Death Wore White

by Jim Kelly

  Zhao licked his lips.

  ‘I’m going to get a forensic team from our headquarters at St James’s and I’m going to seal off your spare room – the one with the child’s wallpaper, the one with the pornographic magazines. I think they’ll start with the sheets, don’t you? See what we can find: hairs, skin cells, semen, who knows? Then we’ll cross check it with Terence Brand’s corpse. And when we find a match I’ll come back and we’ll all go to the station: Mrs Zhao, Gangsun, Edison. Put a notice up in the window – Closed Until Further Notice…’

  ‘I can answer if I want to,’ cut in his wife, taking her husband’s hand. ‘We don’t know what Terry did.’

  ‘Terry?’ said Valentine.

  ‘He’s my son,’ she said, the chin jutting out. Downstairs they heard the sound of chips being thrown into hot oil. ‘Was my son.’

  She took out a scrap of tissue and began to dab at her mouth, the eyes already swimming in tears. ‘Brand is my maiden name. I was just fifteen when Terry was born, here in Lynn.’

  They sat in silence, letting the truth settle like dust. ‘Why are you only telling us this now?’ asked Shaw. Mrs Zhao tried to look through him. ‘Terry’s life was his own. We didn’t ask questions. I’m his mother, that’s what I do. I don’t ask questions.’

  It wasn’t good enough, but Shaw let it go.

  ‘And I owed him, I suppose.’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘I went to Hong Kong for a new life. Aunt Ruth was his father’s sister. She brought him up. His father didn’t stick around.’ She took her hands away, damp with tears. ‘She never wanted to know anything about me. But I kept in touch with Terry, she was OK about that. He was unhappy at Ruth’s; rebellious, I suppose. I said he always had a home with me. When we came back I kept that promise. He told Ruth this place was run by some of Stanley’s family, that it was handy for the winter surf, but that I was still in Hong Kong. I guess she believed him – I don’t know.’

  ‘But the room he slept in, Mrs Zhao, it’s newly decorated, for a child,’ said Shaw.

  ‘Yes. I was seven months pregnant, Detective Inspector, but I lost the child. Last year. We shouldn’t have done that, tempted fate. But I guess we got excited. It was a girl,’ she added, attempting a smile.

  Mr Zhao was looking at the sickly pattern on the shag pile.

  ‘OK,’ said Shaw. ‘I’m sorry.’ He thought about it: losing two children in a year – one a grown man, the other unborn. ‘But I’d still like to know what your husband was doing on Siberia Belt the night Terry’s body was washed up. What did Terry do when he was staying with you – for money?’

  Mr Zhao raised a hand to his mouth. ‘In the summer he surfed, wind sports. He spent money, I didn’t ask where it came from. We were fond of him.’

  Shaw thought of the blood‐caked teeth. ‘Did you give him a ring, Mr Zhao? A man with a dragon’s tail carved in jet?’

  He nodded, his eyelids almost closing. ‘Hsi, the first emperor.’

  ‘And in the winter?’

  ‘He had a wetsuit – and he fished at night, on the long lines. He hung around that café on the front by the fair.’

  ‘The Skeg?’ asked Valentine.

  Shaw thought of the wetsuits swilling in the sea spray off Hunstanton, the fishermen huddled at night by lanterns, the magazines under the counter at the café, sticky fingerprints on the glass. Another lucrative trade for Terry Brand. A parcel on each trip perhaps, a little extra money.

  ‘How did he get down to the beach?’ asked Valentine. ‘Nearest surf is – what – fifteen miles. And he’s got all his kit. You’re not going to get sea rods on the bus, are you?’ Key question: Shaw bit his lip.

  Mrs Zhao had frozen but her husband had an answer; the wrong answer. ‘His friends had a car.’

  ‘Who are they – these friends? What do they look like?’ said Valentine, flipping open the notebook, biro in his teeth, playing the role perfectly.

  ‘We didn’t see them,’ Zhao said.

  ‘They’d stay in the car – sound the horn,’ said Mrs Zhao, joining in.

  ‘In the car,’ repeated Valentine. ‘What sort of car?’

  ‘A white van, dirty,’ said Zhao.

