Death's Door (18 page)

Shaw looked to Valentine, indicating that his DS should press on, because that was a line of inquiry he’d missed: the idea that they’d taken seventy–six out, seventy–five back, and the killer had only to swim one way. And it
was
possible because the boat that day was largely full of visitors. It wasn’t as if anyone would have spotted a missing passenger.

‘Must be tricky, though,’ said Valentine. ‘You get a free pint on the quayside, a round of ice creams on the house when you’ve got the kids in tow, then they turn up in your boat. Like I said,’ Valentine added, when Coyle didn’t answer. ‘Tricky.’

‘Not really,’ said Coyle. ‘I sell shellfish to people who run businesses with a million–pound turnover. They’d cut your throat for another one per cent on the profits. What am I saying – a tenth of a per cent. You think I’m the sucker who gives it away to family and friends?’

Shaw retrieved his wallet and took out the snapshot of Joe Osbourne. ‘So no chance he was on board for the trip out?’

‘Joe? I think I’d remember,’ said Coyle, laughing at Valentine.

‘You know him?’ asked Shaw.

‘Sure. I’ve got family up at Creake. Next door, in fact. Aidan Robinson’s my cousin. He’s Tug’s other grandson. The favourite grandson – the son of the favourite daughter. Old Tug went to live with them after grandma died. So they were close.’

‘Right,’ said Shaw, re–computing his view of Aidan Robinson.

‘Aidan would have inherited the boat if he hadn’t had that accident – he’s pretty much a dead weight in water and he never could swim. Mind you, that doesn’t stop ’em – plenty of the older generation never bothered to learn. They concentrated on not falling in.’ He laughed, showing small childlike teeth. ‘But you need to be good on your feet in these small boats. Aidan’s a liability.’

Shaw climbed up on to the floating dock, a fluid movement without any apparent effort. The family link to The Circle was intriguing. But did it really lead anywhere? He’d soon learnt that once you left the urban sprawl of Lynn the North Norfolk coast was a complex matrix of family and community; a hidden pattern, just below the surface.

Then he realized Coyle hadn’t answered his question.

‘So, for the record. You didn’t give Joe a lift that day. A free trip?’

‘Nope. I know the family now; back then, they were just locals to me.’

‘So when you dropped everyone here that day, before you left for Morston, there was no time to stick around, have a break?’ he asked.

Coyle shook his head.

‘Return trip?’

Coyle licked his small bowed lips, putting both hands behind his neck in an exaggerated show of ease.

Valentine tried to recall the statements he’d read from the East Hills witnesses. He thought one, maybe two, had mentioned seeing the boat offshore. He drew savagely on his Silk Cut, aware he’d missed that, failed to think it through.

‘I guess I had a few minutes to play with. I usually do because you can’t be late. Kids, families, they need to be back, and people get anxious. So I was on the dot at five thirty here, at the jetty. Never late. To be that punctual I have to leave some time.’

‘How much time?’ asked Shaw, his voice sharper.

Coyle swallowed hard. ‘Twenty minutes. Less.’ Shaw thought he was going to leave it at that, but he went on: ‘I don’t come in. If you hit the dock they all get on board – well, some of ’em. Then they have to wait around. So I stay out, have a fag.’

‘Where?’ asked Shaw.

Coyle indicated the northern point. ‘Nor Bank, where we dropped the pots, just round the point. I’m out of sight mostly, so no one gets excited. Perfect.’ But the smile was curdling on Coyle’s face. He knew as well as Shaw and Valentine that he’d painted them a picture. The
Andora Star
, just offshore, for the last twenty minutes of Shane White’s life, hidden to the north.

‘See anyone in the sea that day, out beyond the point, swimming maybe?’ continued Shaw. ‘Anyone swim out to the boat?’

‘Nope. Like I said, it’s a break, about the only one I get. I usually close me eyes. I didn’t see a thing that day.’

‘And you didn’t bring anyone else in – from Morston maybe? Let them swim ashore?’ asked Valentine.

‘No way. I can’t let anyone swim off the boat; we’re not covered on the insurance. So no, I didn’t. Never.’ Coyle unlaced his boots but didn’t get out of the boat. Shaw was again struck by the power in his upper body, the broad carapace of shoulder and back. He knelt and dipped a hand in the sea, feeling the warmth, the slightly viscous saltiness.

‘We’re going to be five minutes, Mr Coyle – you OK with that?’ He didn’t wait for an answer but walked away, along the floating decking which led on to the beach. When he got past the high–water mark he turned to see Valentine following.

