‘But Joe might have known at the time?’ pressed Shaw, aware she hadn’t answered his question.
‘Yes. I think Marianne was torn — she wanted secret lovers, but she wanted people to know. Well, most of all she wanted me to know.’
‘Why did she want you to know about her success with men?’ Shaw asked.
‘Because it was a competition she could win. I was the clever one. I was the better swimmer, although Marianne was good, very good. But swimming was Mum’s passion and so we were close. That left Dad. She wanted his love, his affection, and she got it. And somehow she turned that idea — that she could compete for affection — into competing for sex. I was a bit bookish, shy. So she told me in her letters about the boyfriends. Not everything, but enough. She lied to Dad, said it was all just a kiss and a cuddle. So I guess that’s why she lied about that day, so he wouldn’t cause a fuss.’
‘Swimming was a big part of Marianne’s life?’ said Shaw.
‘Before East Hills — after that I don’t think I ever saw her in the water again.’
‘Anyone ever swim out to East Hills?’ He’d been saving the question. Robinson’s reaction was half-puzzlement, half-understanding.
She looked out over the pool. ‘It’s been done. Childish, really,’ She tugged at the tracksuit collar. ‘But when you’re young you never think you’re going to die.’
‘You’ve done it — swum out and back?’
‘No. We’d go one way — back, usually. It’s very difficult to go there and back because of the tides. So we’d all go out on the boat and whoever was up for it would leave their stuff for us to bring back. I did it once; I’d have been sixteen. No lifeguard back then so that made things easier. It’s actually pretty scary. We’d have a word with the boatman because they always check the tickets, to make sure they’re not leaving someone out there.’
Another lie, this time Tug Coyle’s.
‘What about the rip-tide?’
‘Golden rule: never swim against the tide. You have to go with it. The trick is to swim out, away from the island towards the north-east, and then catch the current back towards the main beach at Wells. So maybe half a mile out, a bit more, then all the way in. Mile and a half to two miles in total. It’s a challenge.’
‘And Joe — he doesn’t look like he could swim a length,’ said Shaw, smiling, looking out over the water, proud of the way he’d constructed the interview in reverse, so that the crucial question came last.
‘Joe was one of the best,’ she said. ‘Champion here — age of fourteen, fifteen. Long-distance freestyle. Sickly kid — really bad. Asthma and stuff. But that’s how some people react, isn’t it? They’re kind of aggressively fit, to compensate. He’s skinny, not much muscle, but it’s stamina you need and guts. That’s Joe. I think he did it a few times.’
TWENTY-ONE
Shaw had the whole team assembled beneath the cool shade of the cedar tree, the midday heat penetrating only in a scatter of sunspots on the beaten grass. A thick cable of PC wires, taped together, had been slung out through one of the stone arrow-slit windows of the Warrenner’s House to the mobile incident room. The temperature back in the metal box was 110 Fahreneheit and still rising. Twine had two nests of desks set out in the shade, a Perspex information board covered in SOC shots from Osbourne’s bedroom and Arthur Patch’s house, plus a poster from the original East Hills inquiry showing Shane White’s handsome, if forgettable, face.
Overhead, ash drifted from the woods above The Circle. Another fire had sprung up, sparked by the gas explosion, as the fire brigade had feared. It had been doused, but the woods were still thick with clouds of acrid fumes from the smouldering pine trees. The drifting embers had kindled at least one other blaze — over the hill, deeper in the woods, beyond the reach of the fire brigade’s hoses. The council beaters had been sent in, the workmen in dayglo jackets picking up gear and clothing from an open lorry parked on the narrow lane which led up to The Circle from Creake village. Under the cedar tree, inside the thick walls of the medieval ruin, the air was breathable enough. But they could all taste it, despite the thick, dark coffee from the St James’ mobile canteen: a bitter burnt essence of pine needles on the lips and tongue.
The team had been told the result of the East Hills mass screening, or rather, the lack of a result. They all knew the inquiry was in trouble. So Shaw had called them together to tell them that it was time to refocus. They had three days — just — to find the East Hills killer. Their prime suspect was now Joe Osbourne.
‘We need to drill down on this guy,’ said Shaw. ‘I want to know everything about him and I want to put pressure on his alibi — sorry, alibis — until they crack. Where was he when Shane White died? Where was he when his wife died? Where was he when Patch died?’
Drill down — it was one of Shaw’s favourite phrases, and seemed to encapsulate his own particular brand of intellectual precision.
Shaw pinned a picture of Osbourne to the board. ‘Joe has motive, he had opportunity, he had means, and we now know that two years after the killing it was his habit to always carry a knife. In 1994 he said he was in his father’s locksmith’s shop all day. He’d been out the back in the workshop. His father had manned the counter. His father is now dead. On the day his wife died he says he was in the same lock-up. No customers till nearly noon, and that was someone he didn’t know looking for electric time locks which Osbourne doesn’t sell. The earliest time we can place him in the workshop is at 3.15 p.m. when a uniformed officer from Wells told him his wife was dead. So, as an alibi it makes threadbare look like thick pile. Plus, we know he was capable of swimming back from East Hills. In fact, he might even have managed it both ways — or he could have got a free ride out on the ferry from Tug Coyle. Were they friends, maybe? Eventually they’d be family.’
Shaw searched the faces amongst the fragmented shadows of the cedar tree. ‘George and I will interview Joe Osbourne now. Let’s get down to Wells to the locksmiths. If Joe’s our man then he wasn’t at the shop that afternoon in 1994, and he wasn’t there on the day his wife died sixteen years later, unless she was dead before he left for work. See what the other shop owners know in that street — what the routine is. Where does he go for lunch? Marianne doesn’t sound to me like a dutiful sandwich-maker. And we’re told they never met in the day, even though they worked less than a few streets apart. Get on to Swansea and find out what Joe’s driven in the past as well — he was eighteen at the time of East Hills. Did he have a motorbike? A car? If Patch died because he knew something about that day then there’s a good chance it was something to do with a vehicle. Let’s find out what vehicle we’re dealing with.’
Shaw put his hands together as if in prayer and touched the tip of each index finger to his lips. ‘That’s a thought: Ruth Robinson reckons that if you swam to the mainland from East Hills the only way to do it and live to tell the tale is to go out, then come back with the tide to the main beach. It’s late evening on a hot August day so you can wander around a bit in your trunks, but pretty soon you’ll stand out.’
‘Unless you had a vehicle ready, or you could make a call, get help?’ said Campbell. ‘Or walk back into town, but then you would stand out.’
‘There’s the big beach shop out there, behind the woods,’ offered Jackie Lau. ‘If you had cash you could buy shorts, a T-shirt, then get a bus, or call a cab, or walk. Key question: was it planned?’
‘OK, let’s think all that through,’ said Shaw. ‘But it was eighteen years ago. I’m more interested in kicking the tyres on Osbourne’s alibi for this Friday, the day his wife died and the day Patch was murdered. If Osbourne is our killer then either he stopped at The Row, at Patch’s house, on the way down to Wells, or came back to the village. Again, let’s check out his transport options. If he’s on the British motorbike someone will have heard it — you can hardly miss it.’