Shaw perched on the window ledge.
‘This is what we think happened on the day Jonathan died. It was three days after the crash at Castle Rising. He was playing football on the grass below the flats, sent out for the day because his grandfather was with his parents — in the middle of a breakdown in the aftermath of his wife’s death in the hit-and-run. Someone boots the ball off the pitch and it bounces off down past some shops, out of sight. Jonathan wanders after it and never comes back. He was bored, anyway, because he didn’t like football and he’d only been told to go out for the day so that his grandfather could grieve with his daughter.
‘We think Jonathan ended up down by the lock-up garages on the edge of the Westmead. We think that somehow he stumbled on the missing puppy. Maybe one of the gang was taking it for a walk — after all, our press statements hadn’t mentioned the dog, so the gang probably thought we weren’t going to be bothered about a missing terrier when two people had died in the crash. Or maybe it just got out of the lock-up, I don’t know. But what I do know is, as soon as that boy saw the dog, sir, he was dead.’
Shaw let the silence stretch so that all they could hear was the tap, tap of Warren’s secretary typing on her keyboard.
‘No one could have stopped that child going home and telling his parents he’d found the dog. We can be pretty sure Jonathan never left the lock-up alive. It would have been impossible for the gang to let him leave: the only thing he wanted in life was the puppy. If they gave it to him the police would be at the lock-up within hours. So they couldn’t give it to him, and they couldn’t let him tell anyone he’d seen it. They could have told him it wasn’t his grandma’s dog, but he wouldn’t have believed them. They could have tried a bribe, but it wouldn’t have worked, and they knew it.’
The door opened and Warren’s secretary put three cups and a cafetiere of coffee on the desk. Shaw poured, added sugar for Valentine, milk for Warren, taking his own black and unsweetened.
Shaw let the silence re-establish itself. There was absolutely no doubt now that he had Warren’s full attention.
Shaw sat down. ‘For nearly fifteen years Robert Mosse, and the rest of them, thought they’d got away with it,’ said Shaw. ‘Two members of the gang left Lynn: James Voyce emigrated to New Zealand and Chris Robins moved to the Midlands and a life of petty crime that deteriorated into mental illness. Alex Cosyns stayed. And we know now why, in part, he did stay. Subtly but persistently he milked Mosse for cash. Mosse is clearly in a vulnerable position. He has a thriving career in the law, a position that makes him a prime target for blackmail. The gang were all fans of stock-car racing — speed and cars is what brought them together — and Mosse set up a team under the name “Team Mosse” about ten years ago. Cosyns was his only driver. In effect, he bankrolled Cosyns’s hobby. And we think that, over the years, he’d been giving him money as well.’
Warren slapped his fist down on the desk. ‘Hold on. This is nonsense. How could Cosyns have blackmailed Mosse? He could have come to us, told us the truth, but then he’d have been in the dock too. Doesn’t add up, Peter.’
‘Well …no. Not completely. But consider this: Mosse’s career is over if there is any hint of scandal. He’s up for the Bar this year. He’s got a lot to lose. Plus, we don’t know which of the gang killed the child. What if it was Mosse, and only Mosse? That changes things.’ Shaw thought about that. ‘No — it transforms things. And remember, this is a gentle, persistent, form of blackmail, not the usual one-off demand. A grand here, a grand there. Worth it, surely, from Mosse’s point of view, for a quiet life? But I agree — Cosyns would still have been facing some very serious charges if he’d informed on Mosse. No, there’s something else at the heart of this relationship. We just don’t know what it is yet.’
Shaw sipped the coffee, holding it just below his mouth so that the steam played on his lips.
‘What we do know is that, as soon as George and I started to come close to the truth, Mosse decided he needed to improve his security. By this time Robins was in a secure psychiatric unit not far from here — near Sutton Bridge. As you know, Robins took his own life last May by cutting his wrists with a pocket knife — a brand-new one. He had a visitor shortly before he died. One of the orderlies recalls the face — and says it could have been Mosse.’
‘“Could have been” isn’t good enough,’ said Warren. ‘We’ve already been through this — ’
‘So that was Robins out of the way,’ said Shaw, pressing on. ‘As you also know, I found Cosyns dead in the lock-up garage last September when we found the Mini.’
Warren slopped coffee into his cup and struggled with a tube of sweeteners. Shaw couldn’t stop an image from that day surfacing — Cosyns lying under the exhaust of his stock car, its engine running. He’d tried to revive him but had been attacked by an unseen assailant. He’d have died right there if George Valentine hadn’t turned up at the scene, having trailed Mosse’s BMW to the lock-ups. It was an unpalatable fact, but he owed Valentine his life.
‘Mosse had ample time to stage Cosyns’s suicide,’ he continued. ‘There is no evidence that Cosyns had any reason to kill himself. There is, however, evidence that Cosyns was force-fed narcotics prior to the “attempt” to take his own life.’
Warren leant back in his chair, the legs creaking. ‘But we can’t stick it on Mosse, can we? Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.’
‘Doesn’t mean the fucker didn’t do it. Sir,’ said Valentine, shifting his weight on his thigh bone to ease the pressure on his bladder.
Warren gave Valentine a look which constituted a written warning.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Shaw raised a hand. ‘You’ll recall that Mosse says he went to the lock-up that evening after the stock-car racing at the Norfolk Arena to talk about the performance of the car Cosyns had driven that day. He’d won. Mosse says he wanted to enter the car at a meeting in Peterborough the following weekend. All explicable as part of “Team Mosse”. Then he left. He said Cosyns was depressed about the failure of his marriage and the continuing financial burden of the regular maintenance payments he was being forced to make. He admits giving?1,000 to Cosyns shortly before his death as a favour. He admits he’d done it before. He says they were friends. More than that — family.’
Shaw finished the coffee. ‘So: a gang of four. Guilty of murder. Two dead.’
‘So where’s the third man?’ asked Warren, hooked now by the narrative, despite himself.
‘Voyce arrived back in the UK from New Zealand three months ago,’ said Valentine. His bladder ached like a bad tooth now and his craving for nicotine was making the saliva drain from his mouth.
‘Since then we’d lost him,’ added Shaw. ‘Until two days ago, when he checked into the Novotel on the bypass here in Lynn.’
He’d deliberately left this new information until last and he could see that Warren was furious that he was being manipulated.
‘Why wasn’t I informed about this?’
‘It’s taken us that long to be sure it’s our man. We had an alert out with all the hotels, B amp;Bs, the lot.’
Warren looked from Shaw’s face to Valentine’s and back again.
‘The Auckland police tell us that Voyce is married, with one child,’ said Shaw. ‘He’s a garage attendant — pump man, cashier, low-end mechanics. Earns a pittance. His wife works at the local supermarket. It’s pretty clear he could do with a bit more money. My guess …’ Shaw looked at his hands, then at Valentine. ‘Our guess is that’s why he’s back here — to tap Mosse, just like Cosyns did. We think he knew Cosyns was getting cash out of Mosse, and we’re pretty sure he now knows he’s dead — which might explain the three months lying low before making his move and coming back to Lynn.