by Jim Kelly
‘I found the lantern, but I also found something new – this.’ He held up the flask. ‘See? It’s got that picture on it, like the one on the glasses – the whalers. It must have been part of the set.’ He unscrewed the top of the flask and drank, coughing, not bothering to put the cap back on. ‘And it hadn’t been there before. And no one comes here now except me or Mum, so I thought she’d put it away, because she’s fond of the glasses but they get broke, and perhaps she wanted to make sure she’d always have the flask. But I thought – I could do with a drink if I was going to finish it, finish what we’d started. So I took it. I took it – and the lantern. I’d always promised Mum I wouldn’t take any thing. They gave me something when I was a kid – a tankard – but she said I had to leave everything else, because one day they’d sell it all, and I could have the money, help set up the restaurant, maybe.’
He laughed as if that was a fantasy.
‘Then, tonight, John Joe told the truth. It saved his life. He said that the three of them were waiting for Dad that night – him, Fletcher and Venn. But Fletcher lost his nerve, and Dad humiliated Venn – threw him in the open grave. Then Venn ran for it too. And John Joe couldn’t do it – not on his own – and I doubt he ever wanted to do anything …’ he searched for the word, ‘permanent.’
He drank some more, and on the still air Valentine caught the scent of malt whisky.
‘But he did say he’d seen Dad waiting by that big old stone box tomb – and that on the stone he could see two of the green glasses, and the flask. This flask. But when John Joe left Dad that night, he’d been drinking from it. His head thrown back. So how did it get back to the sea chest?’ It wasn’t really a question, because he had an answer.
He put both his hands on the sea chest, like a priest at an altar. ‘I asked Mum why she did it. Why she killed him. Tonight – after I hit her. She wouldn’t say. She said it would be better if I didn’t know.’ He shook his head and looked at Shaw and the shimmering orange light showed that his eyes were full of tears. ‘How can she think that, after all that’s happened to us? How could it be better not to know?’
He stood, lifting his jeans at the knees so that they were straight. ‘I don’t know where she is. In the river? She said she might – if she had the courage. Wherever she is it’s because of the lies. Her lies. I can forgive her – I can forgive everyone. I just want someone to stay. Not run away or hide. I wanted her to stay. I don’t think she heard me ask.’
They heard the single pulse of a police siren outside.
‘Can I see him?’ asked Ian, standing. ‘I’d like to see Grandad.’ He touched the sea chest. ‘I never have.’ What was astonishing then, thought Shaw, was that for the first time he could see Alby’s genetic input in Ian’s face: because he had his grandfather’s precise air of almost childlike curiosity.
45
They found Lizzie Murray on the Flensing Meadow – Jacky Lau, checking the footpath, saw her sitting on the box tomb through the trees, so still that the snow had collected on the shoulders of the overcoat she wore, and on her knees, so that for a second she confused her with the stone angel that stood nearby, its hands cupped to catch water, a single small finger broken. Visibility was just a few feet, so she’d retreated, sent a text to Twine and waited by the railings on the riverbank.
Valentine had appeared first, a narrow figure, sloping shoulders, the collar of his raincoat turned up, one hand at his neck, holding the lapels together. When he reached DC Lau he didn’t speak, but pointed towards the spot where he knew Nora Tilden’s grave lay, still open, covered in boards, ringed with scene-of-crime tape.
She nodded.
Shaw appeared almost supernaturally, as if he’d just risen straight up out of the ground, at the DS’s shoulder.
‘Well done,’ he said to Lau, then checked his mobile, the screen lit with a blue light.
‘Get close,’ he said to Valentine. ‘But don’t spook her.’
Shaw stepped off the path into the undergrowth around a line of Victorian headstones which had so far escaped the council’s exhumations. His boots sank down in nearly a foot of snow. The gentle sound, the compression of snow, flooded his mind with an image from childhood. The beach again, on Christmas Day. They’d always gone down to the slipway, to the café which opened even on that day. His father would buy teas and they’d take them down to the sand, and Shaw would play with whatever had been under the tree that morning – there’d always be something for the beach: a kite, a model aeroplane, a cricket bat. But that day the snow had lain right down to the water’s edge and they’d built a snowman, just in time before a fresh blizzard had swept in off the North Sea. He’d been dragged away crying, because he could see the grey figure of the snowman disappearing in the storm, the waves beginning to break around it.
