[PS & GV #6] Death on Demand by Jim Kelly Page A

here’s the stone bench on the terrace …’ Shaw leant forward over Birley’s shoulder and touched the image. ‘George and I were on the scene first thing and there were half a dozen – maybe more – cigarette butts under that seat. There’s nothing in this shot, not one.’
    Birley had a set of notebooks open, flicking through pages of neat notes. Finding what he wanted, he ran the shot on Camera D forward to 5.36 a.m.
    ‘Here, right there.’ A marsh bird was visible on the terrace wall for a second, maybe three, before flying out of the halo of the floodlight. As it took to the air, the wings flapped once, twice, three times before it entered an effortless glide.
    ‘Marsh harrier,’ said Hadden. ‘The shallow “V” of the wing position marks it out – plus its size.’
    ‘Rare?’ asked Shaw, guessing where Birley was taking them next, sure that the detective had guessed the implications of those missing cigarette butts.
    ‘Maybe three hundred breeding pairs in the UK. Doing well now, but still on the amber list. Rare, certainly, a precious bird.’ Hadden’s own flight from London to north Norfolk had been, at least in part, an attempt to indulge his passion for birds.

    ‘We’ve got thirty days’ worth of the digital record,’ said Birley. ‘I was going to watch it through for the previous night at least, just in case the killer cased the joint. Here’s Camera D again, but twenty-four hours earlier.’
    They all watched as he entered 5.35 a.m. in the digital time counter: in the minute that followed Shaw imagined silent wings over starlit water, and then it was there, the marsh harrier, taking its identical three second bow, and then – one flap, two flaps, three flaps – sliding away on its effortless glide.
    ‘Same tape,’ said Birley, covering his eyes.
    ‘We both missed it, Mark. It was the night of the supermoon, and yet the marsh, and the pathway shown in Camera D, are all in darkness. The floodlight obscures it slightly, but you can see there’s no moon, nothing. Once you know what you’re looking for, it pretty much shouts at you.’
    ‘Obvious next question,’ said Valentine, knowing Birley was already after the answer, fingers tapping smartly on the keyboard, selecting from a folder a twenty-four-hour file for Camera D for a date a month earlier.
    The footage looked identical but they all waited dutifully for the minute to pass before the marsh harrier made its scheduled landing yet again.
    ‘So, not just for the night of the murder, or the night before, but every night. Mark, ideas?’ Shaw asked.
    ‘My guess is there’s an automatic programme which simply runs this one night’s footage, including the bird, over the actual film, or possibly, the camera’s blind and the footage just replaces a blank image.
    ‘I’ll check, but my guess is that it is just this one camera, not all six. Either way, it takes a degree of computer technical knowledge to set up the override. Question is did the killer set it up, or did he, or she, just know that camera was blind and take advantage?’
    Shaw chose a team of six to go back out to Marsh House with Valentine in charge; they needed to re-interview all night staff and find out who knew about the false camera. It suggested Bright’s killer may well have deliberately used the door under Camera D between eight and six.

    Shaw had one more job for Valentine. ‘George – stop off at Copon’s camper van en route. If he’s there rope him in, if the girlfriend’s there, try to get his passport. He’s worked in that nurses’ station for three years, there’s no way he didn’t know the camera was blind. And he’s a smoker. I think he’s just become our first prime suspect.’

THIRTEEN
    L ena was clearing one of the picnic tables outside Surf! when she spotted a man picking his way along the sands: grey suit, black shoes, a briefcase, wading through the dunes above the high-water mark, zigzagging a path between sunbathing bodies and