August was smoothing down his uniform in Mickey’s bar mirror.
‘The child who survived was examined by the base medic on duty that night, a different one had delivered the child at the US clinic. By the time of the crash the original doctor was Stateside, his tour over. The Koskinski child had been cared for twenty-four hours a day by his mother, they lived in married quarters on the base. Jim, the father, had returned for the birth from Vietnam.’
August downed a fourth drink, but Dryden wasn’t counting. ‘There was a problem they should’ve checked out,’ said August. ‘But hey, the grandparents had been told, they wanted the kid, the rush was understandable.’
‘What kind of problem?’ said Dryden, aware he was slurring his words.
‘Blood. They gave the kid a transfusion because of a slight head injury. He’d lost some blood. Luckily they double-checked the type. It didn’t match the records. They put it down to an error. Sounds incredible now, but remember, Dryden, this woman had given her own son away. Nobody could have imagined she was lying. The base medics took him that night and as far as I can see she never saw him again until this summer. Never looked back. All the Koskinskis had seen was a few shots taken after the birth – and we all know what newborn kids look like, right? Walnuts. What was anyone supposed to think? Perhaps they didn’t want to think. And don’t forget, Maggie Beck went on to identify the kid in the mortuary as her son. Who’s gonna step forward and ask: “You sure about that, lady?” ’
‘What about the autopsy?’
‘Not our jurisdiction. Local coroner. It’ll be in the records. But apart from weight and vital statistics they had nothing else to go on. She identified him, for Christ’s sake.’
August sipped the bourbon, realizing that he’d reached that point where the rest of the day was going to be spent in a fog of alcohol. ‘Any idea why she did it?’
Dryden burped into his glass. ‘Nope. She left some tapes – recordings she’d made setting out her life story. Perhaps the reason is in there.’ He burped again. ‘What do you know about Koskinski? What happened to him in the desert?’
August gave him a sidelong look and pushed the empty glass across again. ‘Let’s sit down.’
They took a booth.
‘He came down in Iraq. Engine failure. Captured and taken in for interrogation. He was held in Al Rasheid – the Baghdad Hilton. I don’t need to paint pictures, I’m sure, but every expense was spared. So when they did fly him out it was felt, understandably, that we owed him some R&R, and not least some time to recuperate. He’s under medical treatment as well – base hospital unit are dealing with that. Enough?’
Dryden nodded but remembered his golden rule: there’s always one more question.
‘And he’s back on the base?’
‘He has a room. We don’t keep tabs. As I said, we owe him. He has accumulated leave and the medics wouldn’t let him back anyway. The base commander has requested an interview, as have the local police. Clearly there’s the issue of the paternity – which affects nationality. I can’t imagine it’s an insuperable problem. But who knows? Bureaucracy can kill. He needs the passport checked – that kind of thing. There’s the issue of the crime that Maggie committed. But there seems little to gain from anyone taking that any further.’
‘Grandparents been in touch?’
August flipped the coaster on the table top and siphoned up an inch of whiskey. ‘They’re anxious to talk to him. I’ve taken a call. It’s clear they don’t know about Maggie’s confession. They’ve been informed of her death.’
Dryden tried again. ‘Medical treatment, you said. Anything specific?’ August stood, indicating that it was time to change bars.
‘Claustrophobia,’ he said, and gave Dryden a genuinely happy smile. Six bourbons, thought Dryden, that’s all it takes.
26
Dryden walked to the Capri with the light steps of someone propelled by alcohol. Humph was holding his mobile, which had a text message from Inspector Andy Newman. It read simply: ‘Sardine’. Dryden told Humph to head north to the coast to West Lynn, Gifford’s Haulage Yard. The raid had been on the cards for weeks and Newman had promised Dryden the story once the police decided to go in. Code name Operation Sardine. But Dryden’s expectations were low, he’d been on similar outings which had produced a string of dull down-page stories. The idea was to catch the people smugglers with their cargo on board, but so far all they’d found had been empty containers and parked-up cabs. But now, at least, Dryden’s interest in this illicit trade had quickened. The pillbox on Black Bank Fen was at the centre of the operation, and Jimmy Kabazo was waiting for a consignment to be dropped with his son on board. And then there was the porn. Bob Sutton had discovered that the import/export of the pictures was running parallel with the people smuggling. And Bob Sutton was still out there.
They drove north in companionable silence. Humph was still sulking after the attack on his beloved cab. He’d put masking tape on the seats and the fluffy dice had been re-attached to the rear-view mirror. The cabbie had acquired a tape of Greek balalaika music from Ely Market and he played it now, aware that it would drive Dryden to despair.
Gifford’s lorry park was the size of six football pitches; acres of bleak concrete, enlivened by nearly two hundred HGV containers. A modern-day maze. A Saharan heat haze was already rising from the baking metal boxes and the smell of blistering paint was like a heady drug on the air. Dryden mistook a heavy sense of foreboding for the beginnings of a hangover.
The northern perimeter fence of Gifford’s ran beside the beach. The sea was the only thing moving in the landscape, sucking at a bank of baked mud. The coast appeared a featureless foreshore on the estuary of the Ouse, except for the plastic cartilage skull of a conger eel which stuck up like a pagan symbol from the beach and was collecting early morning flies.
Dryden, pressing his face against the diamond-weave electric fence, picked up an electric charge which made his watch run backwards for a week. Humph, sitting in the cab, was beginning a Greek conversation with Eleni. The great Romantic, thought Dryden, trapped in a 1974 Ford Capri with soiled swinging dice and surrounded by the corrosive aroma of old socks.
‘Claustrophobia,’ said Dryden out loud to nobody, kicking the wire fencing. That’s local journalism for you, he thought, unbearable excitement in exotic locations. He felt tired and drained. The black eye throbbed and made him
