Death's Door

by Jim Kelly

  He stood outside as well, to finish the pint. His mobile rang and he answered when he saw Valentine’s number.

  ‘I’m in Wells,’ said his DS. Shaw heard seagulls on cue, and a distant thread of fairground organ music. ‘Just a head’s up. I don’t know what to make of this but you need to know.’ Valentine gave him an expert one hundred-word summary of everything he’d learned in the museum.

  Shaw was silent. Then he checked just one detail: ‘Six cyanide pills?’

  ‘Six.’

  They agreed to meet next morning, then drive to The Circle. ‘What you reckon?’ asked Valentine, unable to resist the question.

  ‘I reckon we need to look for this dugout. It’s not just the pills, is it? It’s the fact that if it’s there then maybe he uses it. Like I said – the killer comes and goes. And there’s Aidan Robinson’s military man, up on the edge of the woods. And Hotlby died up there. Either way we can’t ignore it even if it does sound a bit fanciful. We have to look. Force helicopter might be useful – does thermo-imaging work in summer?’

  Shaw took silence for ignorance and cut the line.

  He ran back along the beach, the adrenaline clearing his mind. Lena had set out the picnic blanket on the sand and Fran had collected driftwood for a fire, and twisted a newspaper retrieved from one of the litter bins into twenty knots of kindling. Shaw added some dried seaweed off the high-water mark and then lit it with a light from one of three oil lanterns Lena had set out. Shaw thought that this was one of the joys of their life: beach craft.

  They watched the fire burn, transfixed; the sight as hypnotic as the waves coming in, breaking on the convex coast, embracing the shore. Shaw thought it was one of the peculiarities of this stretch of coast, where the Wash met the North Sea, that the land was always leading away behind you on either side. No headlands, or bays, or great sweeps of coast interrupted the seascape. It was as if they lived on the edge of the world. He caught Lena’s eye – the one with the slight caste – and was astonished to realize, by some leap of telepathy, that in her own way she was thinking the same thing.

  She kept her lips together but still smiled, then went back to using the blank white paper the fish and chips were wrapped in to add up some figures with the stubby pencil she kept in her shirt breast pocket.

  ‘Damage?’ asked Shaw, when she’d screwed up the paper and lobbed it into the fire. He broke a piece of white fish in batter off and held it lightly between his teeth, letting the air cool it. Fran had finished and was drawing something in the sand with a stick.

  ‘Nearly four thousand, but it’s all insured,’ she said, smiling at her daughter.

  Shaw knew the calculations were subtler than that. They’d lose their no-claims bonus and the premiums would go up next time. If they went for CCTV that would be £10,000, minimum. The other way forward was to employ enough staff every day of the summer to put someone in the shop, someone in the cafe, someone in the kitchen. Minimum of three; whereas now they scrapped by with two, three for weekends and holidays. That would significantly raise their costs. But the real damage was psychological, he knew, and the real victim was Lena. She’d always been clear that life on the beach only looked like paradise when the sun was out. But now, even on one of the best days of the summer, they’d been bitten by the first snake.

  They ate ice creams from the Walls’ freezer in the shop, then took the old dog down to the water’s edge. Shaw put Fran to bed, reading a chapter of the latest Terry Pratchett. His daughter complained that there was still light in the sky, seeping in through the curtains, but he said it would be gone soon because the stars were out, and the best way to sleep was to watch the dark creep into the room, filling up the corners first. For the first time that year she asked him to close the bedroom window. She said there was a chill off the sea, but Shaw knew she was lying, because she turned her head away on the pillow.

  He closed the door and stood in the long corridor which joined the cottage to the shop, wondering if he should sneak in later and open the window. Then his phone vibrated: a text from Paul Twine up at The Circle to say that Joe Osbourne had seen the on-duty doctor at St James’ and been admitted to the Queen Victoria Hospital. Acute, ongoing, asthma attack. Irregular heartbeat also noted. Condition: stable.

  Shaw let himself into the cafe and took one of the OS maps from the display on the counter. Out on the picnic blanket he spread it out, realizing too late he should have asked. But Lena wasn’t looking at the map, she was looking at him. ‘How’s the eye?’ she asked. ‘Tell me.’

