‘Can you contact them? Get Winston?’ asked Dryden.
‘They don’t like it. They got the money. And I left them a bag for Emmy. Food and his things. His music. I sit tight some days. Wait some more. Sensible boy, my boy. He’s the first I send for with the money. Emmy’s a good boy.’
Kabazo took a wallet from his jeans pocket and flipped it open to show a snap: a boy, maybe fourteen, stood grinning under an African sun. In the background a great river, too wide to offer a view of the far bank, swept past. But it was what the boy was holding that made Dryden’s blood freeze: a mongrel dog with a rope collar. They looked happy together: impossibly happy.
24
Dryden stood alone in the graveyard of St Matthew’s, and looking at his shoes in the dust, observed that he had no shadow. The sun beat down vertically on Black Bank Fen for Maggie Beck’s funeral. Despite the discovery of the corpse in the pillbox the fen was deserted. Andy Newman’s team had finished their trawl for clues and were now out interviewing Johnnie Roe’s friends, relatives and lovers. The pillbox body lay in a mortuary at Cherry Hinton, its chest torn open by the pathologist’s knife, its dull eyes sightlessly open to the white-tiled ceiling.
The funeral cortège had left Black Bank Farm a few minutes earlier. He could see it now zig-zagging towards St Matthew’s. A brief ceremony had been held on the farm first – he’d checked the details with Samuel H. Gotobed; Undertakers. Private burial. No flowers. Donations to Cancer Research. Humph had parked the Capri under a stand of lime trees by the churchyard gates and stood beside the cab, a mark of respect only Dryden could truly appreciate.
By the time the hearse crunched to a halt a thin layer of red peat dust had taken the shine off the immaculate paintwork. The heat was pulsatingly intense. A trickle of cool sweat set out across Dryden’s forehead from the thick black hair above. He thought it was a good day to bury Maggie Beck. No splash. No clawing slurp of dark peaty water over polished pine. It was the first burial at St Matthew’s since Maggie’s husband Don more than twenty years earlier. The newly dug grave lay open next to those of Maggie’s mother and father, which, according to the stone, also contained the small corpse of Matty Beck, aged two weeks. ‘Even stone can lie,’ said Dryden, touching the warm marble.
Estelle rode in the first limousine, alone, her black, tailored shirt the only concession to funeral etiquette. Her shoulders were hunched in a silhouette of sadness. The second car carried a woman who had to be helped into a wheelchair. She wore a small pillbox black hat and veil, which had been fashionable in at least three different decades. The rest of the funeral party walked behind the cars led by a priest in white and black. A dozen farm workers followed in ill-fitting suits, their heads bowed by the heat rather than grief. But no Lyndon. Dryden considered his emotional state. The last time they’d talked, the anger had been visible. Anger at Maggie for giving her son away. Bewilderment as to the reason for that betrayal. Determination to find some sort of justice amidst the mess that his life had become. And Estelle? What part did his half-sister have to play in the rest of his life? He’d felt a distance between them, a fracture opened up by Maggie’s deathbed confession.
Estelle saw Dryden as she walked to the graveside and seemed to shrink further into herself at the sight. At their first meeting Dryden had detected anxiety and anger; now she radiated something else, something far more dangerous: defiance?
Dryden retreated to the shade of a lime tree as they gathered around the letter-box trench of the grave. The priest’s vestments, which hung lifeless in the heat, drank in the light. Dryden squinted at the white surplice, and looked away to rest his eyes on the horizon, where he found a lone figure standing in a group of pine trees. He felt his skin prickle as he shaded his eyes to try and see more. The trees had been planted to provide a windbreak for a storage barn which stood on what had once been a small island of clay in the peaty marsh of the fen. A white Land Rover was parked on its far side, the open tailgate just visible beyond the barn’s end. The figure, Dryden could now see, was dressed in USAF grey. He watched the head fall in a brief bow, then someone touched Dryden’s arm.
