Death Toll (19 page)

Shaw had another question ready but there was something about the way Valentine's sister licked her lips that told him she had something else to say first, but that, being a good woman, she wanted someone to drag it out of her.

‘The church …' Shaw shook his head, searching. Then he had it. ‘Damn. I meant to ask – that's right, isn't it? Venn's father was in the Elect, we were told that by Abney, the pastor. So where were his parents? Why was he being brought up by an aunt?'

She ground the cigarette under her black shoe.

‘Bit of a local scandal,' she wriggled slightly in her seat. ‘Surprised George didn't remember – but he was probably playing cops and robbers with his mates from school.' She laughed bitterly, as if she too had wanted escape.

‘Thing is, Arthur Venn – Sam's dad – was a bachelor, in his fifties. Then he discovered sex and along came Sam. Problem was, the woman he discovered sex with was a Venn too – his dead brother's daughter. Uncle and niece, see? So they threw him out of the church – her too. And boy were they smug when they saw young Sammy.' She shook her head, still appalled, at the distance of nearly fifty years, at how cruel the righteous could be. ‘It's cerebral palsy, but you know what these people are like. God's judgement – the face, the arm. It did for Arthur – and the niece – they left town. Rumour was they shacked up together in London – because they don't care down there, do they? Anything goes in London. Up here we're still burning witches. So that left Sam and the aunt. And she was a sour-faced cow as well – same pod as Nora.'

They heard plates being set out in the kitchen.

Shaw let this new image of Sam Venn take shape in his head. ‘Did you know, back in 1982, that Patrice and Lizzie were having an affair?' he asked.

‘Not till the baby came – then we worked it out pretty damn quick, like everyone else. No, I don't think people knew – not to talk about, anyway. But that's different, isn't it – so maybe they did know. I wasn't really in the in-crowd back then – marrying a copper tends to put the frost on things. And Don thought the place was worth avoiding. He never drank on the manor – just like your dad, Peter. They'd go out of town – or use the Red House, the coppers' pub.'

Shaw was rerunning the cine film of the wake in his head. ‘And John Joe Murray – he'd been keen on Lizzie, but she didn't want to know?'

‘Everyone loved Lizzie,' she said. ‘John Joe tried his luck – sure. But she could pick and chose, could Lizzie, and she chose not.'

‘Bad blood?' asked Shaw.

‘No – just the opposite, really. Kind of a joke, you know? They'd play up to it with people around – flirting with each other, turning each other down, making out they'd be meeting up later. It's just that she didn't want anyone from here – from the town. She always said she'd marry someone who'd take her away. Knight on a charger – that kind of rubbish.'

The radio, which had been blaring out KL.FM from the kitchen, went silent. The manageress appeared at the door with a mobile open.

‘Either of you know first aid?' she asked. ‘We need an ambulance – for upstairs. I need them now. Really. People are being sick. Jesus!' She covered her mouth. ‘It's like they've been poisoned.'

Shaw told Jean to ring 999 and went out into the kitchen. Most of the staff were standing in a huddle, heads together, but two of the men were already cleaning surfaces, sweeping floors, manically scrubbing pots. The oven door stood open, the meat cooling, turkey fat congealing on the metal roasting trays. A woman emerged from the store cupboard and put a large catering bottle of disinfectant on a worktop.

Shaw pushed through a pair of swing doors and found himself at the bottom of a wide wooden staircase, sagging slightly to one side, which led up to the banqueting hall. Here the double serving doors had been hooked back. The hall had a magnificent hammer-beam roof, a complex puzzle of gracefully curving oak beams from which hung six crystal chandeliers festooned with candle bulbs. The room was dominated by a statue in stone of a merchant, larger than life, set in a niche in the end wall, so that he could look towards the great west window which faced the river, as if waiting for one of his ships to come into sight.

The room was in chaos. About twenty circular tables dotted the oak floor, set for the festive charity lunch. But many of the guests were wandering from table to table, or kneeling beside others who were slumped in their seats. A Christmas tree at one end glittered with white fairy lights. The tables were crowded with unpulled crackers. Loudspeakers were still feeding in carols at a discreet if insistent volume, but over that background Shaw could hear a persistent groaning. Several of the guests were either clutching their stomachs or leaning forward, their heads in their hands. Others pressed napkins to their mouths. Several had vomited. One elderly woman was fussing, clearly distressed, telling a waitress she'd clean the mess up herself.

