The Skeleton Man

By the time he’d reached the Capri the call was over. It was the same man, unable to disguise the voice or the triumph within it, once he heard that Henry Peyton didn’t want a fight, that he’d shut down Sealodes Farm and retire quietly with the fortune he’d already made. Then the suspicions had kicked in: had Dryden called the police? Had Peyton? One blue uniform, he said, and they’d dump the bones in a ditch and Peyton would never see the dogs again. And then they’d be back: they’d be back every day of every week of every month of every year until his business was ruined and his life was a living nightmare. Dryden imagined the face on the other end of the line, a glove over the mouthpiece, spit in the wool.

They fixed a point to pick up the bones and the dogs. Thieves Bridge, Ten Mile Bank, at dusk – 9.45pm that evening. He was to come alone, leave the cab in the village, and walk out to the river. Dryden didn’t have time to say no. He rang DI Shaw with the details and the detective outlined his plans. He’d put a team on the river in a boat, and a helicopter would be ready on the ground at Downham ten miles to the north, where they had a helipad for the holiday traffic snarl-ups on the A10. Shaw and the team would maintain a cordon half a mile from the bridge. They were a professional unit, he said, and no one would spot them. He promised it would be all right; in the way that people always do when they think it might not.

Dryden cut the call and tried a big smile. ‘Shit,’ he said, feeling his guts tighten. ‘Tonight, Ten Mile Bank,’ he said to Humph. He covered his face with his hands and wished he wasn’t such a coward as to always agree to anything that proved he wasn’t. Now he had hours to contemplate his fear before his appointment with the balaclavas.

‘Where’s Laura?’ said Humph.

‘She’s got to work out. We do the coast another day – the Reverend Lake’s not going anywhere fast.’

Humph, sensing an unhealthy silence, took control. He swung the cab out onto the old A10 and headed north. ‘I’ve got someone you should meet,’ he said by way of explanation.

At Southery they pulled off the road and into the village. The high street was blocked by two tractors, travelling in opposite directions, which had stopped to allow the drivers to enjoy a chat. Humph deftly mounted the pavement, crossed a grass verge, and left them to it.

Clear of the last house they burst out onto a wide fen flattened by a vast sky. This was Methwold Severals, a tract of peat distinguished by nothing but a single sugar beet factory, a plume of smoke from its giant modern chimney trailing across the late afternoon sky. They zigzagged towards it using a maze of drove roads, navigating by sight, leaving in their wake the abandoned farmsteads which had given way to the big commercial farming companies which dominated the whole of the Black Fen.

They inched closer, impeded by a series of right-angle bends, until they came to the factory gates. This was a modern industrial site, a 1960s beet plant, as removed from the small-scale operation in Jude’s Ferry as Stephenson’s Rocket is from an Inter-City 125. Four towering silos blocked the view north towards the sea, each linked to its partners by an overground complex of pipes, cables and conveyor belts. Steam leaked from various valves and Dryden could feel the hum of the machinery vibrating through the cab once Humph had parked up by the entrance.

The factory had replaced an older one on the same site, the only remnant of which was a pair of two-up, two-down brick cottages to one side of the new plate-glass reception and security building. Across the façade of both was a neon sign which read TAXIS.

Humph adjusted his headphones and flicked on his language tape. ‘This is it. You did ask – the Cobley family? Used to run the cab firm in Jude’s Ferry. This is them.’ He closed his eyes, job done.

Dryden got out and considered the inappropriate extravagance of the neon, which flickered slightly, emitting a trembling buzz. One door was bricked up, the other was half glass, reinforced with wire, and had been slammed shut a million times by people who didn’t care. Inside was a waiting room, with three armchairs of tattered leather and a wall map of the Black Fen.

Behind the glass sat a woman smoking a cigarette, her flesh piled on itself to produce a torso the shape of a Walnut Whip. Beside her was an old TV showing a video of Shrek 2. Shelves held the black cartridges of hundreds of others.

‘Mrs Cobley?’ asked Dryden, inadvertently drawing in a lungful of smoke.

‘If you want a car it’s a wait. The shift’s just finished and we’re ferrying the regulars home.’

Dryden nodded: ‘Sure. How many work here now?’ The sugar works was the biggest employer within thirty miles.