Death's Door

by Jim Kelly

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’ he said, holding out the hand now, palm down, by way of apology.

  She shook her head quickly so that he wouldn’t go on. She’d been married to DS Peter Clay, Valentine’s partner at Wells for most of his years in the town. Clay had been born in Wells, the son of a boatyard owner who’d gone bankrupt in the fifties. DS Clay had died the year before. Bowel cancer? Maybe. They’d sent flowers from Lynn but he hadn’t signed the card.

  ‘We’re OK,’ she said, and Valentine struggled to remember the details. Two daughters, he thought, grown up and married. ‘I do this afternoons and early evenings,’ she said, tugging at the white chef’s overall. ‘Sit it out at the museum in the mornings at the front desk. Pin money, but it all helps. And there’s a pension from the job.’

  The Job. To insiders, always The Job.

  Valentine knew the little museum, up an alley off the High Street, half a dozen rooms crammed with smugglers’ memorabilia, old photos and a gallery full of naval paintings including one, in pride of place, of Nelson up at Burnham Thorpe, a painted ship behind him, upon a painted ocean.

  She nodded at his pint, took no answer for yes, and went into The Ship. He followed, hauling himself up when she was gone, then watched a silent TV in the bar as she ordered, a televised press conference from Norwich about a missing child. But he wasn’t concentrating. He was thinking about the first time he’d met Jan. He’d got a flat in town above a charity shop and he was looking for a cleaner – someone to do some washing too, iron a few shirts. His partner Pete Clay said his wife would do it. Ten quid a week, every Tuesday. He’d never met her – she had a key – then he’d gone home one morning because he’d left a case file by the telly. She’d been there, ironing by the radio. That was a summer’s day too, and she’d been in shorts and a T-shirt. It was the first time he’d thought to himself how much she must know about him – being in his space, reading detail into the discarded books, the empty bottles, the Christmas cards taking up too little space on the mantelpiece.

  ‘I could have got that,’ he said, taking the fresh pint.

  The barman waved away the crumpled fiver she’d put on the bar top. Back outside they sat together on the top of the wall, like children, kicking their heels.

  Valentine recalled that DS Clay had been teetotal, just one of the reasons they’d never been an effective partnership. At least Shaw would take a Guinness: rarely more than one, but it was the one that counted, because you can’t trust anyone who doesn’t drink, because they can’t trust themselves. Valentine was honest enough to admit that was what all alcoholics said, although he didn’t think of himself as an alcoholic. A toper, at worse.

  ‘Break?’ he asked.

  ‘Twenty minutes. It’s like World War Three in the bathroom in there. Enough to put you off fish and chips for life.’ She sipped at her cider steadily, like it was doing her some good. Her foot tapped to an imaginary beat.

  A tourist boat was unloading at the quayside. Her name was Christine and according to the chalkboard she’d been out to Blakeney Point to see seals and then on to Morston. Twelve pounds for the round trip, five pounds for kids. Little yellow tickets littered the deck as the passengers got out. Two twitchers, sat tight, sitting opposite each other, examining each other at high magnification.

  Jan looked at Valentine’s profile – the hatchet, facing out to sea. ‘Pete said they cleared your name, that they’d have to give you the rank back.’

  He turned to look at her. ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘Still on the cornflakes diet?’ she asked, looking out to sea.

  She’d have seen the evidence in the flat. A catering-sized box of Kellogg’s, milk delivered to the door on the street, and nothing else in the fridge.

  ‘Six white shirts,’ she said.

  The Christine’s engine burst into life, the skipper getting ready to take her out and moor her to one of the buoys.

  ‘Nice little earner,’ said Valentine, nodding at the boat.

  ‘Needs to be. Day after August Bank Holiday this place is deserted. Got to make it while you can . . .’

  One of the many things which had infuriated him about living in Wells was that, like any small seaside town, there was a kind of low-level conspiracy against visitors. The locals formed an invisible network dedicated to extracting every last pound from anyone who stepped out of a car, got off a bus, or trekked in along the coastal path. Short of charging admission they made sure every day-tripper paid their way. There was an almost religious feel to this collective attitude to strangers to which he’d always been immune. He was always an outsider, he felt, wherever he lived.

