[PS & GV #6] Death on Demand (17 page)

Lee closed his notebook. ‘I can email a copy.’

‘Bit of a drama queen,’ said Valentine, pointing at Lee’s cup. The reporter nodded and Valentine went to the empty counter to collect fresh tea.

‘A bacon sarnie would be nice,’ said Lee.

‘Yes it would. But you don’t have the time,’ said Valentine, returning. ‘What do you want me to do with this?’ he asked. ‘It’s pretty immature. Probably some pimply kid. The Wolves – load of tosh. And it’s not the first, Gordon. Apparently someone saying something pretty similar rang the council at Hunstanton. They didn’t manage to get any kind of transcript, and the woman who took the call’s been off sick with stress since, but I think we can assume it’s the same nutter.’

‘Publication would be in the public interest, George, that’s what Teenage Boy Wonder says, and he wants it all done by the book. Story runs tomorrow. We’ve got WAP – the protest lot, saying they disown violence of any kind, etc. I’ve got to try the official organizers this afternoon. If you’re not bothered, a holding statement would be nice, even if it’s along the lines of why should we care about some Leftie fruitcake who thinks he’s Robin Hood.’

Valentine thought about that image, a forest track, a line of pilgrims, dusk falling. ‘They don’t go through the woods – do they?’

‘Oh, yeah. It’s not just one route, George. They’re all on the website – www.worldpilgrim.com. Take a look. There’s six long distance paths in excess of one hundred miles. That’s for those who want to spend a week wasting their time and ours. Then there’s two short “legs” they call ’em – for quick twenty-four-hour efforts. One of those is from Wells, your neck of the woods. ’Cause, when you think about it, that’s why it’s here, innit – the Holy House. It’s not really at the back end of nowhere, it’s a day’s walk from the coast and the old ports. That’s where your pilgrims landed – from France, Low Countries, Channel ports, East Coast, London even. I don’t know about the rest, but last time I helped monitor the Wells leg it goes loads of places they could run into trouble – woods, riversides, old paths. And this time a fair bit’s at night. So – yeah, they’re vulnerable all right.’

Valentine stood, stretching, until his spine made a series of plastic clicks. ‘What d’you reckon the organizers will say? Think they’ll cancel?’

‘No chance. The lot who run the annual one – the National, they’re reasonable; this lot, they’re
zealots
. Bloke on the phone is an amateur nutter by comparison. A babe in arms. If this mob thought there was a good chance trendy Liberal Lefties were lurking in the bushes with sticks and stones they’d call for thousands more to flock to Walsingham. Martyrdom, George. That’s what’s on offer. Nothing better than a rock on the head when you’re carrying a Pro-Life banner. They’re prepared to die for the cause. No – they
want
to die for the cause, George. Looks like they might even get the chance. Only pity is we can’t leave the lot of ’em to it.’

TWENTY-ONE

‘C
urry,’ said Valentine. ‘For
lunch
?’

‘It’s on expenses,’ said Shaw. ‘Relax. Enjoy. No, celebrate. The nutter in the car last night could have broken your neck. You’re alive, George. Live a bit.’

Shaw bit his tongue. Set in perspective the throwaway line sounded cruel, even brutal. But George Valentine had nothing if not a thick skin. He’d already written off the attack as payback for nosing around Parkwood Springs. Shaw’s interview with Christian Keyes made him think there might be darker motives at work.

‘And look on the bright side,’ said Shaw, pushing open the plate glass door of the Crown of Punjab. ‘Indian lager on tap.’

Scanning the restaurant Shaw thought he spotted Dr Gokak Roy – an elderly man, with frizzy grey hair, examining a tightly folded copy of the
Financial Times
. But three strides into the restaurant, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and saw a young man, half standing, raising a narrow hand by way of hesitant signal.

‘DI Shaw? Gok Roy, good to meet you. Have a seat …’

Ten minutes later they were eating; Valentine having opted for the mildest korma on the menu and a pint of Tiger, Dr Roy picking at something aromatic with Naga chilli – so hot that when Shaw detected a note of the spice on the air he felt a hiccough building in his throat. He pushed some okra around his own plate, sipping iced water.

‘Sorry,’ said Dr Roy, ‘I’m on shifts and so this is Friday night out.’ The spotless, fitted, white shirt and the tall glass of fizzy water marked him out as professional, clean-cut and efficient. ‘My uncle owns the place, so I get a discount.’

Valentine waved his empty pint glass at a lurking waiter.

