by Jim Kelly
There were footsteps down the stairs – two at a time – and a man appeared drying his hands with a J-Cloth. He was thirty-five, perhaps forty, with one of those buoyant chests that men get if they do lots of exercise to expand their lungs – running, squash, rugby. Or joining the Army. But he had long, well-brushed black hair and wore jeans and a T-shirt for the Ely Folk Festival. The smell he brought with him was a cliché too: cannabis, an unmistakable earthy tang.
He smiled with the confidence of someone who thinks they have charm. ‘She’s beautiful, right?’ he said, caressing the fuel tank and offering his spare hand. ‘Billy Johns.’
‘She is beautiful,’ said Dryden, wondering about the gender, thinking that the object didn’t radiate anything feminine to him.
‘Yeah. Great thing about the Fens – especially out here. Great bike country.’
Dryden had thought before that the Fens were essentially a US landscape-mathematical, Great Plains-flat. Easy Rider country.
They went into the office which held a single security video screen, a safe, a locked filing cabinet – or rather a cabinet with locks – and an empty swivel chair. Dryden noted a can of Special Brew on the blotter, the tab pulled, and an unopened can of Red Bull.
‘How can I help?’ said Johns, his hands lose by his side, globes of knuckle on tanned stringy arms. His eyes swam slightly, green, but beneath a milky wash. Dryden wondered if he was always high.
‘Philip Dryden – The Crow at Ely. I think Mr Dudley-Rice rang?’
‘The Yorubas,’ he said, looking businesslike. ‘The people who lost their baby. I’m Superintendent here. It’s all down to me.’ He laughed at the pomposity of the title. ‘Caretaker, dogsbody.’
Dryden liked him a little bit more for taking responsibility.
‘Tea? Or shall we just do it. There’s a burial at ten – it’s dug, but I need to check things out. There’s time either way.’
‘Tea’s good,’ said Dryden because he was a reporter, and it almost always paid to take your time. The Fleet Street foot-in-the-door model was the exception, not the rule. Softly, softly was almost always better.
Johns plugged in a kettle and arranged cups. While they waited for it to boil Dryden asked idle questions. Johns had been at the cemetery for fifteen years since leaving college. His father was an undertaker, his grandfather too. He’d grown up in the business. In his own way he was still in it. He just had more freedom. His own boss, unless someone from the town hall came past, and they hardly ever did. ‘Unless they’re in a box,’ he said. Graveyard humour suited him.
He mashed tea bags and led the way out to a bench in the memorial garden he’d clearly used earlier because there was a small iron ornamental table and that morning’s Guardian open on the grass beside it, weighted with a piece of stone broken off a memorial – an angel’s foot.
‘My uncle’s just died,’ said Dryden. ‘He lived out at Buskeybay.’
Johns watched him over the surface of his mug of tea. ‘I’m sorry. Illness?’
‘He was murdered. Probably.’ It was the first time Dryden had used the word and it was a shock. It begged questions: like who and why. He couldn’t imagine Roger creating an enemy – not consciously. He’d been so separate from the lives of others.
Johns looked like he wanted to ask a question himself but Dryden said: ‘Could he be buried here?’
‘Sure. It’s a good place. There’s no . . .’ He searched for the right bureaucratic term: ‘Requirements.’
‘Best to be dead,’ offered Dryden and they both laughed. ‘There’s space?’
Johns smiled. ‘Yeah. Every few years we tidy up the older graves. There’s a rolling programme.’ He stood. ‘I’ll let that cool,’ he said, setting the mug aside. ‘Better get changed for the funeral – I’ll be ready in five.’
Dryden looked out over the gravestones to the screen of poplars. Beyond lay the open fen and the levels. There was a lot of space here, and the big sky, and he’d enjoy visiting the gravestone. There might be two: if the body in the morgue was Jack Dryden he’d have to bury him as well. They could be close. Was there company after death? In death? He wouldn’t come on grey days, when the clouds were low and indistinct. On those days the sky was like a coffin lid.
