Jim Kelly - Death Wore White

The rain was falling now, sheets of water like net curtains. They walked through the slush on the field. In the garden the carapace of snow had shrunk back, the dead stems of Brussels sprouts stuck through, the line of bricks which marked the path, a border of globe artichokes, the blackened fern?like leaves arching out of the snow and back to earth.

John Holt trudged to the door not looking back. Hadden stood on the step, gave Shaw a quick shake of the head — no boots.

Shaw stood his ground in the rain. ‘Ten minutes,’ he said to Holt.

Holt climbed the last two steps an old man. Shaw’s mobile beeped. A text from Valentine.

BLOOD AB

Shaw smiled. They had Sly now: they’d get a DNA match as well. He had the victim’s blood on his clothes. Ellis had threatened everything Sly wanted — his own boat, his own life, and freedom from a low?life existence

Shaw walked Holt to the squad car. Through the rough tweed material Shaw could feel the warmth within, the old man’s body over?heated by the exertion of the walk in the woods. Rain fell from clouds the colour of gunshot, behind which the day was breaking. Each drop left a miniature crater in the soft snow. The old man reached the car, and leant on the door for a second look back at Blickling Cottages, as if for the last time.

‘Wait,’ said Shaw to the police driver. ‘I’ll get George — we’ll follow you back.’

He checked his watch. Valentine had set out to check the sports pavilion half an hour ago. Where was he?

Shaw padded through the slush of the football pitch, thudding up the wooden steps to the veranda. In the silence he could hear his heart beating.

‘George! George!’ An echo bounced back off the hillside and some rooks clattered out of the winter branches.

But otherwise, silence. Shaw cupped his good eye against the window but could see only condensation within. The central double wooden doors were padlocked — the locks new, brass, and shiny. He noticed that one window had recently been replaced, the putty still white and unweathered.

‘George!’ He looked around. Something about the

‘George!’

Still nothing. He flicked a light switch but nothing happened. It was a kitchen, a utility sink, a hot?water urn, a row of mahogany?brown teapots. And a hatch, closed, but on the serving surface a set of plastic tubs and a measuring spoon, some heavy?duty mechanics’ gloves and several plastic dishes. He picked up one of the tubs and prised off the lid. Within, mealworms wriggled against each other, soft, translucent, the colour of pale butter. Overhead he could hear rainwater glugging in a drainpipe.

He crossed to the next door and pushed it open. The heat surrounded him like a duvet. A soft, wet heat. Despite the dawn the room was in shadow, and he stood motionless, letting his eyes change to night vision. Somewhere an electric motor hummed and a light came on — the light he’d seen that first day he’d come to Blickling Cottages — and he saw that it was on the control panel of a portable humidifier under the window. The open door behind him let in the cold air and he heard a thermostat clicking as an electric heater whirred on. Over his head fly?catchers hung from the wooden rafters, little sticky strips turning.

Shaw ran to him, turned his body over, then lit his face. He stepped back, almost falling, unable to control his leg muscles. On the bare skin of Valentine’s neck a spider the size of a small plate flexed one of its fur?lined legs. Its body was black and plump except for what looked like a circlet of white fur, like a jacket. Mandibles shivered where the mouth must have been, cleaning, extending, then folding away. The rest of the smashed box appeared empty, except for shards of glass and splinters of wood. Forcing himself to kneel again Shaw used his torch to brush the spider aside. It dropped lazily, with an audible thud, to the lino, and began to walk slowly towards the shadows by a raised stage, its movements arthritic, jerky. It paused in one of the white squares of the lino, then reared, two legs probing the light which fell through the window.

‘Indian white jacket,’ said Shaw.

‘I fucked up,’ said Valentine, his voice a rasp.

Shaw switched the torch back to his face. Valentine’s skin was white, bloodless. ‘Don’t move, George. Keep still.’ He examined Valentine’s neck — which seemed unblemished. But then he saw his hand, palm up, and within it the tell?tale double incision of the bite. Clear pustules were already erupting in a ring around the wound.

‘Spiders.’ He splayed a hand, indicating the size. ‘I jumped. Tripped, fell into the other one. More spiders.’ He closed his eyes and a thin line of saliva spilt from his mouth.

Shaw flicked his mobile open and stood. The retreating spider had switched direction and was now ambling back towards the door and the hatch by the kitchen. Shaw was on hold for the St James’s control room. Impatient, he counted out loud. ‘One, two, three, four…’

Then he stopped. He’d let his torchlight fall on the hatch: it was covered in spiders, sensing their food beyond the flimsy wood on the kitchen counter, a dozen, maybe twenty, and as the light fell on them they all moved at once, a single ripple of flexing legs.

‘Control room,’ said a familiar voice, but Shaw couldn’t speak.

Valentine’s pulse was a fading tattoo, so Shaw didn’t wait for the ambulance. He carried him, unconscious now, across the sports field, shocked by how light he was; just a sack of fragile bones. He used one of John Holt’s kitchen knives to open the wound, squeezing out as much of the clear poison as he could, then bandaging the hand with a tea towel. The ambulance finally appeared out of the teeming rain, and he carried him into the back. Valentine’s face was dotted with sweat so Shaw helped the paramedic get his raincoat off. Grasping the collar, he’d been oddly moved to glimpse a name tag inside: G. VALENTINE — like a child’s.

He’d left a PC guarding the pavilion, the doors locked, with orders to leave it that way until a unit arrived from Linton Zoo, near Cambridge.

John Holt was waiting in the squad car.

‘What’s happened?’ he said.

Shaw wasn’t in the mood to soften any of the blows. ‘He’s been bitten by one of your spiders. He may live,’ he said. ‘He may die.’

Holt buried his head in his hands. ‘Tell me,’ said Shaw. ‘Tell me quickly.’

‘They’re Indian white jackets — fifteen hundred pounds a time. It was Terry Brand’s last consignment. Izzy found the canisters floating down by the oyster beds that Monday

‘Save it,’ said Shaw, cutting him off.

He watched them drive Holt down towards the coast road, and he noticed the old man didn’t look back. One of the murder squad had brought Shaw’s Land Rover out to the scene and he unlocked it now, slid into the seat, turned on the heating and closed his eyes. From here he could see the sea in the light of dawn, brown, like over?brewed milky tea. It was a sepia world, sand brown and salt white.

He should get back to St James’s. He’d have to make a report to DCS Warren. He put both hands over his face and rubbed the skin. What would he feel if George Valentine died? That’s what Lena would want to know. At the moment he felt nothing. Shock? Maybe. Loss.

He had to get a grip. Duncan Sly would be ready for an interview soon at St James’s. They had the forensics, his blood?soaked clothes were damning enough without the evidence of Izzy Dereham and John Holt. It would be tough; but he couldn’t see how Sly could escape a murder charge. And yet…

He couldn’t forget that pathetic name tag on Valentine’s collar. It was as if the jerky handwritten capital letters were the only way the world could know who he was. He let that idea just float; an image swimming in and out of