  Shaw zipped up his coat. ‘I think you were the transport, Mr Zhao. I think that’s why you were there that night. To meet Terry. I think you’d done it before. And I think you know he wasn’t sea fishing, or looking for the perfect winter wave. He was smuggling. Dangerous work – so dangerous it killed him. I think he was curious about what he was bringing in, curious to know what price it would fetch. Did he talk to you about that, Mr Zhao? Mrs Zhao? And the merchandise? Did he bring it here?’

  Shaw looked around as if he was going to start the search there and then.

  ‘Merchandise?’ said Stanley Zhao, shaking his head.

  ‘A suitcase perhaps,’ said Shaw. ‘Reinforced, aluminium probably, so it wouldn’t weigh too much. Or plastic containers, baskets – what did they use, Mr Zhao? You tell me. Is that why you didn’t contact the police when we released his name?’

  Mrs Zhao rubbed her eyes and looked at Shaw for the first time. ‘If Terry was dead… is dead… what’s the point in contacting the police? Terry never brought anything home, Detective Inspector,’ she added. ‘Never.’

  Shaw guessed she was telling the truth, or nearly the truth. The magazines came home. But no, he didn’t bring the consignment home. So where did it go?

  ‘Whatever he was smuggling that last night probably killed him. I’m going to have to ask you to identify the body, Mrs Zhao. Can you do that for me?’

  Shaw watched her face collapse, watched her lose control of the nerves that held the line of her mouth.

  ‘No, I don’t think I can,’ she said, but she reached for her coat.

  26

  Shark Tooth’s plant was on the single‐track road beside the Wash at Wootton Marsh. Snow at sea had smudged out the horizon, and the reed beds were frozen. The plant’s buildings were flat‐pack sheds, between which tractors scurried, buckets aloft, seawater draining from the shellfish within. From the main processing shed the sound of cockles rolling on a conveyor belt was punctuated by the hissing of a cheap radio. At the corner of the yard a flag flew, the blue clamshell on a white background.

  Shaw watched the flag unfurl in a slight breeze, then smelt the salt on his fingers from his early morning swim. ‘Terry Brand’s body was found at the beach below Gallow Marsh Farm. Shark Tooth owns the farm. It also employs the cockle‐picking gang which works on Styleman’s Middle. It runs boats through the sandbanks off Ingol Beach. On the night of the murder I saw a yacht off the beach – a blue clam insignia on the sail.’ They both looked at the flying flag. ‘Part of the answer’s here. Got to be.’

  Valentine flipped open the file he’d got one of the DCs to put together on the late shift. He rubbed his eyes, forcing them to focus. He’d spent a second night in the house on the corner of Greenland Street but this time he’d run out of luck, and that always made him tired. Three hours sleep, maximum. He’d read the file at the kitchen table by dawn’s light, and he summarized it now for Shaw: Shark Tooth had been founded in 1990. A one‐boat outfit taking hobby fishermen out into the North Sea to try and hook dogfish. There’d been a landing stage at Wootton, disused for a century, so they made the best of it. Dogfish made them a small fortune.

  Now the company employed between fifty and eighty people, depending on the season. They had a dozen boats, with the focus on commercial shellfish, although they still ran fishing trips in season. There’d been a wodge of newspaper cuttings in the file following the Morecambe Bay disaster – in which a gang of ethnic Chinese cockle‐pickers, mostly illegal immigrants, had died when they’d been cut off by the treacherous tides off the Lancashire coast. Colin Narr, CEO of Shark Tooth, had told the press all his workforce – Chinese or other – had legal papers, a fact verified by Lynn CID. But the Conservancy Board that regulated the harbour had brought in new safety rules for the cockle boats: limiting numbers, r
equiring a manifest of those going out on each tide, enforcing a licensing system for gangmasters. Ownership of the privately registered company was obscure: Colin Narr described himself as a minority shareholder. Five years ago they’d bought Gallow Marsh Farm to develop the oyster beds.

  ‘And that’s what we know,’ finished Valentine, taking a breath which made one of his ribs crack. He ran a hand over an unshaved chin. He felt better, keen to get in amongst the cockle‐pickers. Shaw was right: somewhere at the centre of all three deaths was Shark Tooth.

  Shaw got out and let the gritty snow blow into his good eye. Ahead he could just see the distant white line of surf breaking out at sea. The gates of the factory stood open, and they strolled through, following a single sign to RECEPTION.

