Death Watch Read online

  Orzsak looked at Valentine, his large head on one side. ‘Once – eighteen years ago – you, people like you, took me to a police station and beat me. They said I killed this girl. I told them the truth then, I tell you the truth now. I did not.’

  Shaw set his jaw. ‘We need a statement, Mr Orzsak,’ he said. ‘And we need to talk to people who can verify where you were last night.’

  But Orzsak wasn’t listening. ‘Because I tell the truth the people here want to push me out. As others drove us out… the Russians, the Nazis, always… pushing us on.’ He hit the table and his mug slopped again on the Formica top. ‘But this is my home.’

  ‘But it wasn’t always,’ said Valentine, smiling. ‘You used to live at number 6.’

  Orzsak looked down at his hands and Shaw could see he was calculating something before he spoke. ‘Mother’s house. When she died I didn’t like those memories, and the house was noisy. So I moved when I could. But not away. I will not run away.’

  Orzsak licked his lips and Shaw sensed he’d been going to say something else, but had checked himself. He pulled a face, and sipped tea to dispel the bitterness.

  Valentine was standing by the kitchen window. He looked out on the yard, strewn with rubbish, and the high fence of the electricity sub-station, a fig tree, leaves sticky and shiny in the sunshine. He dotted his pencil on his notebook. ‘Names, sir. Times. Specifically between seven and nine yesterday.’

  Orzsak held a hand to his face and Shaw saw that the tiny fingers vibrated. ‘I walk – after tea, and before the dance. The town, then the quayside.’

  ‘Alone?’ asked Shaw.

  ‘Alone.’ He drank from the mug.

  ‘See anyone you knew?’ pressed Valentine.

  He didn’t seem to understand the question. Shaw guessed that Jan Orzsak didn’t collect casual acquaintances.

  ‘Mr Orzsak – we’re going to have to talk again,’ said Shaw. ‘And I’m going to ask our forensic crime unit to check the house; not least to see if we can find any finger-prints belonging to the people who did this – to the fish. And the car. Do you have any objections to us checking that out too?’

  Orzsak stood, one hand on the table for support. He shook his head, then led the way to the front door.

  ‘But one question now,’ said Shaw. ‘Do you ever pray at the church across the street?’

  They could see him struggling with the question, trying to work out what the answer should be. Finally, he nodded. ‘Not often. Because of Andy Judd. He is there, sometimes, praying, like a Christian.’ He shook his head.

  Shaw couldn’t stop himself coming to Judd’s defence. ‘He wanted Norma Jean to keep her baby. So on that, presumably, you’d have both agreed?’

  Orzsak’s jaw worked, eating food that wasn’t there, struggling with that contradiction.

  ‘And the priest…’ He left some unknown accusation unsaid. ‘I do not have time for him. But yes, sometimes I go – a prayer – maybe, in the morning, for the dead.’ He meshed his fingers. ‘And sometimes I play the organ – when I can. Music is one of God’s gifts.’

  18

  Valentine lit up on the kerb. The sun was high now and their shadows crowded round their feet. The street reeked of the town – hot pavements, carbon dioxide, and something rotting in the drains. He spat in the dust. Was he braced for the inevitable question, thought Shaw, or did he think Orzsak’s casual accusations of police brutality would be left hanging in the air between them?

  Shaw looked into the distance, up towards the T-junction and the abattoir. ‘So, George – they roughed him up. First night of what looked like a child-murder inquiry, tempers fray, lot of pressure from upstairs, right – to get a conviction, get the press off your back. What’s a couple of broken fingers against the slim chance Norma Jean was still alive somewhere? Maybe you were there…’

  Valentine’s eyes were in shadow. His bladder was hurting, and he wanted – more than anything – to walk to the Crane and use the loo. Then buy himself a pint.

  ‘Wasn’t my case. I wasn’t in the room. I think I did some of the house-to-house next day – maybe.’ But he wasn’t going to let it lie there. Why should he? He looked Shaw in his good eye. ‘But if I had been in the room,’ he said, stepping closer, so that Shaw could see the ash which had blown into his thinning hair, ‘I’d have twisted his little fingers till they snapped just as happily as they did.’

  ‘And Dad? It was his case. Think he was in the room?’

