Seven names, a few quick phone calls and, with luck, he could have an ID for the victim. But it was hardly ever that easy, and Dryden suspected that this time would be no exception.
The police had said the estimation of age could be stretched, either way, due to the state of the remains. He checked the file again and found one other to add to the list.
George Tudor, 8 St Swithun’s Cottages, Church Street
His age was listed as thirty-six.
So, a list of eight potential victims, as long as they were all of average height – and he couldn’t tell that until he tracked them down. He jotted down the names and addresses. Four of the names he recognized immediately. On the tape they’d listened to on the riverbank they’d heard Jan Cobley talking about the taxi business she ran with her husband. So Paul was presumably the reluctant son who didn’t fancy taking the business on to a new village. And George Tudor was on the tape too – talking about his prepar ations to emigrate to Western Australia with the help of a testimonial from the vicar, Fred Lake. And there were the Smiths; The Crescent was a small council estate on the edge of the village to the north. The brothers’ ages were both given as twenty-three. There’d been a Jennifer Smith on the tape and she’d mentioned that her brothers were thinking of setting up a new building business after the evacuation, so they should be easy to trace. And there was Ken Woodruffe, of the New Ferry Inn. If he was the young man Dryden had seen on the doorstep of the pub that last morning then there seemed every chance he was not the victim, and if he’d stayed in the pub trade he should be easy to find as well.
Was the Skeleton Man one of those on his list? It was only an assumption, but there seemed little point in considering the other option – that the victim was an outsider. If he was then they might never know his name. And it was a well-founded assumption, for if the Skeleton Man was a victim of murder then surely his death would have been best timed to coincide with the evacuation of the village – the perfect moment in which to remove someone from the daily pattern of village life, when family and friends were on the brink of a diaspora – thrown out to new jobs, new homes and new futures. No doubt DI Shaw would be thorough, but Dryden needed to concentrate on the eight. It was the only way he could get results.
And if it was suicide? Well, then it made sense again to look amongst the likely candidates in the final census. The moment of leaving would have been an emotional one. Perhaps the pain of going had pushed the Skeleton Man towards his own death. The newspapers found at the scene made it likely that he had met his death in the final days of the village. There was only one other scenario – that the death in the cellar had come during the long years the village had lain deserted, an option Dryden suspected the pathologist would soon largely discount.
So he needed to track down the eight quickly. He had good leads on four, but the others were unknown to him. So he turned to the third set of documents DI Shaw had left on the table with the two census books. This was a large ledger listing claims for expenses from residents, and compensation for loss of earnings. Dryden leafed through them, each one given a separate page.
It took just ten minutes to reach the form for Neate’s Garage – the listed address of James Neate, one of his eight potential victims. Dryden remembered the building, set back from the road in from the south, a foursquare Victorian villa with a single pump on the roadside and a wooden lean-to workshop at the side. Walter R. Neate, proprietor of the business and listed as a widower, had claimed ?2,600 in lost earnings and removal costs of ?800, plus personal costs of ?200 for himself, son and daughter. The new business address was listed as the Stopover Garage, Duckett’s Cross. The claims were backed up with an envelope of bills, estim ates and a Xeroxed copy of the previous year’s accounts. Dryden noted that both claims had been met in full and guessed that in the glare of publicity surrounding the evacuation the MoD had erred on the side of generosity in their dealings with the residents of Jude’s Ferry.
He worked through the entries diligently until he reached the New Ferry Inn. Ellen Mabel Woodruffe was listed as licensee and she had claimed ?1,200 in lost earnings and removal expenses for stock and household goods of ?600, and personal costs for both herself and her son Ken, who was described as the manager. There was no mention of a wife, children, or other dependants. Again there was an envelope of documents to back up the claims, including a letter from the Royal Esplanade nursing home, Lowestoft, accepting Ellen Woodruffe and giving the expected date of arrival as 15 July 1990 – the date of the evacuation of Jude’s Ferry. Fittings from the pub – including tables, chairs and kitchen equipment – were also shipped by the army. The address given for removal was the Five Miles from Anywhere, a pub on the river near Ely.
He tracked down claims for the other names on the list. George Tudor and Peter Tholy both entered similar amounts for loss of earnings as general farm labourers. Neither gave a forwarding address or made any attempt to get compensation – except a joint request for ?360 for storage of household goods and furniture. Lastly, Dryden found Jason Imber, listed as the sole occupant of Orchard House. His profession was not listed. Removal costs to an address on the edge of Ely were given as ?1,300, and there was no claim for compensation. Imber was not a common name, so perhaps he might be found quickly too.
There was a special entry for the old sugar beet factory which had closed in 1988. On site there was still a watchman – Trevor Anthony Armstrong – with the address given as The Lodge. He, his wife June and their son Martyn were shown as residents in those last few weeks, but their forwarding address was marked ‘unknown’. For the first time Dryden understood that, for many residents, holding out to the final day at Jude’s Ferry had not been a choice: people like Trevor Armstrong didn’t have anywhere else to go. Removal costs were a paltry ?58, the address for shipping the TA barracks in Ely – no doubt a temporary measure to keep families like the Armstrongs off the streets.
Back with the list a name caught Dryden’s eye. On the edge of the village a nursery had been included, the business description being retail cut flowers. Lost earnings were a hefty ?14,000 – due to lost sales from flowers which would be ready for market in the late summer. Personal removal costs were given as ?360. The company was called Blooms and business removal costs were ?3,500, the new address given as Ten Acre House, near Diss in Norfolk. The proprietor, and the only occupant of the house – The Pines – was given as Colonel (Retired) Edmund John Broderick. Dryden heard a footstep above on the drill-hall floor and thought of the picture on the major’s desk; the professional soldier standing proudly for the camera in the last year of the war. Dryden respected privacy, understood its humane values, but he wondered if there could be another reason the young Major Broderick appeared to have kept his links with Jude’s Ferry to himself.
12
Humph was waiting in the car park, the Capri broadcasting the final notes of a Faroese folk song. The cabbie had a brochure on his lap outlining the attractions of Torshavn, the capital. After the song came a recitation of endangered fish which inhabit the waters around the islands, to which Humph listened while consuming double cod and chips. A warm wrapped packet lay on the passenger seat, and Dryden unfurled the paper to eat the steak and kidney pie within. They sat watching the sun slowly reduce the puddles of rainwater still lying on the tarmac. Dryden considered the cathedral’s Octagon Tower, and wondered what chance there was he could whittle his list of eight down to one by the time he next went to press.
‘Slim,’ he said, and Humph ignored him, thinking it might be an instruction.
