Death's Door

by Jim Kelly

  KEYS CUT

  while you wait

  emergency lock out service

  0770 870 1938

  Open Monday-Saturday 9.00am to 5.30pm.

  Above, over the window, was an old fashioned hand-painted sign that read:

  G.T. & H Osbourne: locksmiths and gunsmiths

  Valentine stopped outside the shop and took a note of the number. The shop was shut; a sign turned in the glass doorway gave no indication of when it might reopen. There was a single window above on the first floor, and one above that in the roof, but neither had curtains, and the lower one was obscured by what looked like the back of a cupboard.

  The lane gave into a small courtyard. The one-storey building which dominated the space was a shop, with nothing in the large plate-glass windows but two arrangements of white lilies, under a black facia carrying the words:

  Kelly & Sons

  Funeral Directors and Monumental Masons

  Shaw pulled himself easily out of the bucket chair and stood listening to the distant sound of the crowds on the quayside. Valentine parked the Mazda, the offside wing nudging the stonewall.

  Inside, they both noticed the cooler air – unnaturally cool. Shaw searched for the sound of an air conditioning unit and discovered the persistent note almost immediately, the vibration making a vase of plastic flowers hum on the counter.

  A man who came through a door had white hair framing a middle-aged face, with an expression of half-hearted condolence already in place. Italian heritage, there was no doubt, the darkness of the features striking against pale olive skin. He hadn’t been expecting business, not in the hot dead airless hours of a summer’s Saturday, so he was knotting a black tie hurriedly in place.

  Valentine put his warrant card in his face. Shaw said they were there about Marianne Osbourne. Had they heard? The man held both palms out sideways, and his eyes flooded, an eloquent if silent answer.

  ‘Mr . . .?’ asked Valentine.

  ‘Assisi.’ He set his head to one side but didn’t offer a first name.

  ‘She worked here?’

  ‘Yes. Poor Marianne,’ said Assisi.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ said Shaw. ‘We just needed to check a few facts. You must have known her well.’

  Shaw watched as genuine emotions rippled over the man’s face, dislodging the professional facade. Grief? No. But certainly sadness, and maybe even loss. Shaw wondered if that was going to be the standard reaction to the death of this woman, as if she was simply a beautiful object that people wouldn’t see anymore.

  ‘My wife is best . . .’ Assisi flipped up part of the counter and indicated the way, through the door he’d come in by, down a corridor painted institutional pink. Assisi walked in front. ‘Always unhappy, Marianne,’ he said, over one shoulder.

  ‘Did you take the call yesterday, Mr Assisi, to say she wouldn’t be in?’ asked Shaw.

  Assisi paused with his hand on the next door. ‘Yes,’ he said, frowning, dark eyebrows drawn together. ‘Joe – her husband. She is often not well. But that is the first time he phones . . .’

  ‘Joe’s never phoned before?’

  ‘No. Always Marianne. But always too before we open, so a message, on the answerphone. My job is to listen – first thing.’ He shrugged slightly, reluctant to articulate any criticism of the dead.

  They followed Assisi through the doorway, down a second corridor of peeling lino, through an empty chapel of rest into a small room. Shaw guessed the public, the grieving, never got this far. It was utilitarian, almost industrial, with steel sinks and a tiled floor. The blare from the radio was so loud it was distorted.

  There were two metal tables, and two coffins, but only one was occupied, by an elderly woman with unnaturally black hair.

  Assisi introduced his wife Ella. She was sitting on a high stool beside the corpse. She was Italian too, but perhaps not first generation, because the genetic photofit, thought Shaw, was clouded with other influences.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ she said, before Shaw could speak. ‘It’s Marianne, isn’t it? We heard. Everyone’s heard. But I am sorry,’ she added, as if that might be in doubt. ‘And poor Tilly . . .’ She shook her head, then smiled at Valentine as if she knew him. ‘Suicide, of course,’ she said.

  ‘We’re just tying up loose ends,’ said Shaw, avoiding an answer. ‘A few questions. A minute of your time.’

  She thought about that, her long fingers fidgeting with her hair, and then said she’d have to keep working because the funeral was first thing Monday and they had another one coming in, and that they’d been relying on Marianne.

