Death Watch

by Unknown

  AS A SHADOW, SUCH IS LIFE

  His mobile trilled and he checked it to find a picture message from Lena: his daughter Fran by a fire on the beach, her feet in jelly-mould shoes. He was going to text Lena back but heard Valentine’s footsteps coming up the street. The DS wiped a hand across his mouth and Shaw wondered if he’d managed a swift short in the Crane. ‘Power’s been out since just after noon,’ he said. ‘Electric board are here – but they say they won’t have mains back until midnight – earliest. The party’s for three of the locals who got their redundo today – off the docks. Landlord says he can’t stop selling booze. He’s right. There’d be a riot. Beer’s on electric pumps, so they’re hitting the hard stuff, plus the high-alcohol lagers. But they’re OK – pissed blind, but OK. I’ve told ’em to keep the volume down.’

  He took his raincoat off and draped it over one narrow shoulder. ‘St James’s are gonna send a car past later. Just to check.’ He spat in the dust and loosened his tie. ‘I asked where Judd’s wife might be…’ he held up a hand quickly. ‘I didn’t say why. Just a routine inquiry. They said if she’s not in the launderette she’d be at the church on the corner. Bloke said she liked a quick prayer – they all seemed to think that was very funny. Wet themselves.’

  ‘When you’re that slaughtered, breathing’s hilarious,’ said Shaw.

  They both looked up at the moon, low in the sky, magnified by the warm layer of polluted air over the town. It seemed to add to the heat.

  ‘Launderette’s back there,’ said Valentine.

  One of the houses had been converted to a shop at ground level, the single window crammed with Day-Glo stickers in the shape of stars advertising cut-price deals: SERVICE WASH – £7 PER LOAD. SINGEL DUVETS £8. DOUBLE £10.00. KINGSIZE £11. The fascia read Bentinc Launderett, the last letters of the two words long gone. A neon sign over the door was off but they could still read what it said: 24-HOUR WASH. An upstairs bedroom window was open, a net curtain motionless.

  Shaw rapped on the door, rang the bell, not expecting to hear a noise. But a buzzer sounded upstairs.

  ‘Battery,’ said Valentine. He’d brought the torch from the boot and flashed it inside the dark interior of the shop. Shaw realized he hadn’t actually tried the door. It swung open easily. The smell that came out was warm, damp, and chemical.

  ‘We’re closed.’ The voice came from behind them, out in the dark street; and then came a woman, dragging a laundry bag, a mop and pail.

  She was tall, with lank blonde hair cut short at home. The kind of body which is just vertical, without curves, like a deckchair. If she was forty she hadn’t been forty very long. No jewellery, no watch, no rings. Shaw thought she looked bleached, as if she’d been washed herself, too many times. And her hands were red, raw even, where the constant contact with powders and detergents had irritated her skin. But an odd detail. Shaw noticed she’d put lipstick on, ineptly, and most of it was gone, leaving an artificial edge of pink.

  ‘Your shop?’ asked Shaw.

  ‘It’s hot,’ she said, ignoring the question, picking the T-shirt clear of her neck. A logo on the front read Pat Green: The Wave-on-Wave Album, and the trailing lead of an MP3 player fell out of a pocket on her breast.

  ‘The power’s been down since lunch. I’m losing money here.’ She put a hand on her hip in a practised gesture of rest. ‘Anyway, who are you?’

  The accent was local, with just a little of the Estuary English which had come to the town with the London overspill of the 1960s.

  Sparks rose from the blaze up the street, crackling like fireworks.

  ‘Mrs Judd?’ said Shaw, standing straight, letting the formality in his voice act as an early warning of bad news. ‘Josephine Judd?’ He held up his warrant card and Valentine lit it with the torch. The DS tugged again at his tie, trying to loosen it in the heat, as she studied the picture of Shaw, tie-less as always, in a crisp white shirt. She touched the edge of the warrant card and Shaw knew she’d noticed the moon eye, but when she looked back at him she didn’t stare.

  ‘Yeah. It’s Ally – second name. Never Josephine.’ She waited for them to say something, but when they didn’t she took her cue. ‘It’s Bry, isn’t it?’ She put the laundry bag down and put both hands on her hips. ‘What’s happened now?’

  They heard footsteps slip on the flagged stones of the street. A man stood twenty feet away, reluctant to come closer.

