Death Watch

by Unknown

  ‘No. I asked. It all goes back to the priest…’ She consulted her notes. ‘Dr Martin? The GP admin people said he’d made a request to copy over the files and other information to aid his research work on the impact of poverty on health – particularly bone structure. That was his specialist area – rickets. He’d written academic papers on the work he’d done in Brazil – the São Paulo shanty towns. I’ve checked the references: reputable journals, important work.’

  ‘Right,’ thought Shaw. ‘Unfortunately he was struck off in ’94, which might explain why he failed to flag up his interest in the files to me. Even if it was a lie by omission. He said Kennedy, the hostel manager, looked after the files. He didn’t mention his own interests. That’s the innocent explanation – that he was trying to carry on his work, but knew we might check back on his record.’

  Kazimierz thought about that, and then picked up three files, weighing them in her hand. Valentine came back in and edged himself onto a table top. ‘I’ve studied the files for the three missing men: Pearmain, Tyler and Foster,’ she told them. ‘We know which one is Pearmain – he’s from Warham’s Hole. The floater may well be one of the other two. I’ve also got Hendre’s file, and we know he underwent an operation and lost a kidney, but it was no good to them – almost certainly because once they got it out it was clearly diseased from alcohol abuse.’

  The pathologist dropped the files and used both hands to massage her neck.

  ‘Hendre is the odd man out,’ she said. ‘It’s bizarre – he’s the only one of these men with a history of alcohol abuse. Long term, from early teenage years. The reported mental problems – paranoia, anxiety – may well be related to that. In contrast, look at Tyler, for example. Council care, reform school, recidivist. Nicotine was his addiction; two hundred a day at one point.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Valentine. ‘Human kipper.’

  ‘Indeed. But not a drop of alcohol, according to the records. Which means his kidneys were in perfect condition.’

  She pushed the coffee mug aside.

  ‘Which was all in the files…’ said Valentine.

  ‘All in the parish files.’

  Her grey eyes pulsed with light. ‘I cross-checked. The GP files are held at the hospital because the funding comes from the primary care trust. They are a decent match with the parish files except in the case of Hendre. The file on him up at the Queen Vic is completely wrong – he’s listed as forty-six years of age, for example. He’s thirty-three. So I checked through and found the obvious mistake. Hendre’s file had been accidentally mixed up with those of a Pete Hendry – with a “y”. And his kidneys were fine. So, if you were asking, which you aren’t, I’d say whoever selected these men did so using the hospital files. That’s why they made the mistake. If they’d used the parish ones they’d never have gone near Pete Hendre.’

  Shaw and Valentine looked at each other, then back at the pathologist. ‘Where are both sets kept and who has access?’ asked Shaw.

  ‘The parish ones were, I understand, under lock and key in the presbytery. The hospital records are held in the usual way and accessible to doctors on a case-by-case basis.’

  ‘Which doctors?’

  ‘Good question. GPs at the community health centre – and those with sufficient seniority on the hospital staff.’

  Hadden thudded through the Ark’s main doors. Shaw knew that in major inquiries the CSI man hardly slept, setting up a makeshift bed in the organ loft above the lab. He looked ill, his eyes puffy, with the ghost of a sunburn across his freckled forehead.

  ‘Sodding sands,’ he said. ‘No shade.’ He caught Shaw’s eye. ‘Wait – I’ve got something for you.’

  He booted up the PC, then tapped his way into his e-mail basket, then leant back so that Shaw could read the note from the Forensic Science Service at Birmingham. The milk bottle used for the firebomb attack on the electricity sub-station had been drunk from by the neck, so they’d matched the DNA extracted from saliva against all those whose samples had been taken in the inquiry so far and they’d got a direct match, high-probability, with Andy Judd. Plus they’d found his prints in Jan Orzsak’s front room, on a shard of broken glass from one of the fish tanks.

  ‘So Andy Judd set out that Sunday to inflict a little more exquisite pain on Jan Orzsak,’ said Shaw. ‘Either because he believed he’d murdered his daughter, or because the vendetta deflected attention from the fact that he himself had been the killer.’

