Nightrise (7 page)

‘Gunshot wounds to the head and body. I think we can say “riddled”, if you like. I asked Friday and he said any statement would be minus detail from the scene. So far there's been nothing in the official press statements. We'll see if that still holds tomorrow – if it does it's enough. Suggests gangland revenge – a touch of mystery. That do you?'

‘ID?'

‘None yet. Unlikely to be official before we go to press either way.'

‘Perfect. We like brutal. Callous. Good words. Use 'em, or I'll use 'em for you.' Bracken laughed. ‘Still – you know what's what.'

Dryden saw the dead man's face again – the right eye obscured by the gunshot wound. ‘Pix?' he asked, trying to dislodge the image.

‘Yeah – Mitch did OK,' said Bracken. ‘Can't use the body but they covered it with a sheet and he got that. I love these fen coppers. Up north they'd have left it hanging there and we'd have been scuppered. He's sold a couple to PA for us – but we've got the best. Alf?'

Alf Walker was the local press association reporter. Dryden had rung him from the fen to give him two pars on the murder which he could put out to the nationals, regional dailies, and radio and TV. Alf had been out in his garden sketching a corncrake – an obsessive hobby, witnessed by the exquisite line drawings that peppered his shorthand notebook. The lineage fee would be paid to
The Crow
and divvied up at the end of the month. If the nationals wanted more they'd have to send their own staff out – which was unlikely, although the local evenings would be all over the story like a horse blanket by tomorrow's press conference.

Dryden rang off and immediately heard his son cry out from the bedroom below. He went to the stairs and called down to Laura in the kitchen that he'd see to it. One day soon, he sensed, the various chores associated with the child would become an issue. Child care, feeding, washing. But today, at least, they were competing for the jobs.

The child's room was a bedroom, not a nursery. For Dryden and Laura the Victorian nursery cast too long a shadow of malevolent sadness. So they'd gone for white walls, a chest of drawers, and the wooden cot. From the ceiling Dryden had hung an array of mobiles. But the biggest was outside 200 yards to the west – a wind-powered generator owned by the farm next door. At sunset it cast a shadow which came and went across the wall. The swish he could live with, but not the high-pitched mechanical squeak with each revolution.

The baby had fallen silent, his eyes switching from the left wall to the right wall, apparently mesmerized by the moving shadow. Dryden didn't break the line of sight, but moved backwards out of the door and climbed the stairs again to his desk.

He sat rereading the story on the Eau Fen murder, but not taking in the meaning, just checking the spelling, the syntax, the sound. Oddly, of all the stories he'd dealt with that day, the violent murder wasn't the one that had stayed with him.

He found the photocopy he'd made of the letter the council had sent the Yorubas about their daughter's burial. Reading it again he felt the familiar excitement of the chase: authority with its back to the wall, bluffing, trying to wriggle free. He had the council's head of media on his list of mobile contacts. The phone rang and he thought it was going to transfer to answerphone when it picked up: his name was David Dudley-Rice, public school, decent, about twice as smart as he let on. The voice would have been perfectly at home on the BBC World Service.

‘Philip?'

Dryden outlined the Yorubas' case then read out the letter. He said he'd ring officially the next morning for a statement but he thought Dudley-Rice would appreciate the heads-up.

‘I'll have something for you, but you should know this case isn't as straightforward as the Yorubas – poor people – may have implied.'

Classic first response, thought Dryden, implying that the family was not telling him the whole truth. A ploy designed to sow anxiety and mistrust. Dudley-Rice clearly knew the case well – a sure sign they'd been expecting trouble and felt exposed to the risk of trial by media.

‘Right. But you've offered compensation – or at least the possibility of it – and that's taxpayers' money. So I'd like an explanation.'

‘It is a personal matter, of course. We'd be very constrained in what we can say publicly.'

‘Just reply in private to the Yorubas – they're happy for me to see any correspondence.'

There was a pause at the other end of the line and the sound of a car engine starting. Dryden leant back in his seat and caught the smell of cooking rising from the kitchen. A pungent garlic sauce, tomatoes, and something else disturbingly earthy and almost gravid: Jerusalem artichoke – gnarled and marbled, dug from the ground.

