Death's Door

by Jim Kelly

  Shaw thought of the night-light left beside Arthur Patch’s bed, burning until it ignited the gas in the house, blowing itself out. These flames had proved more tenacious.

  Hadden leant forward, using a pair of forensic callipers to mark the spot where the vertebra of the back showed through the white ash. The bone was black on the surface, but flaking away from the white calcium beneath, like a firestone in a chimney, set behind the hearth to collect and radiate the heat. ‘It’s a slow process, could go on for days,’ said Hadden. ‘We’re going to have to cover it, Peter, cut the oxygen supply, otherwise the head will burn. I’ll need a fire blanket . . .’ he said, looking back at a fireman on the edge of the clearing. Then the CSI man let his eye run over the bundle of flesh and bone. ‘There,’ he said, using the pincers to point. ‘Looks like a torch to me.’

  There was cylinder, reduced to the metal core, and what looked like a reflective disc.

  So night time, thought Shaw. At Hendon they’d done work on victims of fire. There was a common belief that human beings can spontaneously combust – burst into flames, only to be found later, a pile of ashes in a room untouched by fire. But the science was clear. There needed to be a flame first – an intense source of heat, then the flesh burnt slowly, body fat feeding the flame, until nothing was left. The forest fire had flashed past the trapped victim, whatever had been in the rucksack had ignited and provided an intense source of heat for several minutes, igniting the body fat. Then the long, slow burn had begun. Question was: was he dead by the time the flames arrived, or did the fire overcome him?

  The head was chin up, looking at the treetops, so Shaw got to within a few inches of the face. He thought if he did this now, quickly, the image wouldn’t end up in his nightmares. It was certainly the young man from the Docking Hill demo, the one who’d kept pace with the Porche. Had it only been last Friday? They’d been driving down to Wells for the East Hills press conference. The young man with the strawberry birthmark had put his hand on the passenger side sill, and Shaw had noticed the smart, stylish watch which showed the movement of the moon, catching the sunlight. ‘Should be a Rolex – separate windows for the sun and moon,’ he said.

  Hadden began to sift some of the ash at the edge of the smouldering torso.

  Shaw thought about Tilly Osbourne, up on the high lane with the demonstrators on the day her mother died. And Aidan Robinson, her uncle, had been up to the demos too, showing solidarity in the cause. And there’d been the placard, discarded in the hallway of No. 5, The Circle . . .

  Save Our Unspoilt Landscape.

  SOUL

  Hadden stood, a charred wristwatch held at arm’s length with callipers. ‘Sun and moon,’ he said.

  Shaw edged one last inch closer. The mouth of the victim was open, revealing good teeth, still white. Shaw thought he could smell toothpaste, but wondered if it was just an olfactory hallucination, prompted by the pristine dentistry. Either way he had managed to put aside the stench of cooking meat, so that beyond it he could detect pine needles, which reminded him of Marianne Osbourne’s deathbed. Sweet pine needles. And then there was the scent he should have detected that day by her body: a thin trace of almonds in the air. The prickling hairs on his neck made his spine arch. ‘Cyanide,’ he said.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Valentine had taken a room at The Ship at Wells-next-the-Sea for the night. He lay on the bed for an hour, in the dark, his head on a pile of four pillows, so that he could look out the bay window towards the sea. A moonless night, the harbour was just red and green navigation lights, motionless between the dead black water of high tide. Downstairs he could hear life in the bar, a one-armed bandit shunting, the base note on the TV’s sound system, but no voices: Monday night, the hour for serving tourists food long gone, so maybe a local or two, but otherwise the bar would be empty, over-lit. There’d be a late rush from the campsites, but mid-evening was the graveyard shift.