And now he saw another figure. He stopped, and for a second he heard twigs breaking as Valentine circled the spot. It was the angel. He walked towards it and put a hand on the pitted stone of the face. Turning slightly, he saw Lizzie Murray, sitting on the tomb. It was startling in this black-and-white world how much the blood on her face stood out, a line from the corner of her mouth down her neck, as if her skull was cracking to reveal the flesh and blood beneath. The light caught the diamond stud in her ear.
He walked forward, aware that the wind that had brought the blizzard along the coast had gone. The air was absolutely still, the snow propelled by gravity alone, wandering down, as if each flake had to find its own way.
‘You’re hurt,’ he said.
She tightened the belt at the waist of the overcoat, but that didn’t stop her shivering.
‘Ian – he had every right.’
Shaw could see the wooden planking over the open grave. He stepped forward and pulled it clear so that the sudden black square of the pit was before them, widened by Tom Hadden’s team so that they could take their pictures of the soil profile.
‘It was a stupid place to meet,’ she said.
‘What did he really say when you told him at the bar that night – that there was going to be a child?’
‘I told the truth,’ she said. And something about that statement made her cover her mouth. Taking her fingers away she examined a trace of cold pearl lipstick.
‘He said he was happy for us. But we should talk – not later, now. I said I couldn’t – just couldn’t. The choir had something for me. I couldn’t just not be there. So I said we’d meet later – at eleven, here, while they collected glasses and cleared the pub. I gave him the two glasses and filled the hip flask for him to take. I thought he’d hang around, then wait after closing – but he went then. He hated the bar. He said it was like being in a zoo, being the one in the cage. But he never really gave anyone a chance to like him.’
‘So you met here.’
‘Yes. We fought. I’m not going to tell you why,’ she said.
‘We found something in Pat’s pocket,’ said Shaw. ‘We didn’t know what it was – just shreds of paper. I know now. There were just three letters visible – MOT. It’s the airport code for his trip back to Hartsville.’
In the white gloom he saw Valentine’s silhouette move between a Celtic cross and a figure of the Virgin Mary in grey stone.
‘He was going home, wasn’t he? A one-way ticket. Bea was always going to stay and she thought Pat would too. But he wasn’t. He’d booked his flight. And it didn’t change anything, did it? That the child was coming?’
She stood at the grave’s edge and looked at the blood on her hand.
‘He was bleeding that night,’ she said. ‘Here,’ she added, touching her left cheekbone. ‘When he said he was going home I thought it was because of those three, and what they’d wanted to do. That he’d decided to leave behind all that hatred, not just those three, everyone – almost everyone. The way they looked at him. Everyone except Alby.
‘But it wasn’t. He’d decided weeks before because he showed me the ticket. Taunted me with it. Said the baby was my fault – that I hadn�
�t taken precautions and that I’d tried to trap him. He said babies were a kind of death. Those are the words I’ve always remembered.
‘He said there was a baby in this grave. I think Bea must have told him – about Mary, who would have been my sister. He said Mary had ruined Mother’s life, and Dad’s. Then he said it again, that babies were death, and he got up and stood by the grave and spat in it.’
She still hadn’t cried, and Shaw felt certain now that she never would.
‘So I just took the hook – it was lying here …’ She drew a circle in the snow on the stone tomb. ‘And I swung it. It was luck, really – catching his skull. I didn’t hit him hard.’ She looked at Shaw, still astonished by the ease of murder. ‘The point just sliced in.’
She was looking at a point in front of her now, the precise spot, Shaw thought, where Pat Garrison’s life had ended.
