‘But Holtby doesn’t seem to fit in at all,’ said Shaw. ‘He was only twelve years old in 1994 — is he really going to be able to make a positive ID nearly twenty years later? I suppose he might have been on the beach at Wells that day. It’s going to be tough to find out where he was. But if he was at home he was miles away. .’
Shaw traced his finger along the coast to the village of Morston, at the entrance to Blakeney Pit, perhaps three miles from East Hills: a small group of Norfolk stone cottages with a pub on the coast road, a lane winding down to a small harbour, a car park and tea hut. In the summer it was busy, boats running people out to see the seals at Blakeney Point. There was a small campsite, usually packed with bird watchers.
Lena knelt in the sand and studied the map, then went and unlocked the door to the shop, reappearing almost immediately with another set of maps. She was in shorts too, and a skimpy Surf! T-shirt which left her midriff bare. As she sat Shaw pulled her close, so that he could feel how cool her skin was. Her body was made up of curves, strong lines, so that he was always overwhelmed by her physical presence. She was just five foot two, but he’d have never described her as slight.
The map she’d unfolded showed the coast from Wells to Morston but there was no detail on the land as in the OS version it was all at sea: currents, rocks, depths, buoys, fishing grounds, wrecks, lights, lightships and sand banks.
‘They’ve started producing these charts for the windsurfers — the stunt kites, that crowd. They’re really popular. And eighteen quid a pop. These little circles are really clever. .’ She pointed to a small device — there were dozens along the line of the coast — which looked like a compass. ‘You’ll know all about these but they’re new for the smart crowd.’
‘A wind rose,’ said Shaw. He’d learnt to read them as part of the navigation course he’d taken to get his pilot’s licence for the RNLI hovercraft. The idea was simple: each wind rose was a little cartwheel, with the spokes different lengths. The longer the spoke the more the wind usually blew from that direction.
‘This is what I remember. .’ Lena stabbed a finger on the flow of arrows indicating the current at the mouth of Wells Harbour: they were all pointing east, towards Blakeney Pit and the little village of Morston. ‘And the winds. .’ All along the edge of the marshes the prevailing winds were from the south-west, pushing north-east.
But Shaw was shaking his head: ‘Ruth Robinson, the dead woman’s sister, is a big swimmer. She works up at the lido. According to her if you wanted to swim from East Hills to the mainland, and live to tell the tale, the way to do it is swim out. . out here,’ he said, indicating a point a mile north-west. ‘Then you relax, pick up this current and swing back into the beach at Wells.’
‘I know, Peter. But what if you don’t know the currents, don’t have the local knowledge, or you’re not a good enough swimmer to strike out away from land, away from safety? It’s what we tell all the kids in the surf classes. If you get into trouble don’t swim against the tide. You’ll tire, you’ll drown. If your killer just struck out for the coast from East Hills the currents and the winds would take him east, to Morston, or on into Blakeney Pit. You might be in the water for hours, but you’d have a chance of surviving. Swim against the current you’d be dead in minutes. That’s how people drown, Peter. They swim, get exhausted, panic, swim faster, sink.’
Shaw thought of that — the little shell-like beach at Morston, beyond the harbour; a twelve-year-old Paul Holtby on the sands, and a man walking out of the sea; in shock probably, wounded, desperate for help. What had happened next? What could have happened that a small boy would have remembered it nearly twenty years later?
TWENTY-FIVE
Tuesday
George Valentine liked the dawn because it brought with it the day, which meant the night would follow. He’d get a drink then look back on what he’d done, and feel better about his life. Consciously, he was able to face the fact he was wishing his life away, because it was at least his decision, and it was a decision that harmed no one else. He’d watched the sun at dawn as he’d driven into town along the smoking river, a cold red orange ball, climbing above the Campbell’s Soup Tower. The colours of dawn were no better than he deserved: cold, businesslike and unemotional, untouched by the passage of the day.
He was sitting now in the atrium of the Chamber, an upmarket health club built on Lynn’s waterside, created from the shell of one of the old Hanseatic warehouses, which had once held the best wine in Europe. Now it held a swimming pool, visible through a glass screen, and beyond that what? Valentine could only guess. He imagined saunas, exercise bicycles, squash courts, and lean bodies in crisp shorts and designer sportswear. If he’d been forced to design his own hell it would have been just like that, with fluffy towels.
He didn’t want to be here. When he’d got back to his room at The Ship the night before he’d found a text message on his mobile. A summons from the chief constable which meant he’d have to get up at some ungodly hour and drive back into town. All he’d wanted to do was have a sleep-in and drive down to the beach and tell Shaw more about what Jan Clay had shown him in Wells Museum. Instead of which he was in the Chamber. ‘Torture chamber,’ he said, under his breath, which made him cough.
Twenty arm chairs filled the atrium and he’d taken one on the end, facing the double automatic doors to the changing rooms. He’d got himself a bottle of water from a machine in the corner, quietly stunned to find it cost him two pounds fifty for 500mls. The bottle was icy cold and promised that the contents had been extracted from a borehole in the Italian Alps. George was of a generation which equated British civilization with the distinction that you could drink the water out of the taps.
Brendan O’Hare, Britain’s second-youngest chief constable, was suddenly there in front of him. Valentine hadn’t recognized him out of uniform, or wrapped in a white towelling robe. What he could see of the chief constable was tanned and replete, the skin-tone perfect. He had a slim towel over one shoulder, the end of which he was using to rub his face. O’Hare sat opposite and almost immediately one of the staff, in a skimpy pair of shorts and a bust-hugging top, stooped to place a single china espresso cup on the table by his knee, with a glass of water. ‘George,’ he said, ignoring her. ‘Thanks for coming — sorry about the time. But I thought, you know, it was best out of the office.’
He sipped the coffee and left some space for Valentine to say something. Valentine said nothing, and felt no need to, but he did think that if silence was O’Hare’s tactic he was on a loser, because he could do that all day.
O’Hare despatched the coffee then crossed his legs so that Valentine looked away, uncomfortable with the sudden sight of bare legs, but pleased to note they were oddly hairless and pale.
‘I understand there’s been developments,’ said O’Hare. ‘Out at Creake — another body?’
Valentine was going to answer then but O’Hare had hit his stride.
‘You any good at reading between the lines, George?’
‘I try.’ However hard he forced his voice towards neutral Valentine knew he was broadcasting antagonism, even belligerence.
‘Great. Listen then — and consider.’
O’Hare looked over his shoulder and the girl who’d brought him coffee took the hint. They heard the rattle and hiss of the Italian coffee machine being fired up. ‘I am not impressed with the leadership in this case. Especially at the top. I expect my DIs to deliver. I’m not talking out of shop — Shaw knows what I think. I doubt that this latest development makes the case any less. .’ he searched for the word, ‘lucid. So, it may well be that traffic, or possibly family liaison, will be getting a DI transfer from the Serious Crime Unit. Which means I’ll be looking for a new DI. I’ve examined your file; it’s been an impressive couple of years. You’d clearly be in line if the vacancy arose. But you knew all that.’