  But was that his only motive for cutting the power, thought Shaw. They knew a bit more about Andy Judd now and it made him increasingly wary about brushing him aside as some kind of disturbed vigilante. First, there was the eighteen-year-long feud with Bryan Judd about the death of his twin sister, Norma Jean. That, surely, was the definition of bad blood. Second, while Andy Judd had an alibi for the time of his son’s death, it was underpinned by his network of friends in the street – hardly witnesses beyond reproach. And now they knew he was a regular outpatient at the hospital. A man in desperate need of a liver transplant, an operation he couldn’t get because of his addiction to alcohol, and his inability to overcome that addiction. Was there another reason that Andy Judd – or someone who had power over him – wanted darkness in Erebus Street the day Bryan Judd died? A darkness which had also shrouded the abduction of the homeless Blanket from the Sacred Heart?

  36

  Andy Judd was in the lairage, the covered area at the back of Bramalls’ abattoir, where the cattle were held before being sent down the metal-screened race into the slaughterhouse, the corridor in which the cattle got their first scent of death. But Valentine couldn’t smell it, just the sour aroma of singed bone from the saws. Shaw raised a hand to Judd, who was edging a cow towards the sinuous metal entrance to the race using a metal prod. He was dressed in a white overall, one quarter of which was stained a vivid red. Shaw thought what a dead metaphor ‘blood-soaked’ really was.

  The cow kicked, suddenly jittery, and the noise began, the idyllic lowing of the field taking on an edgy urban panic. Judd whacked the animal with a metal prong, and sent it careering into the metal barriers, which flexed with the weight. Somewhere a circular saw cut through flesh and bone.

  ‘Go there! Go there!’ shouted Judd, making the cow skitter and run behind the curtain wall, followed by the next, and the next.

  Judd stood still, waiting for Shaw and Valentine to cross the yard, the white overalls and cap he wore making his skin look butter-yellow. Again, Shaw was struck by how diminished he looked, like a man wasting away, to leave just the bones of what he’d once been. Judd worked a rag between his hands, cleaning away the sweat and saliva from the cow.

  Shaw was about to speak when they heard the first percussion, the bolt gun fired into the brain, the slaughtered animal collapsing against the stun cradle. The impact made something inside Shaw recoil in sympathy.

  ‘I’m working,’ said Judd.

  ‘Well, actually, you’re being interviewed by the police,’ said Shaw. ‘That can continue here, or at St James’s, but frankly, what you do next is up to me, not you.’

  Judd looked around. ‘I can’t just stop.’ By their feet was a metal gutter, and as Valentine watched a trickle of arterial blood began to flow down it, bubbling oddly, as if it was boiling. He began to breathe through his mouth.

  ‘All right,’ said Shaw. ‘If we can talk. But I’m telling you now, Mr Judd, that if I don’t get some straightforward answers to my questions we will end this conversation under caution at St James’s. Do you understand?’

  All the cattle had gone now, the open concrete yard dappled with dung. Judd nodded. ‘Down here,’ he said, following the path the cattle had taken. They heard another stun bolt fired home, only just audible now above the rising panic of the cattle crowded in the race.

  Judd’s job was to keep the line of cattle organized so that at regular thirty-second intervals the next cow could be sent forward through a pair of metal swing doors, beyond which the bolt-gun operator dispatched
the animals. After that they could just see the main butchery unit, steaming fresh carcasses moving in a production line from hell, dripping blood into the gutters which radiated a sickly metallic heat.

  The noise – half animal, half machine – meant Shaw had to shout. ‘The day Bryan died, Mr Judd…’

  But Judd turned away, and at a signal Shaw must have missed walked the cow to the barrier, setting his shoulder against its side and inveigling it through. Shaw watched him as they heard the bolt gun, the blood gushing at their feet, and he saw Judd’s face shiver with the distaste that even he couldn’t hide. They could see the dying animal kicking beneath the swing doors as its carcass was dragged away. Then the sound of a saw cut through the air, making Valentine step backwards, his black slip-on slipping into the gutter. Judd tried to smile. ‘That’s the sticking, that noise. They take the heads off, then bleed them.’

  He was looking at Valentine, which was a mistake, because the DS’s foot now felt warm and sticky, and that made him feel sick as well as angry. As he stepped in close, feeling the power that only controlled aggression can supply, he told himself that anger was good, as long as it was directed – channelled – like the blood. He could smell the stale whisky on Judd’s breath, and he wondered if he’d had a drink that morning already. That was something he’d never done, although there’d been days when he’d thought he’d die if he didn’t. He felt a sudden contempt for this man.

