divert attention from the spider’s web of wrinkles by her eyes.
She nodded. ‘William’s out with the engineers, at the pylon. We’re going to take a break away; a few days, when the police are done.’
They both tried identical insincere smiles. The phone rang and she grabbed it, her relief palpable as she became immersed in taking down a booking. Dryden was more convinced than ever that she was hiding something, but other than her discreet relationship with William Nabbs he’d got no closer to finding out what it was.
Tyres crunched over snow outside as the Dolphin’s staff minibus edged up to the foyer. Russell Fleet dashed over the tarmac and in through the automatic doors. He swapped a glance with his boss, a nod with Dryden, and headed for the bar.
She finished the call and before Dryden could resume the questions she stood. ‘Excuse me. Russ phoned earlier – I need to get him up to speed – he’ll be running the place for a few days.’
Dryden sat down opposite the WPC, who continued to examine a spot in the mid-distance. Outside, the minibus idled, waiting for its return passengers to Whittlesea and the surrounding villages. Dryden considered his options: for a day at least the Dolphin would be crowded with police, a team working inside the taped-off scene of crime area by the beach, while a separate search was being carried out by frog teams and foot parties across the saltmarsh. DI Parlour, he knew, planned further interviews, and they’d swapped mobile numbers. And then there was DI Reade. But Dryden calculated that a fresh corpse outranked a thirty-year-old miscarriage of justice. The review of Chips Connor’s conviction would have to await the completion of the inquiry into his murder. Dryden’s role, as witness, victim, amateur detective and, for all he knew, suspect, would be central. He didn’t relish being around when DI Parlour discovered just how many details Dryden had left untold, or having to watch the tussle for power in the investigation.
And there was still one place he wanted to go: one central character in the tawdry tale of Paul Gedney who remained a cipher: Elizabeth Lutton, the pharmacist who had made his crime possible and then slipped away from the scandal of Whittlesea Hospital. She was a crucial link to the real story of Chips Connor. Her successor at the hospital had been circumspect. What Dryden desperately needed was a more immediate witness, someone who could tell him how she had felt, who else might have been entangled in their deception, how she’d lived out the rest of her short life. He logged on to one of the screens in the camp’s internet cafe and punched in her husband’s name. From the website of his private clinic at Lynn he took up a weblink to Whittlesea District Hospital’s outpatients clinic.
‘Bingo,’ he said, waking up the WPC. George Lutton’s NHS clinic ran every Tuesday and Thursday morning.
He took a decision then, and deserted the warm embrace of the Dolphin’s foyer. The minibus was fugged up, the onboard heater gently cooking the only occupant – the driver. Dryden tapped on the window. ‘Sorry, I know this is a bit cheeky – I need to get into Whittlesea – any chance?’
The driver was a middle-aged woman, big-boned with a moon face and a nylon uniform bearing the Dolphin’s blue motif. ‘Sure. At your own risk, mind – we saw three accidents on the way up, and I don’t normally drive this old tub. And these don’t help…’ The windscreen wipers had locked, and the glass was a web of cut-glass ice, like a Victorian fruit bowl.
She passed Dryden a can of de-icer and he sprayed the wipers free, before taking the front passenger seat.
‘Philip Dryden,’ he said, as she pulled out onto the coast road and then almost immediately turned south on the long road to Whittlesea. ‘So, if you don’t normally drive, what do you do?’
‘I’m Muriel,’ she said. ‘I run the cleaners, chambermaids.’ She let a silence lengthen that threatened to last the whole journey. ‘Muriel Coverack – it’s Cornish.’
On the dashboard was a bunch of keys attached to a key ring in the form of a small plastic photo frame: two children, teenage girls, leered into the camera, clutching each other.
Dryden tapped it. ‘Yours?’
‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Sister’s. But they come for the hols.’
Dryden nodded, sensing the presence of a lonely life.
She checked the rear-view again. ‘You’re the one with the wife – in the wheelchair. We don’t clean those chalets without a call first – perhaps tomorrow? We’ll be really quick.’
‘Sure. Thanks.’
Another silence in which Dryden imagined sympathy welling up. ‘So, what happened?’ she asked, embarrassed too. ‘There was something on the local radio – we all heard it on the way. Russ said it was Chips – that he’d been found on the beach. That right?’
‘Sure. I found him, actually – someone broke his neck.’ He nodded inappropriately, realizing that the image of Chips’ contorted hand, reaching out from the water, had haunted him since he’d woken that morning. He still felt cold from the night, and began to shiver violently.
Muriel turned up the heating. ‘There’s a rug on the seat behind – use it. You seen a doctor? It might be shock.’
Dryden put the blanket round his shoulders and told her as much as he could, spinning out the story so that he could try and win something back in return. They drove south across the Fens, the thirty miles to Whittlesea like a trek across the Great Plains.
‘Odd place, the Dolphin,’ he said eventually, as they edged over a crossroads where the traffic lights were out. ‘Decent job though?’
She nodded. ‘Might all be over soon.’
Dryden turned in his seat. ‘Why’s that?’
‘They’re gonna sell it, aren’t they? Russ says no when we ask. But last year they had the agents in, and last week they was back. They had guests over Christmas, too – showed them round. They’ll do it this time.’
Dryden nodded, remembering something odd. ‘Russell always catch the bus in, does he? No car?’
She shrugged. ‘Jean drives – I’ve never seen Russ behind the wheel. We pick him up at Sea’s End every morning – six thirty. Hasn’t missed a day in twenty years.’
