The Skeleton Man

‘Perhaps it’s the phantom duck killer back again,’ said Dryden, enjoying the sudden burst of action. A boy racer in a souped-up Corsa had been spotted mowing down a line of chicks crossing the road that spring, leading to a local outcry, and to Dryden’s eternal disappointment the only upward blip in The Crow’s circulation in a decade. The council was being urged to install a special crossing for ducks between the riverside and the cathedral park, although Dryden doubted they’d be able to reach the buttons.

The Capri hit sixty as Humph swerved past the cathedral’s Galilee porch and then down Back Hill towards the river. The morning’s persistent rain ran in a stream in the gutters. As Humph produced the required screech of tyres, taking the corner by the bottom of Back Hill, Dryden read the one-paragraph police statement:

The human remains removed by the police pathologist from Jude’s Ferry are under examination. Detectives from King’s Lynn are interviewing several former villagers and are confident that an identification can be made soon. In the meantime members of the public who may have information useful to the inquiry should ring freephone 0700 800 600. All calls will be kept in strictest confidence.

‘Well, that tells us less than we know,’ said Dryden, balling the paper up in his fist. ‘This better be something good or we’ll be leading the front page with the price of potatoes in the market.’ Humph brought the Capri to a halt outside the Maltings, the fluffy dice hanging from his rear-view mirror gyrating wildly.

‘We can presume that’s PC 155,’ said Dryden, jumping out and grabbing Boudicca’s lead. He didn’t like dogs, and he didn’t like people who liked dogs, but since Humph’s inadvertent adoption of the greyhound he had discovered that people were much more likely to talk to a man with a dog.

The policeman’s uniform set him apart from a gaggle of fishermen in regulation waterproofs. He was trying to keep the small crowd back, repeating his call for assistance by radio. Kit was strewn along the towpath; keep nets, rods, buckets, stools, picnic boxes, tackle boxes, bait boxes, night lights and lanterns; the paraphernalia of the true fishing fanatic.

‘What’s up?’ Dryden asked one of the fishermen, a teenager with hooks stuck in his canvas hat.

At that moment a siren blurted into action as a police squad car pulled up beside Humph’s cab. The crowd drew back and Dryden took his chance, pushing his way through until he found himself looking down at a large cylindrical net, laid flat and turned out to reveal the catch.

Dryden saw a zander gasping for air, the teeth slightly coloured with cold blood, some riverweed, and two small eels entwined together. Beside the net an open box of maggots heaved with life.

‘Oh God,’ said one of the PCs who’d just arrived and joined him at the front.

There was something else in the net, something very dead: the top of two human fingers, as white as pork fat, the stumps clean and showing the sliced bone beneath.

9

The Crow’s offices reverberated to the sound of computer keys being struck. Below, through the open bay window, umbrellas jostled. A bus reversed, grinding gears, while two shops along a parrot screeched from the covered cage hung outside a barber’s shop. The aroma of freshly ground coffee slipped into the room like a burglar.

Charlie Bracken, the paper’s news editor, sat behind a desk by the window exhibiting several signs of alcohol depriv ation. A splodge of sweat marred his unironed blue shirt and his eyes occasionally flitted towards the window and the comforting sight of The Fenman bar opposite.

‘You all right for time?’ he asked Dryden, wasting more of it.

‘Sure. I’m nearly there. I need to make a couple of last calls.’

Charlie nodded, running copy up and down his PC screen without reading a word.

Dryden considered the intro for the last time, knowing it was the front-page splash for the Express. The paper’s circulation was limited to Ely and the villages of the isle, and was a step downmarket of The Crow’s county readership. The Jude’s Ferry story would go at the foot of the tabloid front, with another story inside on the wayward bombardment of the village, with Dryden’s pictures from Whittlesea Mere.

Dryden sipped coffee and tried to concentrate.

By Philip Dryden

Two severed human fingers were found in a fisherman’s net on Ely’s riverside this morning (Tuesday).

A police diving team arrived at the scene within minutes of the grisly discovery to search upstream.

‘Clearly there’s a possibility we are dealing with a fatal accident here. We’re assuming the injuries were caused by a propeller. We need to find the victim quickly,’ said Sgt John Porter, of the county underwater search and rescue unit.

Local postman Andrew Paddock was fishing upstream of the railway bridge when he felt something on the line.