‘That happens, doesn’t it?’ he’d asked Shaw. ‘That you just forget the colour of someone’s skin.’
Yes, thought Shaw, it happens. It should happen. The question was, had it happened to Sam Venn?
Venn denied that he, or anyone else in the church, knew about Lizzie’s affair with her cousin. But he was happy to expatiate on the Free Church’s attitude to the marriage of cousins.
‘That’s forbidden — yes, absolutely. We believe that Leviticus is clear on that point, and as I’ve said to you, Inspector, we live only by the Word.’
Shaw, faced with dogma, failed to mask an aggressive tension in the next question. ‘I see. And what does that mean? If cousins did marry — and they were members of the church — what would happen?’
‘Cast out,’ he’d said. And that’s when the mask — the lop-sided, damaged mask — slipped. There was a flash of real anger, and he’d had to swallow hard, and Shaw got the sense he was fighting to keep his breathing shallow.
‘And that’s happened, has it?’ Shaw asked.
Venn’s eyes were blank, windows obscured by reflections. ‘Yes. But Pastor Abney would have the details. It was some years ago, certainly. Years ago.’ He rearranged papers on his desktop, appearing to resist the temptation to read a bank statement.
‘And the children of the Elect are bound by the same rules, Mr Venn? But if they’re outside the church, presumably they are beyond the church’s punishment?’ asked Shaw, pleased with the question.
Venn had smiled then, a smile quite devoid of humour, or even the semblance of humour. ‘The world is full of evil. We seek only to keep it outside our church. We are a beacon. An example of the way the world should be, not of the world that is.’
Valentine had ascertained Venn’s movements on the night of the wake. He’d gone straight from the graveside to the pub, stayed for food, then taken his place in the choir. He thought he’d left about eleven, but he couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t noticed Pat Garrison in the bar, though he thought he’d probably been there. Venn had asked then — outright — if he was a suspect. Valentine had noted down the question, because in his experience anyone who asked it was rarely guilty. Shaw had given him the answer: No — he wasn’t a suspect, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be. The inquiry was ongoing. Shaw felt Venn was an unlikely killer, but he was as sure as he could be that he was lying to them about something. When asked, he denied all knowledge of an attempt to reopen Nora Tilden’s grave in the last year. He seemed genuinely astonished at the idea.
Once they’d left Venn’s office Shaw had called Twine: he wanted more on Venn, anything they could find from his university days, perhaps. Or one of his earlier employers. Family history, too: his parents, siblings. People like Sam Venn worried him; an incomplete character, as if presenting only two dimensions to the world, an image without depth. It was too easy to see in his religious fervour a reaction to his disability. Shaw sensed something else, something less passive.
‘Here’s someone,’ said Valentine, leaning his head forward until it touched the windscreen of the Mazda. A figure walked the snowy promenade of Hunstanton, slanted seaward into the wind, in a thin and cheap thigh-length cagoule. Valentine flicked a pen torch into life, illuminating a black-and-white picture the Auckland police had faxed them. Voyce was a member of the British Legion in Hamilton, the small town in which he lived, on the strength of his father’s wartime service in the Royal Artillery, and they’d lifted his son’s mug shot from his application form. He was fifty yards away but they could see the distinctive bald dome of the head, and the heavy bone structure of the face.
And then, eerily, there were two of them.
‘Where did he come from?’ said Shaw, sitting forward, his voice shredded with anxiety.
His radio buzzed and he heard DC Birley’s voice. ‘Must have been under the pier, on the prom, waiting. We’ve got him now.’ Mark Birley was ex-uniform branch, a heavily built rugby player who’d originally only joined the force for the weekend matches with the St James’s XV. But it hadn’t taken long to discover that he could transfer the ruthless focus of his game to a major inquiry. Birley was ‘point’ for the operation — the kingpin, ensconsed in a surveillance van up at the end of the green with a live feed into the town’s half-dozen CCTV cameras. He alerted the other two units on the open channel and asked them to stand by.
‘Wonder where the BMW is,’ said Shaw. The promenade was deserted and the car park held only a VW Camper and two Vauxhall Corsas parked next to each other with their lights on. He considered calling the whole thing off right there, right then. Mosse’s movements so far had been perfectly judged to throw them off the trail. Shaw had to admit he had less than full confidence that they could guarantee Jimmy Voyce’s safety. And less than full confidence was not good enough.
They watched the two men shake hands, embrace in a brief, awkward, clinch.
Had Mosse guessed he was being followed? If he had, would he have made his appointment at all? Or was he simply taking precautions? If either man had any idea the police were watching then Shaw’s surveillance operation was dead in the water: Mosse would lie low, Voyce would go home — probably encouraged by a vague promise from Mosse of a cheque by air mail. But crucially they’d watch what they said, weigh every word, aware of the dangers of entrapment.
Shaw hesitated, then decided they could let the op run, as long as they kept both men in sight. Their only real hope of building a case against either man depended on picking up a recording from one of the bugs in Voyce’s car, on his phone, or in the hotel room. He had to give them more time, more rope. If he’d coolly analysed his options at that point, as he did six hours later, his decision would have been different. But he was fired up by the idea, the mere possibility, that after all these years he’d be able to wipe that satisfied half-smile off Bobby Mosse’s ski-tanned face.
The two walked towards Valentine’s Mazda, then across a pelican crossing and into a pub called the Wash amp; Tope. It was one of the half-dozen likely places the two might go, so a plan was in place: DCs Lau and Campbell were round the corner, already walking towards the side door which led into the pub’s pool room. Voyce and Mosse went into the front bar. The windows of the pub were frosted glass, the light within too bright, reflecting off the wet pavement. After a minute they could just see two heads in shadow at the window, drinking.
Shaw checked his tide watch: 6.14 p.m.
Campbell and Lau had orders to observe, nothing more. If they could get close enough to hear any of the conversation, well and good: if not, they should play pool, chat up the barman. They were the odd couple: one six feet two in jeans and a bomber jacket, the other five feet four in a leather jacket and wraparound reflective glasses. No one would guess they were undercover CID. They stood out too much.
At 6.31 p.m. a low, oiled rumble made the pennies on the dashboard of Valentine’s Mazda vibrate. Thirty seconds later a BMW slid down the narrow alley at the side of the pub, pausing a half-beat, then pulling out into the street. The car was doing 80 mph before Shaw had alerted all units, its distant brake lights reflecting on the road as it headed south, then signalled to turn down a side-street. They followed in the Mazda, taking the same turning down towards the sea, but seeing nothing moving ahead.