Marsh Farm. I heard you ask to be passed to someone else. So I can ask that question, and if you choose to not answer it, you can choose not to answer it down at St James’s. Was Mr Narr at home with Jillie?’

She gave him the full 100?watt stare. Then she led the way to the plate?glass door at the front of the shop, opening it to let some snowflakes blow in over the marble floor. A woman walked past outside, a pair of corgis wearing gaberdine jackets trailing on leads in her wake.

‘Colin and I have been seeing each other since shortly after my marriage broke down, Inspector. I don’t think we have any secrets, from either each other or the police. Any suggestion to the contrary might be of interest to his lawyers. If you insist on continuing this conversation at a police station then I will have to notify my lawyers.’

DC Jacky Lau stood on the rotting wooden jetty at Morston Creek, watching a pair of seals in the tidal run bobbing up, then down, like fairground ducks. In the mud the crabs scuttled, and the sound of the water draining out of the marshes was as loud as the wind. She’d parked her souped?up Renault Megane by the National Trust information hut. A light peppering of snow was obscuring the glass lenses of her wraparound Foster Grants.

Lau had good eyes: 20:20 vision. The creek ran out through the marshes towards the open water protected by the long shingle arm of Blakeney Point. A few yachts bobbed in the tide. But one, on the edge of the marsh, looked odd — its mast set permanently off the vertical.

‘Ian,’ she said, not turning round.

A small man came up beside her and trained his binoculars on the sea breaking out on the distant point. Ian Norton was the harbour master at Morston, a part?time post he combined with running the National Trust booth and tea shop. Norton was stocky, powerful, like a crab on its hind legs. Jacky Lau had gone out with his son Paul for a year, and his racing Mini with outsized wheels stood on the wharf. Ian was one of her best contacts, watchful, sceptical, with an eye for detail.

‘What you looking for, Jacky?’

Norton trained binoculars on the dipped, distant mast. ‘It’s run aground.’

‘Seen the owner?’ she asked, turning to look him in the face.

Norton shook his head.

There was a gust of snow?crated wind. ‘Can you run me out?’ she asked, shivering, thinking about the warm interior of the Megane, the heated driver’s seat.

Norton collected his wife from a cottage on the old quay to look after the coffee shop. The NT launch was a twoman dinghy with an outboard which laboured as they nosed out into Blakeney Channel, edging up towards the yacht, the wind beginning to chop the wave tops off, spraying them with spume. Visibility dropped, the snow thickening like feathers from a pillow fight, so that by the time they came alongside they couldn’t see the quay or the church up on the hill. Somewhere a foghorn sounded.

They were lucky to find it — a white yacht in a snowstorm. They could just read the name on the prow — Hydra.

Lau shouted, ‘Ahoy,’ thankful none of the stock?car?racing crowd could hear her. Norton climbed aboard using a short rope ladder which hung down from the deck. Lau followed, willing her short muscular legs to work properly in the cold. She felt relieved to get on deck,

A seagull stood on the varnished wooden decking, its head and bill into the wind, balancing serenely on one leg. Norton jumped into the cockpit, pulled open the double hatch to the cabin. She followed him down the three?step ladder quickly, embracing the moment when her head fell below deck level and out of the polar wind.

She slid off the dark glasses, stashed them in an exterior pocket on her leather driving jacket and let her eyes get used to the gloom. There were narrow windows at deck level, but small pleated blinds were fastened down. Norton found a switch and lambent light flooded from beneath teak panels.

The boat continued to rock, a bottle of wine rolling back and forth on the wooden decking. In the open forward galley a chopping board on the flip?down worktop held two or three pieces of cheese, a six?inch tubular piece of garlic sausage and a plastic delicatessen tub of olives.

From the forward part of the cabin she looked back towards the cockpit and saw a small TV screen, inlaid in the wooden bulkhead, the sound down, the channel showing BBC News 24. Interference zigzagged across the picture like lightning.

Beside it was a framed photograph. A man hugging two children — a young girl, an older boy — on the deck of the yacht. The sail was catching some breeze, billowed Hydra, 2005.

Norton was checking the map on the chart table — a stretch of the north Norfolk coast, from Lynn round to Wells. He traced a pencilled route with his finger around Blakeney Point and out to sea. ‘Some summer sailor’s got caught out by the weather, doesn’t know the local waters, drops his anchor in deep water and then rows ashore. It happens. He’s probably tucked up in a nice hotel asleep in his bathrobe.’ Norton shivered as the hull rocked under them. ‘Lucky bastard.’

