Nightrise (24 page)

Two minutes later he was sitting in a plastic bucket chair in the morgue, by his uncle's body, as if he was visiting him in hospital. Roger's hands had been placed across his chest and the wrists were exposed. There was no watch on the left hand. His aunt had told him his father's compass watch was missing from his body when they'd hauled it out of the water at River Bank. Dryden caught sight of the pale band of skin where it had been, and looked away.

He placed his hand on the edge of the casket and tried to feel some kind of connection with the soul which had inhabited the body. He forced himself to imagine the last minutes of his life: the questions, the lack of answers, the Estonian brothers growing coldly frustrated. And then, for the first time, he thought he knew what had happened to the watch. He saw in his mind's eye one of the brothers slipping it from his uncle's wrist, admiring, joking, setting the needle to north. Then, perhaps, he'd held it up – taunting, using it to count off the last minute of his uncle's life. One minute in which he could have saved himself.

Kross had not spelled out the brothers' precise criminal pedigree but he had said they were dangerous men. Given Kross' own icy authority that counted for a lot. They'd tied Roger's leg by a rope to the rudder of the eel boat, then staved in the hull. How long had it taken for the water to flood in? Maybe a minute was too long. Thirty seconds? However long it had taken he'd had a chance to tell them what they wanted to hear. That he'd taken their precious parcel, posted it to Dryden for safe-keeping.

But the boat had sunk, dragging him down, and when the water had settled they'd have seen his outstretched arm, his fingers vibrating with the effort of trying to touch the surface – the lethal boundary between water and air.

He thought he should touch him now. Fate had robbed him of the chance to touch his father. And, strangely, his nerve had failed him when his mother had died: he'd hovered, wanting to make physical contact, but disturbed by the fact that in death she'd looked nothing like his own flesh and blood. Roger, on the other hand, had seemed to grow more like Dryden's mother now his heart didn't beat: the lean, bony, face; the long, pale fingers, which was a thought he found comforting – that in death the family would grow closer.

He touched his hand and was relieved not to be revolted by the coldness. Taking the fingers almost roughly in his he asked himself if he wanted to name his son after this man:
Eden.
He liked the name but wondered whether, if his son carried it for ever, would he always think of this – a cold room, a casket, and skin like candle wax.

Prayers didn't come so he left him then.

The undertaker who'd ushered him through was working at an iMac laptop in the front office. For the first time he thought of undertakers as part of the system – along with coroner's officers, registrars, gravediggers. The bureaucracy of dying.

‘Computers – I guess we're all slaves to them now,' said Dryden.

‘Part of the job,' he said. His name was Carney, Matthew Carney, and he was sorry for Dryden's loss.

‘But we can't quite do without paper, can we? I once worked in a so-called paperless office in London. There were piles of the stuff.'

Carney smiled. He clearly didn't do laughter. Perhaps it was unprofessional.

‘Talking of which,' said Dryden, ‘the death certificate. Where do I collect it? My aunt wants me to do that – is that OK?'

‘The coroner's office has issued the forms. Then the registrar's your next stop.' The inquest into Roger's death had been adjourned to allow the police investigation to proceed, but Dryden had been told that the police had made no objection to the release of the body.

‘You know where the register office is?' asked Carney.

Dryden couldn't help but know it after endless visits to cover local weddings. The driveway was always scattered with confetti.

‘And then it's the cemetery at Manea, I think?' asked Carney.

‘That's right. I've picked a spot.'

‘Funeral service?'

‘I'll talk to my aunt.'

He was going to leave; it was sunny outside, and the cool interior was beginning to get to his bones. ‘One thing. So I get the death certificate but who tells everyone he's dead – like pensions, Swansea for the licence, that kind of thing. Passport office too. It's registered somewhere central?'

‘The GRO – General Register Office. Then they tell everyone else, just about.'

‘Where's that then – the GRO? Somerset House. Or Kew?'

‘No, no. It's Southport. Lancashire coast. Then I guess they pass info to the National Archives – that's Kew.'

