The Coldest Blood

by Jim Kelly

  Dryden heard DI Parlour’s voice below in the bar. He told Marcie to stay with her husband, then slipped out on to the fire escape again, and down to the rear yard. The sky was transformed: a full moon had risen at sea. It was colder again, the landscape ice-white, stiff with frost. He ran down to the old swimming pool and climbed to the first tier of the diving board. The camp lay below, lit by the occasional arc of electricity dancing between the severed high-voltage cables.

  Dryden heard an inhuman cry of shearing, tortured metal. The fire engine, parked at the base of the giant pylon, played a floodlight over the superstructure. The tower twisted on its four legs, a single cross-member of steel falling as if in slow motion to the ground below. The lights in the holiday camp flickered once, died, and revived at half power.

  He turned back to the sea and saw that the chalets along the crest of the dunes were still marked by their string of pale verandah lights. He thought of Laura within, alone with the glow of the flame from the propane heater, and at that moment Ruth Connor’s silhouette broke the horizon, against the grey-silver backdrop of the sea, before dropping out of sight, down towards the old sluice.

  He ran, the moon lighting the bone-white sandy path.

  The tide was ebbing within the maze of channels in the marsh. Canopies of ice hung over the inlets and pools the seawater had fled. Dryden made his way along one of the fingers of stiff sand until he emerged opposite a wide expanse of open water where the main river emptied into a wide, sluggish pool. He crouched down by the water’s edge and saw across the mirror-like surface the wreck of the Curlew. The moon caught the gentle curve of the hull, and beside it the sleek black inflated outline of an inshore dinghy, a powerful outboard motor at the rear, silent for now.

  Across the water he heard Ruth Connor’s voice, as clear and close as if she had whispered in his ear.

  ‘It’s all there.’ He saw her now, standing on the rotting deck, Russell Fleet beside her, between them the holdall. ‘I thought you’d come to get it all,’ she said.

  Fleet knelt, looking inside the bags. ‘Is he dead?’

  She shook her head in silence. He held out his hand and she put something in it: the gun perhaps. ‘Dryden knows,’ she said. ‘He knows about the blood.’

  Fleet checked the horizon, zipping up a sailing jacket. ‘He was always close: and he was there, with the others. Even if he didn’t see, he’s always known it was the truth. But there’s no choice now.’

  ‘You said it was perfect, that nobody would get hurt.’ Her voice was louder, a challenge. ‘But you killed them.’

  ‘Ruth.’ He took a step towards her and she stepped back quickly, the sound of rotting wood creaking under her foot. ‘You didn’t complain when you got what you wanted – when they took Chips away. You didn’t say no that morning in the sand dunes. I was the one who got the butchered face. What did you have to do? Remind me, Ruth. And when the witnesses came forward I did what needed to be done – you didn’t have to know.’

  She folded her arms, and even by moonlight Dryden could see the chin jut out. ‘But when it was all over – when they were dead – you told me then, didn’t you, Russ – told me the details, just to share the guilt. Pouring water over the first one after you’d broken his legs, opening the windows and leaving the other to die after you’d laced his drinks with pills. But you didn’t have to do any of it. You could have left, melted away.’

  He stepped down into the dinghy. ‘Yes. I could have gone, Ruth, when the witnesses came forward. Left you two alone. The lovebirds. But then I’d have had to leave the kids as well – my kids, Ruth, my family.

  ‘Because that’s where your guilt lies Ruth, or part of it. Telling me that you’d not had children because of Chips. That Chips couldn’t. But we found out the truth, didn’t we? You couldn’t give me a family so I found someone who could.

  ‘And then there was the business,’ he said, kicking the holdall. ‘Why the fuck should I let two wrecked lives stand in my way? I deserved my share. Just because I don’t have the pieces of paper doesn’t mean I don’t deserve my cut. We’d always been agreed on that, Ruth. I paid in blood. I can’t take the family with me, but I can take the money.’

  She had a hand to her face and Dryden guessed she was crying, letting his words wound her.

  His head was still down, counting in the holdall. ‘How did you make Chips agree to the sale?’