‘We need to double?check,’ said Jacky Lau, knowing what Shaw would do. ‘Find a name.’ The boat lurched, and she fell on to one of the padded benches. ‘Where do you sleep on one of these things?’

Norton showed her a small door in the forward bulkhead. ‘Through here,’ he said, flicking a switch.

Two bunks, only one of them disturbed. But it was what was lying across the other one which made Jacky Lau’s pulse quicken.

She leant in and touched a skein of human hair. Thick, like a horse’s tail, but soft. Holding some to her nose she caught a hint of scent, a soapy aroma. She ran it between her hands as if she were carding wool. Two feet of human hair, natural blonde streaks, brushed to a sheen like a liquid mirror.

Norton stood back now, his shoulders pressed against the panelled bulwark. Jacky lay the hair back on the bed, knowing now she shouldn’t have picked it up.

‘That’s weird,’ she said. ‘Just take a seat, Ian — don’t touch anything.’

‘We’re fine,’ he said. ‘What d’you reckon?’

‘I reckon this might be it.’ She moved into the galley. A small bowl, the water stained pink, a heavy wooden gaff for stunning fish standing in it. The light from the galley porthole caught the sticky matt surface of it, a stain in black, with a hint of red as subtle as the flush on a medium?rare steak. And a piece of skin the size of a stamp stuck to the stain, its surface pitted like goose flesh, but with a single hair attached.

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.

‘I owe you for this,’ said Shaw, stretching, bending his spine back so that he could see the Ark’s wooden vaulted ceiling.

‘It’s OK,’ said Hadden. ‘I don’t sleep much. Usually I read books about birds I don’t have time to see. I’ve made a start on Tessier — it’s intriguing work — but it’s just a start.’ He dragged a heavy black metal box out from under one of the work benches and placed the contents, all bagged, out on the conference table.

The last time Shaw had seen them they’d been crushed in the cellophane evidence bags. Now, laid out, following the order of the body, the sight was more intimate. The green?and?white Celtic football shirt, the white shorts, the odd socks, the studless football boots. The red sweatshirt had been laid to one side, on top the contents of the shorts pocket: the 40p change, the wrapped Opal Fruit — the paper discoloured with age.

Shaw produced two bottles of mineral water from his overcoat and offered one to Hadden, who took it, drinking in silence. Under the neon light his skin looked ghostly — especially the narrow scar just below his hairline where the last operation had removed a melanoma.

‘Right.’ Hadden closed his eyes. ‘I don’t have the case file but there were notes with the forensics and I’ve access to copies of the Home Office reports. They’re thorough,

‘I made some notes. Here.’ He opened the document, read for a second, clicked some more, then leant back in the seat. ‘This was one of your father’s cases, wasn’t it?’

‘Just tidying up.’

Hadden trusted him enough not to ask any more, or to wonder where the case file had gone. ‘There’s plenty of physical evidence that we could re?examine — but most of that would take time. But my first thought is that there is a real miss here…’ His face had flushed slightly, and his eyes for once caught the light radiating from the screen which now showed a series of microscope slides. Each picture was black, with a central image in a buttery yellow. Each one appeared to be a small distorted globe — some almost perfectly round, most smooth but asymmetrical.

‘These are really small — this is at 10,000 times magnification. You couldn’t get a pinhead into one of these shots, it would be too big.’

‘Where’d you find them?’

‘Everywhere — all surface clothing anyway — the Celtic top, the shorts, both socks outside the boot, but just the arms of the sweatshirt, and in bands. I’ve got a theory there — kids often wrap jumpers round their waists, the arms knotted. That would be consistent.’

‘What are they?’

‘Balls of paint. Thousands of them — in fact…’ He

‘From an aerosol can?’

‘No. There are traces of an industrial lubricant and a thinner. So I’d say the child was standing near some sort of paint?spraying operation at some point between the last time the clothes were washed and his death.’

‘A wash would have got rid of them?’

‘No — but these are distributed in a very fine mesh?like pattern over the clothes. Washing would have disrupted that — there’d be pools of them, they’d get caught up in the seams, the stitches. There’s no sign of that. The case file should have details on the last time the clothes were washed, but judging by the shorts I’d say they were clean on.’