Dr Roy, distracted by the arrival of a middle-aged man he called Ratif, appeared unfeasibly young; Shaw guessed thirty as an absolute limit. His skin, taut and toned, seemed to radiate intense life. Shaw imagined a racing bloodstream just beneath the skin, oxygen molecules unloading high octane fuel to the grey cells of the brain.

‘Last year,’ said Shaw, ‘you signed this death certificate.’ He pushed a copy across the tablecloth and Dr Roy placed a finger on it lightly, the nail perfectly cut, showing a red cuticle beneath.

‘Beatrice Hood,’ said Dr Roy. ‘Yes. I remember the house – through the archway? It was like a Victorian museum …’ His eyes lit up. ‘Not dissimilar, it has to be said, to the average British curry house. What is it with the flock wallpaper?’

‘Old age is listed as the primary cause of death. Is that usual? It seems a bit sweeping, a bit flippant even.’

‘Yes. Sounds odd, I admit – actually we use it a lot in patients over eighty-five. At that age, in many cases, there may be so many secondary causes, all linked to the ageing process, that “old age” is actually a very precise term. Coroners are very supportive of it in terms of the documentation. In my experience they welcome clear, common sense, certification. Beatty was ill, gravely ill, for some time. I visited her regularly that year. She’d elected to die at home, and her notes were marked to that effect. The day she passed away her condition had deteriorated markedly. I arrived at just after noon, and she was falling in, and out, of consciousness. Finally, she died in her sleep at just after three o’clock.’

‘That’s a good memory,’ said Valentine.

‘I tend to remember patients I’m with when they die, Sergeant. Especially when I’m the only person at the bedside.’ He held up a hand by way of apology. ‘It’s stuck in my mind, certainly. That moment, the sense of being a lone witness to the end of someone’s life. Do you see? In many ways it is a privilege.’

Shaw, nodding, pressed on: ‘There has been a suggestion that Mrs Hood might have been killed, murdered in fact. Were there any suspicious circumstances to her death? Did she say anything which might suggest she had an enemy, or that she was in any way fearful?’

Dr Roy’s face was a picture of disbelief, his eyes wide with surprise. ‘Murdered? No. I was making a routine call. Her conditions were chronic. Her body and its vital organs were failing. When I got there it was clear to me she was dying. I think
she
knew she was dying. At such times the patient often retreats into an interior dialogue, with the dead, perhaps, with loved ones. I did what I could.’

‘Her condition, in this final phase, it couldn’t have been induced? A poison, perhaps?’

‘Possibly. But I had no suspicions. Her symptoms were entirely consistent with her medical history. Death’s a process, which can last months or even years. She had been on that journey for some time. There were no signals, as it were, that anything unusual, or unnatural, had occurred. No, absolutely not, Inspector.’

Dr Roy speared a piece of cauliflower baked in cumin. ‘She did have problems with vandals, I know that. The house is on that old estate …’

‘Parkwood Springs,’ offered Valentine.

‘Kids just run wild out there.’ Dr Roy held a hand to his forehead. ‘That last time, I do remember now. One of the windows in the kitchen was just papered over. I went down for water and asked about it and she said they’d smashed it, these kids, and got in, and she’d shouted from the top of the stairs and it spooked them so they ran. But I think she was worried they’d come back. If she did go out, she used a white stick, so it wasn’t as if they didn’t know of her disability. When she woke up in bed she said she’d lie still, listening, and that sometimes she thought they might be right there, in the room, by the bed. Given her near blindness that kind of anxiety isn’t going to help. Vandalism’s cruel, indiscriminate and gets under the skin, even when you’re young and healthy. It’s like a bad dream about your teeth falling out. It reflects a deeper anxiety, a fear of intrusion, a loss of control. But it isn’t murder, is it?’

Valentine made a note: they’d check vandalism, petty damage, street crime, and see if any names came up. He thought too of the picture on his phone that Jan had sent him of the blood-spattered trainers under Lister Tunnel.

‘It was peaceful, then, her death when it came?’ asked Shaw.

Dr Roy smiled and Shaw caught a glimpse of a crueler cast to the wide brown eyes. ‘Well, I suppose people tend to imagine the Death of Nelson, everyone crowding round in the warm lantern light. The great man rewarded with a good death. The last words.
Ars moriendi
– yes? The Art of Dying. That’s pretty rare in my limited experience.’

‘It was a bad death?’

