Jim Kelly - Death Wore White

She rubbed her hands on the skin of her cheeks. ‘We just had to keep our nerve. The plan was too complicated to ditch. If we wanted to get her off the road, and out of mobile contact, it had to be that night. Mr Baker?Sibley was ready as well, and the tides were right for him to sail before dawn.’

‘Take me through what happened,’ said Shaw.

‘We met here first — me, Uncle John, and Harvey Ellis. Harvey was sick with worry over that kid of his.’

‘Jake,’ said Shaw.

‘Harvey put the pick?up truck in the barn out of sight and we sat in the cab, going through it all one last time.’

‘What time was this?’ asked Shaw.

She shrugged, and Shaw noticed that her eyes had lost

Apples, thought Shaw.

‘Harvey was in a bad way. Nervous. He was sick, throwing up, shaking. He said he couldn’t do it. We said he had to. John said it was too important to all of us. And no one was going to get hurt. Then they drove down to Siberia Belt in the pick?up — the two of them.’

The key. At last. Shaw sat back: ‘So Harvey Ellis’s van was already parked up on Siberia Belt — he didn’t arrive there with the rest of the convoy?’

‘That’s right. They were going to switch the plugs — fake a breakdown. That’s why John went: Ellis said he couldn’t do it on his own. I guess they took the tree down to make sure. They were pretty nervous. Then John came back. Things were OK then — I could see it was going to be all right. John said he’d talked Ellis round, that once he was out in position he’d calmed down. Then it was our turn to get in place. When I got the van down to the junction just here by the farm I could see Ellis standing by the pick?up out on Siberia Belt — he waved. That’s the last time I ever saw him.’

Shaw nodded. The confession had been smooth, almost effortless. Too smooth?

‘Then?’ asked Valentine.

‘It was simple, really. We got in position on the coast road in a lay?by. When Baker?Sibley’s Alfa went past John had to stay behind her, I got in front. When I reached Siberia Belt I had time to drop off the sign, then drive back here.’

‘So Sarah Baker?Sibley followed your lights up the track?’ him there, all the way from Castle Rising.’

The wings of a gull scuffed at the window and left a feathered imprint in the ice.

Izzy Dereham jumped at the noise. ‘When I saw a few more cars go past at the junction I walked down, on the far side of the trees, and dragged the sign in. We needed to keep Baker?Sibley there for an hour — that was the deal. If she’d tried to reverse John was going to put his back wheels over the ditch and keep her in. But the snowstorm made it easier. We knew she was trapped for hours.’

Valentine closed his notebook. ‘But when you and John Holt left the farm Harvey Ellis was alive?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And alone?’

‘No.’ She turned to Shaw. ‘It wasn’t just the three of us. There was a fourth: someone to put the sign out at the other end of Siberia Belt. He was going to meet Harvey at the pick?up — just to double?check everything was OK. When I drove off there were two figures out on the track. John said this other man had planned the whole thing, and sorted the money side, but he wouldn’t tell me his name. All he said was that he was James Baker?Sibley’s man. His eyes and ears — that’s what he said. Baker?Sibley’s eyes and ears.’

They stood on the pavement outside the Artichoke in the steadily falling snow, Valentine using his mobile. Tom Hadden was in the Ark; he’d pick them up in ten minutes to run them to Sly’s houseboat. Duncan Sly — ‘the eyes and ears’ of James Baker?Sibley, and before that of his father. They’d need uniform back?up. Shaw and Valentine had got scalding tea from the late?night burger van parked opposite the pub. Under a canvas awning they’d reduced the investigation to its stark core: if Izzy Dereham was telling the truth, the only person who could have killed Harvey Ellis was Duncan Sly. If she was telling the truth.

Valentine stood in the snow, his head sunk low on his shoulders so that the collar of the raincoat kept the back of his neck warm.

Shaw tried to call up an image of the boot mark they’d found in the bloodstain on Siberia Belt. Heavy duty, with a steel toecap, and the fern leaf burnt into the heel. It wasn’t Holt’s footprint, so was it Sly’s? They needed to turn over the houseboat, find the boots. The footprint was the only physical forensic evidence that could put the killer on the spot. They had to trace it.

The snow was making little drifts on Shaw’s shoulders as he stood under the swinging pub sign. He’d never really looked at the picture before: a gardener leaning on a spade, a line of artichokes still to be cut, a floppy white

Shaw looked a long time at the boots.

‘I’ll catch up with you at St James’s, George’ he said suddenly, the excitement in his voice as audible as the snow was silent. ‘I’ve got to check something out. Take Sly carefully, then bring him in to the station. Secure the site, leave the rest to Tom. The important thing is getting in the door before he’s got a chance to destroy anything. Boots, clothing. I’ll meet you at St James’s.’

Valentine nodded, trying to see it as a vote of confidence, but knowing he was being cut out of something.

Hadden arrived in the CSI van with two uniformed PCs for back?up, and as they pulled away Valentine could see Shaw still looking up at the swinging sign of the Artichoke.

The streets of Lynn were empty, snow settling despite the salt. A neon kebab?house sign pulsed on Norfolk Street, the gyro inside turning as a man sliced off the cooked meat. They pulled up at Boal Quay and Valentine led the way to the footpath which ran to the houseboat jetty. The communal fire still burnt, despite the falling snow, but there was no one tending the flames. Valentine went aboard Sly’s boat with Hadden and one of the uniformed PCs, the other skirted the hull of the boat, up on its blocks, round to the far side.

Valentine didn’t have to knock. Sly opened the double wooden hatchway, blinking into Hadden’s torch. He stood in his pants, nothing else, his skin as white as lard except where he couldn’t cover it up on the sands — the hands

‘Jesus! What…?’ asked Sly, covering his eyes with a hand as if he were looking out to sea.

‘Mr Sly? We’d like a word, and to look around.’

Sly looked back into the houseboat. Valentine sniffed, the cold air making his sinuses flood. ‘Or I can be back with a warrant in ten minutes.’ He’d give him one more chance, then they’d force a way through. Sod the warrant.

Sly didn’t move, but seemed to settle on his feet. Hadden opened his CSI bag and pulled on gloves. ‘I need to look around,’ he said, not waiting for Sly to give him permission. Valentine stamped the snow off his boots on the bare floorboards and led the way.

‘Like I’ve got a choice,’ said Sly.

‘You’ll need some clothes and a coat, sir. We have a car.’ There was a strong smell in the room but Valentine’s nose was blocked: peat perhaps, smoked fish?

‘Now? This is crazy,’ said Sly. ‘I’ve told you I’d nothing to do with James’s murder.’

Valentine, suddenly tired, felt sorry for Duncan Sly, so he decided to cut it short, spell things out. ‘Mr Sly. We’re going down to St James’s. That’s what’s going to happen. It’s got nothing to do with his murder. We understand you were on Siberia Belt the night Harvey

Sly stepped back again, and the single unshaded light bulb threw his face into relief. Valentine examined a large print of the Battle of Jutland on the wall. He thought what a defeat it must be, to end your life alone in a rotting houseboat, surrounded by the stench of tidal mud, when your dream was to be at sea.