[PS & GV #6] Death on Demand

by Jim Kelly

  Shaw wondered then if he could see it as if he was there, if he’d taken his father’s memories and made them his own. It was a kind of haunting, because his father lived on, here at Brancaster, a century after the submarine attack. It struck Shaw that this was a form of immortality, that a memory could be instilled in a family and allowed to run on down the years, so that a single image, as of the sailors running across the turning hull of the overturned ship, would be as vivid now as it was a century earlier. Odd that a man with Alzheimer’s should be a vital component in the triumph of memory.

  Keyes lifted the glasses but then brought them down swiftly. ‘Beatty – Ruby’s friend Beatty? She wasn’t a resident, you know that? No, no. Just a visitor. She died, last year, year before that? No more. That was a blow for Ruby. You won’t know this yet but life stops when you’ve got no one to tell; no one to receive. We’re like radios, I think – transmitting and receiving, but if there’s just you, what’s the point? It’s not death, but it’s the beginning. You see something, hear something, and the joy of it rises up and then … dissipates, like that …’ He raised a finger towards the large aluminium pipe which expelled fumes from the kitchens. ‘Hot air. Even if you do tell someone, a nurse, a doctor, they don’t listen. It’s not deliberate, is it? It’s just they’ve got their own people still. They’re not on your wavelength. They’re not alone.’

  Using his hand, he tried to get closer to the brass rail, but the wheelchair was hard against the edge. Looking back Shaw could see Copon in the upstairs lounge, dispensing pills from a trolley.

  Keyes locked his elbows into position on the arms of the chair and then clamped the binoculars into his eye sockets.

  Shaw could see tears on his face, running down, as if the binoculars were weeping. Shaw waited, strangely confident that this tortured man wanted to tell him something if he could just keep in check the anxiety which drove him to look, constantly, to the sea.

  ‘She’s gone,’ said Keyes, his shoulders slumping at last, the effort of concentration still holding his neat, naval features at attention.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, fidgeting with the binoculars. ‘I can’t get my mind to work as it once did. I’ve enjoyed your visit. I’d ask your name, but I suspect you’ve told me already. But you came about Ruby – yes, of course. I told Javi, so I’ll tell you.’

  Dragging his eyes from the sea he looked Shaw in the face. ‘Ruby said Beatty was murdered. The word she used – I’ll not forget it. That’s what she told me, Mr Shaw. And then she asked a curious question: “They killed her, Christian. But who can I tell?”’

  TWENTY

  The Shack stood on the banks of the Fisher Fleet, a rickety hut built of recycled ships’ boards, with a flop-down counter and a few plastic chairs outside on the quayside. High tide; so the fleet jostled with trawlers, floating free of the muddy banks, a chaos of masts and rigging, hawsers, winches, sonar and radar. The dock road, jammed with lorries to take the morning’s catch, laid down a base soundtrack, as freezer units laboured to ice the fish. On the breeze Valentine detected the thin aroma of cold blood.

  For the first time in thirty years Valentine could actually smell the Fisher Fleet; usually he successfully cut the stench with nicotine, the Silk Cut positioned directly under his narrow nose; a tactic so successful that he’d often been able to tackle a bacon sandwich as well as a cup of the Shack’s tepid, double-builder tea. He needed the tannin, after a night in which he inexplicably slept like a child, untroubled by either his illness, or the ham-fisted attempt to scare him off the deserted streets of the Springs.

  Gordon Lee, chief reporter with the Lynn Express, was sitting on one of the plastic chairs staring vacantly into his smartphone. Lee, a Londoner, had been part of the great sixties exodus from the East End; early fifties, bald, short, bustling, almost heroically awkward. As Valentine pulled up his own chair, Lee glanced up – a three second appraisal – and then returned to his mobile internet screen.

  ‘Given up the fags, then?’ he said.

  ‘All those years with the Royal Observer Corps not a waste, eh Gordon.’

  Seagulls, in a screeching airborne bundle, descended on a trawler as its catch spilt from a net on to the deck.

  ‘I ain’t got a lot of time, George. Editor’s conference at ten thirty. The new bloke’s still keen. Jackson used to let us go get the stories, then we could have a conference to decide what to do with ’em. Teenage Boy Wonder wants it the other way round.’

