The Water Clock

pump.

Perhaps it was the drugs that Peter had slipped into the whisky. He hadn’t seen him do it of course. But he knew just too late what was happening. The world stood back and Peter’s voice came to him like the shouts of his sons across the water-meadows.

He tried to stand then but his legs buckled and his mouth, tortured by the drugs, had grappled with the words he wanted to shout, like a nightmare’s call for help. He’d become resigned then, not by his immobility, but by the thought he looked undignified, pathetic, a loser. That he couldn’t live with any more.

And it had started so well, Just another Wednesday. October 31st. But then the note from‘T’ had promised so much. He’d got to Stretham Engine early. It was empty, waiting, the soundtrack still to be applied. He’d not been since the last time, the time they’d given it all to Tommy. All to‘T’.

The note had specified the cellar, but even then he had caught the disappointing scent of betrayal. So he’d climbed to the pulley loft above the great engine. Looking down he’d waited for‘T’, half expecting him to be an eighteen-year-old still. Would youth have been disfigured? A gentle man, he’d hoped not, for Tommy’s sake.

He’d recognized Peter immediately. He’d seen him many times since of course. They’d nodded, then not bothered, then crossed the road to avoid the memory.

Reg had called down into the great space –‘Peter.’ He knew his real name now but it made them laugh amongst the echoes. Then he’d called him up the giddy twisted stairs to the pulley loft.

Peter began the story even before they’d touched hands. ‘T’ wasn’t coming back, but he’d sent some money for all of them. All of them except Billy. He’d gone as well, they were together in the States. In business. Grocery. Reg lapped it up, nodding stupidly, feeling life turn another darkened corner.

What did the money matter now? So late. But they’d drunk to the money anyway. Gulped to fortune.

‘How much?’ he asked, the single electric light bulb reflected in the amber whisky, a pale imprisoned moon in the glass.

And in the theatrical silence Peter provided his own echo: ‘How much…? Fifty… each. Fifty thousand.’

Even if it was true it was too late. Reg’s life had been ruined for the lack of it. Getting it now would be an ugly joke. So he’d drunk some more and took the seat Peter offered him. Then he closed his eyes for a second – or a lifetime. Almost the same thing now.

He opened them at the click of the safety catch. In the dusted mirror the workmen had used he saw Peter, behind him, with the gun.

Then it was over at last. He was dead before his forehead crashed against the wooden floor.

Wednesday, 7th November

20

Humph’s mobile bleeped to answerphone mode: ‘Magical Mystery Tour begins 10 a.m. The Ship Inn mooring – bring a bacon sarnie.’ Dryden slid his mobile into his rucksack and made coffee in the stern of PK 122. The sun was already high over Brandon Creek. Frost melted and dripped from the heads of the reeds. He had slept well and late, confident that whoever was tracking him would take time to find his new berth. He had decided to avoid Kathy’s flat. He’d phoned the district hospital that morning to check her condition. The cracked skull was causing discomfort but they hoped her vision would clear soon. Until then she was confined to bed.

There was still snow on the roof of the Capri when Humph pulled up. He’d slept in a lay-by half a mile down the main road after dropping Dryden off the night before. He was minus the bacon sarnies.

The sky overhead had filled with cloud, replacing the pin-sharp sunlight. A wind was blowing from the north and on it was the scent of the sea. The snow had lost its sharp crunch. There was colour in the landscape again, and, faintly now, the first tricklings of water.

‘Where first?’ Humph played his foot on what he laughingly referred to as the accelerator. His angelic face beamed.

‘The Crossways,’ said Dryden. ‘And brunch.’

They pulled off the A10 about fifteen miles north of Ely at the sign of the Happy Eater. The restaurant itself was a new building in plate glass and corporate colours. Beside it was a nine-pump garage with three lanes under a wide white canopy.

Dryden thought the old buildings had been demolished until he left Humph to find the loo. He followed the arrows to the rear and there it was: a model of 1960s modernity with CROSSWAYS picked out in angular script in the concrete cornice. Below was the builders’ date: 1965.

And behind it was the bungalow in which the Wards had lived. Dryden guessed it had never been used after the robbery. The wood of the window frames and the door jambs had rotted away. The concrete floors were cracked and a large giant hogweed grew from the corner of what must have been the sitting-room. Most empty homes leave an emotion hanging in the air, the result of long happy childhoods or even longer bickering marriages. But here Dryden sensed only the shock that ended their lives, or at least ended the life they had. It was a house that still remembered that single moment when a shotgun blast had interrupted the World Cup Final.

Dryden stood and listened for the shot. He retraced George Ward’s steps to the front door and out under the short covered walkway towards the back door of the old garage. The door hung from one hinge and dripped fungus. He stepped through into a short corridor which led to the back of the counter. Here George would have seen his wife on the floor; the cordite still in the air, the vivid splash of blood across the concrete, the disfigured face and the ringing echo of the shot circling the room for escape.

To Dryden’s right was the door of what must have been the strongroom. The plaster had fallen from the walls with the years and he could see that it had been built with double-thick brick walls and the door jamb was steel. The door itself had gone, probably stripped along with anything else of value. Perhaps it too had been steel. Inside the six foot by eight foot box the wooden shelves still stood, each covered in the vestiges of green felt baize. George Ward’s silver cups had lined the room. A thousand pounds’ worth according to the original police file. A tiny, purpose-built strongroom for a small fortune.

Dryden imagined Billy Shepherd out on the forecourt on that hot July day in 1966. Sleek, black-oiled hair, US