trees which had once been expertly intertwined but which were now suffocating each other, the stunted fruit diseased on the branch. And close to where he stood the frost-shattered remains of a stone bird table.
One of the blackthorn twigs broke and the man turned, giving Dryden a half second to duck back behind the corner of the house. There was a silence, punctuated by the sound of a match struck, then unmistakably the gritty slice of the spade cutting through the blue clay upon which the village lay, and the slight sucking sound of the clod being lifted from the wet earth. And another noise, less rhythmic, the sharp intake of breaths which accompany spasms of pain. The methodical work continued, and Dryden thought of the graves which had dominated the story of Jude’s Ferry – from Peyton’s tomb to the cellar itself in which Peter Tholy’s frail body had been left to hang. And then there was another noise, unmistakable in that still air, the sound of metal on wood. Dryden peered round the corner and saw the man kneel, plunge his arms down into the trench that he’d dug and lift something free of the earth. He didn’t stand but sank onto his heels, amongst the loose soil he’d turned out of the grave. Beside him on the ground he’d laid out a mildewed blanket which Dryden guessed he’d found in one of the old bedrooms, but he didn’t place the object down. With his back to Dryden he rocked silently, cradling it to his chest, one hand rising to hold his head. Then he stood and turned and Dryden saw clearly what he held: a small wooden coffin caked in black earth, its white paint flaking. And Dryden saw the face of the man who’d reclaimed the body from the earth. The face was disfigured by dried blood, an ugly black wound cutting up between the forehead and the hairline. For a moment he thought it was indeed Jason Imber, returned to bury his son. But the skin was paler, the face dominated by the Celtic brow, the muscles knotted on the arms, the broken body seemingly supported by the blue mechanic’s overalls. And so he saw the face before him for what it was – that of Kathryn Neate’s brother, not hanging charred on the wire, but alive, a fresh gout of blood oozing from a wound on his head and trickling through his fingers.
40
In the silence a wood pigeon cooed and then footsteps sounded, leading away from the house, along the old road towards the village. Dryden crept from the ruins in time to see the grey silhouette fading into the mist, the angular coffin still held across Neate’s chest, wrapped in the blanket, just visible from behind.
Dryden padded along the grass verge, keeping him within sight until he reached the allotments at the foot of Church Hill, where Neate turned off the road and out of sight. Dryden waited until he saw him reappear by the old church before following, threading his way uphill through the tangled berries and the ramshackle huts. Rain still trickled from the Victorian gutters of the church roof, and a rook cracked its wings between the battlements of the tower.
At the open doors of St Swithun’s he stopped, aware now that he was close enough to be heard if he stumbled, and unable to push aside the image of what he now assumed was Jason Imber’s corpse, the smoke still drifting from the charred clothes he had stolen from the orderlies’ room at the hospital. He waited a full minute, listening, and then edged away into the churchyard. He moved from buttress to buttress until he was beside the window the army had blown out just a week earlier. The rain had already buckled the chipboard so that he could see through a gap into the church. Directly opposite in the far wall was the small Victorian door to the ossuary Fred Lake had described. From within came the sudden, violent sound of wood being wrenched, rusted nails finally breaking free. Dryden stood, waiting, compelling himself to remain still despite an overwhelming need to know why this small child’s bones had meant so much.
Then the door swung open and he saw Jimmy Neate surrounded by bones, blood spattered on his overalls. At his feet the small coffin lay, shattered now. The far wall of the ossuary was covered in rough shelves, once white- washed, now grey with dust. Skulls filled them, and in the apex of the roof were stacked to the rafters. The floor, but for a narrow stone path, was made up of skeleton bones, thigh bones emerging from shattered ribs and a dusty weathered compost of medieval fingers.
Jimmy Neate looked about him, surveying his work. He picked up the shards of wood, stepped unsteadily outside and through the little Gothic door, and then closed it firmly. The sun, as pale as butter, glinted on the old key as he turned the lock, and Dryden remembered that Walter Neate had been sexton at St Swithun’s for forty years. Neate didn’t look back, walking quickly down the nave carrying the coffin and lid, awkwardly now, like lumber. Dryden waited until he’d left the graveyard and saw that he’d dumped the wood, probably amongst the rubble and burnt roof timbers the army had collected in a skip by the lychgate.
Then, overhead, in the blue sky, which was being stretched clear and pale as the mist fled, he saw the purple scar like a synapse, then heard the dull percussion of the maroon. A warning – the bombardment postponed was to begin at last. Dryden guessed they had five minutes, perhaps less. He saw Neate stop, watching the signal fade in the breeze, and then bow his head, holding the wound, before changing direction, doubling back around the graveyard wall towards the old water tower on Telegraph Hill, keeping below the skyline.
Dryden gave him two minutes and followed, and as he ran across the open grass he looked up and saw the red target flag flying from the pole at the top of the tower, above the whitewashed wooden dovecote. The door of the three-storey brick tower stood open and stepping inside Dryden heard footsteps ascending a metal ladder somewhere above. The room he was in was twenty-five-feet square and had once held a diesel pump for the village’s drinking water. A small modern electric pump stood in its place, dusty and unused now that the army had its own supply to tackle fires after each bombardment. In one corner pipes ran in and out of the brick walls, and then upwards to the tank above. Equipment, mothballed now, stood against one wall for testing water quality. Four large elegant windows flooded the room with light. Against one wall was an open metal stairway with handrail, and Dryden climbed it, waiting for the moment when his eyes rose level with the second-storey room. This was empty too, littered with the tiny dry carcasses of thousands of greenfly born into the fetid, damp, atmosphere of the enclosed tower. He climbed again, a shorter flight this time, to another empty room; but not quite: at its centre was a single metal twisting staircase rising, enclosed in circular safety bars, up through a circular shaft in the middle of the black metal tank above.
A footfall, perhaps above.
Dryden considered his options, sensing the weight and mass of the dark water above his head. He could slip away. He knew now where Jimmy Neate had hidden the bones of his sister’s child. But why? Had he murdered Jason Imber? His own sister too? And why now was he seeking death, beneath the crimson red target flag?
How long since the maroon? Three minutes perhaps, more. He took a step back, preparing to climb down to the safety of the earth.
But the voice was behind him, not above.
‘Dryden.’ Jimmy Neate stood by the top of the stairs, the light from one of the windows leaving half his face in shadow. The other half was caked in blood, and where the wound was deepest, the light glistened on exposed flesh and a hint of shattered bone beneath. Outside, through the frosted glass, they could just see the distant shape of the church.
‘You followed me here?’ said Neate, and the effort made his knees buckle so that he had to lean against the wall.
‘Jason Imber said he was coming here to bury his son. I thought you were dead on the wire at the
