Nightrise

by Jim Kelly

  Dryden’s eyes scanned the empty stone chairs of the chapter house. Nothing. Then the medieval altar, restored in gold-and-red-painted stone, and above it the modern Virgin in blue, her hands held up as if she’d held a child which had ascended into heaven. For a second it was an image which threatened to tell the future.

  Then Dryden looked down and on the steps leading up to the altar was a cradle, in the open, where it could not be missed. He could feel his pulse in every limb, as if his whole body was his heart. He walked towards the cradle and within two steps saw that there was a child there. But time had stopped, so the baby didn’t move. He stood above him and still he didn’t move. Dryden unclipped the belt and held him up, the body supple and warm, looking into his son’s eyes.

  Those eyes blinked; time started again.

  There was the sound of someone crying and he realized it was Humph, his face blank but one of his shoulders slumped with the effort of breathing. Laura appeared at the door. Her legs must have folded under her because she just knelt down on the cold stone and held out her hands.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Kapten Jaan Kross’ hotel room was full of steam, billowing out of the en suite bathroom, misting up the Georgian sash windows of The Lamb Hotel. Dryden stood and created a circle of clear glass so that he could look down into High Street. Early Saturday night – a few couples strolling, a man striding past holding a can of Special Brew. The window was directly above the hanging inn sign: a lamb shouldering a crusader’s banner above the text:

  Agnus Dei – The Lamb of God.

  Dryden could see Humph’s Capri parked on the edge of Palace Green, Laura in the back with the boy, the dog’s face up against the passenger-side window, a police marked squad car behind. Physically he could feel the child, even now, held in his hands, the weight of bone and flesh. The urge to keep him safe was like a colour, tainting everything he saw.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Kross, coming out in a bathrobe, white and fluffy. Despite the heat of the shower his pale skin was unflushed, his white hair wet and flat to his skull, which was slightly ridged like a bird’s. The almost invisible white eyebrows, the white eyelashes, the white goatee (which he hadn’t seen first time) gave a false sense of immobility to the detective’s face.

  There was an empty brown paper package on the bed. When Dryden had gone back to The Crow to get the parcel sent by Roger Stutton he’d found only the wrapping. Everything else had gone. Then he’d rung Kapten Kross’ mobile, surprised that the policeman had answered in the shower. He told Kross about his son – although he knew already – and that he had something for him.

  Kross stood in his robe looking at the wrapping of the package. He examined it, turning it in his long fingers, trying to reconstruct in his mind the shape of the original parcel, reading the sender’s address.

  ‘There were cellophane envelopes inside,’ said Dryden. ‘I could see documents – a passport, driving licence. I didn’t get a chance to look at them before I heard my son had been taken. This was all that was left when I got back.’

  Kross was very still for twenty seconds, maybe a little more. Dryden wondered if in some way he was able to detect the lie he’d been told.

  ‘You must forget you have seen these things.’

  Kross locked the door and rang reception, telling them he didn’t wish to be disturbed and that they were on no account to give out his room number to any callers – either by phone or in person. His English was good but he said neither please nor thank you. Then he made another call and talked rapidly – presumably in Estonian – and without pause.

  Dryden listened to the stream of guttural syllables and recalled that Estonian – along with Hungarian and, he thought, Finnish – formed a special group of languages unlike any other in Europe. A kind of dinosaur language which had survived meteoric impact to live on in the modern world. Which made him ask himself why he found Kross so unsettling. It was the idea, surely, that he was a foreigner in a foreign land who didn’t seemed too interested in following anyone else’s rules. And that gave him an aura of easy danger. As if he felt unbound by any rules.

  Ending the call, Kross sat in an armchair with the mobile on his bare knee.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You have done the right thing. Have you told me everything, please?’ Dryden could tell he was struggling to keep a peremptory note out of his voice. Which was a warning in itself, perhaps, that this man’s natural instincts were constantly under wraps.