Shaw knelt beside her and took her hand. ‘A doctor's on the way,' he said. She must have heard because she tried to smile but then there was a spasm of pain and she doubled up. When she lifted her head again her skin had taken on a green tint and her eyes were bloodshot.

‘Soon,' said Shaw, pressing her shoulder.

He surveyed the room, trying to see Valentine. A small crowd had gathered between two of the tables. Shaw pushed his way through, holding up his warrant card.

At the centre of the crowd was a man lying on the floor. He was glistening with sweat and fingering a silver chain around his neck.

‘It's the mayor,' said a woman in a hat. She looked around the room. ‘What on earth has happened?'

‘Give him water – actually, fresh water.' Shaw turned and beckoned to a waitress. ‘Get fresh water – don't let them drink this lot …' He picked up a carafe, held it to the light. ‘Bring bottled.'

They heard a distant siren and the sound of someone retching by the Christmas tree. A waiter threw open the window and the sound of the siren swelled.

Shaw jumped as someone put a hand on his shoulder. It was George Valentine. ‘I reckon the soup's the culprit. I gave it a miss in the end. Shellfish – always a bad idea.'

‘What have you eaten?' asked Shaw.

‘Melon. White wine. Bread – that's all fine. Believe me, it's the soup.'

Shaw nodded towards a table in the far corner by the tree, around which sat some of the locals from the Flask, including Freddie Fletcher and Sam Venn. Both were slumped forward. ‘Soups all round, by the look of it,' he said. ‘So much for “good local fare”. Check 'em out, George.'

But before he could move they heard a scream, a woman's voice, mangling a word.

Shaw picked his way through the tight-packed tables to get to her. She was young, about twenty, with blonde hair in a neat bob. She held an elderly man's head against her shoulder, heedless of the bib of vomit that covered his shirt, tie and waistcoat.

She looked at Shaw. ‘It's my grandad. I think he's dead,' she said, brushing hair back from the man's face. Despite the red blotches on the old man's cheeks, and the tear which welled and then spilt into his mouth from one of his closed eyes, the line of the lips was already lifeless, parted unevenly to show tobacco-stained teeth. Shaw had no doubt she was right: the last seconds of life, he thought, were as ugly as death itself.

A catering can of Olde Lynn Fish Soup stood on the long refectory table. In front of the table stood the council's Chief Environmental Health Officer, Guy Poole. The can was unopened, a wraparound label showing a trawler of the Fisher Fleet. Shaw pushed it towards him. ‘It's all yours, Guy, but I don't advise cooking it up for the family.'

Poole was not the clichéd pen-pushing bureaucrat of popular legend. Shaw knew him because he'd led a campaign group to save the dunes south of Old Hunstanton from erosion. He lived with his wife and three children in a houseboat at Brancaster Staithe. Like Shaw he never wore a tie, and like Shaw he loved his job. He had a reputation at St James's for using the law flexibly, and avoiding legal proceedings if he could. But if he caught the scent of something genuinely rotten he'd spare no expense to get the culprit in front of a judge.

Poole took a note. ‘So – the numbers again?'

Valentine had the details. The DS's skin was still a subtle shade of puce. He might not have had the soup, but the sight of fifty-odd people throwing up in concert had turned his stomach, and the smell was on the air – the sea-spray scent of oyster mixed with Parmesan cheese.

A uniformed PC delivered a tray of coffees from Starbucks and they took them over to one of the round dining tables. ‘There were a hundred and three for lunch,' said Valentine. ‘Forty-two had the melon, sixty-one the soup – most of whom report nausea, vomiting, or just plain stomach pains. Three with no symptoms. Of those who had the melon, two reported feeling sick – but that was probably the sight of the rest of 'em chucking up. Dead man is a Charles Anthony Clarke – known as Charlie. Aged eighty-two. Granddaughter was with him – says he's had a history of heart trouble.' He paused, removed the lid from his coffee, took a micro-sip and got his breathing back under control. ‘Ex-serviceman, was Charlie – the whole table was old soldiers, sponsored by the Co-op, who coughed up for their tickets. As of an hour ago sixteen of the soup drinkers were still in the Queen Victoria – eight in intensive care, and most of those are OAPs.' He flipped the notebook shut. ‘Otherwise, it's a happy Christmas to one and all.'

Poole stood and walked away, speaking quickly into a mobile phone.

‘Fletcher and Venn?' asked Shaw.

‘Fletcher's not good – but we know his guts were shot anyway, it was only being a greedy pig that got him here,' said Valentine. ‘Surprised he made it – but then he'd paid for his ticket, and there's no motivation like getting your money's worth. He's one of the worst – but he's not in danger. Venn was sick but went home under his own steam.'