  The image he was trying to dispel was of the smouldering corpse they’d found in the woods. If he could erase that, free his mind from the moment, he could face a drink; that was Plan A. There was a Plan B: he could have the drink first, and that would almost certainly work; it had in the past. But he’d had a call from Jan Clay, who said she’d found out something that might help the East Hills inquiry and could they meet? He looked at his watch: 8 p.m. at Buccaneers’, a wine bar in the Dutch Barge on the quayside. For some odd reason it was important to Valentine that he turned up sober: cold sober. So he’d live with the image for an hour or two, pretending he was worrying away at the case: motives, suspects, evidence. But really he was just staring at that image, through the dark glass of the bay window.

  He’d been on his feet for five hours since they’d found the corpse in the woods. They’d left the pathologist, Dr Kazimierz, at the scene. She’d been unable to find evidence of a cyanide capsule in the victim’s mouth, but was pretty certain that was how he died. The smell was distinctive and the man’s throat muscles were set in spasm, closing his windpipe – a classic sign, post-mortem, of cyanide poisoning. Shaw and Valentine had returned to The Circle to get a preliminary ID of the victim from his fellow demonstrator, Tilly Osbourne. The young man with the birthmark was called Paul Holtby. She didn’t know much: he was the regional organizer for SOUL!, and she thought he lived at Morston, along the coast. Single, committed, serious and efficient, Twine had got the local community copper at Morston round to the house. His nearest living relative was an aunt at the same address and she’d agreed to do a formal ID in the morning. Holtby had a flat in an old barn behind the main house on Morston quay. He’d last been seen by the aunt on Sunday afternoon at about five when he’d let himself into the main house to use the washing machine. Twine was running the name through the national computer. They’d get the team out to the demo at the wind farm in the morning, collect statements on the spot, try and build a picture. First question: why was Holtby in the woods at night? Second question: did he have any link to the original East Hills killing?

  Out on the black water of the harbour a light winked out in a yacht cabin. Valentine slipped into an uneasy sleep. When he next looked at the Rolex it was a few minutes before eight. Buccaneers’ was below the deck of the Dutch barge, a central staircase dropping into what had been the main cabin. It was empty except for a party of German hikers, a family off one of the camp sites, the barman and Jan: she looked impossibly young, in jeans and a silk shirt, the neat blond hair lying perfectly. Valentine turned down a seat and ordered a pint – the Buccaneer served its beer from a barrel on the bar, and watching the barman took up another minute. Then they had to talk to each other.

  ‘We found a body in the woods,’ said Valentine, lifting the pint to his lips with a steady hand.

  ‘The barman told me,’ said Jan. ‘He’s pretty much Sky News round here. Not much left, right? And Joe Osbourne – arrested, charged?’ She shivered, but only in a make-believe way. She’d been married to a policeman for nearly twenty years so Valentine guessed she’d become inured to the intrusions of death. She popped a nut between her lips and Valentine noticed that she left a smear of colour on her fingertips which she expertly removed by running her fingertips over the bar towel.

  Valentine talked her through as much of the detail as he could. He was beginning to enjoy himself, thinking that he always used to talk to Julie about his day. But when they’d finished the drink Jan held up a bunch of keys. ‘Follow me,’ she said.

  They walked up the High Street, then into an alley lit by an old gaslight converted to electricity. A sign hung, as if outside an old inn, and on it was drawn a wrecked ship, men struggling ashore with barrels held aloft. The word MUSUEM was picked out in fake gold coins. She expertly unlocked the door, then reached inside and hit numbers into a security pad. ‘I was going to show you tomorrow,’ she said, flicking on lights to reveal a lobby, dominated by a single black and white reproduction of the quayside crowded with sailing ships. ‘But we’re closed Tuesdays, so I got the keys. I’m
glad I did now. You need to see it.’

  She led the way through a room full of glass cabinets cluttered with fossils. At the back, near a fire exit, was a small lecture theatre with a video screen set up in front of six empty plastic chairs. Beyond was one last room, and over the door a hand-painted sign which read:

  THE INVASION COAST

  North Norfolk on the front line: 1939–42

  The room was crowded with display boxes, the walls covered in framed pictures and memorabilia. Valentine noted a large picture of a Lancaster bomber on a grass runway, a brick conning tower in the background. Another showed an artillery gun on the edge of a pine wood, set on what looked like bronze rails, the narrow muzzle pointing skywards.