  ‘Yes. Course he was fucking in the room. For all they knew, Norma Jean was lying out there somewhere…’ He pointed to the docks, then round to the waste ground where Bryan Judd had plaintively called her name that night in 1992. ‘Lying there. Dead, dying, they didn’t know – did they? So you tell me if it’s worth it – sir.’

  Shaw went and got in the car, leaving Valentine to finish the cigarette. When the DS joined him he took a deep breath and tried to imagine they hadn’t just had the exchange they’d had. Valentine wanted the conversation to continue, because he hadn’t got to the heart of it, to the fact that Jack Shaw had a nose for scum; for the kind of man who’d take a fifteen-year-old girl from her family, kill her – probably worse – and then spend the rest of his life watching that family rip itself apart in the aftermath of the one moment in their lives they couldn’t forget – the moment they knew she’d gone.

  ‘Jack –’ he said, but Shaw raised a hand.

  ‘Leave it.’ They sat in silence for thirty seconds. ‘Let’s think this through. Let’s remember which murder inquiry we’re supposed to be on. If Orzsak killed Bryan Judd last night, what are we saying happened?’

  ‘My guess is he comes home at about seven,’ said Valentine. ‘He knows it’s Norma Jean’s day. The day she went. All that stuff about being out all day doesn’t wash. He’d be back to check.’ He flipped the seatbelt to give himself room to struggle out of the raincoat. ‘The timings fit nicely – Judd and his mates fire up the electric substation at noon, wait an hour to make sure the power’s staying out, then ransack the house. By the time Orzsak gets home the fish are long dead. He’s distraught.’ He looked at the front door of number 47. ‘’Cos it is a nightmare, and he’s living it. He wants it to stop. It must stop.’

  ‘But why Bryan? It’s Andy he’d go for…’

  Valentine shook his head, took an extra breath. ‘Andy’s outside the Crane. Beered up. Surrounded by his mates. They’d tear him apart. And anyway he’s not going to listen, is he? No, Bryan’s the one he thinks he can get through to. So he goes up to the hospital to try. He said it himself, Bryan thought his father had killed Norma Jean.’

  He turned in the seat to look at Shaw’s face but caught only the moon eye – unseeing. They heard a cow bellow from the back yard of the abattoir, setting off the rest. A kind of keening.

  ‘He’s had eighteen years of it,’ said Valentine. ‘Being treated like a piece of shit. Kids shouting at him. People spitting. Crossing the street to keep away.’ There was an edge in Valentine’s voice and Shaw wondered if it was how he sometimes felt – an outcast.

  ‘But this time he’s had enough. He pleads with Bryan to tell the truth at last – but Bryan’s loyal. It is eighteen years since she went missing. If he was going to tell us, tell anyone, he’d have done it by now. So Orzsak doesn’t get what he wants – and that’s when the fight starts. He’s a big bloke, I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong end of a fist – Christ, if he punched his weight he’d kill you.’

  He tried a laugh, then pressed on. ‘Orzsak kills him – maybe accidentally in the heat of the fight – then stuffs the body on the moving belt. Back in town he goes down the Polish Club for a shot of the hard stuff.’

  Valentine wound the window down. ‘That works.’ He was pleased with himself, even more so because he knew being pleased with himself made Shaw seethe.

  ‘Any evidence you’d like to offer for that scenario – or do we just take your word for it, George? What about Andy? Are we sure – really sure – he was he
re on the street all day? Perhaps Bryan was going to talk to us at last; perhaps Andy went up the hospital to try and talk him out of it.’

  ‘Nah,’ said Valentine, looking away. ‘If it’s not Holme and the drugs, it’s Orzsak and Norma Jean. It ain’t Judd – the feud’s too old, the blood’s cooled.’ It was an odd image for Valentine to use, and they waited in silence for him to take up the thread. ‘Andy could have belted Bryan any time he wanted – why go up the Queen Vic when the street’s rocking?’ He pinched his nose, trying to stop a sneeze. ‘No – the action’s all here for him. On the street. By the time we got here he was out of his tiny warped little mind, content that he’d made sure his little vendetta rolled on another year.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Shaw.

  Across the street they could see Fiona Campbell on the doorstep of the Bentinck Launderette with two PCs.

  ‘Ring Twine,’ said Shaw. ‘Get him started on checking Orzsak’s alibi. Let’s talk to the family.’

