‘An accident then,’ said Shaw.
She ignored him. ‘I took Jillie home. James led his own life, there was another woman. He didn’t contest the divorce. But he did try to get custody of Jillie.’ She laughed. ‘The court threw that out. Then, last month, he tried to take her back,’ she went on. ‘She’d been down to London to see her grandmother – that’s my mother – and she’d got back to Lynn early. She rang me for a lift. She rang her father to chat. They used to talk.’ She pushed the saucer away. ‘She’d forgiven him, you see. Something I didn’t think he deserved. I was late; James was in town – he still has business interests here, although he never trusted me enough to tell me what they were. He drove to the station. He was flying back to Greece that afternoon; his company has a private jet, there’s a landing strip on the island but no customs. Why didn’t she come? He said it would be a new life for her.’ She arched her pencilled eyebrows. ‘There’s a pool – heated.’
She crossed her legs. ‘There’s no choice now, you see.’
‘Choice?’ asked Shaw.
‘A girl will have to do. James’s…’ She searched for a word, enjoying herself. ‘James’s ability to have children is restricted. A medical condition affects his fertility, and that gets worse with age. We did try for a third, but it was impossible. So it’s Jillie who’ll inherit. And she’s a tomboy really – he always wanted that. So she’d love to go with him, Daddy’s little cabin boy.’
would have gone?’ asked Valentine.
‘That’s immaterial. Because that’s when I turned up. They were sat in James’s BMW. I got her out of the passenger side but James came round. He hit me. Quite hard, actually. So I hit him back. Harder. There was a witness – a taxi driver on the rank. Jillie screamed, and he tried to get her back in the car. It was quite a scene.’
She forced herself to smile and Shaw guessed she’d relived it many times.
‘I pressed charges, assault. ABH. He was sentenced to six months, suspended. And James was banned from seeing her, or from coming within ten miles of Burnham Thorpe. So if he’s at Morston Creek he’s broken the court order – I hope you’ll take the appropriate action. The judge made it clear he would go to prison if he breached the conditions.’ Nobody said anything so she went on. ‘We’ve been very happy ever since,’ she said, dispensing with another unasked question.
‘He must love his daughter,’ prompted Shaw. ‘Actually, I think his feelings towards Jillie are irrelevant, Inspector Shaw. He needs her. She’s his immortality. She’s the vehicle for his wealth, a receptacle for his money.’
Shaw produced an evidence bag from the holdalclass="underline" clear plastic with the sheaf of long hair curled within.
‘He tried again, didn’t he?’ asked Shaw, standing at the table, his fingertips splayed on the Formica surface.
She tried to touch the hair through the plastic.
‘We found the hair on the Hydra, Mrs Baker‐Sibley.’ She ran a nail along her bottom lip. ‘Yes,’ she said, looking at the tape. ‘I think I need that solicitor now, Inspector Shaw.’
She sat.
‘Do you have a picture of your husband, Mrs Baker‐Sibley?’
She laughed, her head thrown back.
Shaw took a file from the desktop and, flicking through, found the animated sketch he’d made from the corpse retrieved from Styleman’s Middle. He placed it neatly before her, put the saucer on a corner as a paperweight.
‘Is that James?’
She looked at it and Valentine could see the calculations going on behind her eyes. She took a cigarette out of the packet and just held it in her hand. ‘Unless he’s got a twin brother.’ She tried to set her lips in a line but failed.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Baker‐Sibley, but this man’s body…’ Shaw tapped the drawing, ‘was found on Styleman’s Middle – the sandbank a few miles off Ingol Beach – on Tuesday. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to see if you can identify the body later today. There is evidence your ex‐husband was attacked on board his yacht. I’m sorry.’
Valentine watched as the blood drained from her face, leaving a livid patch of blusher exposed, like a death mask.
‘He’s dead?’
‘Three o’clock,’ said Shaw. ‘St James’s. And then we’ll need to talk again. I’d like Jillie to be there.’
‘Of course.’ She’d worked it out now. ‘I’ll make a
‘Sure.’
Outside a car alarm pulsed. She placed both palms on her face and stretched the skin back, lifting the wrinkles out of her neck.
‘Yes. He did try again. Which I find hard to believe because generally he’s a coward, I think, and if he’d been caught – even just talking to her – he’d have gone to jail. Jillie said he was waiting outside the school in his 4x4 the night I was stranded out on the coast road in the snow. She said he just wanted to talk, that he’d get her home, so she got in. I’d told her a hundred times to text me if her father turned up. But he persuaded her to listen to what he had to say first. He drove her to Morston and said that if they wanted to they could catch the tide. He stopped in the village and posted some letters, then drove down to the quay. She wouldn’t have to go back to school, that’s what he told her. They could take the Hydra over to Ostend – he’d done it before with her when she was young. He said he’d bought a property on the Turkish coast. There’s an International School in Smyrna; they wouldn’t ask questions if he paid the fees. They’d disappear. Even if the police found them he had the money to tie it up in the courts. He said it’d be like Jarndyce and Jarndyce. She’s done Bleak House at school – she thought it was funny. So she said yes.’
‘She told you that when you phoned from Gallow Marsh Farm?’ said Valentine.
‘Yes. I called her mobile. She told me what had happened, said she’d decided to go with her father. She
‘But you rang a second time,’ said Shaw, looking out at the snow, a hawk over the hedgerow.
‘James answered. He said they’d sort it out together. That I wasn’t to come after them and that if I went to the police I’d never see her again. That’s why I told you she was at home. He said if I kept quiet then he’d work something out, I could see her abroad. Which was nice of him,’ she added, not smiling. ‘I could hear Jillie crying in the background. I think she realized then that it wasn’t a game. That we might not see each other again.’
‘Did you go after them?’
‘I didn’t need to. Your squad car dropped me home. I went inside, got changed and set off for the creek – it’s only a mile. I met Jillie coming up the lane. She said James had rowed her ashore. She’d told him she wanted to go home, to me. She said he’d cried when she said goodbye – which is sweet, isn’t it?’
DC Mark Birley knocked, came in. ‘Squad car says Mrs Baker‐Sibley’s daughter isn’t at her friend’s house.’ Birley’s new shirt was too long in the arm so that he had to keep readjusting the cuffs. Shaw wondered if he’d kept his uniform, still hanging in a cupboard at home.
‘Mrs Baker‐Sibley?’ asked Shaw.
She stood. ‘I’ll check her other friends. The school.’
‘We’ll give you an hour,’ said Shaw. ‘Then we’ll put out an alert. We need to find her.’
Anger flashed across her mother’s eyes. ‘I know that. Christ – I know that.’ She took one last look at the sketch
It was only after Valentine had walked her to the car park that Shaw realized her perfume still dominated the interview room: an astringent citrus. Shaw watched as she drove the Alfa out into the street, the gravel screeching as she made the turn, wrestling with the steering wheel.