They made their way up to the grass on the edge of the pinewood, past a ten–year–old doing cartwheels. Valentine felt uncomfortable in his suit and noted that most of the people on the beach were watching them.

‘He’s sweating like a pig,’ he said, looking back to the boat where Coyle had pulled a blue fisherman’s hat down over his eyes.

‘It’s hot,’ said Shaw. ‘But you’re right. Something’s not right. But is it anything to do with the murder? It doesn’t really add up, does it, any way you play it. If the killer swam out to the boat where did he hide? If the killer swam ashore, where did he go when we evacuated the island?’

‘I’ve seen the original boat – it’s down in the mud by the quayside,’ said Valentine. ‘There’s nowhere you could hide anyone, no chance.’

‘Feels like a dead end to me,’ said Shaw. ‘However you play it.’

They looked back at the boat.

‘Dead ends are all we’ve got,’ said Valentine, with a hint of self–pity. ‘I’ll get Paul to run a check on Coyle, see if there’s anything we should know.’

Shaw led the way further up into the marram grass, following a path, until they reached the high sandy ridge which ran along East Hills like a dinosaur’s backbone.

From the modest summit he could see the distant blue line of the coast. ‘If the mass screening results are right then there’s no way round it, George. The killer swam. What does that tell us?’

‘That he was desperate, because it’s miles. And even if you can swim that far it’s dangerous – the rip–tide, the marshes.’ Valentine tried to focus on the small outline of the distant lifeboat house. ‘Maybe he never got there.’

Shaw had not thought of the possibility that their killer had died that day too, along with his victim. ‘So that’s our nightmare scenario,’ he said. ‘He tried to swim but never made it. The body drifted out, or into the marshes. It’s rare, but it happens. Couple of years back we went out to a yacht off Scolt Head: a kid had fallen overboard. Never found the body.’

‘I’ll check missing persons. It’s an idea,’ admitted Valentine.

‘What if we ask a more useful question: why did the killer
decide
to take that chance? Why didn’t he just sit tight after the murder?’

Valentine turned back. It was a good question. ‘He’s covered in blood. There’s all the forensics – clothes, nails, skin. He doesn’t want to answer questions. Take your pick,’ said Valentine.

A lone hawk hung over them, catching the updraft from the dunes.

‘Really? This was 1994. How many cases had been through the courts with a prosecution based on DNA? Two? Less? He could clean any blood off in the sea. Bury any bloodstained clothes, trunks, whatever. It was low tide – he could have buried stuff out on the sand and it would have been underwater by the time we got here. Go deep enough it’ll never come up – what, four feet? Easy in wet sand. The knife – again, bury it in the sand. The reason the bloodstained towel turned up is that someone panicked – just put it a few inches down. So why did they panic? Why did the killer swim for it?’

‘If it was panic there doesn’t have to be a reason. That’s what panic is.’

Shaw stepped closer. ‘Know what I think?’ he asked. ‘I think the killer was wounded. We’ve always thought it was a coward’s lunge, the single unexpected blow. But maybe it wasn’t like that. Maybe it started with an argument. We know there was blood up in the dunes and footprints, loads of them. What if they fought over the knife? What if the killer was cut too?’

‘Blood in the dunes was White’s,’ said Valentine.

‘No. The blood we
tested
that was found in the dunes was White’s. I’m not saying this was a life–threatening injury, just enough that we’d see it – so on the face maybe, or the hands. He has to get away because the wound says he was in a fight. It says he was there. It says he was the killer. It’s a
fresh
wound.’

Valentine could see that was common sense and that holding on to common sense was one of the most difficult things a detective had to do in the middle of a murder inquiry. ‘I’ll check round the A&Es – they may have records but it’s eighteen years ago. Paper records’ll be in the landfill by now. Without a patient’s name it’s a nightmare . . .’

‘You can try Joe Osbourne’s name for a starter,’ said Shaw.

Valentine straightened his back, trying to look willing. ‘When does O’Hare get the mass screening results?’

‘Tomorrow. First thing.’

‘Great. Monday mornings. I love ’em. What do you think he’ll do?’

‘Cover his arse,’ said Shaw. ‘Cut us adrift. The real question, George, is what do we do? And the answer is we start again. And we start with Joe Osbourne.’

Coyle didn’t speak on the return trip, not until they’d tied up the dinghy and walked back up to the lifeboat house. Valentine asked if he’d mind giving a fresh formal statement down at St James’. Coyle must have expected the request because he didn’t miss a beat: no problem, happy to help. They watched him drive away, crammed into a two–door Fiat with a badly rusted bonnet. Even this late in the day there was enough heat for the air to buckle, so that by the time he was half a mile away the car was lost in a blue mirage.