  ‘The boat that goes out to East Hills?’ he asked.

  She looked down at her feet, her head hung, as if suddenly disappointed.

  ‘We’re on the case again,’ he admitted.

  ‘I know.’ She hugged herself. ‘Charmers’ boat, along there . . .’ She nodded east to an empty berth. An A-board was up, not in chalk, but sign-written . . .

  VISIT SUNSHINE ISLAND

  Outward bound: 10.45

  Return: 5.30

  Tickets: £15 adults. £7.50 children.

  Remember: there are no facilities on the island. So travel prepared!

  ‘Always has been Charmers’ boat.’ She thought for a second. ‘The Andora Star. The only thing that’s changed is the name of the island. After the murder, the publicity, they dropped East Hills. Looked a bit sick last year, mind you, Sunshine Island – we had a monsoon in August.’

  ‘Same boat?’ he asked.

  ‘No, new. Couple of years now. That’s the old one . . .’ She pointed across the channel to the marsh where a wide inshore clinker-built boat lay half sunk in the mud. It had a single stand-up cabin for the skipper and a central engine cowling, the twin flaps broken off to reveal a rusted fuel tank.

  Valentine tried to imagine it chugging into the beach at East Hills that afternoon in 1994. A slick of arterial blood still mixing with the salty water.

  ‘New one’s smart. Sonar. Radio. Automatic life rafts,’ said Jan. ‘Rumour is they’re on to the Wildlife Trust to get permission for a floating dock. Then they could tie up, flog the trippers drinks off the boat. Double the takings.’

  ‘Skipper?’

  ‘They change. Move around.’

  It was a thought. Valentine tried to recall all the statements he’d read from the suspects the police had lifted off the beach that afternoon in 1994. Had they got one off the skipper of the boat? Did it matter?

  She put down the half of cider. ‘Right. Final treat.’ There was an ice-cream van parked by the water’s edge. ‘You?’ He shook his head, draining the pint, thinking he might have a third. He watched her queue for the ice cream until she took a cornet, a ninety-nine, and again, he noticed, no money changed hands.

  ‘Anyone pay for anything in this town?’ he asked when she got back.

  ‘They get free chips – it’s the seaside black market. Swings and roundabouts.’ Over behind the quayside amusement arcade they could see a small Ferris wheel turning.

  ‘East Hills?’ she asked, crunching into the wafer cone. ‘You know Pete was on that – they all were.’

  Valentine rocked his head, feeling one of his neck bones grate. It was before his time – three years before he’d been sent to Wells – but even then the case was still open. Every year they’d get pressure from St James’ to re-interview, kick the tyres, make sure there wasn’t something they’d missed.

  ‘Mass screening’s over,’ said Valentine. He filled his lungs, suddenly short of breath, but with one long, controlled intake he managed to disguise the usual heave of the chest. ‘We’ve counted them all in, and we’ve counted them all out. Come Monday we should have a name.’ They watched a teenager being escorted off the floating pub by a man with grey hair tied in a pigtail. ‘What did Pete think?’ he asked.

  ‘Not much. He wasn’t exactly driven, was he, Georgie? Just another case; besides, St James’ were all over it l
ike a horse blanket, so none of the locals had much chance anyway. He knew the kid, the Aussie.’ She remembered something, opening both hands out, fingers extended. ‘I know what he did say. The kid had saved some girl out on the sands that summer, out with her pony. Pete went down to the lifeboat house to take custody of the child while they got someone from the riding school to contact the parents. The pony swam for it but the Aussie kid cut its bridle free, case it got caught up. So he had a knife, didn’t he? Pete looked back at the inventory from his flat and what he had out on the beach the day he died. No knife. No sign of a knife. So perhaps he pulled it first? He told your mob – St James’. She narrowed her eyes, watching a varnished yacht motoring down The Cut. Then, not looking, she reached out her hand and touched Valentine’s shoulder. ‘See you again,’ she said, pushing down on the bone to lever herself up. She straightened her back. Valentine watched her go, engulfed by the crowd that was queuing now for a fish supper. He stood, picked up a yellow boat ticket from the ground, and decided against the third pint.

