‘Ah, well. A different question. There are some things I must not discuss. But history is history.’
He put his fingertips together and closed his eyes, shutting Dryden out. ‘So. Paul found a foster home in 1967 at Whittlesea. A woman known to the diocese – Gedney was the family name – she’d taken several children and in fact took Paul’s older half-brother a few years before she took Paul, which is something St Vincent’s always encouraged, of course.’
Dryden nodded, wishing he’d taken a notebook.
‘Anyway, he did very well with the family – at school and so on, given his background and the inevitable emotional problems. In fact he did much better than the older brother. That didn’t last – he came back to us before moving on, although the brothers were in touch. But Paul was adopted, finally. He was an intelligent child, highly intelligent in many ways.’
‘I’m sorry – how do you know… this is all before your time here, isn’t it?’
‘Files. We have files. I had anticipated some interest. And I got to know him much later – after he’d begun his training, actually, to become a nurse.’ He stopped eating, and Dryden sensed he was enjoying the exposition.
‘And very laudable that was. I should have said that it was a peculiarity of his character that this coldness was allied to a sincere – I believe – a sincere wish to protect his adopted family, and indeed to help others generally. He was intensely close to his adopted mother, and the other children. One of his mother’s great interests was in helping make life easier for those pupils here not lucky enough to find a home. She was in constant touch with St Vincent’s – indeed, she was a governor for a short period – and she ran outings and suchlike – trips to the seaside, the zoo, the pantomime at Christmas, that kind of thing. Remarkable, really, considering their straitened circumstances and her worsening health.’
Father Martin sipped the milk, which left a white slick across the glass like medicine.
‘At school – in Whittlesea – Paul met Ruth Henry, as she was then. They were all friends, Chips too. Paul’s foster mother asked Ruth if it was possible her father would set aside a few chalets in the summer for children from St Vincent’s at the Dolphin. She agreed to ask – her father was by then a very sick man I have to say. Anyway, he had taken great solace from the Church and was happy to agree, and so for a few years at least we were able to send children on a holiday, a rare opportunity for them in those days, believe me. We paid a vastly reduced rate – as I think I mentioned to you on the phone only yesterday – a few pounds to cover costs. The year Declan and Joe went was the sixth year – unhappily the last, as I also mentioned.
‘Usually I sent one of the priests too – but that year Declan’s sister, Marcie, was included with her foster parents as I’ve explained. Not the kind of arrangement we could get away with today, of course, but I think everyone’s motives were for the best.’
Father Martin, stopped, peeling back the sliced bread to examine the cheese within. They both watched as snow fell against the window.
‘I tried to revive the holidays a few years ago but Mrs Connor declined – insurance, apparently – and they did other good works which suited them best. A young-offenders scheme, I believe; such is progress.’
Dryden stood, the noise of the chair scraping on the lino echoing in the empty house. ‘You said Paul Gedney had a half-brother, Father. What was his name?’
Father Martin ran a fingertip along an eyebrow: ‘Paul’s family name was…’ he flicked through the file. ‘Ah, here, yes: Earnshaw. But he and his half-brother shared a mother, and as I say he was ultimately adopted by another family. I can dig it up if it’s helpful. Can I ring? I’ve got your number.’ He glanced at the desk and at a notebook with an alphabetical staircase opposite the spine. Beside it lay a green file, with the diocesan crest in gold on the front, tied with a red lawyer’s ribbon.
‘I don’t suppose I can see Paul’s file?’
Father Martin shook his head. ‘I don’t think that would be appropriate. There’s a picture, though.’ He pulled the bow free and slid out a passport-sized snap; Paul Gedney aged ten.
‘Those eyes,’ said Dryden.
‘Yes. A thyroid complaint, I’m afraid, which may well explain some of the behavioural problems. He was seen by doctors here, but there was little they could do. Painful, I think. A tortured life, Dryden, but there were many. I will pray for his soul.’
Dryden nodded. ‘You do that, Father. I’ve got twenty-four hours to find out who beat him to death.’
34
Back at the Dolphin Dryden craved sea air to clear his head. Lighthouse Cottage clung to the horizon on a narrow spit of wind-tossed dune grass. Dryden picked his way along the beach between the clumps of marram, retracing Ruth Connor’s brief journey of the night before. It was time, he’d decided, to find out more about the private life of William Nabbs. The path was well-worn, a sandy twisting alley between the overarching sea-thorn. On the beach the tide was piling shards of ice towards the high-water mark, a jumble of miniature icebergs stained with yellow seafoam.
The cottage itself had been partly buried over the decades by the creeping dunes which protected it from the sea, the garden encircled by a dry-stone wall, a barrier which had kept alive a solitary sheltered palm. Dryden clattered the gate and rapped the door. Satisfied Nabbs was out, he peered in through the double-glazed windows. The kitchen was high-tech and stylish, the appliances black, sleek and edged with chrome. To the seaward side there was a sitting room with a large window looking out over the sand and the surf. Before it was a Mastermind- style black leather chair with kick-out foot support. On one wall an eight-foot-square canvas of a wave breaking mirrored the reality beyond the glass. There was a flat-screen TV, a CD and DVD deck. Fitted bookshelves covered the walls, the volumes neat and precise. Dryden couldn’t be sure, but he’d guess they’d be in alphabetical order.
It looked like a bachelor pad, but there was something distinctly feminine about the sofa, covered with a silk throw, and on the coffee table two mugs sat, a copy of a celebrity magazine on the glass top.
On the seaward side a wooden garage stood low in the sand, the roof weighted down with rocks and pebbles from the beach. Through a small glass pane in the door Dryden glimpsed the dull white gleam of a surfboard, its skeg like a shark’s tooth. Further back a machine, covered with a tarpaulin. Black, with dull rust-dotted chrome, and the glazed emblem of a starburst on the petrol tank: a British motorbike, without number plates. He didn’t bother to try the door, which boasted two padlocks and a triple bolt.
