Death Toll

by Jim Kelly

  He rang Valentine on the mobile for an update. The surveillance squad on Voyce had struck lucky – he’d gone out first thing for breakfast in town so they’d slipped in and wired the single room – two mics, one in the light fitting, one in the bedside phone. They’d set up in a room on the same floor and were monitoring round the clock. Shaw decided not to ask if the warrant had arrived in time. They arranged to meet at the Flask in an hour.

  The mist in the cemetery seemed to be closing in, and all Shaw could see was gravestones and the figure ahead, making a track through the snow.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Shaw. ‘It’s Michael …’

  ‘Brindle,’ he said, stopping suddenly and looking around at the tombstones in the mist. ‘There,’ he said, pointing to the outline of a stone wall which had come into sight. ‘The east gate.’ He led the way to an ironwork door set in the wall and selected a key from the bunch hanging from his belt.

  ‘It’s a short cut,’ he said, motioning Shaw through. They emerged onto one of South Lynn’s dead-end streets, one of many in a dead-end town. To the left Shaw could hear the traffic on the distant London Road, lorries churning gears in the mist, but to the right the street ran into a wall of white, where he knew the edge of the Nar would lie in its deep channel. Opposite was a small café Shaw had never seen before: a converted front room, the condensation obscuring the interior.

  A handwritten sign above the door read tinos.

  Inside, eight tables were crammed full, largely with council workmen in road-digger gear. Full English breakfasts congealed on off-white plates, while behind the metal-topped counter a man in a vest was squirting steam into a pot, the sound obliterating the nasal whine of KL.FM – the town’s local radio station.

  Brindle nodded to the man, ordered three breakfast baps and led Shaw through a door marked toilet into a hallway, then doubled back up a narrow staircase. The door at the top was preceded by a metal security frame on which had been fastened a hand-painted sign.

  P.E.N.

  THE PARTY OF ENGLISH NATIONALISM

  LYNN FOR OUR OWN FOLK

  ‘Keeps Freddie busy,’ said Brindle, grinning at Shaw but giving up on the conspiracy when he saw the expression on the DI’s face. As they waited outside the locked door he looked down at his feet.

  Their footsteps had announced their arrival, and Shaw could hear someone turning a key. By the time the office door was open he had his warrant card out, straight-armed, in the occupant’s face.

  ‘DI Shaw, King’s Lynn CID. Just a few questions, sir.’

  Freddie Fletcher was bald, a sculpted head, bony, like a clenched fist, the skin shiny as if it had been polished. In contrast, the visible skin that wasn’t on his head was covered in black hair – his chest where the shirt was open, his wrists, and the backs of his hands. He was in his fifties, perhaps younger, and remarkably alive – grey eyes, dove-grey, which locked onto Shaw’s without flinching.

  Shaw looked around the room. In the centre was an oak desk. One wall was dominated by a map of Lynn, the various council wards marked out. He knew that in the last district elections the BNP had done well in Gaywood, one of the wards on the outskirts of town. The town was on the edge of the new BNP heartland – rural East Anglia – where the party could tap into anxieties about migrant farm workers. And there had been a charm offensive, too; an attempt to play down the party’s violent and racist past – lots of community work, helping the elderly, fundraising for the local working-men’s club. Not a word about repatriation for blacks and Asians – but then in Lynn, as in much of the surrounding area, that wasn’t an issue. But he’d never heard of the PEN. A splinter group, perhaps.

  ‘Give me a sec,’ said Fletcher, walking away to the window with a mobile to his ear. Shaw judged his height at five-eight, five-ten at most.

  On the desk was a pile of leaflets, fliers for a forthcoming concert:

  THE OLD SONGS ARE THE BEST

  Hear some of Lynn’s famous sea shanties

  performed by the Whitefriars Choir

  Nar Bank Social Club

  Monday, 3 January 2011

  All proceeds to local charities

  The PEN motif was in the bottom right-hand corner, the size of a thumbprint.

  Fletcher killed his call and took the captain’s chair behind the desk. Shaw and Brindle sat on a short bench against one wall.

