Jim Kelly - Death Watch

As he said it he couldn’t stop himself looking into Shaw’s dead eye — the full-moon white pupil oddly piercing. He turned away on one shoulder so that he could pull up the pillow behind his head. Then he put an ashtray onto his knee, but Valentine didn’t offer him another cigarette. Adrenaline was making the young man’s foot shake from side to side, like a windscreen wiper, the underside of the foot black where he’d walked out into the street.

‘We’ll need a formal statement,’ said Shaw. ‘Tomorrow. We’ll come here.’

‘Right. No problem. It’s only right — that fucker needs

They left him to rest and made their way down the stairs and back through the launderette to the street. DC Jacky Lau was on the doorstep. Lau was in her thirties, short, stocky, and pugnacious. Her spare time was spent racing at the Norfolk Arena: hot rods, souped-up road cars. She wore a leather jacket now, despite the heat, and her Megane, complete with aerofoils and spoilers, was parked at the kerb. She had a notebook in one hand and a bacon sandwich in the other, partly wrapped in foil. Valentine had told her she could clock off from the murder team an hour ago, but she’d insisted on checking out the two men from the hostel against the records at St James’s.

‘The men from the hostel, sir, I’ve got some details.’

She put the sandwich on top of the roof of the Megane. Shaw heard footsteps in the street and looking towards the church saw the priest again, moving through the headstones set in the small graveyard.

‘Holme, the badly injured one,’ said Lau. ‘Aidan Smith Holme — he’s got a record as long as a needle-pocked arm. Thirty-two. He’s up on a charge — supplying again. Third count. Guilty both times, but never jailed. Due in court end of the month. Bailed by a family member — an uncle, who must trust him; he’s put up five thousand pounds. In another life he was a teacher at the tech. General science. Lost the job after the first offence. He was supplying the kids.’

‘Plea this time?’

If he can raise bail he can afford a decent lawyer as well, thought Shaw. But if he couldn’t wriggle out he’d be inside for a decent stretch, two to five years on the third count.

Shaw pressed the heel of his palm into his good eye, massaging the skin, uneasy now that he hadn’t known where the West Norfolk force destroyed street-haul drugs. He’d never worked on the drugs squad, and neither had George Valentine. It was a weakness — worse, a weakness they shared.

‘And this “Pete”? — the one from upstairs?’

‘According to the priest — a Father Martin — his name’s Hendre, with an “e”. It’s a match for a name on our database too. Peter Hendre — if it’s the same man — was an accountant. Struck off in 1990. He fleeced some old dears while sorting out their finances. One of the relatives spotted that the numbers didn’t add up. Eight counts — down for three years. He’s only just come back to the area; been away a year, here for just a few days. They gave him a spare room. Hostel’s only for the dossers they trust, apparently. They have to be clean — no booze, no drugs, no sex. Martin says Hendre’s got serious mental health issues: paranoia. But he doesn’t touch stuff — any kind of stuff. He hadn’t heard of anyone called…’ She checked her notebook. ‘The Organ Grinder?’

Shaw nodded.

‘But he says the last time Hendre was here he claimed he was being followed by a man in a white coat with a butcher’s cleaver. Mad as a hatter.’

Shaw walked out into the middle of the street. He was

But Shaw had other ideas.

‘Jackie,’ he said. ‘Get some sleep — then seven tomorrow at the hospital. George has set up an incident room close to the SOC. Be there.’

‘Sir.’ She crammed the last of the bacon into her mouth and fired up the Megane, the engine rumble making a few loose windows vibrate.

Shaw watched the car turn the corner by the abattoir. ‘We don’t really need our beauty sleep — do we, George? How about some overtime?’

Valentine’s shoulders slumped. ‘Now?’

‘Yeah — now. Ring the hospital — find me this Kennedy character. If he’s the warden, does he live here, on the street? Find out. See if he’s coming home, and if he is, tell him we want a word. He knows Holme, knows him well. I want to know what he knows, and I want to know now. Holme said something to him — here, in the street. When Holme said he was dying he also said, “I told you” — like he’d predicted it. I want to know what that meant.’ He looked around, bouncing on his toes. ‘If he’s staying at the hospital we’ll go to him.’

As Valentine made the call Shaw listened to the night. It was quiet now, in the witching hour after midnight,

Valentine stood by the car, cut off his mobile, and lit a cigarette. ‘Kennedy’s on his way back now in one of our squad cars — ten minutes. He lives at the church.’

‘Great,’ said Shaw.

And then, sharply, out of the night, came the sound of running footsteps. In the street, nothing moved. But the sound was as unmistakable as a chiming clock. Shaw could see the whole street and nothing in it was moving. Behind the houses on each side ran tarmacked paths. Is that where the sound came from? Not just footsteps. Metallic footsteps. Shaw imagined them conjuring up a line of sparks in the dark. And then they were gone.

Shaw and Valentine stood together in silence, examining the texture of the night for the sound they’d both heard. It was an odd facet of their relationship, one that neither would ever openly admit, that they did have this ability to know, unspoken, that they were thinking exactly the same thing.

‘Get a couple of uniforms to check the back alleys,’ said Shaw. ‘Someone’s about.’ He checked the tide watch. ‘Someone who shouldn’t be about.’ But Valentine went himself, walking stiffly but quickly to the nearest entry and disappearing down into the shadows, already on the mobile summoning assistance.

Then Shaw heard footsteps again, but this time they were scuffed and soft. Looking back at the dock gates he saw a man appear out of the shadows, opening a wire gate, and swinging a torch so that it danced at his feet. He had a badge on the chest pocket of a set of neat blue overalls which read NORTH NORFOLK POWER. Mid-fifties, with academic half-moon glasses, he looked out of place in the utility’s overalls. A professor on a building site. He said his name was Andersen, head of supply, out on call.

‘Police? Senior Fire Officer said I should talk to you — we’re here to get the power back on? We sent out a unit earlier but they’ve just got me out too…’ Shaw recalled

‘I’ll get an officer to you asap. Ten minutes?’

Andersen shrugged. ‘Sure. But I think you’ll regret not taking a look yourself. Believe me.’

Shaw felt the tension buzzing in his bloodstream. He needed to get on, to focus; he didn’t need a pointless distraction. But that, he knew, was an attitude which might lead to disaster. Because it was far too early to separate a pointless distraction from a vital lead, just hours into a murder inquiry. He forced himself to relax, letting his shoulders fall, his neck muscles unbunching, telling himself he was tired, stressed.

He followed Andersen to the wire fence, through the gate, and around some dusty shrubs until they could see the electricity sub-station. The building was bathed in the light from a small battery lantern hung from a branch. Shaw guessed the building was inter-war, a confection in concrete thinly disguised as a kind of Greek temple, with a row of half-columns, a decorated arch, and the rendering painted a delicate cream. There was even a frieze depicting naked Greek athletes: a discus thrower, a shot putter, and wrestlers. Genitalia had been added in spray paint to the original graceful classical lines, and a graffiti tag, ‘TOG’, in curled, bloated letters.