The priest in charge of St Vincent’s during the time when it is alleged most of the abuse took place has not been officially named, and has declined to make any comment.
‘The lawyer’s chucked a lot of the good stuff,’ said Dryden, rolling his cursor down through the 600-word story. Garry booed ritualistically. ‘And ditched the priest’s name.’
Charlie tugged at the collar of his blue shirt and Dryden guessed he’d cut it – rather than the lawyers – just to make sure the story was doubly safe.
Dryden filed the story back into the production basket, failing to suppress a surge of indignation on behalf of the victims of St Vincent’s. His own Catholic education had been largely benign, but there had been enough random violence and institutionalized cruelty to allow him some level of empathy with the abused.
He refilled his coffee, recycling the 1 euro coin which could be extracted from the rear of the vending machine, and then bashed out the rest of the splash, taking in 200 words from the Press Association on the weather, including reports of freak snowflakes due to the exceptional cold but dry conditions. A meteorologist was quoted as predicting that the world record – a flake fifteen inches by eight inches which fell in Montana in 1887 – was unlikely to be beaten.
Then Dryden rewrote Garry’s story on the cannabis supplier so that it made sense. Garry, pathetically grateful, offered to buy him a drink at The Fenman bar opposite now that the press-day lunchtime had officially arrived: it was 11.30am.
But Dryden was still haunted by the claustrophobic Declan McIlroy. He shared with him that oppressive fear of the locked door, and was still intrigued by the scent of freshly imbibed whisky. What kind of man has a final drink and then washes up? And whose was the other glass, stashed carefully back in the sideboard?
‘A walk first,’ said Dryden, standing. ‘Come on,’ he added to Garry. They headed for the door, both of them showing their mobile phones to Charlie. ‘Any questions, we’re news gathering.’ The news editor smiled, dreaming of his first pint.
5
The long shadow of High Park Flats fell just short of the allotments Dryden had seen from Declan McIlroy’s front room: the vast penumbra lay instead across wasteland, the centrepiece of which was the rusted chassis of an abandoned car – the make unrecognizable now – blotched with fire marks around the wheel arches and empty windows. Two boys in peaked US-style caps threw stones at the metal-work from a pitcher’s mound made of a pile of discarded wooden pallets. Schoolchildren, bored by the holiday and ejected from the warmth of the flats, had lit a fire in an oil drum and were poking it with sticks. A smaller child, just toddling, its skin chilled red under skimpy clothing, played with a plastic playroom oven.
Dryden and Garry crossed quickly into the weak sunlight beyond. Here a picket fence had once marked the boundary of the allotments and remnants of the whitewashed wood remained, interspersed with planks and flotsam, and a vicious spiral of razor wire.
‘What we looking for?’ said Garry, fingering his spots.
‘Let’s see if we can find someone. Anyone,’ said Dryden, ignoring the question and looking for signs of life. A scarecrow decorated with a child’s beach windmills caught his eye – a few sails turning in a sudden breeze – but otherwise the landscape was still.
Dryden crashed a foot down on the earth, managing only to dislodge a few crumbs of the hard-frozen soil.
‘Jeez,’ said Garry, looking out over the broken-down bean poles, the clumps of iced pampas grass and the dotted huts and sheds.
They walked down a central path. Most plots were empty now, the heavy clay of the Isle of Ely dusted white while a few carrot tops and gone-to-seed vegetables stood out – burnt black by days of sub-zero temperatures. The only colour came from the random plastic water butts.
In the far corner of the allotments there was a narrow gap in a hedge, beyond which a lazy line of smoke rose into the sky like a twisted gut. They stood at the opening, looking in, but hesitating to break a spell which seemed to hang over the spot. The plots beyond were better kept, with neat, rubbish-free drills, the wide enclave surrounded by a high hedge. Two poles had been erected at either side of the entrance and from a rope hung between them a row of dead crows dangled, together with a fox and a desiccated cat.
‘Guess they couldn’t afford a welcome mat,’ said Dryden.
A shed at the centre of the field was larger than the rest and boasted a stove pipe, from which the smoke was churning, occasional black mixed with orange-tinged white. The windows of the hut were misted, but inside Dryden could see figures moving.
‘Carrot City,’ said Dryden, as Garry fumbled for a cigarette in the pockets of his oversized leather coat.
Then Dryden saw the dog. It was chained to a ring slipped through a spike in the ground. It was a regulation Dobermann, with regulation retractable lips. Dryden, a physical coward of considerable range, took a step backwards. Dogs – other than Boudicca – were just one of the things he was afraid of. But they were one of the things he was afraid of most.
The guard dog hadn’t barked, always – in Dryden’s experience – a very bad sign. It stood, waiting to see if the intruders would persevere. Dryden tried to gauge the length of the chain, drawing a virtual circle across the allotment’s shanty-town geography.
He edged forward, aware that his most terrifying nightmare was to be seen as a coward, and that dogs can smell fear. The Dobermann was up and running in a terrifyingly short second. Dryden, rooted, felt his guts heave and his pulse rate hit 120 before the hound was six feet away, where the chain snapped rigid and wrenched at the dog’s throat, tumbling it back in a heap. It rose, dazed, and exposed rosy pink gums and a set of textbook canines.
‘Back and sit.’ It was a woman’s voice, resonant but not masculine. The dog folded itself down, sphinx-like, and rested its chin on its giant paws.
She was standing outside the hut with what looked to Dryden’s tutored eye like a pint of beer – even from fifty yards. Garry pushed him in the back and they edged past the dog, Dryden’s eyes fixed firmly on the stove-pipe smoke in the sky.
They passed two ‘PRIVATE – MEMBERS ONLY’ signs en route to the shed and an auxiliary notice which read:
