Death Wore White

by Jim Kelly

  She’d almost screamed and Holt held up both hands. ‘Micky – not in front of Sasha, OK? It’s over. I was in hospital – I couldn’t pay them. I’m OK now – they’ll get their money.’

  ‘They left that mark on the door.’

  Holt’s voice betrayed his anger. ‘I’ve said they won’t be back, Micky. Sasha’s fine now. This is her home, and she’s staying here. All right? I’ve sorted it. The sign on the door’s just a reminder. It’s done.’ Holt blinked behind the thick lenses, adjusted the heavy black frames.

  ‘If I lost the house I’d lose Sasha,’ she said, tears welling up again. ‘I’d be out on the street. They’d take her away, Dad.’

  ‘That’s rubbish,’ he said. ‘We’d stick together.’

  But Michelle shook her head.

  He took a breath. ‘Look. They’re not going to take Sasha away,’ he said. ‘I promise. We’re always here for you. Now – shhhhhh …’ He held a finger to his lips.

  His wife stood at the window, parting the curtains, looking out on the snow‐covered sports ground opposite her daughter’s cottage.

  ‘We’d better go,’ said Martha Holt. ‘Your dad needs to rest. He should still be in hospital, he knows that. If he won’t go back then he should be at home.’ She put a hand to her forehead, the fingers shaking. ‘Discharging yourself is stupid,’ she said, biting her lip.

  ‘What? For God’s sake, woman, I had to. They want their money. I need to cash the cheque, get it to Joe.’ He covered his eyes.

  Michelle felt under the armchair cushion and found a packet of cigarettes, taking one out and lighting up.

  ‘Jesus!’ said her father. ‘Let’s go.’

  Holt stood on the step after he’d shut the door. He ran a finger along the marks they’d made: six savage cuts of a knife in the wood, identical to the ones on the side of the Corsa.

  Sarah Baker‐Sibley stood in the doorway of her daughter’s bedroom. She could smell Jillie, that soap, and the stuff that she put in her hair now it was short. Her bedclothes were thrown back, the sheet screwed up where her daughter’s body should have been.

  When had she seen her last? Half ten, after the news, after the police had called asking for another interview.

  She turned on the bedside light and pulled open the first drawer of clothes. Nothing. What did she keep in here – knickers, socks, tops? Sarah thought that she should know, and not for the first time she felt how inadequate she’d been. She pulled open another and pushed aside multicoloured tights. A book: bound in leather. She flicked it open and felt sick. A diary, full of secrets. James had given it to her for Christmas two years earlier. But every page was blank. She flicked through: nothing. That was typical of Jillie, she thought; that she should reveal nothing, but keep everything inside her head.

  Sarah covered her eyes with her hand. She’d lost a son. Now she’d lost her daughter. She’d asked her to lie for her, just this once.

  Running down to the front hall she found Jillie’s coat was missing, the full‐length with the fake‐fur lining. She turned on the outdoor light and threw open the heavy wooden door. The path was white with snow, Jillie’s footsteps a confident double line, leading away from the house.

  Izzy Dereham tucked her daughter Natalie into bed with an almost savage efficiency. The child was pinned down, both arms under the coverlet, her mouth breathing warm air into the patterned quilt. The head of a jet‐black toy cat peeked from the counterpane.

  ‘Now sleep,’ said Izzy. ‘In the morning the world will be a different place.’ The farmhouse roof creaked, the timbers straining against the wind that had come with the tide. Down by the oyster beds the sea thudded on the sands.

  ‘But why were you crying?’ asked her daughter. ‘Some of the oysters were lost in the storm. I love the oysters. I cried at Christmas, didn’t I, when we read about the Walrus and the Carpenter.’

  Her daughter watched her in the half‐light. ‘That was pretend.’

  ‘I’m not so sure, young lady.’

  She turned out the light, waited a second, then padded swiftly down the stairs. In the room behind the kitchen she sat down at her desk, punched a number into the handset of the phone. He’d said not to call, but she couldn’t wait. She listened to the ringing tone, as her eyes filled with tears again.

