Jim Kelly: Death Wore White

‘That they didn’t go out on the sands on Monday — tides were wrong. Spent most of the day on his fishing boat down on the Boal, overhauling the engine. Says he didn’t see anyone. Says he doesn’t do friends. Bitter man, seems to think life owes him something.’

‘Might he kill to get it?’

Valentine pinched out his cigarette and put it in his raincoat pocket. ‘Yup.’ He smiled, holding Shaw’s gaze. ‘What’s the hurry here?’

‘Holt had a spare pair of boots in the back of the Corsa out on Siberia Belt. Steel toecaps. We need to find

Shaw told the CSI team to wait while they woke the family. Valentine knocked, the double rap bouncing back off the distant white pavilion beyond the football pitch: snow clung to its cupola domes, but the roof was clear, icicles hanging along the gutter.

In the cottage lights came on, one by one, voices in the hallway before the letterbox opened.

‘Who’s that?’

‘DI Shaw, Mr Holt. And DS Valentine.’

Shaw shone his torch on the newly painted door. They could see the scratch marks now, despite the layers of paint; a perfect replica of the symbol etched into the side of the car. Holt opened the door on a chain. ‘It’s four o’clock in the morning.’

‘Sir. I have a warrant for these premises. Can you open the door?’

Holt had a camp bed by an open fire where logs burned, the winter?red flames reflected in ceramic tiles. Upstairs they could hear a child asking sleepy questions. Valentine walked quickly to the fire and used a poker to pick amongst the ashes.

‘Stay in bed,’ called Holt up the stairs. ‘Sasha’s upset,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘So I said I’d stay over. She likes that.’

The CSI team bustled, collecting shoes from the hallway.

‘They’re going to have to go upstairs, Mr Holt.’ Holt’s shoulder slumped and he sat on the edge of

‘What are they looking for?’ he said, adjusting the glasses. The eyes, magnified, were bloodshot and rheumy.

A spark flew from the fire. They both watched it turn to ash on the carpet.

‘Mr Holt,’ said Shaw. ‘You and I and DS Valentine are going back to St James’s. We’ve been talking to Izzy Dereham. Your niece. So you’ll need an overnight bag.’

Holt’s face crumpled and he rested it in his hands. ‘Can I get dressed? I’d like to walk for a while, could we? I’d like the air before we go to the station.’

‘All right,’ said Shaw. ‘Five minutes, Mr Holt — no more.’

They heard running steps on the stairs and Sasha burst in. She was laughing, but she stopped when she saw her grandfather’s face. Michelle Holt followed her in, and gathering her hand took her to sit in front of the open fire.

She looked at her father. ‘Dad?’ she said, the tears already flowing.

Holt stood. ‘I need to dress. I’d like some privacy. Take Sasha to bed, Micky. Now.’ She lifted his granddaughter up and carried her out. Shaw and Valentine waited out in the snow.

‘George, do me a favour,’ said Shaw. ‘That sports pavilion.’ He nodded across the snowy football field.

‘What about it?’

‘Why’s there no snow on the roof?’

Valentine shrugged. ‘It fell off?’

Valentine set out on what he clearly judged to be a fool’s errand, his shoulders hunched against the damp.

Shaw went back to the Mazda and used the radio to check with the murder room. Hadden had phoned through some preliminary results from Gallow Marsh — no joy on Izzy Dereham’s boots, but her teeth matched the apple from Ellis’s pick?up exactly.

Holt appeared wearing a full?length beltless overcoat, which looked new. They trudged down the cleared path to the lane and through the gateway into the playing fields. The snow was a foot deep, reflecting the cold light of the stars.

‘The wood’s a good walk,’ said Holt, setting off uphill towards a line of dark, leafless trees. The stars overhead brightened as they got away from the CSI lights. Holt walked stiffly, his breath coming hard.

‘We know what happened that night on Siberia Belt, Mr Holt,’ said Shaw, his footsteps crunching now on the twigs beneath the trees. ‘Izzy Dereham has made a full statement. Sly organized it — recruited you and Harvey Ellis. You knew each other through football, right? You run the club here — and Harvey Ellis played for the TA team. Did he bring his kids? Did they play with Sasha? And Duncan Sly runs the works team for Shark Tooth — Wootton Marsh. It’s the same league — I checked.’

Holt didn’t say he was wrong. The starlight lit the path ahead like crazy paving. ‘And then — the final piece of the jigsaw — you recruited Izzy.’

‘James Baker?Sibley was a rich man, and one who wanted his daughter at any cost. What did he promise you?’

‘He cleared the debts,’ said Holt, turning. ‘An interest?free loan. But it was a loan. And I’ll pay it back.’

‘Who to?’

The old man shrugged.

‘The real question,’ said Shaw, ‘is who killed Harvey Ellis. You were down there with him. He did lose his nerve, didn’t he? And you were all smart enough to realize that he could fulfil his part of the bargain just as well dead as alive. The body would be found — but so what? There was nothing to link him to you, to any of you.’

‘When I left him, Harvey was alive.’ Holt licked his lips. ‘We saw him waving as we came out of Gallow Marsh. But I’d told him it was dangerous — what he was doing, what he planned to do.’

Holt walked on and within a few hundred yards they emerged on the crest of the hill. Over by Blickling Cottages members of the CSI team were in the upstairs rooms, the curtains pulled back.

‘What was he going to do that was dangerous?’ said Shaw, recognizing that he’d been invited to ask the question. He reminded himself that Holt and Izzy were family. Sly was the outsider, the fixer, the boss’s man.

Holt spat, took an extra breath. ‘Some people are greedy once they get their snouts in the trough. Harvey was a fool. His children made him a fool, anyway, and

Shaw watched the last of the snowflakes falling, outsized and feathery. There was a wind up on the hill and it promised rain.

Holt laughed, adjusting the spectacles. ‘He said he’d put it to Duncan Sly, that he hadn’t realized the risks. He wanted ten thousand — double what we’d agreed. I left him about four thirty. He’d been in a mess all day, kept saying he was putting his arse on the line, whatever Duncan said, and he deserved a bigger cut. Harvey said if he got caught he’d be inside when Jake died. That’s what really freaked him out. That was the big risk, the only one he really cared about. But if he was taking it, he wanted paying for it.’

Holt’s top lip curled back to show the ill?fitting dentures, the first time Shaw had seen the old man sneer. ‘If Duncan didn’t promise him more he said he’d reverse back, take the sign down, stop her coming up the lane.’

Shaw took in a breath of the air, damp now. To the east dawn was bleeding into the sky.

‘I saw Duncan coming along Siberia Belt,’ said Holt. ‘He’d walked up from the far end. He had his car down there ready to put out the no?entry sign. I didn’t want to be there for that. Harvey was a weak man, I reckoned he’d toe the line. Duncan could switch the spark plugs. So I left them to it.’

Shaw imagined Ellis and Sly in the cab of the pick?up, dusk gathering, the toolbox between them, the young father delivering his threat.

Holt stood, shaking his head. ‘Harvey didn’t deserve to die like that. He loved that kid, all of his kids, and Jake most of all.’ He gazed out over the field. ‘He used to bring them to matches — they’re good kids, they deserve a father.’

He looked back at Blickling Cottages. ‘I couldn’t have done that, lived with that kid’s illness, knowing he was going to die, and not hating him for it.’