by Jim Kelly
Three hours later, behind the wheel of the Porsche, he felt restored. He’d left Lena in tears, standing by the car as he drove off, adamant he should take a few days off; rest, give himself a chance; certain, above all, that he shouldn’t drive the car. But he’d set her anxieties aside, aware that the most immediate way he could make himself feel better was to go to work. The fear of imminent disaster which had overtaken him on the beach had receded. He saw it now as irrational, born perhaps of some subconscious anxiety about total blindness.
The North Norfolk coast had flashed by in streaks of blue and green. He’d been in a good mood, on an artificial high, so he’d jogged up the ten flights of stairs to Hadden’s door. The CSI man got the bad news over with indecent haste. ‘Peter, sorry. No match on Roundhay.’ He stood aside from the door. ‘Overnight email, but I thought I’d wait until I saw you.’
Bad news, certainly, Shaw had agreed. But not unexpected. And it told them something: that Roundhay’s version of what he’d seen that day was almost certainly true. That Marianne Osbourne had walked off into the dunes, followed by Shane White. Now the rest of the mass screening results should place the missing jigsaw piece on the table: the name of the man she’d gone into the long grass to meet. Roundhay was in the clear. He’d lied back in 1994, but there was no evidence he’d lied again.
Hadden said there’d been some sort of problem at the lab because they’d phoned him to say they were double-checking the double-checked results. The final email should drop at any moment. Now the little balcony was in the afternoon shade he said he’d get his laptop and they could wait in the fresh air.
The open laptop was silent for twenty minutes. So they talked about kids, swapping tales of rights of passage. Then the iMac pinged. Hadden opened the email file and opened first the earlier message from the Forensic Science Service containing the Roundhay result. Shaw tried to speed-read the text but it was mostly maths – a complex statistical analysis. And there were no names, just coded letters, corresponding to a sheet Hadden had beside the laptop.
Hadden covered his mouth with the back of his fingers. ‘As I said – no match. You know the science here?’
Shaw nodded. They’d done DNA matching at the Met Police College at Hendon.
Hadden hit the inbox button and opened the new email from the FSS. It was about 3,000 words – complex analysis again. Shaw stopped staring at the screen, leant back in the seat, and let his shoulders relax, forced them to relax, his eyes closed, waiting to hear the name of their killer.
‘Right,’ said Hadden. ‘Good job you’re sitting down.’ He went back into the flat and came back with a bottle of wine, a white Burgundy, the glass blushed with condensation. Hadden had the corkscrew in and the cork out in one fluid movement.
Shaw left the glass untouched. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said.
‘Clean sweep,’ said Hadden, taking an inch of wine out of the glass. ‘No match – they finished the whole batch overnight. Given the result they ran it all again this morning. All thirty-five male samples, both from the living and relatives of the dead. No match.’Hadden closed his eyes. ‘From a scientific point of view. From a forensic point of view, I would say that was a disaster. That’s a technical term we boffins use, but you get the drift.’
Shaw pushed the wine glass away by the stem. Hadden’s eyes were still closed, so that Shaw was able to study the freckles clustering on his forehead where the lesion of the skin cancer op still showed. ‘The towel was buried on the beach,’ said Shaw, trying to cling to logic, to any structure that might explain the inexplicable. ‘The bloodstain is
White’s. The skin cells gave us Sample X. The boat took seventy-five people to the island. We brought back seventy-four alive – thirty-five of them men. We’ve taken samples from all thirty-five – thirty in the mass screening, five from relatives of those who’d died since 1994. There was a police unit on the island overnight, and the whole place was subject to both a fingertip search and a thorough examination by two dog units. The killer has to be in our sample.’ He tried to keep any note of antagonism out of his voice, any trace of a witch-hunt, but the ‘we’ was enough to put the forensic scientist firmly on the spot.
‘What are we missing?’ asked Shaw.
Hadden opened his eyes but avoided Shaw’s face.
‘There’s only one answer,’ said Shaw. ‘Sample X was on the towel when it was taken out on the boat.’
