Death Toll

by Jim Kelly

  ‘Wonder where the BMW is,’ said Shaw. The promenade was deserted and the car park held only a VW Camper and two Vauxhall Corsas parked next to each other with their lights on. He considered calling the whole thing off right there, right then. Mosse’s movements so far had been perfectly judged to throw them off the trail. Shaw had to admit he had less than full confidence that they could guarantee Jimmy Voyce’s safety. And less than full confidence was not good enough.

  They watched the two men shake hands, embrace in a brief, awkward, clinch.

  Had Mosse guessed he was being followed? If he had, would he have made his appointment at all? Or was he simply taking precautions? If either man had any idea the police were watching then Shaw’s surveillance operation was dead in the water: Mosse would lie low, Voyce would go home – probably encouraged by a vague promise from Mosse of a cheque by air mail. But crucially they’d watch what they said, weigh every word, aware of the dangers of entrapment.

  Shaw hesitated, then decided they could let the op run, as long as they kept both men in sight. Their only real hope of building a case against either man depended on picking up a recording from one of the bugs in Voyce’s car, on his phone, or in the hotel room. He had to give them more time, more rope. If he’d coolly analysed his options at that point, as he did six hours later, his decision would have been different. But he was fired up by the idea, the mere possibility, that after all these years he’d be able to wipe that satisfied half-smile off Bobby Mosse’s ski-tanned face.

  The two walked towards Valentine’s Mazda, then across a pelican crossing and into a pub called the Wash & Tope. It was one of the half-dozen likely places the two might go, so a plan was in place: DCs Lau and Campbell were round the corner, already walking towards the side door which led into the pub’s pool room. Voyce and Mosse went into the front bar. The windows of the pub were frosted glass, the light within too bright, reflecting off the wet pavement. After a minute they could just see two heads in shadow at the window, drinking.

  Shaw checked his tide watch: 6.14 p.m.

  Campbell and Lau had orders to observe, nothing more. If they could get close enough to hear any of the conversation, well and good: if not, they should play pool, chat up the barman. They were the odd couple: one six feet two in jeans and a bomber jacket, the other five feet four in a leather jacket and wraparound reflective glasses. No one would guess they were undercover CID. They stood out too much.

  At 6.31 p.m. a low, oiled rumble made the pennies on the dashboard of Valentine’s Mazda vibrate. Thirty seconds later a BMW slid down the narrow alley at the side of the pub, pausing a half-beat, then pulling out into the street. The car was doing 80 mph before Shaw had alerted all units, its distant brake lights reflecting on the road as it headed south, then signalled to turn down a side-street. They followed in the Mazda, taking the same turning down towards the sea, but seeing nothing moving ahead.

  After forty-five seconds of silence Birley’s voice crackled on the open channel. ‘Got ’em. Just through the roundabout by the water tower, heading south. He’s got his foot down.’

  DC Campbell cut in. ‘We’re on the road. They went out the back to smoke. Left their drinks on the table.’

  Valentine slid out on to the coast road, forcing the ageing Mazda to hit 75 mph. Shaw sat forward in the passenger seat trying to see tail lights ahead, but knowing they were losing ground with every mile. He’d been a fool to leave the Porsche at St James’s. He chewed over DC Campbell’s report: he didn’t like the sound of the half-finished drinks. What was suddenly so urgent they had to leave their drinks? Had they cut straight to business over the cigarette – and decided to go somewhere less public? It was a chilling thought, because going somewhere private with Bobby Mosse was literally the last thing Jimmy Voyce should do. And Shaw cursed his luck: his two prime targets were travelling in the car they hadn’t managed to bug.

  Birley again. ‘Unmarked car’s picked ’em up at the Sandringham T-junction. Still doing eighty-five, sir. They’d like advice.’

  ‘Tell ’em to do ninety,’ muttered Valentine.

  Shaw thought about it. If the unmarked CID car tried to stay with them at that speed they’d know they were being followed. But if the car backed off they’d almost certainly lose them. He had another car stationed at the ring-road roundabout at Lynn. If Mosse was going anywhere in the town they’d have to pass it before turning off the dual carriageway.

  ‘Tell them to follow – but at a distance. Don’t try to stay with them. Get through to the forward squad car, Mark. If they see the BMW they can follow from there.’

