The Water Clock

by The Water Clock

  They pulled in beside a circle of caravans, each smoking gently from a stove pipe on the roof. A fire crackled orange-red in the freezing air inside a large open brazier fed by a gaggle of children. The Ferris wheel stood out against the fading light of the sky, dripping a fresh winter crop of lurid orange rust.

  Dryden took in the scene: Dogs, he thought.

  A Dobermann pinscher strained at one leash and an Alsatian at another. He sat for a few seconds to check the radius of their movement and then got out of the car, pausing to check no unleashed dogs were lurking. Humph made an entirely unnecessary settling-in movement which indicated he was going nowhere.

  The flimsy metal door of one of the caravans jerked open and a large man, wrapped in several sweaters, jumped down and came over with a well-measured combination of hostility and nonchalance. He put the open fire between them and said nothing while holding at his side the largest wrench Dryden had ever seen.

  A decade of experience had taught Dryden that in such situations ploys are unlikely to work. ‘Hi, The Crow, Ely. We heard about the fire. Could I have a few words?’

  It was hard to see the man clearly through the rising heat which distorted the air between them. He might have been handsome once. He was at some age over fifty but an outdoor life made any estimate beyond that less than a guess. The hair was tyre-black and full. The face was hard and muscular and made up of flat clean facets, like the bodywork of a truck. The eyes were small, green, and intelligent. One arm of the overalls was empty and folded neatly back to the chest: his disability went unhidden, more – he wore it as a badge of experience. He kept the fire between them but eyed Dryden’s camera out of interest rather than concern.

  ‘If you’re taking pictures, mister, I’d like to see some…’ The accent was a tussle between Ely and the Bronx – and New York had won.

  Dryden pointedly eyed the straining Dobermann.

  ‘Insurance,’ said the man. Dryden was unsure if he was referring to the dogs or the need for pictures of the fire damage.

  The gypsy snapped suddenly at the dogs. ‘Shut it, boys.’ They shut it and, whimpering, skittered under the caravan.

  ‘Joe Smith,’ he said, picking up an iron bar and prodding the wood in the brazier.

  Fine by me, thought Dryden, who’d made up less believable names.

  Smith held his one hand out over the fire and kindly shooed the kids away.

  Dryden stepped into the circle of heat. ‘So what happened?’

  Smith slipped a piece of chewing gum into his mouth. ‘Could’ve killed us. There’s a dozen kids on the site. No warning – nothing. Just set light to the stables.’

  Dryden tried an expression of world-weary cynicism – a subtlety lost in the weaving heated air between them. ‘Police didn’t seem to think…’

  ‘They think we did it to get the insurance. Gonna print that, fella?’

  ‘Dryden. The name’s Dryden. So… who…?’

  ‘Never saw ‘em. They stuffed straw from the stables under the caravan as well – didn’t light it. Just a gesture. Nice people.’

  ‘But the dogs…?’

  ‘Inside. Cold. They’re pets. They lit the fires and drove off – we heard them reversing on the drove road, looked like a van, a Ford perhaps. We were too busy fighting the fire to follow’

  ‘All of you too busy?’

  This observation was apparently a mistake. Smith came round the fire. Dryden estimated that a blow with the wrench would be fatal – or even a promise to deliver one. The potential weapon had now assumed the proportions of a small fork-lift truck.

  ‘You’ll want to see the animals.’ He walked off towards the stables and Dryden followed. Inside the straw was burnt and wet. Sprawled innocently in the debris were the charred bodies of two ponies. The smell was pure Salmonella Sid’s – overcooked greasy meat with a hint of burnt toast.

  ‘Oh shit,’ said Dryden and put his breakfast in the sawdust. When he finished retching and stood up Smith was standing ready with a metal canteen of water.

  ‘You found them like this?’

  ‘Nope. If we hadn’t got to them the whole block would have gone up – we’ve got nearly fifty animals. These two had gone down with the fumes. The half-doors had been bolted and a petrol bomb tossed in. Some of the fairground stuff is stored in there – we dragged that out but a lot of it’s trashed.’ Smith looked around and shook his head. ‘Don’t ask me why.’

  Dryden couldn’t resist. ‘Why?’

  Smith tried a grin. ‘If you want a list of our enemies we’d betta sit down.’

