She lifted the crease of the perfectly laundered tracksuit bottoms.
‘There were panic attacks, crises of anxiety which just swept over him for no apparent reason. We’d find he was gone, and we’d search the camp – which was embarrassing in season – and then they’d find him, usually in the dunes, as far away from the crowds as he could get. It wasn’t just the people – it was the unpredictability, the not knowing if he’d have to meet someone new.
‘Anyway. We carried on, hoping it would get better. He still enjoyed the pool work – I think that was because he was in control, and he was with the children. And he was very good at some things – in fact he’d got better at some things. He had an amazing recall for names, which is a real plus in this work. And we put him in charge of the beach huts because it was mainly paperwork, and he was meticulous, really. But I didn’t know what to do… he was still very afraid of the world.’
‘He doesn’t want to leave prison,’ said Dryden, sensing at last some real emotion. ‘Why try to get him out?’
‘I’ve said. There’s a difference between innocence and freedom. I’d like to see the record straight – and so would he.’
‘Mrs Connor, if your husband didn’t kill Paul Gedney, who did? You must have thought about that.’
Outside they heard a coach returning, the babble of corporate voices heading towards them. She shuffled the glasses and collected the mats. Then she stopped and looked Dryden in the eyes. ‘If you’d met Paul, I don’t think you would have asked that question, Mr Dryden.’ She’d raised her voice, and Dryden detected the edge of suppressed anger beneath. ‘He collected enemies for a hobby, he had a level of natural arrogance which most people found repellent, and he’d do anything to get what he wanted. It’s a volatile cocktail,’ she said, draining her glass.
‘He’d fallen in with some dangerous people. It’s obvious that he ended up hiding in the marshes, in the
Dryden stood too. One more question. ‘I understand the Dolphin paid most of the cost of having the children from St Vincent’s for the holiday. Kids like Joe Petulengo and Declan McIlroy. That was very generous.’
‘Yes. It was. Anything else?’
‘Chips wrote this…’ said Dryden.
He put the piece of paper on the table, spreading it out.
I DIDN’T KNOW.
‘Didn’t know what, do you think?’
She shook her head, but she didn’t move. Dryden watched the estate agents heading in for nightcaps. ‘What do you think Chips would think if he walked through that door right now?’ asked Dryden.
It was a random question, but Dryden could see it had hit home. She couldn’t stop herself looking across the dance floor. ‘I think he’d be angry, angry that he’d lost thirty years of his life, and I think this room would remind him of that. Angry, Mr Dryden, very, very angry.’
31
He held Laura’s head to his chest and, propped up on the pillows in bed beside her, looked out to sea. The moon was high now and the sea an unruffled field of silver. On the beach towards Lighthouse Cottage a figure Dryden couldn’t recognize stood, pitching stones. The dune grass where Humph’s cab was parked up was dark except for a hint of the Capri’s vanity light amongst the reeds. Dryden felt his wife’s breath on his neck, and, leaning back, allowed her head to drop to his shoulder, her lips to edge closer to his skin.
‘What do I know?’ he asked.
The ritual pause.
‘I know that Ruth Connor is one tough customer. But then it’s been a tough life. She marries golden boy Chips Connor, the rippling lifeguard, and within two years he’s suffered an accident which has left him with brain damage – not enough damage, to be cynical, to consign him to a hospital or a home, but enough to turn him into an emotional iceberg. There she is, the blushing bride, with a life ahead spent with a selfish child.’
Dryden looked at Laura, her head turned from his, the COMPASS switch held lightly, and realized it was too late to change the subject.
‘But murder? It’s bizarre – to pick off Paul Gedney as a victim just to get Chips out of her life. There were so many better ways. Divorce, desertion, subterfuge. She’d given him half the business by then, but even in the best of health Chips wasn’t a mover and shaker. She was still in control, she didn’t have to do anything stupid.’
Dryden shook his head. ‘It’s much more likely Paul Gedney was killed by someone from his past, someone involved in his sordid little racket, stealing drugs from the hospital dispensary. I need to know more about Gedney if I’m going to find out who killed him. The hospital’s at Whittlesea – it’s a run – but I’ve got Humph. I’d be away a few hours, no more.’
A seagull, ghostly white, fluttered against the window, confused by the reflection.
‘All that presumes Gedney is dead, of course, but the forensic evidence was, is, overwhelming – he’d lost enough blood to satisfy a Halal butcher and even Chips Connor’s defence lawyers in the trial didn’t try to argue that no murder had been committed.
‘And the night he fled to the Dolphin he told both Chips and Ruth Connor someone was after him – and the someone he had in mind didn’t wear a blue uniform. I think whoever it was caught up with him – tracked him down to that boat in the marshes and beat him to death. Perhaps he ran, and they caught him on the beach. Who knows?’
Dryden threw his head back in frustration. ‘More to the point, how the hell do I find out? I’m thirty years too late and I’m running out of time.’
He knelt beside Laura’s chair and rested his head on her knee. ‘Perhaps I’m worried about the wrong crime. Smith and Dex didn’t die thirty years ago – ten days ago they were both alive. Did Paul Gedney’s murderer kill
