Death Wore White

by Jim Kelly

  Valentine put down his cup and Shaw saw the slight flush rise on his throat. A good sign – the DS didn’t like being treated like an idiot any more than Shaw did.

  ‘Have you met Joe?’ asked Valentine. He took the piece of paper from his pocket and unfurled it on the coffee table.

  Martha Holt jumped visibly, suddenly readjusting herself in the armchair.

  ‘Joe who?’ asked Holt, but he’d said it too quickly. ‘Joe the loan shark. The one who left his calling card on the side of your car.’

  Martha Holt stood. ‘Do we have to deal with this now? John’s not been well.’

  ‘Leave it,’ said Holt, not looking at his wife, slapping her down. Shaw knew then he could be a cruel man.

  ‘Money’s a problem,’ said Holt. ‘Of course it’s a problem. But we’ll be all right. I’m telling you, Inspector, that man was alive when I saw him at the wheel of the pick‐up. I’m sorry, but he was alive, and the hitch‐hiker was sitting next to him.’

  Shaw tried one more time. ‘So how did you solve your money problem, Mr Holt? Did James Baker‐Sibley ask for your help? Did he pay for your help? Did you get the money? Were you on Siberia Belt that night to make sure the woman in the Alfa couldn’t reverse back to the main road?’

  Holt struggled to his feet. ‘You really have lost me, Inspector. I think this has gone on long enough. I’d like you to leave now.’

  They told Holt they’d be interviewing him again. He wasn’t to leave the area without contacting St James’s. Martha Holt took them to the door but little Sasha pushed through and handed Shaw a piece of paper on which she’d glued helicopter seeds in a pattern: a swirl of them like smoke rising from the red flames of a fire.

  Shaw smiled. ‘Thank you, Sasha. That’ll keep me warm.’

  As they drove away they didn’t see her grandfather standing by the window, a phone to his ear.

  45

  Sunday, 15 February

  Shaw woke a minute before the alarm at 5.30. He made coffee, and drank it outside. It was too dark to see the sky but the absence of stars told him the snow clouds had returned. He ran to the Land Rover along the still‐frozen beach. By six he was on the towpath up‐river of Boal Quay. Lights shone in kitchens and bathrooms in the tower blocks of the South End. Hedgehogs crept across the open concrete of the floodlit car parks. In mid‐stream a Russian freighter waited to slip into the Alexandra Dock, its super‐structure floodlit, the decks deserted, hot air drifting from vents in skyscapes of steam.

  Shaw walked away from the sea. For the first time since he’d woken up he tried to think. When he’d handed over the Tessier file to DCI Warren he’d told him, promised him, that his role in the case was over. And he’d told Valentine the same. And he meant it. But then, when he’d got back to the station on Saturday afternoon, he’d found a note from Timber Woods.

  Peter,

  The attached may help. I still think you should let it lie. But I’m not sure what Jack would do – so do with this what you think is right.

  Timber

  ‘The attached’ was Giddy Poynter’s address. Shaw could have just added the information to the file he’d given Warren. But perhaps he did owe his father more than that, and perhaps he owed George Valentine more than that too, even if he’d never admit it to his face. If Warren said no to Shaw’s request, then a last, clinching, piece of new evidence would be their only chance to get the file reopened.

  Timber had set about finding Giddy Poynter with exemplary thoroughness. The child’s ordeal in the rat‐infested waste bin had been enough to disturb a mature adult, let alone a small, timid boy of twelve. So Timber Woods had gone to the record office at social services. Gideon Poynter had been an outpatient for three years after the incident in 1997, at the child psychology department at the Queen Vic. Absence from school on medical grounds was the hallmark of his academic career. He suffered from stress and anxiety, manifested by a series of uncontrollable phobias. Giddy, living now in sheltered housing in Lynn, attended a mental health unit twice a week. The patient suffered from profound claustrophobia, an irrational but almost tangible fear of being trapped. He had lived rough on the streets of Lynn for six months before the council was able to find him a flat in which each and every window could be opened. He’d wanted a balcony too, just big enough for a chair, on which he often slept if the weather was mild. There’d been a home number and mobile on the file for Poynter’s social worker so Shaw had phoned. He promised he’d tread carefully, to respect Giddy’s fears. In return he’d got an outline of Giddy’s daily routine.