  He wasn’t looking forward to the interview with Colin Narr. He’d never understood business, found the environment intimidating, antiseptic, and foreign. Plus Narr was a town worthy – an alderman, and a member of the county council’s Police Committee. Which in an odd way made him Shaw’s boss. Shaw felt the familiar surge of defiance in the face of authority, loosening the top button of the tie‐less shirt.

  The office was a Portakabin, a posh one, but a Portakabin nonetheless, with a black Jag parked outside. Inside there was a carpet and a six‐bar electric fire, a secretary in a thermal jacket. Behind a partition they could hear a mumbled telephone call. A long window onto the yard stood half open. They heard a receiver crash down and Narr came out, calling them back through into the office.

  ‘Red tape,’ he said. ‘That was Defra. It’s a full‐time career dealing with bloody jobsworths.’

  Narr wore canvas trousers and a weathered oilskin jacket. He had the kind of skin that’s been marinated in fresh air, the texture of overcooked bacon, the colour of a kipper. His head was small for his body, compact and round, but he held it low, as if it were dense and heavy, and he didn’t quite have the energy to hold it up. One oddity: his hair was short and mousey, receding, revealing ears without lobes, which Shaw could imagine gently shrivelling away when exposed to the sun out on the sands.

  The office had a desk, a metal filing cabinet and a sixties drinks cabinet and bar. A set of golf clubs stood in one corner, a patina of dust over the wooden heads of the drivers. The single picture window stood tilted open.

  ‘You like fresh air,’ said Shaw.

  Narr looked at the window as if he’d never seen it before, one hand rising, touching his ear where the fleshy pod of the lobe should have been. ‘I’m in and out, there’s no point.’ He smiled without showing his teeth. The Norfolk accent had been ironed flat, but the ghost of it was still there, marking him out as a local.

  The wall behind the desk held a large noticeboard covered in cuttings and pictures. Shaw noted one of Narr and the rest of the Police Committee on a visit to St James’s to meet the Home Secretary. An old print of the Fisher Fleet, packed with the jostling masts of the herring boats. But the dominant image was a photo of a football team in blue‐and‐white hoops, the team badge enlarged at the foot showing the blue cockleshell and the name: Wootton Marsh FC. Duncan Sly, the gangmaster he’d met out on Styleman’s Middle, stood to one side in a smart black tracksuit, carrying a physio’s bag.

  ‘Hope you two don’t mind, but we’re gonna have to do this on the run,’ said Narr, stuffing some papers into the pockets of his jacket. As they walked out to reception he stooped down and moved the fire nearer to his secretary, closing the window. ‘I’ll be gone a bit,’ he said. ‘You might as well enjoy it.’

  They all walked briskly across the yard into a large shed which reeked of ozone. Thousands of oysters lay in metal trays, water splashing over them. Shaw breathed it in, feeling his pulse rise, the stench of the sea almost narcotic.

  ‘Brancaster,’ said Narr, picking one up and turning it like a diamond. ‘London order, West End.’ He worked his way along the side of the table, which vibrated slightly like a prospector’s pan.

  Shaw kept precisely one pace behind. ‘Have you seen this?’ He produced his sketch of the man recovered from the sands at Styleman’s Middle. ‘You don’t recognize the face?’

  ‘Uniformed copper came round yesterday with it, we all had a look. There’s something familiar about it – but who knows?’

  Narr picked an oyster out of a bucket, took a short knife from his pocket and expertly slid the blade into the folds of the shell, twisting his wrist and opening it out to reveal the flesh within, the colour of a summer cloud. He rolled it down his throat. ‘That’d be your job?’ he said. ‘Finding answers.’

  In the next shed thousands of cockles were being turned gently in vats of water.

  ‘Stookey blues,’ said Narr, picking one out and prising the shell open to reveal the clam‐like creature within, milky white with a hint of opalescence. But he didn’t eat it, tossed it instead into a pail of broken shells.

  Shaw was tiring of the lecture. He noticed they’d left Valentine back in the last shed chatting to one of the factory women.

  ‘Mr Narr, is it conceivable that someone, some group, could be smuggling merchandise onto Ingol Beach without the cooperation, possibly tacit, of your men on Styleman’s Middle?’

  Narr picked up a handful of the cockles, turning them over in his palms. He walked to the side of the shed and took down a short wooden plank from the wall, at each end of which were wooden handles. He put it on the concrete floor and stood on it, bending his knees so that he could grasp the handles.

