The Skeleton Man

by Jim Kelly

  A fighter plane suddenly exploded over their heads, low, screaming east to west.

  As the engines faded they listened for the tape again, and the faint sound of a lid being popped off a lunchbox. ‘I won’t miss it, no,’ he said. ‘It’s a hard place to make a living, Jude’s Ferry, and it’s a lonely place too, despite the people. Sometimes, because of the people.’

  The tape hissed to an end and in the silence an owl flew through the light of the fire.

  The first thing I remember about myself is being amongst the reeds. They crowded round, like witnesses, where I lay.

  I knew nothing at that moment. I had no name, I had no loves. I just was. Of the life I remember it is the happiest moment.

  I didn’t panic. I had been here before in another life, in those few seconds after waking when identity eludes us. Where was I? Who was I? I could wait for the answers. They would float up amongst the reeds.

  Then the rain fell and I knew I was in the river; the drops splashing around me, my back resting on the mud, my legs, buoyant, in the side stream. And time marked out by the thudding mechanical drum of boat engines going past, the wash rocking me gently.

  And still I didn’t know my name.

  Only the pain was real. It cut down along my arm and across the knuckles of my fingers. So I raised my right hand to the grey sky and saw that the top of each finger had been sliced off. Skin hung from one exposed bone, the fingers white and bloodless.

  I felt some disgust then, but distantly, as if on behalf of someone else.

  And then I knew two things. I knew I was dying there in the water. And I remembered a voice I’d once known telling me something I’d always feared to hear.

  ‘They’ve found the cellar. Ring me.’

  Tuesday, 17 July

  7

  It had been two days since that wayward shell had crashed beside the New Ferry Inn but Dryden knew less now about the skeleton in the cellar than he had in those first minutes before its bones had finally fallen to the floor. Which was not a good position for any reporter to be in two hours before his final deadline. The Crow’s downmarket tabloid sister paper the Ely Express went to bed that morning. Most of the nationals and all the regional evening newspapers had carried the bare details of the story already. He needed a new line, and he needed it fast.

  Dryden sat at his desk in the newsroom. He’d opened the central sash in the bay window. Outside he could hear the bustle of Market Street; a dog tied up outside the post office yelped rhythmically while a bell tinkled as customers came and went at the haberdasher’s opposite The Crow’s offices.

  He forced himself to look at his PC screen. He’d knocked out his eyewitness account of the events at Jude’s Ferry, but that was already old news and strictly inside-page material. That left him with the opened grave in the church, details of which the police had not released, but had now confirmed in response to his inquiry.

  What he needed on the grave-robbers story was some background, some colour to flesh out what little he knew. He went online and called up Google, putting ‘Peyton’ and ‘Jude’s Ferry’ in the search window. He clicked on peytonfamily.com, a US website, and his screen began to fill with coats of arms and an elaborate family tree, as well as links to chatrooms, an annual convention home page, and a visitors’ site.

  Dryden read the welcome note: ‘Thank you for logging on to the home page for the Peyton family here in the United States. We are one of the nation’s oldest families, tracing our roots back to the Pilgrim Fathers and the founding of the Republic. If you are a Peyton, or just interested in one of the country’s noble “first families”, please read on, or e-mail our online editor, John Peyton Speed, who will deal with your questions. We hope you are as fascinated as we are by the story of one of America’s great dynasties.’

  Dryden skimmed the history page, finding a society dedicated exclusively to the genealogy of the family and, in particular, its origins in the east of England. Annual trips were organized to visit significant sites in the UK – Battle (apparently the point of arrival for the Peytons with William the Conqueror), the Tower of London and the three parish churches holding the remains of the Peyton ancestors – St Winifred’s, Lincoln; St John’s, Boston; and St Swithun’s at Jude’s Ferry. Dryden hit the link for Jude’s Ferry and swore…

  SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION

  So he hit the e-mail link for John Peyton Speed and set out briefly the events at Jude’s Ferry, including the damage to the church and the evidence of grave robbery. He explained who he was and asked for a prompt reply, but with the time difference it would have to be a storyline he’d develop later in the week.

