The Skeleton Man (31 page)

Philip

When I met Jason I agreed that he could send me these e-mails about what he was remembering.

I want you to read them now because I think he’s in danger – from himself more than anything else. I got the last one last night and I should have rung – I know that – I should have texted. But he’d asked me to keep his secrets and I wanted to keep my promise.

But this morning when I read them again I realized I can’t now – and you’ll see why.

Philip, I want you to find him. Do this for me. Please don’t go to the police unless you feel you must.

My love

  Laura

When you read this, Laura, I’ll be gone. There isn’t much time so I’ll be brutal, because it was a brutal night, and now I’ve remembered it all. Kathryn was in my class, one of my pupils. I didn’t want to sleep with her, although I’d watched her, wondering what life would do to her face, her body. But she got close to me, bringing me her problems, because she was scared of something and I can see now that she thought I would protect her.

And I can’t hide it, once she was within reach I wanted her.

So we met in the village at Orchard House that last summer. She’d come along the towpath and I’d lead her through the apple trees into the cool shadowy kitchen. We used the big bedroom overlooking the garden, and I can see her now at
the window that last time, the time she told me there was going to be a baby.

I didn’t want the child and I know she knew that. I made lots of excuses – that my career would be over, that the police would be involved. But the real reason was that I would have had to start a life I didn’t want. That’s selfish but it’s what I felt. So I offered her the money to get rid of the child, but she said it was too late, that nothing could stop it now. And after that she never spoke a word to me again except on that last evening of her life.

She went away and made her plans. She found that boy – Peter – to cover up, to play the father. I didn’t think she had that in her, to use him like that. I think he thought the baby – the boy – was his. I think she let him believe it. It took my breath away when I realized what she was doing, how she could manipulate anyone who loved her, anyone who cared.

And so Peter began to love the child that hadn’t yet been born.

Jude. My son.

And then, unseen, at home, she became a mother. And what did I feel? I tried to ignore the sense of loss, the jealousy, the almost overwhelming physical need to hold him, to feel his weight, and the chaotic energy of his limbs. I went the first night after he’d been born into the water meadow opposite the old garage and watched the light burning at the upstairs window. And that’s when I knew I’d lost the life that could
have saved me, when I heard his crying from the half-opened sash window of the bedroom.

I knew he was ill, the village talked. But still the shock was visceral when it came. I was in the post office talking to Magda when her daughter came in with the news. Jude Neate was dead, dead in the night, and they wanted to bury him in Jude’s Ferry. I don’t know if I’d have been able to hide the way I felt if Magda hadn’t cried. So we held her, comforting her, and I wondered why she’d cry for a child she’d never seen.

And so when the chance came, Laura, I tried to get Kathryn back, tried to redress the balance of right and wrong. I was standing at the bedroom window thinking about the past, about that last summer, drinking from a bottle of whisky I’d found in Dad’s desk when we were clearing the house. I’d arranged to go down to the inn that last night but I still felt like such an outsider – so Dutch courage, I guess.

Then I saw Kathryn. She was coming along the towpath at the bottom of the garden in the dusk so I went out to meet her, as I’d always done. We could hear the crowd at the Methodist Hall, spilling out into the night. They put some fireworks up into the dusk and it seemed to make the shadows darker. I saw her face then, and realized what she’d been through alone.

I said I loved her, I said I should have been with her. I said I loved her again but I think it was grief
talking, not love but loss, and I think she knew. She said I’d killed him, the baby, that he knew he wasn’t wanted and that’s why he hadn’t fought. She said she was happy the boy was dead.

It was a cruel thing to say and I hit her. She went down in the dust, and I remember the fireworks exploding overhead, and I saw the colour of her face change. But she stood up and came towards me, her arms out to comfort me and then when our heads were together she whispered it in my ear.

‘I hate you.’ Just for me, like a blessing.

