The Skeleton Man (27 page)

‘You in touch?’

He shook his head. ‘She didn’t come when Dad fell ill. I couldn’t forgive her for that. She took a car in ’92 – said she’d send us the money. That was the last time I saw her – she was standing right there,’ he said, nodding at Dryden. ‘She said she wanted a new life. So that’s fifteen years ago, the November.
We asked her what her plans were, who she knew, but she just went. I got a letter from Dorset, a farm down there. Married and that, but no kids. Well, no more.’

‘And George Tudor?’

He laughed. ‘George wasn’t the father if that’s what you’re thinking. George thought he knew what was best for Kath – which didn’t go down too well in our house. Family feuds, Dryden – Mum was a Tudor, and they always thought they were better than us. Ellen Woodruffe was Mum’s sister, another Tudor. It’s like the Mafia, only nastier. So George just tried to take over, said he wanted to take Kath with him to Australia, start a new life. Perth I think. Along with little Peter Tholy, just the three of them.’ Dryden sensed the ritual denigration of the runt, the village scapegoat. ‘Dad nearly killed him when he asked. Like we couldn’t look after our own.’

Dryden let that hang in the air.

Neate shrugged, taking the picture from Dryden and, replacing it in the hall, he brought back another – a large black and white picture of a man standing in front of the old garage at Jude’s Ferry.

‘Dad,’ said Jimmy simply.

Dryden nodded, taking the picture, sensing it was an icon. ‘You’re gonna look like him,’ he said, knowing it would work.

Jimmy smiled. ‘I miss her. Dad missed her – but it’s too late for all of us now.’

Dryden thought he was trying to reassemble a
memory, studying the picture himself as if it was new to him, but then he asked, ‘Forensics, you said?’

‘Yeah. It’s all in the paper. They’ve found a grave.’

Neate picked up the beer can in a single fluid movement. ‘Where?’

‘In the cellar, where we found the Skeleton Man,’ said Dryden, taking a last gulp of beer.

Neate leant forward, elbows on the newspaper. ‘And I bet I know what they found in the grave,’ he said.

‘Go on.’

Dryden could see he wanted to say it but that the calculation was complex, and for a moment he hesitated. ‘Bones,’ he said, finally. ‘Old bones.’

‘And whose old bones would they be?’

‘Ask Ken Woodruffe, it was his cellar.’

A woman’s bones. Dryden recalled the picture behind the bar at The Five Miles from Anywhere, the oval face at the upstairs window.

Neate licked his lips. ‘Ellen Woodruffe, Aunt Ellen, was dying – she’d had a couple of strokes and her heart was failing. Ellen begged Ken, begged everyone, to end it. She wanted to die in her own home. I know for a fact she asked Dad to do it – give her some pills or something. Ken told everyone there was no way she’d leave, he reckoned they’d have to drag her out, or she’d do it herself. And there was the pain. You could hear her some nights, upstairs at the inn, trying to stop herself crying out. It tore Ken up because he
wanted her to die then, but the doctors said it could go on for years. She was a strong woman, Ellen, and it was like her body wouldn’t give up, even when she wanted it to. So I wouldn’t blame him if he did it for her, I’d have done it. After we got fixed up in business here Dad rang the home Ken said he’d put her in – out on the coast – but she wasn’t there.’

Neate leant back in his chair, tilting it on to two legs. ‘But like I say, good luck to him…’

Dryden finished the can. ‘Actually, there was nothing in the grave. It had been dug, then filled in. Not a chicken bone, nothing.’

Neate didn’t miss a beat. ‘So where did Ellen go?’

In his mind Dryden was back on Thieves Bridge, cradling the skull in his hands again, the dark sockets lightless.

The North Sea was a grey slate, ruffled only by a squall of rain moving in from the east. The cab had cruised the front twice already but still they’d failed to see the sign. Perhaps it had long closed, perhaps it had been renamed, perhaps the picture had been a fake all along.

‘Remind me,’ said Humph, winding down the driver’s side window to clear it of the droplets which obscured the view.

‘The Royal Esplanade,’ said Dryden.

It was dusk and the promenade lights flickered once then came on, somehow adding to the gloom. At sea a single trawler headed in, its green and red lights hinting at a subtle swell.

They reached the miniature clock tower by the marine gardens which was the centrepiece of Lowestoft’s sea front.

‘One more time,’ said Dryden, wishing he’d done some research before they’d undertaken the trip.

Humph swung the cab in a circle and headed south.

