The Skeleton Man

He paused for a few seconds, wondering if there was any danger, aware that he’d made himself come this far to prove to himself, yet again, that he wasn’t a coward after all. He waited, listening, for ten minutes to make sure he’d got there first, then unlatched the door and slipped inside. There was a single bench up against a long observation hatch, its wooden shutter raised on the inside and suspended from hooks. Hanging from a string was a laminated pamphlet illustrating the birds commonly sighted from Poacher’s Hide, as well as butterflies, moths, and insects. Dryden scratched himself uneasily and sat, acutely aware for the first time that there was only one door to the hide.

Outside the rain had intensified so that the dripping of water from the trees provided a soundtrack. A bird, dull and brown, alighted on the windowsill and looked at Dryden with one eye. Something large and covered in fur plopped into the water and left a trail like a speedboat through the weeds.

He smiled at the bird. ‘Sod off,’ he said, searching in his pocket for some wine gums he’d left there a week earlier.

The footsteps, when they came, were confident and multiple. Two people at least, perhaps more. He heard one set of feet circling the hide at his back while another approached the door. For the first time he thought of the hide as a trap, and fumbled with his mobile, trying to key in a text message for Humph to get help.

But too late. A man came in, keeping his eyes on the floor, and closed the door carefully behind him. He was thin, below average height, the face strangely oval and plump, like a child’s. A face Dryden would never forget, but at that moment one he’d never seen before. The lips too, full in the middle, were pursed in a cupid’s bow, out of place in the rough middle-aged stubble of the chin. Dryden didn’t know who he was, but he knew who he wasn’t. He wasn’t Matthew Smith.

The man smiled just once, but Dryden knew then he had to get out.

‘Questions, I know,’ the man said, holding up his hands.

He walked forward confidently and took the mobile from Dryden’s hands. Outside they heard a match strike, an inward breath, the smoke expelled.

‘I thought you might respond to our text. How clever of me. But that’s journalists, I find: ever hopeful, even trusting. It’s rather uplifting in its way, and everyone seems to think it’s a cynical profession.’

Dryden considered the open hatch and what would happen if he jumped through.

‘How can I help?’ he said, surprised by how emotionless his voice was.

The man laughed. ‘My name’s Roland,’ he said. ‘Well, it’s one of my names and will have to do for our purposes. How can you help me? Well, interesting question, Mr Dryden. Do I have a problem? Yes. I do. At this moment in time a plain-clothes police team is mounting a round-the-clock surveillance operation on my home, and my business, in Coventry. They are, I’m told, under the impression I am some kind of mastermind of crime. Ridiculous, but there it is. I apparently coordinate horrific attacks on innocent people engaged in the breeding and torture of animals.’

‘And that’s not true?’ said Dryden, his jangling nerves making him dizzy.

‘Well, I didn’t say that. No. Oh no. My real problem is that the police – last night actually – arrested a colleague of ours. I use the term loosely; he was a member of our organization, something we now regret. They are threatening to charge him in connection with a series of incidents involving Sealodes Farm. This man will betray me. Because if he does not then he will go to jail, and that’s something he fears very much. And he will go to jail because he was stupid enough not to wear a balaclava on Thieves Bridge.’

Dryden couldn’t stop himself reacting.

‘Indeed. And it will be your evidence of identification which will be crucial. And I’ve no doubt you will give it, Mr Dryden – after all, you’ve betrayed us once already. I need to persuade you to decline to give that evidence.’

The gun, when he took it out, was at first a comfort to Dryden. It was made of a dull smudged metal like pewter and he knew it wasn’t designed to fire bullets. There was a large aperture in the side of the barrel for loading something, but something that wasn’t lethal.

‘So you’re the man they’re after?’ said Dryden, only just succeeding in stilling the vibrato in his voice.

‘Indeed.’ The bird on the sill began to sing and the man stepped forward, genuinely captivated.

‘Meadow pipit,’ he said. ‘What a gift to hear it call.’

‘What’s going to happen?’ said Dryden, aware that the question betrayed his fear.