The single word was on the printout of Laura’s portable COMPASS machine. The nurse had checked on her and moved her to a lounger by the window, adjusting the head supports so that she could see out across the sands. The tide was rising quickly, leaving a thin-stretched world of sand and grass beneath a stormy sky, black clouds torn apart by a high-altitude jetstream. A container ship lay ten miles off shore, white water breaking at the bow. Visibility in the icy air was astonishing and Dryden half expected to see a distant iceberg to the north, drifting in the cold light.
He used the hoist to get Laura out of the lounger and back into the wheelchair, doing it twice before he’d worked out how to position the thermal suit so that he could zip her in once she was seated.
Finished, he touched the sweat under his hairline, realizing once again the physical effort needed to take care of Laura’s basic everyday needs. He made some tea in the kitchenette and filled a flask, sending Humph a text message at the same time. Then he rang the Home Office press desk in Whitehall to get the numbers for HMP Wash Camp – a category-D open male prison. Visiting time was daily between 5pm and 8pm, and he called in an old Whitehall favour to bypass the written application normally required to see a prisoner. With less than two days before DI Reade and his team arrived at the Dolphin, Dryden couldn’t afford to wait.
Outside the wind had picked up at sea, whipping the spray off the crests of white horses as they ran into shore. ‘Where shall we go?’ he asked Laura, but the COMPASS was disconnected.
A gust made the picture window flex, turning a whirlwind of dry snow in the lee of the chalet.
‘OK. Brace yourself.’ He pushed her out onto the ramp and down to the hard sand of the beach below the high-water mark. The sand was slightly crisp underfoot where the seawater was freezing. He left a footprint and watched a thin film of ice form across the flooded mark.
They went east towards the mouth of the river and then over the bridge in the tracks of William Nabbs. Dryden paused at the top to get his breath and looked out to sea: the container ship had slipped across the horizon and was now nosing in towards an invisible coastline to the far west, but another had taken its place.
On the far side of the river the coast swung north-east in a long, shallow arc towards the lighthouse a mile away. In the mid-distance Dryden could see the Capri, parked up in the marram grass, with Humph leaning on the bonnet in his giant insulated Ipswich Town tracksuit. Boudicca skittered around him in wide, ecstatic circles.
Humph tiptoed over the sand, leaving footprints a foot deep. ‘Hi,’ he said to Laura, in a voice Dryden hadn’t heard before.
‘Shit,’ said Dryden. ‘I’m sorry – you’ve not met.’ He’d known Humph five years but he’d never taken the cabbie inside The Tower. ‘Laura – this is Humph.’
The cabbie tried a wave, then plunged the hand deep inside a pocket.
‘Humph, this is Laura,’ he said, completing the introductions. ‘And she’s as bloody cold as I am.’
Humph trained a pair of military binoculars on the chalets by the beachfront.
‘Clear?’ asked Dryden.
The cabbie nodded, his tiny mouth forming a perfect bow. ‘No problem.’
‘Thanks again,’ he said.
‘’S OK,’ said Humph, turning abruptly to scan the horizon. ‘It’s a holiday, really.’
‘You OK to sleep in the cab? It must be bloody freezing.’
Humph nodded: ‘I keep the heater going – long as I don’t run out of petrol I’m fine. Dog’s hot.’
Dryden suppressed an image of them cuddled up together under the tartan rug.
‘There’s this,’ said Humph, producing a rolled-up newspaper from his pocket. It was Saturday’s
TRAGIC DEATHS END APPEAL HOPES FOR JAILED HOLIDAY CAMP KILLER By Alf Walker for the Press Association
The family of convicted murderer ‘Chips’ Connor has abandoned a campaign to have his case heard by the Court of Appeal following the sudden deaths of two vital new witnesses in the 30-year-old case.
Connor, a seaside children’s entertainer and lifeguard at the Dolphin holiday camp at Sea’s End, was jailed in 1975 for the brutal murder of Paul Gedney.
Ruth Connor, manager of the Dolphin Holiday Spa, said recently that she was certain her husband would be freed once the new evidence had been heard.
Today she was too upset to talk about the case but a statement issued by George Holme, the family solicitor, confirmed that the file had been withdrawn and no leave to appeal would now be sought.
‘It is a tragedy that Chips Connor is now likely to see out the rest of his life in custody because of the unrelated deaths of these two witnesses.’
He said that the police had been notified in both cases, but that there were not thought to be suspicious circumstances in either of them.
The names of the two men are not being released to the press.
Mr Holme said that while both men had made statements outlining their evidence the advice of legal experts was that this would not prove sufficient for the Court of Appeal.
‘All evidence in such cases must be open to cross-examination,’ said Mr Holme. ‘Clearly in this case that will now not be possible. We have reluctantly withdrawn our action.
‘Strenuous efforts have been made to contact another potential witness without success,’ he added. ‘We will always be ready to take up Chips Connor’s case, but for now the family would ask to be left in peace.’
The two witnesses, believed to be from the Ely area, came forward after the
