Death Toll

by Jim Kelly

  He sat on the stone steps, the movement of his limbs as fluid and unhurried as always.

  ‘I know you were there when he died, because the billhook was from Grandad’s chest. And you’d taken the key from behind the bar. But not alone, right? Kath said the three of you went together. And she’d added fuel to the fire, because she’d told Freddie about the baby coming. About me. Stupid, timid girl. If she’d told us then …But we can’t change the past.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said John Joe.

  Ian’s temper snapped and he threw the piece of timber he was holding so that it cartwheeled, hitting the stone wall. Then he walked slowly back up the stairs.

  He didn’t return for twenty minutes. At first the water only came in once every few minutes, swirling, but no worse, no deeper. But the tide didn’t work like that. It surged after falling back, gathering its strength. John Joe had surfed as a teenager, and he’d taught Ian, out on the windswept sands at Holkham. He knew all about the seventh wave. So there was a lull, and then a sudden curtain of white water at the door, and the room was full of the sea: not white this time but a livid green, a foot deep all around him, so that he had to jerk his neck up off the stone step. And cold, just above freezing. The first time he got his breathing just right, but the second time he swallowed a mouthful of seawater and he choked, spewing up over his chin and chest. This time, when the sea sucked out, it left kelp behind, and the white, dirty foam.

  Then he heard the question again, although he hadn’t heard Ian’s footsteps on the stone stairs. Tears welled in his eyes and he shook his head, believing still perhaps that there was a way out, a stratagem that avoided confession. The next wave washed in, and this time when it ebbed there remained a foot of water in the room, a darker green this time, a hint of the pitch blackness of the deeper sea. John Joe could suck in air only if he held his head up, straining the neck muscles so that his body shook with the effort. Darkness was gathering outside the door, as if the bitter cold was extinguishing the light.

  Ian came down the steps and with a knife from his back pocket cut the rope at his stepfather’s left wrist so that he could roll on to one side, lifting his head slightly.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘A reprieve of sorts. For a while. A thank you – if you like, for bringing me up, for the kindnesses; and there’s been love – hasn’t there? I can’t deny that. But that’s all over, gone.’ He looked out of the open door at the sea. ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  ‘It was Fletcher’s idea,’ said John Joe, and he said it quickly, because he believed now; believed his stepson would do this, leave him twisting here, roped down, so that he’d drown, sucking down mouthfuls of brine.

  ‘He asked one of the waitresses for Pat’s address; I heard him. So I knew he was planning something. That night – the night of the wake – we talked, out on the stoop. I loved Lizzie. I could see what was happening; I knew what was going on. I saw her once – when she thought no one was looking. She just reached forward and took something from the corner of his eye. It was a kiss – but with her fingertips. So I said to Fletcher we should teach Pat a lesson – scare him off. That was the plan.’

  ‘And Venn?’

  ‘He’d sent Pat those pictures – the hangman. Fletcher knew that. He said he didn’t have the guts to actually do something, because the church was all talk – all sermon. It was all very well reading Leviticus, but what about living the book – Fletcher had picked that up, see? The phrase. He could play Sam like a fish on a line. So Sam came too.’

  The sea washed in, round the room, funnelling out, but each time now leaving enough behind to lift John Joe’s body, so that he was beginning to feel his weight seep away with his life.

  ‘We were waiting for Pat in the cemetery – I could see him coming, walking: that walk of his, that swagger.’ He looked at Ian, desperate to see if his confession was softening the young man’s eyes. ‘Then he stopped. He didn’t see us – it wasn’t that. He’d got to the open grave, Nora’s grave. There’s a box tomb there, in stone. He sat there like it was a park bench.

  ‘There was moonlight. But we were in shadows, by a cypress tree. The choir was singing and you could hear that, so the night wasn’t silent.’ He used his free hand to pat down the imaginary earth. ‘We got down, on the grass. Fletcher said it was up to me and Sam to start it – to strike the first blow. We’d get him down, kick him. Freddie said he knew how to break a few bones, make him bleed, once he was down.’

  Until that moment, Ian thought, John Joe had a life in front of him.

