incredible lawn, like a cool green carpet, between the flowering shrubs. God knows what all that’s about.’
‘A holiday?’ suggested Dryden.
He shook his head, but didn’t answer. ‘And rugby posts. This is a different place because there are low hills in the background dusted with snow. There must be six pitches, more, and round every one is arranged a thin crowd. I think my parents are there, in that memory somewhere. But I don’t know, I don’t see them.’
He laughed. ‘So, stuff like that. Not very useful. Laura’s said I could send her what I write. There’s nobody else, and the doctors said it might help. She says she’ll write back. I’m really grateful. There’s something about words that’s comforting, something really fundamental.’ He picked a magazine from the metal folder attached to the side of his chair. ‘Something about the black letters arranged on the white paper. It’s just important, but I don’t know why. They make me happy, I guess; happier, anyway.’
Dryden nodded, trying to look pleased, irritated by the note of self-pity.
‘Does Jude’s Ferry mean anything?’
He edged his chair towards the machine next to Laura and swung himself easily into the seat. Dryden thought he was making the time to think through an answer. ‘Sure. I think I was born there; like I say, bits of childhood have come back. But this is just a name – there’s not much to go with it.’
‘It’s not much of a place.’
‘There’s this street with a ditch full of reeds on one side. Is that right?’
Dryden nodded. ‘Sure. That’s The Dring – the main street.’
‘And bells ringing over my head, and the smell of wax on the ropes, the scent of a guttering candle. Peacocks on a lawn – not the exotic green one, this one’s covered in leaves at autumn, and it’s patchy. And a post office. I can remember the smell of it, and bells again, the little bells when the door opened, and one of those trays of sweets just right for my height. It’s just the echo of a memory.’
Dryden shrugged, wondering where he’d learned to use words like that, the sophistication of the imagery.
‘But nothing about falling in the river? The handrail was broken, that took some force…’
Laura pulled herself upright, cutting in. ‘Philip. Give him time.’ Dryden knew what she’d said, but he could see the other man struggling to unpick the sentence.
‘We should give you a name,’ said Dryden, knowing the thought was callous. Outside, through a picture window, he could see the Capri idling, the boot up ready to stow the wheelchair.
‘The coast?’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘I’ll do the weights,’ she said, making a mess of the last word. ‘I must. See you at the boat. Tonight.’
They kissed, but as he walked away he felt uneasy, as if his back was being watched. Then his mobile rang.
22
By the time he’d reached the Capri the call was over. It was the same man, unable to disguise the voice or the triumph within it, once he heard that Henry Peyton didn’t want a fight, that he’d shut down Sealodes Farm and retire quietly with the fortune he’d already made. Then the suspicions had kicked in: had Dryden called the police? Had Peyton? One blue uniform, he said, and they’d dump the bones in a ditch and Peyton would never see the dogs again. And then they’d be back: they’d be back every day of every week of every month of every year until his business was ruined and his life was a living nightmare. Dryden imagined the face on the other end of the line, a glove over the mouthpiece, spit in the wool.
They fixed a point to pick up the bones and the dogs. Thieves Bridge, Ten Mile Bank, at dusk – 9.45pm that evening. He was to come alone, leave the cab in the village, and walk out to the river. Dryden didn’t have time to say no. He rang DI Shaw with the details and the detective outlined his plans. He’d put a team on the river in a boat, and a helicopter would be ready on the ground at Downham ten miles to the north, where they had a helipad for the holiday traffic snarl-ups on the A10. Shaw and the team would maintain a cordon half a mile from the bridge. They were a professional unit, he said, and no one would spot them. He promised it would be all right; in the way that people always do when they think it might not.
Dryden cut the call and tried a big smile. ‘Shit,’ he said, feeling his guts tighten. ‘Tonight, Ten Mile Bank,’ he said to Humph. He covered his face with his hands and wished he wasn’t such a coward as to always agree to anything that proved he wasn’t. Now he had hours to contemplate his fear before his appointment with the balaclavas.
‘Where’s Laura?’ said Humph.
‘She’s got to work out. We do the coast another day – the Reverend Lake’s not going anywhere fast.’
Humph, sensing an unhealthy silence, took control. He swung the cab out onto the old A10 and headed north. ‘I’ve got someone you should meet,’ he said by way of explanation.
At Southery they pulled off the road and into the village. The high street was blocked by two tractors, travelling in opposite directions, which had stopped to allow the drivers to enjoy a chat. Humph deftly mounted the pavement, crossed a grass verge, and left them to it.
Clear of the last house they burst out onto a wide fen flattened by a vast sky. This was Methwold Severals, a tract of peat distinguished by nothing but a single sugar beet factory, a plume of smoke from its giant modern chimney trailing across the late afternoon sky. They zigzagged towards it using a maze of drove roads, navigating by sight, leaving in their wake the abandoned farmsteads which had given way to the big commercial farming companies which dominated the whole of the Black Fen.
They inched closer, impeded by a series of right-angle bends, until they came to the factory gates. This was a modern industrial site, a 1960s beet plant, as removed from the small-scale operation in Jude’s Ferry as Stephenson’s
