Jim Kelly: Death Wore White

Parlour stretched in the cold and stood trying to hear the sea sigh. He edged down the side of the Morris and tapped on the window. There was no light within, and no sign of life at all. Then he saw frail fingers fumbling with the window handle, one encumbered by a large amber ring. The driver wound the window down. ‘Are we going to be here long?’ she asked, as if he were an AA man. Make?up, a savage attempt to defy the years, made her face look artificial, her eyebrows two black pencil lines, a smudge of crimson where the lips should have been. Parlour said he didn’t know how long it would be, that

‘I know that,’ she said. ‘I’ve always said that.’

Milly snuffled around his shoes.

‘You’ve cut the heating?’ he asked her.

She’d looked at him as if he were an idiot. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, and then, with what seemed like an effort, ‘Please. Don’t worry about me.’

He checked her fuel gauge; she had a quarter of a tank, perhaps less. ‘OK. But like I say — if you get cold we’re just in front.’

‘I’m going to sleep now…’ she said, winding up the window.

The next car was the last in the line, a Mondeo, stuck sideways across the track. Fred was leaning down to knock on the glass when the door opened with a jerk and clipped him on the forehead. He just had time to grab the frame, saving himself from a fall into the dark water and the reeds.

In the moonlight he looked at the smudge of blood on his fingers, touching the wound.

A teenager with a baseball cap got out of the car, the crotch of his jeans half?way down to his knees. He looked hot, his face flushed, a patch of sweat discolouring a T?shirt with the logo Pi is God. The rest of the fabric was covered in blue numbers. Adolescent?thin, the arms held at awkward angles, his skin clear, the narrow face dom inated by thick, dark eyebrows. Parlour didn’t notice the rapid shallow breathing and the trembling which made his hands vibrate in his pockets. Or the running shoes: Nike, 180 pounds new.

‘Don’t suppose your mobile works?’ asked Parlour. He shook his head and looked up and down the line. ‘Nope.’ The kid licked his lips. ‘What’s gonna happen then, do you think?’ Estuary English, but beneath it the subtle lilt of middle?class Blue Peter.

Parlour shrugged. ‘Guess we’ll start eating each other eventually.’

‘No.’ The kid made a noise in his throat which wasn’t a laugh. ‘You know… like, what will happen?’ The note of pleading was unmistakable; Parlour saw the boy’s eyes flooding.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ said Parlour, looking up at the stars. ‘Police’ll get a chopper out soon. We can’t be the only ones stuck. You got any food? Water?’ He could see a bottle of vodka on the passenger seat.

The teenager looked out over the marsh, swivelling the baseball cap down over his short, thick hair. ‘Reckon I could get through? I could stop a car down on the road. Get help.’

Parlour shook his head. ‘Best wait. If you fall in tonight you’d freeze to death. Isn’t worth it — anyway, this thing can put out enough heat to trigger global warming. So you’ll be nice and snug. How’s the fuel?’

The kid got back in the driver’s seat, looking blankly at the instrument panel, and held the steering wheel with both hands. Parlour noticed that the wheel had a cover — snakeskin, chevrons in black and white. He focused on the fuel gauge. ‘Right. That’s not so good, is it? On the red. If I was you I’d kill the lights, heat her up again and

No answer. The boy pulled the door shut.

Parlour turned away and saw a pair of green reflecting eyes out in the marsh: a fox, watching him, smelling them all, petrified by the intrusion. It blinked first, and he followed the shadow as it slunk into the snow?capped clumps of grass. Ahead he saw someone walking back down the line of cars and trucks. A woman, forty?something, in an expensive yellow all?weather sailing jacket, waving a torch.

They met by the plumbers’ van. ‘I’m in the red Alfa Romeo,’ she said. She produced a packet of cigarettes, fumbled until she got one between her lips and lit it with a gold lighter the size of a bullion bar.

‘I should tell someone,’ she said, implying that he’d have to do. ‘The old guy in the Corsa behind me — that hideous little car…’ She let the smoke circulate fully before ejecting it through her nose. ‘I think he’s dead.’

The tarpaulin over the body on the beach was now stiff with frost. Control had radioed to say the CSI unit was still an hour away, maybe more. Nothing moved on Ingol Beach except the tide, inching out. Valentine had taped off the toxic?waste drum and lit it with one of the portable floodlights, then he’d gone down on his knees, his thin trousers soaked, fingertip?searching the high?water mark.

Shaw told him he’d seen the cars trapped behind the fallen pine tree up on the track. Had the driver crashed? Did anyone need medical help? The coincidence made Shaw uneasy: the violent unnatural death on the sands, the fallen pine on Siberia Belt almost within sight. ‘OK,’ he said, refolding the map. ‘The scene’s secure. There’s only one road in and that’s blocked. We’re done here for now. We’ll leave the floodlight on. Let’s see if we’re needed on Siberia Belt.’

Valentine followed, glad to be putting distance between himself and the unseen corpse. The sight of blood made him feel the earth wasn’t solid enough to stand on. Which made him want a pack of cigarettes, which he didn’t have, so he spat in the snow instead.

They crossed the frosted sands until they reached a dyke which separated Siberia Belt from the beach, bridging it where a sluice gate stood, the cogs and levers of the

Valentine could hardly speak for lack of breath. Emphysema , thought Shaw. Fluid filling his lungs. If he’s given up smoking, he’s given up too late. Shaw didn’t need a SatNav to know Valentine’s destination.

The bass note of a stereo system thudded from behind the misted windows of the car.

‘Check it out,’ said Shaw. ‘I’ll go along the line, see what the problem is up ahead.’ A group stood beside the third car from the front of the line, lit by the interior light spilling from the open driver’s door.

Valentine bridled at the peremptory tone, trying to get used to the fact that DI Shaw was the boss, not the kid in short trousers he’d once kicked a football with on the beach. It would be easier if Shaw could lay off the checklist philosophy. That’s what they called him at the station. ‘Check?It.’ Check this, check that, check every bloody thing. Mr Politically Correct. Mr Rule Book. And Valentine knew where all that had its roots. He knew why Peter Shaw was so keen to show the world he was the perfect copper: it was because his father hadn’t been, that’s why. And because his father’s partner hadn’t been either. Jack Shaw and George Valentine had lashed up their last big case. Big time. What had the judge said? Slipshod .

Shaw reached the Morris Minor and turned back with fresh instructions: ‘And this,’ he called. He placed his palms together and put them beside one cheek, tilting his head as if laying it down on a pillow. An elderly woman was asleep in the car, the windows slightly frosted on the inside, a tartan rug to one side where it had slipped off her body. Shaw could see her face: there was a smile on the thin lips and her hands were held slightly up from the quilt like a child’s.

The door of the Mondeo opened before Valentine could tap on the roof. The teenager stood, leaning on the door. ‘We getting out of here?’

Valentine shrugged. ‘What’s up?’ He nodded forward to the group by the silver Vauxhall Corsa.