leaf in the fall. No bone showing, but the flesh ruptured, rucked. Shaw bent closer and smelt the seawater in the man’s clothes, and the first hint of decay, the sweet aroma of evaporating sweat.
Valentine brushed aside the flaps to enter the tent. ‘Nothing on the sand,’ he said. ‘Chopper’s coming in with more manpower.’ He caught Hadden’s eye. ‘Your office radioed – they’ve got a portable generator from the lab.’
Shaw studied the victim’s face. The skin, as dead as pork rind, was tanned lightly, the features narrow and fine with the red double claw marks of a pair of spectacles on the bridge of the nose. The hair was well cut, short but with a foppish fringe which dragged down over one eye. Given time, Shaw could bring that face alive, iron out the swelling to the left side where the blow had fallen, lift the cheekbones, repack the features which had been stretched out in the terror of the victim’s final minutes.
‘He’s never picked cockles for a living,’ said Valentine. ‘Never picked anything for a living – unless it’s horses. Indoor clothes,’ he added.
Shaw stood, thinking that he’d missed that. ‘Justina will want to see him in situ.’
‘Low tide’s in two hours,’ said Hadden. ‘This isn’t a high point – it could be under water in five, six, possibly less. We’ll have to lift him then?’
It was a question, but there was no doubting the answer. If they let the tide wash over again the corpse might not be there next time, sucked down perhaps, or lost in the folds of sand. Even if they marked the spot they might lose him: heavy objects drifted in the liquid sand; wrecks wandered, sinking, resurfacing.
Valentine stepped outside, his radio crackling. Shaw left Hadden in the tent and went back to the cockle‐pickers.
Duncan Sly, the gangmaster, stepped forward to meet him, taking charge, displaying authority. His skin was like burnt leather, a smoked kipper, the product of a lifetime spent in the wind and rain. Despite a slight stoop which had come with age he was still the biggest man in the group – six one perhaps, but broad, a barrel chest, with fists that looked lifeless, just hanging from the arms. The seaman’s blue jacket was new, the lapels uncurled.
Sly’s account was straightforward. The five cockle boats were from Shark Tooth, the shellfish company that ran Gallow Marsh Farm’s oyster beds.
‘The sand was clean on the lee shore when we landed – no footprints, nothing. We keep an eye out for that, in case another gang’s been working our patch. And we’ve heard about the beach… the body in the raft? Radio didn’t say much – and that bloke dead in his car. So we had a good look. Nothing.’
Shaw buttoned up his coat and bent down to retrieve a razor shell from the sand, as sharp as a cut‐throat. He considered the coincidence that Shark Tooth owned Gallow Marsh Farm and ran the cockle boats, and filed it away with the other things that worried him.
The pickers stood around an impromptu fire: driftwood off the sandbank, old newspapers from one of the boats, and something else glowing on a bed of pebbles. ‘Coal?’ asked Shaw, knocking the charred wood with his boot.
‘Always bring a bag,’ said Sly. ‘It’s bitter out here late afternoon, we take breaks.’
Despite the warmth from the blaze they all stood stiffly. Sly thrust his hands out almost into the flames, then back into the pockets of his jacket. ‘We should work, otherwise it’s a wasted day.’
‘A few questions,’ said Shaw, shaking his head. ‘Then we’re going to have to ask you to go back to Wootton. This is a crime scene, we need to secure it. It’s the third unexplained death in the area in twenty‐four hours, Mr Sly. It may be a while before you can work here.’
Shaw saw glances exchanged. Besides Sly there were ten of them, two to a boat with Sly presumably in the larger one – a smart inshore fishing smack which had dropped anchor about twenty feet out. It sat at an angle now, beached, the radio mast tilting towards the moon which had appeared in a clearing blue sky. Six of the men were ethnic Chinese, standing together, smoking the same brand of cigarettes, looking everywhere but at Shaw. Another group of three stood together and Shaw guessed they were east European; one, standing over the fire, was in late middle age, a hand held to his back,