The Skeleton Man

With the dawn came the question: what should Dryden do next? He lay beside Laura in the silver light, feeling her warmth and the still thrilling movement of her fingers, stretching and gripping under the influence of a dream. He put his hand on her neck below the ear and stroked her hair, trying to soothe the anxiety which made an eyelid vibrate.

The luminous face of his watch read 5.13am. Would Ken Woodruffe be setting out soon to find DI Shaw? Dryden would give him until mid-morning before ringing the detective to check. The publican wouldn’t tell the whole truth but enough of it to identify both victims: the skeleton of Peter Tholy in the cellar of the New Ferry Inn and Kathryn Neate’s bones in the Peyton grave at St Swithun’s.

Dryden rubbed a knuckle into his eye socket. Shaw’s job would be to prove that Tholy died at the hands of the lynch mob and to find some suspects whose mutually supportive alibis didn’t put them in the bar of the New Ferry Inn while the murder was taking place in the cellar. Dryden guessed that Ken Woodruffe’s late-night calls had been to secure that ring of alibis, to provide the common song sheet from which they could all sing.

At least DI Shaw had his forensics – the DNA traces could be enough to put Ken Woodruffe in the cellar and digging the grave, although not necessarily when Tholy died, while the single helix coil of fibreglass was, Dryden guessed, a possible link to Walter Neate’s garage. But the intervening years had almost certainly destroyed any chance of making a match with the original workshop. The gravel from Orchard House was an even more tenuous link to Jason Imber. Anyone could have trudged up the drive and got the stones in the tread of their shoe – anyone, including the village postman. Even with the link it was circumstantial evidence at best, and any decent lawyer would undermine its significance in front of a jury.

Without a break, or a witness outside the tight circle of village life, Shaw might never get his case to court. Unless, of course, Jason Imber’s memory returned, and he was prepared to tell the truth, risking retribution.

Dryden gently eased himself over to his left side so that he could see out of the porthole. A white mist threaded its way past the glass, the only things visible the ferns and grass of the bank and the edge of the old wooden landing stage. He could feel the world pressing in, creating pressure in the boat like that in an aircraft cabin. The silence was profound, and he searched it until he located the reassuring hum of the generator below the deck. Then, on the edge of hearing, tyres screeched, and his heartbeat picked up as a car rumbled over the cattle grid up by Barham’s Farm, prompting a rhythmic guttural bark from the guard dog.

He dropped a naked foot to the cool boards of the deck and dressed quickly. By the time he had unpopped the tarpaulin cover to the cockpit Humph’s Capri was trundling to a halt, emerging from the mist like a ghost ship.

The interior was hot from the heater and laced with petrol fumes and the heady aroma of two fried-egg sandwiches. ‘Sorry,’ said Humph, as Dryden noticed the dog had been promoted to the passenger seat. ‘Couldn’t sleep – I went to the truck stop and the radio says there’s been a fire at that garage – the Stopover, Duckett’s Cross. Early hours – 4.00am. Sounds nasty, but they got someone out.’

Which meant they didn’t get everyone out.

Dryden went back on board and whispered into Laura’s ear that he’d send Humph at 9.00am to run her to the unit. Then he grabbed a coat and the office digital camera and they split the mist, the Capri wafting the white threads up and over the bonnet to trail like ribbons from the rear bumper.

By the time they reached the cathedral they were navigating through a fog, with a hint of the dark phlegm of carbon monoxide, but as they drove north the air cleared and they could see the watery blue of the river and reflected on its ruffled surface a first sight of the pale disc of the sun.

A mile short of the Stopover they joined a snaking line of commuter traffic headed for Peterborough, and Dryden noted that nothing was coming the other way. A hundred yards further on a police car was parked up across both carriageways, nose to tail with a Fire Brigade control car. There was a junction here and a yellow diversion board sent traffic off across Farcet Fen – a ten-mile loop down single-carriageway droves. Dryden got Humph to swing off the road and park up in the entrance to a field, then strolled forward, trying to rearrange his sheaf of dark hair.

He knew both the uniformed PC by the squad car, a special constable he’d interviewed when covering an anti-graffiti project on Ely’s Jubilee Estate, and the fireman – an Assistant Divisional Officer from Cambridge who talked to the press on issues to do with safety each year ahead of Bonfire Night.

‘Dryden,’ said the fireman.