  Ahead, along the river path, he could see the graveyard of St Martin’s church. Redundant now, the stained‐glass windows were lost behind heavy grey mesh, the wooden lych‐gate charred, graffiti over the tiles of the roof. The new bridge over the estuary had spanned St Martin’s churchyard the year before, so that now the gravestones had a roof – the brutal concrete arches of the road a hundred feet above. In the echoing space beneath the pigeons clattered, and a single oak, a century old, lived a half‐life in the shadows. The roar of the traffic rattled the medieval church, which was slowly but remorselessly crumbling. Stone flakes fell from the buttresses. The local paper had reported that when very heavy loads rumbled past on the flyover the old bells sounded: dull notes, as if from under the sea.

  The morning was still dark so that the steady stream of traffic overhead, thrumming, traced a necklace of lights in a graceful curve over the water.

  Shaw stepped through a metal gate and walked amongst the graves. There was a bench under a single lamp post which splashed a pool of jaundiced light on the snow. Above he could see bats flitting in the girders, roosting like black snowballs stuck to the rivets. He brushed the snow off the seat and sat waiting, emptying his mind, trying not to think of death.

  When he saw the small shambling figure with thin, lank hair, he thought he must be wrong. Giddy would be twenty‐three, twenty‐four, a young man still despite the horrors of his short life. This man was as ageless as all those who lived on the streets, hidden from the world like a leper, wrapped in a formless heavy coat. Clutching a plastic supermarket bag to his chest with one hand, he held a bunch of flowers with the other, loosely furled in newspaper. At the grave he squatted down, fiddling with the flowers and a plastic urn.

  It took him too long and Shaw guessed that he’d seen him and that he always sat on this bench; although there was another.

  So Shaw stood. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I know this is your place at this time. My name’s Peter. I’m a policeman. I just wanted a word, Giddy.’

  The man turned, a knee on the wet grass. His face was fine, a thin nose, delicate cheekbones, and a high, brittle forehead. A miniature face, stunted. Acne disfigured the skin and a half‐hearted moustache straggled over his mouth, hiding his upper lip.

  He didn’t respond and Shaw wondered if he was shivering or shaking. ‘Giddy. Can I talk to you?’ Shaw opened a small rucksack he’d put at his feet, taking out a thermos flask. ‘It’s tea, would you like a cup? Bernard said you liked tea in the morning.’

  Bernard Parkin was the man Shaw had spoken to the previous day. He was Giddy’s social worker, and the closest thing he had in the world to a friend.

  A pigeon flapped around the headstones and Giddy stood quickly, walking sideways to the bench. He sat hunched against the armrest.

  ‘I always sit here,’ he said. ‘It’s under the sky.’

  Shaw leant back and looked directly up. He was right, the edge of the roadway above was twenty feet to one side, giving a clear view of the clouds of dawn.

  ‘Mum’s grave,’ said Giddy. ‘Yes,’ said Shaw.

  ‘I don’t mind the traffic.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Giddy. It’s about the boys who locked you up.’

  Giddy tried to look into Shaw’s face. The eyes were dove‐grey, and one of them oscillated slightly, as if struggling to focus. ‘I never talk about that.’

  ‘I know. I’m going to speak to those boys soon – the th
ree that were caught and punished. Do you want me to say anything to them?’

  Giddy thought about it. ‘Tell them I’m happy now. Better.’

  Shaw nodded. ‘And the fourth one – I just thought you might have known who it was. Did you, Giddy?’

  Giddy looked at him then, the grey eye wandering. ‘Stop following me.’

  ‘I’m not following you.’

  He stood, one arm jerking suddenly, the plastic bag gyrating. ‘Fucking are.’ He walked away, then turned. ‘Dark glasses yesterday,’ he said. ‘But I know. You were in the stairwell last night, and then by the park this morning. I don’t like it, it’s like being trapped outside. Stop it.’

  He walked back to Shaw, looked him in the face. ‘Stop it.’ He looked at the graveyard as if seeing it for the first time. ‘I don’t want you here, but I can’t leave.’

  Shaw nodded. ‘I’ll go. If you want to talk, or you need help, ring this number.’ He put a card on the seat, and a £10 note, weighing it down with one of the limpet shells.