  *

  On Hunstanton Beach the waves fell, breaking first to the north, then unfolding to the south, like someone turning the pages of a book. Peter Shaw studied the plastered ceiling where the light played, his fingers interlaced behind his head. Lena slept now, the sheets damp between them. The wind made the roof beams creak here too, and in the gusts it threw sand at the front door. He turned over, folding his body to fit her back, tucking his knees into hers. Lena’s smell was earthy, like warm skin in the sun.

  His daughter was coughing. A winter cold. He’d caught her paddling that weekend, the blood just beneath the skin as blue as the inside of a mussel shell.

  He rolled out of bed and pulled on his boxers. Walking the corridor, he checked the window latches, then the front door, double‐checking the latch. Had he left the cooker on? He’d boiled pasta on the gas ring. But the kitchen was cold, no flame on the hob. He checked the red light by the shower too. Nothing.

  His daughter coughed again. So he went down the corridor, the sand gritty on the wooden floor, and looked in through the open door. She was coughing in her sleep now, metronomic, both hands held before her mouth.

  Closing the door behind him he bottled up the sound. The chair in which he used to sit and read to Francesca was gone, so he sat on the floor, his back to the bookcase.

  4.30 a.m.

  He’d see her through until dawn. He hadn’t done that for a long time; she’d been three, four perhaps, and he’d hoarded the sleepless nights, when exhaustion made him think so clearly, away from the distractions of the day.

  He thought about James Baker‐Sibley and his daughter on board Hydra waiting for the tide to turn. He imagined the father cutting his daughter’s hair. A mirror in front of them perhaps. Did they both hear the footsteps together? The first, above their heads, as James’s killers came aboard?

  32

  Thursday, 12 February

  Burnham Market lay tucked up in the snowy hills of north Norfolk, the rooftops as white and crisp as on any Christmas card. In the police station Shaw and Valentine waited for Sarah Baker‐Sibley’s Alfa Romeo to pull into the car park. Jillie Baker‐Sibley, it appeared, held the key to what had happened that night on board the Hydra. But the leading question now, as Sarah Baker‐Sibley was led into the interview room, was where was she?

  ‘I asked for your daughter to attend for interview,’ said Shaw, adjusting the dressing on his eye.

  A PC brought tea. Sarah Baker‐Sibley sat at a table, knocking out a menthol cigarette from a fresh pack. She looked around, her shoulders rolling slightly in the chill air. Through the window she saw a fox break cover in the high hillside above the town, running over the bare furrowed earth, suddenly clear against the snow.

  Shaw sensed that the elaborate display of insouciance was a mask. Her face was puffy and she kept trying to rearrange her mouth, trying to hide an emotion very close to fear.

  ‘She’s on a sleepover. Clara’s – her best friend. A house at South Creake. I’ve phoned and left a message. I’m not worried, and I don’t see any reason for you to be.’

  Valentine pulled up a chair, the legs scraping on the bare wooden floor. He’d spent three years at Burnham Market and had taken hundreds of dreary statements in this room. The stench of institutional cleaning hung about the place, the only decoration a Day‐Glo poster in yellow for Neighbourhood Watch, a burglar in black slipping through an open window, and a no‐smoking sign nailed to the door. Being back made him realize just how much he’d hated those ten lost years. ‘Can I have the address, Mrs Baker‐Sibley?’ he asked, taking a note. He told Shaw he’d organize a squad car to check it out, leaving the door open when he went.

  Shaw leant agai
nst the single heavy iron radiator which cracked and thudded with the strain of the hot water dribbling through clogged pipes. ‘You don’t mind?’ asked Shaw, nodding at the tape. ‘And you don’t want a solicitor? Only, the last time we spoke…’

  She shook her head and lit the menthol cigarette. Shaw pointed to the no‐smoking sign.

  ‘Jesus.’ She stubbed it out in a saucer that had been left on the table.

  ‘Did you tell your daughter she was expected for interview?’

  ‘Yes, yes of course I told her. What’s this about?’ she said, checking her watch. ‘I open at ten. Sharp. I’ve said all I’m saying about Colin Narr, so, as my daughter would say, Inspector Shaw, let’s not even go there.’