‘Of course, our legal department is involved in this, Philip – just so you know. It all takes time. You know what lawyers are like. But perhaps we can say a bit. I'll try and get you an interview out at the cemetery – how does that sound?'

‘Who with?'

‘Cemetery warden knows the story – odd bloke. Mad on motorbikes. But he could help you if we give him the green light. Leave it with me.'

‘I'll ring at nine, David. I'm going to run the letter, plus a story, so if you want anything to balance that out let me have it then. If not, we'll come back to you next week.'

‘It would be nice to get a balanced story. Like I said, there are legal issues.'

‘We're a newspaper, not a Christmas annual. Deadline's noon tomorrow.'

‘Right. It's just there are issues of taste. Decency. It's not a . . .' He pretended to search for the word. ‘Not a pretty story.'

‘So you're up to speed on it. Why not tell me now.'

‘Like I said – lawyers. And they go home at four thirty sharp. They charge treble rate after that. We'll talk tomorrow.'

Dryden cut the line and felt drained, as if the mouthpiece had sucked out what energy he had left for the day. Hadn't the Yorubas told him the name they'd chosen for the girl? How had he forgotten it?

A ship's bell rang from downstairs – one strike, barely audible. He'd taken it with him from the house boat. It was the signal for food.

Laura had laid a red-and-white checked tablecloth out for two plates of spaghetti vongole. Red wine, decanted into a jug. His wife's family had run a small café and restaurant in north London. She'd been brought up with the idea that food was part of family life.

Dryden sat and pushed a piece of paper across the table.

Laura had her first forkful poised. She scanned it. ‘So. Well done, Philip.' It was Dryden's application for the post of editor of
The Crow
. ‘I wondered,' she said.

‘But you didn't say.'

Laura's own career as an actress had spluttered back into life after her recovery but had now ended. The speech disability refused to improve and she refused to accept bit parts which played to her condition. What she'd do next was something they hadn't talked about. For all her enthusiasm for the new house, and for being a mother, Dryden was sure she couldn't face life without a career.

‘Your decision,' she said. ‘The right decision. I thought – maybe – you'd want to go back to Fleet Street. We could all go. North London, maybe – not a suburb, the city. Hoxton. Hackney. I'm OK with that. I liked cities once.'

‘It's not just my decision,' he said, putting his fork down. ‘I like it out here. In the Fens. I want him to grow up here,' he said. ‘In all this space, all this freedom.'

‘All this sky,' she said. ‘Me too. I like to see so far. There is a magic here – very good for childhood. For
im-ag-in-a-tion
.' She pronounced all five syllables to make it clear which word she meant, then picked up her plate. ‘Let's eat outside.'

V
ee Hilgay woke up with her head turned to the clock as she always did. It was two minutes to five, and the alarm was set for the hour. She was seventy-four years old and had never yet been woken by an alarm clock. Her life had so far contained more than its fair share of grief. She preferred not to lie awake and stew in the past. And she was aware that she'd had more than her fair share of privilege too. A wealthy childhood, university, health. So before the rhythmic electronic buzz had completed its cycle of six she was on her feet.

Her bedsit was large and modern: a German galley kitchen in steel, a Habitat desk, a bookcase handmade for the space and neatly filled – each volume drawn out to match the edge of the shelf; wooden chairs, no cushions, no
soft furnishings
– a linguistic couplet that made her physically sick. She wasn't a snob; in fact, she'd spent most of her life proving to herself that she wasn't – but she'd always been clear that taste wasn't the preserve of the rich or educated. In fact, alarmingly, the relationship seemed to be an inverse one.

The one window looked down on High Street and the cathedral buildings along its southern side. The street was thick with a summer's mist, that particular species which seems to sparkle with the promise of the sun that will burn it away. A scarab street-cleaner edged along the kerb, its light flashing silently. Someone was slumped in the doorway of Asda – legs out on the pavement, a brace of beer cans lying in the crotch. She tried to memorize the boots and trousers in case she saw him later in Oxfam. Somewhere she could hear the mist, condensed, running in a drainpipe.