Johns came back wearing a newly laundered pair of green overalls and clean boots, a cheap nylon white shirt and black tie, his hair neat under a cap. Aftershave obscured the cannabis.
Dryden stood, pouring the dregs of tea on the roses. ‘So – the missing baby.’
They walked towards the screen of poplars and Dryden saw that as they walked the graves got fresher – from early Victorian to present day, from monumental stone to freshly dug, covered in wilting wreaths.
Dryden stopped, panning round in a field of gravestones, thinking he’d never seen so many in one place, except, maybe, for one of the Great War cemeteries in Picardy.
‘Nearly 12,000,’ said Johns, guessing what he was thinking. ‘A lot of the graves are multiples – family graves. So a lot more in terms of the dead.’
‘And the Yoruba baby – will she get a stone?’
Johns stopped a few paces ahead and turned back. ‘I don’t know how much of this you’re gonna want. The details.’
‘Just tell me everything. Please. I’ll decide. Mr Dudley-Rice explained? You need to tell me what you’re going to tell them.’
‘Right you are. We need to get on the other side of those trees.’
They walked on through the modern section. Gothic-free and regimented. The stones, many of them gaudy modern polished marble, were set in precise rows to allow the gang-mowers through. Some of the stones had an oval picture of the dead – a modern flourish which left Dryden uneasy. It was the contrast which was unsettling, between the favourite picture, and what was beneath. A Nintendo DS had been laid on the stone of a child, the earphones of a weathered Walkman over another nearby.
As they walked Dryden felt an urge to fill the silence which seemed to be thickening, as if the air was getting denser. ‘You like this job then?’
‘I like peace and quiet. My own company. Yeah – it’s a good job.’
Something about the explanation seemed pat. It made him wonder what the real attraction might be.
They passed a grave covered in plastic toys. ‘Kids are mixed in?’ asked Dryden.
‘In the private burials, yeah. You pays your money – no one’s bothered about the age. There’s one down in the fifties section that’s just hours – two, I think. It’s got the times on it like dates you know – Born ten a.m. Died twelve noon. Parents are still alive. They come every week. You get to know the regulars. And the residents.’ He laughed warmly, without cynicism. ‘That child was called Alice.’
The curtain wall of poplars was nearly thirty feet high and apparently impenetrable. But at its centre was a solid iron gate which Dryden saw was attached to a fence which ran through the trees. Johns fumbled at a bunch of keys on his belt. The back of his neck was clean and the skin bore an ugly, fuzzy, tattoo.
‘These are the public graves,’ said Johns, pushing open the gate.
Dryden was shocked by what was beyond the trees because there was virtually nothing: a couple of compost heaps, a few discarded motor mowers, what looked like a standing fuel tank. An area the size of half a football pitch, bounded by a ditch and reeds, with a clear view over the fen. One building: a shed, with skylights.
‘So what’s the difference – private – public. There’s just no stones here – that it?’
‘All those we’ve passed are private graves. You buy ’em – well, lease them, for fifty, hundred years. You get to say who else goes in the plot and you get memorial rights – you can stick a stone up. But it costs. When the poor die there’s no cash, so the council has to give ’em a burial. And that’s what’s in here.’
‘Pauper’s burial?’ asked Dryden.
‘We don’t use the word any more,’ he said, but not in an unkind way. ‘And we don’t say open grave either, or comm
on grave. We say public burial. Euphemism. It’s how bureaucrats talk.’ Johns led him over to an area of mown grass with a square, boarded, centre, like a bit of low garden decking. ‘We’re replacing these with iron lids – after what happened. It’ll take another week, maybe less. But for now, this is how it’s always been.’
Dryden felt a sliver of anger then, realizing he’d been manipulated by Dudley-Rice. By the time the story came out the council would be able to say they’d taken action to make sure it couldn’t happen again. By waiting Dryden had got his story, but let them steal back the initiative.
