Death Wore White

by Jim Kelly

  He heard an engine race and saw Tom Hadden’s 4x4 coming down the track from the cottage. Rainwater, coming down off the hill, had filled the ditches on either side. Plumes of water rose from the tyres as he rode through puddles. Shaw flashed his lights. The two stopped door‐by‐door and Shaw lowered the window.

  Hadden did the same.

  ‘Jump in,’ said Shaw. ‘And bring your box of tricks.’ Hadden splashed his way round to the passenger side of the Land Rover. Inside, the door closed, the sound of the falling rain was deafening.

  ‘Any news on George?’ said Hadden.

  ‘He’s with the paramedics. There’s nothing I can do.’

  ‘OK,’ said Hadden, backing off, hearing the stress in Shaw’s voice.

  ‘I think I know what happened,’ said Shaw, taking a breath. ‘That night.’

  He put the Land Rover into first and pressed on towards the cottages, negotiating the water‐filled potholes and ruts until he could park beside the darkened house.

  ‘When I found Holt slumped at the wheel of the Corsa I loosened his collar,’ said Shaw, killing the engine. ‘There was a name tag on the jacket– at least that’s what I thought it was. RFA.’

  ‘Right. Royal Fleet Auxiliary,’ said Hadden. ‘Merchant Navy.’

  ‘Yeah. Except Holt was never in the Merchant Navy. It wasn’t his jacket – it was Duncan Sly’s. The blood‐soaked material you found outside Sly’s boat was Holt’s jacket.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘They swapped at the scene. Holt had to stay around, get his car out on the coast road to box in Baker‐Sibley’s Alfa, play his part. But Sly could get away from the scene. All he needed to do was walk to the far end of Siberia Belt and take in the AA no‐entry sign. So they swapped jackets. It was Holt’s that was covered in blood. So he was at the scene after the fatal blow was struck – which means Izzy Dereham lied when she said she’d seen Ellis alive on Siberia Belt when they drove away from Gallow Marsh. I think she and Holt tried to frame Sly. They were family, and they were doing it for the kids. Sly was a loner. No family, no ties. Why not let him go down for it – especially as he’d planned the whole thing, recruited them, bribed them?’

  ‘It makes sense,’ said Hadden.

  ‘And it buys some valuable time.’

  ‘Why do we need time?’

  ‘Because it’s getting warmer,’ said Shaw. ‘And we still need to prove Holt was on the spot when Ellis died.’ He got out of the Land Rover and met Hadden in the headlights.

  Hadden shook his head. ‘But I’ve told you – we didn’t find the boots.’

  Shaw placed both hands on Hadden’s shoulders and smiled. ‘But I think I can find you the footprint we need.’

  He looked up at the side of the house. The sycamore and the magnolia stood in the lee of the storm, both stunted now they’d been pruned, like scarecrow’s hands.

  ‘Your boys couldn’t find any footprints here because the ground’s frozen – has been since Monday night. But remember that on the Sunday Holt was here, pruning the sycamore, to make sure his little granddaughter didn’t have any more nightmares. Spring was in the air, it was mild and sunny.’

  Shaw gave Hadden the surfer’s smile. Rain dripped off the end of Hadden’s nose.

  ‘If he’s our man, he pruned the tree wearing the boots he wore on Siberia Belt. And he did it before the frost bit. It doesn’t matter if he’s destroyed the boots, dumped them, whatever. Because we know what the print looks like.’

  They both dropped to their haunches by the bole of the tree. Snow still lay on the ground, pockmarked with raindrops.

  ‘It’s under the snow,’ said Shaw. ‘Right here.’

  Hadden flipped open the aluminium CSI case and extracted a tub of dental stone, a fixative spray and a gel releasing agent, and a battery‐operated hairdryer.

  ‘What do we do?’ asked Shaw.

  ‘Try and keep the rain off while I apply some warm air – I use this to shift dust. But it’ll do.’ He played the dryer on the snow.

  Shaw fetched a tarpaulin from the Land Rover and they hung it over the spot from the lower branches of the tree. Within minutes black, frost‐shattered clods of earth had begun to poke through the white crust of the frozen ground.

  ‘There,’ said Shaw, pointing at two depressions beginning to emerge. ‘That’s where he set the ladder.’