The manageress came to the still-open double doors. She looked a generation older than she had done two hours ago. Jean had left after confirming that she would be paid for a full shift.

‘Local paper's got someone on the doorstep, Mr Poole – and the Press Association's on the line in the office.'

Poole pocketed his mobile, slumped back in his seat, then leant forward and picked up the can. ‘Right. Well, I think we can safely drop the makers of this stuff in the shite without further ado.' He turned the can. ‘West Lynn Foodstuffs: Clockcase Cannery, West Lynn. Hmmm.'

‘What?' asked Shaw.

‘Nothing – the place is closing down. Planning commit tee gave change-of-use permission a few months ago. Maybe their health-and-safety rules have gone by the board – who knows? People losing their jobs aren't the best placed to run a tight ship.'

‘“Local fare for local people,”' said Shaw, standing. ‘What do you think? Definitely the cans?'

‘My prime suspect,' said Poole, smiling, turning the can, reading the small print. ‘Certainly sufficient grounds to shut them down while we do the tests. It's a stroke of luck, having the unopened can. Manager says they ordered just enough – people were asked to indicate what they wanted when they bought their tickets – but on the day a few changed their minds and asked for melon, so they had this one spare. We can look at the empties, of course – but this way there's no argument: if there's something nasty in the can, there's no wriggle room.

‘And seafood's always tricky – packed with dodgy critters – oysters, prawns, scallops, you name it. Then there's the can. We'll get this one back to the lab for a once over. You do get the odd dodgy batch; maybe the seal's rusted, maybe the vacuum's failed.'

Poole stood, bracing himself for the press call.

‘Good luck with the reptiles,' said Shaw.

All the windows were open now and they could hear the electronic whirr of cameras. The gloomy fogbound light filtering through the stained-glass windows was boosted by a TV arc lamp.

Poole walked to the door, can of soup under his arm, whistling.

Shaw and Valentine faced each other across the round table, listening to his footsteps fade on the grand staircase. The table had been cleared of cutlery, glasses and crackers but a reservation sign remained on a metal spike:
THE FLASK
.

Shaw covered his eyes with his hands and tried to refocus. He seemed to spend his life refocusing, and for the first time he thought how tiring that was.

‘OK. So Jean's changed the game a bit,' he said. ‘We've got suspects. They're not new – but the picture's getting clearer, sharper,' said Shaw, his voice echoing under the hammer-beam roof. ‘Maybe,' he added, still worried by all the details that didn't quite fit.

‘Fletcher,' said Valentine, helping himself to a glass of white wine from a bottle that had been left on a side table, running a paper napkin round the rim. ‘On the night of the wake he's going around asking people where Pat Garrison lives. Maybe nobody knows, or they won't tell him. So he waits, sees the kid leave early, decides to follow him home. Maybe that's all he wanted to do – get the address that way, then plan a little surprise. Something nasty through the letterbox.

‘But once he's out in the night anything could happen – the kid sees him, confronts him in the cemetery. Fletcher's beered up – perhaps he's not alone. There was a table full of skinheads in that room, although most were still there for the choir's second session. They give him a kicking, cosh him with the hook, then chuck him in the grave.'

‘And where'd the billhook come from?' asked Shaw. ‘It's not as though it's a Swiss Army knife that you can slip in your back pocket.' He leant forward and, overcome by a sudden weariness, surprised himself by pouring a glass of wine for himself. They seemed to be circling this case without being able to reach its heart.

‘You're right,' said Valentine, refilling his own glass. ‘I can't see him doing it on his own. People like that, I've seen 'em on the street: BNP, National Front, British Party – never one-on-one, always in a crowd. That's the way they work. No way he'd have gone after Pat without back-up.'

Shaw told his DS everything his sister had remembered about the night of Nora's wake, and about Freddie Fletcher and Sam Venn. Valentine looked up at the intricate oak roof. ‘Venn, then – it's a motive. They're cousins, first cousins, Pat and Lizzie. It's not …' Valentine paused, assembling the right words. ‘It's not some biblical debate for him, is it? It's his life – it's what he's like, because of what it did to him.' He took a third refill from the bottle. ‘What he
thought
it had done to him. I'm not saying he'd kill for that, but if his mate Fletcher was on a mission, perhaps he joined in. Cowards killed that kid – we know there's more than one of them. Venn and Fletcher fit the bill – nothing on their own, but together they're dangerous. That's where my money is.'

