of the village in the months after the evacuation. He Googled the name and found two references, the first to the regimental history and his role in mapping several British military installations in India in the months before independence, and the second to the Royal Society of Cartographers. Colonel Flanders May DSO had been president in 2003 and an e-mail address was provided. Dryden jotted down two questions and sent the message, betting himself he’d never get an answer.
He picked up a photocopy of the picture of Mark Smith that DI Shaw had released. They were not, apparently, identical twins but there was enough in the face to help prompt an ID: the narrow skull, the heavy jaw which seemed to throw the whole off balance, the weak fleshy nose. Dryden reread his story and filed it.
Then he added an extra paragraph:
Police have said that their inquiries at the scene will be completed by Saturday morning. The range will reopen for live firing on Sunday. All roads into the range area are already closed to traffic. A maroon will sound at 9.30am and 9.55am from the firing range HQ at Whittlesea Lane End. Artillery will begin live shelling at 10.00am. A combined forces exercise will follow involving units from the TA and US forces based at nearby RAF Lakenheath. Live ammunition and artillery will be used.
25
Humph and Dryden headed north through a curtain of St Swithun’s rain towards Jason Imber’s home at Upwell. The village was deserted except for a murder of crows tearing at the squashed flesh of a large rat in a gutter. The house lay along a drove by the church behind an ugly high wall and a protective ring of pines. At the gate an expensive, polished intercom panel appeared to work, but there was no answer.
‘Scriptwriting pays then,’ said Dryden, flopping back into the passenger seat after briefly inspecting the gates. ‘There’s a car in the drive that looks like a Porsche.’
‘What else do we know?’ asked Humph, a single yawn threatening to suck all the air out of the cab’s damp interior.
‘Well – back in 1990 he was twenty-four. He lived at Orchard House – which sounds posh I guess. That’s it. His wife’s called Elizabeth, there’re no kids. He says he remembers nothing. He’s got four fingers missing from his right hand.’
Humph nodded, looking at his watch. ‘I gotta give blood,’ he said, giving the large ham that was his upper arm a pre-emptive massage.
The cabbie was proud of his charitable donation of red corpuscles, a selfless act only partly inspired by the free chocolate biscuits.
Dryden took some pictures at the gate and chatted to the shopkeeper at the post office. Imber was known locally, gave to charity, walked a dog, but in the phrase dreaded by all reporters otherwise ‘kept himself to himself ’. His wife, it was thought, was in publishing and worked in London, travelling up at weekends.
Dryden reflected that Imber had one of those lives which become more elusive as you add detail.
‘You can drop me at the unit. Laura’s in the gym and we might as well see how chummy’s doing. My guess is the police have some tricky questions for Jason Imber and that amnesia is no longer an acceptable answer to any of them.’
Dryden tried to sleep on the journey back but the injured cheekbone throbbed and his head ached behind his eyes. By the time they got back to Ely a summer mist had descended, cloaking teeming rain, wet and enveloping, the water running in broad streams down the 1930s stucco facade of the Oliver Zangwill Centre.
Dryden kept his head down as he ran from the cab to the automatic doors and was still shaking the water from his thick black hair when he saw that the reception area was empty except for one figure: Major John Broderick. He was in uniform, back straight, hands held clasped on his lap, holding the peak of his cap.
The soldier’s back stiffened as Dryden took the seat on his other side.
‘Hi,’ said Dryden, having little option than to try a jovial tone. ‘That legend about St Swithun’s Day – forty days and forty nights – that’s just an old wives’ tale, right?’
Broderick laughed. ‘There’s a long way to go,’ he said, shaking some droplets of water from the cap.
‘Visiting?’ said Dryden, aware that the question veered dangerously towards the obvious.
Broderick nodded, leaning forward and moving some tattered magazines around a tabletop like chess pieces.
‘My wife’s a patient,’ said Dryden, trying for empathy if not sympathy.
Still nothing. Dryden stretched out his overlong legs. ‘You never said what business you were in.’
Broderick ran a finger along the peak of the cap. ‘Wholesale flowers. We import exotics, distribute within eastern England from local growers.’
Dryden nodded. ‘So it runs in the family – or is it the same business? Blooms Nursery, if I recall correctly. You didn’t mention your father’s business in Jude’s Ferry,’ he said. ‘Which was odd, wasn’t it?’
Broderick turned slightly in his chair so that he could look Dryden in the eyes. The reporter didn’t like what he saw. Nor did Broderick. ‘You been in a fight?’ he asked.
‘Fell downstairs,’ said Dryden. ‘So what’s so secret about you and Jude’s Ferry?’
‘Sorry, but you don’t really have a right to ask these questions.’
‘Really? It was a free country when I got up this morning – did I miss the coup? I think you’ll find I can ask what questions I like – and you have the right not to answer them. Subtle difference, often lost on the military mind, if that isn’t an oxymoron.’
Open hostilities were interrupted by the nurse at the desk. Cupping a hand over a phone she tried to catch Broderick’s attention. ‘Mr Imber will be free in about ten minutes, Major.’
Broderick nodded, blushing.
‘He’s still with the police,’ she added, replacing the receiver soundlessly.