  They drove in silence. It was an odd silence. Shaw remembered as a child listening live to the TV broadcast from Mission Control in Houston as the damaged capsule of Apollo 13 had fallen through the earth’s atmosphere: eight minutes of enforced radio silence, with the world waiting for a sound of life. Every ticking second added to the expectation of bad news. It was a silence like that.

  Shaw checked the radio to see if the frequency was still open. South of Snettisham they got caught behind a line of caravans, forcing their speed down to 50 mph. Finally, they saw ahead the ringlet of high floodlights over the roundabout on the ring road. Traffic was light, a single HGV thundering around the curve. The convoy of caravans swung round and continued on the main road. With a sinking heart Shaw spotted the unmarked CID car in the lay-by – a Volkswagen Polo with spoilers and a ‘ball-of-fire’ paint job. Valentine parked behind it. No one moved.

  After ten minutes Shaw got out and stood on the verge, thinking that a ring-road roundabout was one of the bleakest spots on earth. The air was laced with fumes, and there was some snow in the air, as apparently aimless as the circulating traffic. In the central reservation, on the grass, a teenager sat with his shirt off, drinking from a gold can.

  Question: Where were Mosse and Voyce? Between the last sighting south of Hunstanton and the Lynn roundabout there were half a dozen turn-offs – all minor roads, leading either down to the tidal marshes or inland to the villages on the edge of the Norfolk hills.

  He tried to imagine the conversation in the speeding BMW. Voyce trying to avoid the semblance of blackmail, Mosse playing dumb, both of them attempting to negotiate a number without actually talking money. And Voyce’s promise – that would be the key bargaining point, that he had a flight home booked, that he’d be gone in five days. So this was a one-off. But Mosse, thinking it through, judging, perhaps, that there was absolutely no reason that Voyce should turn out to be different from most blackmailers, who always, always, come back for more.

  And that worrying unknown: with exactly what was he blackmailing Mosse? Just a stark threat to go to the police? Or something else – something more substantial, something that would put Mosse behind bars while Voyce would walk free or face a nominal sentence? Is that why Cosyns and Robins had died? Did they harbour the same lethal secret? If Voyce was trying the same game, he was risking his life.

  Stress made Shaw’s vision blur, so that he had to blink until the image cleared.

  The driver’s side window of the Mazda came down. Smoke drifted out.

  ‘I’ll buy you a drink,’ said Valentine.

  15

  Kirkpatrick’s Bar stood on the quay, just beyond the Grade I listed Custom House, close to the Purfleet, the black gullet of water that cuts into the heart of the Old Town. Outside the snow had thickened and was driving in with the tide. A chalk board offered oysters, mussels or crab. The bar was empty so Shaw and Valentine took a table by the window and ordered two pints of Guinness and a dozen oysters, from a waitress who appeared from the kitchen: mid-twenties, spider-thin, with blonde hair, tied up to one side and so thick it threatened to bend her narrow neck with the weight. Shaw had his radio and mobile on the table top, keeping track of the units he’d sent back up the road to Hunstanton to try to find the missing BMW and Voyce’s hire car. He had a traffic unit stationed near Mosse’s house with orders to alert everyone if he came home. Shaw’s stress level
had hit a plateau: but it was a high one. Twice he’d actually imagined he’d heard his mobile ring tone, grabbing the phone only to find no incoming call.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Valentine, trying not to wince as he took the top three inches off the pint. He’d asked for a pint of bitter but they only had bottles, and he never drank wine if he was paying, so he’d gone for the black stuff. He looked at the glass now, knowing he’d made the wrong decision. ‘Christ,’ he said, wiping his hand across his lips. ‘How can you drink that?’

  The events of the night so far suggested that both their careers were in danger of imminent collapse – a prospect Valentine found oddly appealing. He realized, perhaps for the first time, that since his demotion he’d been living a kind of half-life, waiting, scheming, and dreaming only of his return to St James’s and the reattainment of his lost rank. He could see now that this was not so much a healthy goal as his only goal. An obsession. Now that the prospect of success was so slim he sensed a new freedom, a chance to accept failure and the lonely retirement that would follow, and then do something else with his life, even if it was just to walk away. He cracked his fingers at the joints and took a second swig at the Guinness. Not lonely perhaps; just alone. He could live with that.