  19

  The Judds’ house had the same layout as Jan Orzsak’s, so it was an odd sensation, stepping over the threshold, as if they’d come back to the same house years later, newly decorated, the stench replaced by the acrid smell of washing powder, even here, next door to the machines. DC Campbell handed Shaw a file: a printout of Andy Judd’s statement in custody at St James’s, given the night before. DC Twine had texted earlier to say the CPS was still considering charges, but that at this point the chances of any resulting conviction were slim and Judd had been released on police bail in the early hours. No witness at the scene had agreed to give a statement. Shaw had seen Judd lob the brick into the blazing house – but nothing else.

  Ally Judd pushed her way out through the kitchen door and into the hall carrying a tray with a teapot, a bottle of milk, and a packet of sugar. She nodded at Shaw and Valentine and led the way into the living room. She’d aged ten years overnight, but of the many expressions tussling for control of her face grief wasn’t one of them. If Shaw had to put a name to it he’d have chosen fear. Again, he noticed the washed-out look, the almost colourless light grey eyes. Beyond the party wall they could hear the driers turning in the launderette.

  The front room had been knocked through to the French windows looking out on the yard, a Moorish sixties arch between. In the back section an acoustic guitar stood on a stand. In the front, over the fireplace, was a framed print of the cover of Johnny Cash’s At Fulsom Prison, signed.

  The three Judds sat apart: the wife, brother and father of the victim. Andy Judd had been given the alpha male’s chair, padded leather, set square to a widescreen TV. He didn’t look comfortable with the honour. Beside him, Shaw noticed, on the floor, was an empty milk bottle, the sides still slightly glazed with the full-fat liquid. Ally was on the sofa. Neil sat on the carpet barefoot, legs folded easily into a yoga posture. Here, in daylight, next to his father, Shaw could see how vividly Neil must be his mother’s son, the features finer than the heavy Celtic clichés of his father. The sleeves of his sweatshirt were rolled up to reveal over-developed biceps.

  Andy Judd looked down at his hands, which were large, awkward, and clasped either side of his mug of tea. ‘I saw you,’ he said, before Shaw could speak. ‘Over at the pedo’s house.’ The colour of his skin, seen in daylight, was extraordinary – like rancid butter. Liver disease, thought Shaw.

  ‘We’re investigating the murder of your son, Mr Judd, and both the vandalism which brought the power supply down, and that at number 47 – Mr Orzsak’s home. Three incidents which may be connected.’ Shaw paused, looking at each of them, but coming back to the father. ‘Mr Orzsak can account for his movements last night. We’re checking that out. I’d like to concentrate for a second on your movements.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Ally Judd poured tea and Neil gave his father a fresh mug, adding sugar and milk. ‘Dad’s not been well,’ he said. ‘He’s got problems – he needs medication.’ And that, thought Shaw, was Neil Judd’s role. The family peacemaker. He sat back on the carpet, cross-legged, like a dog at his father’s feet, a hand adjusting one of the hearing aids.

  ‘The power cut yesterday at noon was caused by an incendiary device – a Molotov cocktail, if you will – at the power station,’ said Shaw. ‘A successful device, I guess, if the aim was to cut the power, which released the electric locks on Mr Orzsak’s house and enabled someone to gain entry at about one. I think that someone was you,’ added Shaw. ‘But we’ll wait for the forensics to come through. Do you have a car, by the way?’

  ‘Like I could afford to run a car…’ He slopped the tea in the mug. ‘I’ve got a bike – why?’

  ‘Because I want to know where you were, Mr Judd, at the time your son died. That was between 7.45 and 8.31 last night. How long does it take to get to the Queen Vic – fifteen minutes?’

  Judd didn’t answer.

  ‘Did you kill your son, Mr Judd?’ asked Shaw. Valentine’s muscles tightened. He had to give it to Shaw – he had balls.

  Neil Judd looked at his father, then at his hands. Ally covered her mouth with one hand, then turned the movement into a flick back of her lifeless hair. Andy Judd got up stiffly and walked to a 1950s glass cabinet. He took out a tumbler and a bottle of Johnnie Walker and poured himself a three-inch slug, which he drank with his back to them.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  Then he put the cap back on the bottle. As he sat down again he fished a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, lit one with one hand, snapped the match carelessly between thumb and palm, and flicked it into the grate.