  ‘Ally? You OK? Someone said the police were nosing round – that right?’

  ‘That’s right, Andy,’ she said. ‘Just leave it.’ She wasn’t being kind, just dismissing him, as if he didn’t count, like she was talking to a child. He walked over anyway, his steps unsteady, and in the warm air they could smell the alcohol. A shock of white hair like a wallpaper brush, a face lined unnaturally deep. A small man, but not a naturally small man; a bigger man diminished, shrunk down. He wore a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up, and the muscles swung as he moved, as if they’d almost wasted away. Behind him the dancing boy with the cat mask had detached himself from the party and was standing still, waiting to see what would happen next.

  In a cupped hand the man hid a smoking cigarette butt.

  ‘Andy is Bry’s dad,’ she said, as if he needed an excuse to stand in his own street. But she didn’t take her eyes off Shaw.

  ‘Bry? What’s up with Bry?’ said Andy Judd. The voice was Irish, but urban – Dublin or Cork.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked Shaw, ignoring him again.

  ‘Had Bryan ever broken his arm – here?’ Shaw touched his left radius in two places.

  The blood drained from her face as she nodded. ‘Fell off his bike – that’s years ago. So what?’

  But Shaw could see she was working it out. He gave her a few more seconds.

  ‘I’m afraid we’re pretty sure Bryan’s been involved in an incident at the hospital, Mrs Judd,’ he said. ‘I’m terribly sorry. He’s gone missing, and a body’s been found. It looks like very bad news. I’m afraid there’s every chance it’s him. I’d be prepared for the worst. We’ll have to try and find a match with his dental records – but that could take time.’ Shaw knew that that was the detail that always spoke for itself.

  Ally’s hands jumped, but otherwise she didn’t react. Andy Judd almost fell over, quickly rearranging his feet to steady himself, a hand stuck in his hair, trying to comb through.

  ‘Not Bry,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No fucking way.’

  ‘Shut up,’ she said savagely, as if she’d been waiting years for a chance.

  He looked at his feet, instantly diminished.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Shaw.

  Her fingers jumped again and Valentine recognized the movement, so he offered her a cigarette. She fished one out of the packet of Silk Cut. Valentine leant forward and lit it for her. She looked pathetically grateful for the courtesy. In the harsh glare from the lighter Shaw could see she wasn’t going to cry; not tonight, not for a long time, and perhaps maybe never.

  Andy Judd knelt stiffly beside her on the pavement, but he didn’t touch her.

  ‘If it is your husband you should know it would have been very quick. He wouldn’t have suffered,’ said Shaw.

  Valentine nodded, joining in the ritual round of misplaced comfort. It might have been quick, but it sure as hell hadn’t been painless. He thought of the victim’s charred spine, the wide-open jaws.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Andy Judd. ‘Did…’ He looked at his daughter-in-law. ‘Did he do for himself?’ He wore a pair of soiled blue overalls and a bib of sweat had formed on his chest.

  ‘No, we don’t think it was suicide, or an accident,’ said Shaw. ‘But we can’t discuss the details just yet. As I’ve said – we don’t have a formal identification, and that will take time. But for now I’ve just a couple of questions. At this stage we don’t need to know much, but we do need to know quickly. Is that OK?’ The question was for her.

  She looked up then, the hand holding the cigarette vibrating slowly. ‘S
omeone killed Bry?’

  Andy Judd stood, touched his daughter-in-law’s head briefly like a blessing, then turning unsteadily, walked away towards the fire. As he passed the boy in the cat mask he took his hand.

  ‘Mr Judd,’ said Valentine, taking a step after him.

  Ally held up both hands. ‘No, leave him. Please. I’ll answer any questions – just leave him.’

  They watched Andy Judd rejoin the group around the fire, a discordant chorus of ‘The Fields of Athenry’ petering out, the figures in the crowd gathering round, forming a tighter knot.

  Smoking three more of Valentine’s cigarettes Ally Judd told them the bare details of her husband’s last day alive. Her voice had gone flat, bleached of emotion, and Shaw guessed she’d slipped into the early stages of shock. As soon as they’d got the basics they’d get someone from family liaison to stay with her, and a doctor.

