them? Or is someone else desperate to keep Chips Connor in jail?’
Dryden watched the sea crease as a wave came in from the north, and he stretched out, sensing Laura had slipped into sleep.
The day had multiplied the questions, but provided few answers. He knew more, but understood less. So there was only one thing left to do. Slipping from under the duvet he dressed quickly and grabbed his overcoat and mobile, edging out the door to the verandah. The air was totally still, but cold enough to instantly freeze the hair on his hands as he fumbled with the phone. Looking down he could see that the receding tide was freezing on the sands, ridges of ice forming in waves.
He rang directory inquiries and got George Holme’s office number. He waited a full minute when he got through until the answer phone clicked in: ‘This is the office of G. W. Holme & Sons, solicitors. Our office hours are 9.00am to 5.15pm Monday to Friday. If your call is urgent, please leave a message.’
‘Hi. This is a message for George Holme. My name’s Dryden, from The Crow. It’s the Chips Connor case. I wanted to let you know that I can help. There were four witnesses that night the children found Paul Gedney in the Curlew. Joe Petulengo, Declan McIlroy, Marcie Sley, and a boy called Philip. They never saw Philip again, and there were no records left to trace him when the appeal got under way. Joe and Declan are dead, Marcie can never be a credible witness. But I know where you can find Philip. I’m at the Dolphin now – but you can ring me on this mobile: 07965 4545445. Goodbye.’ He checked in his notebook and found the office number for JSK, the company founded by Joe Petulengo. He left a similar message for John and Marcie Sley. ‘If you’re back, and feeling up to it, I’d really like to talk again.’
Then he buttoned the trench coat up to his neck and looked eastwards to the lighthouse. The single figure on the beach was no longer alone. A couple stood, their arms locked, watching the falling tide.
The Dolphin Holiday Camp
Saturday, 31 August 1974
With the light of dawn Philip slept, to be woken by a voice opposite. ‘Just get dressed quickly, boys.’ Philip looked at his Timex: 7.35am. He crept to the window. On the stoop stood Grace Elliot’s husband, his back to the open door, with one of the Blue Coats and a security guard. They said nothing, avoiding each other’s eyes.
The Blue Coat stayed behind. He had one of the poolside swimming poles and he sank to his knees and worked it under the wooden chalet, in the sandy shadows, pulling something out of the cool dark space: a canvas bag, knotted with the blue rope the fishermen used. He should have taken it away then, Philip had sensed that, but instead he’d tugged the neck loose and pulled out a box. He could see it was of dark wood, polished, with a brass plate where a key had once gone. The Blue Coat had opened it and Philip could still hear the tiny, metallic tune: ‘Greensleeves’.
They were missing at breakfast. An empty table by the window where the family had always sat. He ate quickly with his uncle and aunt and returned to the chalet. His aunt said she’d pack and he could have half an hour: a last half hour, but that he couldn’t go on the beach because of his shoes, his jelly-moulds already swapped for school brogues.
He’d run then, down towards the sluice, hoping they’d be there. He wanted to know what the man had found, and why he’d found it, and what they’d seen the night before and if they’d been seen, but most of all he wanted to say goodbye. He’d rehearsed this last morning many times: an only child struggling with the manners of friendship. Would they come again next year? Would it be the same two weeks? In a schizophrenic, oddly adult way he knew that it would probably never happen, that hoped-for repeat of the summer, but he was young enough to crave, desperately, the possibility that it might. Fuel enough for a year of dreams.
But the marshes were empty. He ran to the poolside, deserted on changeover day despite the sunshine. In the distant car park families were loading up, cases being strapped to roof racks. By reception the first newcomer had arrived, a small child in shorts running ahead of a man with two suitcases. Just inside the doors there was an amusement arcade, they’d come here once with Smith, bringing coins they’d found on the beach. Philip slipped in and stood alone on the plush blue carpet, the machines winking silently, unplayed.
He heard Smith’s voice first, oddly muted. ‘Don’t push.’
Philip stepped between the machines and stood behind a cabinet where a mechanical crane fished for prizes. Through the glass he saw the children outside in a single line led by Grace Elliot: Sis, Dex and Smith, with one of the camp’s security guards, a different one this time, at the back. Philip padded behind, aware that the rigid formation was part of some wider punishment. They’d been seen the night before, recognized. But had the man who’d seen them seen him? There’d been no early knock at his chalet. But what had the children said? Had they betrayed him now?
Philip inched out into the sunshine of the car park, skirting a line of cars, mostly black and already humming with heat. The three children stood by a Morris Minor Traveller. Grace Elliot talked with the security guard, shaking his hand, crying, her face red and wet. Inside the car her husband sat at the wheel, a map spread out concertina-style.
Philip edged closer, seeing them through the windows of a VW camper. He caught Sis’s eye, but she shook her head: just once, but he could see the plea, the urgency of the signal to keep away. Dex clung to her, Smith stood apart, his shoulders rigid with the fear he was hiding.
Then, released by a command he did not hear, the children bundled into the back seat of the car. Windows down, they joined a queue at the gates. Dryden watched them go, willing them to acknowledge he was there, afraid they would. But their heads never turned, not once, to look back at the sea, or to look back at him.
32
Monday, 9 January
The facade of Whittlesea District Hospital boasted a brace of Palladian pillars and a portico complete with a carved heraldic shield. But if the front hinted at grand ambitions the rear shouted poverty. Steam gushed from a vent, rising up the blackened brickwork and melting the snow in the guttering above. A skip marked ‘clinical waste’ tumbled soiled paper onto the tarmac and a gang of seagulls launched sporadic raids on a tumbled rubbish bin. By a pair of plastic swing doors a male medical orderly sat swaddled in a shell suit smoking a cigarette like an addict. The insistent hum of extractor fans provided a constant soundtrack to complement the crackle of the radio from