Johns got a crowbar from a wheelbarrow and used it to lever up the boards. There was a grave underneath, but not coffin-shaped, this was almost square. Johns held the back of his hand across his nose but Dryden could smell nothing. The hole was dark – deep, but there was something down there. He kept staring until the greys and blacks resolved themselves into some kind of order. He could see three cardboard boxes half covered in earth and what looked like white cement.
‘It’s lime,’ said Johns, without waiting for the question. ‘It kills germs – and the smell.’
‘Children?’ asked Dryden, not believing him. ‘There are children in those boxes?’
‘Yes. Under one year of age – otherwise they go over with the adults over there.’ He pointed to a similar area of decking near the far ditch.
‘This is a mass open grave?’ persisted Dryden. ‘With three children in it?’
‘No.’ Johns looked at his hand as if he needed the digits to help him count. ‘Fifteen so far. Decks of three. We dug it last November. They fill up – it’s for the whole district. We stop six feet from the top of the pit – that’s the law. Then fill it in with earth.’
‘Because?’
‘Because it’s the digging and filling in which costs money. So we leave it open. Costs bugger all then.’
‘And these kids were – what? Like – orphans?’
‘Maybe. Either they’re unknowns – dumped on doorsteps or waste ground, or the parents and family can’t afford it, or just can’t face it. So the council takes over. Has to – no choice. Statutory duty. Or they died in childbirth, perhaps, and the parents just ask the hospital to deal with the burial – that’s much more common than you think because people are confused, right? They can’t face the idea of arranging a funeral when they’re at a birth.’
His jaw had set in a line and for the first time Dryden thought he was having trouble maintaining a professional distance from the tragedies around him.
‘It’s a scandal,’ said Dryden. But he didn’t make it sound as if it was Johns’ fault.
‘I guess it is. But it’s a public one. It’s in the annual council budget. Has been for a century or more, I’d reckon.’
Dryden knew then that Dudley-Rice had briefed him first, given him that line to spike any idea that there had been a cover-up.
‘But you’re right – in this day and age. It saves money so nobody makes a fuss. That’s the point really – they’re here, these children, because nobody wants the fuss.’
‘But the Yoruba baby? If she’s in one of these pits why can’t the parents have her back?’
‘She was over here,’ said Johns, walking to an area which had been turfed, but not watered enough, so that the square showed. ‘Last pit. Sometimes, before we fill them in, they get disturbed. Rats. But mainly foxes. End of the winter, when everything’s been cropped off the fields they get desperate for food, badgers too. But with the Yoruba’s baby it was foxes. They dug round the boards, got in. You could see the prints and we got the police to take some pixs – for the record, in case.’
Dryden shook his head, the vertebra in his neck grating.
‘The body was gone?’
‘Yeah. Box was chewed through. She’ll be out there, on the fen, what’s left of her. We tried dogs but no luck.’
‘Christ,’ said Dryden, thinking it probably happened a lot, but they just never checked, never delved too far, just filled the pit in and moved on. So the Yorubas would never get their grave to visit. He looked round. ‘And no one . . .’ He wanted to say ‘cares’ but stopped to find something else. ‘Comes?’
‘Hardly ever. The pits are marked – numbered. And we’ve got records of who’s in which. But it’s not like there’s anything personal. I guess people want to forget. It’s like the opposite of over there – on the other side. No one comes to remember.’
‘But from now on the graves will be secure – with iron covers?’
‘Yeah. It’ll cost. The press office’s got the numbers. It won’t happen again.’
So that was the story. But it didn’t help the Yorubas.
‘But the coffin was left – the little girl’s coffin?’
‘They’re biodegradable. Cardboard. So not much. And a shawl. And a name tag. That’s it. The police have got those.’ He shook his head. ‘There was some hair too – black, wispy, caught in the clasp on the tag.’ Johns didn’t meet his eyes.
Dryden scanned the graveyard, reluctant to leave. He noticed the shed again. ‘What’s in that?’