  Bryan Judd had got up at ten, she said, and went to pick up his magazine from the corner shop on Carlisle Street. Country & Western News. It was usually in on the Sunday, even though Monday was the right day. He’d come back with bacon sandwiches from the van by the new docks and they’d shared them in the shop. That day one of the driers had broken down so he fixed that, then the power had gone. Bryan phoned the electricity company to complain, and they said they’d got a unit on the way. There wasn’t anything he could do, so he’d taken his bike and cycled up to the hospital. His shift started at two and he always cycled – the bike would be in the shed by A&E. She’d made him sandwiches so he didn’t go out for his tea break. It saved them money. Sometimes he picked up chips on the way home. Not tonight. She thought about that. Definitely not tonight.

  She covered her mouth as if she’d suddenly remembered something shocking – but it was just the first time the fact that she was alone had really crystallized. She spread her knees, braced her hands on her thighs, and threw up on the pavement.

  Valentine got on the radio for the doctor. Shaw put an arm around her. ‘Can I get you a glass of water?’

  She nodded. ‘There’s a sink at the back of the shop,’ she said in a whisper. ‘If the door’s locked, knock. Neil – Bry’s brother – he’s upstairs.’

  The launderette was fetid, damp. A line of silent driers on one side, machines opposite, wooden benches down the middle.

  The door to the kitchen at the back was reinforced with iron bars. He shook the handle, playing his torch beam on the lock, but it wouldn’t turn, so he knocked. Outside in the street he heard a cheer, and was thinking how out of place that was, when the floorboards over his head began to creak, then heavy footsteps marked a descent down uncarpeted stairs.

  A key turned and the door opened, a young man blinking into the torchlight. ‘Dad?’ The voice was slurred, nasal, and very light, like a child’s. Shaw guessed he was nineteen, twenty, in a black T-shirt, jeans. The light caught hearing aids in both ears – the transparent kind, fitted, and partly concealed by thick black hair.

  Shaw held up the warrant card and spoke clearly. ‘Lynn CID. Your sister-in-law needs your help – she’s outside. She’s had some bad news. A glass of water?’ he asked, trying to look past him.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he said. ‘I’ve been asleep.’ He rubbed his eyes. Shaw noted the stunted consonants, the flat toneless rhythm of the deaf.

  ‘Neil?’

  He didn’t answer. The face held an echo of his father, but was much more delicate, a softer model, a more feminine version.

  He stood to one side so that Shaw could see the kitchen in the torchlight. There was a metal sink, a pile of soap powder boxes, conditioner in catering bottles, a workbench and tools. Shaw ran the cold tap and filled a glass. They heard a bottle smash out in the street, then another, and a cheer. No. A jeer this time; angry and jagged. Neil Judd’s head jerked and Shaw guessed he’d picked up the vibration, the shock wave, of the noise outside. He fled through the moonlit launderette in his bare feet.

  Shaw followed with the glass of water. But Ally Judd had gone. Valentine was on his mobile. The street was transformed by light – a red, brutal gout of fire already roaring like a flame thrower as it burst through the upstairs bedroom window of a house up the street on the same side.

  ‘Someone chucked something,’ said Valentine, covering the mouthpiece.

  The crowd in the street was melting into the darkness, retreating inside the Crane, or into the houses, leaving the street empty but strewn with debris – half-bricks, bottles, a few beer cans. Shaw ran out into the middle of the street to get a clear view. Andy Judd was stood in front of the blazing house with his daughter-in-law Ally. Then the downstairs window imploded and they all dived for the road, although Shaw had time to see a head within, glimpsed through the shattered glass, the mouth wide with a scream, quickly engulfed in smoke. But the scream remained, a constant, inhuman note, like a cat under the moon.

  4

  Andy Judd was throwing bricks through the shattered window, sobbing, his arms flailing at the flames; Ally was trying to catch at his hand and pull him back from the fire. Shaw ran to help her but the air pressure shifted, his ears popped, and he was knocked to the ground again as the front door imploded, releasing a tongue of fire like a Bunsen burner. By the time he was back on his feet he could see a light fitting melting in the front room, the hanging flex like a fuse, and beyond it the wallpaper peeling back in the heat. A shadow moved, an arm flapping at the corner of a burning curtain, the scream still sustained, cutting through the roar of the fire. The paint on the door was peeling because of the heat inside, the metal number 6 changing colour with the temperature.