  Perhaps the police were right – perhaps they were making it all up for the insurance money.

  ‘You the owner?’

  ‘Nope. We just look after it from the fall onwards. Feed the livestock, oil the machines, run ‘em now and again to keep it all moving. Do a bit of painting as well. Circus people come back in February from Ireland, pick her up and off on tour.’

  ‘So you’re not the insurance policy holder?’

  ‘Nah. But we’re all in cahoots. Gypsies are like that – ask anyone.’

  ‘You tour?’

  ‘Some of us go, work the stalls and the rest. Others stay here – keep an eye on things. Earn an honest dollar.’ He looked Dryden straight in the eyes. He said it again. ‘Honest dollar.’

  Dryden started taking his pictures. Smith got two of the kids to pose with some of the charred circus rides – an old merry-go-round and some dodgem cars. Nice pic – very nice pic. A woman who might be the kids’ mother hovered by the caravans tending the fire. If you’d asked the average bigot what a gypsy woman looked like she was the opposite: neatly dressed in designer jeans and trendy sports windcheater. She had short blonde hair and bright cat’s eyes like Joe Smith – and shared his accent without the undercurrent of the Fens.

  She inveigled the children into posing for the pictures and smartly slapped one who asked Dryden for a fifty-pence piece for his trouble.

  Dryden took a set of pictures for the insurance company showing the extent of the damage. Smith insisted on a shot of the burnt-out stables. Dryden was relieved to get back out again into the fresh, cutting air.

  His mobile chirrupped. It was Andy Stubbs. ‘Hi. You OK to talk right now?’

  Smith had returned to the fire and was chatting with the children.

  ‘Yeah. Fire away.’

  ‘Chummy in the car boot – we’ve found the record that goes with his prints.’

  Dryden waited. ‘There’s a link with the body on the roof. The prints were found at the Crossways garage – next to Tommy Shepherd’s on the shop counter. No ID of course, they never found the rest of the gang. But a link.’

  Dryden’s imagination wheeled. The body on the cathedral roof was that of the prime suspect for the Crossways robbery. The victim in the boot of the car fished out of the Lark had been there too – but never identified. And the Lark victim died forty-eight hours before his one-time partner in crime Tommy Shepherd was discovered on the cathedral roof.

  ‘Look, I’ve got an incoming call – better go. You still OK on the photofit story?’

  ‘I don’t remember saying I was.’

  Stubbs’s desperate need for help was becoming cloying. Dryden guessed that he was getting increasingly worried that the tribunal would chuck him out of the force. The station must be full of rumours and most of them would be fuelled by the natural desire of his colleagues to see the golden-boy son of a former deputy chief constable publicly humiliated. Stubbs needed the story to run. And he needed it to run Tuesday morning, so Dryden was his only hope. The local evening wouldn’t touch the story, they’d just want to wait for the photofit itself. And the nationals had already moved on. Dead body found in the Fens. A story on day one. Not much on day two. But Dryden needed to string Stubbs along. He wanted that file. But he could afford to wait, he was holding all the cards. He faked some static on the line and switched the mobile off.

  He rejoined Smith at the fire. The gypsy looked happier, so
Dryden tried his luck: ‘Ever have anything to do with the camp at Belsar’s Hill, Mr Smith?’

  He gave Dryden an old-fashioned look. ‘Some. They buy and sell horses a bit. Why?’

  ‘I had some news for a family that used to live out there – name of Shepherd?’

  ‘Common name – same as Smith.’ He let a smile touch his eyes. ‘I can take a message unless you want to go in person.’

  ‘It’s about someone called Tommy Shepherd – a kid really, teenager. He went missing in the sixties. There might not be anybody left who cares – but his body has been found. Perhaps you might ask if one of the family could give me a ring – on the mobile.’

  He scrawled the number on a page of his notebook – Henry’s budget didn’t run to business cards. ‘I’ll drop the pictures by – but you’ll ask at Belsar’s Hill?’

  Smith looked to the woman. ‘What do you want me to tell ‘em? Where was he found?’

  ‘It’s a long story. They found him on the roof of the cathedral – in one of the gutters. He’d been there thirty years – perhaps longer. Suicide the police say – jumped from the West Tower.’

