The Skeleton Man

man.’

‘Bitter?’

‘I don’t know much – they were Methodists and worshipped in Whittlesea. But the marriage had failed and the son, the only child, had very much sided with the mother over the years. He visited, in fact he was often here in the holidays, but you could tell they didn’t hit it off. So I guess Peter helped fill the gap.’

‘So Peter’s father, then? Dead?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Many years before, long before I came to the Ferry in ’82. Farm labourer like his son. They were poor, genuinely poor. Those houses along the far side of The Dring were slums. The father had been married before and there were children from that marriage, I think. Anyway, complicated, if not by Fen standards. So plenty of mouths to feed and not much by way of a wage. Incredible, isn’t it? People used to stop and take pictures of those cottages, Americans mainly, come to see the church. That’s the problem with rural poverty, of course, it’s invisible. But it’s just as nasty as any ghetto. A little Soweto on Whittlesea Mere.’

‘Did you hear from him, from Peter?’

Lake leant back on his elbows. ‘Yup. I got cards from Peter and he made contact with the church in, er… now, where was it? Fremantle, I think. Yes, he was studious at keeping in touch, Christmas cards, that kind of thing. At least for the first few years.’

Dryden nodded.

‘But he never mentions George, which is odd now I think of it.’

‘Not so odd if George’s skeleton was hanging in Jude’s Ferry all the time,’ said Dryden.

A cloud crossed the coast, the temperature dropping suddenly, and as the rain began to fall the screams of little children filled the afternoon air.

27

They drove back south in silence, Humph lost in the vocabulary of a Faroese banquet, Dryden massaging his battered skull. As they reached Ely the sun finally broke through the mist and lit the cathedral’s lantern tower, the damp lead of the vast roof steaming in the sudden warmth. Dryden leant his forehead against the cool glass of the passenger-side window. Fred Lake had complicated the mystery of Jude’s Ferry to the point where Dryden found it hard to see any truth clearly. Where were the remains of Kathryn Neate’s child? Had she killed him in a bout of depression after the birth? Whose bones had been robbed from the Peyton tomb? And what of the empty grave in the cellar? Had George Tudor’s act of compassion in comforting his cousin cost him his life?

Dryden checked his watch: 5.20pm. The early editions of The Crow would be printed by now and sometimes the delivery vans dropped some off in the Market Square, offering the paper’s loyal readers the chance to read tomorrow’s newspaper. The square was still crowded with market stalls, and a children’s roundabout played an annoying tune at the wrong speed. Skeg’s trestle table was on his pitch beside the Big Business tea bar, but there was no news paper seller and no Crow, just a pile of Cambridge Evening News’ and an honesty box, although his dog lay tethered to one of the tea-bar tables. Dryden walked briskly to The Crow’s offices but there was no sign of any papers there either, and Jean was placating a gaggle of keen customers who’d turned up to get first look at that week’s small ads.

Dryden jumped the stairs to the empty newsroom and logged on to check his e-mails. The US Peytons had been in touch.

Dear Mr Dryden,

Thank you for your e-mail – yes, we had been informed, but nevertheless what distressing news! As you may know, the society paid for the removal of the family remains in 1990 but we were unable to transfer the memorial and statuary due to the intervention of English Heritage. In retrospect we consider this decision was short sighted and ill advised. I thought you might like to know that we are reapplying to have the monument moved now – I attach the documentation – and have instigated legal proceedings against the Ministry of Defence for compensation. We hope to have the tomb fully restored in its new position at St John’s, Boston, Lincolnshire. Our own architect and restorer, who visited the original site in 1989, estimates the costs of removal and restoration at $360,000. We are reconstructing our website on St Swithun’s to accommodate an appeal form and this will be up and running by the end of the month. We hope your readers will be generous in their support.

Yours faithfully

   John Peyton Speed

PS. I can’t resist a bit of personal history, if you’ll forgive me, Mr Dryden. My mother was a Peyton and was able to trace her lineage back to Sir Philip Peyton, one of the part owners of the Providence, the ship which made a landfall in Virginia in the third season after the arrival of the Mayflower. Sir Philip’s branch of the family had several manors in eastern England – including Nornea Hall at Jude’s Ferry – now lost of course but which stood on the site of Orchard House in the village. If you look carefully at the gardens you can still see the ditch which formed the moat. My wife and I had a most wonderful visit to the site in 1985. One of the truly memorable moments of our lives.

PPS. And if you do get the chance to visit the church ask for the key to the ossuary – an extraordinary room which gave us a real sense of all those past generations stretching back into history. Totally unique!

Dryden winced at the tautology in the last line, then sent himself an e-mail reminder to follow up the message on the legal action for compensation with the MoD.

Splash, the office cat, appeared and sat on his keyboard, a line of question marks appearing on screen. The touch of the fur brought back an image, the teenage Martyn Armstrong lobbing a petrol bomb through a pet-shop owner’s window.

He went online to find the archive for the Cambridge Evening News. Thankful for the slightly eccentric spelling of Martyn he quickly found eight articles stretching from January 1995 to November 2004. All were court cases involving animal rights demonstrations outside research companies in the Home Counties which experimented on live animals. The charges ranged from breach of the peace to assault, and most had resulted in short jail terms.

Armstrong’s address was different in each article, but all were in or around Ely, except the last, which was listed as no fixed abode.

‘Animal rights,’ said Dryden, shutting down the screen and running a finger along the still-tender wound round