The Skeleton Man

Dryden took out his wallet, making sure McNally could see the chequebook. ‘It’s odd though,’ he said, letting his pencil hover over a scrap of paper he’d got out of the wallet. ‘She’s got such a great memory Miriam – and that’s certainly not fading. She was sure she came here in ’90. That’s the year Uncle Bernard died.’

McNally nodded as if he knew who the fictional Bernard really was, while he flicked nervously through the box file.

‘Yes. Well it does look like she was meant to be with us then. According to the file she was booked in for that year, and she was examined by the medical staff here and assessed for her needs. But there was a late change of plans. The contract was cancelled in May 1990. Looks like she went abroad with her son – Kenneth. Spain – Sitges on the Costa Dorada. They reapplied from there, that was in ’92, and we undertook a fresh medical examination on her arrival. Her condition had deteriorated further. Stomach ulcers, and some early signs of diabetes setting in, alongside the chronic heart condition.’

He nodded, closing the file.

Dryden looked out of the window. ‘We stopped getting Christmas cards in – what was it? Late nineties?’

McNally held his eyes for just a second beyond the point of politeness. ‘Ninety-seven. She died here, in fact – I recall her now actually. Wonderful woman, terrible illness, but bravely borne.’

Dryden guessed he’d been sussed but went through the charade of fixing up a visit. Miriam would have been proud of him. McNally left him in the office while some forms were printed out off the computer in a side room.

He was looking out the window watching Humph complete his daily exercise by walking round the Capri when he saw a woman reflected in the glass. Dryden thought she was in her seventies, small sparrow-like frame, but her movements were quick and fluid. She edged in through the door clutching her hands together and Dryden guessed she’d been listening outside.

He turned to face her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Rosa, the nurse – said someone had called asking about Ellen. It’s nearly ten years, isn’t it? I just can’t believe the time has gone so quickly. I miss her terribly. We were in cahoots, Mr Dryden: partners. I’m Joyce, Joyce Cummings.’

Dryden took the paper-dry hand. ‘Cahoots about what?’ he asked, smiling, but she didn’t seem to hear. ‘My aunt was an old friend of Ellen’s. They’d lost touch. She’s hoping to come here too – Ellen recommended it.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, the hand vanishing back into the folds of her dress. ‘I’d very much doubt that. Ellen hated it here, every moment, so I can’t imagine where you got that idea. We both hated it but, well, you know, we were dumped here so that was that. It’s like the old joke – the food’s dreadful here, but the real problem is that you get such small portions.’

She laughed, her eyes dancing around the room, and Dryden tried not to think what it took to keep a sense of humour alive for a decade in a place like the Esplanade. He could hear the printer still clattering in the back office. ‘Did you meet Kenneth too – her son?’ asked Dryden

‘He more or less ran the pub, didn’t he?’ Dryden nodded. ‘Never. She didn’t want to see him. She always said that he’d let her down very badly. That he’d promised she’d never come to a place like this, that she’d never leave her home, that she could die in her own bed. But people break promises when you’re old – that’s something you’ll discover for yourself.’

McNally came back in the room with a plastic folder, his irritation at the intrusion palpable.

Joyce Cummings put a finger to her lips, smiled beautifully at the doctor and fled.

30

By the time they got to the edge of the Fens night had fallen and a full moon was climbing into the sky behind the distant cathedral tower. They stopped for tea at a mobile café in a lay-by. Humph swung his door open to take in the night air, but Dryden sat on a plastic chair set up on the verge, watching the car lights strung out across the landscape. The tea was acrid and stewed, the taste further marred by the stringent smell of exhaust gas in the air.

He thought about St Swithun’s, its tower silhouetted against the setting sun that last night. In the New Ferry Inn the free beer was flowing, while in the nave of the church Kathryn Neate struggled with her grief. And George Tudor, leaving home in St Swithun’s Cottages below the allotments, climbing the hill to take his place beside the child’s grave. He was Kathryn’s cousin after all, nobody could have disputed his right to be at Jude’s funeral. But why had he not been there at the start? Why the theatrical entry, the pointed solidarity?