  Shaw took his good health for granted and he realized how quickly he’d discounted the attack of blurred vision as a one-off, a never-to-be-repeated episode, just a glimpse of a future he was fated to avoid. He’d always presumed his life would be graced with good luck – a presumption the accident had done nothing to undermine. ‘Fine,’ he said, a word Lena had come to hate, because he used it so often and it meant so little. It was just a way of saying you didn’t want to talk, but avoiding a confrontation at the same time. Lena’s eyes were brown, aqueous, and Shaw found them often very difficult to read. ‘No more pain . . .’ he said quickly. ‘Well, not much. And the vision’s fine – sharp.’

  He looked out to sea, focusing on a freighter on the horizon. Eight to twelve miles, the port-side red light as sharp as a star. Lena’s eyes dropped to the map.

  ‘Sorry – work,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t resist.’

  ‘I don’t want CCTV,’ she said. ‘I want someone permanent for the shop.’

  There was an edge to her voice that Shaw had long ago learnt not to ignore.

  ‘Right. Let’s do it,’ he said.

  She didn’t smile, just turned her face to the sea. ‘Now, tell me about the map,’ she said, watching a small fishing boat skirting the coast, the sound of the diesel engine pumping in the night. Normally she hated talking through his cases, but she knew it was an important ritual, and it allowed her to draw the line between work and home more effectively than if they never shared Shaw’s world. And tonight, it felt like a welcome diversion.

  Shaw outlined his problem. They had three victims all related to each other by cyanide: Marianne Osbourne, Arthur Patch and now Paul Holtby. They knew that the first victim – Marianne – had been on East Hills, and she’d died the day before the mass screening at St James’. Common sense suggested all three deaths were linked, not only to each other, but to the murder of Shane White on East Hills. Marianne had almost certainly died because she was a witness. Arthur Patch had probably died for the same reason: he was on the quayside that day, had taken money from the hand of every driver who’d used the car park. He knew everyone local well – and they knew him. He was a living CCTV camera.

  ‘But Holtby doesn’t seem to fit in at all,’ said Shaw. ‘He was only twelve years old in 1994 – is he really going to be able to make a positive ID nearly twenty years later? I suppose he might have been on the beach at Wells that day. It’s going to be tough to find out where he was. But if he was at home he was miles away . . .’

  Shaw traced his finger along the coast to the village of Morston, at the entrance to Blakeney Pit, perhaps three miles from East Hills: a small group of Norfolk stone cottages with a pub on the coast road, a lane winding down to a small harbour, a car park and tea hut. In the summer it was busy, boats running people out to see the seals at Blakeney Point. There was a small campsite, usually packed with bird watchers.

  Lena knelt in the sand and studied the map, then went and unlocked the door to the shop, reappearing almost immediately with another set of maps. She was in shorts too, and a skimpy Surf! T-shirt which left her midriff bare. As she sat Shaw pulled her close, so that he could feel how cool her skin was. Her body was made up of curves, strong lines, so that he was always overwhelmed by her physical presence. She was just five foot two, but he’d have never described her as slight.

  The map she’d unfolded showed the coast from Wells to Morston but there was no detail on the land as in the OS version it was
all at sea: currents, rocks, depths, buoys, fishing grounds, wrecks, lights, lightships and sand banks.

  ‘They’ve started producing these charts for the windsurfers – the stunt kites, that crowd. They’re really popular. And eighteen quid a pop. These little circles are really clever . . .’ She pointed to a small device – there were dozens along the line of the coast – which looked like a compass. ‘You’ll know all about these but they’re new for the smart crowd.’

  ‘A wind rose,’ said Shaw. He’d learnt to read them as part of the navigation course he’d taken to get his pilot’s licence for the RNLI hovercraft. The idea was simple: each wind rose was a little cartwheel, with the spokes different lengths. The longer the spoke the more the wind usually blew from that direction.