  THIRTEEN

  Sunday

  Shaw took his coffee and went out on the stoop of the café. Inside, Lena was making sandwiches, setting out cakes and fruit, matching chairs to tables. It was a moment which always annoyed him: the cottage wasn’t really big enough for a kitchen of its own so they’d decided they’d eat, as a family, in the café. So it was his home, Fran’s too, but breakfasts were always consumed on a conveyor belt. Then the moment would be gone, which was a shame, because it was one of the moments he liked best: a cup of coffee, the day ahead, the sound of the sea through the open windows. Even on a Sunday he had to make way for the paying customers. Later they’d wonder if this little peak of stress and anxiety had sparked what was to follow.

  ‘Are you really going into work?’ asked Lena, her head at the window, her hands in blue gloves. ‘Look at it.’ she added, glancing at the horizon, where a single fair-weather cumulus was sailing by like a sky galleon.

  ‘I have too. Tom phoned – he thinks he’s getting the mass screening results early.’ He wanted to explain but she’d gone. The lab in Birmingham had been in touch, a job had fallen through so they’d been able to put all their resources on the DNA checks. They were just running double-checks before emailing coded results.

  He’d have swum if the sea had been in but it was low tide, dead water, and all he could see was sand, with blue bands of trapped water, running parallel with the coast, right out towards the horizon. If he walked a mile he might get into five feet of water. This was the reason Old Hunstanton had a hovercraft as well as an inshore lifeboat: so that it could operate in this strange landscape of nearly-land, threaded with nearly-sea. It wasn’t his favourite time on the beach. The view was bleak, bleaker for the sun and the sky which both needed the sea to provide a reflection.

  To break his darkening mood he walked out, still holding the small china espresso cup, to the edge of the first lagoon. Technically, he knew, this was a ‘lead’ of water – an open stretch, but pronounced as a dog’s lead, not the metal. Navigating the North Norfolk coast was all about knowing how these leads joined up or, more to the point, didn’t. What was a real surprise to many sailors was just how undulating this landscape could be. Down in the water you could be several feet below the nearest sand bar and unable to see beyond it, to the next lead. In its own way it was a maze.

  He stood at the crest of the nearest sand bar and, using his good eye, tried to locate his three regular landmarks – to the south, about two miles, the small stump of the lighthouse on the cliffs at Hunstanton. Then the Boston Stump, the 270-foot-high parish church in the Lincolnshire town on the far side of The Wash, a landmark so unmissable Winston Churchill wanted it blown up during the war to stop German bomber pilots using it to navigate their way to London. And finally, the single breakwater at Holme to the north, the only unshifting feature on the exposed outward curve of the coast, as it turned to face the open North Sea. This routine – configuring his own position from these three points – was a ritual that helped. It made him feel rooted, as if he had some innate, onboard GPS.

  He turned to look back at the café. Fran was sat on the stoop, morose, unhappy to face the rest of the weekend with her parents both working. She held something on her lap and Shaw guessed it was a DS, her favourite game, SinCity, loaded up. It was Shaw’s favourite too – a complex 3D fantasy in which you were able to build a city and watch it grow, spreading a latticework of streets and highways across an imaginary landscape. He wondered, for the first time, whether she’d have been happier growing up in a real city. Summers were fine because she had the beach and a steady stream of visiting friends, but the winters were lonelier and, perhaps for a child, dispiriting. And he wondered, but had never shared the anxiety with Lena, if they were robbing her of the magic of the sea by giving it to her every day of her life.

  Looking once more to the horizon he tried to glimpse open water. But in the mid-distance he saw instead two black specks: seals, undoubtedly, lounging on a sandbar summit where the sun had already dried out the damp colour to leave it a poster paint yellow.