  ‘But Sam said Fletcher should start it, because he knew the words: we’d heard him on the corner with his mates, calling at the blacks. How they should go home, how they weren’t like us, how they were scum. So he should start – because it was important that Pat should know why we wanted him to go.’

  John Joe heard laughter and realized it was his own, and how inappropriate it was.

  ‘But Freddie wouldn’t start it. He said I’d got the billhook – it was down to me. And it wasn’t just about Pat’s skin, was it? That wasn’t why Sam was there. So why should it be him to start it? And the weird thing was, he was crying – Freddie – weeping. He said he’d do time if he got caught. He’d been rounded up the year before with some skinheads, for kicking this Indian kid down by the docks. He’d got a fine, community service, and if he was caught doing it again there’d be time to do – eighteen months. He didn’t fancy that. That’s what he said – but I didn’t believe it, I still don’t. I think he just lost his nerve, and so he was ashamed.

  ‘When he stopped crying he said to me not to hit Pat on the head – to go for an arm or a leg or the shoulder – that was good because the collarbone would snap like a chicken wing. Then he just walked away – through the gravestones, towards the east gate. We couldn’t believe it. All that talk. All that hate.’

  Ian watched the sea, a big wave buckling up on the grey horizon. ‘So that left you and Sam Venn?’ he said, edging a step higher, away from the water.

  John Joe pulled frantically at the fastened wrist so that blood appeared where the skin was breaking.

  ‘Sam did it. He just walked out in the moonlight, before I could stop him, so Pat could see him. And Pat just smiled – like he was expecting it. He just sat there in his silk shirt, looking at Sam. He’d brought a couple of glasses with him – the green, etched ones, and a hip flask. He’d drink a bit, then kind of wince, then smile.’

  ‘Hip flask?’

  Before John Joe could answer the sea washed in, the seventh wave, the one that surges forward up the beach. Two feet, three feet, swirling round the room so that Murray was gone, lost in the water, which wasn’t green any more but a dark blue, and black in the shadows. And when it sucked out he was just lying there, swamped, so Ian stepped off the ladder and got him by the shirt at the neck and held him up, so their faces were close. He could smell his stepfather’s hair, the natural oils set against the sharp saltiness of the water.

  ‘Quickly,’ he said. ‘The hip flask.’ He put his hand to his back pocket and slipped something out to hold just a few inches from John Joe’s drenched face. It was a silver hip flask. The design was unusual – a silver stopper and a silver base, but the main body was of green glass, thick and old, with an etched picture of a whale pursued by a boat, the harpoonist’s arm tensed for the lethal shot.

  John Joe’s eyes didn’t understand. ‘Yeah, like the glasses – old Melville’s green glasses. Lizzie must have given it to Pat.’

  Ian unscrewed the top and put it to John Joe’s lips. It was another kindness, and it gave him time to think. The flask contained a malt, and John Joe choked, but he drank too. Ian cut the other wrist free, then the ankles, and dragged his stepfather’s body to the steps and up, clear of the sea, which had begun to turn in the room now like a whirlpool. He held his stepfather under the arms so that the older man lay on him, and the water seeped down.

  It took Ian a minute to work it out, so that the past he’d imagined was tran
sformed, like a landscape through tinted glass. ‘Just tell me, John Joe,’ he said. ‘All of it.’

  John Joe’s chin vibrated with the cold, so Ian left him and came back down with a blanket.

  ‘I stepped out into the open too,’ he said, holding the corner of the warm wool to his throat. ‘But Pat hardly noticed, because Sam went up to him and he took Pat’s hand, like taking a child’s, and he put it on his face, so that he could feel the damage that he’d been born with. Sam didn’t say anything – I think he was too scared to speak. But I knew what it meant, and I think Pat did somehow, too. That it was evil, cousins together, and this was like God’s punishment. I think that got to Pat – which was a victory for Sam, because nothing got to him. Not the taunts, not the way people looked at him. Nothing.’

  They sat together for a few minutes without speaking. Outside the tide was moving rocks, so that intermittently the whole building resonated with the boom of stone on stone.

