Death Watch by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing
Published: 2010-01-18T23:00:00+00:00

26

Valentine watched a thin line of tourists in blue and red cagoules walking out over the tidal mud on duck-boards, queuing to climb aboard one of the seal trip boats moored on Morston Creek. Valentine had brought ‘solids’ from the National Trust shop – a game pie, a coffee, and a packet of Hula Hoops.

Shaw was on the mobile, tracking down DI William Creake.

‘Bill?’ he said, cupping the phone, turning his back on the sea breeze.

‘Yeah – fine, good. She’s well. Look. I need your help. You know this stiff down on the docks – the one they found on the storm grid? Right. I know. Have you got the records down from Cleethorpes yet – the missing person?’

Shaw looked at Valentine and couldn’t help a weary glance up to the sky. ‘No? Yeah – it takes time. But you’re sure of that – the widow says he never wore a watch? Right. I was in the Ark for the autopsy on our man from the hospital and I couldn’t help noticing your one had marks on his wrist. So, if it’s not a watch…’

Shaw’s shoulder sagged. He listened for a minute, then cut the line.

He walked towards Valentine’s Mazda talking over his shoulder. ‘Creake’s just read the original witness statements. Something he’d missed – one of the workmen who found the floater said he was caught on the grid by a plastic band on his wrist, snagged on the mesh. It’s with the victim’s personal effects at St James’s – Bill’s checking it out. But I think we know what letters are stencilled on it, don’t we?’

Shaw was angry, but not as angry as George Valentine. He’d spent ten years of his life on the north Norfolk coast – busted down to DS – running a case load dominated by petty theft at weekend cottages and the odd half-hearted armed robbery at an amusement arcade. Meanwhile police officers as incompetent as Bill Creake had been made up to DI.

‘Ring Justina for me, George. Tell her I want another examination of the floater – tell her to make up any excuse she wants to get it off Rigby. It doesn’t usually take much.’

Valentine made the call. He threw the mobile onto the dashboard. ‘Why wristbands?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know, but I can have a guess. They’re ID bands; last thing you want to do in a transplant operation is mix up donor and recipient. Maybe it’s that simple – white for donors, red for recipients. Like I said, I don’t know. But if Bill Creake had done his job I could have started trying to find out yesterday – which would have been a big plus.’

Valentine thought how often it was that the simple details brought a crime to life. He still couldn’t get the image of the victim they’d just found out of his mind. ‘There’s a market for human eyes?’ he asked, avoiding Shaw’s.

‘Yes. There’s a market for everything. There’s a market for the bones.’

‘And MVR?’ asked Valentine.

‘I still think it’s the motor pool – especially now.

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