  Which just about took him back to square one. Compared to what had been dubbed the ‘Skeleton Woman’ by the tabloids, a bit of grave robbing was a sideshow, especially as there was no evidence it was linked directly with the corpse found hanging in the cellar.

  He needed a new line on the main story and his one hope appeared to be Magda Hollingsworth, the missing shopkeeper. None of the other papers had yet mentioned her, and the police seemed to be keeping that line of inquiry discreet, presumably to help shield the family from having to relive their grief. Dryden had done some research in The Crow’s archives on her case, which had been briefly covered in the nationals but had then been relegated to a local cause célèbre, warranting only a brief mention on the first anniversary of the evacuation of the village.

  Magda Hollingsworth had last been seen alive, without any doubt, at 4.00pm on the day before the final evacu ation. Her son, Jacob, had shut up the business for the final time and they’d spent an hour putting stock from the post office in crates before he’d driven into Whittlesea with the last cash box of takings. All the foodstuffs and perishables had been phased off the shelves in the weeks leading up to the final day. According to The Crow, Magda had then gone up to her bedroom to write her diary – apparently a daily event – and been heard taking a bath later in the evening. She had plans, according to the diary, to visit one of the villagers that evening and they’d confirmed they’d seen her about 7.30 to 7.45. One of the youngsters who had attended the dance in the Methodist Hall told police he was pretty sure he’d caught sight of her walking out along the road by the allotments at around 8.30pm. While he had not seen her face, her clothes were a distinctive trademark: a multicoloured pleated dress and a leather waistcoat and bag in harlequin patches of yellow and red.

  Mrs Hollingsworth’s children, who worked in the shop but had already moved out of the village, did not discover her disappearance until the next morning when they returned to help her pack the last of her belongings into the family car. She had been planning to retire to a bungalow at Wells-next-the-Sea on the north Norfolk coast. But she was nowhere to be found that morning. The family reported her missing at noon to army officials in charge of the final stages of evacuation. Military police, on the scene anyway, took a statement and contacted the control room at Lynn and a general description was circulated. The army conducted a thorough search of the village that evening after the villagers had left. No trace of her body was ever found, her bank account remained untouched, but a police spokesman did say that, having been given access to her diary, they were concerned for her safety and that she may have tried to take her own life. They declined to give further details, except to say that she had been suffering from depression.

  Dryden leant back in his chair and studied the stained ceiling of the office, from which hung a single wisp of cobweb. ‘I need more,’ he said.

  He needed to find her children. He tried Google for both and found a Jacob Hollingsworth listed as a lecturer at Stoke University, in the Department of Eastern European Languages. Calling the number given he ran into an answerphone – Dr Hollingsworth was in Budapest and would be for a further ten days. Urgent messages by e-mail. Dryden tapped one out and dispatched it with little hope of getting an answer. Ruth Hollingsworth did not appear online, but she was described in one of the subsequent articles in The Crow on her mother
’s disappearance as working at Littleport Library. Dryden rang, discovered she was now married and had taken the surname Lisle, and was last heard of working for the Fenland Mobile Library Service. They had a website listing the villages to be visited by the fleet of eight mobiles – each one with a librarian. Mrs R. Lisle was given as attending for the service that day in Coveney, just west of Ely.

  Dryden checked his watch. He had time for the round trip but he left the news editor an e-mail explaining where he was, and when he’d be back. He grabbed his mobile phone, summoned Humph and met him by the war memorial at the bottom of Market Street. The rain had fallen steadily overnight, soaking the distant landscape into winter colours, illuminated now by a milky sun. They left the cathedral and zigzagged over West Fen towards the low hill that had once been the island of Coveney. En route Dryden phoned his press contact for the Friends of the Ferry to see if the shelling of the church had changed their decision to drop all attempts to win the right of return to the village. There was an answerphone, so he left a message.