  ‘How old is he really?’

  Lee shrugged and picked his mug up from the gravel by his shoe. A man of annoying habits he proceeded to aspirate his tea, drinking it at the same time as drawing in the damp fishy air, creating a sustained slurp.

  ‘I don’t care. We just want him to win an award, then he can fuck off to Fleet Street, which will then gobble him up, and spit him back out to the provinces, where he will promptly become a cynical old hack like the rest of us.’

  Valentine gave him a copy of the ESDA print-out of the imprint left on Ruby Bright’s blotter.

  ‘Right,’ said Lee, holding the A4 sheet as if it might be impregnated with a lethal poison. ‘I told you, George, on the blower. I’m a busy man. Have I come all the way out here for a pissing cup of tea to be asked the same question again?’

  ‘I just need to be sure, George. It’s press day, right? There aren’t going to be any surprises, are there? I wouldn’t like to read something you’d regret writing. Anyway, there’s been developments – I wouldn’t want you to miss the real story.’

  Lee smiled, revealing wrecked teeth. ‘Look. She never sent me a letter, all right? Think about it. She was gonna be one hundred – big deal – not. These days, two a penny, George. Even you’ll make ninety, thanks to the marvels of modern science. I think she just planned to tip us off by letter, bit old-fashioned, but then she was born just after the First World War. But we were on to it and rang the home. The palace lines us up if there’s a message from Her Maj. We’d have contacted the home sometime last month, so I reckon she just binned the letter, or never wrote it.’

  The reporter sucked some more air and tea through his thin moustache. ‘Why the long face?’

  ‘It was worth a try. We had hopes, Gordon. This is a tough one to crack. But that’s life. Anyway, there’s a suggestion, and you can use this but no names, not even police sources, agreed?’

  He waited for Lee to nod.

  ‘There’s a suggestion that she knew a killer was about. That he’d struck before. We’re on to it, but it’s just one aspect of our wide-ranging inquiries etc., etc., etc.… ’

  ‘Serial killer, George? Still my beating heart.’

  Lee had got his notebook out and actually licked his lips in anticipation. Shaw and Valentine had talked it through and decided that floating a serial killer story – especially one they could instantly dismiss as speculation – would gain the inquiry much needed attention. A high media profile would radically increase the likelihood a vital witness might step forward. They were setting up a hotline for information manned 24/7.

  ‘You can call it what you like, Gordon. We’ve got one murder. But you can speculate that we are looking at two other deaths.’

  ‘Two? At Marsh House?’

  Valentine thought about that. ‘Linked to Marsh House, no more at this stage. Don’t go mad, Gordon. It’s not the Norfolk Ripper or anything.’

  Lee wasn’t listening. ‘And this line, the other murders, that going public, is it?’

  ‘Nope. All yours, but as I said, no source please, otherwise your car will be unable to travel more than a hundred yards without attracting a speeding ticket.’

  Valentine, bent double, dealt with a fresh bout of coughing, then ploughed on: ‘In fact, you won’t be able to go a hundred yards without getting a ticket. Just be aware that once you hit the streets all we are going to do is issue a brief line saying it’s pure speculation.’

  ‘But no denial?’

  This time it was the reporter’s turn
to wait for clear confirmation.

  ‘No denial, Gordon. Be careful about Marsh House, it’s owned by a corporation hiding behind a trust, and they can afford lawyers, Inns of Court lawyers. So be afraid.’

  Lee rubbed his left cheek, as if trying to revive a stroke victim. ‘Why didn’t Bright tell someone what she knew?’ A light went on in the reporter’s eyes. ‘Oh I see, you think she told us. It would have been nice, George, but no.’

  ‘Perhaps she did tell someone. Maybe she told the wrong person.’ Valentine checked his mobile. ‘As lovely as this is, Gordon …’

  ‘Hold up, George. One good turn and all that, I’ve got something for you. Thing is … That’s what they say now, right? Thing is … We’ve been getting threatening phone calls in the newsroom. Some ice-cold nutcase saying that if this ‘World’ pilgrimage goes ahead as planned someone’s going to get hurt.’

  Valentine sipped his tea. ‘Precise wording?’