  Then a pair of footprints began to appear. Hadden used the fixative spray, securing the friable sandy soil in place as the ice melted. He prepared the dental stone to pour into the print and make a cast. The first footprint was useless – the boot had slid in the wet soil and smeared the pattern. But the second was stable, once sharp, but softening now the frost was melting. Until the last moment Shaw thought he was wrong. The heel was the last part of the print to be revealed: but finally the impossibly delicate bone‐structure of the imprinted fern leaf emerged, as unique as a blood‐soaked fingerprint.

  ‘There,’ said Shaw. ‘At last. The truth. Holt was there when Ellis died. And he’s told us nothing but lies ever since.’

  54

  Monday, 23 February – a week later

  Shaw walked slowly down the line of flowers, wondering why the blooms never seemed to have any scent at funerals. He was late, and from the chapel came the sound of an organ and uncertain voices. At the door one of the ushers stood, handing out an order of service, and Shaw took one and slipped into the back row. Up at the front the coffin stood on metal rollers, ready for its last journey through the velvet curtains. Oak; Shaw always thought it was a waste of a good tree.

  On a side pew sat Paul Twine, Jacky Lau and Mark Birley. Beside them, still in a wheelchair, was Fiona Campbell.

  The congregation stood for the first hymn.

  Abide with me, fast falls the eventide

  Shaw looked up at the eggshell‐blue ceiling, trying not to think of the fire beyond the curtains, the plastic anonymous pot for the ashes.

  The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide

  Shaw shifted from foot to foot. His good eye swam with liquid, and if he blinked the image edged across his retina, slightly ahead of the point of focus. He’d had the stitches taken out that morning by the consultant, the dressing removed without ceremony, then the sutures, and he’d been left with the nurse who showed him how to bathe the eye; the water comforting, trickling over his cheek where she dabbed at the wound. Then they’d left him alone. He rebathed the eye. Waited; tried again. On the third try the lid parted, and he felt the stickiness of his eyelashes unmeshing. When he opened the eye he saw a strange darkness full of hints of colour – purple, and shifting green, and from the left a definite sense of sunlight. His heart raced. With both eyes closed he listened to the sounds in the hospital. In the corridor a pail was shifted by foot, the water slopping inside. He opened just the injured eye again and saw less. The light was still there, but the colours had faded. The third time there were no colours, just the light. He thought it was the window but when he stood, turning his head, the light stayed on the left side.

  He crossed to the hand basin in the consulting room, gripped it and looked into the mirror above. The scarred skin was healing fast, and the red stain which had seemed so raw and angry was now dry, the dead skin peeling away. And the left eye was still tap‐water blue, but the right was bled of colour, dappled like a moon rising in the evening when the sun is still up.

  ‘A moon eye,’ he whispered to himself.

  The chemical had attacked the cells of the iris, burning away the tendrils of the optic nerve. He’d be blind in the eye for life. The consultant thought there was little hope he’d get any sight back.

  When other helpers fail and comforts flee

  He breathed deeply. Until then it hadn’t been a bad day. First thing he’d briefed DCI Warren. Holt had been charged with the murder of Harvey Ellis shortly after his arrest. They’d separately interviewed his wife and daughter and built up a clear picture of the campaign of terror waged by the loan shark Joe. Holt had b
een pushed to the edge, and over. Sly would face the lesser charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice. Izzy Dereham was still being questioned but would certainly face a charge, with Sly and Holt, of attempted kidnapping and false imprisonment.

  Holt had refused to talk, but Sly’s testimony – and the little Izzy Dereham had been able to tell them – confirmed the picture they had built up of the killing. When Sly had arrived on the scene that night Holt was trying to get Ellis’s body into the pick‐up. Holt had been in a state of panic, his chest was hurting, his vision blurred, his coat caked in blood. Sly got the truth out of him, holding the shaking man by the shoulders.

  They’d sat in the cab of the pick‐up, Holt and Ellis, arguing it through. Ellis had said he wanted more for his family than some pathetic trip to see a bird of prey. That’s when he’d switched on the toy: ranting, demanding more money: £10,000, £20,000, just more. Holt had said no, so Ellis had got out, saying he’d walk back, warn Sarah Baker‐Sibley. Holt had snapped: confronted with this weak man, who even if he did lose his son to cancer still had a family to go home to, another son and another daughter. And what – Holt had asked Sly – had he got to go home to? The loan shark’s warning had been stark. Pay up, or someone was going to get hurt. He’d never shake them off, with their knives, the threats, haunting their lives. And there was no way out, no money saved, or to be earned. His life would be a nightmare until he died. But that didn’t make him kill. What made him kill was that Sasha’s life would be a nightmare too.