  Her husband looked at his polished black shoes, then fled.

  ‘You’d known Marianne long?’ prompted Shaw.

  ‘School – secondary school here in Wells. Met first day.’ As she talked she worked, selecting cosmetics from a box and applying them to the skin of the deceased. ‘You collect friends that first day, don’t you? One you think’s funny, one you think’s loyal. Marianne was beautiful, so we collected her too. We were in a crowd but, you know, never really close, the two of us. Our lives just got mixed up together. Like bits of washing in a drier.’ She was happy with that image, examining the cosmetic red on her fingertips, studying the face of the dead woman who lay before her.

  Never close. Shaw noted the echo of Joe Osbourne’s description of the relationship between his wife and their daughter.

  ‘Was she close to anyone, other than family?’ he asked. ‘She doesn’t seem to be that kind of person. Private?’ he asked, pleased he’d avoided the gaping cliche: kept herself to herself.

  ‘I’m not sure she was even close to Joe,’ she said. Her chin came up, defying the convention that she shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, and unable to stop herself adding more: ‘All the years she’s worked here you know they never met for lunch – I mean, how far is it? A hundred yards – less?’ She shook her head, working some powder into a paste in the palm of her hand. Shaw thought about Joe Osbourne, arguing with a prostitute on Lynn docks after dark. ‘She liked men,’ she said, and Shaw realized she wasn’t being coy. It was just a fact, as if she liked them in the same way that you can like sliced bread. ‘And she saw all women as rivals,’ added Assisi. ‘God knows why.’ She drew back some greying hair from her forehead and tucked it under a hair band. ‘She was in a league of her own. No competition.’

  ‘There were lots of men?’ asked Shaw, leaving the time frame deliberately unspecified, fascinated at how this conversation had suddenly drilled down into the private life of Marianne Osbourne.

  Assisi began to work the pale red cosmetics into the skin of the dead woman, working out from the centre of one cheek. ‘I don’t think so – not now, not for years. She suffered from depression – we understood that. It made her a cold person. Also, I don’t think she had the energy for other people. She liked to be admired, but even that seemed . . .’ She searched for the word: ‘Passive. Like she thought she was an oil painting, which I suppose she was. A vase. Something brittle.’ Shaw caught it then in the woman’s voice – not just the emotional distance, but a little electric charge of hatred.

  Valentine coughed, realizing some kind of chemical was getting down his throat, into his eyes.

  Shaw noted that despite the mundane surroundings the presence of the corpse was making his heart beat race. He licked dry lip. ‘You’ll remember the East Hills killing – the Australian lifeguard. You know Marianne was out on the island that day?’

  She leant back from working on the dead woman’s face. ‘Of course – is that why she did it? We’d heard you were calling people back in – we’ve got friends on the lifeboat. She wasn’t good at dealing with stress. Always pretty close to the edge.’

  ‘I just wondered if she’d ever mentioned it to you. She went out there alone, to East Hills, but we wondered if she’d met someone.’

  Assisi laughed, reaching to a shelf for a bottle of mineral water. ‘She was never alone. Ever.’

  ‘Any names
?’ asked Valentine, producing his notebook.

  She arranged a white linen square below the chin of the corpse and began to apply a foundation, smoothing away wrinkles, adding a lifelike blush to the marbled skin.

  ‘We’d left school by then – both of us. Like I said, we weren’t close. Just about any bloke she knew was after her, so that’s quite a list.’

  Valentine stashed the notebook.‘But there was Joe Osbourne – they were going out that summer, right?’

  ‘There was Joe,’ she said.

  Shaw got the very strong impression she did know names. ‘Mrs Assisi, we need your help. Would it be easier to talk down at St James?’

  Assisi stood and turned off the radio. The dying echo of the last note seemed to circle the cold room.

  ‘There’s one thing you have to understand about Marianne,’ she said. ‘What she wanted, back then, the only thing she wanted, was to have what her big sister Ruth had.’

  ‘Where was Ruth that summer?’ asked Shaw.

  ‘Back home. She’d been away to university. But she had a boyfriend in Wells – Aidan Robinson,her husband now.’

  ‘You’re telling us Marianne and Aidan were lovers?’ asked Shaw.