Hadden formed his hand into a fist and tapped it on the table. ‘No, Peter.’ His voice had returned to its usual whisper. ‘The science is clear and persuasive. The DNA sample – Sample X – was co-mingled with the victim’s blood cells on the towel. That’s not a term I’ve picked out of the air. It’s a term I’d use in the dock, in court, giving expert evidence. It means the two trace samples of blood and skin were deposited on the towel simultaneously. It is not possible – in the real world – for that to happen in any other way. If you asked me to re-create that double sample in the lab at The Ark I couldn’t do it. No way.’ He held both his hands out as if warming them at an open fire. ‘OK?’
They’d had this discussion before, when Shaw and Valentine had chosen the East Hills case to reopen. He’d talked it through with Hadden, testing his hypothesis, searching for a loophole in the logic. In the real world there wasn’t one. It was airtight.
‘But is it watertight?’ asked Shaw. ‘It’s a country mile out to East Hills but the rip-tide is so bad you have to swim twice that to be sure you don’t get sucked out to sea. Can it be done? Sure. We only discounted the possibility entirely because of the numbers: seventy-five out to East Hills, seventy-four back plus the victim. It adds up. But it doesn’t add up anymore. So maybe someone swam out then swam back.’
Hadden refilled his wine glass. ‘You’re right, we did go through this. You’d have to be an expert swimmer to do it one way, but there and back again? Without being spotted? You’ve got to come ashore, you’ve got to swim back. White was actually still alive when his body was dragged in. The killer had only just struck. Within minutes you had a police launch out, the lifeboat – we checked all this. Witnesses were looking out to sea, scanning the water. The harbour master came out as well, and he was specifically asked to stand off in the channel while the island was secured. Plus, the lifeboat called out the inshore crew and they went round East Hills, checking to see if someone was in the water. So if we’ve got some latter-day Captain Webb on our hands he’d have had to swim out to sea, straight out. We always said it was theoretically possible, Peter. But it’s a one in a million chance.’ Hadden’s eyes were closed; he pressed his lips to his fist.
Shaw recalled a beach barbecue they’d held at the cafe that spring. He’d invited Tom Hadden and he’d spent the evening drinking white wine and gathering driftwood for the fire. At sundown Shaw had suggested a swim. A group of them – thirty strong – had charged into the breaking surf. But Hadden had stayed ashore, explaining he wasn’t a strong swimmer and had never been an enthusiast for the sea. So that two-way marathon swim might look like an Olympic feat to him, but to Shaw it looked very different. He could have done it. Head down, sideways breaths, and a long series of languid dolphin body strokes. Difficult – dangerous even, but not impossible.
‘What other options have I got?’ Shaw closed his palms together as if in prayer.
‘The mass screening’s not foolproof,’ said Hadden. ‘I’ll check back through the DNA matches.’ He tapped the laptop. ‘I’ve no doubts about the samples we took from the suspects still alive. But those we had to do from the families of the dead – just maybe. I’ll see if there’s any long shots.’
‘So, what are we saying? That our killer might be one of the five men who died between 1994 and now, and that the DNA sample we took from their kids, or their mothers or whatever, didn’t give us an accurate reading across to theirs? Because with them we weren’t looking for a direct match – we were looking for a family match – right?’
‘We were careful but you never know. One f
amily secret can screw up any amount of science. We try to stick to maternal lines: it’s pretty difficult to get the identity of someone’s mother wrong. But it’s not always possible to stick with mothers. So if we went for a paternal line there’s a danger – clearly. Exhumation’s the only foolproof method. And we didn’t go down that line because of the cost, which is pretty eye-watering.’
Hadden began to tap out some emails. Shaw retrieved his wine and stood at the edge of the balcony, letting the breeze cool his skin. Was there an upside to bad news? It did mean they could now consider suspects for the killing of Shane White who were not amongst those they’d taken off the island. So who was the obvious suspect now?
