‘The fact the blood splatter is a parabola helps. I’d say he was stabbed in the eye, then toppled sideways, that’s why you get the pattern.’
Valentine nodded, seeing it happen, feeling the familiar nausea in his stomach.
‘Another puzzle,’ said Hadden. ‘There’s no blood trails or drag‐marks. I’d say he was lifted or rolled into something here – tarpaulin, plastic sheeting, God knows, and then taken to the pick‐up. Like I said, the earth was frozen, so maybe that’s why there’s so little evidence on the ground. That’s all a working hypo – so don’t quote me.’
‘Could the blood have dripped through from the van above?’ asked Valentine.
Hadden shook his head but said: ‘I’ll check it out for the record, but no way – it’s a sold‐on Securicor van, it’s
Shaw held the conundrum, unsolved, in his head. ‘So the victim was found in the driving seat of his truck – thirty feet away from the spot where he virtually bled to death. Nearly three hours before he was found dead he’d driven his own van over the same spot. That’s not possible.’
‘I just do the science, Peter,’ said Hadden, flicking off the light. ‘I need to finish up.’ They took the hint, backing out into the snow.
‘One step forward, two steps back,’ said Shaw. ‘What’s the step forward?’ asked Valentine.
‘We know how the dog got Ellis’s blood on its snout.’
Back at St James’s Shaw ran up the steps while Valentine waited for the antiquated lift. He pushed open the fire door and saw ahead the long corridor which led to the murder incident room. A woman, with a pail and mop, had stopped in mid‐distance, hands on hips. Suddenly a reinforced glass door thudded open and DC Twine was running towards him. Policemen never run, that’s standard basic training, unless it’s to save life.
Twine skidded to a halt on the damp lino.
‘Officer down,’ he said. ‘Out at the hostel – it’s Fiona.’
Twine drove Shaw, commandeering a squad car on the forecourt, Valentine’s Mazda in the rear‐view. The rush‐hour streets were wet and splashed with the jagged colours of the town: traffic lights, headlamps, bright shopfronts, pedestrians turned away from the sea wind. The workers’ hostel in the North End was tucked away in the warren of terraced streets that once was home to the town’s fishing community. It had been the district’s Co‐op, and the distinctive red‐brick façade was still decorated with vine leaves and an inlaid picture in a pale sandstone of a dairymaid carrying a yoke through a meadow. Graffiti covered it now: a curled indecipherable moniker in soot‐black.
An ambulance, sirens screaming, tagged on to the
They brought Fiona Campbell out on a stretcher. Even under the amber street light Shaw could see she was as pale as a Goth. A paramedic was pressing a bandage to a wound at her shoulder, a single knife‐cut from the clavicle up towards the neck, the flesh hanging open to reveal a white, chipped bone. She was doused in blood on her left side, her own hand a sticky glove of arterial red.
Shaw placed a hand on her forehead. Fear had made her eyes unnaturally bright. ‘You can take tomorrow morning off if it helps,’ he said. As he spoke blood oozed to fill the trench of the wound. Valentine hung back. The paramedics slid her into the back of the ambulance, set up a drip and pulled off in a cloud of sirens.
‘She had a uniformed PC with her apparently,’ said Valentine, stepping forward, his face a colourless mask.
‘Where?’
‘In the building.’
The shop area of the old Co‐op had been left as a storeroom: tea crates, furniture, the old marble counter stacked with loo rolls, catering packs of detergent and light bulbs. A uniformed PC sat on a stool, holding a plastic bottle of water. Even from ten feet away Shaw could see he was shaking.
Valentine spoke to Shaw’s ear. ‘PC Darren Cole. It’s his beat – local community liaison officer. First tour of duty. He’s not having a good day.’
The PC nodded, but said nothing.
‘Darren. You need to tell me.’
The PC went to unscrew the top of the water bottle but thought better of it. Vomit covered his reflective tunic. ‘We went in – down there.’ He looked to a single metal door – Shaw guessed it was the original entrance to the Co‐op’s cold store. ‘We searched the place. There’s some drugs – and cash: fifty‐pound notes, hidden under the Czech’s mattress. A lot of money – thousands.’
Shaw took the water bottle, removed the cap, and gave it to him. He drank, almost half, then handed it back. ‘Fiona told them we wanted to talk, down at St James’s,’ said Cole. ‘Most of them said OK. They’d been drinking, but not as much as the Czech. He said he wouldn’t go.’ The PC wiped his sleeve across his mouth. ‘Like, never. Fiona tried to talk him round while I got the rest out into the van. They took a bottle with ’em. I said they couldn’t have it, but they took it anyway.’
A bead of sweat ran to the end of Cole’s nose. But it was cold in the old shop, and Shaw noticed a bucket full of ice under a damp patch.
‘When I went back in Fiona had sat down with him – there’s a table. He said he wasn’t coming because he was going to kill himself. He’d got a knife, a butcher’s knife. He cut his wrist.’ Cole gagged. ‘Fiona went to stop him and he just…’ He couldn’t find the words. ‘He just chopped at her, like she was jungle, you know? I grabbed her – she was on the floor – and dragged her in here. I locked the door, then I called St James’s. Officer down.’
The door was like a ship’s – iron, riveted, with a heavy‐duty handle. Shaw turned the key, leant on the handle and heard a pop, as if entering an airlock. The corridor beyond was tiled, a line of blood smeared down the centre where Cole had dragged Fiona Campbell through to the old shop. On each side there were shelves. Old tin boxes rusted in the corners.
Shaw got to the second door when he heard the air pop behind him and he turned to see Valentine, an unlit cigarette in his mouth, a folder in his hand, his eyes drawn down to the arterial line.
‘George,’ he said.
They stood together at the inner second door. ‘This was in Fiona’s car,’ said Valentine. ‘She’d picked up the men’s records from Shark Tooth. Cole says the one they haven’t got down the station is this one…’ He held up the file. ‘Bedrich Fibich,’ said the DS, reading. ‘Forty‐two‐year‐old from Prague. A teacher, family back home. Papers list him as a labourer. He’s been in England since last summer.’
‘What is this place?’ asked Shaw.
‘I asked in the crowd – old bloke said it used to be an abattoir for all the Co‐ops in town.’
Shaw pushed the second door open and the hinges screamed. A line of camp beds ran down a room. Storage heaters hadn’t taken the chill off the white‐tiled walls; lots of the tiles were cracked, and Shaw wondered if the engrained black stains were dried blood. He couldn’t stop
The room’s brutal past was impossible to obliterate, but the men had tried. The walls were covered in random pictures: the castle in Prague, a centrefold with her legs splayed, a snapshot of a young man standing on a river bank holding up a silver fish, a family wedding. And they’d brought their own smells: sweat and stale tobacco, cheap deodorant and whisky. There was a gas stove, a single garlic sausage hanging from a nail. No windows, just grilles in the roof and beyond them reinforced glass stained green by moss.