‘They’ll say he died instantly, won’t they? They always say that. But he didn’t. I don’t think he knew what had happened – just that something had happened. He was holding the flask and it fell from his hand to the grass. He turned to look at me, but I don’t think he could see at all, because the cruelty had gone from his eyes, and I thought perhaps he was dead then, dead standing. But he put his hand behind him and tried to reach the handle of the hook. He knelt, reached again, then fell sideways onto the grass.
‘I dragged him to the grave, took his keys out of his pocket, threw the glasses in after his body, then covered him with earth. Then I realized I’d missed the flask. That went in last, so it was nearer the surface. I found it almost straight away that night I tried to get his bones out.’ She shook her head.
She stood stiffly. ‘But before I dragged him to the grave,’ she said clearly, as if confessing, ‘I watched him die. He was curled up – on the grass, like a child himself. So maybe he was right – perhaps babies are death.’
46
Friday, 24 December
Christmas Eve: 10.00 a.m. sharp, the offices of Masters & Masters, solicitors, reached by Shaw and Valentine via a staircase through a door marked only with a brass plaque between W. H. Smith and Waterstone’s in the Vancouver Shopping Centre. The view from the one window in the office of Mr Jerrold Masters would, on most occasions, have been suicide-bleak – across the flat roofs dotted with air filters and flues, a copse of satellite dishes and a ramshackle night-watchman’s hut. But the snow had continued to fall overnight so that the cityscape was transformed into an Arctic scene – completed in the far distance by the three masts of a naval training ship on the quay. The cranes on the far bank of the Cut were decked out with fairy lights, immobile, like giant Meccano sets opened early for Christmas.
In the outside office Shaw had left his daughter with DC Fiona Campbell. He’d promised her a tour of St James’s, a look in the cells – an area she seemed particularly obsessed with – and breakfast in the canteen. Campbell had volunteered to be her guide, as Fran – no doubt prompted by his wife – seemed determined to see how women fitted into the West Norfolk Constabulary. After breakfast there’d be Christmas shopping for Lena’s presents, and for the dog a new winter jacket, then they’d all meet for lunch out on the coast. He had a week off. The thought of it made his blood buzz, as if he’d started to run.
‘Is Mrs Robins coming?’ asked Shaw.
‘A minute,’ Masters said, checking his watch, then setting a large envelope on his blotter beside a letter-knife in the shape of an eel.
Shaw considered Chris Robins’s last will and testament. For what could he hope? At best, a confession – a confession implicating Robert Mosse? Admissible in court? Hardly. If they had a new case to present to the CPS on Mosse a confession from Robins would be powerful corroborating testimony. But what they needed was evidence to get a new case in front of a judge and jury. Shaw looked around the shabby room and thought the chances of that were negligible, close to vanishing point, like the ghost-grey masts of the ship on the Cut. All they had was an envelope on a blotter.
‘Busy?’ said Masters, suddenly overcome with embarrassment at the silence. He held up the previous Tuesday’s edition of the Lynn News.
Lizzie Murray had been charged with the murder of Pat Garrison. She had insisted, despite counsel’s advice, on making a statement in which she confessed to the crime. Shaw had taken little pleasure from the moment, frustrated rather by the continuing silence of Alby Tilden and Ian Murray. They might face charges for what they’d done, but unless they confessed to the crucial intermediary role of Bea Garrison, all three would escape a charge of murder. Neither had administered a lethal poison, and Bea Garrison’s silence was impenetrable.
Shaw tore himself away from his own thoughts to answer the solicitor’s question.
‘Sure. But then it’s Christmas. We can all enjoy that,’ he said. He thought Valentine said something then, under his breath, but he couldn’t be sure.
There was a carpet in the corridor outside so they didn’t hear footsteps approaching the door. When it opened Robert Mosse walked in, carrying a long metal safe-deposit box and a slim briefcase. Shaw’s heartbeat raced, and something about the moment made him smile, despite the surprise and all the questions that crowded into his mind.