  ‘He slapped Sam with that hand, the hand he’d touched him with,’ said John Joe, breaking their silence. ‘He slapped him hard. Pat was a big man, powerful, and it took Sam down. And then Pat got Sam’s leg and he dragged him through the spoil around Nora’s grave to the edge of the pit and he let him slip in. I heard the splash – ’cos by then it was full of water. Sam was screaming, pleading, but when he went in he was silent. I remember that because I heard the choir again – from the pub.

  ‘I saw Sam’s hands come up, scrabbling in the wet soil.’ John Joe shook his head at the memory. ‘Pat stamped on them, kicked soil in. Then he laughed and turned to me, walking away from the grave. Sam got out then, hauled himself out, and ran – along the river …so there was just me.’

  Ian gave him the hip flask to drink again.

  ‘I ran at Pat and swung the billhook; he swayed back, so I missed him. He just stood there, laughing in my face. I dropped the hook. I left him there, alive. I swear to God I did. I ran. Like we all ran.’

  Ian held John Joe’s head.

  ‘Later – when Pat disappeared we thought he’d just got tired of Lizzie. Then the baby came and we thought that explained it. He’d run for it too. And the three of us thought we’d helped push him away. Helped him run.’

  John Joe looked at his wrists where the blood was beginning to ooze from the wounds made by the rope.

  ‘When they found Pat – Pat’s bones – they thought I’d done it: both of them, Fletcher and Venn. I said I hadn’t. I said I’d always told the truth, but they didn’t believe me.’

  Outside the door the snow had suddenly stopped, leaving the air clear, the horizon as sharp as a knife edge. ‘I don’t know who killed him, Son – I really don’t.’

  Ian looked at the hip flask in his hand.

  ‘I do,’ he said.

  39

  Shaw waited in the Porsche for Valentine, parked in the shadow of the industrial crane on the Lynn town quay side. Angular, black and towering, it stood out against a field of frosty stars. It seemed to reflect Shaw’s mood of gloomy introspection. It had not been a good day: it had taken them until mid-afternoon to track down ‘Gav’ – aka Gavin Andrew Peck – their one vital witness to the reopening of Nora Tilden’s grave. He had been staying at a friend’s house after an all-night party and had then gone to the Arndale Centre to hang out with friends in the warmth of the shopping mall. His recollection of the woman he’d seen that night was limited to her gender: he could recall no other detail. They’d taken him back to St James’s but his memory had shown no signs of sharpening up. Could he estimate the age of the woman? ‘Not really – but it was obvious she’d never used a spade before. She was really struggling.’ It was the one cogent observation they’d obtained.

  After taking a formal statement from Peck, Shaw and Valentine had been called to separate preparatory interviews with DI ‘Chips’ McCain – now in charge of the investigation into Bobby Mosse. McCain’s approach, at least in Shaw’s case, had been clinical, professional, and chilling. He and Valentine had not compared notes.

  The bonnet of the Porsche was hot and free of snow, but as Valentine levered himself out of the car, the motion set free a lump of ice which slid down the windscreen. Shaw batted it aside with the wipers, hardly allowing it to displace the image that he’d begun examining in his head: a woman, alone, digging in the shadows of the Flensing Meadow, down into that crowded grave. Not just an image – a noise as well, the slicing of a spade through clay and grit. Which woman? Lizzie Tilden was involved in the search for her missing husband John Joe, so they’d leave her for the morning. Bea Garrison they’d see tonight, at her B&B on the coast at Wells.

  Shaw focused on the Christmas lights along the front: sharp pinpoints of festive colour in the sea air which usually lifted his mood. The mobile chip shop had parked in a lay-by, side-on to the water, half a dozen figures crowded by the serving hatch, cradling teas.

  Then his mobile rang and he saw it was home, so he picked it up, and knew instantly that it was his daughter, not his wife, because she took a breath before starting to speak.

  ‘Dad? It’s OK – Mum said. We’ll go next year.’ Static blurred the next sentence.

