The Skeleton Man

Humph left, kissing Laura and ignoring Dryden, gathering the dog into the Capri and swinging it out along the road to Barham’s Farm and the A10.

‘I wonder who she was,’ said Dryden to Laura as he stood on the riverbank watching the tail-lights dim. ‘The woman we found in the cellar.’

The swinging skeleton held the focus of his memory, and he was struggling to erase its image. He thought of the cellar now, as night fell, and the cruel hook driven into the beam to take the rope.

From the tape came the unmistakable mewl of a kitten, and distantly, the bark of a dog. Metal cage doors were shut and opened and there was the sound of a bucket on a stone floor.

‘My name’s Jennifer Smith and I work here at the boarding kennels in Jude’s Ferry.’ There was another pause for an edited-out question.

‘Yeah. There’s no problem having dogs and cats together. They have separate compounds and they never see each other. I like the cats best, yes…’ The sound of purring suddenly filled the soundtrack.

‘We’re full tonight – that’s nearly thirty cats and twenty-five dogs – plus two kittens in the house. It’s been here – the business – for nearly forty years, so I guess it’s the reputation that brings people. Mrs Verity, that’s the owner, she says it’s because we’re so far away from towns and noise and things.

‘I’m not clever enough to be a vet but Mrs Verity has a friend, Mrs Royle, who runs a cattery the other side of Peterborough – so I might go there. My brothers are leaving home, and Dad died last year – so Mum said she’d come too. There’s some money, from Dad’s insurance, so the twins might set up a business of their own, building like Dad, but they can’t make up their minds. Brothers, right?’

She laughed, covering something else that she wanted to hide. ‘It’s a new start, isn’t it, and I’m looking forward to the animals. It’ll be good, it will.’

The wind buffeted the microphone again and Dryden could hear the sound of a dog straining at a leash. ‘I love walkin’ them. That’s Ely cathedral over there, do you see? That’s twenty-two miles – and you don’t see it that often. And that’s the power station at Flag Fen – that’s just eighteen. There’s nothing else, just space I guess, and sky.’

Seagulls calling swelled before fading out as the tape moved on to its final talking head. Dryden’s fire crackled, dying down to the last orange embers.

The sound of a tractor clattered close, then died. ‘My name is George Tudor and I work on Home Farm here in the village, or out in the flower fields.’ The voice was light and young, heard against the backdrop of the seagulls which had trailed the plough. ‘They say we’ll be back here in a year but that’s too long for me, too long for a lot of us. I can’t live on their promises. I know they need the village and we shouldn’t fight it. So I ain’t fighting it… I’m leaving. Western Australia – they need people out there on the land and I’ve got my exams. So I’ve filled out all the forms, and people have said the right things about me, that I work hard and that. Fred, the vicar, he’s put his name down for us. So we’re off. For good.’

A fighter plane suddenly exploded over their heads, low, screaming east to west.

As the engines faded they listened for the tape again, and the faint sound of a lid being popped off a lunchbox. ‘I won’t miss it, no,’ he said. ‘It’s a hard place to make a living, Jude’s Ferry, and it’s a lonely place too, despite the people. Sometimes, because of the people.’

The tape hissed to an end and in the silence an owl flew through the light of the fire.

The first thing I remember about myself is being amongst the reeds. They crowded round, like witnesses, where I lay.

I knew nothing at that moment. I had no name, I had no loves. I just was. Of the life I remember it is the happiest moment.

I didn’t panic. I had been here before in another life, in those few seconds after waking when identity eludes us. Where was I? Who was I? I could wait for the answers. They would float up amongst the reeds.

Then the rain fell and I knew I was in the river; the drops splashing around me, my back resting on the mud, my legs, buoyant, in the side stream. And time marked out by the thudding mechanical drum of boat engines going past, the wash rocking me gently.

And still I didn’t know my name.