Mosse froze, but his face didn’t respond, as if each micro-muscle was under direct control from the brain – an impossibility, Shaw knew, but Mosse appeared to have the skill. Only the eyes revealed a life within the skull, taking in Shaw, Valentine and the envelope on the blotter.
Shaw was pleased to see that he looked once back at the door, twice at the window – a classic fear response, checking out the means of escape.
‘Bob,’ said Masters, standing, holding out a hand.
‘Jerry,’ said Mosse. The voice was as perfectly judged as the slate-grey suit, the swept-back lustrous black hair.
‘This is unusual,’ he continued, looking at Shaw and holding out his hand.
Shaw shook it, noting the sandpaper dryness.
‘All will become clear,’ said Masters, smiling. Shaw knew then that Masters was one of those people who manage to get through life without ever realizing they have no ability whatever to sense the emotional temperature of those around them. There was so much tension in the air Shaw expected to see a spark suddenly leap from the eel-shaped letter opener.
Mosse sat, but Shaw noticed his eyes again flicking twice to the door by which he’d entered. He’d have seen Fiona Campbell in reception with Fran and presumed it was a child-protection case. Mosse’s jawline hardened perceptibly – the first time his body had betrayed him.
Masters pressed a buzzer on his desk. A minute later the door opened and Peggy Robins was shown in by the secretary. Shaw hadn’t seen her in reception and guessed she’d been put in a side room with a cup of tea to wait until the last moment. It was thoughtful, and Masters fussed like a family doctor. She sat quickly, didn’t look at anyone, and Shaw was reminded of his first impression: that she was a strong woman, but always braced for a blow. She gathered herself in her seat and then looked at Mosse’s polished black leather shoes, then his face. She knew him instantly, and her mouth fell open.
‘Mrs Robins,’ said Masters. ‘Peggy. Right – all present and correct.’ Again, the beaming inappropriate smile. He slit the envelope open. Valentine massaged his scalp with one hand, aware that the headache stealing from the base of his skull over the cranium was self-inflicted.
Mosse quickly opened the briefcase and checked a note, his head down so that none of them could see his face.
‘Client MM 45/65/82?’ he asked.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Masters. ‘Sorry – you’d no name until now. That’s it – Christopher Alan Robins.’
Masters began to read the will, Mosse’s eyes fixed on some point in the snowy roofscape outside. The estate had been valued at £13,700. It all went to his mother. It took his solicitor less than a minute to read in full.
‘Now,’ he said, setting the document aside. ‘One other duty. Mr Robins – it seems odd to call him that
. I knew his father, you see – John,’ said Masters. ‘He had a shop down on the quay – shoe repair. I always used to call him John …’ He trailed off, looking at each of them in turn, unable to work out why everyone was so silent, so studiedly impatient.
‘Well. Anyway. Christopher had two unusual requests. He asked me in …’ he checked a note on the blotter, ‘in 2002 to take receipt of some items, and to lodge them in our offices for safe keeping until he requested their release. Or, in the event of his death, they would form part of his estate. Two years ago he asked that these same items be transferred to Mr Mosse’s firm but under a client number only – no name. You’ll remember that, Bob?’
Mosse’s chin moved a centimetre in answer.
‘Yes, I’m sure you do,’ Masters continued. ‘He specifically asked me to make sure the signatory should be Mr Mosse himself. And that was undertaken – at an annual fee of thirty-five pounds and seventy pence, I see from my records.’ Again, the mindless smile.
‘And one further alteration – that, upon the reading of the will, these items were to be released into the custody of DI Peter Shaw of the West Norfolk Constabulary.’
Mosse was looking at the metal deposit box, his legs crossed casually at the ankles.
‘Did he say why?’ asked Shaw.
‘He said that would become clear on the day. Yes – those exact words.’
The door opened and the secretary came in with coffee cups, a pot, Nice biscuits. The tension in the room was almost intolerable. Shaw imagined the crockery shattering. She left the tray, retreated.
‘And the other unusual requirement was a statement, lodged with us, to be read on this occasion.’ He leant across the desk and gave Shaw a second envelope. ‘By you, Inspector.’