Death Toll (21 page)

She looked Shaw in his good eye. ‘It's a lynching – the coward's way. Pat didn't say what was happening, he just said some of the “low life” – his words, the “low life” – at the pub were trying to scare him, trying to get him to go home, back where he came from.' She over-articulated the words, to make it clear they weren't hers. ‘I got the cold shoulder too, the odd remark, but nothing like this.' She held up the envelope, studying the sketch. ‘This is sick.'

‘And this …hounding – when did it begin?'

‘After a few weeks. Early summer. He'd get them at college – in his pigeon-hole. It went on for months before he disappeared. In the end he thought it was amusing, I think. That's the arrogance, of course – the idea that he didn't need to fear anyone, or anything. It's what children think, isn't it? That they're not going to die. He was still a child in some ways.'

Shaw heard a creak of a wooden stair. He wondered if Kath Robinson was on the landing below, just within earshot. Bea Garrison actually flinched at the noise, then seemed to force herself to relax, sinking into the wicker chair. Shaw thought it was as if she was waiting for something: a visitor?

Finally, she picked up the billhook.

‘Yes – well, this is Alby's,' she said, sipping at the drink now.

‘How …' Shaw swapped a glance with Valentine. ‘How can you know that – it's just a billhook with the maker's name.' As he said it he knew he was wrong, but the truth was just out of reach, buried in his memory.

She laughed. ‘Yes – that's an easy mistake to make. They're an American company – Stanley Tools. Latrell had their stuff always, with the name in black on yellow.' She held the tool up. ‘Not like this. Stanley isn't the maker, Inspector. It's a ship.'

‘A ship?' Shaw repeated, thinking of the tiny model boat in Mary Tilden's coffin.

‘Alby's ship. The
Stanley
. I thought you'd know all about that – he was a hero, Alby. That's why Nora married him I suppose; the reflected glory – that's what my sister wanted. And she got it for a while. But then it faded rather quickly.'

She got up and stood at the picture window. Again the quick glance down at the street, where a necklace of lights had begun to glow orange.

‘I remember Alby coming home in 1944,' she said. ‘I was still a toddler, the baby sister. You've no idea how exciting war is for children. It's like being at an endless wedding reception – you know, the adults are too busy to notice the children, as if the rules have been suspended. War's like that. Nora was the big sister – nearly seventeen. My mother – our mother – used to say that it didn't matter how plain a girl was, there was always a year when she was beautiful. That was Nora's year. Cruel? That's what sisters are for. There'd been boys about, but Nora was wrapped up in the church so I don't think sex had ever come into it. Prim was the word. A good word. They taught her it was a virtue, that kind of coldness. They tried to teach me too, but I didn't listen.'

She took an inch off the level of the bourbon in the glass. ‘Anyway – 1944. I'm really surprised you don't know this,' she said, looking at Valentine. ‘This merchant ship – the
Stanley
– was on a convoy to Murmansk. Lend-lease, taking food and munitions to the Russians. It was torpedoed off Narvik – at night – and everyone abandoned ship. Alby used to tell us about that – about how he'd spent the night trying not to freeze to death, with the sea calm and the lifeboat surrounded by the cargo – cases of bullets and dried milk. When daylight came they still couldn't see anything because of a fog. They called out but only their lifeboat had survived, they thought. Just six men left.

‘Alby said the worst thing was knowing the ship had gone down – they'd all seen the prow sticking up out of the water, then just dropping out of sight. He said they felt so alone. They spent a day in the fog – freezing fog – and two of the men died before nightfall. Alby said he thought he came close to giving up that second night and he was actually surprised to wake up at all. That was when his illness began, of course. Looking back – the fear of the space around him, making him feel so small. It took years to emerge, but that was the seed, that night in the open boat.

‘When dawn came the fog had gone. The sea was still calm. And floating fifty yards away was the stern of the
Stanley
. She'd broken her back – snapped in half – but the bulkheads were still watertight, so she could float. He said it looked like a block of council flats, just floating there, with the bridge above, and the funnel.'