  Dryden did not answer. He didn’t tell lies – rarely found the need to – but as a journalist he’d learnt to mislead. If he did have to lie he always tried to do it by omission, by not telling the whole truth.

  ‘I’ve told you what happened,’ he said.

  ‘This makes sense,’ said Kross, running the brown paper through his fingers. ‘Now – my job begins. Thank you.’ His hands moved to the arms of his chair as if to stand, as if indicating that the interview was over. And that made Dryden briefly angry, like a flame guttering. How dare this man dismiss him? He knew now why he’d not told him the whole truth. Knowledge was power. And this wasn’t just another crime statistic. This was the murder of his uncle, and in some way, in all probability, the theft of his father’s name, of what his father had been. And now, finally, the kidnapping of his son. An elaborate warning, surely, that he should stop asking awkward questions.

  ‘They tried to take my son,’ he said. ‘I want to know more. I have a right to know more.’

  Kross rocked his head from side to side. ‘Detective Inspector Friday phoned. I am happy the boy is safe. I don’t think they try to take him. It was a warning – a very shocking one, yes. But that only. Now they have what they want: the contents of this package.’

  Was the Estonian as cold-blooded as he seemed, or had any empathy been lost in translation? Kross stood and walked to the minibar and took out two cold bottles of beer. Dryden didn’t recognize the brand: SUKA. The bottle opener was in the pocket of Kross’ robe which made Dryden think it might not be his first bottle of the evening.

  He gave one of the bottles to Dryden.

  ‘I can tell you this.’ Kross closed his eyes and the white eyelashes meshed. ‘We have here a simple thing. A transaction – the sale of a fake ID. There is a customer, there is a supplier, there is the money, there is the ID – the commodity. We know only the name of the customer and the price. The customer is Russian – from Kallingrad, on the Baltic coast. An organization. You would call gang. But it is not like that. It is very . . .’ He drank. ‘Corporate. They provide these IDs to their customers – those wanting entry to the UK and then a new life. If you have the money you can have new life. No questions put.’

  Dryden felt the icy beer bottle making his fingers numb.

  ‘They use Estonian intermediaries for this, who come here and pick up the documents and make the payment. This must be done in person, you see. We are very concerned about this trade – but not as concerned as New Scotland Yard. Counter-terrorism is a hard business. London is a target – not Tallinn. And this time it is not one or two IDs but many: so it is not a hard business for New Scotland Yard, it is an impossible business.’

  They heard a wave of laughter from the bar below, and a cork popping.

  ‘The men from Tallinn – the intermediaries – come by ship to pick up this package. We show you pictures of the ship. They bring the cash with them. They pay first then go to pick up the package. For this they have a boat which we also show you. They go out by boat to the ruins on the new lake at night. You have words for this place . . .’

  ‘River Bank,’ said Dryden.

  ‘Yes. But this night – this last night – there is a moon. Perhaps there is always a moon. By this light they discover that all is not right. The documents are missing. Now we know why, yes? Your uncle has them and has sent them to you.

  ‘They find your uncle there, at the church, I think, in the tower that is left. Watching, perhaps, to see who comes for the package that he has taken. A brave man �
� but I think this time a stupid thing to do. They ask your uncle to tell them where the package is. He did not tell them. In fact, I think he says that he has no knowledge of this package. We know this now because if he had spoken they would have intercepted the package or come directly to you. This would have been unpleasant. I am sure they try very hard to make your uncle speak. He dies under the water. This we can all call brave. No question.’

  He drank then so that Dryden had time to understand what he’d said – that Roger had died rather than tell the Estonians that he’d found the package, that he’d sent it to Dryden.

  ‘The men from Tallinn – we know these men. They are Miiko and Geron Saar and they are brothers. The family is fishermen. A long way back in their childhoods they live on the shore of a lake – Lake Peipus. A vast lake – between my country and Russia. On this lake Alexander Nevsky beats the Teutonic Knights – the Battle on the Ice. You know this?’

  ‘Yes.’ He recalled a black-and-white classic film. ‘Eisenstein?’