‘Joe Osbourne,’ said Shaw, out loud, but Hadden didn’t respond, focusing instead on the statistics on-screen. Joe thought he was Marianne Osbourne’s sweetheart back in 1994 but she was playing the field. That was a motive – the most common and most lethal motive of all: jealousy. What if Marianne was wandering off into the dunes to meet White? Maybe it wasn’t blackmail; maybe it was just sex. Plus Joe had an alibi no one alive could support or disprove. Had he really been in his father’s workshop that afternoon? And when they’d reopened the case and called Marianne in to double-check her statement it had been her husband who’d been the last person to see her alive. And it was Joe who’d phoned in to the funeral parlour to say she wouldn’t make work that day before taking his BSA Bantam down into Wells to open up his shop. What if Marianne had been dead before he left the house?
Shaw phoned Twine at the incident room at The Circle, Creake, and filled him in on the results of the lab tests. The young DC was all for interviewing Joe Osbourne that day. But Shaw counselled caution: by the morning they’d have some idea if their mass screening results were copper-bottomed, and the rest of the team would be in place. And their suspect wasn’t going anywhere. He told Twine to check on Osbourne: nothing heavy, but tell him Shaw and Valentine had some loose ends to tie up and they’d be at the house first thing. And for elimination purposes they’d like to take a DNA sample. ‘Play it softly, Paul,’ said Shaw. ‘Just routine.’
Shaw felt better, energized. But his memory threw up a sound, not an image this time. The chief constable’s grey Daimler, the engine ticking. It had been unpleasant giving Brendan O’Hare good news. Telling him the North Norfolk Constabulary had wasted £400,000 on an abortive mass screening was most definitely bad news.
Shaw’s mobile trilled and he checked a text from Valentine. OVERTIME. I’VE FOUND THE BOATMAN. WELLS RNLI – 4.
When Valentine had mentioned trying to track down the ferryman who’d taken the Andora Star out to East Hills on the day of the murder it had seemed like an academic loose end. Now, suddenly, it seemed like a very good idea. Any idea looked like a good idea. The ferryman had been one of the first on the scene when White’s body was found. Inexplicably he’d not been asked to make a full formal statement back in ’94 – just a cursory one page outline. That mistake had been compounded by Shaw’s own error: leaving him out of the request to attend at St James’ with the other witnesses.
I’LL JOIN YOU. Shaw went back into the flat and worked through the case files on Hadden’s desk until he found a snapshot of Joe Osbourne. He put it in his wallet, patted it once, and left without a word.
FIFTEEN
The lifeboat house at Wells stood a mile from the town, out along The Cut where the channel met the sea, on a bluff of sand. Beyond it the beach opened up, miles of it, running west and dotted with a Sunday crowd, families clustered round tents and windbreaks. Most of the beach huts on the apron of the pinewoods were just in shadow – many open, deckchairs clustered by the wooden steps, which led up into each. The tide had turned, the water draining into Wells’ harbour like sand in an egg-timer, covering a patchwork of sandbars which had been drying in late afternoon heat. Dogs ran in great circles, lapping up the space. A few kites flew, catching the breeze which always sprang up with the turn of the tide, their plastic tails crackling like firewood.
Shaw tapped on the hot roof of the Mazda, startling Valentine, who was listening to the local news. The car was parked by the lifeboat house, with a view north over the sea. The DS got out, as stiff as one of the deckchairs along the sand.
‘You didn’t need to come – I can do this,’ said Valentine. ‘The text was just for info.’ He flexed a hand, trying to get the circulation back. ‘Radio’s picked up the appeal on the cyanide capsule,’ said Valentine. ‘The papers will run it tomorrow. BBC website too.’ They listened as the local commercial radio news broadcast the item. Anyone who knew anything about a supply of cyanide capsules, possibly wartime, should contact police at Lynn. Any such information would be treated in confidence and could assist police in ongoing enquiries.
‘Good work,’ said Shaw. He took a deep breath: ‘I’ve just been with Tom – mass screening results are through.’ He caught Valentine’s eyes – dark, but catching the light. ‘No matches. Not one.’
‘What?’ It was closest Valentine would get to a shout. ‘You’re kidding.’ Sweat prickled his skin, making him shiver.
‘No, I’m not.’ Shaw looked away, allowing a flare of anger to subside. ‘He’ll kick the tyres on the results, but I think we may have run out of luck.’