  46

  As Valentine drove east along the coast road, a hoar frost had the countryside in its grip, adding bone‐white trees to a landscape of fresh snow. Shaw tried to focus on the events on Siberia Belt the night Harvey Ellis died. The central mystery remained: who had killed him, and how? They’d now interviewed everyone in the line of stranded cars at least twice: all except the teenager who had run from the scene that night as the helicopter had swung in to land on Ingol Beach – young Sebastian Draper. His solicitor had phoned to say he’d be available for interview at nine that morning – but that his client wanted to meet at a scrap‐metal yard on the edge of Wells. He had something to show them, as well as tell them.

  John Kimbolton & Sons was a graveyard for cars. It lay a mile out of town on the saltmarsh, the tottering piles of wrecked chassis only partly hidden behind an ugly hedge of leylandii tinted with frost. They flashed their warrant cards at a mechanic working with a welding torch by the entrance.

  ‘Just looking for a vehicle,’ said Valentine. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  Draper arrived on the stroke of the hour in a powder‐blue Bentley driven by his solicitor. The 18‐year‐old hadn’t chosen his own clothes that morning: a charcoal‐grey suit, the blue tie knotted savagely tight, the shirt as white as a ski slope. Without the baseball cap Shaw could see that his hair was dark, almost black, well cut, brushed back off the pale forehead, but falling forward despite the gel. Just eighteen; his face in transition, the eyelashes too long, his skin flushed, the over‐long arms held awkwardly at his sides. The solicitor was called Barrett; black leather gloves, black brogues, and a skier’s tan.

  They shook hands; two detectives, solicitor and client.

  ‘OK. Sebastian? Why here?’ said Shaw, the snow beginning to fall. They stood by a little column of six crushed cars, one on top of the other. Shaw rested an ungloved hand on the nearest chassis, then pulled it back as he felt his skin freeze to the metal.

  Draper had rehearsed his story, which didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

  The gap‐year idea had been a disaster. All his friends except Gee Belcher had left the village. He didn’t want to travel abroad, not alone. His parents were in London during the week. Sarah, his girlfriend, had left for university at Durham. His father paid him an allowance but it wasn’t much and so he’d got a summer job with the council, filling holes in the road. He’d made friends, the wrong kind of friends, and stayed on when winter came. He’d get into Lynn by bus, or if he could he’d borrow Rod Belcher’s car, the BMW. They’d sus out likely cars, drink enough to overcome the fear they’d be caught, then pile in and drive out here to Kimbolton’s. Never before seven, the only rule, and cash in hand: £100 per vehicle – any vehicle. They never knew what happened to them but it was easy to guess: there was a paint shed, a pile of number plates, stacks of second‐hand tyres.

  Valentine noted that the mechanic had stopped welding and was now on a mobile phone.

  ‘They gave us the cash in an envelope. Twenties, always twenties. Then we had to go back and wait by the office for a lift into town. That was it, every time.’

  The snow was heavier now, settling on the lawyer’s cashmere coat. There was a partly wrecked bus parked by the leylandii – a double‐decker, its windows out. Shaw led them on board and they sat on the stiff icy seats. It was out of the snow but somehow colder, like sitting in a fridge.

  Draper told them what had happened that night on Siberia Belt. He’d stolen a car, got caught on Siberia Belt, panicked when the police arrived and fled the scene. One unexpected detail. Draper might have stuck it out for longer that night, but he said he’d recognized Sarah Baker‐Sibley. He said she always picked her daughter up from the discos at Burnham Thorpe. It was a small world, he said. That was the problem with growing up in it.

  The interview was, as Shaw had suspected, a depressing dead‐end. He let Valentine take over the questions while he rang St James’s and got put through to the car‐crime unit. They’d need to check out every wreck on the yard before the management had time to cover their tracks.

  Valentine was shivering now, holding his raincoat to his thin neck. ‘That night – how’d you get home?’ he asked.

  ‘In the snow? I got down to the coast road… I fell in – twice. A van stopped and gave me a lift all the way back to Gayton – right to the car. A Renault van.’ He gave them the number.

  ‘You memorize that?’ asked Valentine, offering him a smoke.

