getting stronger, knowing that must be wrong. A stained‐glass window lit the central stairwell. A fisherman on a biblical boat, hauling in silver fish. On the landing a bedroom door stood open. A double bed, both bedside tables holding alarm clocks, books, a mobile phone on one.
He called again. The bathroom door was open too and he could see into a mirror set above the washbasin, clear, cold, unblushed by steam. In the corridor outside a mug stood on the carpet, full of tea, a thin scuddy film on the surface, and a plug in the socket, the lead trailing away into the bathroom. Shaw pushed at the door and walked in. A shower unit stood empty. The stench of meat was tangible, as if he’d bent forward to get the Sunday roast out of the oven. He turned to look down into the bath.
‘Jesus.’ He took a single step to the toilet bowl and vomited.
Colin Narr lay in the bath, his limbs contorted into an agonizing semaphore. In the water lay a toaster: silver, with a marine blue side decorated with a silver anchor. His flesh was black at the extremities of his limbs, a bluish‐purple on the torso, his face a ripe peach, the lips a startling blue. The flesh, cooked, swelled at the joints. Shaw forced himself to look a second time, to check the ears, the shrunken lobes.
The only sound was the swing in the garden.
Eeeeeer Acttttttttt.
Eeeeeer Acttttttttt.
40
Colin Narr had made many mistakes in the last week of his life, but telling Jillie Baker‐Sibley that her father had died that night on Styleman’s Middle was his last. In the warmth of the BMW she’d listened to him recount what had happened. How he and her mother had only wanted to protect her, to bring her home. But that her father had been stupid, to tell the men who came to get her that he had cash on board. So little money to die for: £50,000. He said she had to understand, that lies were necessary. Neither he nor her mother had planned that James should die. It had been Lufkin and Fibich’s fault. Narr said he’d been horrified when Lufkin told him what had happened; and he’d kept it from her mother. But it was too late – James was dead. They had to do what was right for Jillie and Sarah. Jillie had smiled then, because it was really about what was right for him.
How had he found her? Mother’s intuition. James had a cottage near East Midlands airport, a village close to the motorway. Sarah had never been given a key, even after they were married. But if they’d made a plan – daughter and father – then that would be it. To meet there. Jillie had some money of her own, a bank card. But they knew she’d keep clear of the trains and coaches. And Sarah knew she loved hitch‐hiking, because she’d been forbidden to do it. She’d gone into Lynn once with Clara during the summer holidays, hitching a ride. They’d been proud of it when they got home. Sarah had screamed at her, telling her she was a child.
And they were right. When those men had come aboard the Hydra to take her away they’d let her have a minute alone with her father. He hadn’t argued with them because the little man had a gun. He kept passing it from hand to hand, the sweat glistening on the cold metal. But he’d asked for some time alone. That’s when he’d given her the key, told her to get to the cottage when she could. He’d be there. Then the foreign one had rowed her ashore. She’d waited for her moment to leave home and then stuck to the plan. And she would have seen it through, up until the moment she’d climbed into Narr’s black Jag. He’d told her that her father was dead. And that had changed the world. She’d lost a brother, and now she’d lost her father. It was about time someone paid the price.
They sat in silence during the rest of the ride back to Narr’s house. Jillie’s hands clenched and unclenched, imagining revenge. All the anger she’d harboured during her young life had finally found a target. Someone upon whom she could focus her hate.
The tide was out so they’d driven over. She’d said she wasn’t in a hurry to get home, her mother would be in the shop, so he could eat, have