by Jim Kelly
They let him lead the way down the short corridor. Valentine, curious, poked his head into one of the oil drums. Catching movement in the tail of his eye he jerked his head back just in time to avoid a lunging fish head with needle teeth, the jaws clamping in mid-air with a dull plastic click.
‘Careful,’ said Cobley. ‘Rock Salmon – eel to you and me. Isn’t safe till you lop its head off.’
‘Christ,’ said Valentine. The fish reared again, revealing a snake-like body as thick as a weightlifter’s arm. One of the other bins clicked with crabs.
Cobley pulled out a metal stool and sat down. ‘Sorry, bit shaken. I found him but I can’t get over the sight of it. He was such a big bloke. I could see it was him from the face but he just looked so …’ he struggled for the word to match the image, ‘… insubstantial.’
‘What time are we talking?’ prompted Shaw.
‘I usually get in at seven but Shrimp’s had his own keys for years. Drops his catch early if that’s how the tides run. Bream, Lemon Sole, a few crabs, lobster, eel.’
‘So this is his catch – in the bins?’
Cobley nodded, a hand covering his eyes.
‘Tell me about Shrimp,’ said Shaw, emphasizing the affectionate diminutive.
Cobley needed a bit more time to pull himself together so they went outside into the yard. There was a small patch of garden, and a stone seat sequined with shells. Cobley turned down a cigarette from Valentine but said he could murder a coffee from the café next door: cappuccino with an extra shot, nutmeg not chocolate. So much, thought Shaw, for the simple old-fashioned village fishmonger.
Henry ‘Shrimp’ Davies, they were told, was a fisherman, born and bred in the Burn Valley. He lived in a cottage in Docking – one of the inland villages where property prices were less eye-watering than the Burnhams – although he often slept with his boat down at Brancaster Staithe: a fifteen-footer, which provided him with a decent living, as it had his father. He drank in the Railway at Docking, lived alone, ex-Merchant Navy. A dog called Penny had once been his constant companion. His age was a secret he’d never divulged, according to Cobley. Stature alone made it difficult to guess.
‘I’d say the wrong side of sixty,’ said the fishmonger. ‘Strong as a horse, mind. But yeah – I know for a fact he supplied my father back in the early seventies. Then he went in the Merchant. They’ll have the facts, I guess.’
‘Girlfriends?’ asked Valentine.
‘Not really. Shy type – all right chatting with his mates on the dock, but otherwise he’d just clam up. One or two of the younger lads said he’d been spotted in Lynn, near the docks, in the pubs. Well – I guess that’s shorthand for them all being down there. Fishing doesn’t leave you a lot of time for picking up girls. They tend to take the more direct route …’
‘Prostitutes?’ asked Shaw. ‘Boys or girls?’
Cobley held up both hands. ‘Girls. I’m just saying you wouldn’t go down there otherwise. So that’s my guess. I can give you some names for the other lads. They’re a bit wilder. Shrimp tagged along.’
‘So, we’re saying he kept himself to himself,’ said Valentine, cheerfully churning out the usual cliché. Further evidence that other people led lives as dull as his was always welcome, even if there were hints here that something more interesting might lie beneath the surface. He tried to imagine the hulking Shrimp Davies slipping into one of the street corner pubs in Lynn’s red light district.
‘And he delivered to you – what, daily, weekly?’ asked Shaw. The detective was having trouble concentrating because the smell of fish – especially fresh fish – always held a hint of iron. It was odd that cold blood seemed more pungent than hot.
‘Well, you can’t really deal with the sea like that, Inspector. If it’s blowing they won’t go out. But most days in summer he’d leave two or three of those oil drums just inside the shop. There’s ice in the fridge boxes and he’d chuck a bit in to keep it all fresh. That was it. And the samphire, of course – a drumfull in season.’
Valentine carried on asking questions but Shaw returned to the shop. The pathologist, Justina Kazimeirz, lay half inside the glass counter, just one toe on the ground, reaching in to examine the victim’s skin in situ. She was currently brushing his thin hair with a fine-tooth comb, edging anything lodged between the follicles into a small glass dish. Shaw’s arrival did not divert her from the task.
