about
‘I’ve just been out to Lowestoft for the day,’ said Dryden, dropping his voice to conspiratorial. ‘Had a chat with one of your mother’s old friends; a close friend actually. That’s the thing about old age, it loosens the tongue, sweeps away inhibitions.’
Woodruffe walked to the barmaid, slipping a hand around her narrow waist, whispering in her ear. It was an intimate gesture and Dryden looked away. The publican flipped up the bar top and led the way to the patio doors which opened onto the riverside. There was a short jetty here for cruisers to use during the day. They walked to the end and Woodruffe stood at the rail, sipping his drink, his back to the water. The night was silent but for the ducks in the reeds and the rumble of generators from the cruisers moored on the bank.
‘You dug the grave for her, didn’t you?’ said Dryden, looking downriver towards the cathedral. ‘In the cellar.’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’ A denial without enthusiasm, Dryden sensed that Woodruffe was already aware how weak it sounded.
‘Right. Spain always a favourite holiday spot, was it? That’s when you started smoking Ducados? When’d you give up? The day you read about the forensic evidence they’d found in the cellar?’
Woodruffe shook his head. ‘This is crap.’ He turned round, looking out into the night. On the far side of the river a flock of birds rose off the distant fen and crossed the moon.
‘But they’ve asked for a DNA check, haven’t they – so they’ll know soon. They’ll match you with the stub. That puts you in the cellar digging the grave. What was it going to be: pills? A pillow over the face?’
Woodruffe looked away but in the darkness Dryden could see the moonlight reflecting off the tears.
‘You’d promised her, promised that if it came to it you’d end her life there, in Jude’s Ferry, to save her the pain, and to give her the peace she wanted. So you got it all ready – the grave in the cellar, the concealed trapdoor, the booking at the Esplanade in case anyone asked where Ellen was going. You’d always planned to cancel it. But then you lost your nerve. What was Spain – a holiday to buy her off?’
He tried to gulp the whisky but fumbled with the mug so that it fell into the river without a splash.
‘I bought a bar, back in the eighties. Sitges, down the coast. I’d always planned a long break and I said she should come too. I’d arranged nursing care, everything. If we liked it we could stay, flog the licence on this place.’
He bowed his head. ‘But she wanted me to end it for her, then, at the Ferry. Her whole life had been in that village, she was born down along The Dring, moved to the pub when she married Dad, I was born there. It’s like the place was part of her, like a limb. She used to say she could close her eyes and see it all, every door, every tree, and all the people who’d been there, even the ones who were dead.
‘But I couldn’t kill her. That’s what it is, even if she said it wasn’t. When I told her about Spain she cried all night, begged me to end it. She said that Dad would have done it for her, which I guess was true. Next day she started packing, and we never mentioned it again.’
He held a hand wet with sweat to his forehead. ‘And it was a new life, a new life for me. Mum had her own flat and everything, a balcony, the sea near by, the nurse was good, the doctors. I said she could stay and I’d come out every month, see her, check on the bar. Winters it wasn’t too hot, I said she’d get used to it; she said she couldn’t take the pain, that she was just sick of living really and why didn’t she just go home, see England again. She said if I wanted a new life why didn’t I just stay in Spain.’
He knelt on the boards, fishing with his right hand in the dark green water for the mug. Then he stood, black strands of weed curled round his elbow.
‘So you came back,’ echoed Dryden. ‘And the years went by and nobody found the Skeleton Man. But the police aren’t going to stop asking questions, are they? Not if it is your DNA on that butt. And they’re gonna keep asking you. They need to find out who killed George Tudor. Perhaps they think you helped. Kathryn was your cousin, if the family turned on George they’d expect you to back them up, right?’
Woodruffe wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, his eyes on Dryden. ‘Paper said they think Mark Smith killed his brother. They fought that night, we saw them out in the yard at the Ferry. It’s Matthew in the cellar – got to be.’
‘Bad news,’ said Dryden. ‘Matthew James Smith is alive and well and living with Paul Cobley – he’s changed his name – fixed himself up with a new life. They run a business out on the Fen – by the looks of it pretty successfully. One Greek holiday this year already – my guess is they’re just on another. To use a quaint term, they’re an item. But my guess is you knew that. That was what that argument was really about, wasn’t it? Mark wanted to set up a business with his brother but his brother had a better offer. Dirty linen in public, never a pretty sight.’
Dryden could see Woodruffe calculating. ‘It’s not George Tudor,’ he said. ‘I talked to Georgie by phone three days ago. He’s running a smallholding in the Swan Valley near Perth, Western Australia. Three hundred sheep, a grove of olive trees and a vineyard. Sounds like paradise.’
Dryden was thinking fast. ‘Why’d you ring him?’
‘We kept in touch.’
‘You told him what we’d found in the cellar, didn’t you? Why did he need to know that, Ken? There was a murder in that cellar and you’re shaping up as one of the main suspects. You need to tell the truth, and you need to tell it quickly. The police are gonna put you in that cellar – your cellar. And they’re going to ask questions, questions like did you provide the rope as well.’
Woodruffe’s head jerked up and Dryden saw for the first time the desperation he’d been hiding. The publican sank down to the wooden planking and sat, cradling his knees. ‘I didn’t go down. The others did but I didn’t.’
Dryden fished in his pockets for a packet of Gauloise and offered one. Woodruffe took it with a steady hand, the prospect of confession calming his nerves.
‘They’re not George Tudor’s bones,’ he said, his throat full of fluid. ‘They’re Peter Tholy’s. George was six foot, a carthorse. That sound right to you?’
Dryden tried to put the jigsaw back together, trying to picture the frail boy with learning difficulties Elizabeth Drew had described. ‘But Peter Tholy went to Australia – Fremantle,’ he said. ‘He sends cards back to Fred Lake, he visits his local church. Why would he end up on the end of that rope – he wasn’t a danger to anyone.’