Valentine looked into the mid-distance, letting the sea air seep out of his lungs. They’d considered the possibility of failure, but only in an academic sense, as the last possible option. He’d spotted the ‘we’ in Shaw’s sentence, although he seriously doubted that the DI’s career would take as big a tumble as his. He was eight years from retirement, and he’d failed to get past a promotion panel three times in the last eighteen months. This wasn’t a bad result for DS George Valentine: it was a disastrous one.
‘Roundhay?’ he asked, a flicker of hope making him pause, a match struck, a fresh Silk Cut in his lips.
‘First up. No match. Not close. Our next best shot has to be Joe Osbourne. He fits the bill: jealous boyfriend. Then an unhappy marriage. Tussle with a hooker.’
‘It was a bit of push and shove. And why’d he kill White?’
‘Maybe Marianne was one of White’s many conquests. Maybe she was being blackmailed and he did the noble thing – turned up to put the frighteners on White. And he could have helped Marianne Osbourne take that pill before setting out to work. I’ve fixed us up with an interview first thing tomorrow at the house. Station later if we get anywhere.’
‘Back to square one,’ said Valentine. ‘That’s where we’ve got.’ He didn’t want to sound bitter, or accusatory, but he failed on both counts. They’d already talked to Joe Osbourne. What did Shaw think they’d get at the second attempt – a confession?
Shaw walked down a slope to the sand and looked at his boots. ‘If he is our East Hills killer then he has to be a swimmer, there and back again. So we need to check that out. It’s all very well posing on the beach. Could Osbourne swim the distance? We always knew that was a loophole. That’s my fault. I got seduced by the numbers. Seventy-five out, seventy-four back.’
Valentine looked out to sea over the marshes. At high tide East Hills was a sliver of sand. The pine trees that marked its spine seemed to be set on the horizon itself – impossibly distant. He’d no more try to swim to it as walk to it. He couldn’t resist pointing out the obvious: ‘He’s an asthmatic. When we told him his wife was dead he passed out. You serious about this?’
Shaw didn’t answer.
Valentine rubbed his hand over his jaw, the sound of skin rubbing on the five o’clock shadow like sandpaper. He still found it hard to believe they’d struck out on the DNA tests. ‘There’s no chance we fucked up the mass screening?’ It wasn’t a question, more a lament.
‘We’ll think it through later but Tom reckons there’s only one possible way out. Maybe there’s a mistake in the DNA profiles of the five men we took off East Hills who are dead. One of the samples could be duff – maybe someone thought they’d keep a family secret. Or there’s a family secret that’s a
secret even to the family. But it’s got to be a long shot.’
‘Any longer than Joe Osbourne turning into Mark Spitz?’ asked Valentine.
A sudden wave broke on the edge of the sand and looking up they saw one of the small fishing boats motoring out along The Cut. ‘Anyway, all that can wait for tomorrow,’ said Shaw. ‘Osbourne’s at home and Paul’s keeping tabs. Meanwhile, let’s do what we should have done eighteen years ago and interview the ferryman.’
Valentine handed Shaw a file, inside of which was a one-page statement. Shaw looked at the close-lettered type and the heat of the day seemed to suck any vitality he had left out through his feet and into the sand. He didn’t really have the energy to read it.
‘Summary?’
‘His name’s Philip Coyle. Known as ‘Tug’. I think I met him once – someone nicked some gear out of his boat and I must have interviewed him. He’s got a small inshore fishing business here at Wells – mainly shellfish, flogging scallops and stuff to the posh pubs for the tourists to eat. He’s on the RNLI crew. Grandfather before him. I checked with the coxswain for personal details: he lives alone in Lynn. Married about fifteen years ago, divorced since. One child, a boy, lives with the mother.’
Valentine cracked the single page of A4 so that it was rigid. ‘Back in ’ninety-four he took the boat out to East Hills, dropped off the seventy-five ticket holders, carried on to Morston where he picked up twenty-eight to go out to Blakeney and see the seals. He ran them back, then came back to East Hills. He gave a statement here at Wells – we didn’t take him back to St James’ with the rest. And we didn’t call him on Saturday for a review. A loophole. So we haven’t got his DNA sample either.’