‘Old mowers. Crap, really.’
If he’d told the truth so far Dryden thought that was his first lie because the padlock on the shed was catching the light – brand new, silver. And the skylights were clean, moss-free. Someone worked inside, so they needed the light. He filed the thought away.
They walked back towards the gate and out into the cemetery of stones. As Johns struggled with the locks Dryden scanned the view. There were several large, striking trees. A line of willows by the ditch, two oaks, and to one edge a great Cedar of Lebanon.
‘Are there any plots left over there?’ he asked, pointing at the cedar.
It was a good spot but there was no bench nearby. Johns said Dryden could buy a seat, have his uncle’s name inscribed on the little brass plaque. Dryden asked if there was room for two graves and there was. Side by side. It could be a family plot, he thought. And then it occurred to him that one day he might end up here too.
Johns took a note of the code on a little white marker stuck in the grass.
‘Thanks for your help,’ said Dryden, offering his hand.
Johns shook it, the fingers bony and powerful. Then he took out his wallet. ‘I’ll give you a card in case there’s any more questions – ring anytime.’
Dryden took the card but noted the contents of the wallet – a twenty-pound note behind two fifty-euro notes. ‘I guess the undertakers will ring,’ he said.
‘Sure,’ said Johns. ‘That’s it. And they’ll arrange the stone – but there’s no hurry. We leave the plot for six months to let it settle. So take your time. You can think of what to put on the stone.’
Dryden tried to imagine it. They’d put some verse from Housmann on his mother’s at River Bank because A Shropshire Lad was her favourite. Con might want something particular but Dryden thought they could go for a line from Beowulf if she wanted poetry. He crossed over into the Lord’s keeping . . .
TWENTY-ONE
The train back towards town trundled across the fen until it met the edge of the Isle of Ely at the village of Chettisham: a level crossing, a few cottages, and a grain silo topped with a Christmas Tree which stayed in place 365 days a year but was only lit in December, visible from twenty miles, flashing on and off. The station was a single platform which made the one at Manea look like Clapham Junction. Dryden had never known a train actually stop at the lonely halt, so when his did, he presumed they were waiting for the level-crossing gates to close. He dug in his pocket and found a piece of Cornish pasty in a paper bag and some wine gums. Then the internal door opened and the train driver stood aside to let DI Friday into the carriage.
‘You should be watching your boys play footie,’ said Dryden.
Friday asked Dryden if he wouldn’t mind coming with him – they had a car and it wouldn’t take long. There was not a trace or recognition, let alone warmth, in this request. Friday said they had some questions: routin
e, which didn’t make sense because he’d just stopped a train in the middle of nowhere to ask them.
Dryden followed him back into the driver’s compartment then out through the door. As he walked towards Friday’s muddy Volvo he wondered if this is what it felt like being picked up by the SS. They drove off towards Ely at a speed well in excess of the limit. Dryden wouldn’t have been surprised to see motorbike outriders.
‘I don’t suppose there’s any point in asking what the fuck’s going on,’ said Dryden.
‘Correct.’
It was an ordinary Saturday in town with the market busy, a momentary traffic jam in Market Street, HGVs lined up at the back of Iceland, but none of that could dispel Dryden’s unease.
They slipped into a parking spot by the Job Centre and he followed Friday out into Market Street: a hotchpotch of pubs, two Indian restaurants, a Chinese, barbers, florist; the pavements busy with families heading for Market Square. A few doors from The Crow stood a showroom which had sold furniture until it went bust. It had once been The Central Hall – a one-time cinema and meeting room. The shop had been in the old foyer. The hall beyond had been used for St John’s Ambulance Brigade meetings, Scouts, the odd jumble sale.
They went down a side alley and Dryden saw that the back car park was full of vehicles, all unmarked, BMWs mostly. Two of them – one of the BMWs and a jet-black Range Rover – had what looked like drivers: chauffeurs out of uniform. One was reading the Daily Telegraph, the other a book of crosswords.