  The toolbox had been on the seat, so Holt had taken the chisel and gone after him. He’d caught him, swung him round so that he lost his footing, put him down on his knees, in free fall, sobbing, pleading. If they got caught, cried Ellis, he’d go to jail, and even a short sentence was the rest of his son’s life.

  It was the selfishness of that single thought which unleashed the violence: that this pathetic excuse for a man would throw away everything just because he might be in prison when his son died. And so Holt had struck the blow that killed him. He’d held his shoulder with one hand and thrust the chisel towards his face with the other, into his face, not aiming for the eye. It was over, he’d told Sly, before he knew he’d done it. The weapon had slipped into the soft tissue, into the brain. The horror of it had made his weak heart convulse. There hadn’t been a struggle. It had been an execution. And now it was over.

  Sly had taken control. He’d seen men die before, and in the carnage then he’d kept his head. They didn’t know where Ellis had put the spare spark plugs so he adapted the plan: they cut down the pine tree, edged the truck back to Ellis’s body and lifted him straight into the driver’s seat. Then they shut the door, and pushed it forward. Ellis was dying, but not dead. They decided not to touch anything: it would look less suspicious if the lights were on, engine running, CD blaring. So they’d left the wings fluttering, the exhaust pumping out into the freezing air. Then Sly made them swap jackets, focused on the plan, and the rewards that would be theirs if they stuck to it.

  Holt could see it then – that just because Ellis was dead didn’t mean everything was lost. They’d leave him in the cab and they’d trap Baker‐Sibley. They’d get their money. So what if Harvey Ellis’s body was found? There were no links between them and Ellis. No rationale for the killing. If Baker‐Sibley went to the police she’d never see her daughter again. They were just innocent witnesses, trapped with everyone else. All they had to do was keep their nerve.

  But Holt’s breathing had refused to return to normal. They fished in his overcoat for the pills he always carried, medicine for his erratic heart.

  Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

  When Holt got back to Gallow Marsh Izzy Dereham knew that something had gone terribly wrong. Holt sat in the kitchen, drinking malt, his hand held over his straining heart. They’d cleaned his hands and face of traces of blood, and she found him one of Patrick’s old shirts. Despite Holt’s distress, he’d still tried to save his own skin. He’d told his niece that Sly had killed Harvey Ellis, but that they had to stick to the plan. It would still work: they’d delay Baker‐Sibley, Ellis’s body would be found, but there was nothing to link any of them to the crime. So she’d driven the farm van down to Siberia Belt. They could see the pick‐up in the distance, Sly walking away towards the far end of the track. Then they’d gone to the lay‐by, in place at exactly 4.45, to wait for Sarah Baker‐Sibley’s lipstick‐red Alfa Romeo.

  Days later, after Shaw and Valentine had made their first call on John Holt at Blickling Cottages, they’d agreed another version of events on the phone. Holt told his niece, again, that he was innocent of the murder, but that Sly would try to implicate him as the killer if the police cracked the case. If that happened there was a way to stop him: with a lie, just one. They had to say they’d seen Harvey Ellis alive as they’d driven away from Gallow Marsh. And so Izzy had lied, but she’d never known the truth until now, that the killer was really her uncle. And the lie might have seen Duncan Sly on a murder charge if Shaw hadn’t found physical proof Holt had been there when Harvey Ellis died: the single footprint under the sycamore tree.

  Shaw blinked his good eye, snapping out of his reverie. The coffin was being carried out of the chapel and along the gravel path between the guards of honour. He joined the shuffling line of mourners.

  At the graveside there was a wreath from the Police Federation. On the grass a floral message stood, set upright with wire stakes, the letters spelt out in blue irises.

  JAKE WE LOVE YOU

  Grace Ellis held a paper tissue to her lips like smelling salts.

