The Skeleton Man

‘Wait,’ said Dryden before Humph could contrive an early exit. He went below to the forward cabin where he had stored his records from nearly twenty years in journalism. All reporters are told to keep their notebooks in case of legal action, a piece of advice widely honoured in the breach. A barely legible scribble is unlikely to be of great use a decade after it was first written, so Dryden usually dumped them after a year. The cabin was a chaotic archive of cuttings, pictures he’d printed up from his more illustrious stories, books, a few microtapes from celebr ity or political interviews, and a case of video-taped TV programmes he’d amassed at the News when he’d been the stand-in critic. The walls boasted two framed awards for reporting – one in his specialist area of crime, another for feature writing when he was starting out in newspapers after university. And there was a picture from his first evening newspaper of a young reporter accepting an award. The intervening years had taken their toll but there was no mistaking the shock of black hair cut short, the narrow gangly frame and the handsome but immobile face.

Outside he could still hear the Capri’s sound system and the murmur of Humph’s voice – no doubt re-enacting for Laura her husband’s comic appearance in combat uniform. He heard laughter and was thrilled to hear his wife’s once familiar giggle.

He sat in his captain’s chair and tried to remember where he had last seen the tape he was looking for. There were two ideas wrapped up in the concept of ‘filing system’ and both were strangers to Dryden’s innate sense of informality. He’d always told himself that if he couldn’t remember something there was probably a good reason, and that every forgotten fact made way for a memorable one. There was absolutely no chance he still had his notebooks from July 1990 when he’d covered the evacuation of Jude’s Ferry. He doubted he even had the cutting from the resulting feature he’d written on the village’s last day. But over the years he was sure he’d bundled together stuff which had appeared in the media on the village – keeping a watching brief in case the story reignited.

He knelt down and shifted a pile of books, revealing a little avalanche of paper which had slewed across the deck. He pushed a hand in amongst the notebooks and foxed cuttings. It took a minute of sustained gleaning before his fingers closed on the tape cassette.

‘The Village that Died for Us,’ he read. The front showed a telephoto shot of St Swithun’s seen across the mere from the east, the beet factory chimney in the background.

Humph was pouring Laura wine when Dryden reappeared with the tape and a portable cassette player. He waited for the commentary to begin before adjusting the volume so they could all hear. The evening was quiet now except for the flutter of marine engines on the main river as an armada of pleasure boats slid past heading south for moorings and a pub dinner.

The tape was a history in voices recorded in the summer of 1990 by the local history unit at Cambridge University and released commercially a year after the evacuation. The title was taken from a quote from the then minister of defence who had defended the decision to evacuate the village as vital to national security and the proper training of a modern army. Dryden had bought the tape on a whim and then stashed it, unheard, with other memorabilia.

‘This was 1990, in the run-up to the evacuation,’ he said, adding more wood to the fire. The sky was still blue despite a misty sunset, but studded now with emerging stars. A vast flock of birds rose from the reserve at Wicken, beyond the river, and wheeled over them, caught against the backdrop of the moon.

The sound of wind filled the air, buffeting a microphone, and then came the church bells.

‘My name is Fred Lake, and I guess I may be the last vicar of St Swithun’s here at Jude’s Ferry.’

‘I met this guy,’ said Dryden. ‘He was OK. First parish I think, and a bit lost, but he tried to hold it together.’

The sound of bells swelled, then faded, to be replaced by the crunch of footsteps on gravel. Reverend Lake walked round his church accompanied by the sound of swifts flying from the eaves, then came the sound of a key turning in an ancient, oiled, lock.

‘We’ve got loads to do before the final service on St Swithun’s Day,’ he said, the words echoing slightly in the stone interior, and Dryden noted the voice was unstuffy, laced with the remnants of a South African accent. He imagined the wide skies of the High Veldt and wondered if Lake had felt at home on Whittlesea Mere.