  Smith nodded. Went on nodding. Poking the fire.

  ‘I’ll have more by Monday,’ said Dryden. ‘The autopsy. That kind of thing. They can ring if they want. I can put them in touch with the police who are investigating. If they want.’

  Smith nodded by way of goodbye. As Humph’s cab pulled away Dryden watched him in the rear-view mirror. The New York gypsy with the giant wrench watched him back.

  9

  Newmarket has the most northerly siesta in Europe. Stable boys, grooms, and jockeys snooze after lunch having risen at dawn to get the thoroughbreds out on the gallops. Without the crowds who flock in on race days the town slumbers deeply in the late afternoon. Dryden and Humph rolled in just after 1 p.m. Snow covered the gallops on the heath near the town and a string of glistening thoroughbreds, steaming under winter blankets, clip-clopped across the dreary High Street doing a passable impression of coconuts being knocked together.

  Humph stayed in the car park of the Winning Post, a pub with a very low bar, while Dryden ferried him a pint of orange juice and a salad sandwich. Dryden administered two pints of best bitter and nearly managed to finish a grisly meat pie, remembering, too late, the aroma of Joe Smith’s stable.

  He found the National Horse Racing Museum just off the High Street, by the headquarters of the Jockey Club. Galleries on the history of the ‘Sport of Kings’ and the lineage of its great horses had been lovingly filled with priceless memorabilia and were completely deserted. Dryden was instantly depressed, recalling dull Saturday childhood afternoons in front of the TV and the unmistakable voice of Peter O’Sullevan. He repeated to himself the observation that if betting was illegal horse racing wouldn’t exist. A squealing group of schoolchildren crowded into one room where an oversized ex-jockey had coaxed them into trying a mechanical riding machine.

  He found the archives in a small basement room which unaccountably smelt of horse manure. He eyed the curator with suspicion. Johnnie Reardon was Irish, compact, and skittish. He informed Dryden within thirty seconds that he had won the Oaks in 1980 on Pilot’s Error. A black and white newspaper picture of horse and jockey in the winner’s enclosure hung on the wall. The print was unprotected by glass and Reardon’s countless attempts to point himself out had worn his image into a white ghost-like form. Dryden gave him the benefit of the doubt.

  He told Reardon exactly what he wanted and why he was there.

  ‘That’ll explain it then.’

  ‘Explain what?’

  ‘The police. They called. They’re sending round a bobby this afternoon. I’m to be on hand. Bloody cheek. I might get plastered in the Bay Horse and miss ‘em, eh?’ Reardon belched slightly indicating with little doubt that it would not be his first visit to the Bay Horse that day.

  Dryden could recall precisely the details on the betting slip. The question was, when was the race run and did Tommy Shepherd win? The police clearly didn’t think the details vitally important – a ‘bobby’ sounded pretty routine. But Dryden wanted to know whether the nineteen-year-old thief died a winner or a loser.

  They took a gamble, appropriately, on Tommy’s death being soon after his disappearance in the summer of 1966. They also took a gamble on his last bets being waged on a race at Newmarket. Reardon fished out some leather-bound record books. The cartridge paper creaked with age. Dryden checked his watch – it took Reardon six minutes to find the first entry. Bridie’s Heart had run in October 1966. It was unplaced despite being the clear favourite.

  ‘Now that’s odd, isn’t it?’ said Reardon.

  Dryden nodded, not knowing why.

  The ex-jockey checked a reference book. ‘Now here she is. That’s why. She’d won that year already. July 30 – Daily Mail Stakes. Fifty to one outsider – that’s more like it, eh?’

  July 30 – the day of the Crossways robbery. Had Shepherd set up the bet as part of an alibi – an alibi that wouldn’t stand up in the face of a set of fingerprints found at the scene of the crime? Did he ever get to spend his winnings?

  Reardon tracked down the card for that day’s racing. Ayers Rock – also at 50–1 – had won the three o’clock. At the precise moment Amy Ward had crumpled to the floor, Ayers Rock had ambled over the finishing line, a clear winner by two lengths.

  ‘How much did yer man put on ‘em?’

  ‘A fiver each to win.’

  Reardon whistled. ‘Five hundred and ten pounds – including the stake back. Not bad. Not bad at all.’