  Kross smiled. ‘This is the one thing everyone knows of my country. Today this lake can still be a dangerous place. You can cross it at night to Russia – they can cross it the other way. The brothers begin their new careers here as young men. Ferrymen. You say “go betweens”. These are the things they are good at: boats on rivers, boats on lakes, and men with money looking for a new life.

  ‘But now they are in a very difficult position. They have given over the Russian’s money but they have no goods to take back. If your uncle does not have the package who does? In the night they come for Rory Setchey. How does this man fit into our picture? I think perhaps he is the suppliers’ man – their ferryman. His job is to drop the merchandise at River Bank.’

  Kross drank, his Adam’s apple sharp in his throat. ‘They take Rory from his home to a lonely car park here in your town. We find blood there and broken glass. They make this man very scared. We know the Saar brothers well and they are good at this. A word you have – adept.’ Kross smiled to himself at how clever that was, to recall the precise word from someone else’s language.

  ‘Maybe he cannot talk because he does not know. Or maybe he thinks they bluff and that if he keeps silent they will go home.’ Kross smiled bleakly and Dryden noted that even his teeth were colourless. ‘And then I think something happens which they did not expect – perhaps Setchey fights back, the gun they use to threaten him goes off – a single wound to his knee – and his heart fails. Now he cannot answer their questions.

  ‘They are very angry – but most of all scared. If not your uncle, if not Rory Setchey, then who has their package? They think, perhaps, it is the migrant workers at Eau Fen. The Poles. We will never know why. But the Saar brothers take Rory’s body there to say to the Poles that they know, that they will stop at nothing to get back what is theirs. They hang the body out – bloodied – for all to see.’

  ‘Whoever has the package is close by. So they look for this package, for these people who take it. They ask others to look – many eyes work for them – at the railway station, at the river locks, perhaps even at the police station. Everywhere. You say that money talks. This is true. But more so – it listens. It watches.’ Kross smiled again, which made Dryden think he didn’t know what smiles were for.

  ‘Today the Saar brothers find the package at last. Perhaps they suspect you have it all the time – and they take the baby so that they can search the office. Or they think you know something so they search your office when they have the chance. Either way, they get lucky. Now the brothers go home with the package, I am sure. We will let them go home because we can track them. For years. Clever people but blind also – they do not know how close we are to them. We watch and wait, learn very much.’

  Dryden had to force himself to understand what Kross was saying. ‘But they killed my uncle. They tortured my uncle. They can’t just go free.’

  ‘This you must accept please and leave to us. To Interpol. This is how we work, how we must work for the good of the many.’

  It was the wrong thing to say. Dryden decided then, in a cold-blooded sense, that at some point in the future – not the distant future of wishful-thinking but in the near-future of reality – that the Saar brothers would be brought before a court, a British court, and charged with the murder of Roger Stutton. But for now he listened to Kross talk.

  ‘Our job, Mr Dryden, is now to find the suppliers. We must find the suppliers. We need to know the names of those whose IDs are in this package. And then we need to make sure there are no more packages.’

  Kross went to the window and wrenched the sash up. Sound flooded in: piped in music from the pub across the road, the bell for evensong from the cathedral. He punched some keys on his mobile and gave it to Dryden to read. ‘I should not show you this yet . . . please do not say you have seen this.’

  It was an email. The sender’s address was CIDfriday@btopenworld.com.

  DNA test on swab taken from Philip Dryden. No match to our victim. We’ve submitted fingerprints for national database test.

  ‘So,’ said Kross. ‘As I said – this is not your father.’

  What did Dryden feel? Relief, disappointment? In a perverse way part of him had wanted this man to be his father because it held out the opportunity of being closer to him, of extending a life he thought had ended nearly forty years earlier. Now he was left only with the man who disappeared on the flood bank at Welch’s Dam – disappeared with questions unanswered about his past. It was an irony which was already haunting him; that in questioning the identity of this unknown man he had uncovered something of the real Jack Dryden. Something that could not be left unexamined.

