‘Why are you lying to us, Mr Parlour?’
Shaw watched Parlour’s face, and saw the smile clinging to his eyes, the muscles which held the line of the mouth twitching, a sudden flush of blood to the cheeks. And
‘Pardon?’
Valentine sat back, enjoying the moment, wondering how long Parlour would be able to go on denying the obvious.
‘You said you didn’t know Harvey Ellis. That you’d never met him?’
‘That’s right,’ said Parlour, a hand wandering to find the edge of the armchair for support.
‘Mr Parlour. Traces of Harvey Ellis’s blood were found on the trousers you were wearing on Monday night. Now I’m afraid that means one of two things. Either you did go further forward, which suggests to me that you might have killed Mr Ellis. Or that you met the person who did kill him.’ Shaw looked down the garden to the distant waterfront. ‘Either way the course of events from this point, right now, is pretty much unavoidable.’
Shaw stood. ‘I’d like you to come with us to St James’s, sir – unless you have something to tell us. Did you kill Harvey Ellis, Mr Parlour?’ Shaw was less than two feet away when he asked. He liked to be that close. It was one of his father’s maxims: one of the few things he’d ever said about how he did his job. Get within their personal space, then you can feel the reaction.
Parlour’s eyes were small and grey and they avoided his. ‘I… I don’t know how that could have happened. The blood. I didn’t go forward, and I don’t know Harvey Ellis. I don’t.’
Valentine produced a copy of the family snapshot of
‘No. They showed me the pictures… the constable came round, when they checked my teeth. I said no then.’ He held out his hands, the wedding band catching the light on the ring finger. He looked round the room. ‘I can’t leave now. The wife’s at work, she won’t know, I need to tell her.’
‘Would you like to make a call?’ said Shaw.
There was a phone by the armchair, a flip‐up address book. Parlour sat, and Shaw noted that his eyes had filled and his breathing had become uneven. They listened as he got through, waiting while they paged her, and Parlour fumbled through an explanation. When he put the phone down he stood up. They all watched the dog jump in the garden – the joy of the leap, the front paws extended.
‘I’ll put a bit more food down for the dog – she won’t be back ’til lunchtime.’
Shaw went out into the garden where Harper’s footprints had soiled the lawn, revealing winter grass that was straw‐yellow. The apprentice dropped a snowball from his hand as if he’d been caught out breaking rules in the playground. The dog, madcap, raced headlong, fell, and went rolling through the snow.
‘OK, Mr Harper, Mr Parlour is coming to the station with us. He’s told us a few lies, I’m afraid, about Monday night. Have you?’
Harper searched for the right answer, looking back at the house, the French windows reflecting a picture of the two of them stood in the snow. ‘Fred always tells the truth,’ he said.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Harper, following Shaw back into the house.
Inside the kitchen door the dog bowl had been piled high. A mixture of chunky meat, slightly purple, and lumps of what looked like a white biscuity meal.
Milly crunched in the bowl, her stub tail oscillating like a metronome on steroids. Shaw watched her, unblinking. His mind raced to the truth.
‘Shit!’ he said, and the dog cowered. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Valentine came into the kitchen and stood looking at the dog bowl with him. Shaw covered his eyes, one hand resting gently on the dressing, then dropped to his knees, a hand on the dog’s back, the fur wiry and slightly greasy.
‘It’s all right, Milly,’ he said.
He’d been a fool, a bloody fool.
Shaw contemplated the large plate‐glass window of the Emerald Garden Chinese takeaway. It was fogged with condensation, trickles tracing a pattern like a bead curtain. A Day‐Glo poster advertised chips at 50p a portion, 60p with curry sauce.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s try and get this inquiry back on the rails, shall we?’
It was a rhetorical question, because the only person he blamed was himself. They’d left Milly the Jack Russell running round Fred Parlour’s garden. Valentine had taken a plastic bag of the dog food to the Ark. The CSI team was still finishing up out on Siberia Belt, so they wouldn’t have the results for twenty‐four hours. But in Parlour’s kitchen they’d found the still unopened cans of meat he used to make up Milly’s food, and the bag of bonemeal biscuits: reduced from sheep carcasses. The other organic material was likely to be the mixture of turkey and cow’s offal in the dog meat.
Which only left one maddening question. How had the dog got blood on its snout, given that Ellis’s car doors had been shut, with the windows up, until the body was discovered and the dog locked up in the plumber’s van?
Valentine pretended to study the front window of the takeaway. He hadn’t been able to work out why Shaw was so upset with the contents of a dog bowl. When he’d
Shaw pressed the dressing to his eye, silently thankful that he hadn’t derailed the entire inquiry when Tom Hadden had discovered the blood traces on Parlour’s overalls. They did need to get back on track. Terence Brand, the man found dead in the raft on Ingol Beach, had given his aunt in Nuneaton a forwarding address: The Emerald Garden. That Stanley Zhao had been on Siberia Belt that night was a coincidence too far. Was anyone else in the little convoy involved in Brand’s smuggling? Had Harvey Ellis died because he’d been part of a plan, or because he’d been cut out of a plan?
The front door of the takeaway was closed, so they walked down a side alley. There was a clatter of a wok on the high gas flame, the cracking of eggshells. They pushed open the fire exit by the storeroom and came into the kitchen from the back. Stanley Zhao didn’t jump an inch, just slipped an egg on to a plate.
‘Sorry,’ said Shaw. ‘Back door was open. A few more questions.’
Zhao didn’t say a word, but led them upstairs, his six foot‐plus frame slightly stooped. The sitting room was about as Oriental as a fish‐and‐chip supper: a shag‐pile carpet, a sideboard covered in family photos, and a flat‐screen TV.
Valentine took Zhao through his original statement, letting them think it was all routine. Shaw sat forward in a wicker chair, watching their faces.
‘You’re quite sure you’d like your wife to sit in on this, Mr Zhao?’ he said when Valentine had finished.
Zhao adjusted the steel‐rimmed spectacles, dabbed a paper tissue on his lips now that he’d finished his breakfast. ‘I just want to help,’ he said.
Valentine filled in their biographies. Gail had been born in Lynn, in the North End, before the old streets had come down. Her father was in the Merchant Navy and the family had gone to Hong Kong, where he’d put his savings into a boat‐building business: little launches in wood for the rich to picnic on the water. She’d been sixteen. The Zhaos had built boats too: junks for the harbour trade. She’d met Stan when she was eighteen. Her father had died two years before the territory had reverted to the Chinese. They’d sold up, come home. Stan had come with her. Four years on the Westmead, four years they didn’t want again.
‘It’s the crime we didn’t expect,’ said Zhao. Valentine stiffened, taking it personally.
‘Yes.’ Zhao’s eyes had hardened.
‘Fine. So where did Terence Brand sleep?’