along the riverbank to
Dryden turned to look back at the pub. A single bedroom light shone out, the curtains open to let the breeze through. Woodruffe appeared at the sill, a phone to his ear, but turned quickly and retreated beyond sight. A memory surfaced to match it, a figure, seen briefly at the window of Orchard House on the day of the evacuation.
Dryden heard the strangled cry of something being killed followed by the ghostly flight of an owl over the river.
Humph tottered back with the drinks and a question. ‘And Imber?’
‘I think he was down in the cellar too, but God knows why. He didn’t really know these kids, but I think he wanted to be part of the village – that’s why he’d stayed. But he was a posh kid in the wrong place that night. I think he got swept along and couldn’t get out once things got really serious – and once Tholy was dead there was no going back. Did he try to stop them? Like I say, he’d be a brave man. A place like the Ferry, it’s all about belonging – there’s no half-way house. I think when it was over he played a part in covering it all up. He got them to agree to meet next day at Orchard House, to double check their stories, make sure it all added up. And that’s why Ken Woodruffe calmed the crowd down in The Dring. He didn’t want the army moving in before they’d got the whole thing sorted. It was their last chance to make sure nobody ever knew Peter Tholy died at the end of a rope.’
They heard the bolts being shot on the doors of the pub, but the bedroom window remained open above, the light still burning.
Now that the pub was shut Dryden took his time, sipping the cool beer which caught the moonlight in its amber heart.
‘When that stray shell uncovered Tholy’s skeleton I think Imber cracked up, he knew the police would be on to them all and I reckon he doubted everyone would keep quiet. It only takes one to blow the whole thing apart, to name names. Seventeen years is a long time; just imagine how shocked they’d all be that their crime had been uncovered. They weren’t a bunch of teenagers any more: they had their own lives, careers, families, perhaps children. I think Imber met one of the others at Cuckoo Bridge to tell them what he was gonna do, which has to mean the police. And that’s how he ended up in the river.’
Humph drained his glass and swung his feet back in the cab.
‘You said there were two things you didn’t understand.’
Dryden stood, cold for the first time. ‘Woodruffe was clear – Peter Tholy strangled Kathryn Neate. Squeezed the life out of her. But if the bones in the Peyton tomb are Kathryn’s she died from a knife wound – the blade thrust between her ribs and into her heart.’
Friday, 20 July
33
With the dawn came the question: what should Dryden do next? He lay beside Laura in the silver light, feeling her warmth and the still thrilling movement of her fingers, stretching and gripping under the influence of a dream. He put his hand on her neck below the ear and stroked her hair, trying to soothe the anxiety which made an eyelid vibrate.
The luminous face of his watch read 5.13am. Would Ken Woodruffe be setting out soon to find DI Shaw? Dryden would give him until mid-morning before ringing the detective to check. The publican wouldn’t tell the whole truth but enough of it to identify both victims: the skeleton of Peter Tholy in the cellar of the New Ferry Inn and Kathryn Neate’s bones in the Peyton grave at St Swithun’s.
Dryden rubbed a knuckle into his eye socket. Shaw’s job would be to prove that Tholy died at the hands of the lynch mob and to find some suspects whose mutually supportive alibis didn’t put them in the bar of the New Ferry Inn while the murder was taking place in the cellar. Dryden guessed that Ken Woodruffe’s late-night calls had been to secure that ring of alibis, to provide the common song sheet from which they could all sing.
At least DI Shaw had his forensics – the DNA traces could be enough to put Ken Woodruffe in the cellar and digging the grave, although not necessarily when Tholy died, while the single helix coil of fibreglass was, Dryden guessed, a possible link to Walter Neate’s garage. But the intervening years had almost certainly destroyed any chance of making a match with the original workshop. The gravel from Orchard House was an even more tenuous link to Jason Imber. Anyone could have trudged up the drive and got the stones in the tread of their shoe – anyone, including the village postman. Even with the link it was circumstantial evidence at best, and any decent lawyer would undermine its significance in front of a jury.
Without a break, or a witness outside the tight circle of village life, Shaw might never get his case to court. Unless, of course, Jason Imber’s memory returned, and he was prepared to tell the truth, risking retribution.
Dryden gently eased himself over to his left side so that he could see out of the porthole. A white mist threaded its way past the glass, the only things visible the ferns and grass of the bank and the edge of the old wooden landing stage. He could feel the world pressing in, creating pressure in the boat like that in an aircraft cabin. The silence was profound, and he searched it until he located the reassuring hum of the generator below the deck. Then, on the edge of hearing, tyres screeched, and his heartbeat picked up as a car rumbled over the cattle grid up by Barham’s Farm, prompting a rhythmic guttural bark from the guard dog.
He dropped a naked foot to the cool boards of the deck and dressed quickly. By the time he had unpopped the tarpaulin cover to the cockpit Humph’s Capri was trundling to a halt, emerging from the mist like a ghost ship.
The interior was hot from the heater and laced with petrol fumes and the heady aroma of two fried-egg sandwiches. ‘Sorry,’ said Humph, as Dryden noticed the dog had been promoted to the passenger seat. ‘Couldn’t sleep – I went to the truck stop and the radio says there’s been a fire at that garage – the Stopover, Duckett’s Cross. Early hours – 4.00am. Sounds nasty, but they got someone out.’
Which meant they didn’t get everyone out.
Dryden went back on board and whispered into Laura’s ear that he’d send Humph at 9.00am to run her to the unit. Then he grabbed a coat and the office digital camera and they split the mist, the Capri wafting the white threads up and over the bonnet to trail like ribbons from the rear bumper.
By the time they reached the cathedral they were navigating through a fog, with a hint of the dark phlegm of carbon monoxide, but as they drove north the air cleared and they could see the watery blue of the river and reflected on its ruffled surface a first sight of the pale disc of the sun.