‘And the paint?’

‘That’s why it really is your lucky day. It’s not a car paint at all — it’s a kind of yellow sealant paint used on tractors. It’s hardwearing and withstands chemicals used for spraying. It’s listed in the national database but the company that made it — Roncal — went bust in the mid?nineties.’ He picked up a printed list and gave it to Shaw. ‘This is a list of their customers — mostly agricultural engineers. Only local one is out at Castle Rising, on the edge of town. Outfit called Askit amp; Sons.’

Shaw held the list in his hand. ‘Thanks.’

‘That’s OK. I’m not done yet — and I won’t get done this week unless you push this up the priorities list. We’ve still got three vehicles out on Siberia Belt. And the basics from the Hydra will take us forty?eight hours at least.’

Shaw held up both hands. ‘No, no. Tom, I can’t justify

‘OK — when I can I’ll get back to it. One thing would make things quicker…’

Shaw nodded. ‘Go ahead.’

‘The original case file.’

‘I’ll get it for you,’ said Shaw. It was a confrontation he’d been avoiding. An emotional tussle over his father’s memory. ‘Give me twenty?four hours.’

It had been someone’s birthday in the Queen Victoria, on Mary Seacole ward. A blue balloon, detached, stirred and rushed ahead as Grace Ellis pushed through the doors of the children’s ward, nodded to the nurse on night duty, and headed for Jake’s room, the linoleum sticky with disinfectant under her feet. A child laughed in one of the rooms, and through an open door she saw a small girl lying on top of the sheets, one leg kicking out straight in her dreams.

Grace Ellis knew Jake would be awake. Normally he slept in the afternoon, and then early evening, something to do with the drugs. But since his father’s murder he’d struggled to find deep sleep, enmeshed instead in a series of fitful nightmares. His TV was on, the sound down, a video playing, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the flickering picture making the room’s walls jump forward and back. At the foot of the bed was a cuddly toy, a present from the Police Benevolent Fund.

Her son turned his head on the pillow. ‘Mum,’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ she said, kissing him roughly, cradling the head. She didn’t take another breath. ‘Look. Dad’s not here to tell you this.’ The boy killed the film with the remote control, just using his fingers, not even flexing the wrist. ‘The appeal, Jake. We’re not going to raise the money,

She went to stand, but forced herself not to run away. ‘Mrs Tyre’s looking after Michael and Peggy, I can’t stay long. Only I couldn’t sleep thinking… thinking you’d be looking forward to it. Because it isn’t going to happen.’ She began to cry. ‘What is it about this bloody hospital?’ she said. ‘I never cry at home. I walk in here and it feels like my whole life wants to run out through my eyes.’

They both laughed. ‘S’OK,’ said Jake. ‘It was Dad’s idea really.’ He hauled in another breath, an effort which distorted his face. ‘He said it’d give you something to look forward to.’

‘Me?’

‘So you could cope,’ said Jake. ‘I’m OK, Mum,’ he said, but his voice was desperately weak.

‘Me?’ she said again.

But he’d turned away, with his eyes open.

John Holt sat in his favourite armchair, the lightweight overnight bag on his lap full of his kit from hospital — pyjamas, toothbrush, toothpaste, towel, soap, reading glasses. The front room of his daughter’s bungalow was overheated and he worked a finger between the collar of his shirt and his neck. His daughter Michelle sobbed on the sofa, clutching and unclutching his granddaughter’s thin body. ‘They won’t be back,’ said Holt, sipping tea, aspirating to cool the surface. ‘It was a mistake — they’ll get their money. We’ll be OK, Micky, so stop crying.’

‘She was out in the snow,’ said Michelle, dabbing at her eyes. ‘Playing snowballs.’ Michelle was in her mid?twenties perhaps, but obesity obscured her age. Flesh hung from

She’d almost screamed and Holt held up both hands. ‘Micky — not in front of Sasha, OK? It’s over. I was in hospital — I couldn’t pay them. I’m OK now — they’ll get their money.’

‘They left that mark on the door.’

Holt’s voice betrayed his anger. ‘I’ve said they won’t be back, Micky. Sasha’s fine now. This is her home, and she’s staying here. All right? I’ve sorted it. The sign on the door’s just a reminder. It’s done.’ Holt blinked behind the thick lenses, adjusted the heavy black frames.