  ‘Sorry – I just can’t.’ He hated apologies, thinking that they were what they were, valueless in themselves. What he needed to do was make sure that next year he kept his promise, and took her to see Santa floating in on the tide at Wells, and that he wasn’t stuck in a car waiting for George Valentine to get him a tray of chips. And he left the real question in the air: would Fran want to see Santa next year, or had they missed the moment, another slice of childhood he’d never revisit?

  ‘We got the results back – from the hospital?’ She sounded upbeat, so Shaw feared the worst. Her voice came and went.

  ‘It’s some colour I’m allergic to – but they can’t say which one …’

  ‘OK,’ said Shaw. ‘Is Mum there?’

  She gave him a long drawn out, sing-song ‘Bye-eee’.

  Lena was sharp, businesslike. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Quayside – signal’s dreadful. Must be the storm passing through. I’ve got to see the team, get up to speed, complete an interview – then I’ll ring. Case has just turned itself upside down, again.’ She didn’t fill the silence up so he pressed on. ‘Fran said the allergy clinic had results?’

  ‘Yup. Simple, really – it’s something in milk reacting with something in one of the food colourings. Put ’em together and she gets an attack. Houghton – the consultant? He said it would wear off like the milk allergy. Meantime we have to avoid the E-number. I’ve got a note. But it’s part of whatever makes a colour, not the colour itself. So it’s not straightforward – but then it never is.’

  ‘Great. She OK?’ In the background he could hear the old dog whining, jealous of the attention he was losing.

  A further burst of static cut out some of the reply. ‘She’d rather be watching Santa float by – but she’ll live,’ said Lena, her voice floating back with the signal. ‘If you’d said earlier, Peter, I could have taken her, but it’ll be murder down there now and I can’t go out – I’ve got a shop full of stock and the Speedo rep’s due any minute.’

  ‘I know. Sorry. That’s where we’re headed – Wells. But it’s business, not pleasure, I don’t think George believes in Santa any more. And you’re right, it’ll be packed, we’re going to give it another half hour, let the crowds get in place at least. I’d better go,’ he said, changing his voice, knowing that if he kept the conversation going he’d end up in an argument.

  ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘Fran’s just seen Justina out on the beach, so we’re taking the dog out. Bye.’

  The line went dead. He thought about the pathologist, the Labrador dogging her steps along the high-tide mark. Valentine pulled the door open and threw himself into the seat, cradling wrapped chips and takeaway tea.

  They ate in silence. Then Shaw stopped, because he had that very odd feeling that his brain was working on something, processing detail, trundling towards
a synthesis of images, a process sparked by what Lena had told him about Fran’s allergy. He thought about the little pillboxes in a line in the bathroom.

  He let three specific images float into his conscious mind.

  First: Bea Garrison standing behind the dispensary counter of the store in Hartsville, North Dakota. Shaw imagined a white coat, her hair held up with pins, brown paper packets for the drugs. He knew it hadn’t been like that, that this image was culled from 1950s black-and-white movies, but it was a vivid snapshot nonetheless.

  Second: a soup dish on an abandoned table at the Shipwrights’ Hall, some liquid left in the bottom, the out line of a cockle in the thick fishy sauce.

  And the third image: Ian Murray, pushing his way backwards through the door marked staff into the dining room at the Flask, in his hands three plates loaded with food, heading for a table with three waiting diners.

  He scrunched the chip paper and kicked open his door to walk to the bin. He could have stashed it in the car, but he wanted to think in the open air. By the time he got back to the Porsche he’d done thinking, and his body screamed for action. He’d hit 60 mph by the time he got the car to the end of the quay, leaving Valentine to pick chips off his lap.

  40

  Shaw left Valentine in the Porsche with what was left of the chips and ran to the café along the dark sands. He could have rung Justina but if they were out with the dogs the signal would be weak. And he wanted to get this straight. He needed the medical science, and he needed it now. Because if he was right, then this was the key, the lynch pin. The beach was empty, cleaned by the storm which had blown out, so that the only marks on the pristine moonlit strand were Justina’s footsteps. The air was still, the dune grass was frosted, the edge of the sea just trembling on the sand.