The Water Clock

wife, children, car, house, holiday, golf club. Dryden felt less sorry for him. For a 1950s immigrant he had done well for himself. Dryden could only imagine how hard that had been in a community which saw the world in two halves. The Fens were ‘home’ and the rest of the world was simply ‘away’.

What was clear, however, was that he didn’t feel sorry for Dryden. There was a carefully constructed edge of menace in Roberts’s performance so far.

‘What offences?’

A masterstroke. He saw Roberts struggling to find an answer that wasn’t self-incriminating.

He sighed again. He looked uncomfortable despite being firmly on home ground. ‘Look. I wasn’t at the Crossways. Sure I knew Tommy Shepherd. So did half the petty crooks in the county. So what?’

‘So… the police at the time thought you might have been harbouring him. I’ve seen the file. Yes, they thought you might have been at the Crossways – but you had an alibi. A good one. There was a lot of money taken. It’s never been found. They think Tommy committed suicide. I think he was pushed. Any ideas?’

It was Roberts’s turn to take a step closer. Dryden felt the inevitable urge to back off. He resisted it with a commendable effort not unassociated with an inability to move his legs.

‘Mr Dryden. Slander is a serious business. How can I put this? I have a choice – recourse to the law or my own devices. I use the second reluctantly, but expertly. Do I make myself clear?’

Dryden went for another question. ‘Where’d you get the money for this place?’ He took the opportunity to step back and look out at the showroom below.

Roberts composed himself by smoothing down his suit with exaggerated care. He stubbed out his Hamlet and took an overcoat from a brass peg. ‘I can’t help you any further, Mr Dryden. I have to be in church. Can I give you a lift home?’

‘Sure,’ said Dryden, with commendable bravado. It was a Rolls of course. Powder blue with the walnut finish. Registration plate: BOB 99. Nice touch that, thought Dryden. Very classy.

The doors locked with a soundless miniature thud. Roberts was doing 60 m.p.h. by the time they crossed the forecourt and swung out on to the by-pass. They sped south and then took the corner into Barham’s Farm with a screech of burning rubber. Parked in sight of PK 122 they sat in an uncomfortable silence. Just time for Dryden to realize he’d given Roberts no directions. How many people knew he lived on the boat? Twenty? Fewer?

Roberts slipped the locks and they sprang up. Dryden felt his nerve waver. He cursed his motto: There’s always one more question.

But Roberts got in first. Only it wasn’t a question. He sighed again, and his chin, briefly, sagged down on his chest: ‘It’s a Yale.’

Dryden knew he shouldn’t ask. ‘What is?’

‘The lock on the cabin door. Then there’s two bolts inside. But the coal chute’s only got one. No telephone. Gas cooker. Nice picture over the bunk bed. Pretty girl. Your wife?’

Roberts had been aboard PK 122. But why? And when? Dryden was pretty sure he wasn’t the man he’d chased to Stretham Engine the night before. But clearly Roberts saw Dryden as a threat, and was prepared to stop him investigating Tommy Shepherd’s death.

Dryden climbed out of the Rolls but leaned back in to invade Roberts’s personal space. A personal space about as attractive right now as an inner-city playground. He was close enough to smell the ash in his wrinkles.

‘Fuck you.’ First lesson with bullies. Never show them you’re afraid. Roberts didn’t move an eyelash.

Dryden walked to the boat without looking back. He heard the Rolls purr away a few minutes later. By that time he was in the loo with a large malt whisky. He had the mobile with him so he rang his voice box at work. There was a message to ring Andy Stubbs. Stubbs answered immediately. The connection was astonishingly clear. Dryden could hear a light wind blowing in the background and the call of crows.

‘Where are you?’

‘Cathedral roof – checking if anything else came out of his pockets on the way down.’

Dryden heard the sound of shoes slipping on lead. It added to a growing sense of sickness. His stomach was still churning with fear from the encounter with Roberts. He gulped some more Talisker.’I want something.’

He virtually heard Stubbs’s patience snap. ‘Look. You’ve got the exclusive on the link between Shepherd and the Lark victim – and much more. I want the story on the photofit to run. That’s it. Do we have a deal or not?’

‘No. I think I met our killer last night. He shot at me. And I think I know where the Lark victim died. All this is yours. What I need is a file.’

Dryden heard a long leaden slide and the hefty thud of a body meeting stonework.

Stubbs wheezed. ‘Great timing. What file?’

‘My wife Laura. The car accident. There’s a file – classified apparently. They won’t let me see it. Get it.’

There was a long silence in which decisions were being made.

Dryden rang off before he got an answer. Then he called the lumberjack-shirted idiot at Feltwell Marina. In the background he could hear the saliva-dribbling Alsatian tearing something apart. He was told what he knew, that until 1st April next year it was closed while engineering work was underway. Dryden said he wanted a temporary berth on the river bank for a week – downriver of the new bridge. The sluices had been opened and the river was clear of ice. He said he’d be docked by dusk the next day.

The Merlin engine fired first time, cracking the silence on the snow-clad fen. A wisp of oily black exhaust trailed from behind PK 122 as he nosed her towards the city wharf downstream. He tied up by the Cutter Inn and walked to the office to clear his head. The newsroom was Sunday teatime quiet. He checked his watch – Tommy’s cremation was at 3.30. He had time to knock out some copy for Monday’s early deadline for The Express.

Heartless vandals burnt two circus ponies to death in an attack at dead of night, Ely police revealed at the