‘Southport?' Dryden conjured up an image of Blackpool – the closest he'd ever been. He knew Southport was upmarket. But still – the bleak open sands, the grey Irish Sea, and maybe the Lake District in the distance, blue hills and rain clouds. ‘Why Southport?'

‘They moved out of London in the early nineties. Before that it was Somerset House. It's a weird place in Southport,' said Carney, brightening up for the first time. ‘Smedley Hydro – this huge old school they turned into a spa, like a Victorian health farm.

‘In fact, Barnardo worked there – you know, like in the orphans.'

Dryden thought about that – the man who'd saved the lives of children.

‘Couple of years ago we had a weekend at Blackpool and I went and had a look. Professional interest. Still looks like a Spa – mind you the security's pretty eye-watering. Cameras everywhere – even on the edge of the beach.'

‘Who sends them the certificate? The local registrar?'

‘That's it. Then someone in the Smedley Hydro puts it on the database. Then it's official. You used to have to tell everyone individually but now it's mostly centralized. Thirty seconds of inputting the details at Southport and then it's there for ever. You're only dead if they say you are.'

R
oom 159 was in the sub-basement of the town hall. Dryden had been issued with a security pass on a lanyard and told to go down using the lift to B2. The area was officially restricted to the public but they were short of staff and he'd have to go alone. When the lift doors opened the corridor revealed was in darkness, the only light the soft green of the upward pointing arrow. Then neon tubes flickered on, buzzing like trapped summer flies.

There was a security entry pad on the door marked 159 and when he pressed the red button a voice crackled: ‘Mr Dryden?' A man, educated, with a light, tuneful voice.

The door buzzed and pushing it he found himself in a windowless office, a desk lit by a single down-spot, so that an array of computer screens glowed, dominating everything, like mission control.

Philip Trelaw sat at a kidney-shaped desk. The room was hot and the odour sour and earthy. Trelaw didn't get up, an echo of their first meeting nearly thirty-five years ago, but he offered his hand, which was surprisingly small and cold. Even sitting down Dryden could see what a large man he was – what his own father would have described as an ‘agricultural' build. His physical shape was such a contrast to the voice he'd heard Dryden looked around the room for someone else, but it was empty.

There wasn't a trace of alcohol in the air but Trelaw's eyes told a different story – the whites distinctly yellow, the baby-like distended skin of his cheeks showing cracked and broken miniature capillaries, like old China.

‘I showed Detective Inspector Friday,' said Trelaw. He swung his eyes back to the screens without moving his head. In Dryden's memory he only had a still image of this man behind his desk in that damp, fire-lit office in Swaffham Prior. Now he realized it wasn't a still image at all – it was just that the man maintained an inherent stillness. A hand came up to touch his lips as if rising from under water.

‘I know,' said Dryden, taking a seat without an invitation. ‘He just thought I might be able to see something. You know – the way someone walks. A habit – a gait – it's one of my special subjects.'

The truth was he'd asked Friday if he could see the film. He wanted to meet Trelaw on a professional basis. Then judge the right moment to look into his past. But most of all he wanted to hear him speak, to see him move, make a judgement on his character.

On the desk was a picture in one of those frames people use for family groups – but this one showed a classic Rover in grey and cream. Dryden recalled the article from the cuttings on the club Trelaw had set up for owners of the Rover P4.

‘Nice car,' said Dryden.

Trelaw readjusted the position of the frame but said nothing, returning his eyes to the screens, each of which showed part of Ely town centre bathed in sunshine.

‘Here . . .' said Trelaw, his fingers playing with surprising dexterity over a console. His eyes rose to the central screen and stayed there.

Dryden noticed three things: Trelaw had a lunchbox open on the desk top beside him, and a small flask, and his shirt – once white – was grey with repeated washing. Middle-class poverty. Dryden imagined net curtains and threadbare carpets.

An image flickered on the main screen – not a video flicker, but a pixelated digital film.

It was Ely Market Place on Saturday morning. Dryden's flesh cooled rapidly. He hated these images, everyday images, but tainted by the knowledge that something was about to happen, something which meant the day would be remembered for ever. Jamie Bulger's killers in a shopping precinct. The London Tube bombers coming through the ticket barriers. Evil, lethal, but only in retrospect.