  Epilogue

  Despite being on the eighth floor of the Queen Victoria hospital George Valentine had found somewhere to smoke. A whip‐round in the murder inquiry room had purchased the DS a new mobile phone with a built‐in camera. The picture on Shaw’s mobile screen, passed on from Jacky Lau, showed a steel platform on a fire escape, the northern suburbs of Lynn beyond, Valentine leaning against the railings blowing a smoke ring. His faded blue dressing gown blew in the wind. The hospital car park lay 150 feet below, rain puddled on the tarmac.

  Shaw flicked the mobile shut. He was sitting in the waiting room for the juvenile courts. White walls, blue carpet, a child’s playpen in one corner. He checked his tide watch. High water at home, and he wished he was there. The case he was waiting for would be up in the hour. Sooner. When it was over he’d drive straight to the beach, meet Lena and Francesca, catch the sunset. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself running.

  When they’d got Valentine into A&E Justina Kazimierz had been waiting for them with the serum from the US laboratory which had identified the venom in Terry Brand’s blood system. When he’d regained consciousness he’d been able to explain more fully what had happened. Taking his torch into the pavilion, he’d bent down to peer into one of the glass cabinets. That’s when he’d seen the spiders. He’d stepped back too quickly, his phobia kicking in, his black slip‐ons skating on the floorboards so that he fell, crashing into the other cabinet. He’d put out a hand, felt it lacerated by the glass; then felt something else: a double incision of something very sharp, and very small. Valentine’s recovery would be slow but uncomplicated: a fortnight of blood transfusions to clear the poison, then a diet to boost vitamins and resistance to infection. For the duration he’d be off alcohol – if he followed the consultant’s advice.

  The doors of the court came open. The next case was called. A girl in jeans and a ripped T‐shirt went in, a woman in a suit holding her hand.

  Shaw checked the court list. The one he wanted was next – T. G. Maddams.

  CCTV footage outside a corner shop had given the street‐crime unit at St James’s the information required to track down the vandal who had superglued the door locks in Giddy Poynter’s flats, and the cars in the street outside. Fifteen‐year‐old Thomas Maddams, of Wilber‐force House, Westmead Estate, was identified purchasing the glue six hours before the offences took place. His h
ome was three miles from the shop, which was 100 yards from Giddy’s block. Maddams’s fingerprints had been on several of the vandalized cars. Shaw had talked to the prosecuting officer and Maddams had been asked, under caution, if he was responsible for the added torture of the rat’s tail through Giddy Poynter’s letterbox. He denied it. There was no evidence that he was anything more than a vandal.

  Shaw tried to focus his good eye on the court clock. Then he searched in his pocket and pulled out an envelope, re‐reading the brief message inside.

  Peter,

  Just a note, you’ll get an official letter from my office. I’ve read the file on Tessier very carefully. I agree the new forensics are interesting but nothing points, as yet, to Robert Mosse. The report on the spray paint found on the boy’s clothes is intriguing, but hardly compelling. The resources which would have to be invested in taking these leads any further are prohibitive.

  Peter, this case is now twelve years old. I cannot recommend the inquiry is reopened. Furthermore, I have to ask you not to personally pursue the case. Given your links to the original inquiry – through both your father and George Valentine – I’d find it very difficult to deflect charges that you were undertaking some kind of vendetta. The same goes for George. I’ll send him a note separately when he’s back on duty.

  I’ve returned both the file and the SOC box to Timber Woods. He will release them only on my signature.

  Kindest regards

  Max

  He could go to Warren and tell him about Giddy Poynter’s suspicious death. But what did it amount to? The sudden, convenient, disappearance of a key witness, certainly. A potential witness, Warren would counter. There was no evidence to link the gang’s attack on Giddy and the death of Jonathan Tessier – no evidence that wasn’t circumstantial. The inquest on Giddy had been as bleak and brief as his life. Death by misadventure. There was no note, but the patient’s psychiatric report included several references to suicidal tendencies. The doors of eight flats had been glued that night, and eighteen motor vehicles on the streets in the district. Although there’d only been one rat’s tail. Shaw was convinced Giddy Poynter had been harried to his death, but he could no more prove it to Warren than show him an evidential link between the two cases. If he was to make any progress on the Tessier case, it would have to be on his own. Ignoring Warren’s orders could cost him his job. So he needed to step carefully, subtly, and work alone.