  Shaw got hold of Andy Judd’s left arm and twisted it expertly behind his back, turning him on his heels, frog-marching him back off the pavement and out into the street, pushing him down onto the tarmac where the metal rails ran, set into the street. Overpowered, he went limp, like a marionette with its strings cut.

  Then two things happened at once: they heard a police squad-car siren as it turned into Erebus Street, emergency lights flashing. Then, through the curtain of fire which filled the shattered doorway, a man stepped out, the coat he wore alight on his back and flames catching on one of his arms. He brought with him the inhuman scream, the single note unchanging. He strode into the road, stood for a second as if the act of moving his limbs was the source of the pain, and then fell forward, knees first, the skull striking the road with a crack like billiard balls colliding.

  Shaw threw his jacket across him, then rolled him over, twice, three times, smothering the flames. The soprano scream died. Valentine knelt beside him too. ‘Brigade’s on the way – but there’s upstairs,’ said the DS.

  They both looked back at the house to the first-floor window, but there was nobody there.

  ‘I saw someone – a face,’ said Valentine, his own bathed in sweat. ‘Definite.’

  Shaw turned the man at his feet over onto his back. He was young – maybe twenty-five – and although his eyes were open they were out of focus. ‘Pete’s trapped,’ said the man, a line of blood trickling out from his hairline. ‘My skin’s cold.’

  ‘It’s burnt,’ said Shaw. ‘It’ll hurt – soon. But help’s on the way. Just be still. Pete – he’s upstairs?’

  But the man wasn’t listening. ‘I can’t see clearly,’ he said.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said a voice, and Shaw turned to see that a young man was kneeling on the road beside him: late teens, early twenties, savagely thin, elbows jutting, with a head of black hair badly cut. He had clear skin, and a pair of thin, horizontal glasses, which made him look serious, professional. He was wearing a T-shirt with a motto: Barnardo’s – Believe in Children.

  ‘Please,’ he said, edging forward, taking the man’s hand. ‘Aidan. Aidan, it’s me – Liam. It’s going to be OK. It’s just shock – you’ll be OK. I’ll stay with you.’ He looked up at Shaw quickly, as if there was a danger that if he broke eye contact with the injured man for long he wouldn’t be able to re-establish the bond. ‘It’s a hostel,
’ he said, glancing at the burning house. ‘Run from the church. I’m Liam Kennedy, the warden. This man is Aidan Holme; I know Aidan – I need to stay with him.’

  Shaw stood, letting him get closer. Kennedy put an arm round Holme’s shoulders and got his face closer.

  ‘I’m going to die,’ said Holme, the limbs beginning to shake to a slow beat. ‘I told you…’

  ‘No,’ said Kennedy, trying to keep his voice light. ‘No you’re not. God’s not ready yet, Aidan. Believe me. Trust in him.’

  Shaw turned to Valentine. ‘Watch the front,’ he said. ‘Get him into an ambulance. Both of them. Keep in touch…’ He waved his mobile, then turned to look at the burning house. There was no way through the front door, still a rectangle of flame, the jamb and lintel burning like firelighters, but Shaw found an alley at the side of the house leading to the back yard, down a tunnel with an arched brick roof.

  When he got through he could see the fire had a firm hold of the whole ground floor. The kitchen door was a single pane of glass, and beyond it the flames had already blackened a fridge and a microwave, and the thin chipboard worktops were curling in the heat. Cupboard doors were burning, revealing empty shelves. Smoke hung, trapped, a foot below the ceiling, as thick and grey as phlegm. A pair of French doors from the yard into the back room were wooden and alight, the glass cracked and blackening.

  Shaw listened again, the sound of the fire like a giant gas ring burning, and then – at the edge of hearing – a fire engine’s siren.

  There wasn’t time to wait. He put his foot through the French doors and ducked as the flames roared out, then stepped back, waiting for the blaze to take a second breath. The room was empty, with just the carpet to burn. A mural depicting a nude woman in savage orange and blue paint strokes covered the biggest wall.

  Shaw ran through into the hallway, crouching, holding his breath behind his hand. In the front room there was a three-piece suite, a rug, and a TV set. Bubbles formed, then burst, in the plastic top of a coffee table. Disparate objects: a fitness cycle, a discarded game console on the bare boards of the floor, the metal foil packets from a takeaway curry in the fireplace. Shaw knelt, took in a breath from down near the floorboards, and felt the air burn his lungs.