by Jim Kelly
Humph joined him at the water’s edge, Boudicca racing past them to dance on the sand.
‘Nothing moving on the road,’ said the cabbie, and they turned to look inland. The usual ribbon of red and white lights shuffling along the coast was still, a few cars stationary. ‘It’s like an ice rink up there. Copper stopped the cab, wanted to know where you were. I said the chalet.’
A light shone from Laura’s room and another PC stood duty on the verandah steps.
‘You said blackmail,’ said Dryden, digging his hands deep into his coat pockets. ‘Blackmail, sure. He needed a new face. I said it was a perfect plan – but it was better than that. They wanted to get rid of Chips, they wanted to make sure the police thought Paul Gedney was dead, and they wanted each other.
‘If he went to the police and agreed to a deal Elizabeth Lutton faced jail, but more to the point her husband’s career would have been wounded too, perhaps fatally. According to the website the clinic was founded in ’73 – he’d hardly got it off the ground. He was on the up. A scandal like that would have meant starting again, at the very least. So he did it for her: he operated on Paul Gedney. They gave him a new face, Humph.’
‘So he’s alive?’
‘Sure,’ said Dryden. ‘And he lives in Lighthouse Cottage.’
44
The sky was an immaculate blue-black, the cold air super clear so that offshore Dryden could see the coastal lights sinking slowly away to the north with the curvature of the earth. He turned to look inland, along the marching line of pylons, when he saw the first high-voltage flash, an arcing vein of light, high up in the rigging of the nearest tower – the one which Nabbs had inspected the day before. In the half-second it was lit he saw that it was encased in ice.
A moment later he heard the thwap of the cable breaking, and saw it snaking in the air as it jolted and flashed against its neighbours. The pylon beneath shuddered with the release of tension, and Dryden heard ice shards falling in the darkness to the frozen ground below.
The pylon itself stood in a pool of security light splashed within a wire perimeter. Dryden could see a group of engineers working inside to clear ice from the steel housing which protected the ground-level control gear. The ice fell amongst them, and Dryden heard shouts of pain as they dived for cover. William Nabbs was with them, the collar of his yellow thermal jacket zipped up to his chin, his face craned skywards into the superstructure of the tower above, which groaned now as the breaking wires upset the subtle vectors of tension which held the steel frame aloft.
Dryden told Humph to go back to the car, and set off along the coast path towards Lighthouse Cottage. The smell of ozone on the air was thrilling, the air so cold his lips tingled. Dryden turned his fear into energy, running along the frozen sandy path towards the dark silhouette of the house. What did he hope to find? Pictures, perhaps; documents; a careless clue to the former life of William Nabbs. How had he done it? How had he remade a life in the months and years after staging his own murder? Who did he have to fool? Some of the staff at the Dolphin had glimpsed him that night, but only briefly. Lizzie, the maid who’d spotted him with Ruth Connor, was no doubt swiftly sacked. And there was Ruth Connor herself – but then he didn’t have to fool her.
A light burned within the cottage and the gate to the walled garden stood open. The palm tree, an exploding ball of crystal spears, had snapped and lay shattered. Dryden looked in the kitchen window. Where the fish had lain on the deal table a bloodstain remained. He pushed open the door and called: ‘Anyone?’ The echo within told him he was alone, so he walked through the kitchen to the front room and up the narrow wooden stairs to the bedrooms above. One was empty except for a sunbed, the source of William Nabbs’ surfer’s tan. There was a double bedroom at the front, with two windows – one overlooking the sea, the other the dunes. A set of framed pictures cluttered the landward sill: in one, Ruth Connor and Nabbs sat in a tropical sun, perhaps a decade earlier, perhaps more. Her hand reached under his T-shirt, his fingers through her hair. In another they walked on the beach below, their bodies so close she was almost falling into him, while the huts of the old camp dotted the dune grass beyond.
The electric lights fluttered, blanked out for a second, and returned.
On the bed was the holdall he’d seen Nabbs bring to the Dolphin the night before, empty now. In the bathroom a cabinet of cosmetics. On the tiled edge of the bath itself a plastic case for a set of contact lenses. Dryden prised one out and held it up to the light: a deep marine-blue pigment made it glow like a piece of mosaic.