  Shaw was less sanguine. He had no intention of passively watching his career implode. But the first step to recovering the situation was to recognize that they’d made a mistake: losing Mosse was a critical error. They had to find him, and quickly.

  ‘We should have put a wire in the BMW, or tagged it,’ he said, setting his glass carefully down on a slate coaster. He took one of the oysters, slid it into his mouth, bit down twice and let it slip down his throat. The effect was always the same, a rush of well-being, because the taste was of the sea.

  ‘Bit late for that bright idea,’ said Valentine. He looked Shaw in the eye. ‘My fault. Surveillance was down to me. My op. I underestimated Mosse – I’ve spent a lifetime doing it.’ He drained the remaining Guinness in one draught. ‘I never learn.’ The waitress was sitting on a bar stool, reading a paper. He caught her eye, asking for a re-fill, keen to have more of what he didn’t like. When she brought the drink they asked to see Ian Murray – adding that they’d phoned ahead.

  She retreated to the kitchen and they could hear a conversation in low tones. Then Murray appeared, wearing chef’s whites and carrying a glass of fizzy water, ice and lemon. The waitress joined him, standing.

  ‘Manager says I can have ten minutes,’ said Murray. He didn’t meet their eyes and his tone was hostile, hovering between exasperation and irritation, an almost exact mirror of his mother’s emotional temperament. Shaw couldn’t help but wonder why. They were there to try to find out who had killed his father. What was his problem with that?

  ‘Ten minutes,’ he repeated, taking a seat.

  Valentine looked around at the empty tables. ‘Wouldn’t want to miss the rush.’

  ‘He’s the boss. You can argue the point with him if you like.’

  Ian Murray was a confident young man. When Shaw had seen him in the Flask he’d seemed more vulnerable. Here he sat with one leg hooked over the arm of his chair, holding his glass with both hands in a cradle of fingers. He would have judged him handsome, the skin tone almost exactly matching his polished leather boots. His hair was fashionably shaved to reveal a fine skull. When he blinked, which he did slowly, one lid – the right – seemed to stick, opening more slowly than the left. He moved in a way that seemed calculated to accentuate the flexibility of his limbs, as if his joints were oiled.

  ‘I don’t know how I can help,’ he said, shrugging again, managing to make even that small movement silky and fluid. ‘I was like, you know, not born.’

  The door swung inward and a couple almost fell in, shaking snow from their coats. They watched as the waitress reappeared to take a drinks order and hand out menus. Shaw wondered if the blonde was Murray’s girlfriend, and struggled to recall the name he’d given them.

  He reminded himself why they were there. Family secrets. Yes, he hadn’t yet been born on the night his father died, but he’d grown up in a family defined by that moment. Not death – because that wasn’t the truth he’d had to live with. Something worse: desertion.

  ‘What did your mother tell you about your father?’ Shaw asked.

  ‘Very little. She was ashamed of him, ashamed of herself – for making a mistake like that. We always thought he was low life after what he did – running out on her. Now, of course, things are different. Now we know he wasn’t a good-for-nothing womanizer. It doesn’t say a great deal for my mother’s judgement of character, does it? Or perhaps it does. There’s just a lack of consistency.’ He sipped the water. ‘Trust.’

  He brushed an imaginary speck of dust off his boots.

  ‘She chose John Joe,’ said Shaw. ‘He’s stuck around. You’ve always had John Joe. Was that a mistake?’

  Ian set the glass of water down and turned it, examining the ice. ‘Look. This isn’t Walt Disney. John Joe isn’t my wicked stepfather. But he isn’t my dad either. We’re OK, but there’s nothing …’ He looked around, suddenly angry. ‘Nothing else.’

  ‘Really? He seemed very concerned about you.’

  ‘He’s concerned about Mum. She’s concerned about me. That’s the way it works.’ He leant forward. ‘Look at my face. You think John Joe understands what it’s like to be inside this skin?’

  ‘Does your mum understand?’ asked Shaw, annoyed that Murray had played the race card so shamelessly.

  ‘She tries,’ he said, watching the waitress, his eyes lingering on the tight black cocktail dress.