I don’t know how long I had my hands round her neck. When I looked at her again, her eyes reflecting a bursting rocket in the sky, I think I knew she was dead. There’s long grass by the towpath and I let her fall into it, and it closed over her, like water.

It’s frightening how quickly we forget the dead; all I wanted to do was escape. No one had seen me, the path was deserted, and then the clock in the church chimed seven. So I ran quickly to The Dring, and then down to the New Ferry Inn. I bought people drinks and something clever in my brain cut out the memory of what I’d done. And I thought that if I stayed with them, part of the village that night, I’d be safe when they found her body. I’d be safe as long as I was one of them. And I wasn’t alone, I wasn’t the only outsider.

And then the hours passed, measured only by the fact that she wasn’t there. I talked, shouting
through the alcohol, trying to feel a part of what was happening, trying not to think of her lying in the dark now, growing cold.

There was a fight in the pub – the Smith brothers. Mark wanted to pool the money, set up a building firm in Peterborough. Matthew wanted to set up a business with Paul Cobley, the kid who ran the taxis with his parents. They’d always been friends. Mark said he knew why his brother wanted to be with Paul.

He let the accusation hang in the air. There were sniggers, a crowd forming, smelling blood. I didn’t want to join in but I had to, I couldn’t stand out, not then.

We spilled out into the back yard – Ken Woodruffe pushed us out – the fight whirling with Paul trying to keep the brothers apart. I don’t know how it would have ended but it stopped when they dragged little Peter Tholy into the bar. When I saw Jimmy Neate’s face I knew he’d found her, there was death in his face. And George Tudor had the boy’s neck in the crook of his arm, twisting, smearing blood from cut lips over his skin.

‘It’s Tholy. Peter Tholy’s killed Kathryn,’ Jimmy said. And there he was, Laura, pathetic Peter, his thin arms shaking with fear and yet proud, he said, to have been the father of her child.

‘I’ve got money,’ he said, trying to stop it happening. We laughed, enjoying the torment.
Penniless Peter. He said he hadn’t done it but we didn’t listen, trusting George because he’d always been Peter’s big brother, his champion when the bullies had circled.

So I said nothing. Nothing when we took him down into Woodruffe’s cellar. Nothing when Jimmy kicked away the stool.

Next day we met at Orchard House, all of us, all twelve. We got our stories straight. Walter Neate said they’d buried Kathryn with her son and replaced the stone. George Tudor promised he’d cover Peter Tholy’s tracks, make sure there were no questions. And we left the boy hanging, the cellar sealed up. Then we had a drink, swearing silence, and I felt ashamed that for the first time I felt part of it, Laura, part of Jude’s Ferry.

And I thought that was the version of my life I’d have to live with until I died. A life in which I killed Kathryn Neate and let an innocent boy hang for the crime.

And then Jimmy Neate rang me. They’d found the body in the cellar, so he was making sure we were all going to toe the line. He had names, people we could put in the cellar; the guilty men, names plucked from tombstones. I met Jimmy on Cuckoo Bridge, because I said I thought it was time to tell the truth. And I was scared, scared that if they asked questions – the police – I’d let them all down. I just couldn’t do it. And Elizabeth would know, she’d sense that I hadn’t told her,
hadn’t told her why I didn’t want children, which was the one thing she did want.

Jimmy hit me from behind, but I was conscious when I went into the water, and I saw him above as I floated away.

And then, at last, God did smile on me. Thank you, Laura, for those e-mails. It’s always the innocent detail that saves us. You were telling me about the Skeleton Man, telling me what Philip had told you, what the grave robbers had found in Peyton’s tomb. The chipped ribs, the silent knife wound.

A wound to the heart of Kathryn Neate.

So there is someone I have to see before I die because there are two questions now. Why did he kill her, and why did he take Jude’s bones away?

When I have answers I can die. I’ve remembered too much to think about a life now. So I won’t see you again, and now, at the end of my life, that’s the saddest thing.

I’m going to bury my son.

Jason