  Valentine knelt, using his Silk Cut packet to jiggle the spent match out of the ash. He held it up to the light for Shaw to see.

  ‘Mr Judd – we found a match, just like that, where Bryan smoked up at the hospital.’

  ‘Bry did that with matches too,’ said Neil. ‘It’s a family thing – he got it off Dad. Dad got it off Humphrey Bogart.’ They laughed, for a split second a family again.

  ‘Your brother had a lighter,’ said Valentine.

  Neil Judd shrugged, and Shaw thought how easily the young man’s brittle confidence could be broken.

  ‘I was out there… in the street, all night, all day,’ said Andy Judd, the smoke dribbling out of both nostrils. ‘Half a dozen of the old regulars in the Crane break their matches. Jesus. Is this a joke?’

  He went back to the bottle for a second glass. ‘You think I killed Bry? Is that what he told you – the pervert? Neil’s told you who killed him – it was that fucker in the hostel.’

  ‘And your daughter, Mr Judd. Norma Jean. Who killed her?’ asked Shaw. Valentine glanced at the door, thinking that if this went on they might need uniformed assistance. Judd, he thought, was close to breaking point.

  The effect of the missing girl’s name on the family was instant, each immobile, as if a video tape had been freeze-framed.

  ‘We’ve talked to the original officers who led that inquiry, Mr Judd, and they agree that your son Bryan was withholding evidence in the period after her disappearance. That he knew something about what had happened to her. Perhaps, they thought, he knew who killed her.’

  Shaw tried a mock shrug. ‘Why would he protect Jan Orzsak? Or was it you he was protecting? Was he always going to protect you – or did he threaten to talk in the end? It was the anniversary of Norma’s death – that must be a difficult time for you, for the family. The power went – the drinking started – the night came. I’m asking you again, did you kill your son?’

  Even Valentine had to admit Shaw had framed the accusation beautifully. Andy Judd seemed to rock back on his heels.

  ‘Jan Orzsak killed my daughter.’ He’d said it between clenched teeth. ‘If anyone feared the truth coming out it was him. He lives in my street.’ He walked over to Shaw and stood just within his personal space, but when he spoke it was in a whisper. ‘The only thing I’ve ever wanted is to bury her.’ He choked on the word bury, whisky coming back up his throat, making him gag. ‘I just wa
nt him to tell us where she is.’

  ‘Shall I tell you what really worries me, Mr Judd?’ asked Shaw. ‘It’s the fact that no one in this family seems to think it remotely possible that Norma Jean ran away. That she’s still alive. Perhaps she had the child after all – like you wanted her too. Why is that so unthinkable?’

  Neil rubbed the tattoo on his forearm. ‘Bry said she was dead – so we knew, we’ve always known. Bry…’

  Andy silenced his younger son with a look of contempt, for daring, Shaw thought, to talk about Norma Jean when he could have had almost no memory of her. Instead, he went back to his chair and took up the story. ‘Bry and Norma Jean had a kind of link,’ he said, putting his hand on his chest. ‘Every moment she was alive he could feel her there. But that day she went. He always said she was dead – and that’s good enough for me. It’s been good enough for all of us.’ He looked around at his family. ‘That’s not to say we don’t see her – all of us. Like a ghost in the street, in a queue at the post office, getting off the bus, in the crowds at the Arndale. We see her – but it’s never her. It’s never going to be her.’

  Andy Judd gripped the padded arms of the chair. ‘Jesus, do you think this is just about Norma Jean?’ He threw himself to his feet again and picked up a picture which was on the mantelpiece below Johnny Cash and next to a fifties austerity clock and a box of Swan matches. Judd weighed the picture in his hand, as if judging its worth. It was a family snapshot, all on the sofa, the lights of a Christmas tree behind. The twins, Bryan and Norma Jean, young teenagers clutching each other, cheek-to-cheek, Andy Judd with jet-black hair, an arm round a woman with a low-cut blouse emphasizing a show-stopping bust.

  Andy Judd thrust the picture into Shaw’s hands.

  ‘That’s what that pervert did to us.’ He spat when he spoke, a thin line of saliva on his chin. ‘This is us – 1991. Marie died in ’99 – she was forty-five. Breast cancer – but she didn’t fight it, didn’t want to fight it. Norma Jean, gone. Now Bryan, gone…’