Estelle Beck’s eyes were bloodshot but bright. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she gripped his arm. ‘The police came, this morning,’ she said, watching the funeral party shuffling out of the graveyard. ‘About the man they found, in the pillbox. It’s terrible. It feels so close,’ she added, clutching at her throat. ‘It’s frightening – I’m frightened. Out here.’ She looked to the distance where the heat of the day was beginning to distort the strict symmetry of the fens.
‘They’ll find who did it,’ said Dryden, realizing quickly just how unlikely that was. ‘Newman – the inspector. He’s an old hand, and they’ve got a whole team on the job. Try to put it out of your mind – at least for today.’
‘Out of my mind?’ said Estelle, too loudly. ‘God! The torture… how could anyone do that? Such an inhuman thing…’ She covered her mouth. ‘Like Tantalus.’
Dryden considered the classical allusion and how perfect it was. The king chained to a pillar in a pool of water and left to die of thirst. The perfect torture.
The woman in the wheelchair was pushed towards them by the priest. Estelle stooped to kiss her. ‘Come back to the farm, Connie, at least.’
The woman shook her head: ‘God bless, dear. I won’t, forgive me. But come and see me soon.’ The priest pushed her on towards the waiting cars.
Dryden took his chance. ‘The solicitors have had a call. A letter, actually, delivered by hand. A man claiming to be Matty’s father – Maggie’s lover.’
‘Yes. I know. They rang here. We won’t be able to verify his identity until the will is read. I’m going into town this afternoon. I can let you know… You are interested?’
Dryden nodded looking round. ‘No Lyndon? I thought he’d be here.’
Her features softened but Dryden still struggled to see a shadow of Maggie’s humanity in the bitter green eyes. ‘Well, he’s not. I told him he’d regret it – but he said one more regret wouldn’t change his life. He may be right.’ She paused, looking briefly north towards the old barn.
‘Give him time. His life is in pieces,’ he said.
She shivered despite the heat. ‘Yes. Pieces.’ She looked about.
‘At least he has you. And a home.’
‘Lyndon isn’t comfortable at Black Bank, I’m afraid. He went soon after Mum’s death. I don’t know where. Perhaps back to the base. He won’t tell me. Says he needs the space and the time. The farm is suddenly very empty. And very frightening. It’s amazing how much you can hate a place, isn’t it? Really hate.’
Dryden wondered why Lyndon Koskinski did not want to spend time with his newly found half-sister, but he said instead: ‘Ring me after the will is read? Please. I’d like to know.’
Estelle looked to the funeral cortège. ‘I must go. Some of the hands are coming back for a drink. It’s the least I could do. They’ve run this place for Mum.’
‘Will you sell?’ asked Dryden.
She shrugged. ‘It may not be mine to sell. Lyndon’s the oldest child. And male.’
‘You should sleep,’ said Dryden. ‘You can’t do anything for Maggie now.’
She smiled. ‘I’ve been listening.’
‘Listening?’
‘The tapes. The tapes Mum made. Her life.’
Dryden thought of the long hours Maggie had talked and Laura, perhaps, had listened.
‘And does she say why she gave Matty away?’
She shook her head and looked north. Dryden saw that the white Land Rover had gone.
‘Not a word,’ she said. Dryden sensed the lie, and wondered if she’d listened to the tapes alone.
25
Mickey’s Bar stood by one of the giant concrete blocks the Americans had used to block Mildenhall air base’s residential roads from terrorist attack. Beyond the wire stretched the fen, but this side Mildenhall was like any other small Mid-Western town of 7,500 lost souls. Most of th
em needed a drink and a reminder of home. The place was riddled with homesickness. The barman had given Dryden a small draught Schlitz and was now staring into the middle distance. There were two other customers sitting at the long bar on high stools praying over their drinks. One wore a lumberjack’s checked shirt and was reading USA Today, the other smoked Lucky Strikes with obvious enjoyment. Mickey’s had a third customer – he stood, legs set wide apart, playing a one-armed bandit while swaying slightly to the piped music.