  ‘We do an info sheet for each room,’ she said, unfolding a piece of A4. ‘You can have it. All you need to know now is this . . .’ She took a deep breath. ‘In the first years of the Second World War the government set up this weird secret army. They called them Auxunits, the dullest name they could think of. Later they got called The Stay Behind Army, but that was after the war. During the war almost no one knew they were there. The idea was simple: if there was an invasion these men would go to ground, then come out and cause mayhem behind the lines once the Germans had moved on towards London. They’d hide in what they called OB’s – observation bases. Holes in the ground really, dugouts: but they were well trained, well armed. This is a list of the stuff they were given.’

  There were two or three documents in a single glass case. Jan put a fingertip on the glass above the smallest. Valentine squinted, struggling to read the lines, amazed at how haphazard the letters were on manual typewriters, even on an official document.

  ‘I’d like to claim I spotted this, but one of the curators heard your appeal on the radio. He thought you should know.’

  LIST OF ARMS, AMUNITIONS STORES and EQUIPMENT required for one Patrol, Auxunits.

  1. ARMS

  7 Revolvers .38 American

  2 Rifles .300

  7 knives fighting

  3 knobkerries

  48 Grenades, 36 M. 4 secs.

  3 Cases S. T. Grenades

  2 Cases A.W. Bottles

  1 Rifle .22 with silencer

  1 Thompson Sub-machine Gun

  2. EXPLOSIVES

  4 Auxunits (boxes containing explosives and concomitants)

  3. AMUNITION

  40 rds .38 American

  200 rds .300

  1,000 rds .45 for S.M.G.

  200 rds .22

  4. The provision of one Elephant Shelter for construction work. The necessary equipment for furnishing the base i.e. one Tilley lamp, two Primus stoves, Elsan chemical closet.

  5. EQUIPMENT

  7 Holsters (Leather American)

  7 Groundsheets

  7 blankets

  7 pairs of rubber boots

  7 water bottles, carriers and slings

  1 set of equipment Thomson sub-machine gun

  1 Pair of wire cutters

  1 monocular and case

  6 cyanide capsules

  Valentine speed-read the lot and didn’t see anything. ‘Sorry?’ She put her finger on the glass right above the last line. Valentine straightened his back and there was an audible crack from his vertebra. He blinked three times, and read it out loud . . . ‘Six cyanide capsules. Jesus, Jan. You superstar.’

  Jan Clay beamed.

  Then Valentine’s shoulders slumped. ‘But this is seventy-five years ago. So what are we saying – that there’s one of these dugouts – out there, and still there, and someone’s got access to these pills?’

  She was shaking her head before he’d finished. ‘No. It’s possible, but no. I’m not saying that. These things were closed down by the end of the war, most of them filled in. The gear was supposed to go back to Whitehall but, you know, there was a war on. What if someone squirreled some of the gear away? That I can imagine, can’t you? A cigar box somewhere in an attic: one of the pistols, perhaps, some bullets and the pills.’

  Valentine looked through the glass at the old document, its jumbled type and foxed corners making it seem like a message from another, lost, world. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  ‘There’s more,’ she said. ‘I checked with one of the archivists at the county museum. A lot of the records were burned but we do know there were several of these units on the North Norfolk coast. Locations are sketchy – precise locations unknown. But there was a persistent rumour after the war that they’d set one up at Creake in 1939, and that the dugout was up near that ruin – the Warrenner’s Lodge. When English Heritage took it over in the eighties they even did a geophysical survey – didn’t find much, just a shadow of the old warren underneath. But what if it was up in the woods, George?’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Shaw settled into his pace, bare feet thudding into wet sand, his work clothes and boots stuffed into the rucksack on his back. The night sea breeze was heavy with ozone, and he dragged in lungfuls, but still he could smell what they’d found in the woods. The charred corpse, a human candle: the stench of it was like a second skin on him, and he was desperate to shed it. When he got to the house he’d swim, then let the sea breeze dry him off, so that all that would be left would be salt, a pure crust. He looked along the beach towards the cottage and shop, the Surf! flag floodlit, pointing inland, with its blue dolphin on a white wave. Standing on the sand in a splash of light from the café was a uniformed police officer – male, on a radio, in shirtsleeves. Shaw picked up his running pace, cutting up the beach slope, feeling the air rasp in his throat over the final one hundred meters.