  ‘I told him it was what I wanted,’ she said, defeated now.

  Fleet nodded, standing.

  ‘Did he have to die too?’ she asked. ‘He came to see me, he wanted to see me. I could have talked. It wasn’t about being sent away, it wasn’t about what happened to him, it was the kids. He told me when I phoned the prison. He wanted to know why we’d done that to them, Russ.’

  ‘It wasn’t a crime, Ruth.’

  Dryden let his fingers bunch in fists, knowing that it was.

  ‘A bunch of kids. Jesus,’ Fleet said, lighting a cigarette, cupping it so that the flame illuminated the cradle of his fingers. ‘He wanted to see you all right. I found him at the back of the flat, under the fire escape, waiting for you to come home. It would have been a long wait, wouldn’t it? Telling darling William all about it, were you?’

  ‘He knows now,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, now– I see. But not till now – a mistake, I think. You didn’t trust him, did you, Ruth? Didn’t trust him with our secrets. It must have been a surprise for him, finding out I wasn’t a partner after all. He’ll remember that. It’s corrosive, distrust; it’ll get you both in the end.’

  He unlooped a rope and pushed the dinghy clear. ‘And we were right. It’s been thirty years, but despite what every one of those years has done to my face Chips knew me – knew within seconds. So I said we should talk. We walked here while I explained that we thought it was what he wanted – to go away, to get away from the world. That nobody got hurt that way. We walked here and I took a chance – he was a strong man, Ruth, always was. But I crooked my arm around under his chin and I broke his neck. It echoed, the snap, across the water.’

  She stood back then, climbing up onto the bank. ‘Go,’ she said.

  Fleet threw a rope into the dinghy. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna become someone else – I’ve done it before. Perhaps I’ll come back one day, for old times’ sake.’ He picked up the starter line for the engine. ‘You’ll know the face.’

  47

  Russell Fleet pulled the starter cord on the outboard engine in a fluid, practised arc, and a harsh mechanical whine filled the night. He left without looking back, guiding the dinghy out into the main channel, skirting the clumps of reeds which crowded the banks, while the sky flickered still with the arcing electric sparks from the overhead wires.

  Somewhere, lost now, Dryden could hear Ruth Connor running, the rigid frozen reeds snapping, her breath rasping. He ran too, trying to keep in touch with her sound, and they emerged together, above the old sluice, on the high dune above the chalets.

  ‘He’s gone,’ she said, knowing Dryden was there. She pulled a hood in close to her face and looked inland where the twin red and green lights of the dinghy crept along the channels of the marsh towards the river. Blood, black in the moonlight, trickled from the corner of her mouth where Marcie Sley had hit her.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Dryden. ‘Where will he go? The same place he went that summer? How long was he away?’

  She shivered. ‘You can’t prove anything. Not about me.’ She took a step away, then another, trying to be alone.

  ‘Where?’ asked Dryden again, following.

  ‘Two years. Abroad – travelling. He sent cards. Norway, Sweden – heat was bad for his eyes, after the operation. I said I’d wait and I did.’

  Dryden nodded, recalling the expert skater glimpsed through the porthole of PK 129. ‘That’s why he needed the passport,’ he said. ‘Distinguishing features: a zigzag scar.’

  They heard the outboard engine surge as the dinghy reached clearer water.<
br />
  ‘I didn’t think he’d do that,’ she said. ‘With the knife. It always scared me; he’d do anything to have a life like other people – he just didn’t realize other people aren’t like that.’

  ‘I heard it,’ said Dryden, stepping closer. ‘That night, the cry of pain.’

  ‘I know. I know you’re Philip. Russ said he’d seen a picture on your boat. He’d gone out to check you over, knowing you wouldn’t drop the case, wondering why, and he said you had that picture – the one with the blood. He said there was a snapshot as well. A child in the sun, by the pool. And Petulengo had a snapshot at home too, the four of you. A match.’

  Dryden nodded, thinking that Fleet had taken the newspaper cuttings too, unnerved by the thumbnail picture of his teenage self.

