The Coldest Blood

before dropping out of sight, down towards the old sluice.

He ran, the moon lighting the bone-white sandy path.

The tide was ebbing within the maze of channels in the marsh. Canopies of ice hung over the inlets and pools the seawater had fled. Dryden made his way along one of the fingers of stiff sand until he emerged opposite a wide expanse of open water where the main river emptied into a wide, sluggish pool. He crouched down by the water’s edge and saw across the mirror-like surface the wreck of the Curlew. The moon caught the gentle curve of the hull, and beside it the sleek black inflated outline of an inshore dinghy, a powerful outboard motor at the rear, silent for now.

Across the water he heard Ruth Connor’s voice, as clear and close as if she had whispered in his ear.

‘It’s all there.’ He saw her now, standing on the rotting deck, Russell Fleet beside her, between them the holdall. ‘I thought you’d come to get it all,’ she said.

Fleet knelt, looking inside the bags. ‘Is he dead?’

She shook her head in silence. He held out his hand and she put something in it: the gun perhaps. ‘Dryden knows,’ she said. ‘He knows about the blood.’

Fleet checked the horizon, zipping up a sailing jacket. ‘He was always close: and he was there, with the others. Even if he didn’t see, he’s always known it was the truth. But there’s no choice now.’

‘You said it was perfect, that nobody would get hurt.’ Her voice was louder, a challenge. ‘But you killed them.’

‘Ruth.’ He took a step towards her and she stepped back quickly, the sound of rotting wood creaking under her foot. ‘You didn’t complain when you got what you wanted – when they took Chips away. You didn’t say no that morning in the sand dunes. I was the one who got the butchered face. What did you have to do? Remind me, Ruth. And when the witnesses came forward I did what needed to be done – you didn’t have to know.’

She folded her arms, and even by moonlight Dryden could see the chin jut out. ‘But when it was all over – when they were dead – you told me then, didn’t you, Russ – told me the details, just to share the guilt. Pouring water over the first one after you’d broken his legs, opening the windows and leaving the other to die after you’d laced his drinks with pills. But you didn’t have to do any of it. You could have left, melted away.’

He stepped down into the dinghy. ‘Yes. I could have gone, Ruth, when the witnesses came forward. Left you two alone. The lovebirds. But then I’d have had to leave the kids as well – my kids, Ruth, my family.

‘Because that’s where your guilt lies Ruth, or part of it. Telling me that you’d not had children because of Chips. That Chips couldn’t. But we found out the truth, didn’t we? You couldn’t give me a family so I found someone who could.

‘And then there was the business,’ he said, kicking the holdall. ‘Why the fuck should I let two wrecked lives stand in my way? I deserved my share. Just because I don’t have the pieces of paper doesn’t mean I don’t deserve my cut. We’d always been agreed on that, Ruth. I paid in blood. I can’t take the family with me, but I can take the money.’

She had a hand to her face and Dryden guessed she was crying, letting his words wound her.

His head was still down, counting in the holdall. ‘How did you make Chips agree to the sale?’

‘I told him it was what I wanted,’ she said, defeated now.

Fleet nodded, standing.

‘Did he have to die too?’ she asked. ‘He came to see me, he wanted to see me. I could have talked. It wasn’t about being sent away, it wasn’t about what happened to him, it was the kids. He told me when I phoned the prison. He wanted to know why we’d done that to them, Russ.’

‘It wasn’t a crime, Ruth.’

Dryden let his fingers bunch in fists, knowing that it was.

‘A bunch of kids. Jesus,’ Fleet said, lighting a cigarette, cupping it so that the flame illuminated the cradle of his fingers. ‘He wanted to see you all right. I found him at the back of the flat, under the fire escape, waiting for you to come home. It would have been a long wait, wouldn’t it? Telling darling William all about it, were you?’

‘He knows now,’ she said.

‘Oh, now– I see. But not till now – a mistake, I think. You didn’t trust him, did you, Ruth? Didn’t trust him with our secrets. It must have been a surprise for him, finding out I wasn’t a partner after all. He’ll remember that. It’s corrosive, distrust; it’ll get you both in the end.’

He unlooped a rope and pushed the dinghy clear. ‘And we were right. It’s been thirty years, but despite what every one of those years has done to my face Chips knew me – knew within seconds. So I said we should talk. We walked here while I explained that we thought it was what he wanted – to go away, to get away from the world. That nobody got hurt that way. We walked here and I took a chance – he was a strong man, Ruth, always was. But I crooked my arm around under his chin and I broke his neck. It echoed, the snap, across the water.’

She stood back then, climbing up onto the bank. ‘Go,’ she said.

Fleet threw a rope into the dinghy. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna become someone else – I’ve done it before. Perhaps I’ll come back one day, for old times’ sake.’ He picked up the starter line for the engine. ‘You’ll know the face.’

47

Russell Fleet pulled the starter cord on the outboard engine in a fluid, practised arc, and a harsh mechanical whine filled the night. He left without looking back, guiding the dinghy out into the main channel, skirting the clumps of reeds which crowded the banks, while the sky flickered still with the arcing electric sparks from the overhead wires.

Somewhere, lost now, Dryden could hear Ruth Connor running, the rigid frozen reeds snapping, her breath rasping. He ran too, trying to keep in touch with her sound, and they emerged together, above the old sluice, on the high dune above the chalets.