Dryden was looking at the double-bayed fronts of the B&Bs with their winking ‘Vacancy’ signs when they came opposite a small park set back from the
prom. Trees, heavy with summer leaves, obscured the buildings beyond.

‘Take the next right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go round the square.’

And there it was, behind elegant Edwardian railings – the Esplanade.

Dryden fished a tie out of the glove compartment and ran a hand through his hair, examining his face in the vanity mirror.

‘I need to look like an accountant,’ he said.

Humph was biting the top off a pork pie. ‘Thank God you’ve failed,’ he said, wriggling his backside down into the seat.

‘Thanks for the support.’

A female nurse in uniform answered the door, ushering him inside beneath a chandelier which failed to provide enough light. A long corridor led off into the heart of the building, the lino reflecting institutional lights, a distant wheelchair being pushed across from one room to another.

The nurse left him in an office by the door, a room which had once been elegant, but was now disfigured by an electronic intercom board and a semi-circle of high-backed chairs.

A tall man in a suit appeared through a connecting door, his hand already raised in welcome. ‘Mr Dryden? Dr McNally – I’m the head of care strategy here at the Esplanade – and at our other two establishments along the coast. I understand… please take a seat.’

Dryden nodded. They both sat, a coffee table
between them covered in old editions of
Country Life
.

‘It’s my aunt. She’s eighty-four. I’m thinking of suggesting she should… well, be looked after. She’s had several strokes and she’s now confined to a wheelchair. There are complications – mainly circulation. She needs a lot of looking after.’

Dr McNally’s eyes flickered down to a notepad on the tabletop where his silver pen skated smoothly.

‘There’ve been a few accidents. It’s upset her, just the thought she’s a burden on anyone. And even with a couple of care visits a day I think she’s beginning to get frightened – worried that something will happen and there’ll be no one there. So we’ve talked about it – which is when she mentioned the Esplanade.’

McNally nodded, letting him go on.

‘She had a friend who came here I think – back in the nineties. Ellen Woodruffe? She always spoke very highly of the quality of the care so I think Miriam – that’s my aunt – would be happy to at least consider a move. But she wasn’t quite sure this was the right place. She seemed to think it was near the pier – which doesn’t sound right.’

Dryden looked out of the window on to the dripping leaves of a plane tree.

McNally nodded, stood, and went behind the desk, tapping the keyboard on an AppleMac. ‘Woodruffe, you said?’

‘Right. With a final “e”. She would have arrived in June 1990, I think.’

‘Let’s see…’

‘Miriam said she had a wonderful room, with a balcony. If there was any chance we could offer her something similar…’

‘Indeed, indeed. Have you seen our charges, by the way – there’s a schedule in this leaflet.’

He pushed a brochure across the leather desktop. Dryden opened it, breathing in the mildly hypnotic whiff of freshly printed paper. The annual charges were listed in a small box and Dryden surreptitiously tried to hide his battered shoes by pushing his heels back under the chair.

‘Here she is,’ said McNally, and Dryden fought to hide his disappointment. ‘Let’s look at her file.’

Dryden nodded. ‘Thanks. These charges seem very reasonable,’ he lied.

McNally left the room, returning quickly with a box file.

‘Yes. Ellen Woodruffe. She came to us much later than that actually – 1992 – in the December. She was in Rosemary, that’s one of our best suites, looking out to sea. That’s a sitting room with en suite facil ities and a bedroom.’

Dryden rubbed his hands together. ‘Right – now I need to tell her all of this if we’re going to get her out to visit. Would that be OK?’

Dryden took out his wallet, making sure McNally could see the chequebook. ‘It’s odd though,’ he said, letting his pencil hover over a scrap of paper he’d got out of the wallet. ‘She’s got such a great memory
Miriam – and that’s certainly not fading. She was sure she came here in ’90. That’s the year Uncle Bernard died.’

McNally nodded as if he knew who the fictional Bernard really was, while he flicked nervously through the box file.

‘Yes. Well it does look like she was meant to be with us then. According to the file she was booked in for that year, and she was examined by the medical staff here and assessed for her needs. But there was a late change of plans. The contract was cancelled in May 1990. Looks like she went abroad with her son – Kenneth. Spain – Sitges on the Costa Dorada. They reapplied from there, that was in ’92, and we undertook a fresh medical examination on her arrival. Her condition had deteriorated further. Stomach ulcers, and some early signs of diabetes setting in, alongside the chronic heart condition.’

He nodded, closing the file.

Dryden looked out of the window. ‘We stopped getting Christmas cards in – what was it? Late nineties?’

McNally held his eyes for just a second beyond the point of politeness. ‘Ninety-seven. She died here, in fact – I recall her now actually. Wonderful woman, terrible illness, but bravely borne.’

Dryden guessed he’d been sussed but went through the charade of fixing up a visit. Miriam would have been proud of him. McNally left him in the office
while some forms were printed out off the computer in a side room.

He was looking out the window watching Humph complete his daily exercise by walking round the Capri when he saw a woman reflected in the glass. Dryden thought she was in her seventies, small sparrow-like frame, but her movements were quick and fluid. She edged in through the door clutching her hands together and Dryden guessed she’d been listening outside.

He turned to face her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Rosa, the nurse – said someone had called asking about Ellen. It’s nearly ten years, isn’t it? I just can’t believe the time has gone so quickly. I miss her terribly. We were in cahoots, Mr Dryden: partners. I’m Joyce, Joyce Cummings.’

Dryden took the paper-dry hand. ‘Cahoots about what?’ he asked, smiling, but she didn’t seem to hear. ‘My aunt was an old friend of Ellen’s. They’d lost touch. She’s hoping to come here too – Ellen recommended it.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, the hand vanishing back into the folds of her dress. ‘I’d very much doubt that. Ellen hated it here, every moment, so I can’t imagine where you got that idea. We both hated it but, well, you know, we were dumped here so that was that. It’s like the old joke – the food’s dreadful here, but the real problem is that you get such small portions.’

She laughed, her eyes dancing around the room, and Dryden tried not to think what it took to keep a
sense of humour alive for a decade in a place like the Esplanade. He could hear the printer still clattering in the back office. ‘Did you meet Kenneth too – her son?’ asked Dryden

‘He more or less ran the pub, didn’t he?’ Dryden nodded. ‘Never. She didn’t want to see him. She always said that he’d let her down very badly. That he’d promised she’d never come to a place like this, that she’d never leave her home, that she could die in her own bed. But people break promises when you’re old – that’s something you’ll discover for yourself.’

McNally came back in the room with a plastic folder, his irritation at the intrusion palpable.

Joyce Cummings put a finger to her lips, smiled beautifully at the doctor and fled.

By the time they got to the edge of the Fens night had fallen and a full moon was climbing into the sky behind the distant cathedral tower. They stopped for tea at a mobile café in a lay-by. Humph swung his door open to take in the night air, but Dryden sat on a plastic chair set up on the verge, watching the car lights strung out across the landscape. The tea was acrid and stewed, the taste further marred by the stringent smell of exhaust gas in the air.

He thought about St Swithun’s, its tower silhouetted against the setting sun that last night. In the New Ferry Inn the free beer was flowing, while in the nave of the church Kathryn Neate struggled with her grief. And George Tudor, leaving home in St Swithun’s Cottages below the allotments, climbing the hill to take his place beside the child’s grave. He was Kathryn’s cousin after all, nobody could have disputed his right to be at Jude’s funeral. But why had he not been there at the start? Why the theatrical entry, the pointed solidarity?

What had really happened when they all got back to Neate’s Garage? Had they turned on George Tudor then and made him pay with his life for giving Kathryn a son? But the scene Fred Lake had described
in the Neates’ kitchen that evening didn’t sound like the prelude to murder. Something else had happened to prompt the killing and he needed a clear view of that evening from outside the family ring to see what it was.

He walked to the cab and got the OS map for the eastern fens, tracking a route across country to Sedge Fen and Paul Cobley’s cottage. Fortified by a double hot dog, Humph agreed to the diversion, leaving the main road at Mildenhall and skirting the floodlit runways of the US base before the cab emerged into open country beyond, the distant lights of cottages and farmhouses studding the night, lightless now that the moon had risen to be obscured by rain clouds.

Sedge Fen was a hamlet flung across both banks of the Little Ouse. At its heart was a now abandoned industrial site, a miniature Manhattan of silos and storage warehouses which had once provided grain, potatoes and salad crops for the London market. A grubbed-up railway line ran across the open fields. A signpost directed Humph to Sedge Fen Methodist Church, a wooden ark next to a modern bungalow from which light flooded out onto a large American car. Dryden knocked and a woman with perfect teeth and big hair knew the way. ‘End of the lane, turn right – ’bout a mile. There’s just two cottages. They’re in the one with the new windows. They’ve got a flashy BMW, and a van, but we’ve seen neither for a week. They go on holiday a lot – for the tan. You a friend?’ she asked, and Dryden, who didn’t bother to answer,
could see that she was trying to stop the smile turning into a sneer.