  ‘But I didn’t see,’ said Dryden. ‘I didn’t see him – I was there, but I wasn’t a witness. I didn’t see his face.’

  She turned towards him then but never said what she wanted to say.

  There was a fresh flash of arcing electricity between the pylons and when the glare had leached out of the sky they saw the dinghy swing out into the main channel of Morton’s Leam.

  ‘I offered him money to go,’ she said. ‘I always said the business was half his – half my share anyway. But we couldn’t make it legal – the risk was too great, you need an ID, bank account. Jean’s done wonders for him with money over the years, but even she couldn’t fix that.’

  ‘Did she know?’

  Connor laughed, running a finger over the bruise Marcie Sley had left. ‘She’s an accountant. Ask no questions, and you hear no lies. Perhaps he told her a story, perhaps he didn’t bother. I doubt she’s got the imagination to guess. When he’s gone she’ll tell the kids the truth, just to pay him back for not loving her.’

  Dryden shivered. ‘So when William arrived you told him Russ was a partner to cover your tracks?’

  She nodded. ‘It was easier to leave it like that. I paid his salary into a trust Jean had set up. She kept the taxman happy, did the paperwork.’

  The whine of the outboard motor shifted key as the inflatable hit an incoming wave and briefly lifted from the water.

  ‘When the witnesses turned up I said I’d buy Russ out of what I’d promised him. But he said that wasn’t enough, that we didn’t know what the business was really worth until we sold it. So that’s what we’ve done.’

  They heard the engine choke and pick up revs as the dinghy breasted the first wave in the channel.

  Dryden put a hand through his hair, collecting ice crystals. ‘And he didn’t drive, did he – again, the paperwork. But he must have driven out to the farm – to kill Joe. That was a risk – he could hardly use his own licence from back in ’74.’

  ‘Risks were what he was good at, Dryden.’

  ‘So when he came back, after the operation – I don’t understand. What happened?’

  ‘He’d changed. He always said I’d fallen out of love with his face. But it wasn’t that. It was the children. The children we didn’t have.’

  ‘And then William Nabbs arrived.’

  ‘He didn’t know, Dryden. He never knew – till now.’

  Dryden climbed up, to the very crest of the dune, and she followed. ‘They’ll find him this time,’ he said.

  She shivered again. ‘Maybe. But he’s been getting ready, since the witnesses came forward. Killing them was the last bet – but he knew it might not be enough. There’s a boat, a yacht, somewhere out there, along the coast. By daybreak he’ll be gone. He’ll become someone else, Dryden; he’s good at it.’

  They walked towards the curving, twisted structure of the old footbridge over the channel. The ice which hung from the superstructure had twisted the geometry of the wood, and they clung to the rail as they made their way to the centre. Upstream they could see the green and red lights and the white splash of surf at the prow of the dinghy.

  A sound of snapping metal drew Dryden’s eyes away and he watched as four of the power cables parted simultaneously, the sudden release of tension making the giant pylon shudder and twist at the waist. They heard screaming then, as ice showered down, and the sky filled with the zigzag shorting of the power supply.

  Russell Fleet’s boat emerged around the last bend in the channel and headed for the bridge. The pylon knelt at its north-eastern corner, metal shearing, and tossed its apex down into the black water. Instantly a sheet of blue lightning covered the surface, a shimmering electric dance, and the visceral thud of the power rocked the bridge. Dryden covered his face with his hands but still the arcing flashed between his fingers and through his eyelids.

  When he turned back the world was black except for a single image: in midstream there was a fire licking at the outboard motor on Fleet’s boat. He stood, flapping at the flames, which leapt to his arms and head. Then the fuel tank exploded, a dull percussion which popped Dryden’s ears. The flames were in Fleet’s hair then, so he threw himself into the shimmering water.

  Ruth Connor was on her knees when his body passed out to sea beneath them. They looked down through the wooden planking and, by the light now only of the moon, they saw the blackened twisted body, one arm thrown up across the eyes, revealing the ugly black zigzag of the self-inflicted scar.