Shaw, on his haunches, studied Davies’ face. The paleness of death was not quite complete, so that there was a rustic echo in his complexion of a life spent in the elements, at sea, or on a beach, running cod on a line.
Eventually disentangling herself from the counter, Kazimeirz slipped a muslin face mask down to her chest. She wore a head-lamp and a complete forensic white suit. For a moment the heavy Polish features were animated by genuine pleasure in seeing the DI, and Shaw caught a hint of the beautiful girl she once must have been. Then, like a digital image reloading, her face emptied of feeling.
‘Shaw,’ she said. ‘I think there is one question for which you seek an answer,’ she added, a hand to her back. ‘The clothes?’
She beckoned Shaw closer, so that he was on one side of the glass counter front and she was on the other, her head-light picking out the wound on the chest.
‘A point-blank shot,’ she said. ‘Residue on the skin here …’ She used a metal stylus to tease at the torn flesh. Shaw made himself focus on the point, reminding himself that the best chance he had of catching this man’s killer was to use his body as evidence.
‘At this range you’d expect fibres of the shirt, coat, whatever he was wearing, caught in the wound,’ said Kazimeirz. ‘But it is clean. Totally. I think at this point, when the shot is fired, he was naked.’
Outside they could hear the murmur of the crowd which had gathered beyond the scene-of-crime tapes. A single laugh was followed by a sudden hush of respect.
‘Tom tells me there are bloodstains out in the back alley by a van? The back of the skull shows bruising, and two wounds. One is a glancing blow, the other smashed the skull. Certainly enough to lead to unconsciousness – even for a man of this strength.’
‘So he was unconscious when the shot was fired?’
‘Perhaps. I think he gets out of the van, goes about his work, the blow is delivered, he falls, the second blow knocks him out. Or – and this I prefer – this first blow is not enough. There is a scuffle, perhaps he fights back. Only then does the second blow end it. The clothes are removed. Then a single shot to finish it.’
She stood back, evaluating the body. ‘But the nakedness is the key, yes?’
‘Locard’s Principle,’ said Shaw.
Kazimeirz shrugged but it was difficult to see any other reason why the victim had been stripped of his clothes. Locard’s Principle of exchange was the basis of forensic science. Every killer took evidence away from a crime scene, and left evidence behind. There was a swap – between killer and victim, or between killer and crime scene. Destroy the clothes and you radically reduce the chances of leaving behind trace evidence on the material. The killer, or killers, knew they had to manhandle Davies, so they took his clothes off, probably using gloves. By now those clothes would be ashes.
‘They took their troubles,’ said the pathologist, mildly mangling her adopted language. ‘Perhaps, too, there was blood. Not just his blood. In the fight he may have wounded them. This too could have been on his clothes.’
‘Professionals,’ said Shaw. A turf war over samphire, with locals like Shrimp Davies taking on London-backed hoods like John Jack Stepney. Which could mean Davies was not just a victim, but a killer. He certainly had the strength to deliver the devastating blow which had cleaved the skull of the man on Mitchell’s Bank. Was this his personal pay-off? And all for a slightly salty sea asparagus? No, not just samphire – next year protection money, perhaps, then slot machines, drugs, contraband. None of which helped Shaw answer the pivotal question: what was the connection – if any – between the murders
and the ransacking of Burnham Marsh?
‘One mistake,’ said Kazimeirz, smiling. ‘I think he – she – they, used a silencer on the gun.’
‘Why is that a mistake?’
‘It can reduce the speed of the bullet.’
She knelt again, beside the glass. ‘One shot, through the heart, point blank. They hold the victim down on the floor – a hard floor, cement or brick – planning to collect the bullet, or what is left of the bullet. Two mistakes then: they use a silencer, which slows the bullet, and they underestimate this man. He has a mighty chest. The bullet hits the ribs, loses speed, hits the spine, it lodges. There is no exit wound, Shaw. This is a big mistake because we have a bullet. We will have the bullet, once I open his chest. Then, perhaps, you can find the gun.’
TWENTY-FIVE
A chalk A-board in the marble entrance hall at St James’ announced that the press conference would be at two o’clock in the Gayton Suite: third floor. The thought of it seemed to suck the life out of Valentine’s limbs as he came through the swing doors, so that he came to a halt, threw his head back, and looked up at the white dome above. A mural depicted Justice balancing her scales. Shaw would be upstairs now, checking his notes, talking someone from the media department through the press release.
