A mile short of the Stopover they joined a snaking line of commuter traffic headed for Peterborough, and Dryden noted that nothing was coming the other way. A hundred yards further on a police car was parked up across both carriageways, nose to tail with a Fire Brigade control car. There was a junction here and a yellow diversion board sent traffic off across Farcet Fen – a ten-mile loop down single-carriageway droves. Dryden got Humph to swing off the road and park up in the entrance to a field, then strolled forward, trying to rearrange his sheaf of dark hair.
He knew both the uniformed PC by the squad car, a special constable he’d interviewed when covering an anti- graffiti project on Ely’s Jubilee Estate, and the fireman – an Assistant Divisional Officer from Cambridge who talked to the press on issues to do with safety each year ahead of Bonfire Night.
‘Dryden,’ said the fireman.
‘Mr Walker,’ said Dryden, then nodded to the copper. He was trying to recall just how critical the piece about anti-graffiti had been, but didn’t like the scowl which had disfigured the young policeman’s face. ‘What’s up?’ said Dryden, unbuttoning his jacket to reveal the camera. ‘Thought I’d get some pix for the
Dryden knew that if they didn’t turn him away in the first few seconds it was because they had a story to tell, a story they wanted in the papers.
The PC turned his back as a radio began to crackle.
Walker nodded. ‘Who thumped you?’ he asked. Dryden’s broken cheekbone had spawned a black bruise, now turning purple.
‘Fell downstairs,’ said Dryden, not caring that he wouldn’t be believed.
Walker smiled. ‘Come on – your luck’s in. Only one resident listed on the electoral roll – James Neate. No sign of him. But there was a girlfriend. We got her out of the bungalow when it went up, we’ve got video – unbelievable she’s alive. She’s at Ely now, the burns unit.’
Dryden nodded: a good story but bad news, if the brigade had a film they’d pass it on to the networks and it would be all over the teatime TV screens.
‘And Neate?’
‘Still looking – but he wasn’t in the house, and he certainly isn’t in the garage.’
Dryden didn’t react, letting the information appear to slip by. ‘But the girl – bad?’ he said, changing tack.
‘Well, she’s out cold. The smoke got her down on the floor, which was lucky, as she could have passed out in the bed and then it would have killed her. There’s some burns on her hands, but first degree, they’ll heal. Face too.’
Dryden tried not to imagine it. ‘Stay here while I square this off,’ said Walker.
Smoke, lazy and thin, rose from the charred roof of the bungalow. Behind it the stand of pine trees still smouldered too, several blackened and stunted by fire. Dryden knew the stench well, not so much the burnt wood and the incinerated plastic, but the sodden carpets and the stagnant black water. The house was a shell, but the main shed of the garage appeared untouched, although he could see within a tape had been strung across the vehicle bay and a man in a white forensic suit was working in the office behind a glass partition. Out on the forecourt the covers to the underground petrol tanks had been raised while Neate’s car was being hauled off on its front wheels by a pick-up truck.
‘OK.’ The fire officer was back. ‘You can come with me; got a notebook?’
They stood in the small weedy garden in front of the house.
‘The name you want is Firefighter Jo Campbell. When the first pump got here at 4.30am the house was well alight, and it was impossible to gain entry through either the front door or the kitchen. Jo smashed the windows to the lounge, got to the rear bedroom wearing a fire protection outfit and pulled the girl out. The first pump didn’t have specialist breathing gear on board – so the rescue was completed unaided.’
‘He’ll get a medal?’ asked Dryden.
Big smile. ‘Yes.
The front door had been knocked off its hinges to reveal the hall within. All the walls were black, but splashed clean where the hoses had been at work. The sideboard which had held the family photos was charred, the pictures contorted, Walter Neate’s face almost obscured by a smoky stain. The kitchen was blackened too, and Dryden noted two suitcases on the lino floor. He got a few snaps on the digital and then moved forward to the rear bedroom. The bed itself was just wire and metal, the mattress charred springs. A small bedside table had been reduced to a jet-black box of carbon, fragile and oddly beautiful, like an artefact in a museum. The curtains were wet and black, the window glass burnt bronze.
Dryden took his snaps, taking plenty and checking them out on the display screen. Then he moved back to the hallway and out through the rear door to try to get a shot in through the bedroom window.
He stood in the cool early morning air, trying to imagine the flames. ‘Can I speak to the heroine?’ he said, using a word he hated.
‘Sure, we’ve got a mobile canteen out down the road, she’s just having some grub. You’re in luck – she’s a looker.’
They turned to go but stopped when they heard shouting from deep within the pines which shielded the house from the north. Dryden thought he heard a single word – ‘medics’ – then a dog barked once, the bark subsiding into whimpers. At the bottom of the bungalow’s rough lawn there was a path into the woods and Dryden got there as two uniformed PCs began pushing aside the charred branches, trying to see ahead through the undergrowth, much of which still smouldered from the fire.
When he burst out of the trees behind the two policemen the landscape was transformed. Ahead lay the open fenland of Whittlesea Mere, low trees and a limitless stretch of water from which a flock of birds was now rising into sunlight. Between the wood and the firing range lay a wide drain – perhaps twenty feet across – a mathematically straight ditch brimming with stagnant green water.
But there was only one thing anyone was looking at. Access to the range was barred by a ten-foot-high wire fence with a curled razor-wire top. A man’s body hung from the razor wire, his shredded mechanic’s overalls