‘The fake surfer,’ said Dryden. ‘Fake hair, fake eyes.’ But something gnawed at his memory, and he tried, and failed, to recall in colour the poster of Paul Gedney.
Back in the bedroom he picked up the picture of the sunshine couple, searching Nabbs’ face for the likeness he knew must be there. He heard the footstep at the same moment that he heard his voice. ‘What exactly…?’
Dryden was proud of himself. He didn’t panic, he just placed the framed photograph carefully back on the sill and picked up the next: a shot of Ruth Connor in a one-piece swimsuit, laughing with delight that someone had caught her on film.
Nabbs, a mobile Velcroed to the outside of his jacket, held a builder’s lamp. The streaked hair was matted to his head, and he looked tired, haunted even.
‘The pylon’s coming down,’ said Dryden. ‘I came to say.’
Nabbs placed the lamp carefully on the bedside table and something crossed his face which wasn’t fear. ‘I was unlikely to be in bed…’
Through the landward windows Dryden could see the flashing light of an emergency vehicle at the camp gates.
Nabbs re-zipped his jacket. ‘Look. The engineers can’t shut the power down, the gear’s frozen. I need to be out there – I came back for tools and saw the door was open. The police – Parlour – he’s looking for you. They’re in the old dining hall. He said he’d stay the night. We should go…’
‘I heard you were planning a trip,’ said Dryden, nodding at the holdall. ‘But this looks more like a runner. What brought it on? The new witness perhaps – and this time you don’t know who to kill.’
He laughed at him then, right in the eyes, and Dryden’s heart contracted at the change in tone, the confidence in the voice when he finally spoke. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Dryden.’
Dryden, unsettled by doubt, blundered on. ‘Birth certificate, driver’s licence, National Insurance number. It’s only a guess – but you’ve got none of them. How’d you manage the holiday abroad?’
Nabbs’ eyes darted to the holdall. ‘So there’s a passport – of course, that’s where you went after Chips was arrested? Out of the country? A year perhaps, two… time enough for the operation, time enough for the hair, an extra stone of muscle.’
‘Sorry. What the fuck are you talking about? This doesn’t make any sense,’ he said, but he was dancing on his feet, desperate to leave.
‘It does if you’re not William Nabbs.’
A flash, like lightning, lit up the window and the night beyond, although the sound which followed wasn’t thunder but the fizz of shorting electricity.
‘You’re Paul Gedney,’ said Dryden, and he saw Nabbs flinch. ‘The motorbike you dumped in ’74 is still in the garage downstairs.’
Nabbs wiped the back of his hand across his lips. ‘The bike’s not mine. All the stuff’s Ruth’s. I just keep the surfboards in there, for the class.’
Dryden flipped open the top of the holdall. ‘Another sunshine holiday then?’
‘This is crazy.’ Nabbs’ voice was brittle, and Dryden guessed his pulse was racing.
Dryden came round the bed to the window and looked out. ‘It was something someone said about Gedney, someone who knew him – knew you – before that night. A kind of arrogance, an ability to rise above the accepted moral code, to take action, get results, to be omnipotent. That’s why you did it, because it seemed to solve everything, didn’t it? You needed to disappear, you wanted to be w
ith Ruth, you got both. Chips got what he wanted too, didn’t he? Or that’s what you told yourselves. So nobody got hurt, right? Except the kids. That’s where you got it so wrong. You branded them as thieves, ruined their lives, and you could have ruined mine.’
Dryden craned his neck against the window to look east towards Laura’s chalet. He could just see the light.
‘You thought they’d seen the blood box. If they’d told an adult, found an adult who’d listen, the plan was wrecked. There was no going back. So you had to discredit them, get them away.’
Nabbs looked to the door but Dryden guessed he wouldn’t go until he knew as much as Dryden.
‘And when they’d gone you met in the dunes.’ He looked at him then. ‘Was it worth it? Was she worth it?’
Nabbs, finally, was still. ‘I don’t like being accused of murder.’
‘Well done. I hadn’t, actually – but yes. You killed Declan McIlroy and Joe Petulengo because they’d seen you that night. If they’d given evidence in court, Chips Connor would have been freed. And if Chips Connor had come home it was all over, wasn’t it? Because, despite the surgery and the makeover and the intervening thirty years, he’d have recognized you with a glance: his childhood friend. And you tried to kill me.’