  ‘Can I help?’ He picked up a pen and leant back, like a bank manager considering a loan. But his fingers were a working-man’s fingers – fat and inflexible. On the desk was a framed picture, turned to face visitors, showing Fletcher at a back-garden barbecue, his arms round two children.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Shaw. ‘It’s about a burial on Flensing Meadow – 1982. The graves are being exhumed because of the flooding, and something has been found – something that shouldn’t have been there. A body.’

  ‘It’s a graveyard – what did you expect to find?’

  ‘An unidentified body,’ Shaw continued, ‘on top of the coffin in one of the graves.’

  Fletcher’s fleshy eyelids slid down, fluttered, as if he’d been asked a tricky maths question. ‘Oh, right. Where, exactly?’

  ‘Down towards the riverbank, a few feet from a big Victorian stone tomb.’

  ‘Yeah, I know where you mean. Well, in that case there’s a good chance it’s one of mine.’

  Brindle shifted on the pew. ‘It’s Nora Tilden’s – Lizzie’s mum.’

  Fletcher’s eyes widened. ‘Christ. Of course – yeah. I was on that.’ He laughed, bringing both hands together to cover his mouth. ‘The husband killed her, you know that. Alby, they called him. Scum. Nobody ever understood why she took him back. He’d been off on the ships, sleeping with blacks. Came back with what he deserved as well – riddled with it. Christ! And she took him back into her bed.’

  He leant forward, as if to share a secret. ‘He even had a picture of one of the women – a tattoo, on his back. A black.’

  Fletcher tried a smile of incredulity on Shaw, a glint of gold dental work catching the light.

  Shaw tried hard to make sure Fletcher didn’t see him swallow, his mouth dry with anger. ‘So you went back for a drink that day – to the wake at the pub? The grave would have been left open?’

  Fletcher worked his palm over the black stubble on his face.

  ‘Yeah. Course. We all knew Nora. And he’d been banged up for it – so that was a celebration. We’d have covered the grave – but if you’re asking if someone could have chucked a body in and we’d miss it, then I guess the answer to that is yes, it’s possible.’

  Brindle shifted in his seat.

  ‘So you would have filled it in by nightfall? It was November – so before five?’

  ‘Problem was,’ said Fletcher, ‘it wasn’t really a wake – like I said, more of a party. Nora ran a strict house, Inspector. No swearing, no dancing, no singing. If she caught you enjoying yourself, you were barred for life.’ The glint of dental work again. ‘Fact is, while she was a pillar of the community, the pub was like a morgue – had been since the war. Alby used to drink down the Albatross on his night off, that’s how bad it was. So when she died the great and good turned out, but they fucked off as soon as the cucumber sandwiches were gone. Then the party kicked off. Lizzie’s not her mother’s daughter …Lizzie likes a party. Still does. So we had one. A corker.’

  Shaw had decent radar when it came to listening to a witness. So far he felt Fletcher had worked with the truth. But he sensed something else, a guardedness.

  ‘None of which answers my question, Mr Fletcher. The time that you filled in the grave.’

  ‘We didn’t. At least, not that night. I went back up next morning – me and the hangover. Filled it in by spade with Will Stokes.’ He held up a hand. ‘He’s dead – has been for years, so he’s not getting any better. You’ll have to take my word for it. That would have been ten, maybe half ten, the morning after.’

  Shaw looked at a poster over Fletcher’s shoulder; it was of Fletc
her’s face, jaw set, a Churchillian squint. ‘The corpse that we found – there’s every chance the man in question was black. That would have been rare then, in Lynn?’ asked Shaw.

  Fletcher leant back, hands behind his head, revealing grey patches of sweat at his armpits.

  ‘You’d be surprised. We had ’em all right. Still do. The bus company took on some from Peterborough, the Queen Vic’s got ’em on the nursing staff – few of the doctors. But not many – you’re right. Spot on a domino.’ Cruelly, Shaw wished Valentine had been there to hear that coming from Fletcher’s mouth. ‘But there’s a touch of the tarbrush in a few of the schools – even round ’ere.’