  ‘This is a jumbo,’ he said. ‘When you get out on the sand you put it down and then rock on it, like this.’ He swayed vigorously from side to side. ‘The movement sucks the cockles towards the surface, then you rake it to get ’em out.’ He stood. ‘You don’t get a lot of time for sightseeing. Believe me – I did it for ten years and I don’t remember enjoying the view much.’ The hand again, rising to touch the missing earlobe.

  ‘But on a good day, with clear visibility, you can see ten miles out there. You only have to straighten your back once. Or do they learn to turn a blind eye?’

  ‘Ask ’em,’ Narr shrugged. ‘But don’t forget we don’t go out in low light, let alone darkness – not since Morecambe. So unless you’ve got daylight smugglers – then yeah, they could miss them.’

  ‘We did ask the men,’ said Shaw.

  ‘Then you’ve got your answer.’

  Shaw wondered how Narr would react if he suggested they continue their conversation at St James’s. If he didn’t get a bit more cooperation he’d do it, and sod the consequences.

  ‘Lufkin, Sly. How long have they been on the books? Ever had a Terence Brand on the payroll?’

  Narr held up both hands. ‘Duncan Sly’s born and bred Norfolk fishing. Father ran oyster beds, he spent fifteen years in the Merchant Navy. Falklands War, South Atlantic Medal. You can’t buy that kind of expertise on the open market, believe me. And you can’t buy that kind of honesty anywhere. Andy Lufkin? I’ve known him ten years, worked with him on the Icelandic trawlers. He’s got a master’s ticket, but there’s no boats, so he can’t get the work any more and we get him instead, which is our luck. It’s a tight ship, ’cos he doesn’t take any nonsense.’

  Shaw wondered what that was supposed to be a euphemism for.

  ‘And Terence Brand?’

  Narr shook his head.

  ‘That’s a no?’

  Narr looked him straight in the eyes for the first time. ‘That’s a no.’

  ‘And the Chinese workers? The Czechs?’

  ‘They’re all legal – they’ve all had their papers checked by the Board. One Czech, by the way. Bedrich – he’s legal, an EU migrant worker. The other two east Europeans are Serbian.’

  Shaw stepped a foot closer and wiped what was left of a smile off Narr’s face. ‘I didn’t ask if they were legal. I asked if you trusted them.’

  Narr’s eyes hardened. ‘They’re good workers,’ he said, turning on his heel and heading across the yard. Back in the office he took the sheaf of messages his se
cretary handed him, ignoring Shaw.

  ‘Does the company own a yacht, Mr Narr – with the blue clam emblem on the sail?’

  ‘A yacht?’ Narr laughed. ‘You’ve seriously overestimated the profit margin on shellfish, Inspector. No – we don’t own a yacht.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to the owner of the company, Mr Narr. Can you help me there?’ asked Shaw, taking the only chair.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’d like to ask him the same questions I asked you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I might get a different answer.’

  ‘You won’t.’ Narr sighed. ‘There are four minority shareholders – all local men with the knowledge and the contacts and the experience. But the capital’s foreign, and they like to keep their business to themselves. Any questions, try the company secretary. But I wouldn’t hold your breath.’

  He flipped open a wallet and took out a card; one of Lynn’s long‐established high‐street solicitors. Shaw took it but let his eye scan the still‐open wallet, a snapshot visible in the clear plastic window: Narr in a white shirt under a tropical sun, a woman’s face pressed to his, plenty of make‐up despite the swimsuit top. It was Sarah Baker‐Sibley, smiling at the sideways kiss.

  27

  Snow fell in Burnham Market like old white five‐pound notes; extravagant flakes, accruing, silently transforming the town square into a picture postcard, complete with the winking white lights of the Farmers Market. In the fishmonger’s, turbot was sold out, and at the butcher’s a queue had formed despite the weather to buy partridge and lamb shank. A pair of elegant Afghan hounds waited patiently outside the wine merchant’s. Shaw parked outside Sarah Baker‐Sibley’s shop: it had just her name on the sign, with a motif of a mobile phone; the window was crowded with them: expensive, up‐market models, with cameras, radios, and Bluetooth included. A flat‐screen TV showed an advert for a model including GPS.