  The mobile library, decked out in 1950s cream and blue, sat in a lay-by at the village’s central T-junction. A Methodist chapel was the only building of any size, leaving the village green to be dominated by a netball court and social club with four ugly halogen floodlights. There was a children’s playground, empty at this hour except for an elderly man whistling tunelessly. Somewhere a hammer struck wood rhythmically, but nobody else was in sight. The village’s principal asset was the distant view of Ely cathedral, like a battleship steaming head-on, flag flying.

  Ruth Lisle was stamping a small pile of large-print books for a woman with grey hair and a stiff back who held a polished stick. Dryden hung back, flicking through some pamphlets on local history, wondering if places like Coveney had a trove of secrets to match that of Jude’s Ferry. Humph, bored with the cab, appeared at the door, considering the flight of four metal steps. He took the banister and the whole vehicle tilted a foot, the woman with the stick seeking safety by gripping the counter. Once on board the cabbie tiptoed down to the travel section and began, Dryden guessed, to search for a book on the Faroe Islands to complement his language tape.

  Dryden leaped forward to help the elderly reader down the steps and noticed with a flood of relief that Ruth Lisle was wearing a round green badge with white letters proclaiming: Friends of the Ferry.

  Alone, except for the snuffling figure of Humph, Dryden decided to try absolute honesty for a change.

  ‘My name’s Philip Dryden, from The Crow. I’m sorry to bother you – perhaps the police have been in touch already – it’s about Jude’s Ferry.’ He nodded at the badge.

  ‘You mean it’s about my mother.’ She didn’t say it unkindly, and she offered Dryden a seat in the small reading area by the counter.

  The mobile library squeaked on its hinges as Humph edged along the travel section.

  ‘I’m so –’ Dryden tried to say, but she cut in.

  ‘No. It’s OK. They seem to think they might have found her, in this cellar near the inn. I told them I think they’re wrong, Mr Dryden. I just don’t see her there, not like that. I’ve never believed that she killed herself. But they’ll do some tests, and then we’ll know. I’m prepared to be wrong, and in some ways it would be a relief. I gave them a, what do you call it? A swab – yes, a swab of cells from inside my cheek. It’s a miracle really, isn’t it, DNA? Twenty years ago we’d have never known.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Dryden. He paused, forcing himself to keep the pace of the interview languid and informal. ‘Magda – it’s an unusual name.’

  ‘Hungarian gypsies,’ she said quickly, smiling almost wickedly. ‘Not a popular ancestry in the Fens, as I’m sure you may know.’

  Dryden nodded, trying to suppress the clichéd image of the roadside caravans, the rusted gas bottles and the half-hearted washing lines. Every year saw a fresh outbreak of hostilities between travellers and Fen farmers. The open, fenceless Fens provided an ideal landscape for the itinerant. And each summer saw a fresh influx of Irish travellers, modern-day tinkers, equipped with the local knowledge and the cash to buy up land before moving the rest of the caravans into view. Several long-running planning disputes were wending their way towards the High Court while villagers seethed, watching house prices stagnate, then fall.

  ‘Mum’s father, my grandfather, was in a concentration camp at Terezin in Bohemia before the war; we were active, you see – politically. We’d got out of Hungary when it was obvious what was coming – but Czechoslovakia was worse. The Nazis started with the Roma, a fact that’s sometimes forgotten. A million died in the camps before ’45. Mother got out in ’38; they sold everything they had for her train ticket.’

  Dryden laughed, unable to comprehend the sacrifice.

  ‘My grandmother died within a few months. They say heartbroken, don’t they, and I never believe that, but she was only fifty.’

  Dryden thought what an extraordinary looking woman she was – perhaps six foot, in her late thirties, with large long bones and a broad face out of which the skull seemed to press, the cheekbones stretching the leathery skin. She’d moved easily but with a slight effort, as if her body was a burden to her, but now, seated, she seemed to relish the stillness.