  She nodded – a tight, jerky movement of the chin. ‘Early that summer, spring even,’ she said, avoiding the direct confirmation. ‘When Ruth came back from the university vacation to work at the Lido she didn’t know what had gone on. I don’t think she’s ever known. It would kill her to know.’

  ‘And Joe, did he know? Did he turn a blind eye?’ asked Shaw.

  ‘Joe was star-struck,’ she said. ‘He never guessed what she was like – not until it was too late. I don’t think Marianne would have bothered with Joe at all but she got pregnant the next year, ’ninety-five. I think she thought about getting rid of the child; we had a friend who’d had an abortion up at Lynn. I know she asked her about it. But in the end she had Tilly. Know what? Know why she had that child?’

  There was something in this woman’s eyes that made the cold room colder.

  ‘Because it was something she could have that Ruth didn’t have – a child. And then it got better, because it turned out big sister couldn’t have kids at all. And it’s the one thing Ruth’s always wanted.’

  Shaw felt oppressed by this image of Marianne Osbourne. As they edged closer to understanding the woman her beauty seemed ever thinner, almost transparent, so that they could see something else beneath, something not exactly ugly, just something darker.

  ‘She was unhappy, Marianne, wasn’t she?’ asked Shaw. ‘What do you think she was unhappy about?’

  ‘Her life. She had dreams – to be a model, to be admired. She thought her face was her fortune. It wasn’t.’ She’d tried to keep that note of bitterness out of her voice but failed. ‘Then Tilly arrived, and that pretty much ended the dream. She hadn’t thought that bit through. Women never do. She’s not going to be all over Page Three of the tabloids, is she, with a kid at home.’

  Valentine rearranged his feet, feeling inexplicably giddy.

  ‘She never complains – Ruth. There’s nothing Ruth wouldn’t do for you. Then there’s Marianne next door, with that child. And Joe – smashing bloke. And she walks round like life owed her something.’

  Mrs Assisi began to brush the dead woman’s hair. ‘This is what she really hated. Working here. She used to sneak in and out as if anyone was bothered what she did. Brought a packed lunch so she didn’t have to go out and be seen.’ She stood, took a step back, to look at her work: ‘Mind you, she was good at it.’ She began to cry. It was so unexpected Valentine wondered if it was staged. ‘It’s just the thought,’she said, looking at the corpse lying in its coffin, ‘that she’ll be here, won’t she? One day soon, when you’ve finished, when the coroner’s finished. And then I’ll have to do this, for her.’

  TEN

  They drove up to The Circle beside the field of sunflowers, the heads closing, unruffled by any wind. The incident room stood on the green like a gypsy caravan – next to the St James’ mobile canteen, an awning stretched out over a few plastic chairs, a hatch open, light spilling out, one of the St James’ canteen staff handing out tea in plastic cups to some of the door-to-door team. CSI Miami it wasn’t – and Shaw was briefly thankful that they’d kept the lid on publicity. The last thing the new chief constable wanted was his big media national paper splash overshadowed by a picture of his ace detectives clustered around what appeared to be a lay-by greasy spoon.

  Inside the caravan unit there was a single interview room, a toilet and an office: three cramped desks, three computers online, with the West Norfolk’s logo as screen saver. The temperature had to be eighty degrees Fahrenheit, despite lengthening evening shadows. DC Paul Twine was at one of the desks, in shirtsleeves, a desktop fan almost in his face. Twine was in expensive casuals: Fat Face jeans, open-necked shirt from Next, leather shoes with a light tan, buffed not polished. Twine might be graduate fast-track entry, but he was smart enough to know he was twenty years short of the kind of street nous you needed to be a first-class copper. His strong suit was complex organization, management multitasking. Shaw was aware of his weak suit: that he was desperate to be good at things he wasn’t good at.

  As Shaw jumped aboard the unit rocked on its springs. ‘This isn’t perfect, is it Paul? A tin box in August. We need to do something . . .’