  Shaw stood, switched a shell from his trouser pocket to the tabletop. He guessed that she’d talked to a lawyer, that they’d counselled cooperation until she found out what she was up against – that’s when the shutters would come down.

  ‘Have you any idea why the Hydra is moored at Morston Creek, Mrs Baker‐Sibley?’ he asked.

  Valentine had come back and he watched her face as she heard the question. She managed to construct an expression of mild curiosity.

  ‘I have no idea. My husband’s movements are of no significance to me, Detective Inspector.’

  ‘You said you were divorced, I think?’

  ‘Did I? Good, that’s right. Legally, emotionally, spiritually, and – until you informed me otherwise – geographically. My husband lives on Kythera, a Greek island. He has a flat in the City, as I think I told you only yesterday. My happiness soars with every mile that stretches between us.’

  ‘And Jillie?’

  ‘What about Jillie?’ The chin came out, the eyes hardening protectively.

  ‘When does she see her father?’

  ‘My husband is not allowed to see his daughter. There’s a court order to that effect.’ She touched the damp dogend in the saucer. ‘My husband killed our first child, you see, so he’s not getting another chance.’

  Snow fell against the window and the silence was so deep Shaw thought he could hear the muffled impact of the flakes.

  ‘How?’ asked Valentine, taking Route One.

  ‘James always wanted a boy, someone he could leave his money to, someone to carry on. Women don’t count. But it couldn’t be just any boy. It had to be a boy in his image.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Well, in the image he has of himself: tough, self‐sufficient, brave.

  ‘Thomas was none of those things. But that didn’t stop James. He took him to Greece, on the Hydra. They camped on the mainland, a few miles across the strait, and James taught him how to sail the little wooden dinghy she carried. Then he sent him out to sea one day. Thomas was thirteen – Jillie’s age. This was three years ago. Jillie was with me at our villa. James told Thomas he had to make the crossing. A halcyon day – that’s what the Greeks call it. Hardly any wind. Thomas got hot and decided to go for a swim. He just jumped in. He’d never been on his own before, so he didn’t think. There was no way back onto the boat, you see, and he couldn’t climb the sides.’

  She sipped the tea, the cup steady.

  ‘I found the body. It was extraordinary, actually, because the boat, when they found it, was ten miles along the coast but his body had floated back to our house. We had a stretch of beach and I saw something from the house – I was by the phone waiting for news, James was out in the Hydra, searching the coast. I waded in. It was summer, so the body had begun to decompose. I didn’t know it was him – not for a certainty – until I was a few feet away. It’s not something I’m going to forget. And it’s something Jillie can’t forget. I didn’t see her but she followed me into the water.

  ‘I burnt the dinghy after the Greek police had finished the inquiry. There were scratch marks all round it, cutting into the wood.’

  She turned her hard face to the window again, but tears pushed themselves out of the ducts at the corner of her eye.

  ‘An accident then,’ said Shaw.

  She ignored him. ‘I took Jillie home. James led his own life, there was another woman. He didn’t contest the divorce. But he did try to get custody of Jillie.’ She laughed. ‘The court threw that out. Then, last month, he tried to take her back,’ she went on. ‘She’d been down to London to see her grandmother – that’s my mother – and she’d got back to Lynn early. She rang me for a lift. She rang her father to chat. They used to talk.’ She pushed the saucer away. ‘She’d forgiven him, you see. Something I didn’t think he deserved. I was late; James was in town – he still has business interests here, although he never trusted me enough to tell me what they were. He drove to the station. He was flying back to Greece that afternoon; his company has a private jet, there’s a landing strip on the island but no customs. Why didn’t she come? He said it would be a new life for her.’ She arched her pencilled eyebrows. ‘There’s a pool – heated.’

  She crossed her legs. ‘There’s no choice now, you see.’

  ‘Choice?’ asked Shaw.

  ‘A girl will have to do. James’s…’ She searched for a word, enjoying herself. ‘James’s ability to have children is restricted. A medical condition affects his fertility, and that gets worse with age. We did try for a third, but it was impossible. So it’s Jillie who’ll inherit. And she’s a tomboy really – he always wanted that. So she’d love to go with him, Daddy’s little cabin boy.’

  ‘So she would have gone?’ asked Valentine.