‘No. She died in her bed. For her generation that’s a significant comfort. She didn’t die in the street, or from cholera.’

Dr Roy’s eyes seemed to slip out of focus and Shaw had the distinct impression he was struggling with a memory he wished to forget.

‘She wasn’t cut down by a sword, or blown to bits by a bomb, or buried under rubble. So that’s a small victory. Dickens is good at the deathbed scene, Little Nell, that kind of thing. Affecting, a bit sentimental. But he was reflecting something very real, you see, that most people
didn’t
die in their beds. It was an extraordinary blessing to die in the home.’

He seemed to realize the subject had taken wing. ‘My mother was besotted with Dickens. Very good on the poor, too. Bad deaths too, look at Sykes, swinging on his rope, neck broken. What would he have given for a cosy deathbed scene?’

‘Last words?’ prompted Shaw. ‘Did Mrs Hood say anything at all?’

They all waited while the waiter swept the tablecloth with a set of brushes.

‘Last words?’ repeated Shaw.

Dr Roy shook his head. ‘I think she asked me what the date was – yes. Not the time, the date. Which was odd. I had it on my smartphone. The room was half-lit, the curtains drawn, and I recall clearly her face, lit by the phone. But she couldn’t read it, of course. But she held it here …’

He held his own phone up over his eye socket.

‘After that I don’t think she said anything cogent, I’m afraid.’

Shaw looked at the certificate. ‘September the nineteenth. Why do you think she asked?’

‘No idea, Inspector. I concentrate on those things I can materially affect. I made her comfortable.’

‘But you were alone, after she died. What did you do?’

‘Yes, I was alone.’ Shaw couldn’t tell if he was manufacturing the emotion but the brown eyes flooded and he snatched for the iced water, draining the glass.

‘I contacted the relevant authorities. I waited for the funeral directors, I think, perhaps, twenty minutes.’

‘You didn’t call an ambulance?’

‘No. I was able to confirm that death had occurred, Inspector. Why waste scarce resources on calling out an ambulance for no reason?’

Shaw nodded. ‘And then?’

‘I locked up and kept the keys, which were eventually couriered to the solicitors. The funeral directors dealt with everything else.’

‘You didn’t attend the funeral?’

‘I did. At the crematorium.’

‘You’re a busy man, that was, what? Kind, dutiful?’

‘Professional. The practice has served that area I think for many years. It’s expected. Rightly, I think.’ He dabbed the napkin at his lips.

The doctor checked his watch. ‘My favourite last words are Dickens too – do you know them? His sister-in-law told him to rest on a sofa or chair and he said: “On the ground!” I can see that, can’t you? Wanting to feel the earth under your back. It’s as if he needed to hang on to the turning world.’

‘I prefer
Mehr Licht
,’ said Shaw. ‘It’s Goethe. More light.’

‘Very good. And you, Sergeant?’

‘I’ll think of something,’ said Valentine, holding up the empty pint mug for a refill.

TWENTY-TWO

M
ow Creek was a tidal channel, a broad sandy inlet, opening out to the sea a mile south of Marsh House. At low tide it harboured shadows in its black, muddy depths, while high water saw it threatening to spill out into the marsh, the waves rattling the reeds. On a map it looked like an old vine, branched and curious, twisting between islands of grass and sand.

Linas Jessop was in exactly the spot Shaw had been able to predict from the artist’s sketchbooks, the vantage point he’d used over the years to indulge his infatuation with atmospherics and light. A rough wooden easel stood against the sky on a grass knoll, the artist a few feet away, a separate silhouette, brush in hand. From the north a stiff tidal breeze gusted in, and Jessop stepped forward occasionally to grip the canvas. This was no delicate hobby, a bid to capture the picturesque, but something much more muscular, a kind of duel between artist and elements.

Shaw, picking his way seawards on the marsh path, imagined the canvas as a shield, the brush a sword.

Jessop was rocking back and forth on his booted heels, his windblown head still, when he must have heard the grate of Shaw’s shoe on the sandy path. His face swung round and for a moment there was a flash of obsessed anger, as if the magic of the place, the spectrum of light and colour, had been shattered and lost.

His body straightened then, the anxiety dissipating. ‘Inspector. You’ve found my secret place, how clever of you. Feast your eyes!’

The prospect seawards was breathtaking. A vast arrow of migrating birds, thousands deep, was a mere smudge to the west. The wind, picking up, flattened the marsh grass, buffeting it down, as if an invisible giant strode inland.