  ‘This is what I remember . . .’ Lena stabbed a finger on the flow of arrows indicating the current at the mouth of Wells Harbour: they were all pointing east, towards Blakeney Pit and the little village of Morston. ‘And the winds . . .’ All along the edge of the marshes the prevailing winds were from the south-west, pushing north-east.

  But Shaw was shaking his head: ‘Ruth Robinson, the dead woman’s sister, is a big swimmer. She works up at the lido. According to her if you wanted to swim from East Hills to the mainland, and live to tell the tale, the way to do it is swim out . . . out here,’ he said, indicating a point a mile north-west. ‘Then you relax, pick up this current and swing back into the beach at Wells.’

  ‘I know, Peter. But what if you don’t know the currents, don’t have the local knowledge, or you’re not a good enough swimmer to strike out away from land, away from safety? It’s what we tell all the kids in the surf classes. If you get into trouble don’t swim against the tide. You’ll tire, you’ll drown. If your killer just struck out for the coast from East Hills the currents and the winds would take him east, to Morston, or on into Blakeney Pit. You might be in the water for hours, but you’d have a chance of surviving. Swim against the current you’d be dead in minutes. That’s how people drown, Peter. They swim, get exhausted, panic, swim faster, sink.’

  Shaw thought of that – the little shell-like beach at Morston, beyond the harbour; a twelve-year-old Paul Holtby on the sands, and a man walking out of the sea; in shock probably, wounded, desperate for help. What had happened next? What could have happened that a small boy would have remembered it nearly twenty years later?

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Tuesday

  George Valentine liked the dawn because it brought with it the day, which meant the night would follow. He’d get a drink then look back on what he’d done, and feel better about his life. Consciously, he was able to face the fact he was wishing his life away, because it was at least his decision, and it was a decision that harmed no one else. He’d watched the sun at dawn as he’d driven into town along the smoking river, a cold red orange ball, climbing above the Campbell’s Soup Tower. The colours of dawn were no better than he deserved: cold, businesslike and unemotional, untouched by the passage of the day.

  He was sitting now in the atrium of the Chamber, an upmarket health club built on Lynn’s waterside, created from the shell of one of the old Hanseatic warehouses, which had once held the best wine in Europe. Now it held a swimming pool, visible through a glass screen, and beyond that what? Valentine could only guess. He imagined saunas, exercise bicycles, squash courts, and lean bodies in crisp shorts and designer sportswear. If he’d been forced to design his own hell it would have been just like that, with fluffy towels.

  He didn’t want to be here. When he’d got back to his room at The Ship the night before he’d found a text message on his mobile. A summons from the chief constable which meant he’d have to get up at some ungodly hour and drive back into town. All he’d wanted to do was have a sleep-in and drive down to the beach and tell Shaw more about what Jan Clay had shown him in Wells Museum. Instead of which he was in the Chamber. ‘Torture chamber,’ he said, under his breath, which made him cough.

  Twenty arm chairs filled the atrium and he’d taken one on the end, facing the double automatic doors to the changing rooms. He’d got himself a bottle of water from a machine in the corner, quietly stunned to find it cost him two pounds fifty for 500mls. The bottle was icy cold and promised that the contents had been extracted from a borehole in the Italian Alps. George was of a generation which equated British civilization with the distinction that you could drink the water out of the taps.

  Brendan O’Hare, Britain’s second-youngest chief constable, was suddenly there in front of him. Valentine hadn’t recognized him out of uniform, or wrapped in a white towelling robe. What he could see of the chief constable was tanned and replete, the skin-tone perfect. He had a slim towel over one shoulder, the end of which he was using to rub his face. O’Hare sat opposite and almost immediately one of the staff, in a skimpy pair of shorts and a bust-hugging top, stooped to place a single china espresso cup on the table by his knee, with a glass of water. ‘George,’ he said, ignoring her. ‘Thanks for coming – sorry about the time. But I thought, you know, it was best out of the office.’

  He sipped the coffee and left some space for Valentine to say something. Valentine said nothing, and felt no need to, but he did think that if silence was O’Hare’s tactic he was on a loser, because he could do that all day.

  O’Hare despatched the coffee then crossed his legs so that Valentine looked away, uncomfortable with the sudden sight of bare legs, but pleased to note they were oddly hairless and pale.