  Fletcher placed his hands flat on the desk, a visible effort to maintain his self-control. ‘But they’re not a concern to us.’ Fletcher’s tone of voice had lightened, and Shaw sensed he’d slipped into a stock stump speech. ‘It’s the Poles, the Portuguese, the Serbs – all kinds of Eastern rubbish. And we sympathize with you, Inspector. All the policemen who have to deal with ’em – ’cos your hands are tied, right? The law – that’s one of the things we need to change. ’Cos you have to admit –’

  ‘Actually, I don’t,’ said Shaw. It was one of the many things he found distasteful about people like Freddie Fletcher, the need to find converts. ‘I’ve never heard of the PEN,’ he added.

  ‘You will. BNP’s gone soft round ’ere. Someone needed to keep the flame alive. So I left – set up in South Lynn. They’ll want me back one day.’

  Shaw wondered if Fletcher had been booted out. That was a grubby badge of honour. ‘And for future reference, Mr Fletcher, Portugal is in western Europe. So that would make them Western rubbish, if any kind. But for the record – that night at the Flask, or at the funeral, were there any black faces?’

  Fletcher pinched his fat chin. ‘Yeah – two of them, from the Free.’

  Shaw could see that his witness had become hostile.

  ‘Which is?’ asked Shaw, standing, going over behind Fletcher to look out of the window. In the street a council Scarab was parked in the gutter. And behind Fletcher’s desk he noted a box in the corner, cardboard, full of second-hand toddlers’ toys.

  ‘Church,’ he said, throwing a thumb over his right shoulder. ‘The Free Church, on Tope Street. Nonconformists. Reformed Baptists. Nora was one of ’em …one of the Elect.’ He lingered on the word, as if it was of value in itself. ‘That’s what they call ’em – “the Elect”. Anyway, blacks go – always have done. They were against slavery, see? So they had to let ’em in when they were free. Bit fucked-up like that.’ He faked a belly laugh.

  ‘Could you give me some names?’ said Shaw.

  Fletcher swung round in the seat, looking at Shaw, the hint of a smile in the eyes. ‘Didn’t know they had names. What next, eh?’

  Brindle shifted in his seat again, and Shaw noticed the blood had drained from his face.

  But Fletcher couldn’t stop himself now. ‘I got six hundred votes last time, less than fifty the time before that. The BNP got thirteen per cent of the vote in one ward. Twice what the Greens got. It’s coming, Inspector. Doesn’t matter what the party’s called. It’s the message that counts. It’s a message that’s getting through.’

  Shaw didn’t respond, but stood, studying a notice-board crowded with posters, business cards, a few snapshots of what looked like BNP outings: one on the beach at Hunstanton by the funfair, everyone pale white, trying to get a tan.

  ‘How about a ticket for the annual Christmas fund-raiser, Inspector?’ Fletcher waggled a bunch of multicoloured raffle tickets. ‘Nice bit of grub at the Shipwrights’ Hall. I’ve taken a whole table on behalf of the Flask – shows we support our local community.’

  He came round the desk and tapped a finger on a printed menu he’d pinned to the wall. ‘Good British fare,’ said Fletcher. ‘Better than that, even …’ He stabbed a finger on the starter. ‘Local fare.’

  Shaw let his eye run down the menu – each item accompanied by a brief account of its sourcing.

  Norfolk Turkey

  Supplied by C. J. Tilte & Sons of West Norfolk

  ‘Food this community has been catching and eating for centuries. None of your foreign muck,’ added Fletcher, standing at his shoulder, as Shaw noted the starter.

  Olde Lynn Fish Soup

  Supplied by Fisher Fleet Shellfish, and the

  Clockcase Cannery, West Lynn

  Shaw thought about the turkey they’d had last year – Jamaican-style jerk turkey, marinated in scallion and garlic.

  ‘I’ll stick to Christmas dinner with the family,’ he said. ‘One’s enough for me.’ He was astonished to see that of all the things he’d said to Fletcher, this was the one that made him break eye contact.

  ‘We’ll need to take a statement, Mr Fletcher,’ he added, avoiding a handshake. ‘You’ll be here later?’

  Fletcher spread his hands as if he never left the room. ‘If not, there’s always a note on the door.’

  They left him and clattered down the bare wooden steps into the steamy fug of the café. Brindle collected three greasy bags from the counter, their contents now cool and congealing. Shaw thanked Brindle and walked up the street, opting to take the long way round to the cemetery gates where he had left the Porsche. It was a bit early to be assessing suspects, he thought, but there was every reason to keep a close eye on Freddie Fletcher. But despite the fact the man had had opportunity, and his own twisted motive, he felt there was something profoundly ineffectual about Fletcher, something fundamentally weak. He couldn’t imagine him delivering that fatal blow – although, he reminded himself, buttoning up his coat against the chill wind, it had been from behind.