  ‘Problem?’ he asked, coming easily to a halt, his chest heaving, but his breathing already picking up its regular rhythm. He pressed the stopwatch on his wrist to record his time.

  The PC’s eyes widened at the sight of the force’s most high-profile DI – in shorts and a T-shirt marked Run For Your Life.

  ‘My wife runs this place,’ said Shaw, by way of explanation. Ms Lena Braithwaite was the name over the door. She’d kept her maiden name after they’d married – a mark of independence and, as an only child, a way of keeping her family name alive; a delight for her father.

  ‘Shoplifters, sir – a gang, over from the Midlands, we think. Two or three shops in town too – quite a haul.’

  Lena appeared from the cafe, stepping lightly down on to the sand but dragging her toes as she walked, as she always did when her mood was down. She walked to Shaw and kissed him lightly on the lips, resting her forehead against his. The PC studiously studied his notebook.

  ‘How many kids, men, women – what we got?’ asked Shaw, pulling off the sweaty T-shirt and draping it over his shoulder.

  ‘Maybe a dozen of them – we think it’s a white van job. Traffic are keeping an eye on the A47. All men, usual profile. Eighteen to twenty-five.’

  Shaw’s eyes narrowed and he tried to remember the PC’s name. Any standard description of a gang of away-day thieves would have included their ethnicity. Perhaps the young constable had been intimidated by Lena’s Barbadian skin.

  The North Norfolk coast’s only mass tourist market was the East Midlands – Leicester, Coventry, Rugby. If the forecast was right they’d get thousands for the day trip. With the ethnic mix came a heightening of tension along the beaches, but it rarely boiled over into anything more than some name calling and a push’n’shove in the pubs. The pickpocket and shoplifting gangs tended to be mainly white, unemployed, and liquored-up. It was hardly a problem at all further east – the mileage limited the day-trippers to the campsites and amusement arcades of Hunstanton.

  Shaw took Lena’s hand. ‘Black, white, Asian?’

  The PC’s Adam’s Apple wobbled. ‘White, mainly. Maybe one or two of Asian descent.’

  ‘They got three wet suits . . .’ said Lena, stepping back, putting her feet shoulder-wide in the sand the way Shaw did. ‘Just snipped off the security rings, which isn’t very encouraging. They tried to force the case with the watches but it held. I was
over in the cafe, an old woman was taken ill. I think they just took their chance.’

  The PC closed his notebook. ‘CCTV’s a thought,’ he said.

  Shaw was close enough to see some of the light fade from Lena’s eyes.

  ‘All the shops they targeted are camera-free.’ He counted them off on his fingers: ‘Turner’s Gift Shop, toy and model shop in the arcade, and Menzies. Worth thinking about.’ He said he’d call back later in the week or earlier if they managed to spot the white van on its return trip. ‘But you know,’ he said, shrugging. ‘It’s a white van, on the M6. Sorry.’

  Shaw helped Lena take an inventory of the shop. Fran came back from a day with friends in Wells and they told her what had happened. She ran to her room to check her things, even though Lena told her the thieves hadn’t been in the house, and that she’d already checked every room.

  Later, Shaw ran back to the lifeboat house at Old Hunstanton and the pub beyond – the Mariners’ Arms – where he had a pint of Guinness while he waited for three lots of fish and chips, a weekend treat, midweek, to cheer them up. The bar was packed with tourists, the picnic tables outside too, the sky starlit.