  ‘I understand there’s been developments,’ said O’Hare. ‘Out at Creake – another body?’

  Valentine was going to answer then but O’Hare had hit his stride.

  ‘You any good at reading between the lines, George?’

  ‘I try.’ However hard he forced his voice towards neutral Valentine knew he was broadcasting antagonism, even belligerence.

  ‘Great. Listen then – and consider.’

  O’Hare looked over his shoulder and the girl who’d brought him coffee took the hint. They heard the rattle and hiss of the Italian coffee machine being fired up. ‘I am not impressed with the leadership in this case. Especially at the top. I expect my DIs to deliver. I’m not talking out of shop – Shaw knows what I think. I doubt that this latest development makes the case any less . . .’ he searched for the word, ‘lucid. So, it may well be that traffic, or possibly family liaison, will be getting a DI transfer from the Serious Crime Unit. Which means I’ll be looking for a new DI. I’ve examined your file; it’s been an impressive couple of years. You’d clearly be in line if the vacancy arose. But you knew all that.’

  It wasn’t a question so Valentine didn’t answer it. He felt himself sliding out of his depth. He imagined that O’Hare’s career had been littered with moments like this: subtle, clandestine, political. Valentine felt like he was being abused, soiled even, which was ironic given he was sitting in the cleanest place he’d be in all day.

  ‘The next time you’re up in front of a panel is when? October? So we may have to accelerate that process, but you can leave that to me. In the meantime . . .’ He rearranged his robe, re-belting it, getting ready to move on. ‘I’m not happy – even in the short term – with one of my key DIs being disabled. I realize you do everything you can to shield Shaw from the consequences of his unfortunate accident but the fact is he’s on the front line. If nothing else it hardly enhances the brand image of the West Norfolk, does it? I think the least we can do is assure the general public we have able-bodied detectives.’

  Valentine was too shocked to speak. Later, he told himself that otherwise he would have done. ‘So, any problems he has in the course of his duties due to his disability, I’d like you to keep a record. Report back. Needless to say you’d be doing him a favour. A disability pension under present arrangements is quite generous. And there’s a safety issue. He’s not been properly evaluated by our people in terms of driving. Swanning round in a Porsche hardly helps.’

  ‘It’s safer,’ said Valentine. ‘Nar
row “A” bars.’

  ‘Whatever,’ said O’Hare standing. ‘It’s your choice, George. We’re having this conversation here because I wanted to keep everything in the family, as it were. Strictly off the record. But I thought you should have the full picture. This way is best for everyone.’ He tried out a smile, then just turned and left.

  Valentine sat alone for five minutes. He was cold, and felt just like he’d felt the first time he’d given blood, as if his life – or any capacity for independent action – had been siphoned from his body.

  Out on the waterfront he walked down to the Boal Quay, where some of the fishing boats were in, and smoked, looking at the boxes of silver fish catching the sunlight. He felt the need to talk to someone. Usually this came upon him after dark, and he’d stroll along to All Saints and sit opposite Julie’s gravestone. But the sun, up now, and already hot, made that impossible, although he had no idea why.

  Instead, he thought of Jan Clay at Wells, looking out to sea, a hand shielding her eyes from the glare.

  TWENTY-SIX

  As Shaw drove, his good eye on the narrow coastal road, Valentine told him everything he’d managed to learn about the Auxunits, the so-called Stay Behind Army, and the standard issue of six cyanide pills. Shaw had picked Valentine up outside St James’ at eight fifteen, as arranged, but had got the distinct impression Valentine had been there some time. He’d been sitting on the semicircular stone steps, his shadow stretching down to the street, a little heap of spent Silk Cut between his feet.

  ‘And we’re saying these units actually existed, George – they’re not just some Whitehall boffin’s dream?’ asked Shaw, pointing the Porsche East through the docks. Given the state of the inquiry: stalled while they waited for Joe Osbourne’s DNA check, baffled by Paul Holtby’s brutal murder, and with just two days to the chief constable’s press conference, they’d agreed that they could hardly ignore the outside possibility they could track the dugout down.