  8

  The church stood on the corner of Whitefriars Street and Tope Street – a simple chapel of stark geometical lines with long narrow windows in green glass. On the brickwork was a sign – a silver fish, two sinuous lines, crossing once to leave an open tail, just like the brooch on Nora Tilden’s shroud but this one set above the door on which was a wooden panel, painted green, carrying the name.

  THE FREE CHURCH OF CHRIST THE FISHERMAN

  Shaw stopped, checked his tide watch and the mobile. He still had time before they were due to interview Nora Tilden’s daughter Lizzie at the Flask. He was haunted by an image of the graveside on that day in 1982 when the family would have come together: the small crowd of local mourners and the two black faces amongst them, members – according to Freddie Fletcher – of ‘the Free’.

  Had one of them come to regret the decision to show respect, to claim a rightful place in that community? Times had changed in Lynn, the appearance of the east European migrant workers shifting popular prejudice away from the few black families in the town. But back then they would have been marked men: outsiders in a seafaring community renowned for its insularity. He wondered what Nora Tilden had felt about those black faces; she was a member of the ‘Elect’, in a church once dedicated to the emancipation of slaves.

  But she also had a husband who’d left her to travel the world, finding comfort in the whorehouses of North Africa.

  He heard footsteps and a figure walked out of the mist, as narrow as one of the chapel windows, the head held forward like a vulture’s. Valentine was wrapped in his raincoat, holding the lapels at his throat, a cigarette lit. Shaw noted he’d picked up a new charity sticker: BARNARDO’S, an orange sticky disc stuck over his heart.

  ‘Pub’s not open,’ he said.

  ‘George,’ said Shaw, nodding at the chapel. ‘Nora’s church. Some of them turned up at the graveside that day – and two of them were black.’ Low in the sky to the south the sun found a thin patch of mist and appeared as a disc, so that the two lines of the silver fish caught the light, like knives.

  Valentine nodded, thinking of the wispy grey hair on Nora Tilden’s skull.

  Shaw filled him in on the rest of his interview with Freddie Fletcher.

  ‘Suspect, then?’ asked Valentine.

  ‘Get Paul to organize a
statement,’ said Shaw, avoiding a direct answer, surveying the chapel’s façade.

  ‘He’s not just a racist, is he?’ said Valentine. ‘He knows the grave’s open. And he knows whose job it is to fill it in. That’s opportunity, that is.’

  ‘I know,’ said Shaw, pushing open the door so that they could step into the porch, lined with bibles stacked on shelves. He thought that despite his apparently casual indifference Valentine had a rare gift for seeing the bigger picture, for rising above the detail. He was right in one key respect. In this crime, opportunity was everything. The killer had to have known that the grave was still open.

  Shaw picked up one of the bibles, seeing the words without seeing the meaning. They’d been read, all of them, almost to destruction. Several had lost their spines while others were spilling pages that had come free. He thought of the hands that had held them over the years, either open to read or closed and pressed to the chest in prayer. The thought made him feel like a visitor in a foreign land.

  A further door led into the chapel itself. It was a simple room with whitewashed walls. Shaw was immediately aware that, once inside, it seemed to be both lighter and colder than outside. He thought he could smell the sea in here, too, and the illusion suggested the walls might be made of salt. In the silence the air rang, and held within it the sound of the sea, as if they were in a giant shell.

  They walked down the aisle, some of the wooden parquet blocks in the floor rattling under their feet.

  ‘Christ, it’s cold in here,’ said Valentine, rolling his shoulders. ‘What are they? Methodists? A sect?’ The last time Valentine had been in a church had been for his wife’s funeral at All Saints. It was whitewashed too, he recalled, and perhaps that was common in seagoing communities. The memory made him feel the guilt of the survivor.

  Shaw turned to look back at a modest set of organ pipes set over the door by which they’d entered. ‘Music, at least,’ he said. ‘Rest of it’s a bit joyless.’