Jim Kelly: Death Wore White

‘I’ll get the Coastguard,’ said Valentine, breathless, digging out the radio. ‘The boat could be out there — they’ll have dumped others.’

‘And call St James’s,’ said Shaw. ‘They need to get a chemical team out to make this safe and get it off the beach. We better stay till they get here. Give them the grid reference.’ Shaw read out the numbers from his hand?held GPS.

Telegraph , then turned with his arms full.

Which is when he saw something else in the waves. Ingol Beach shelved gently out to sea, so even though it was a hundred yards away it was already catching the bottom, buckling slightly, flexing in the white water. An inflatable raft, a child’s summer plaything in Disney colours. Shaw stood for a few seconds watching it inch ashore. Thirty yards out it ran aground, snagged.

Valentine watched his DI pulling off his boots and socks. Jesus! he thought, looking around, hoping they were still alone, hoping most of all that he’d stop at the socks. Shaw waded on, the jolt of the iced water almost electric, making his bones ache.

There was something in the raft, something that didn’t respond to the shuffle and bump of the waves. A dead weight. When he saw the hands — both bare — and the feet, in light trainers swollen with seawater, he knew it was the body of a man: the black hair on the hands, a chunky signet ring. He felt his pulse suddenly thump in his ears as his body reacted to the sight of death. The atavistic urge to flee, to run from danger, was almost overwhelming. And there was the sensation that time had stopped, as if he’d been caught in the middle of an

He forced himself to observe; to step out of the scene.

Dead — but for how long? Less than forty?eight hours. The arms and legs were askew, locked in ugly angles, so rigor had yet to pass.

He put a hand on the side of the raft to steady it, his fingers gripping a raised handle at the prow. Jeans, a T?shirt, a heavy fur?lined jacket only half on, leaving one arm free. The limb was thick, knotted with muscle, the hidden shoulder broad. In the bottom of the boat there was an inch of swilling bloody seawater.

Valentine met him on the dry sand, and they pulled the raft round so that what was left of the sunset caught the dead man’s head; unavoidable now, lifeless, despite the movement of the waves. The human face: Peter Shaw’s passion, each unique balance and imbalance of features as individual as a fingerprint. He noted the bloated, profound pallor, like cold fat, with almost iridescent tinges of blue and green. A young man, stubble on the chin, the eyes half?open but flat, lightless, one eyelid more closed than the other. The lateral orbital lines — crow’s feet — deeply scored, as if he’d spent a lifetime squinting in the sun. The muscles beneath defined the skin like the surface of a piece of beaten metal. But it was the mouth that drew Shaw’s attention. The lips, uneven lines, were peeled back from teeth which were smeared with blood.

‘Shit,’ said Valentine, turning, taking three steps and vomiting into the sand.

He came back, dabbing at his lips. ‘Sight of blood,’ he

Shaw tried to reanimate the victim’s face in his mind as he’d been trained to do. He tightened up the jaw, balanced the eyes, replaced the graceful bow of the lips. Not a cerebral face, a muscular face.

It was Valentine who first saw the mark on the arm. The seawater had washed it clean and so it bled no more, but there was no mistaking the shape: a bite. A human bite. The teeth puncturing the skin deeply, viciously driving into the sinew and muscle, almost meeting in a crisp double incision.

Sarah Baker?Sibley pulled the Alfa up three car lengths behind stationary tail lights. The vehicle ahead had stopped, a fallen pine tree blocking the way, lit silver by the headlights. Looking ahead she saw that it wasn’t a car but a small pick?up truck, with an open back, and a covered low load. The cab had a rear window which showed a light within through frosted glass. The engine idled, the exhaust fumes spirited away each time there was a breath of wind. In a lull she heard music: something urban, jagged and loud. Then silence, and the next track, louder, even less melodic. The flurry of snow had passed, but flakes still fell.

She activated central locking and searched her handbag for her mobile. The latest model: a gift from one of her suppliers, retail price?230. Internet link, GPS, camera, video, the casing decorated with a detail from Monet’s Water Lilies .

NO SIGNAL

Searching network

She threw the mobile onto the passenger seat. Ahead the snow lay three inches thick on the road, as clean as hotel linen, the two parallel tyre tracks just visible, running forward to the stranded truck.

She watched as the man levered himself out of the driver’s seat, straightening, with a hand on the car for support. He struggled forward, but when the wind blew he stopped, braced, waiting for a lull.

He lowered his face to the closed driver’s window. A strained smile, the white hair matted with snow, the plump fingers holding an outsized working jacket to his throat. Glasses, heavy with black frames, magnified his eyes, which were milky with age. The cold had brought some blood to his cheeks but otherwise he was pale, drained, a cold sweat on his forehead.

‘You OK?’ he said when she wound the window down an inch. She heard the sound of music again, louder, from the pick?up truck.

‘We’re stuck,’ she said, briskly. ‘I need to get through — I’m picking up my daughter from school. Could you check ahead, see if we can move the tree?’

He looked forward, licking his lips, reluctant, but then set out. She watched the prints he made in the snow — a single line of flat?footed impressions, slightly unsteady. He slipped at the edge of the ditch when the wind blew, his arms flying out in a crooked semaphore, the coat billowing.

‘That’s all we need,’ she said out loud, punching in the lighter. ‘Grandad in the soup.’

A minute, less, and he was back, out of breath so that he had to lean on the Alfa’s roof. ‘OK then. We’re not gonna move the tree — not now. He says we’ll have to all back out. Have you got a mobile?’ he asked.

‘No signal.’

‘Same with him. I don’t own one.’ He rubbed one of his eyes under the thick spectacles. Despite the cold she could see now that his whole face was wet with sweat.

Baker?Sibley pushed smoke out of her nostrils, her lips pressed in a humourless line. ‘You should take it easy,’ she said.

He held his jacket’s lapels together. ‘I’m OK. I’ll try and reverse back to the turn, there was a farm track there, just give me a few minutes.’ He set off before she had time to answer.

He tottered back to his car and wiped the snow from the windscreen with his sleeve before lowering himself into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. He peered down at the dashboard, then at the rear?view mirror.

‘Come on, come on,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s not a fucking Space Shuttle.’

He didn’t move. She threw open the door and stepped out into the night, holding a hand above her eyes to stop the snowflakes snagging her lashes. The cold made her back arch and she hunched her shoulders to try to protect the exposed skin at her neck.

It was what stretched behind the Corsa that made Sarah Baker?Sibley swear. A line of headlamps running back, all stranded now in the snow.

She looked up and let some of the flakes settle on her face. ‘Why me?’ she asked. She thought of Jillie trudging home in the snow. ‘And why now?’

On cue the blizzard finally broke, the snow thickening, the wind driving it in from the sea. Visibility dropped to a few feet. She brushed flakes from her eyelids and scrambled back into the safety of the car.