  ‘A fortune,’ said Dryden, noting the speed of the jockey’s mental arithmetic. The picture of Tommy as a luckless suicide looked less substantial by the minute.

  ‘That’s a win,’ he said, winking.

  It is, thought Dryden. But you’re still not getting a tip. Then he thought again. Perhaps an afternoon in the Bay Horse might give him a half-day lead on the police investigation. He gave him a fiver and told him not to drink too much.

  Dryden walked briskly back to the car counting en route the number of remarkably small men he passed on the street. It was like a day out in Lilliput.

  Humph was juggling with a pair of large fluffy dice – the kind usually reserved for the front window of the Ford Capri. Luck was a subject of fascination to the cab driver – or in his case, the lack of it. The cab was fitted out with an array of rabbit’s feet, and a horseshoe had been fastened above the rear-view mirror. It obscured just enough of the rear view to invite an accident.

  Dryden banged the dashboard. ‘Lidgate. Chop chop.’

  They set out through the plush villages in the hills above the town, villages in marked contrast to the damp-soaked drabness of the Fen towns. Clear of the peat of the Fens medieval buildings had survived the centuries. Whitewashed stones bordered trim village greens.

  They were at Stubbs Senior’s country house at 3.50 p.m. Humph, exercising discretion, parked the decrepit Capri round the corner. Dryden walked in, round the camomile lawn and the magnolia tree, and up a sweeping gravel drive. The house was an old manor farm. To one side were stables topped off with a clock tower.

  Who says crime doesn’t pay, he thought.

  A small fish pond was frozen solid. A large off-colour goldfish was lying belly-up just below the surface.

  An elderly man appeared from the side of the house, two red setters at his heels, a third appearing from the lilac bushes.

  Stubbs Senior stood his ground and waited for Dryden. Distinguished was the word. And tweed was the material. He had a head like a cannonball and no neck. His eyes were as dead cold as any in an identikit. He looked nothing like his son – except for the antiseptic cleanliness. Dryden guessed he was seventy – perhaps older.

  ‘Mr Dryden?’

  Stubbs carried two sticks but Dryden noticed he took both off the ground to point out the distant gallops on Newmarket Heath. Most surprising, in an ex-deputy chief constable, were the extravagant laughter lin
es around the eyes. His handshake was enthusiastic too, even warm. If this was an act, thought Dryden, it was the result of a lifetime’s practice.

  They sat in the conservatory amongst orchids, a vine, and a spreading fig tree. A grandfather clock ticked in one corner and the interior wall of the house supported thirty timepieces, mostly antique.

  ‘Hobby?’ said Dryden.

  The former deputy chief constable looked through him. ‘Was.’

  On a marble table an intricate glass mechanism gurgled with flowing water. An elegant glass bowl fed water down a pipe to power a tiny gold mechanism which, through a series of flywheels and gears, turned the hands on a filigree clock face. Dryden examined the carved teak base. An engraved silver plaque said: ‘To Deputy Chief Constable Bryan Stubbs on the occasion of his retirement. From his colleagues in the Cambridgeshire force.’

  ‘Clepsydra,’ said Stubbs. ‘A water clock. The Egyptians had them.’

  The heating was generous and all the ice and snow had melted from the roof and windows. The furniture was wicker with comfy cushions, striking unfortunate echoes of an old people’s home. A woman, who remained nameless and unintroduced, brought tea and biscuits for Dryden, a small glass bucket of whisky for Stubbs.

  ‘How can I help, Mr Dryden?’

  Dryden eyed the whisky furtively. The curiosity he had heard in Stubbs’s voice on the phone had evaporated. Some of the bonhomie of the introductions had evaporated too. He felt like an intruder on borrowed time. And the trickling water clock reminded him of the two pints of bitter he’d bolted down at Newmarket. He shifted uneasily in his chair.

  As always in times of supreme insecurity he decided to attack, but Stubbs got there first. ‘Where did they find the gypsy boy?’

  Dryden sipped his tea, he was damned if he was going to be intimidated by an ex-copper. The clocks chimed four and he glanced at the water clock. The elegant face read four o’clock precisely. He saw now that the fretted metalwork picked out a picture. Dogs running with hounds.