She laughed, shaking her head, and Shaw wondered how many times she'd been told the story in her childhood.

‘Alby was a leading seaman and the senior man left alive. Which was odd, because he'd been an engineer, and spent all his time below, but technically he was in command. So the four of them got back on board – the rope frogging was still hanging down from when they'd been given the order to abandon ship. The electrics had blown, and there was a small fire smouldering which they never really put out, but otherwise she was OK. They got the engines going that night, then headed southwest. An RAF reconnaissance plane picked them up off the Humber a day later. The day after that they found another life raft with most of the officers on board – including the captain.

‘Once the War Ministry got hold of it, the story was everywhere – radio, papers. “The ship that wouldn't die” – that's what they called it. And it was good for class solidarity as well, how the men below decks had brought the ship back. Or half of it, at least. We went down to the quayside when she came in – large as life. There used to be a picture in the bar at the Flask but Nora had it taken down. They gave Alby the freedom of the city. My dad – Arthur Melville – was running the pub then and he invited the crew to the Flask for a celebration. That's when Nora met Alby. They married in 1947. I think Alby fell in love that first night too – with the pub.'

The sun had set, but its rays still radiated from beyond the horizon, catching high pearlescent clouds.

Shaw picked up the billhook. ‘And this?'

‘When Alby left for sea again in the fifties, after they lost Mary, he left his kit from the
Stanley
in a chest up in his room. Well, it wasn't just his kit; he'd stolen a fair bit of stuff during the voyage – the ship's bell, the log, anything he thought would be worth a few dollars down the years, anything with the ship's name on it. He told Nora it was like a pension: if times got hard, she could sell it. But she never did. I don't think she wanted to touch anything that had been his because she hated him for leaving. The chest was still there after I came back because I remember opening it with Lizzie to see if there was something in there we could give Ian as a Christening present. Like a keepsake, from his grandfather. There was a tankard – so we gave him that.'

‘And that chest had been there since 1944?'

‘Yes. In their room – well, it was theirs when they married. Lizzie said that after Alby finally came back they had separate rooms. But it was their room. It's upstairs – the second floor, under the roof.'

Shaw thought Alby Tilden had the quality of being permanently elusive, like a smoke ring, unbroken and perfect until you tried to touch it.

‘Alby's still alive, isn't he?' he asked, fishing. ‘At least, we think he is. You forward all the mail to some middleman in Retford? Lizzie says she's had nothing back for a year. What about you?'

She shook her head. ‘No. Longer than that, even. We keep writing, but nothing. I know it all sounds crazy but Alby really doesn't want to see anyone. We all visited in the early years, but it really did upset him. He asked us to stop, so we did – but he knew we'd never be able to leave him be if we had his address. He told us to write care of a friend – I think it's someone he met in Lincoln. But there's less and less to say.' She was going to stop there but pressed on. ‘Which is selfish, isn't it? He's right, I know, it would be painful. But mainly for him.'

Shaw thought about the report they'd received from the local police. That there was no post waiting to be forwarded from Lynn. He wondered whether Bea was lying to make herself feel better about neglecting a difficult elderly relative, or for another reason. Or perhaps she was telling the truth and someone had taken the letters from Retford.

‘The sea chest – it's locked?' asked Valentine.

She shrugged. Out at sea the winter light had gone and the sky had instantly turned to a dark grey. She shivered and from the chair beside her picked up the vivid blue pashmina she'd been wearing at the Flask when they'd first seen her, draping it around her neck. Happy to answer more questions, she said she'd ask Kath to make some tea, but they said they ought to go.

Kath Robinson saw them out. On the step Shaw turned to study her face, the blameless eyes avoiding his.

‘So Ian's around a lot?' he asked, zipping up the RNLI jacket.

‘Yes.' Again that curious innocence, as if the question could hold no ulterior motive.

