‘So you met here.’
‘Yes. We fought. I’m not going to tell you why,’ she said.
‘We found something in Pat’s pocket,’ said Shaw. ‘We didn’t know what it was — just shreds of paper. I know now. There were just three letters visible — MOT. It’s the airport code for his trip back to Hartsville.’
In the white gloom he saw Valentine’s silhouette move between a Celtic cross and a figure of the Virgin Mary in grey stone.
‘He was going home, wasn’t he? A one-way ticket. Bea was always going to stay and she thought Pat would too. But he wasn’t. He’d booked his flight. And it didn’t change anything, did it? That the child was coming?’
She stood at the grave’s edge and looked at the blood on her hand.
‘He was bleeding that night,’ she said. ‘Here,’ she added, touching her left cheekbone. ‘When he said he was going home I thought it was because of those three, and what they’d wanted to do. That he’d decided to leave behind all that hatred, not just those three, everyone — almost everyone. The way they looked at him. Everyone except Alby.
‘But it wasn’t. He’d decided weeks before because he showed me the ticket. Taunted me with it. Said the baby was my fault — that I hadn’t taken precautions and that I’d tried to trap him. He said babies were a kind of death. Those are the words I’ve always remembered.
‘He said there was a baby in this grave. I think Bea must have told him — about Mary, who would have been my sister. He said Mary had ruined Mother’s life, and Dad’s. Then he said it again, that babies were death, and he got up and stood by the grave and spat in it.’
She still hadn’t cried, and Shaw felt certain now that she never would.
‘So I just took the hook — it was lying here …’ She drew a circle in the snow on the stone tomb. ‘And I swung it. It was luck, really — catching his skull. I didn’t hit him hard.’ She looked at Shaw, still astonished by the ease of murder. ‘The point just sliced in.’
She was looking at a point in front of her now, the precise spot, Shaw thought, where Pat Garrison’s life had ended.
‘They’ll say he died instantly, won’t they? They always say that. But he didn’t. I don’t think he knew what had happened — just that something had happened. He was holding the flask and it fell from his hand to the grass. He turned to look at me, but I don’t think he could see at all, because the cruelty had gone from his eyes, and I thought perhaps he was dead then, dead standing. But he put his hand behind him and tried to reach the handle of the hook. He knelt, reached again, then fell sideways onto the grass.
‘I dragged him to the grave, took his keys out of his pocket, threw the glasses in after his body, then covered him with earth. Then I realized I’d missed the flask. That went in last, so it was nearer the surface. I found it almost straight away that night I tried to get his bones out.’ She shook her head.
She stood stiffly. ‘But before I dragged him to the grave,’ she said clearly, as if confessing, ‘I watched him die. He was curled up — on the grass, like a child himself. So maybe he was right — perhaps babies are death.’
46
Friday, 24 December
Christmas Eve: 10.00 a.m. sharp, the offices of Masters amp; Masters, solicitors, reached by Shaw and Valentine via a staircase through a door marked only with a brass plaque between W. H. Smith and Waterstone’s in the Vancouver Shopping Centre. The view from the one window in the office of Mr Jerrold Masters would, on most occasions, have been suicide-bleak — across the flat roofs dotted with air filters and flues, a copse of satellite dishes and a ramshackle night-watchman’s hut. But the snow had continued to fall overnight so that the cityscape was transformed into an Arctic scene — completed in the far distance by the three masts of a naval training ship on the quay. The cranes on the far bank of the Cut were decked out with fairy lights, immobile, like giant Meccano sets opened early for Christmas.
In the outside office Shaw had left his daughter with DC Fiona Campbell. He’d promised her a tour of St James’s, a look in the cells — an area she seemed particularly obsessed with — and breakfast in the canteen. Campbell had volunteered to be her guide, as Fran — no doubt prompted by his wife — seemed determined to see how women fitted into the West Norfolk Constabulary. After breakfast there’d be Christmas shopping for Lena’s presents, and for the dog a new winter jacket, then they’d all meet for lunch out on the coast. He had a week off. The thought of it made his blood buzz, as if he’d started to run.
‘Is Mrs Robins coming?’ asked Shaw.
‘A minute,’ Masters said, checking his watch, then setting a large envelope on his blotter beside a letter-knife in the shape of an eel.
Shaw considered Chris Robins’s last will and testament. For what could he hope? At best, a confession — a confession implicating Robert Mosse? Admissible in court? Hardly. If they had a new case to present to the CPS on Mosse a confession from Robins would be powerful corroborating testimony. But what they needed was evidence to get a new case in front of a judge and jury. Shaw looked around the shabby room and thought the chances of that were negligible, close to vanishing point, like the ghost-grey masts of the ship on the Cut. All they had was an envelope on a blotter.
‘Busy?’ said Masters, suddenly overcome with embarrassment at the silence. He held up the previous Tuesday’s edition of the Lynn News.
Lizzie Murray had been charged with the murder of Pat Garrison. She had insisted, despite counsel’s advice, on making a statement in which she confessed to the crime. Shaw had taken little pleasure from the moment, frustrated rather by the continuing silence of Alby Tilden and Ian Murray. They might face charges for what they’d done, but unless they confessed to the crucial intermediary role of Bea Garrison, all three would escape a charge of murder. Neither had administered a lethal poison, and Bea Garrison’s silence was impenetrable.
Shaw tore himself away from his own thoughts to answer the solicitor’s question.
‘Sure. But then it’s Christmas. We can all enjoy that,’ he said. He thought Valentine said something then, under his breath, but he couldn’t be sure.
There was a carpet in the corridor outside so they didn’t hear footsteps approaching the door. When it opened Robert Mosse walked in, carrying a long metal safe-deposit box and a slim briefcase. Shaw’s heartbeat raced, and something about the moment made him smile, despite the surprise and all the questions that crowded into his mind.
Mosse froze, but his face didn’t respond, as if each micro-muscle was under direct control from the brain — an impossibility, Shaw knew, but Mosse appeared to have the skill. Only the eyes revealed a life within the skull, taking in Shaw, Valentine and the envelope on the blotter.
Shaw was pleased to see that he looked once back at the door, twice at the window — a classic fear response, checking out the means of escape.
‘Bob,’ said Masters, standing, holding out a hand.
‘Jerry,’ said Mosse. The voice was as perfectly judged as the slate-grey suit, the swept-back lustrous black hair.
‘This is unusual,’ he continued, looking at Shaw and holding out his hand.
Shaw shook it, noting the sandpaper dryness.
‘All will become clear,’ said Masters, smiling. Shaw knew then that Masters was one of those people who manage to get through life without ever realizing they have no ability whatever to sense the emotional temperature of those around them. There was so much tension in the air Shaw expected to see a spark suddenly leap from the eel-shaped letter opener.
Mosse sat, but Shaw noticed his eyes again flicking twice to the door by which he’d entered. He’d have seen Fiona Campbell in reception with Fran and presumed it was a child-protection case. Mosse’s jawline hardened perceptibly — the first time his body had betrayed him.
Masters pressed a buzzer on his desk. A minute later the door opened and Peggy Robins was shown in by the secretary. Shaw hadn’t seen her in reception and guessed she’d been put in a side room with a cup of tea to wait until the last moment. It was thoughtful, and Masters fussed like a family doctor. She sat quickly, didn’t look at anyone, and Shaw was reminded of his first impression: that she was a strong woman, but always braced for a blow. She gathered herself in her seat and then looked at Mosse’s polished black leather shoes, then his face. She knew him instantly, and her mouth fell open.