  Shaw thought about what this young man’s childhood had been like. A black kid in South Lynn. It hadn’t been easy, he was sure. But it hadn’t been Montgomery, Alabama, either. He got out his wallet and flipped it open to his latest family snapshot of the three of them: Lena and Francesca in swimsuits on the sand, his daughter hugging his neck, a white wave breaking in the background. He took it out and flipped it across the table.

  ‘I don’t know your stepfather, Ian. But he married your mum when she had a black kid to bring up. You ever thought about that … ?’

  Murray looked at the picture, then at Shaw’s good eye. ‘No. What d’you reckon – he deserves a medal for it, does he? The Big Man. Look: two things matter to John Joe – Mum, and music. He lost the music, his little dream, back in the eighties. He’s still got Mum.’ He watched a car creeping past on the quayside, the tyres crunching in the snow. ‘For now.’

  ‘Why d’you say that?’ asked Valentine, trying hard to keep his voice neutral, because Shaw had failed to.

  ‘She’s confused. It’s a different story now. We always thought Dad had run out on us. Now we know someone put that hook through his brain, we get these lives instead – not the ones we had. The past makes us, right? Change the past, you change what we are.’ He looked around the restaurant, one hand gently smoothing the polished table top. ‘It’s made her think about him, us, about the future. It’s unsettled everything. I don’t know what she’ll do.’

  ‘What does John Joe think?’ asked Shaw.

  He smiled, the genuine article this time. ‘John Joe’s a dreamer who got lucky and married the woman of his dreams. But luck is all it was. He didn’t make it happen – he’s never made anything happen. So what he thinks doesn’t matter. But …’ He thought about what he was going to say. ‘It isn’t good news, is it, for him? He’s always been the knight in shining armour who did us all a favour. Not quite so shiny now. But you never know, perhaps it’ll do them both good. He may even do something with his life.’

  Shaw sensed he despised his stepfather. ‘What are you going to do with your life, Ian?’

  The young man squared his shoulders. ‘I’m gonna run a restaurant – a good one. Michelin stars. You watch. Bea and I have got a plan. I need experience, but I’ve got the ideas. I’m doing lunches at the Flask, experience here, certificate at the college. I’ve got the talent. We’ve start
ed plugging the food at Bea’s guest house – you know, local seafood, samphire, Norfolk veg, game. It’s a winner. You’d be amazed what people will pay for that stuff.’

  Shaw noticed Aunt Bea’s B&B had been upgraded to a guest house. He always admired ambition in young people, but he didn’t admire ambition driven by money. He looked at his watch, then checked his mobile. ‘Six months ago someone tried to dig up Nora Tilden’s grave. At night, we guess. Why would anyone want to do that?’

  ‘No idea.’ He hadn’t even heard the question, let alone thought about an answer.

  ‘Who d’you think killed your father?’ asked Valentine quickly.

  ‘Someone who didn’t like his face for two reasons.’

  ‘Two?’ asked Shaw.

  ‘Wrong colour – and it was too close to Mum’s.’

  ‘Right,’ said Shaw, smiling. ‘So someone knew? About them? Is that what your mum really thinks, because she told us it was all a secret.’

  Valentine noticed that the young man gripped the glass now, his knuckles white. He drank the water, showing a glimpse of pale throat through the bottom of the glass.

  ‘First thing I said stands: I wasn’t born. So what do I know?’

  ‘But growing up – at the pub – you must have asked questions.’

  ‘Know what I wanted for most of my childhood? I wanted to be white. I’ve got over that now. But back then the last thing I needed was to remind anyone in the Flask that I wasn’t like them. So no – I didn’t “ask questions”. It’s what we do well, isn’t it, the Brits? Avoid taboo subjects. Until this last week I haven’t spoken half a dozen words about my father to another human being – OK? Nothing.’

  He put a lot of emphasis on the last word, and as he said it he leant forward so that a small silver chain slipped out of his open shirt – and on the chain a silver emblem: two lines, curved to make a fish.

  ‘You go to church?’ asked Shaw, nodding at the necklace.

  ‘It was a present, from Bea.’ He sunk his chin so that he could see the fish as he took it in his fingers. ‘She used to go to the Free when I was little. I went on the outings, that kind of thing.’ He looked at Valentine. ‘Then we stopped. I wear it for her – ’cos it makes her happy.’