  ‘We’ve got your prints in Orzsak’s house – and DNA off the bottle you used to bomb the sub-station. You’re fucked, mate.’

  What was left of Judd’s self-esteem drained out of him like blood from a carcass.

  ‘Mr Judd,’ said Shaw, aware that Valentine’s aggression had rocked Judd, ‘I don’t believe you did this to torture Jan Orzsak – well, not just for that, anyway. Something else happened that night on Erebus Street, at the Sacred Heart. A tramp was abducted. He had to be bundled out – I think there was a car waiting nearby, if not on the street, to take him away. And that was much easier in the dark and with the diversion you’d set up outside the Crane – the party, around the fire. So I think you made those firebombs to cut out the power as well as to get into Jan Orzsak’s house. The question is, who told you to cut the power?’

  Judd took one of the cows by the halter, taking off his hat, and Shaw noticed that he couldn’t stop himself trying to soothe the animal, working his fingers into the hide, around one ear, and clicking his tongue.

  ‘No one told me to do it.’

  Shaw thought he’d aged suddenly, almost while they were talking, as if he’d allowed something to catch up with him which had taken a sudden, terrible toll.

  ‘I got pissed, it was Norma Jean’s day – the day we lost her.’ He looked defiantly at Valentine. ‘I loved her very much. We all got talking outside the pub about how he’d got away with it, Orzsak, how he was still there, taunting us. So I got a coupla bottles and some old rags and filled ’em up with paraffin from the heater in the flat. Once we’d knocked out the power we just walked into his house. He deserves everything life’s saving for him. I had two bottles left over. I don’t know who chucked ’em in the hostel. That wasn’t me. I don’t know anything about the tramp down at the church.’

  He forced himself to gather in the next cow, running a hand down the face, between the eyes, which were wide with terror.

  ‘And I suppose you still don’t know who the Organ Grinder is, or where I could find him?’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Judd.

  The cow went through, and they all looked away as the bolt gun fired.

  Shaw took out the artist’s impression he’d drawn of Blanket. It was due to go out on the networks that night – they’d done a deal, holding it back from the papers so the TV would headline with it.

  ‘There’s been some very ugly business done on this street, Mr Judd – a lot of innocent people have been hurt. Worse,’ said Shaw. ‘Weak people, defenceless people, desperate people. People like this…’ He held up the drawing. ‘This man is the latest, he’s the one taken from the church the night Bryan died. I think you know where he is, and what’s been done with him, and why.’

  He held the picture up to Judd’s face as he tried to look away. ‘I want you to think about this man, and what might have happened to him, and whether you’re responsible in some way, in any way.’ Judd took the piece of paper in his hand. There were a lot of emotions struggling not to surface. Then he looked at Valentine and Shaw, and shuffled one foot, trying to keep his balance.

  Judd went to hand the picture back.

  ‘Keep it,’ said Shaw.

  He looked at it again. ‘What’s happened to him?’

  ‘Men like this are offered money, Mr Judd, for organs,’ said Shaw, sceptical that Judd didn’t know already. ‘A few hundred pounds. Some of them end up dead. Rich people walk away with a new life. And you’re telling me you don’t know anything about that? Are you telling me you wouldn’t like to be one of those rich people?’

  Judd went along the line, smacking the animals, keeping them in single file. When he came back Shaw could see that, at last, some emotion was in his eyes. He wondered what life was like watching animals die.

  He dropped his eyes to Shaw’s boots. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’ He seemed utterly defeated, as drained of blood as the carcasses hanging on the hooks.

  ‘There’s a car outside,’ said Shaw. ‘You’re going downtown. I’m arresting you for the arson attack on the substation and the criminal damage to Jan Orzsak’s house.’ Shaw read him his rights.

  The bolt-gun operator came out, smoking, looking curiously and openly at Judd. They all followed the race into the yard.

  ‘One fag?’ said Judd, out in the sunlight. ‘Please.’

  Shaw nodded, and watched as the old man’s hands shook as he tried to light up. Then, deftly, with one hand he snapped the match and let it fall on the sand. That family habit again, the broken V-shaped match.

