Shaw stood, zipping up his jacket. ‘How would you describe the relationship between Pat and Lizzie?’
Fletcher shrugged. ‘They were fucking each other.’ He shook his head. ‘But like I said, we didn’t know, not then. There might have been rumours — I can’t remember. She certainly didn’t seem to mind the fact he was a black. Some of the girls are like that. Like father, like daughter, right?’
Valentine saw his chance, the sudden vulnerability in his voice when Fletcher had said the word ‘daughter’, the contrast between that and the anger which seemed to permeate every other word he used. ‘You got kids, Mr Fletcher? Family?’
‘No,’ he said, almost in a whisper.
‘Never been married?’ asked Valentine.
‘No.’ He rolled his shoulders. ‘But I don’t go short. Never have done.’
‘But you like children — your nephews, nieces?’ Valentine walked to the mantelpiece over the blocked-off fireplace. There was a picture there of Fletcher and a woman. He had his arm round her shoulders but her hands hung limp. She was in her fifties, poorly dressed in a tracksuit top and joggers, her hair permed to destruction.
Fletcher glared at Valentine. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’
Shaw looked at a spot right between Fletcher’s eyes.
‘Did you kill Pat Garrison, Mr Fletcher?’
Fletcher removed something imaginary from his lip. ‘No. I didn’t kill him. If I had I’d deserve a medal — but I didn’t.’
‘You ever dig graves at night?’
Fletcher’s eyes narrowed with what Shaw thought was genuine surprise. ‘What? Why would I do that?’
‘Six months ago someone opened up Nora Tilden’s grave. Was it you?’
‘No. That’s crazy.’
‘And you didn’t notice — no one noticed, that a grave had been opened, then refilled?’
‘Summer you get that — bare earth. Relatives plant flowers, tidy up. Seriously, you wouldn’t notice. No one would.’ Fletcher closed his eyes and stretched back on the bed, the springs creaking.
‘The night of the wake, Mr Fletcher. Can you tell us your movements?’
‘I went to the Flask from the graveside — we all did. Church mob went upstairs to the function room for cucumber sandwiches. We stayed in the back room. Choir got there about eight. That’s it. I left when they kicked us out …’ He shook his head on the pillow. ‘No. No — I left about eleven. I hadn’t done her grave so I knew I had to get up and do it next morning before anyone was about. I was pretty much pissed. It was a decent job — I didn’t want to lose it. So I made sure I got to sleep. Set the alarm.’
‘Anyone verify that — anyone who’s alive?’
Fletcher blew air out between his lips in a steady stream, like a balloon deflating.
Shaw stood. ‘We may need you to answer these questions formally, under caution at St James’s. I’d like you to stay in Lynn — and inform my sergeant here if you have any plans to leave the town. Do you understand?’
Valentine put his card on the bedside table.
‘I’m not giving you any names,’ said Fletcher. ‘But there’s plenty of people who wanted that piece of shit wiped off the floor. Dead — maybe not. But gone? Oh yeah — plenty.’
As they went to leave Fletcher stood for the first time, grabbed a copy of Voice of Freedom and thrust it at Shaw.
Shaw looked at the front-page headline:
MIGRANT WORKERS BLAMED FOR CRIME WAVE
‘No thanks, Mr Fletcher. There’s only one crime I’m interested in at the moment.’
Fletcher shrugged. ‘What about the wife? We get a lot of women now, in the party, on the streets for us. And there’s the lunch tomorrow — still a few tickets on our table. Fifty quid — three courses. Local fare.’
Shaw nodded, looking at the paper. ‘It’s only a guess, Mr Fletcher. But you know, I don’t think it’s really her kind of thing.’
17
The incident room at the Flensing Meadow chapel was dark within, each of the Gothic windows shuttered, the only illumination coming from the bulb inside a digital projector. The room was damp, despite the antiquated heating system, which they could hear pumping steaming water around creaking radiators. Outside the early morning mist had coalesced into a solid wall of earthbound fog, the pale disc of the sun which had briefly shone now lost, Shaw guessed, for the day. The fog muffled the whisper of traffic on the ring road, leaving the cackle of the cemetery crows to provide the only clear soundtrack.
DC Twine flipped open a laptop on the desk beside the projector and the cool blue glow showed a tidy desktop.
Shaw sat on one of the pews cradling a double espresso, trying hard to relax, picking at a sandwich. He checked his mobile, as if the mere action would spark it into life. He hadn’t heard from George Valentine for three hours. After their interview with Fletcher the DS had taken personal charge of the hunt for Jimmy Voyce, who had failed to return to his hotel overnight. Mosse’s BMW had got back to his street at eleven the previous evening. It was impossible to tell if he had a passenger. He’d left for work at six. His wife at eight. But there was a light on in the house. Shaw was worried, more than worried, and he’d stay that way until he had a positive sighting of Voyce — alive. In a few hours’ time he’d have no choice but to confront Mosse and report Voyce’s disappearance to Warren: a double hit which could indeed signal the end of his career.
DC Twine tapped the keys on the laptop. ‘Our luck was in, sir,’ he said. ‘The choir’s archive is in a mess — hundreds of recordings, mixed up with cine tins. Most of them are unmarked. This one just said “Tilden”. One of the conductors was a film buff — but it’s not Zeffirelli or anything. Strictly a one-tripod shot, although they do move it. We’ve had it transferred to DVD.’ Twine spoke for the audience he couldn’t see: Shaw’s squad — eight DCs, two PCs from uniform branch and the three civilian admin/phone bank operators. ‘Here we go …’
The screen was set perfectly to catch the rectangle of projected light. They saw a room, beamed, people crowded round tables, and the choir on the higher step, about forty men in three lines. Shaw recognized the dining room in the Flask. In the corner, on a plinth, sat Alby Tilden’s gold Buddha.
Twine let the first sea shanty get under way — ‘The Captain’s Chair’, a Lynn favourite. A few faces in the audience on film turned inquisitively to the camera.
‘I’ll run the whole thing for you if anyone wants, but there were just three things I’ve spotted I wanted to flag up.’ He’d bookmarked the relevant frames so that the film jumped to a new image, then froze. Twine stepped forward and used his finger’s shadow to point out one of the singers in the back row. ‘I got one of the old guys at the choir to name this lot. That’s Sam Venn, from the church.’
He magnified the image so that Venn’s distinctively lop-sided face almost filled the screen. Shaw thought he’d grown into his disability, accommodated it, because as a younger man the disfigurement was more obvious.
‘Now,’ said Twine, ‘that image was taken at eight thirty. Venn stays in the back row the whole of the first session until nine thirty-five. This next image is the first song of the second session — there’s no digital time on the film but the clock in the room says it was ten thirty. There …’ he used his finger again to trace the whole of the back line. ‘He’s gone. He doesn’t appear again.’
Shaw stared at the image. He’d had Sam Venn down in his book as many things, but outright liar hadn’t been one of them.
‘Anyone else step out?’ asked DC Lau, coming in with a Starbucks coffee in her hand, unzipping her leather jacket.
‘No. Absolutely not,’ said Twine. ‘The rest of the choir are all still there.’
Another image flashed up. The camera had moved slightly so that they could now see the doorway into the main bar — a Moorish arch, a kitsch 1950s addition. But there was another door visible, a side door, marked STAFF. As Twine let the image roll forward in slow motion the door opened and a man came out: early twenties, black, in a yellow silk shirt and jeans. He stood in the half-open doorway, as if protecting his escape route.