Dryden ploughed on, his confidence returning. ‘When you failed, you decided to quit. Run. Find a new life. Again. You couldn’t be sure, could you, that I hadn’t told someone else. The police perhaps. So you couldn’t try again.’
They heard the gate clatter below. ‘And when Chips came back he did recognize you – which is why you killed him as well. He’d guessed, not all of it, but enough. Whoever sent him out to search under the chalets had planted the stuff for him to find because they wanted the kids out of the camp. It was Ruth, wasn’t it? She paid the security guard to stick with the story – that he’d seen Marcie hiding the stuff under the huts. What was the price? A one-way ticket to the other side of the world? So Chips came back to confront her. But he met you, didn’t he?’
They heard the door bang below, but the footsteps which climbed the stairs were oddly delicate. The lights flickered again and they stood in darkness for a second as someone stopped in the doorway, breathing.
The light flooded back. Ruth Connor stood, her hands held out. They were blood red.
‘Please come. I think I’ve killed him,’ she said.
45
A wedge of electric light fell across the darkness of the office floor. The man lay on his chest, the body twisted at the waist, the limbs randomly arranged in the awkward semaphore of the dead. Across his back a line of crimson wounds punctuated the material of the donkey jacket, each edged with a black ring of burnt threads. On the air was the acrid twist of cordite and an undercurrent of urine. In the corner one of the filing cabinets had been pulled clear of the wall and a safe stood open to reveal a pile of black and gold metal safety-deposit boxes. One was open, revealing the purple-orange blush of £50 notes. On the desk a canvas lay half unfurled, two men, naked, stood in a pool of blood.
William Nabbs put down the holdall and flicked a switch. A single neon tube buzzed like a dying insect. Ruth Connor walked to the body and ran a hand into her hair, leaving a streak of livid red on the dry skin of her forehead. ‘It was so quiet. I was down in the bar and heard the noise.’
She looked into the corner of the room by a filing cabinet. On the cracked lino lay a gun, the metal a dull silver, the handle clean.
‘It’s just for pellets, just to scare. Russ kept it behind the bar,’ she said, and laughed out of place. Dryden noted the odd tense. He stood over the body, dreading the sightless eyes, but before he could touch him a shoulder jerked, the head lifted, and he rolled over: eyes open, but clouded. It was John Sley. His face held the pallor of butcher’s fat, a living waxwork. Dryden noticed that his hand lay over his heart, the fingers feebly trying to massage the chest beneath.
He leant in close. ‘John.’ The eyes rolled back into the head and the lids closed. ‘He needs help – quick. An air gun can’t do this. A heart attack’s my guess. We need a doctor – or a nurse,’ he added, turning pointedly to William Nabbs.
‘I’ll get a doctor,’ said Nabbs, flicking open his mobile.
‘Get his wife too – Chalet 18. He may have a condition, there could be pills.’
Nabbs thought for a moment, then fled, leaving the holdall at Ruth Connor’s feet.
Sley opened an eye and Dryden glimpsed the iris, struggling to escape the upper lid. Dryden pressed his arm, and felt the cold sweat on his forehead.
‘Who did you think it was?’ asked Dryden.
Ruth Connor walked to the safe and removed one of the untouched deposit boxes, turned a key in the lock, and revealed that it too was packed with crisp cash.
‘For the trip?’ asked Dryden.
She tipped the bundles into the first bag, then knelt down and picked up the gun. ‘I don’t think that is a very clever thing to do,’ said Dryden. ‘But then you aren’t hanging around to answer any questions, either of you.’
Sley groaned and a thin river of saliva bubbled at the corner of his mouth.
Dryden cradled the bony angular skull, listening to the breath rattling in his throat.
‘Questions,’ he said. ‘How long do you think it will take them to put William Nabbs in the computer and find out he doesn’t exist?’
She took a cardboard box from the desk drawer and extracted some of the tiny pellets to reload the gun. She laughed once. ‘You don’t know how wrong you are.’