  ‘Mum was always very careful to say that it was the family decision for her to leave – that she didn’t flee, or seek refuge. The idea that the Nazis had succeeded in forcing her out of her home, even if it was a caravan, made her very angry, but of course it was the truth. She stayed with an uncle in the suburbs – Croydon – but they got bombed out when they attacked the airport in the Blitz, so they moved out to Harlow in Essex. It was just villages then, of course. That’s where she met Dad, he was a farmer, although I think that’s actually a bit grand. A smallholder perhaps, with pigs. I always think that was so important for Mum – that he was of the land, as it were, something she’d never had. He belonged, didn’t he? In a way she never could. Jacob, my brother, was born in the farmhouse – a cottage really, but very idyllic.’

  She stopped herself, suddenly worried. ‘You can’t have something that’s just a bit idyllic, can you?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  She patted her knee. ‘So. Idyllic then. But Dad died in 1970 after a long illness, which was not the kindest of deaths.’

  Dryden wondered how much suffering was salted away in that casual phrase. A breeze blew open the door of the mobile library and they could see that the rain was falling steadily now, the playground deserted.

  ‘No one will come now,’ she said. ‘Would you like a coffee?’ There was an automatic cuppa-machine behind the counter and Humph accepted one too, retreating with it to the cab.

  She sat eventually, one of her large hands almost encircling the plastic cup, and looked Dryden flatly in the eye.

  ‘I was there when they found the skeleton – she was a slight woman, your mother?’ said Dryden.

  Ruth laughed. ‘I take after my father, Mr Dryden – the Hollingsworths are all country stock, big boned. Although I’m relying on mother’s descriptions and the photographs of course. I was born at the Ferry six months after he died. We never met – like Posthumous in the Greek story.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Dryden, trying to think of something else to say.

  ‘So am I,’ she said, smiling and tilting her chin. Dryden could see how strong she was, how she never used the past as an excuse for weakness.

  ‘Mother,’ she said with emphasis, ‘was petite by comparison. She was also very depressed about losing her home again. Such an irony, to be driven out by the fascists, then the Luftwaffe, and then the MoD. She was quite calm about it, quite accepting, and devastated in a way. She’d found a place for herself at the Ferry. People liked her – well, most people liked her. And she hadn’t compromised much at all. My mother was a flamboyant character, Mr Dryden, not a trait much prized in the Fens. But we were certainly part of the community – Jake and I. So I think that after all that anguish – the flight to E
ngland, the bombing, Dad’s death – she had this notion that she’d found a place that belonged to her. And then they took it away. It was profoundly depressing for her and I think the idea of starting again really frightened her. After all, she didn’t want us around, she wanted us to use our educations and get on. But what was she to do?’

  ‘Do you mind if I quote you in the paper? I don’t have to,’ asked Dryden, unsettled by her frankness.

  ‘It’s kind of you to ask but it’s OK. The library service sent me on a course, on how to deal with the press. So I know that if I don’t want it in the paper I should just not say it. But I’m proud of Mum, what she achieved, and what she left behind.’

  Dryden tilted his chin by way of a question, sipping the gritty coffee.

  ‘The diary,’ she said, something like arrogance in the square set of her shoulders. ‘When Dad died she took the store at Jude’s Ferry. Grief led to depression even then and she needed something to focus on, something that wasn’t inside her. I think what she really wanted was to go back on the road, to take the comfort of motion, which I can really understand,’ she added, looking fondly around the mobile library. ‘The comfort of just being on the way somewhere, without the disappointment of ever arriving. But she stayed for us. Have you heard of an organization called Mass-Observation, Mr Dryden?’

  Thunder rolled out on the Fen and the rain came in gusts, rocking the suspension under them and clattering on the metal roof.

  ‘Sort of. Wasn’t that during the war – people kept diaries of everyday life and then sent them in to a government department as part of a sort of national chronicle? Morale, crime, sex, families, grief, all of human life.’