‘Is he like his father?'

The question was too much for her, so she stepped out from the shadows of the hallway on to the path – to give herself time to frame an answer, Shaw guessed.

‘Like Pat? No,' she said, struggling for the right word. ‘Ian's good – to Bea, to his mum.'

‘But Pat wasn't good to you, was he?' Shaw asked.

She looked out to sea, then stepped back quickly over the threshold. ‘Only once,' she said, and tried to close the door but Valentine had his foot in the gap.

‘I got the signals wrong,' she said, as if repeating an alibi. ‘I had to stop him going any further.'

‘Where?' pressed Shaw.

Her face was in darkness. ‘In the cemetery, one night. That summer before the wake. I wanted …' She covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Him. I shouldn't have gone down there. I couldn't do what he wanted me to do. He got angry. That's all. He said he wouldn't see me again. And he didn't.'

Shaw glanced at Valentine, who slid away his foot, and she closed the door.

For a moment they all stood, the door between them, and Shaw could see the silhouette of her head through the coloured glass. Then the light in the hallway came on and she was gone, leaving just the picture in the glass: a whale again, a harpoon flying towards it across a stormy stained-glass sea.

The first flight of the narrow stairs of the Flask took Shaw up to the room in which they'd first interviewed Lizzie Murray and Bea Garrison. Shaw had counted the steps – eighteen – aware that each one had helped to shatter the bones of Nora Tilden. The wood itself was worn and as black and stained as a ship's beam. The first-floor landing was panelled in the same wood, a narrow doorway giving on to a second flight which led up to the attic. There were two attic rooms: to the left, Ian's bedroom, said Lizzie; to the right Alby and Nora's old room – now used largely for storage. The door here was more like a hatch, a hinged flap that you had to step through into the room beyond, which had six dormer windows, three looking over the river, three over the cemetery. Light flooded in from a streetlight by the cemetery gates. Over their heads they could hear seagulls scratching at the tiles. The room held a double bed, some shelves, a wooden cot and an old stainless-steel sink unit, unconnected to any pipes.

‘This was their room,' said Lizzie, reluctant to step up from the stairwell. Her voice, usually hard, had a suppressed tension that almost exactly matched her aunt's. She too seemed to be strangely watchful, as if here, in the attic of her own home, something lay waiting, hidden. When they'd asked for her at the bar they'd been told she was resting. When she appeared they could see the sleep in her eyes, and she hadn't added the pearl lipstick, so that her mouth looked dry, compressed, and her eyes were red, as if she'd been crying.

‘Staff use it now if they're stuck here late. There's an extra sofa bed over there,' she indicated the far end of the room, which was in shadow. ‘Like I said, Ian's across the way, but these days he stays with the girlfriend – she's got her own flat.' She looked down at the uncarpeted boards. ‘This place gives me the creeps.'

The bed was modern, and out of scale with the room.

Under one of the windows was a sea chest.

Shaw walked to it, then knelt, as if before an altar. He held out the billhook in its forensic envelope. ‘This is what killed Pat that night – the night of Nora's wake. Bea thinks it came out of the chest.'

Lizzie walked over but didn't take it. The colour seemed to drain out of her under the electric light, the sparky eyes reduced to speckled grey and green.

‘Can you open it?' asked Shaw.

Valentine stood at one of the other windows, looking down into the cemetery, his hand on the cot, until he remembered that Nora Tilden's baby daughter had died in this room.

Lizzie pulled a key ring from her pocket. The keys and the ivory fob jangled against the wood of the sea chest, but the lock was oiled, Shaw noted, and when the lid flipped back there was no dust.

Lizzie stood back, nodding. ‘It's Dad's stuff from the war. Way back – twenty years ago – I had it valued. There's an auction room in Stamford that does military stuff. It's insured for £10,000 – that's because of Dad's story, of course, and the ship. I thought that Ian could decide, when the time comes.'