Dryden pulled his glass closer and sat watching the bubbles rise. One puzzle had brought him to Mickey’s Bar. How could Maggie Beck swap two babies and get away with it? He’d trusted her, and so had his mother. But even dying women lie. He found it difficult to believe she could have got away with the subterfuge. He’d promised to help her put right the damage her lie had done – but he couldn’t go on without being sure he wasn’t helping to construct a greater lie. And the good reporter in him told him he had to check the story out one last time, now that it seemed Lyndon’s new father had come forward. At least then he would feel confident that only one question would remain: why had she swapped the babies?
The walls of Mickey’s were hung with pictures of fighters, bombers, transport planes and their crews. The haircuts and the technology changed over the years, but not the over-confident smiles. Dryden checked the three clocks behind the bar. 13.30 GMT. 08.30 NY. 05.30 LA.
He drank his cold beer and looked at himself in the bar mirror. He was unaware he was handsome, an oversight which had saved his character from vanity at least. What he didn’t look like was a US serviceman. The jet-black stubble and the unruly hair were reasons enough to mark him down as local civilian staff. The gleaming blue-black eye added to his eccentric appearance and explained why the barman having served him and moved off, was continuing to watch him surreptitiously as he washed a small tower of glass ashtrays.
The bottles behind Mickey’s Bar shook as a B-52 lumbered overhead bound for the US.
Major August Sondheim walked in briskly and took the next high stool. He looked like he owned the place, which considering his position as head of public relations for the base, and the amount he spent in Mickey’s, was close to the truth. The barman needed no prompting: double Bourbon on ice minus the fancy umbrella.
‘Philip. Good day,’ said August, draining his drink and pushing the glass back across for the barman to refill. Dryden put a ten-pound note on the bar top and looked forward to the small change.
Today August was a drunk, just like every day. He ran a hand through his militarily trimmed white hair. ‘Laura?’
That was the problem with Dryden’s friends. They all asked the same question.
‘Same. Better. I get messages. Sometimes they make sense.’
August slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the counter but the bartender was way ahead of him.
Dryden started his second beer fighting off a dual attack – hiccoughs and burps. He’d phoned August the day before to ask for details on the Black Bank air crash, 1976. For Maggie to successfully switch the babies she would have had to hoodwink the US military authorities into accepting that her own son, Matty, was in fact Lyndon Koskinski. How had that been possible?
August never wrote anything down but luckily he had a good memory before lunch. ‘I read the file on the crash. Not much. Why would the woman lie, after all? This kid, her kid, was about the same age as the Koskinski boy – a few days’ difference. Their colouring and weight were similar.’
‘How did Maggie know that?’ asked Dryden.
August shrugged. ‘The dead child was found amongst the wreckage of the farm house. The body was clearly visible. The boy had died instantly from massive internal wounds caused by the impact. He had been travelling in a baby seat with a belt and had been thrown clear. My guess is Maggie found him, quickly realized the similarity in age and saw her chance to swap the babies. It looks like Maggie removed the blanket the Koskinski kid was wrapped in and used it to swaddle Matty Beck.’
Dryden paid for another round, feeling the room begin to gyrate on oiled wheels.
August was smoothing down his uniform in Mickey’s bar mirror.
‘The child who survived was examined by the base medic on duty that night, a different one had delivered the child at the US clinic. By the time of the crash the original doctor was Stateside, his tour over. The Koskinski child had been cared for twenty-four hours a day by his mother, they lived in married quarters on the base. Jim, the father, had returned for the birth from Vietnam.’
August downed a fourth drink, but Dryden wasn’t counting. ‘There was a problem they should’ve checked out,’ said August. ‘But hey, the grandparents had been told, they wanted the kid, the rush was understandable.’
‘What kind of problem?’ said Dryden, aware he was slurring his words.