  ‘That’s immaterial. Because that’s when I turned up. They were sat in James’s BMW. I got her out of the passenger side but James came round. He hit me. Quite hard, actually. So I hit him back. Harder. There was a witness – a taxi driver on the rank. Jillie screamed, and he tried to get her back in the car. It was quite a scene.’

  She forced herself to smile and Shaw guessed she’d relived it many times.

  ‘I pressed charges, assault. ABH. He was sentenced to six months, suspended. And James was banned from seeing her, or from coming within ten miles of Burnham Thorpe. So if he’s at Morston Creek he’s broken the court order – I hope you’ll take the appropriate action. The judge made it clear he would go to prison if he breached the conditions.’ Nobody said anything so she went on. ‘We’ve been very happy ever since,’ she said, dispensing with another unasked question.

  ‘He must love his daughter,’ prompted Shaw. ‘Actually, I think his feelings towards Jillie are irrelevant, Inspector Shaw. He needs her. She’s his immortality. She’s the vehicle for his wealth, a receptacle for his money.’

  Shaw produced an evidence bag from the holdall: clear plastic with the sheaf of long hair curled within.

  ‘He tried again, didn’t he?’ asked Shaw, standing at the table, his fingertips splayed on the Formica surface.

  She tried to touch the hair through the plastic.

  ‘We found the hair on the Hydra, Mrs Baker‐Sibley.’ She ran a nail along her bottom lip. ‘Yes,’ she said, looking at the tape. ‘I think I need that solicitor now, Inspector Shaw.’

  Shaw turned off the tape as she stood up. ‘I’d sit down for one more minute,’ he said. He needed to tell her something, and he didn’t need to do it on the record.

  She sat.

  ‘Do you have a picture of your husband, Mrs Baker‐Sibley?’

  She laughed, her head thrown back.

  Shaw took a file from the desktop and, flicking through, found the animated sketch he’d made from the corpse retrieved from Styleman’s Middle. He placed it neatly before her, put the saucer on a corner as a paperweight.

  ‘Is that James?’

  She looked at it and Valentine could see the calculations going on behind her eyes. She took a cigarette out of the packet and just held it in her hand. ‘Unless he’s got a twin brother.’ She tried to set her lips in a line but failed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Baker‐Sibley, but this man’s body…’ Shaw tapped the drawing, ‘was found on Styleman’s Middle – the sandbank a few miles off Ingol Beach – on Tuesday.
I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to see if you can identify the body later today. There is evidence your ex‐husband was attacked on board his yacht. I’m sorry.’

  Valentine watched as the blood drained from her face, leaving a livid patch of blusher exposed, like a death mask.

  ‘He’s dead?’

  ‘Three o’clock,’ said Shaw. ‘St James’s. And then we’ll need to talk again. I’d like Jillie to be there.’

  ‘Of course.’ She’d worked it out now. ‘I’ll make a statement after I’ve taken advice. But I can make a few things clear. Right now. We’re off the record for now?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Outside a car alarm pulsed. She placed both palms on her face and stretched the skin back, lifting the wrinkles out of her neck.

  ‘Yes. He did try again. Which I find hard to believe because generally he’s a coward, I think, and if he’d been caught – even just talking to her – he’d have gone to jail. Jillie said he was waiting outside the school in his 4x4 the night I was stranded out on the coast road in the snow. She said he just wanted to talk, that he’d get her home, so she got in. I’d told her a hundred times to text me if her father turned up. But he persuaded her to listen to what he had to say first. He drove her to Morston and said that if they wanted to they could catch the tide. He stopped in the village and posted some letters, then drove down to the quay. She wouldn’t have to go back to school, that’s what he told her. They could take the Hydra over to Ostend – he’d done it before with her when she was young. He said he’d bought a property on the Turkish coast. There’s an International School in Smyrna; they wouldn’t ask questions if he paid the fees. They’d disappear. Even if the police found them he had the money to tie it up in the courts. He said it’d be like Jarndyce and Jarndyce. She’s done Bleak House at school – she thought it was funny. So she said yes.’

  ‘She told you that when you phoned from Gallow Marsh Farm?’ said Valentine.