  ‘Ah. Sore point. New office junior took the first one. He was on lunch duty so nobody else about. He’s got a 2.1 in Applied Mathematics apparently, but his Pitman 2000 is currently thirty-five words a minute. He took a full note, but it might as well be the Gettysburg Address.

  ‘Second time they got the news desk secretary, again at lunchtime, and she told him to ring back! Which is quite funny when you think about it. A bit like telling a bank robber to pop in next time the safe’s open.

  ‘Third call he got Eric Johns on the subs bench, what’s more he got him when he was awake. Eric wouldn’t know a news story if it bit him on the arse, but he’s still got one hundred and eighty-words-a-minute shorthand. He took a note and promised to pass it on. By this point I’m guessing chummy’s having second thoughts about the glamour associated with playing Deep Throat. But, listen up …’

  Lee flipped open his notebook.

  ‘Eric’s description of the voice was pretty decisive,’ said Lee. ‘Calm, monotone, reading. A man certainly, but no way he could estimate the age beyond twenty plus, so not a kid. So this is verbatim …’ Lee filled his lungs. ‘Just get this down, all right?’ Then a pause: ‘“Pilgrims used to travel in groups for a good reason. Wolves, wild boar, outlaws, thieves, cutpurses. That was the good old days. This pilgrimage has gone back in time. They want to outlaw gays and lesbians, they want to make abortion murder. Well, if they want to live in the past they can have the full experience. They should travel in packs because the paths are dangerous. Who knows what lies in wait on the old ways? We – reborn as the Wolves – are waiting for them. We bring stones and knives and fire and retribution. We lie in wait.”’

  Lee closed his notebook. ‘I can email a copy.’

  ‘Bit of a drama queen,’ said Valentine, pointing at Lee’s cup. The reporter nodded and Valentine went to the empty counter to collect fresh tea.

  ‘A bacon sarnie would be nice,’ said Lee.

  ‘Yes it would. But you don’t have the time,’ said Valentine, returning. ‘What do you want me to do with this?’ he asked. ‘It’s pretty immature. Probably some pimply kid. The Wolves – load of tosh. And it’s not the first, Gordon. Apparently someone saying something pretty similar rang the council at Hunstanton. They didn’t manage to get any kind of transcript, and the woman who took the call’s been off sick with stress since, but I think we can assume it’s the same nutter.’

  ‘Publication would be in the public interest, George, that’s what Teenage Boy Wonder says, and he wants it all done by the book. Story runs tomorrow. We’ve got WAP – the protest lot, saying they disown violence of any kind, etc. I’ve got to try the official organizers this afternoon. If you’re not bothered, a holding statement would be nice, even if it’s along the lines of why should we care about some Leftie fruitcake who thinks he’s Robin Hood.’

  Valentine thought about that image, a forest track, a line of pilgrims, dusk falling. ‘They don’t go through the woods – do they?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. It’s not just one route, George. They’re all on the website – www.worldpilgrim.com. Take a look. There’s six long distance paths in excess of one hundred miles. That’s for those who want to spend a week wasting their time and ours. Then there’s two short “legs” they call ’em – for quick twenty-four-hour efforts. One of those is from Wells, your neck of the woods. ’Cause, when you think about it, that’s why it’s here, innit – the Holy House. It’s not really at the back end of nowhere, it’s a day’s walk from the coast and the old ports. That’s where your pilgrims landed – from France, Low Countries, Channel ports, East Coast, London even. I don’t know about the rest, but last time I helped monitor the Wells leg it goes loads of places they could run into trouble – woods, riversides, old paths. And this time a fair bit’s at night. So – yeah, they’re vulnerable all right.’

  Valentine stood, stretching, until his spine made a series of plastic clicks. ‘What d’you reckon the organizers will say? Think they’ll cancel?’

  ‘No chance. The lot who run the annual one – the National, they’re reasonable; this lot, they’re zealots. Bloke on the phone is an amateur nutter by comparison. A babe in arms. If this mob thought there was a good chance trendy Liberal Lefties were lurking in the bushes with sticks and stones they’d call for thousands more to flock to Walsingham. Martyrdom, George. That’s what’s on offer. Nothing better than a rock on the head when you’re carrying a Pro-Life banner. They’re prepared to die for the cause. No – they want to die for the cause, George. Looks like they might even get the chance. Only pity is we can’t leave the lot of ’em to it.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Curry,’ said Valentine. ‘For lunch?’