‘I know one thing I’m right about. Three people have been murdered to make sure the world thinks Paul Gedney died thirty years ago. But there was a worse crime than that, wasn’t there? A crime Chips Connor was party to – although he didn’t know it at the time. Three other lives – not ended but ruined, right from the start. Those three children who never got a chance, not a real chance thanks to the stigma: thieves. You made them thieves. Just to get them out of the camp, to make sure they couldn’t tell anyone who’d listen what they’d seen.’
He put a hand on John Sley’s shoulder. ‘That’s why he’s here. Marcie hasn’t forgiven you, she never will. Her mum – her adopted mum – thought she was a thief. I don’t suppose that troubles you, does it?’
She stood, retrieving another box from the safe. ‘You’ve got the wrong man,’ she said, and Dryden noted the implication, that there was a right man. ‘William Nabbs was born in Boston, Lincolnshire in 1960. A cute kid – I’ve seen the pictures. His degree’s hanging on the wall. His parents visit at Christmas – his dad’s an accountant, his mum a teacher. He’s more real than you.’
On the stairs they heard Nabbs returning but Marcie Sley got to the door first. Dryden stood and she came to his voice, and let him lead her hands down to her husband’s face.
‘I’ll check on the ambulance,’ said Nabbs, leaving again. ‘DI Parlour’s on his way too.’
Marcie held her husband’s face between her palms. ‘John. Here.’ She’d brought a bottle of mineral water and she let him sip as she slipped two pills between blue lips. Dryden put an arm around her and felt the gentle vibration as she shook with stress.
‘Johnnie,’ she said. ‘Johnnie, there’s a doctor coming.’ She turned her head to Dryden. ‘What happened?’
Ruth Connor drew back, and as she stood the lino creaked. Marcie stiffened, realizing there was someone else in the room, and then found her with her eyes. She sniffed the air and smiled. ‘Don’t go,’ she said. ‘Don’t go now. Not yet.’
Dryden’s mobile chirruped, he went to kill the call but recognized the Ely number. ‘Keep his head up, Marcie,’ he said. He left then, knowing that would be what Marcie wanted. Just a minute alone.
Out on the landing there was a fire door. He pushed down the bar, desperate for air, and stepped out onto the top of the metal stairs. The call was from his voicemail box: ‘This is a message for Philip Dryden from Father John Martin. I have that information, Philip – I have a service at 7
.30 but I’ll be free before that. Ring me at the presbytery. Ely 44875.’
Dryden stabbed the numbers into the keypad. He imagined the phone ringing in the chilly hallway of the house, beneath the faded Connemara landscape. There was another flash from the pylon and in it he saw a fire engine extending its ladder skywards.
‘Father?’ he said.
‘Dryden. Yes. Sorry, let me just close the door here.’
Dryden heard the clunk of the old receiver being put down, then a muffled voice. Suddenly he was back. ‘I found the records of the child who was fostered with Paul Gedney. An elder half-brother, you recall – different father. He left the foster home in ’73 – moved north. Malton, near York. I don’t have any records after that I’m afraid.’
‘The name?’ asked Dryden.
Dryden heard paper crackling. ‘Russell Fleet. Russell John Fleet.’
‘Dryden?’ asked Father Martin, after a few seconds’ silence.
‘Sorry. You’re sure?’
‘Yes. Why? The surname was his adopted family’s. And there’s something else. I remember the child – very different from his half-brother. Timid, really, and not as bright. The real problem was the father – who had access, and abused that trust. Alcohol I’m afraid. Anyway, he made an attempt to take the boy away before he came into care. He crashed the car, there were several internal injuries to the child – he was just three – and one wound which will have stayed with him all his life. The car turned over, shredding the roof, and the metal cut into his arm. In the file there’s a picture with the doctor’s report which we had for all applicants: the scar is very distinctive, Dryden – like a jagged S.’
46
Ruth Connor was gone, and so was the holdall. A paramedic knelt beside John Sley like a penitent, checking his pulse, while another unfurled a stretcher. In the flickering light of the neon tube Sley still looked deathly white, except for the skin beneath the eyes, which had the purple blush of dead meat. Dryden took Marcie’s arm above the elbow, and saw the fingers of her right hand were flecked with blood. ‘I hit her,’ she said, her voice vibrating with anger. ‘I hit her hard.’