  DC Fiona Campbell was at one of the other desks, talking into a pair of headphones. She finished the call and stood up – all six foot of her, her neck slightly bent to avoid a collision with the tin roof. ‘I’ve sent details on the cyanide capsule to the Home Office, MoD, Department of Health and Interpol,’ she said. ‘We might get something. Tom’s analysed the rubber casing and reckons we’re looking at pre-1960. Maybe even older. And probably not British. You go online you can buy this stuff . . . Mostly former Soviet block – Poland, Byelorussia, Baltic states. 1940s – early fifties. As I say – all Soviet manufactured. It’s an interesting market.’

  ‘Paul, let’s talk outside,’ said Shaw. ‘We need a decent incident room – not an oven on wheels.’ They stood in the shadow of the canteen awning watching two uniformed PCs re-interviewing the elderly man who kept pigeons at No. 2.

  Twine gave Shaw a sheet of paper – the top copy, off a wad of twenty or more. ‘This is the first return off the door-to-door. We’re going back to take statements, but this is a decent summary.’

  Shaw took the paper but didn’t look at it. ‘We’ve done the obvious?’

  ‘None of the East Hills witnesses lives on The Circle,’ said Twine, ‘other than our victim. None of them are related to anyone who lives on The Circle, except the victim’s husband and daughter. None of them were interviewed in the original investigation.’

  Shaw caught Valentine’s eye. Leaving the funeral parlour they’d discussed the news that the dead woman’s brother in law, Aidan Robinson, had been a secret lover back in 1994. If he wasn’t on the list of evacuees he could hardly be their killer. But that didn’t mean he and Marianne hadn’t been blackmailed by Shane White. They needed to talk to Aidan Robinson – and quickly.

  ‘And we’ve run all the neighbours through the system,’ said Twine. ‘In fact, all the residents of The Circle. Nothing screams out. Old bloke at No. 4 was done for assault in 1976 – domestic dispute.’

  ‘Prison?’ asked Valentine.

  Twine speed-read a sheaf of A4 in his hand. ‘No. Six months suspended. I’ve got someone looking out the case notes.’ He rearranged the papers. ‘Woman at No. 2 was done for reckless driving in 2001. £1,000 fine plus a ban. And the victim’s daughter, Teresa, aka Tilly. She was arrested last year in London on the anti-war march.’

  ‘Charged?’ asked Shaw, trying to recall the news bulletin pictures of the crowds clashing in Trafalgar Square.

  ‘No. Processed at Bethnal Green, released under caution. No further action. I can get the papers up from the Met?’

  ‘Right little Rosa Luxembourg our Tilly,’ said Shaw, s
haking his head. But the details were hardly relevant. That was another piece of advice he’d taken to heart from his father: that one of the tricks with a big inquiry was to limit its extent, to take rational decisions, and to resist the temptation to follow every avenue. In the end too many investigations suffocated under their own weight.

  ‘OK Paul, good work. We’re pretty much stymied now until we get the DNA results – that’s going to be Monday. There’s not a lot we can do for now, and there’s no money for overtime, and certainly none for double time on Sunday. But I’ve got funding for one duty officer, so I’d like you to man the incident room just in case. That suit you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Any thoughts?’

  Twine took a lungful of air and thought about what to say. It was a skill Valentine admired in others because he pretty much said what he thought without hesitation.

  ‘Well, given the blank on the door-to-door its odds on whoever was with Osbourne when she died came in via the woods,’ said Twine. ‘Tom found some pine needles on the bedroom floor too; it’s all in the initial forensics report which is up on the secure website. Each of The Circle’s gardens has got a back gate. The woods lead off up into the hills then down to some old estate – there’s a tumbledown wall once you get to the boundary. We’ve had a search team do the first hundred yard apron. There’s plenty of paths. Too dry for prints. So if someone came to see the victim from the woods, and left by the woods, they’d just disappear. If you want to take a good look up there Marianne Osbourne’s brother-in-law – at No. 6 – is your man.’

  ‘Aidan Robinson?’ asked Shaw.

  ‘Yeah. He played here as a kid; he’s always lived in the house. Grew up here. Knows every inch of the place – reckons himself as a bit of a countryman. He’s at home with the sister now looking after Tilly. Plus, he says he saw someone, someone suspicious, out the back about a fortnight ago. ‘Bout noon. He works on a poultry farm up the road but comes home for lunch. Not much of a description: medium height, build. Maybe fair. Says he watched him for ten minutes standing on the edge of the woods, looking down on the houses.’