She turned the radio on to BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. Watching the minute hand creep to the vertical she thought about the day ahead: press day. She needed to pick up the post from the Royal Mail depot, open the office, do a round of calls. Anything from police, fire or ambulance that she judged important she'd text to Dryden. She listened to the news looking out of the window. The mist was making a last effort to cling on: thickening, gathering itself, so that the Octagon Tower of the cathedral which had floated free had gone now, leaving just a hint of its great bulk hanging in the white sky. A flashing amber light crossed the street – one of the early waste disposal lorries taking away bins.

The news bulletin was made up with what, she knew, Dryden would have called ‘twists' – running news stories kept alive by the latest, often minor developments. Top of the schedule was the Eau Fen killing: a police appeal for any information. No name for the victim but relatives now informed. Murder inquiry under way. But no details from the scene of crime. Second item: Environment Agency announce plan to purchase and flood Petit Fen – Phase 2 of the programme which had begun with Adventurers' Mere. Details contained in an application to the planning authority to include a visitor centre for water birds, but also three entry locks allowing pleasure boats on to the new lake. A spokesman for the National Trust was already condemning the scheme and calling for a return to the original vision for the region of a managed nature reserve of marsh, reed and water. Third item: vehicle shunt on the A10 at Streatham likely to cause major delays for commuter traffic heading for Cambridge. Then national news: a bomb in Damascus, a merger on Wall Street, Whitehall rows over cuts to the NHS. One thing new – a police appeal for information on a missing car, no registration: a black four-by-four last seen in the Lisle Lane multi-storey. Easy enough to spot as all its windows were shattered.

Then the weather. Sunny, hot, maybe a thunder storm. High humidity.

Vee took a camouflage jacket and let herself down the stairs into her office and out the door. She walked this way every morning and was always quietly thrilled when it offered up something different: the thick, untouched snow of February, a hoar frost in November making the willows look like the old Crystal Palace, a dazzling sunrise in May – right into her eyes, as if the sun wasn't rising at all, but hurtling towards her. This morning the first persistent mist of summer, thicker down by the river, dripping off the bankside trees.

She walked north on the tow path for exactly one mile, leaving the town. Beside her, arrowing in at a tangent to the river was the railway line from Lynn, set on the flood bank. The first train went by – three carriages packed, commuters reading newspapers by orange light. The rumble of the wheels spooked the wild horses – she heard the thudding hooves but saw nothing amongst the half-lit scrubland. The train disappeared into the mist as if plunging into a tunnel.

Crossing under the railway down a dripping pedestrian passageway she emerged in a meadow and climbed the bank. The sky was lighter here and she thought there'd be blue sky by six. Ahead she could see the gibbet by the railway. Vee had always thought it took a dark imagination to call it that, but not this morning. She could imagine a body dangling from the single arm. This gibbet had been put up for the post bag, to be ripped from its hook by the speeding mail train. She'd seen a picture in the sorting office from the fifties with a post bag swinging, waiting for the train. It stood now only because no one could be bothered to take it down.

A hundred yards further on the path joined the road and a sign said:

HIGHFLYER DEPOT

The sorting office was brick-built with a playful tower, mullioned windows and an arch leading into a hidden yard. The mainline ran down one side of the sorting shed, the branch line, which allowed for deliveries to the depot's own platform, encircled the site in a huge loop the shape of a noose. North, unseen, Vee heard the clanging alarm signals from a level crossing. The Fens was the land of level crossings – hundreds of them, operated remotely, beside abandoned signalmen's cottages. She always thought it made the place seem more secretive, as if you could only enter through a series of checkpoints.

There was a postman behind the glass in reception who heaved up a small sack before she could say good morning. ‘Sheila wants a word,' he said. ‘You can go up.'

He flipped up the counter. Vee took the sack which seemed unusually heavy and pushed her way through plastic-sheet double doors into the sorting office. The interior of the building was a Victorian throwback to match the facade. About twenty men stood at a series of wooden frames, each divided into pigeon holes. In a wooden chute letters piled up as they sorted them into the different ‘walks' – the postmen's rounds, marked on the pigeon holes with their own tag: High Street West, Dunkirk, Bishops, Riverside, Caudle Fen. Another sorter took the letters from the pigeon holes and added them to mail bags hanging in a metal frame. A radio played the local commercial station.