  Draper looked at his lawyer, then the Silk Cut, then took one. ‘I don’t need to. I can’t forget numbers – not once I’ve seen them.’ Shaw recalled Parlour’s description of the teenage driver of the Mondeo on Siberia Belt; the T‐shirt logo Pi is God.

  ‘Why’d you take the steering‐wheel cover with you when you stole the car?’ asked Shaw, taking an interest now, realizing that Valentine had been right to probe.

  ‘I didn’t have gloves,’ he admitted. ‘I’d been along for the ride before, nicking cars. But they said this one was mine. That way I got the money – all the money. I didn’t want to leave any prints. I used my T‐shirt when I opened the door.’

  Draper smoked the cigarette cupped in his hand. ‘We don’t need to go to the station,’ said Shaw. Barrett nodded, catching his client’s eye with a wink.

  ‘I think you’ve been honest with me, Sebastian,’ said Shaw.

  ‘Seb,’ he said, then bit his lip.

  ‘Seb,’ said Shaw. Valentine jiggled his dice key ring. But Shaw hadn’t finished. Something about Seb Draper intrigued him. He wondered what it was like to have the kind of brain that couldn’t forget a number.

  ‘Seb, we’re trying to find out what really happened out there on that road on Monday night. You know what we found?’

  Draper worked a finger in between his neck and the white shirt. ‘The guy at the front, he died, right?’

  ‘That’s right. We think he was part of a plan to divert the traffic off the road. Mrs Baker‐Sibley’s daughter was abducted that night – while she was stranded out on Siberia Belt.’

  Draper’s mouth opened to reveal perfect dentistry.

  ‘I just need you to tell me precisely what happened,’ said Shaw. ‘You’re good with details, Seb – that’s what we want. That’s where the devil is, right? You left Gayton in the Mondeo when?’

  ‘Five. Five past. I left the BMW under the trees by the gate to The Walks. Outside number 56. I drove out towards Hunstanton – I took the old road ’cos it’s always quieter. I got behind another car at the lights at Castle Rising. I kept my distance after that, ’cos, like, I didn’t want some stupid shunt on the road. You need to keep it simple, nicking cars – no accidents.’

  Barrett was looking at his client, his eyes hardening.

  ‘I saw lights ahead turning down onto the sea wall. I got to the diversion sign, so I turned too. The lights were ahead, moving away from me. By the time I got round the corner the lights were ahead of me again – but they’d stopped.’


  Shaw nodded. ‘So you’d followed the same car from the lights at Castle Rising, to the turning, and then down the causeway until you came to a stop?’

  ‘Well. Yeah. But that’s an assumption right? For you. Not for me.’

  ‘Why not for you?’

  ‘Same model Morris, same number plate – KWX117. I clocked them at the lights.’

  He didn’t laugh because he wasn’t joking, and Shaw felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. He thought about it. ‘Because if you hadn’t noticed the registration number and the make of the car it didn’t have to be the same vehicle?’

  ‘Yeah – I lost sight of it twice. Once on the coast road, and then when it went round the corner on the causeway.’

  ‘Because in the time it was out of sight it might have pulled off the road, and another one pulled out to take its place?”

  ‘That’s it,’ said Draper.

  Out of the mouths of babes… thought Shaw. He pictured the scene that night on Siberia Belt, able at last to see the events unfolding, creating the puzzle which they’d been unable to break. Until now.

  47

  ‘Here,’ said Shaw, tapping on the windscreen of the Mazda. Valentine pulled the car over where Siberia Belt met the track to Gallow Marsh Farm. Shaw kicked open the passenger door. The snow had stopped and the red disc of the sun was setting between banks of cloud the colour of theatre curtains. The air temperature was falling like a hailstone. It felt good, standing on the bank, now that he thought he knew what had happened that night.

  He had to see if it worked on the ground, in the real world. So they’d come straight to Siberia Belt from Kimbolton’s yard. En route St James’s had radioed Valentine. They’d got a call at 3.30 that afternoon. One of Izzy Dereham’s farm labourers had been walking down to check the oyster cages in the sea when he’d seen something in the dyke – metallic, floating in the tidal wash from the beach. DC Twine had told them to leave whatever it was, and wait for Shaw and Valentine. A fire‐brigade hazardous materials unit was on its way too – just in case they needed specialist handling gear.