Jim Kelly - Death Watch

Shaw put his foot down, the sailboards on the roof rack of the Land Rover rattling in the breeze. Two minutes later they’d swung into Erebus Street — a cul-de-sac, ending in the old dock gates, clogged now with ivy and scraps of rubbish like prayer flags. The original iron rails for the dock freight trains ran down the middle of the street, rusted, the ruts clogged with grit. Shaw parked in the shadows.

This was a different world, and one in darkness.

‘A power cut?’ asked Shaw. ‘That’s odd. In one street?’ And a coincidence, an echo of the brief electricity failure at the hospital. Shaw didn’t trust coincidences; they got his mind working in circles, trying to construct links that didn’t need to exist.

A full moon, hazy in the heat, hung over the street like a Chinese lantern. On one house a burglar alarm flashed blue. A woman stood by her front door in the moonlight, a candle set in its own grease on the window ledge, a cat snaking round her ankles. At the far end of the street a fire burnt in a brazier, while figures stood in a circle, the

‘Street party,’ said Valentine.

In front of the dock gates was parked a white van, a motif on the side too shadowy to read, while beyond they could see a merchant ship at the quayside, as black as crepe paper, a silhouette against the stars. Three storeys high, dwarfing the street. One of the giant quayside cranes bent over it like a praying mantis.

Shaw got out and stood in the heat, which seemed to radiate from the cheap red bricks. The air was still, all windows open; and it was an odd sensation — and you only ever got it in the city in a heatwave; a feeling that he wasn’t outside at all, but in a huge room, a vast auditorium, a theatre perhaps, so that what looked outside was really inside, and that up beyond the illusion of the stars were the house lights.

They both stared at the shadowy house fronts, searching for the Bentinck Launderette. Several of the houses were boarded up, one’s door had been kicked in, another’s encased in a steel shutter. Erebus Street was the kind of address that came up every week at magistrates’ court for all the wrong reasons. Its crimes were low, mean, and plentiful: domestic violence, street fights, muggings, benefit fraud, meter fraud, car theft, and a few RSPCA prosecutions for cruelty to dogs.

‘P’rhaps they’ve nicked their own light bulbs,’ said Valentine, stepping out into the street. He’d been to Erebus Street before. Another summer’s evening. What? Ten years, twenty years ago? He flicked through the cases

The street party was high octane, the cheers ringing louder, the crowd swaying around the brazier. No one seemed to notice their arrival. Something went bang in the fire — probably an aerosol — and there was a scream. A child danced on the edge of the light, a boy in baggy joggers, maybe six or seven years old, with a mask Shaw recognized — one of the Cat People from Dr Who .

‘Let’s ruin the party,’ said Shaw. ‘It might be the best knees-up they’ve had since Mafeking, but I don’t fancy telling some poor woman her husband’s been incinerated against a backdrop of community singing. Have a word, George, tell ’em to keep it down. And don’t tell them why we’re here — they’ll be selling tickets for the wake before we’ve got to the widow. I’ll try and find the launderette.’

Shaw got out and walked into the middle of the street; six foot tall, his feet planted confidently apart as if he owned the place. He looked round, but you couldn’t see far on Erebus Street. The docks one way, back to a T-junction the other. The two end corner properties at the junction were local landmarks: to the east the Church of the Sacred Heart of Mary, a black spireless cut-out of neo-Gothic; to the west the town abattoir — Bramalls’ — four storeys of brick, with narrow fake arrow-slit windows and a crenellated top. A single tunnel entrance gave the cattle trucks access to an unseen yard. Over the arch there was the stone base of a sundial, its arm long lost, but still with the builder’s motto in gold letters a foot high, catching the moonlight:

AS A SHADOW, SUCH IS LIFE

He took his raincoat off and draped it over one narrow shoulder. ‘St James’s are gonna send a car past later. Just to check.’ He spat in the dust and loosened his tie. ‘I asked where Judd’s wife might be…’ he held up a hand quickly. ‘I didn’t say why. Just a routine inquiry. They said if she’s not in the launderette she’d be at the church on the corner. Bloke said she liked a quick prayer — they all seemed to think that was very funny. Wet themselves.’

‘When you’re that slaughtered, breathing’s hilarious,’ said Shaw.

They both looked up at the moon, low in the sky, magnified by the warm layer of polluted air over the town. It seemed to add to the heat.

‘Launderette’s back there,’ said Valentine.

One of the houses had been converted to a shop at SERVICE WASH —?7 PER LOAD. SINGEL DUVETS?8. DOUBLE?10.00. KINGSIZE?11. The fascia read Bentinc Launderett , the last letters of the two words long gone. A neon sign over the door was off but they could still read what it said: 24-HOUR WASH. An upstairs bedroom window was open, a net curtain motionless.

Shaw rapped on the door, rang the bell, not expecting to hear a noise. But a buzzer sounded upstairs.

‘Battery,’ said Valentine. He’d brought the torch from the boot and flashed it inside the dark interior of the shop. Shaw realized he hadn’t actually tried the door. It swung open easily. The smell that came out was warm, damp, and chemical.

‘We’re closed.’ The voice came from behind them, out in the dark street; and then came a woman, dragging a laundry bag, a mop and pail.

She was tall, with lank blonde hair cut short at home. The kind of body which is just vertical, without curves, like a deckchair. If she was forty she hadn’t been forty very long. No jewellery, no watch, no rings. Shaw thought she looked bleached, as if she’d been washed herself, too many times. And her hands were red, raw even, where the constant contact with powders and detergents had irritated her skin. But an odd detail. Shaw noticed she’d put lipstick on, ineptly, and most of it was gone, leaving an artificial edge of pink.

‘Your shop?’ asked Shaw.

‘It’s hot,’ she said, ignoring the question, picking the T-shirt clear of her neck. A logo on the front read Pat , and the trailing lead of an MP3 player fell out of a pocket on her breast.

‘The power’s been down since lunch. I’m losing money here.’ She put a hand on her hip in a practised gesture of rest. ‘Anyway, who are you?’

The accent was local, with just a little of the Estuary English which had come to the town with the London overspill of the 1960s.

Sparks rose from the blaze up the street, crackling like fireworks.

‘Mrs Judd?’ said Shaw, standing straight, letting the formality in his voice act as an early warning of bad news. ‘Josephine Judd?’ He held up his warrant card and Valentine lit it with the torch. The DS tugged again at his tie, trying to loosen it in the heat, as she studied the picture of Shaw, tie-less as always, in a crisp white shirt. She touched the edge of the warrant card and Shaw knew she’d noticed the moon eye, but when she looked back at him she didn’t stare.

‘Yeah. It’s Ally — second name. Never Josephine.’ She waited for them to say something, but when they didn’t she took her cue. ‘It’s Bry, isn’t it?’ She put the laundry bag down and put both hands on her hips. ‘What’s happened now?’

They heard footsteps slip on the flagged stones of the street. A man stood twenty feet away, reluctant to come closer.

‘Ally? You OK? Someone said the police were nosing round — that right?’