Death Wore White by Jim Kelly

Author:Jim Kelly
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery And Suspense Fiction, Mystery & Detective - General, Police Procedural, Murder, England, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, Mystery, Police, Fiction - Mystery, Detective, Fiction, Mystery fiction, Police - England - Norfolk, Murder - England - Norfolk, Norfolk, General, Norfolk (England)
ISBN: 9780312570811
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2009-06-15T21:13:33.556000+00:00

26

Shark Tooth’s plant was on the single‐track road beside the Wash at Wootton Marsh. Snow at sea had smudged out the horizon, and the reed beds were frozen. The plant’s buildings were flat‐pack sheds, between which tractors scurried, buckets aloft, seawater draining from the shellfish within. From the main processing shed the sound of cockles rolling on a conveyor belt was punctuated by the hissing of a cheap radio. At the corner of the yard a flag flew, the blue clamshell on a white background.

Shaw watched the flag unfurl in a slight breeze, then smelt the salt on his fingers from his early morning swim. ‘Terry Brand’s body was found at the beach below Gallow Marsh Farm. Shark Tooth owns the farm. It also employs the cockle‐picking gang which works on Styleman’s Middle. It runs boats through the sandbanks off Ingol Beach. On the night of the murder I saw a yacht off the beach – a blue clam insignia on the sail.’ They both looked at the flying flag. ‘Part of the answer’s here. Got to be.’

Valentine flipped open the file he’d got one of the DCs to put together on the late shift. He rubbed his eyes, forcing them to focus. He’d spent a second night in the house on the corner of Greenland Street but this time he’d run out of luck, and that always made him tired. Three hours sleep, maximum. He’d read the file at the kitchen table by dawn’s light, and he summarized it now for Shaw: Shark Tooth had been founded in 1990. A one‐boat outfit taking hobby fishermen out into the North Sea to try and hook dogfish. There’d been a landing stage at Wootton, disused for a century, so they made the best of it. Dogfish made them a small fortune.

Now the company employed between fifty and eighty people, depending on the season. They had a dozen boats, with the focus on commercial shellfish, although they still ran fishing trips in season. There’d been a wodge of newspaper cuttings in the file following the Morecambe Bay disaster – in which a gang of ethnic Chinese cockle‐pickers, mostly illegal immigrants, had died when they’d been cut off by the treacherous tides off the Lancashire coast. Colin Narr, CEO of Shark Tooth, had told the press all his workforce – Chinese or other – had legal papers, a fact verified by Lynn CID. But the Conservancy Board that regulated the harbour had brought in new safety rules for the cockle boats: limiting numbers, requiring a manifest of those going out on each tide, enforcing a licensing system for gangmasters. Ownership of the privately registered company was obscure: Colin Narr described himself as a minority shareholder. Five years ago they’d bought Gallow Marsh Farm to develop the oyster beds.

‘And that’s what we know,’ finished Valentine, taking a breath which made one of his ribs crack. He ran a hand over an unshaved chin. He felt better, keen to get in amongst the cockle‐pickers. Shaw was right: somewhere at the centre of all three deaths was Shark Tooth.

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