Shaw cut the chatter by tapping his Guinness glass with Twine’s Mont Blanc.
‘OK. I’ll come back to our friend here. But first – the big picture. We’ve all read the briefing note, so I won’t waste your time. The last few hours of the inquiry have opened up two possible ways forward. First, Jan Orzsak and Andy Judd. They’re tangled up together in the case of Norma Jean. Did one of them go up to the hospital last night – the anniversary of her disappearance? We need to re-examine the Orzsak alibi minute by minute; that’s a priority for tomorrow. The father’s still an outside possibility – let’s dig some more. George will put together a team. And when we can, let’s gently see if we can get Ally Judd and the priest to talk – what if Bryan Judd knew about their affair? Come to that, is it an affair, or is it just gossip?
‘Which leaves our major line of inquiry: illegal organ disposal. A human kidney was found under Judd’s body
‘One – clients. The rich, the unscrupulous. So far we’ve haven’t had a whiff. So let’s think about that. Two – donors, either willing, or unwilling. Pete Hendre, the man we got out of the top floor at number 6 when the place was on fire, said he didn’t want to come out because there was someone in the street he was afraid of: the Organ Grinder. Just that. I said afraid, but terrified is closer. Hendre’s done a runner – we need to find him. And we’ve got a missing person, violently abducted. The man with no name except Blanket. Someone came and found him under cover of darkness. Someone offered him a “deal” – which he declined to take. And there’s a chance that that someone was Bryan Judd’s killer. Obvious question: was Blanket, is Blanket, an unwilling donor? If he is we need to find him, fast.’
Shaw put a finger on the sketch. ‘I think this is what he looks like. We don’t know his name. He’s a tramp who says he’s spent most of his life in Middlesbrough but has no accent to match and, according to Liam Kennedy, an unnerving amount of local knowledge. He was never seen without his blanket coat. Last night he was dragged, unconscious, out of the Sacred Heart of Mary by an unidentified man. The coat – which was left behind – was marked on the back with a rough sketch of a candle. I
They all studied Blanket’s face. Campbell, her six foot two inches perched on a tiny stool, asked the question they all wanted answered.
‘This image – where did it come from?’
‘Blanket’s possessions included a snapshot of a small boy in 1984. The picture – like most from that far back – is actually very high quality. I blew it up, then aged it thirty years. It’s not rocket science – but then it doesn’t have to fly.’
Everyone laughed except George Valentine.
‘How do you do it?’ asked Birley.
‘The FBI leads the world in this. In the eighties they started using it to track down missing kids. Usually there are two methods combined. On one hand you study the family and see if you can pick out genetic patterns. On the other there are general principles of craniofacial development – it’s obvious stuff, just look at your own kids if you’ve got any. Their faces grow down, and forward. Stuff like that. But the good news for us is that
He sipped his Guinness. ‘Lecture over. The health warnings are clear, though – we’ve got no DNA input here, no parentage to feed into the mix, and I’ve used my instincts not a computer program to run the progression forward. That might be a plus, maybe not.’
‘Does it look like Sean Judd?’ asked Twine. ‘I mean, does it look like the family?’
They all looked then, trying to see Bryan Judd’s face.
‘Maybe,’ said Shaw. ‘But maybe not. We’re getting pictures of Sean Judd and Ruddle. We might strike lucky. Until then, keep an open mind. I ran it past Kennedy and he says it’s a close likeness – but then he didn’t really see that much past the curtain of hair so let’s not get too excited. Anyway, there is no doubt it’s the best picture we’ve got. You’ll all have a copy tomorrow. And I’ll get one to the Lynn News, Look East and Anglia Tonight.’
They drank in silence.
‘Paul’s going to go on summarizing all the evidence,’ continued Shaw. ‘Statements, anything we think’s relevant, all boiled down into a single online file. A thousand words, no more, every day. I want you all to read it when it’s posted. We’ll update as we go along. It’s links we’re looking for, so I want everyone up to speed. The organ transplant information remains confidential. Talk to nobody. If I see it in the press I’ll find out who leaked it. That’s not an idle promise.’
He bought everyone a drink except himself. The sometimes cloying bonhomie, the esprit de corps of the CID, was never his natural environment. He could imagine his father staying late, chewing over the fat, eking out ideas. But that wasn’t his style. After being knocked out of a darts match at nine thirty he bought a few more drinks then slipped out to the loo in the yard, and from there through a gate in the fence, straight out into the street. The windows of the pub were open so that the sounds flooded out into the flagged street. He walked away from the noise of other people.
He’d booked the video suite at St James’s for nine forty-five. A windowless room behind the front desk, stinking of Flash and stale coffee. Closing the door he sat down, knowing that if Lena knew this was what he was doing, she’d effortlessly unleash that high-pressure anger he knew she kept just beneath the cool surface of her skin. Because this wasn’t what she’d meant when she said he needed to make or break the Tessier case; the chances of him finding anything on the video that was new after thirteen years was close to zero. No, this was an obsession, and he was feeding it. He felt furtive, guilty, and strangely excited. Outside, the desk sergeant was trying to book in a pair of drunks picked up on the quayside, their voices overloud, cloyingly cooperative. Around him he could hear the sounds of St James’s: a phone ringing unanswered, cars being shuffled in the vehicle pool, the cleaners running floor-polishers upstairs in CID.
Slipping in the video cassette he’d picked up from records he concentrated on the black, flickering screen, until he saw a white caption roll up.
I.O. DI Ronald Blake.
Tape owned by BC KL&WN.
Case. GV 5632 HH.
A T-junction Shaw knew well, where the road from Castle Rising crossed a long straight stretch of the B-road which ran out towards one of the bird reserves and a few lonely farmhouses. A deadly spot, even now, because of the thick woods which obscured the view left and right as you approached the junction. There’d been crashes before, despite warning signs, not least because the arrow-straight mile of open road was a magnet for joyriders. The junction was lit by a set of high lights on which was set the CCTV camera. The ticking digital clock showed the time on screen: 12.31 a.m. No date. But he knew that: 21 July 1997.
Shaw found himself trying not to blink in case he missed it. A fox trotted happily across the picture from the woods towards the village. Then the first car, on the dual carriageway, swishing past at a steady 60 m.p.h., wipers going.
A rat dashed along the verge.
Then it happened, so quickly it made him jump. A car crossing the picture on the dual carriageway at 60 m.p.h. – perhaps a little faster. And out of nowhere a second car, from the village, cutting across, swerving at 80, 85 m.p.h. It caught the first car side-on, shunting it to the far carriageway, where it turned over once and then bounced on its suspension. Then an unnatural stillness. The street lights caught the smashed glass on the tarmac. The second car, the one that had caused the accident, had left the picture.