Valentine couldn’t face it. He’d be on time, but no earlier. Up on his feet since the early hours, he deserved a decent cup of tea. The fire exit door bounced open into the rear yard. An exterior entrance led down into the basement. Unlike many police headquarters – most notably New Scotland Yard – St James’ was actually a police station, not just an administrative HQ. Back in the late eighties he and Jack Shaw had gone down to Old Scotland Yard on a case and entered through its police station – known officially as Canon Row. St James’ version had no separate name, but it was a small world of its own, with a line of cells, front counter, and a duty officer – usually a young PC.
Valentine felt at ease because the place always smelt like a coppers’ lair: industrial piping, tiled floors, and a hint of filing cabinets, disinfectant and nicotine. Despite being deep-cleaned since the smoking ban, the woodwork still breathed out the aroma of thousands of Silk Cut, Marlboro and, reaching back, Woodbine and Embassy. One of the cells was set aside as a makeshift canteen with a kettle and tea and coffee-making kit. Valentine, who’d used this informal café many times, made a mug of mahogany brown brew and idly read the day book on the counter: the record of all incidents recorded in the last twenty-four-hour period. There was a uniformed constable on the desk, a kid with glasses about five foot nine, who seemed to know Valentine because he kept smiling at him.
‘It’s been quiet,’ the constable said. ‘Two in the cells – both drunk. I’m checking every ten minutes – less.’
Valentine nodded in sympathy. They’d all like to get through their careers without a death in police cells. It didn’t matter what the facts were, the slight stain of the incident was indelible. In Valentine’s first year in the job he’d been assigned to cell duties for three months. Once, unable to trust a distraught drunk who’d threatened to cut his wrists, he’d sat in the cell with him all night, both of them chain-smoking.
Valentine enjoyed documents like the day book. For him they represented the bread and butter of policing. Raw, street-level, unprocessed data. When he was a young DI he’d made a point of coming down and reading it if he had a spare ten minutes. It was like picking up the shipping forecast on the car radio; the litany of petty crime seemed to offer a warm, encircling comfort, often in stark contrast to whatever case had landed on his desk in CID.
The phrase ‘air pellets’ caught his eye, so he read the whole entry again:
Arnold John Smith-Waterson. Arrested 8.10 a.m. on suspicion of theft outside the Convenience Store, London Road. Cell Six. Contents of overcoat pockets: catering-sized packet of Tunnock Bars, a half bottle of Tesco’s whisky, eight Aztec bars, ten Aeros and five packets of Revels. Wallet: £8.00 cash. Credit card. Box of air pellets – unopened. Released 12.45 p.m.
‘Smith-Waterson,’ said Valentine, turning the book round so the youngster could see the entry. ‘You book him in?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, then caught the hardening in Valentine’s eyes. ‘Sir. He’s reporting back tonight. Sergeant Pilling’s got the case notes. Goes by the name of Gutter on the street. Tramp. Shop owner rang us and said he was hoovering up sweets. It won’t be the first time. Lives down on the Outfall. Well, he sleeps down there. Spends most days hanging round the churchyards with a book. Big reader, is Gutter.’
Churchyards.
Valentine nodded and left. The press conference was due to start precisely on the hour, which left him fifteen minutes. His slightly arthritic military step got him down to the riverside in under five, although his heartbeat was perceptible in his chest.
The riverside was concrete, with benches, and observation platforms which offered a view north, along the Cut to the sea. A set of steel steps led down towards the sticky mud of the estuary, but after three corkscrew turns they reached a platform, which formed the lip of a wide sewer tunnel, over which a sluggish trickle of water fell into the estuary. This was all that was left of the Millfleet River, built over by the Victorians.
The spot was known as the Outfall. A man-made cave went back fifty feet, before narrowing to a large metal pipe, blocked with a semi-circular iron grid. On the smooth dry concrete ‘riverbank’ stood a little shanty town of cardboard boxes and old mattresses. One tramp stood in the water, barefoot, smoking. A dog on a rope showed Valentine a wet throat and a lolling tongue.