‘What time?' asked Valentine, looking at a framed press cutting on the wall. The paper was yellow, but the picture was clear enough – a crowd on the quayside, the stunted superstructure of the
Stanley
moored, and the headline:

HEROES BRING STRICKEN SHIP HOME

‘The time when we leave this place. Ian's got plans – with Bea. He doesn't want the business. So one day we'll sell. Pack it in. Maybe sometime soon.'

Shaw began to pick out items: the
Stanley
's bell, wrapped in a cloth, the ship's log in an oilskin pouch, a sextant, a radio, and then a wooden box, which he set to one side, feeling along the edges, trying to find a way to lift the lid.

‘Sorry,' said Lizzie. ‘There's a knack to that.' She worked her fingers around the wood until the lid opened. Inside, set on green baize, was a revolver.

‘Ship's purser's,' said Lizzie. ‘Dad used to bring it out, wave it about, for the crack. I don't think it's loaded, but you'd better check.'

‘It's been polished,' said Valentine.

‘Ian,' she said. ‘He played up here as a kid and he's proud of his grandfather. Like I said – it's his inheritance. He looks after it.'

Shaw handled the gun, using the cloth from the ship's bell. It wasn't loaded, and the mechanism was rusted, but the leather handgrip was supple with beeswax.

‘On the night of your mother's wake, where were the keys?' he asked.

‘Where they always were, I imagine. They hang behind the bar. There's keys to the cellar, the spirit store, they need to be where anyone can get them. Anyone who's on the staff.' She looked at Shaw, then at Valentine. ‘You think someone took the keys, came up here and found that?' She looked again at the hook, appalled. She took one step back and stumbled, reaching out a hand behind her to find the edge of the bed.

Shaw sat beside her, and he could hear her breathing. ‘That night – of the wake – the staff would be you … ?' Shaw recalled the cine film they'd watched at the chapel. ‘And John Joe – he helped out too, didn't he?'

She nodded, pulling down the skin over her cheekbones. Squaring her shoulders, she seemed to regain control of herself, but instead of answering the question she moved on. ‘And the kitchen staff. Jean Walker was in, Kath was helping – Kath Robinson – a whole gaggle of women from the church who did the food. The two Bowles brothers – they worked as barmen. They're all on the list I gave you …'

‘But John Joe could have taken the key, couldn't he?' pressed Shaw.

Her jaw was set straight, defiant. The idea that she might have spent nearly thirty years living with a killer didn't seem to shock her at all, Shaw sensed. It was only, perhaps, the suggestion that she wouldn't have known, that she'd been hoodwinked, fooled. She clutched at the blanket on the bed, crushing the material. ‘John Joe's never really done hatred – plenty of other emotions, but never that. I think he despised Pat – a lot of men did. But he didn't kill him.'

They heard a door creak below and there was a footfall on the stair. Lizzie stood quickly, the clutch of keys falling to the floorboards. A voice Shaw didn't know shouted, ‘Lizzie! We're taking a car up the Queen Victoria – I need to leave the bar. It's Freddie Fletcher – he's still poorly. You want to come?'

‘Later,' she said.

Shaw had a final question.

The Department of Work and Pensions had finally released details on its pension payments to Lizzie's father – now aged eighty-two. The monthly pension was deposited in an account registered at the post office on the corner of Explorer Street, right here in South Lynn. A special account, with Lizzie Murray listed as an authorized signatory. Paul Twine had checked with the manager: she picked up the cash in person on the first Tuesday of every month. Including this one.

‘You lied to us about your father. You do know where he is – you pick up his pension.'

Lizzie looked younger, the skin taut on the figurehead face. Shaw thought it was the stress that had peeled back the years and that she was a born fighter.

‘No. I said, didn't I, that Dad just wants to be left alone. Yes, I pick up his pension. I give the cash to Bea and she gives it to him. Bea's the one person he'll see – it's always been like that. She's the go-between.'