  ‘I said this,’ said Kross. ‘Someone stole your father’s identity in 1977. The man who has become him dies in the white van with his name, his life. Then we hear in our city a rumour. That the network which provides IDs is to deliver not one, not two or three. This time many IDs – sold together. Coincidence? No. I don’t think so. But we do not yet understand why this man’s death makes this happen. But your father is important. Someone stole his identity – many years ago – as they have tried to steal these many. Perhaps he was the first. Maybe – if we understand that we will know more. Because there is a problem here. We can see how your father’s identity could be stolen: he was swept away, there was no body, no death certificate.’

  Dryden bit his tongue.

  ‘But this is very rare. And yet here we have someone selling many IDs. How is this possible? Because we know these IDs are special – like your father’s. The customers in Kaliningrad we know have been told that the IDs are special. Do you know how they are special?’

  Dryden didn’t answer. He objected to the familiarity and he never answered rhetorical questions.

  ‘They are not fake at all.’ Again the smile, the teeth very small against the faint red blush of the thin lips. ‘These are the IDs of people who are dead. The identities of ghosts. In Interpol we call them this. And this theft is ghosting. We have a word for the people who take on the names of the dead – they are ghosters. And here is the problem. It is very difficult to catch the ghoster because the identity is a real one. Not a fiction. And now we must ask how can this be? Are they the identities of the murdered? Not one, but many – this cannot be. This is a great question and I must find the answer.’

  He finished his beer holding the bottle vertical for a lingering last drop. Dryden set his aside, untouched.

  ‘So maybe this is why you get warning,’ said Kross. ‘That you should forget your father – or at least the man who took his name. But we will take this up. This is my job.’

  Dryden was dismissed with a handshake, but he didn’t go. ‘And my family – how safe are they?’

  ‘Very – I think, as long as you leave this to us. The Saar brothers have their package – they will go. But the twenty-four-hour surveillance will stay in place. The squad car. And also a unit from Interpol too, I think.’

  Another handshake, another dismissal. As Dr
yden closed the door he heard Kross opening the minibar.

  Dryden thought, as Humph drove them home, that for all his clinical intelligence Kross wasn’t quite as smart as he thought he was. He hadn’t asked, for example, whether Dryden had looked inside any of the ID envelopes. And he hadn’t asked if he had seen any of the names. The names of the ghosts. Dryden had forgotten most of them – but he remembered Samuel James Setchey. That and the name of the registrar who’d signed his birth certificate in 1986: Philip T. Trelaw.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The journey home took the Capri across Petit Fen – a vast area of peat which encompassed several parishes, criss-crossed by ditches and drains, and scattered hamlets strung out on the flood banks. A bleak landscape, drenched in heat by a late sun. The cab was hot despite the open windows. Laura sat beside the cradle with her hand on the baby’s arm, the dog across her feet. Humph kept checking the back seat in his rear-view mirror, as if they might all simply vanish. Each seemed unable to share the sense of shock which they felt. It was little comfort – and Dryden hadn’t voiced it – that this was nothing to what they’d all be feeling if they hadn’t found the child so quickly and unharmed.

  The marked squad car was still in the rear-view.

  ‘I want to know why,’ said Laura, touching Dryden’s shoulder. ‘Why did someone take him?’

  He told them what he knew. All he knew – except that he’d seen the name of Samuel Setchey on the documents he’d found in the sealed package from his uncle.

  A fresh silence settled on the car.

  The road ahead was railroad-straight and passed a small chapel. Looking around Dryden realized where he was and remembered that he had agreed to meet Sheila Petit at six to discuss the next stage of the anti-flooding campaign. Petit had lived her life in the eastern fens; she’d know everything there was to know about the one-time Swaffham registrar Philip Trelaw: the man who’d signed Dryden’s father’s death certificate, and the Setchey boy’s birth certificate. Dryden didn’t believe in coincidence; he searched the world for patterns, and Trelaw seemed to occupy a pivotal point in a system which provided new lives for the dead. Lucrative new lives.