He put his warrant card in the face of a teenager in a puffa jacket, torn to reveal the multicoloured insulation within.
‘I’m looking for Gutter.’
The kid pointed further along the bank to a neat set of cardboard boxes. Arnold John Smith-Waterson was sitting on an old office chair reading a book. He was about seventy, with a pair of rimless glasses with one cracked lens. He wore expensive clothes, worn to the edge of oblivion: a tweed jacket, cords, brown leather shoes, a wool shirt, a scarf, and finally leather gloves – which, oddly, looked new. A price label for the right one flapped at his wrist.
He looked at Valentine out of the corners of his eyes.
Valentine showed him his warrant card and asked him about the air pellets and why he had them in his pockets.
Gutter set the book aside like a relic, carefully folding a corner of a blanket over the cover.
‘Did you steal the gloves too?’ asked Valentine.
‘Spring tide this evening,’ said Gutter, finally. ‘They won’t believe me. We’ll have to move up top. Absolutely, yes.’ He shook his head as if someone, unheard, was disagreeing. ‘It’s the word that misleads them: spring. They think autumn, winter, summer. Wrong, of course. You’ll know …’ Fleeting eye contact, and Valentine saw the intelligence, the fact that there was another person behind the glassy, reflective surfaces. ‘It’s because it springs …’ Gutter made his gloved hands into two animal claws. ‘Sixteen feet nine by eleven thirty-two p.m. Over your head, right now, where you’re standing.’
Valentine squatted down, and got close. ‘Show me where the gun is or we’re going back to St James’ now.’
‘I don’t need to steal. I’ve got a credit card and there’s £6,435 and fifty-six pence in the account as of this morning.’
Valentine lit a cigarette. The press conference started in eight minutes but he wasn’t going to move a muscle. Peter Shaw was pretty good at a lot of things, but in front of a room full of media newshounds he was even better. The last thing he needed was a tatty DS to hand round the press release.
Valentine sent him a text. Interview ongoing. I’ll be late.
‘So it’s not just in spring, you see,’ continued Gutter. ‘That’s the mistake they make. But you wouldn’t make that mistake, I know that.’ He tried a smile, revealing good teeth, bad gums.
‘What have you got against angels?’
Gutter’s mouth lolled open
in shock at the question.
‘Show me the gun and we’ll talk. No promises. But if you don’t show me the gun we’re going back to St James’ and you’ll be staying. Indoors. Inside. It’s that simple.’
In Valentine’s experience the vast majority of so-called ‘tramps’ were simply claustrophobics, unable to deal with the strictures and regulations imposed on those who had to live under a roof.
Gutter’s cardboard cot, which had once held a ‘complete carry-cot system’ according to the label, looked cosy. He closed the flaps as if locking his own front door, and his neighbours watched balefully as Valentine led him away, up the steel steps to the quayside above.
Gutter led the way south along the riverbank. In less than a hundred yards they came to a mud bank which they climbed. Before them lay a grassy inlet, behind the Boal Quay, which less than a decade ago was a meander in the River Nar. One high tide had cut the ‘neck’ of the loop in the river and left it high and dry, a few of the old forgotten boats stranded in the channel forever. One or two were just piles of old wood now, lying in the grassy dry channel. Others, appropriated by squatters, sported makeshift washing lines.
Gutter’s choice had no name but BEWARE THE DOG had been spray-canned down one side in letters a foot tall. An old wooden barge, it had a derelict wheelhouse and a broken mast. Gutter didn’t need to step aboard, but instead simply slipped a hand in through the shattered clinker hull where a porthole had once been. After a brief tussle with some boards the gun came out wrapped in an oilcloth. The haft held an engraved plate: Arnold Smith-Waterson.
Valentine took the weapon and noted that Gutter did everything with his right hand, the left held awkwardly to his chest.
‘What’s wrong with your hand?’
Valentine almost walked away then, because he could see the fear in the old man’s eyes. Trapped, cornered, like an animal with no available means of escape. Valentine hadn’t come into the police force to make vulnerable people feel scared. He bit back the sudden urge to apologize. He’d been a bully, and it wasn’t an attractive self-image. He needed to rethink this relationship, and he’d start by calling the other man by his proper name.