  ‘It’s on expenses,’ said Shaw. ‘Relax. Enjoy. No, celebrate. The nutter in the car last night could have broken your neck. You’re alive, George. Live a bit.’

  Shaw bit his tongue. Set in perspective the throwaway line sounded cruel, even brutal. But George Valentine had nothing if not a thick skin. He’d already written off the attack as payback for nosing around Parkwood Springs. Shaw’s interview with Christian Keyes made him think there might be darker motives at work.

  ‘And look on the bright side,’ said Shaw, pushing open the plate glass door of the Crown of Punjab. ‘Indian lager on tap.’

  Scanning the restaurant Shaw thought he spotted Dr Gokak Roy – an elderly man, with frizzy grey hair, examining a tightly folded copy of the Financial Times. But three strides into the restaurant, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and saw a young man, half standing, raising a narrow hand by way of hesitant signal.

  ‘DI Shaw? Gok Roy, good to meet you. Have a seat …’

  Ten minutes later they were eating; Valentine having opted for the mildest korma on the menu and a pint of Tiger, Dr Roy picking at something aromatic with Naga chilli – so hot that when Shaw detected a note of the spice on the air he felt a hiccough building in his throat. He pushed some okra around his own plate, sipping iced water.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Dr Roy, ‘I’m on shifts and so this is Friday night out.’ The spotless, fitted, white shirt and the tall glass of fizzy water marked him out as professional, clean-cut and efficient. ‘My uncle owns the place, so I get a discount.’

  Valentine waved his empty pint glass at a lurking waiter.

  Dr Roy, distracted by the arrival of a middle-aged man he called Ratif, appeared unfeasibly young; Shaw guessed thirty as an absolute limit. His skin, taut and toned, seemed to radiate intense life. Shaw imagined a racing bloodstream just beneath the skin, oxygen molecules unloading high octane fuel to the grey cells of the brain.

  ‘Last year,’ said Shaw, ‘you signed this death certificate.’ He pushed a copy across the tablecloth and Dr Roy placed a finger on it lightly, the nail perfectly cut, showing a red cuticle beneath.

  ‘Beatrice Hood,’ said Dr Roy. ‘Yes. I remember the house – through the archway? It was like a Victorian museum …’ His eyes lit up. ‘Not dissimilar, it has to be said, to the average British curry house. What is it with the flock wallpaper?
’

  ‘Old age is listed as the primary cause of death. Is that usual? It seems a bit sweeping, a bit flippant even.’

  ‘Yes. Sounds odd, I admit – actually we use it a lot in patients over eighty-five. At that age, in many cases, there may be so many secondary causes, all linked to the ageing process, that “old age” is actually a very precise term. Coroners are very supportive of it in terms of the documentation. In my experience they welcome clear, common sense, certification. Beatty was ill, gravely ill, for some time. I visited her regularly that year. She’d elected to die at home, and her notes were marked to that effect. The day she passed away her condition had deteriorated markedly. I arrived at just after noon, and she was falling in, and out, of consciousness. Finally, she died in her sleep at just after three o’clock.’

  ‘That’s a good memory,’ said Valentine.

  ‘I tend to remember patients I’m with when they die, Sergeant. Especially when I’m the only person at the bedside.’ He held up a hand by way of apology. ‘It’s stuck in my mind, certainly. That moment, the sense of being a lone witness to the end of someone’s life. Do you see? In many ways it is a privilege.’

  Shaw, nodding, pressed on: ‘There has been a suggestion that Mrs Hood might have been killed, murdered in fact. Were there any suspicious circumstances to her death? Did she say anything which might suggest she had an enemy, or that she was in any way fearful?’

  Dr Roy’s face was a picture of disbelief, his eyes wide with surprise. ‘Murdered? No. I was making a routine call. Her conditions were chronic. Her body and its vital organs were failing. When I got there it was clear to me she was dying. I think she knew she was dying. At such times the patient often retreats into an interior dialogue, with the dead, perhaps, with loved ones. I did what I could.’