‘Blood. They gave the kid a transfusion because of a slight head injury. He’d lost some blood. Luckily they double-checked the type. It didn’t match the records. They put it down to an error. Sounds incredible now, but remember, Dryden, this woman had given her own son away. Nobody could have imagined she was lying. The base medics took him that night and as far as I can see she never saw him again until this summer. Never looked back. All the Koskinskis had seen was a few shots taken after the birth – and we all know what newborn kids look like, right? Walnuts. What was anyone supposed to think? Perhaps they didn’t want to think. And don’t forget, Maggie Beck went on to identify the kid in the mortuary as her son. Who’s gonna step forward and ask: “You sure about that, lady?” ’
‘What about the autopsy?’
‘Not our jurisdiction. Local coroner. It’ll be in the records. But apart from weight and vital statistics they had nothing else to go on. She identified him, for Christ’s sake.’
August sipped the bourbon, realizing that he’d reached that point where the rest of the day was going to be spent in a fog of alcohol. ‘Any idea why she did it?’
Dryden burped into his glass. ‘Nope. She left some tapes – recordings she’d made setting out her life story. Perhaps the reason is in there.’ He burped again. ‘What do you know about Koskinski? What happened to him in the desert?’
August gave him a sidelong look and pushed the empty glass across again. ‘Let’s sit down.’
They took a booth.
‘He came down in Iraq. Engine failure. Captured and taken in for interrogation. He was held in Al Rasheid – the Baghdad Hilton. I don’t need to paint pictures, I’m sure, but every expense was spared. So when they did fly him out it was felt, understandably, that we owed him some R&R, and not least some time to recuperate. He’s under medical treatment as well – base hospital unit are dealing with that. Enough?’
Dryden nodded but remembered his golden rule: there’s always one more question.
‘And he’s back on the base?’
‘He has a room. We don’t keep tabs. As I said, we owe him. He has accumulated leave and the medics wouldn’t let him back anyway. The base commander has requested an interview, as have the local police. Clearly there’s the issue of the paternity – which affects nationality. I can’t imagine it’s an insuperable problem. But who knows? Bureaucracy can kill. He needs the passport checked – that kind of thing. There’s the issue of the crime that Maggie committed. But there seems little to gain from anyone taking that any further.’
‘Grandparents been in touch?’
August flipped the coaster on the table top and siphoned up an inch of whiskey. ‘They’re anxious to talk to him. I’ve taken a call. It’s clear they don’t know about Maggie’s confession. They’ve been informed of her death.’
Dryden tried again. ‘Medical treatment, you said. Anything specific?’ August stood, indicating that it was time to change bars.
‘Claustrophobia,’ he said, and gave Dryden a genuinely happy smile. Six bourbons, thought Dryden, that’s all it takes.
26
Dryden walked to the Capri with the light steps of someone propel
led by alcohol. Humph was holding his mobile, which had a text message from Inspector Andy Newman. It read simply: ‘Sardine’. Dryden told Humph to head north to the coast to West Lynn, Gifford’s Haulage Yard. The raid had been on the cards for weeks and Newman had promised Dryden the story once the police decided to go in. Code name Operation Sardine. But Dryden’s expectations were low, he’d been on similar outings which had produced a string of dull down-page stories. The idea was to catch the people smugglers with their cargo on board, but so far all they’d found had been empty containers and parked-up cabs. But now, at least, Dryden’s interest in this illicit trade had quickened. The pillbox on Black Bank Fen was at the centre of the operation, and Jimmy Kabazo was waiting for a consignment to be dropped with his son on board. And then there was the porn. Bob Sutton had discovered that the import/export of the pictures was running parallel with the people smuggling. And Bob Sutton was still out there.
They drove north in companionable silence. Humph was still sulking after the attack on his beloved cab. He’d put masking tape on the seats and the fluffy dice had been re-attached to the rear-view mirror. The cabbie had acquired a tape of Greek balalaika music from Ely Market and he played it now, aware that it would drive Dryden to despair.
Gifford’s lorry park was the size of six football pitches; acres of bleak concrete, enlivened by nearly two hundred HGV containers. A modern-day maze. A Saharan heat haze was already rising from the baking metal boxes and the smell of blistering paint was like a heady drug on the air. Dryden mistook a heavy sense of foreboding for the beginnings of a hangover.
The Fire Baby Page 15