‘Personally,’ she said, ‘and you’ll keep this to yourself, I find birds rather boring. No — stultifyingly boring. And that’s the problem with twitchers: they have no idea what it’s like not to find the sight of two black-backed marsh warblers twice as exciting as one. Ian’s better — he can talk to the punters. I just nod and agree, then make a hasty exit, otherwise I’d scream the place down. Still, if it gets really bad I just think of the cheques.’ But that wasn’t right, and she seemed uncomfortable with the idea that all this was for money. ‘And what they’ll buy,’ she added.
Shaw noted again the lingering lilt of the Midwestern accent, oddly exotic in this quintessentially English setting. He was struck by how open this woman was to the world, how frank, and what a sharp contrast that was with her niece, Lizzie. He saw them as a curious contrast — a woman who’d broken away from her past and one who was still a prisoner of it.
‘Pat was your only child?’ asked Valentine, nosing the tip of his left shoe into the thick-pile carpet.
She gave him a cool look. ‘Yes. So this will all be Ian’s one day. My only grandchild. He cooks here sometimes — did Kath say? He’s very good. That’s the plan, you see.’ She intertwined her fingers, which bulged slightly at the joints, and rubbed at one of the silver rings, burnishing it. ‘A restaurant. Something really good. Something with one of those Michelin stars.’ Her eyes caught the light, excited by the future she could imagine for her grandson.
Out at sea a yacht with a red sail cut in towards Brancaster. On the distant beach they could see horses galloping and a stunt kite twirling, like a hawk on a gyre. The sands were speckled with snow and dotted with people and dogs, circling their owners like satellites. Shaw was always amazed at how quickly a beach filled when the weather turned. He stood and began to place the forensic items they’d checked out of the Ark on the round coffee table that stood near the window, each in a sealed bag.
‘We recovered these from around Pat’s body on the night we opened Nora’s grave. I’m sorry to distress you with this, but we believe that one of these items was very important to his killer. So important that he tried to get it back recently, by digging up the grave. They were disturbed midway through, so we’re presuming that whatever they wanted is still here.’
‘Someone tried to dig up the grave?’
‘In June, we think,’ said Shaw.
She let her eyes slide over the objects, then pointed at a cabinet in the corner. ‘Sergeant,’ she said. ‘There’s a bottle of whiskey in there — could you pour me one, please — no water. Do help yourself — it’s bourbon.’ Valentine poured just the one glass. He’d never liked spirits, because he knew what they did to him. Once she had the drink in her hand Bea Garrison moved the wicker chair closer to the table and began to pick up the plastic evidence bags.
She held up the wallet. ‘This is Pat’s — he was very proud of money, and having his own. He got that characteristic from his father — like so many other things.’ She laughed as she picked up the penknife. ‘And he literally got this from his father — it’s Latrell’s knife, from the war. He always said he got it on D-Day plus one, from a German in a ditch by the road.’ She looked out at the sunshine which was making the mud in the creeks look silver. ‘Oddly, he knew his name — Jasper Hanke. I suppose the German had something else on him, a letter maybe. I think one of the reasons Latrell gave it to Pat was to get rid of it — to break the link.’
And then the small copy of the sketch. She held it lightly in her hands.
‘Just this?’ she asked, and Shaw noted that her voice — hard and gritty — had acquired an edge.
‘No — there were about a dozen pieces like that, all with ink marks, but we can’t make out the pictures. We presumed it was hangman — but it’s not a game, because there are no letters …’
She held a hand against her lips as if she might cough, and for the first time Shaw thought that — at last — the true significance of these objects had struck home: that her only son had been murdered, and these few things in his pockets were all that remained. But she gathered herself and went on, although Shaw sensed now that she needed the glass in her hand.
‘No. It’s not a game. That’s the last thing it is.’ She drank the bourbon in one swig and held it out for a refill without looking at Valentine, without taking her eyes off the little childish scribble. Shaw thought that she was a woman who’d managed to free her life from the support of men.
‘It’s a warning,’ she said. ‘A series of them, probably. You can see that, can’t you? The first piece just a line on paper. Then two lines, then the gibbet appears, then the hanging man.’
She looked Shaw in his good eye. ‘It’s a lynching — the coward’s way. Pat didn’t say what was happening, he just said some of the “low life” — his words, the “low life” — at the pub were trying to scare him, trying to get him to go home, back where he came from.’ She over-articulated the words, to make it clear they weren’t hers. ‘I got the cold shoulder too, the odd remark, but nothing like this.’ She held up the envelope, studying the sketch. ‘This is sick.’
‘And this …hounding — when did it begin?’
‘After a few weeks. Early summer. He’d get them at college — in his pigeon-hole. It went on for months before he disappeared. In the end he thought it was amusing, I think. That’s the arrogance, of course — the idea that he didn’t need to fear anyone, or anything. It’s what children think, isn’t it? That they’re not going to die. He was still a child in some ways.’
Shaw heard a creak of a wooden stair. He wondered if Kath Robinson was on the landing below, just within earshot. Bea Garrison actually flinched at the noise, then seemed to force herself to relax, sinking into the wicker chair. Shaw thought it was as if she was waiting for something: a visitor?
Finally, she picked up the billhook.
‘Yes — well, this is Alby’s,’ she said, sipping at the drink now.
‘How …’ Shaw swapped a glance with Valentine. ‘How can you know that — it’s just a billhook with the maker’s name.’ As he said it he knew he was wrong, but the truth was just out of reach, buried in his memory.
She laughed. ‘Yes — that’s an easy mistake to make. They’re an American company — Stanley Tools. Latrell had their stuff always, with the name in black on yellow.’ She held the tool up. ‘Not like this. Stanley isn’t the maker, Inspector. It’s a ship.’
‘A ship?’ Shaw repeated, thinking of the tiny model boat in Mary Tilden’s coffin.
‘Alby’s ship. The Stanley. I thought you’d know all about that — he was a hero, Alby. That’s why Nora married him I suppose; the reflected glory — that’s what my sister wanted. And she got it for a while. But then it faded rather quickly.’
She got up and stood at the picture window. Again the quick glance down at the street, where a necklace of lights had begun to glow orange.
‘I remember Alby coming home in 1944,’ she said. ‘I was still a toddler, the baby sister. You’ve no idea how exciting war is for children. It’s like being at an endless wedding reception — you know, the adults are too busy to notice the children, as if the rules have been suspended. War’s like that. Nora was the big sister — nearly seventeen. My mother — our mother — used to say that it didn’t matter how plain a girl was, there was always a year when she was beautiful. That was Nora’s year. Cruel? That’s what sisters are for. There’d been boys about, but Nora was wrapped up in the church so I don’t think sex had ever come into it. Prim was the word. A good word. They taught her it was a virtue, that kind of coldness. They tried to teach me too, but I didn’t listen.’
She took an inch off the level of the bourbon in the glass. ‘Anyway — 1944. I’m really surprised you don’t know this,’ she said, looking at Valentine. ‘This merchant ship — the Stanley — was on a convoy to Murmansk. Lend-lease, taking food and munitions to the Russians. It was torpedoed off Narvik — at night — and everyone abandoned ship. Alby used to tell us about that — about how he’d spent the night trying not to freeze to death, with the sea calm and the lifeboat surrounded by the cargo — cases of bullets and dried milk. When daylight came they still couldn’t see anything because of a fog. They called out but only their lifeboat had survived, they thought. Just six men left.