SIXTEEN

S
haw was always surprised by the flowery swim cap: blue, with white and pink primroses. He watched it as she swam towards him through the breakers with a lazy breaststroke, each rhythmic action ducking the head. When she was twenty foot away she was in her depth so she stood, pale shoulders exposed to the evening sun. Dr Justina Kazimierz, St James’ resident pathologist, was smiling. ‘I find you here,’ she said. ‘Always.’

Shaw let his body sway as the swell passed by, breaking on the shore side, sweeping across the sands. The tide was coming in, compacting the summer Sunday crowd into an ever-narrower stretch of dry sand. It was a very British scene: families getting closer, renegotiating personal spaces, apologizing for accidental encroachments, games of football turning into water polo.

‘Drink?’ he asked. They’d just shut the café after an afternoon of almost chaotic business. A queue had snaked out on the stoop and along the high-water mark for hours. They were there for ice creams mainly, or the tea trays Lena had bought in the winter: a red plastic tea pot, red milk jug, cups and saucers, and a plate for biscuits, saffron cake extra. Five quid. A deposit on the tray of five quid. Gold mine.

Shaw had got home, changed and dashed out to catch the sun for a swim, leaving Lena with two of the part-time staff loading up the double dishwasher in the utility room. Fran was amongst the waves with Shaw, which is why he was standing in his depth, watching her feet disappear shorewards on the back of a belly-board.

‘A drink – yes,’ she said, pulling off her hat. Her face was intensely pale, a middle European pallor, slightly plump. In a year she appeared to have recovered from the death of her partner, although she did hold part of herself so privately they would never know how she felt to be alone. They’d met Dawid, her husband, just once – a quiet man, intensely thoughtful behind dark grey eyes. Her eyes were brown, and the single feature of her face which always reminded Shaw that perhaps she’d been beautiful once. Shaw imagined her as a child pictured in a stiff Polish family tableau: the adults seated, the child held to the side of the father by a hand on the shoulder.

She adjusted the strap on her one-piece swimsuit – the blue a perfect match for the hat. ‘Tom told me – the screening results,’ she said. ‘Not Roundhay then, or any of them. I’m sorry. A mess?’

Shaw sank in the water so that his body floated, his knees up. Weightless, he always felt oddly elated, as if he’d achieved some kind of freedom. ‘Pretty much. It’s not official. Paperwork drops tomorrow. So that’s something to look forward to. Then we start again. Least we know the names of seventy-four people who didn’t do it.’

They shared a brave smile.

‘Rerun the screening?’ she asked, filling the swimming cap with water.

‘No way,’ said Shaw. ‘Out of the question. O’Hare’s already bleating about the costs. The only reason we got DNA profiles from the five men who’d died since 1994 by using familial samples was to keep the cost down. He’s watching his back, and I don’t blame him. He’s got to find ten million quid’s worth of cuts this year on the budget. He’s looking at every penny. Which is why he’s going to be so pleased when he finds out the mass screening is a wipeout. So, rerunning is out of the question. But we’ll double-check the samples we got from relatives. Maybe there’s a blip, a mistake. If not we’re looking at a swimming killer . . .’ He put the palms of his hands on the surface of the water and slapped down, producing two small splashes.

Fran ran towards them from the beach, the board held sideways in the surf. Up at the café the OPEN flag was being lowered from its pole.

‘How’s business?’ asked Justina, waving at Fran. Shaw thought how odd it was that he couldn’t remember when they hadn’t been friends with the pathologist. She’d been a distant, brittle character, but her husband’s illness had brought the couple out to the coast for the final months of Dawid’s life. She’d bought a house up behind the dunes and walked a dog on the beach. Since her husband’s death she’d slotted into their lives as if she’d always been there. The perfect neighbour, because she never outstayed a welcome.

‘Fantastic,’ he said. ‘People told us, along at Hunstanton, the fairground, the pier; they said one good day can make a summer and they’re right. It’s been good, but today . . . The world and his wife, and the kids. All spending. It’s like the beach,’ he turned his back on the swell, waving a hand along the coast, ‘doesn’t change for a year. Sand, sandbars, pools. Nothing changes. Then one night there’s a storm and you wake up and it’s a different beach. Trade’s the same. We take a hundred quid a day for six weeks then £5,000 in one afternoon. Suddenly it’s a different business.’