  ‘There’s one thing in particular I don’t understand,’ said Shaw, placing his feet apart. ‘Why precisely did Bryan think you were responsible for Norma Jean’s death? I know he felt in his heart she’d died. And he knew that you’d both fought over the baby. But why did he think you’d killed her?’

  Judd looked down at the gore on his once-white overalls. ‘Blood – he’d seen blood.’

  ‘That’s not in the statements,’ said Valentine. ‘There’s no mention of blood – where did he see it?’

  Judd’s head was lost in a cloud of cigarette smoke. ‘In the bathroom. He went up to check she was OK – I’d cut myself shaving, put a hand out, I s’pose, and left a mark. Later, when we knew she was gone, he wanted to know if it was her blood. Fuck. It was mine. And he’d felt her drowning, gasping for air. That’s what he said. So he just strung it all together: that we’d fought, that I’d hit her, drawn blood, then held her under. He didn’t tell you lot – sometimes I wish he had. But he wouldn’t. Instead he tormented me all those years, and I’ve tormented Jan Orzsak.’

  They let him finish his cigarette alone.

  Then they walked him out into the street, and when he saw the squad car he looked at it as if it was an obscenity. Valentine opened the rear door and covered Judd’s head with his hand, protecting it as he pushed him down into the seat. A uniformed officer sat beside him, another in the driver’s seat. Shaw looked in the window and saw that he’d unfolded the ID sketch of Blanket on his lap. When Judd saw him he jerked his head away, but Shaw had seen that he was crying, the tears clearing a channel in the dust and blood on his face.

  37

  They watched Judd being driven off, his white hair visible through the rear window beside the PC, and then walked to the Land Rover. Shaw got on the mobile to Twine for an update, while Valentine fetched drinks from the Crane: a pint and a Coke. While he waited at the counter he thought of telling Shaw about his late-night visit to Alex Cosyns. If Cosyns complained he’d be on better ground – although not that much better �
�� if he’d owned up first. Plus, he had found something material to the case. Robert Mosse was making payments to Cosyns. Why? What was more, traceable payments. Valentine was certain that if they could get access to Cosyns’s bank account they’d find a regular income from Mosse – that must be how he’d paid for his lifestyle, how he’d kept the Citroën on the stock-car circuit, and how he’d managed to afford a messy divorce without any apparent pain.

  ‘Blackmail,’ Valentine said to himself as he took the drinks back to the car. But as soon as he was in the passenger seat he felt less confident. Perhaps Cosyns wouldn’t complain, which would be suspicious in itself. So why risk being hauled up in front of DCS Warren when he could keep his head down until he had something copper-bottomed, something that would get Mosse into custody.

  Shaw had been thinking too. He had an almost overwhelming desire to tell Valentine everything he’d found out about Jonathan Tessier’s last day alive. Because it all made sense now. He could lay the pieces out, one by one, leading from the crash at Castle Rising to the moment the Tessier boy followed a bouncing ball off that football field. Perhaps he’d wandered down to the lock-ups by chance – or, more likely, he’d seen the dog, broken free perhaps, or out on a walk on the lead. The terrier he’d been in love with, the one he wanted for his own. So he’d followed the dog back to the lock-up – and inside, what had he seen inside? The car, buckled, still scarred from the crash. He’d have started talking, asking questions, wanting to know if he could keep the dog after all – but that’s the last thing they could let him do. And buying him off wouldn’t help: £10, £20 – how much to stop an excitable child blurting it all out once he’d got home? There wasn’t enough money in his little world for that. Perhaps they’d got him inside the garage, closed the doors. Someone had strangled Tessier. A cold-blooded killing? Shaw doubted it, but they couldn’t have kept the kid for ever. He’d have wanted to go, they’d have tried to stop him, tried to keep him quiet. In the end they didn’t have a choice: he had to die. And then they had to get rid of the body. A job that had fallen to Robert Mosse, if the forensic evidence of the glove found at the scene was to be believed. He had a car nearby, parked up above ground to avoid the vandals. Had he run it round, backed it in, loaded up the child’s body? But why was it Mosse who’d taken that risk? Shaw thought about the CCTV of the crash at Castle Rising. Had Mosse been there – the unseen figure in the front passenger seat? Because if he’d ever ended up in court his career would have been over. The Law Society could live with a misdemeanour, but being party to the killing of two innocent elderly women, and abandoning them when he could have called for help, was a crime no one could, or would, overlook.