After returning home the previous night Shaw had been trying to get the Christmas lights to work on the pine tree beside the cottage when his mobile had rung. He’d been rerunning in his head their interview with Mosse, admitting to himself that they’d failed to break him, but agreeing with Valentine’s verdict that they had shaken him. Shaw had taken him to the morgue in the Porsche and he’d identified Jimmy Voyce, but he hadn’t said another word. For now it was the best ID they would get. They could hardly expect Voyce’s wife to fly all the way from New Zealand only to travel home alone. Voyce’s dental records together with Mosse’s ID would have to be enough for the coroner. The forensics on Mosse’s BMW were still being processed but, as expected, the news from Hadden’s team was not encouraging. Unfortunately Voyce’s burnt-out hired car was yielding no better results. There was some buckling to the front bumper not recorded on the hire contract, but the flames had charred the plastic, seared the steel, so that their chances of lifting blood or skin were almost nil. It was a blow; a bitter blow.
So, when last night’s call had come he’d taken it without enthusiasm, expecting more bad news. It was Chief Inspector Bob Howell, head of St James’s uniform branch, who said one of his officers had something for them on the report that a light had been seen in Flensing Meadow cemetery six months earlier. PC Gavin Bright had been serving witness statements on the family of a man arrested for selling drugs outside Whitefriars primary school earlier in the week — an arrest made thanks to a phone-call from DI Shaw himself. The mother of the arrested man lived in a low-rise council block in Gladstone Street — the same block from which the witness had seen the light in the cemetery. PC Bright had something to show them. He’d be on the street corner at nine.
Shaw stamped his feet in the snow, producing a series of muffled thuds, and looked at his watch. He’d come straight to the South End from DCS Warren’s office. The interview had been cold, formal, and conducted largely without rancour. Any emotional bond which might have bridged the gap between their ranks had been severed. Max Warren intended his retirement to be long and blameless, and the last thing that was going to throw a shadow over it was the indiscipline of the youngest DI on the force combined with the wilful belligerence of the oldest DS.
Jimmy Voyce had died while under police surveillance. His murder would be the subject of an internal inquiry, Warren said. A coroner’s court hearing would be adjourned to allow the investigation to continue. If the press missed the short adjournment — which they often did if they had a full schedule to cover in the magistrates court — then they might be able to keep it quiet. If the press sniffed it out, they’d have no chance. The job of tracking down Voyce’s killer would now be the responsibility of DI Raymond ‘Chips’ McCain of Peterborough CID. His first interview would be with Shaw and Valentine. They were to be completely candid; any suspicion that they were anything less would result in immediate suspension. If either Shaw or Valentine approached Bobby Mosse during McCain’s investigation they would be suspended and face disciplinary charges which, Max Warren promised Shaw, would result in their dismissal without pension from the West Norfolk Constabulary.
‘That might mean bugger-all to you, Peter, given you’ve got a nice little business to go home to. But you might consider what having no pension would do to George Valentine’s remaining years.’
Which is when the mask finally slipped. ‘That is a door,’ said Warren, pointing a fat finger at the oak-panelled exit from his office. ‘If you break any of these conditions you will walk through it and out of this building. George Valentine will go with you. Either of you transgresses, both will go.’
The good news, Shaw had thought in the lift on the way down, was that Mosse had clearly not made a formal complaint about his unofficial interrogation in the car park at the Westmead. In the three years he had been trying to reopen the case into Jonathan Tessier’s death, that was the first time Mosse had displayed any weakness, any inclination to stay on the back foot. But that didn’t mean he’d miss the obvious next step — which was to leak the bare details of Voyce’s death to the press and sit back while they tore Shaw and Valentine’s careers apart.
Shaw felt utterly impotent. Not only were they unable to take the case forward, they frankly didn’t know how to. Their only slender hopes now lay with Chris Robins’s will and the investigative powers of ‘Chips’ McCain — a man with a reputation for running steamroller investigations of unmitigated thoroughness. Shaw could sympathize with that, but the problem with thorough was that it was also slow. And they were running out of time.
Valentine stood still, letting the snow accumulate on his thin hair. ‘Couldn’t this uniform have just told us what he’s found?’ he asked.
‘Apparently not,’ said Shaw. ‘He needs to show us.’
Shaw tried to lift Valentine’s obvious depression. ‘Twine had news, by the way. Caught me on the way out from Warren’s office,’ he said. Twine had received an e-mail from FBI headquarters at Quantico. They’d sent a field officer from Bismarck out to Hartsville to check out Bea Garrison’s past history. Shaw summarized: ‘The big lie, and the relevant omission, is that it wasn’t Latrell Garrison who set up the drugstore. Yes, there had been a programme for GIs to retrain, but Latrell had flunked out of that in six months. The shop was actually a local store called Garrison’s — a coffee shop, general grocer’s, post office and pharmacy, owned by the family since the twenties. The dispensary had been closed since before the war because they couldn’t entice a qualified pharmacist out to Hartsville. When Latrell ducked out, Bea took his place. She qualified in 1971. In 1973 she took a further course in advanced pharmacy. In 1975 Levi’s opened a clothing factory on the edge of town — population went from 3,000 to 16,000, and the general store boomed. Latrell drank his share of the profits, that much is true. Bea left in 1982, selling up at public auction for $450,000. Twine worked it out — that’s?245,000 at 1982 prices. So she lied to us,’ Shaw said to Valentine, as a car crunched past at ten miles an hour, its driver clearing condensation with a waving gloved hand. ‘In fact she’s lied several times. It turns out she’s a qualified pharmacist, and as such she will have — at the very least — a firm grasp of toxicology.’
‘But other than telling Alby Tilden how much rat poison to put in the cans, what could she do with it?’ asked Valentine. He’d meant to buy a fresh pack of Silk Cut on the walk from his house. His irritation was growing with each nicotine-free minute. ‘Christ, we’ve checked it out. Justina says the poison in the soup was well short of a lethal dose for most people.’ He hauled some air into his lungs. ‘So how do we build a murder charge out of that?’ He looked up at the falling snowflakes. ‘Sir,’ he added.
‘Justina said that, if anything, Venn had less than the average,’ added Shaw, checking his watch. ‘Let’s put Guy Poole and Tom Hadden together — if they’re not talking already. They need to hammer this out — there has to be an answer, George. I think Alby and Bea wanted the three men dead. They got two of them — only missed out on Murray because he wasn’t there. But how? What about cutlery? The soup bowls? And we know Fletcher was ill the day before the lunch. What about Venn? Check that out, too. And while you’re at it, check with the incident room and see what they’re doing to track down John Joe Murray. He still hasn’t turned up. We need to find him.’
Then, as if he’d beamed down through the snow cloud, PC Bright was with them. He was short, broad, with a formless pale face and strikingly small jet-black eyes. He had that particular pallor which comes with working a night shift.