‘There,' said Trelaw.

A figure crossed over from Fore Hill into the market place carrying a car seat cradle. Relaxed, long-limbed, in shorts, the cot swung confidently, but moving fast. Shorts, showing thick, muscled legs which looked tanned. A T-shirt but the face obscured by a long-peaked US-style cap pulled down. He walked fast, looking at his own feet. The digital time read-out on the screen read 9.08 a.m. Some men look odd in shorts, self-conscious, but this man looked as if he lived in them. They came just below his knees and he slipped a mobile out of one pocket with his free hand and checked it as he walked.

‘There's a motif on the cap?' said Dryden.

The image juddered, the magnification jumping once, twice. The cap filled the screen: blurred, but they could read the motif: FedEx.

‘Millions of them,' said Trelaw.

The man walked across the screen and into the cathedral grounds through the arched door in the wall of the Almonry Café.

They watched the screen blank out.

‘That's it,' said Trelaw. ‘I told 'em not to bother you.'

‘It wasn't why I came anyway,' said Dryden.

Dryden took out the death certificate he'd found in the hayloft at Buskeybay and slid it along the desk. Issued January 18, 1978.

‘That's the original,' said Dryden. ‘Your signature.'

Trelaw studied it. ‘Yes. It is.' He held it an inch from his eyes, which were large and watery. ‘I'm in front of these screens all day. I can read but it takes time to find my range.' He smiled weakly.

‘When we met, I was with Mum; we went to your office at Swaffham Prior. You said we couldn't have one of these because there wasn't a body.'

‘No. That's right.'

‘Except here it is. How did that work?'

‘You can apply – the coroner can apply to the Home Office. I think it's the MOJ now – Ministry of Justice. If they're happy to presume the death has taken place they can issue an exemption – that's DDM 67 – it should have been attached.' He pressed a thumb on the double dot of the staple in the corner. ‘Here.' He held it up to the light.

Dryden had removed the exemption. He wanted Trelaw to talk him through the process.

‘The coroner's verdict is usually left open – that will be on the files. Sometimes, if the circumstances are obvious, they'll go for accidental, or misadventure. Then we sign.'

‘It was accidental death,' said Dryden. The inquest, held in the schoolroom at Reach, was as pin-sharp a fragment of memory as he had. It might as well have been framed.

‘There were witnesses to the moment of death?'

‘Yes,' said Dryden, considering the oddly phrased question. ‘But there
is
a problem. This death – Jack Dryden's death –
isn't
registered. There's a certificate, fine. But it doesn't seem to have made any difference. A man claiming to be my father was alive, not far from here, until just a few weeks ago. You see his life had carried on – my father's life – complete with his driving licence, medical card, pension – everything. So I'm going to check but I think it's pretty clear what's happened – The General Register Office – the GRO, was never informed of the death. As far as the state is concerned he was alive and well for thirty-five years after his death. So someone issued this certificate and then didn't inform the GRO. Do you see?'

‘And you think that's me – that I did that?'

‘No. But I thought you were the first person I should ask. It's a simple question: if you made out this certificate, how is it possible a copy did not get to the GRO?'

The blood in Trelaw's face was blotchy now. ‘Why would I do that?'

Trelaw seemed determined to cross-examine himself. But if he was prepared to ask himself the question Dryden was perfectly willing to give him an answer.

‘You lost your job because of your drinking problem. It must have been tough. You must have been short of money.' Dryden knew the accusation was implied, and unfair, given he had no idea how the coroner's office worked: who made out the paperwork, who was responsible for the secretarial duties.

‘I didn't lose my job. I was transferred to the council offices.'

Dryden hated people who danced along the line between truth and lies and Trelaw's retreat into such detail made him feel better about effectively calling him a fraudster. ‘OK. But the registrar's position is a good one – isn't it? You have a certain independence. I would have thought it was better paid than the job you went to Ely for – that was just clerical? But you took it because you needed to be near the hospital. For dialysis.'