‘If I lost the house I’d lose Sasha,’ she said, tears welling up again. ‘I’d be out on the street. They’d take her away, Dad.’

‘That’s rubbish,’ he said. ‘We’d stick together.’

But Michelle shook her head.

He took a breath. ‘Look. They’re not going to take Sasha away,’ he said. ‘I promise. We’re always here for you. Now — shhhhhh …’ He held a finger to his lips.

His wife stood at the window, parting the curtains, looking out on the snow?covered sports ground opposite her daughter’s cottage.

‘We’d better go,’ said Martha Holt. ‘Your dad needs to rest. He should still be in hospital, he knows that. If he won’t go back then he should be at home.’ She put a hand to her forehead, the fingers shaking. ‘Discharging yourself is stupid,’ she said, biting her lip.

‘What? For God’s sake, woman, I had to. They want

Michelle felt under the armchair cushion and found a packet of cigarettes, taking one out and lighting up.

‘Jesus!’ said her father. ‘Let’s go.’

Holt stood on the step after he’d shut the door. He ran a finger along the marks they’d made: six savage cuts of a knife in the wood, identical to the ones on the side of the Corsa.

Sarah Baker?Sibley stood in the doorway of her daughter’s bedroom. She could smell Jillie, that soap, and the stuff that she put in her hair now it was short. Her bedclothes were thrown back, the sheet screwed up where her daughter’s body should have been.

When had she seen her last? Half ten, after the news, after the police had called asking for another interview.

She turned on the bedside light and pulled open the first drawer of clothes. Nothing. What did she keep in here — knickers, socks, tops? Sarah thought that she should know, and not for the first time she felt how inadequate she’d been. She pulled open another and pushed aside multicoloured tights. A book: bound in leather. She flicked it open and felt sick. A diary, full of secrets. James had given it to her for Christmas two years earlier. But every page was blank. She flicked through: nothing. That was typical of Jillie, she thought; that she should reveal nothing, but keep everything inside her head.

Sarah covered her eyes with her hand. She’d lost a son. Now she’d lost her daughter. She’d asked her to lie for her, just this once.

Izzy Dereham tucked her daughter Natalie into bed with an almost savage efficiency. The child was pinned down, both arms under the coverlet, her mouth breathing warm air into the patterned quilt. The head of a jet?black toy cat peeked from the counterpane.

‘Now sleep,’ said Izzy. ‘In the morning the world will be a different place.’ The farmhouse roof creaked, the timbers straining against the wind that had come with the tide. Down by the oyster beds the sea thudded on the sands.

‘But why were you crying?’ asked her daughter. ‘Some of the oysters were lost in the storm. I love the oysters. I cried at Christmas, didn’t I, when we read about the Walrus and the Carpenter.’

Her daughter watched her in the half?light. ‘That was pretend.’

‘I’m not so sure, young lady.’

She turned out the light, waited a second, then padded swiftly down the stairs. In the room behind the kitchen she sat down at her desk, punched a number into the handset of the phone. He’d said not to call, but she couldn’t wait. She listened to the ringing tone, as her eyes filled with tears again.

His daughter was coughing. A winter cold. He’d caught her paddling that weekend, the blood just beneath the skin as blue as the inside of a mussel shell.

He rolled out of bed and pulled on his boxers. Walking the corridor, he checked the window latches, then the front door, double?checking the latch. Had he left the cooker on? He’d boiled pasta on the gas ring. But the kitchen was cold, no flame on the hob. He checked the red light by the shower too. Nothing.

His daughter coughed again. So he went down the corridor, the sand gritty on the wooden floor, and looked in through the open door. She was coughing in her sleep now, metronomic, both hands held before her mouth.

Closing the door behind him he bottled up the sound. The chair in which he used to sit and read to Francesca was gone, so he sat on the floor, his back to the bookcase.

4.30 a.m.

He’d see her through until dawn. He hadn’t done that for a long time; she’d been three, four perhaps, and he’d hoarded the sleepless nights, when exhaustion made him think so clearly, away from the distractions of the day.

Hydra waiting for the tide to turn. He imagined the father cutting his daughter’s hair. A mirror in front of them perhaps. Did they both hear the footsteps together? The first, above their heads, as James’s killers came aboard?