  48

  The air, thick with the stench of seared electrics, held a hint of something else which made Dryden retch. He stood with Ruth Connor for a minute, watching the body turn languidly in the tide under the bridge until it was lost from sight. The camp lay half-lit now, the emergency generator rattling in the cold air. By reception the flashing lights of a police car punctuated the darkness. In the silver light Dryden could see fish on the outgoing tide, their dead scales still iridescent.

  There was silence but Dryden wondered if he’d been deafened by the explosion. He pressed his fingers to his ears and the pressure popped. Along the bridge he heard footsteps and William Nabbs climbed up from the river-bank. He held Ruth Connor close like a child, looking out to sea.

  Dryden rang DI Parlour’s mobile. ‘Hi. Yup. On the bridge down by the river. Get a boat out, quickly, there’s a body going out on the tide. We need the body. There’s no time now, I’ll be there in ten, but get a bloody boat out.’

  Then he ran to the chalet. Laura sat by the window, the COMPASS on her lap where he’d left it.

  There was a message again, a brutal repetition: YOU PROMISED

  He leant forward to the keyboard and typed: I LIED

  Then he picked up the propane heater, killed the flame, and took it outside with his torch. Three flashes into the night were answered immediately from the dunes, the Capri’s headlights suddenly blazing, swinging round like a lost lighthouse.

  He had time so he walked down to the beach where there was an oil drum used to burn flotsam. He fished out a rope caked in tar and lit it with his lighter, then tossed it in with the propane heater. Looking back at the chalet, he saw the flames reflected in the sightless glass. After a minute the canister popped, a miniature mushroom cloud rising up into the night sky, sparks sizzling on the frosted sand.

  The lights of Humph’s cab crept down to the foreshore. Dryden went back inside, picked Laura up, and carried her out under the moon. They pushed Boudicca down into the footwell in the passenger seat and slid Laura on to the worn plastic seating. Dryden slipped in beside her and held her.

  ‘The Tower?’ said Humph.

  ‘No. The old dining hall. The police are there. It’s over. Then we’re going home – to the boat. All of us.’

  Postscript

  The body of Russell Fleet was never found, but a 22-foot ketch, the Saronica, was located anchored off Scolt Head Island, North Norfolk, thirty miles along the coast. It was provisioned for a sea voyage. The burnt wreck of the dinghy was recovered, with the charred remains of an estimated £325,000 in £50 notes.

  An inquest into the death of Chips Connor recorded a verdict of unlawful killing. Ruth Connor remained silent and refused to answer any questions relating to the de
ath of her husband, Paul Gedney, Declan McIlroy or Joe Petulengo, or her relationship with Russell Fleet. She was interviewed on six separate occasions but never charged. The case remains open, but DI Parlour sees promotion in other, less intractable investigations. DI Reade endured an uncomfortable interview with the chief constable. He took early retirement, but not on his terms.

  William Nabbs claimed to know nothing of Ruth Connor’s life before he had met her in 1984. He took a new job as manager of a marina in South Devon. He never saw Ruth Connor again. She bought Lighthouse Cottage from the new owners of the Dolphin and banked the remainder of the sale: £975,000. Under new management the old huts were finally cleared away and a marina built in the old salt-marsh. Most of the staff faced compulsory redundancy, including Muriel Coverack.

  Chips Connor was buried at Sea’s End parish church, in a plot with a view over open water.

  Police interviewed Russell John Fleet at his home in Malton, North Yorkshire. He was unable to produce a passport issued in 1972 when he was eighteen. DI Parlour showed Dryden a picture: even now there was a resemblance to the identically named impostor, and of course there was the distinctive zigzag scar. Fleet had never travelled abroad but denied attempting to pervert the course of justice by selling his passport to his half-brother. He was formally cautioned, but no further action was taken.

  An internal inquiry was held within North Norfolk Electricity at the failure – despite repeated attempts – to switch off the National Grid supply when ice threatened to bring down the pylons at Sea’s End. A report, subsequently published, found that severe weather conditions had made it impossible for engineers to access exterior switchgear. Automatic electronic safety systems failed owing to a huge surge in consumer demand on the night of the ice storm. Recommendations were made for design improvements to protect systems in the future from freezing rain.