‘Don't forget John Joe Murray,' said Shaw. ‘He says he didn't know about Pat and Lizzie, but we've seen the film, and I think we can say that's a lie. Why lie? Well, it's a sensible thing to do if you want to avoid being a suspect in a murder inquiry. He doesn't know we've got the film. Perhaps he saw them at the bar that night talking? A bit too close, a bit too knowing. Had he really given up on Lizzie? He admits he thought Lizzie was pregnant, so perhaps he was on the lookout for the father. Perhaps he wanted to scare Pat off, make it crystal clear he wasn't going to get his feet under the table at the Flask. Murray says he stayed until midnight – so get Twine to check that out with our witnesses.'

Shaw stood. ‘That's the problem with this crime, George. It's all motive – you can't move for motives. What we haven't got enough of is evidence. Even if we could put all of them in the cemetery that night, at the right time, could we prove which of them struck the fatal blow? I doubt it. Unless one of them breaks down and gives us a nice neat confession I can't see any way forward. One fact hasn't changed right from the start – this is a twenty-eight-year-old crime. Not many of those get solved.'

Valentine rubbed his stomach under his raincoat. ‘'Cept we know someone was out there trying to dig up the grave this year. Six months ago. That's not a cold case.'

Shaw took a menu off the neighbouring table, turned it over and began to make a list.

‘OK – let's concentrate on that. What do we know? Either someone dug the hole and found what they were looking for, or they dug the hole and didn't find what they were looking for. The second scenario seems marginally more likely as we know they were probably spotted and that the police turned up – and went on turning up on a nightly basis, so they couldn't go back. So that implies that what they
were
looking for was still in the grave when we opened it up.'

Shaw completed the note, aware that outside they could still hear the electronic crackle from the mobile TV unit. He turned the napkin round for Valentine to check. On it was a list with three headings:

‘Have I missed anything?' asked Shaw.

The DS studied the list for a full minute, then shook his head.

‘One of these items means more than we realize,' said Shaw. ‘It means a lot to someone – someone close, someone we know.'

‘The glasses?'

‘We checked that out. The pub was presented with a set of a dozen etched glasses by the brewery before the war. There's just three left behind the bar – Lizzie uses them. So – they came from the pub, that's all we know.'

Valentine leant back in his chair, his neck bones clicking together like billiard balls.

Shaw thought about the model boat, the tiny shrouded bundle of Mary Tilden. ‘Alby Tilden – the father, what's the latest?' asked Shaw, clutching at the one piece of the jigsaw that was still missing from the family picture.

‘He's been out for eleven years. Had some psychiatric problems, apparently – agoraphobia. Fear of the outside. They had to drag him out. In 2003 he was on some out-reach network run from Lincoln. Living on benefits. After that he slips off the radar. We know Lizzie Murray writes regularly, and was getting replies until a year ago; her letters to Alby go via Bea Garrison to an address in Retford. That's been checked out, by the way – dead-end. The flat number we've got matches one that's empty. Has been for a year. Tenant died. He was an old lag from Lincoln. And Twine's having a real job getting the pension details as well. Latest promise is sometime today – but who knows?'

Shaw stood, the chair scraping horribly. He was struggling to think straight, haunted by the dead face of Charlie Clarke, who'd survived a world war only to be struck down by a can of rancid soup.

‘So that would explain why Alby hasn't written for a year – Lizzie's letters weren't being passed on,' said Shaw.

Valentine continued to stare at his notepad. ‘Well, you'd think so, but there's an odd detail,' he said. ‘When the Nottingham boys checked out the address in Retford they found that a neighbour's been keeping the post. Twine asked them to check through, and there was nothing there from Lynn.' He straightened his arm so that he could see his counterfeit Rolex. ‘I'll get back to Bea Garrison – see what should be there.'

Shaw picked up the list of forensic exhibits from the opened grave.

‘Bea. The victim's mother. Perhaps the only person in the world who really knew him. Lizzie had known him for, what, five months? Bea'd seen it all – twenty years of growing up. Get over to the Ark, George; sign out the forensics that were on Pat – the knife, the billhook, the sketch, the lot. Tom's got copies of the sketches. Let's see what she has to say about the contents of her son's pockets.'

‘And Warren? We still haven't told him about Jimmy Voyce.'

Shaw closed his eyes. Monocularism put a strain on his good eye, which gave him headaches. He rubbed the temple beside the pain.

‘Leave that to me.'