  The image flickered. Shaw’s heartbeat jumped, an injection of adrenaline making his blood race. He closed his eyes, trying to think of nothing. The sensation in his right, damaged eyeball was like one of those tics you can get above or below the eye when a fibrillating micro-muscle signals how tired you really are. But he wasn’t tired. He’d slept well. He opened his good eye and focused on the two seals, but the image flickered again, and this time there was a pain in the good eye – right through it, as if the ball had been lanced with a needle. Both eyes closed, he knelt on the sand, placed the cup carefully down, and willed his heartbeat to slow. It took a minute, and even then he knew it hadn’t returned to normal. He stood, distressed to feel the muscles holding his left knee straight were unsteady too, so that the kneecap trembled.

  Looking south he found the lighthouse tower. The image was clear. But when he traced the distant horizon for the Boston Stump the image blurred; two horizons suddenly separating, then meshing. Stress was pumping water into the eye which made the image mist completely, so he closed both eyes again.

  He waited, feeling his heart thud, the sound of blood in his ears. Without the visual world he felt adrift, the distant sound of waves falling adding to a feeling of disorientation. What next? Wait, then open his eyes and get back to the cafe. Was this what he’d see for ever? The thought made him sick. Even if his vision cleared he’d have to see the eye specialist. Perhaps they’d have to take the blind eye out because that might help. Or operate on the good eye. He could see the word ‘blind’ on a page, diagrams of the eyeball above and below. The world for Shaw was intensely visual; the loss of it would change him for ever. And then, sickeningly, he remembered what he’d tried to forget over these last few days and weeks – the rapid and almost preternatural heightening of his powers of smell and hearing.

  His body had known, even before his brain; it had begun to prepare for blindness, honing other senses to take the place of the pictures by which he navigated his way through life. He couldn’t stop himself then, trying to still the panic by opening his eyes. The fluttering stopped and the image sharpened: one of the seals was trying to get in the water, like a sleeping bag on the move, while the other rolled away. But the eyeball still felt wrong, as if he’d suddenly become hyper-aware of its movements, synapses opening up in his brain to monitor its position in real time. A footstep behind him sucked at the sand and he turned to find Lena just a few feet away, with a fresh cup of espresso.

  ‘Peace offering,’ she said, then froze. ‘Peter, you’re crying.’ She kept walking towards him and put her free hand round his neck, gripping the base of his skull, sliding her fingers through the close-cropped hair. ‘Peter, what is it? Peter, look at me.’ And they were the words he’d always remember from that moment. ‘Look at me.’

  FOURTEEN

  Tom Hadden had a flat in the Baltic Tower, a ten-storey converted grain
mill in the centre of Lynn, overlooking the Boal Quay and the old cranes, the centrepiece of a miniature waterside Manhattan. Around it clustered the smaller medieval lookout towers the merchants of the town had built to keep a watch on The Cut as their ships came home, testament to the town’s three centuries as one of the great ports of Europe. The Baltic Tower was the highest, a misplaced Victorian statement of confidence in Lynn’s prospects as a port in the age of the railway.

  Double-glazed windows looked out west, over the river to the flatlands along the shore of The Wash. Hadden had a door open on to a small wrought-iron balcony which gave a view north towards the sea. Shaw stood with a cup of tea, Earl Grey, with a twist of lemon, and an ice cube shaped like the letter H.

  Concentrating on the cup, Shaw tried to forget about his eye. He studiously avoided the panoramic view, any strain on his vision. The pain had gone; his close-up vision was clear and in an odd way each minute that passed without a return of the flickering images made his spirit rise: perhaps it had been a one-off, a momentary response to stress or overworking the single lens. Talking to Lena had helped. She’d found the name of the specialist who’d treated him at Lynn after his accident and checked he was still practising at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Switchboard had routed her to an answerphone and she’d left a request for an urgent appointment. Then she’d bathed the eye in warm water and massaged Shaw’s neck and scalp. She said his muscles had been hard with tension and that he’d never been good at knowing when he was overworking. Shaw had phoned ahead to postpone his meeting with Hadden until mid-afternoon, then rested, his eyes closed, pretending to sunbathe while Fran played nurse – bringing food, reading snippets out of the papers. Then he’d let her go, free to run to the beach huts near the town where a school friend would be out with her family; a school friend with her own DS, so that they could link them up and play building cities together.