The Skeleton Man

by Jim Kelly

  Humph extruded himself from the cab and set off for a table. Balanced on surprisingly nimble feet he was a human gyroscope, desperately seeking a seat before toppling to the ground. They found a spot at the point where the rivers met: the view before them, all the people behind them. Dryden left his friend with his Faroese phrasebook, announcing a wide range of alcoholic beverages to no one.

  In the bar a small scrum had formed waiting for drinks, a lone barman working efficiently to meet the rush. As soon as Dryden saw the face he knew it was Woodruffe: the shock of brown hair had gone but the slump of the shoulders and the narrowly set eyes marked him out as the young man he’d seen on the step of the New Ferry Inn that last morning. Judging the moment, he decided to leave the questions for later. Instead, waiting his turn, he studied the bar. One wall was decorated with a collection of flamenco fans and on a notice board by the food hatch there were pictures of various sunburnt faces sitting outside a bar, the façade draped in Union Flags.

  Above the pub’s french windows out to the riverbank was a framed picture: the New Ferry Inn at Jude’s Ferry, a group of villagers before it in two ranks like a football team, beside them a 1950s motor coach. Dryden squinted at some words scratched on a chalkboard held by a boy with unruly hair in the middle of the front row: Lowestoft, 1973. Behind the boy a man stood, rigid in a suit, one hand on the youngster’s shoulder. At an upstairs window a woman’s face, a pale oval, was half hidden, a hand raised to brush back her hair. And one other picture, in pride of place over the brick fire-place: the New Ferry Inn again, in black and white, a woman in her fifties snapped pruning a rose beneath the bar window, the smile genuine enough, suffused with affection for whoever was behind the camera.

  He took two pints of bitter and a large G&T out to Humph, an assortment of bar snacks tucked under his arm and in his pockets.

  The sun died and customers began to trickle away, back to the boats from which the smells of cooking were drifting downstream. Humph, distracted by the view, delicately broke open a crisp packet and began to cherry-pick the contents. Dryden sipped the beer, trying to imagine the New Ferry Inn on that last night in 1990. The newspapers had been asked to leave the villagers alone, in return receiving an open invitation instead to a press conference the next morning and the promise of a tour of Jude’s Ferry. But they’d been told, in retrospect, the lengths to which the army had gone to try and soften the blow which had fallen on these people. There’d been a dance in the Methodist Hall, free drinks and food at the inn – all paid for by the MoD, and fireworks set up on the town bridge. But even the army spokesman had been forced to admit that not all the villagers had been up for a celebration. Many had stayed at home, boycotting the festivities, quietly packing away their things in the tea-crates provided.

  And beneath perhaps, in the cellar, the Skeleton Man.

  ‘Let’s eat,’ said Dryden suddenly, standing. ‘Properly. My shout.’

  Humph was silent, his cheeks full of pork scratchings. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘On a plate?’

  The bar was packed now, almost exclusively with a coach party of OAPs. They sat at two long tables set with glasses and cutlery, a middle-aged woman with a clipboard moving amongst them checking choices pre-ordered for dinner. A group of young waitresses fluttered around them like sparrows around a garden feeder. Dryden noticed that all the girls were dark-haired and pretty, and wondered if it was a qualification for employment at the pub. He recalled seeing Woodruffe on that final morning in Jude’s Ferry, sitting in the sun with the girl in the crumpled T-shirt. Tonight the publican was on the customers’ side of the bar, drinking from a pottery mug, and reading the Ely Express.

  Dryden ordered food and included Woodruffe in the round. He offered his hand: ‘Philip Dryden. I wrote that…’ he said, tapping the front-page story on Jude’s Ferry. ‘You’re Ken Woodruffe? Your mother was the licensee of the New Ferry Inn?’

  Up close Dryden could see that Woodruffe was younger than he first looked but the hair was thinning fast, revealing a high, frail skull, the thin neck rising out of a brutally white shirt buttoned up to take a sober blue tie. His skin was pale, as if he’d spent a lifetime under the bar’s neon strip light, thin wrinkles grey with other people’s cigarette smoke.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘Today, you know. I’ve had enough. It’s all been very difficult and I’ve answered the police questions. I’ll bring your food out, OK? But I really don’t want to talk.’

  He stood suddenly, his hands readjusting the bar mats, ashtray and a newspaper. Dryden could see that the mug held an amber liquid rather than tea or coffee and he guessed it was whisky. Even here, on the right side of the bar, Woodruffe seemed anxious to preserve some distance from strangers, stepping back from his seat and taking the mug with him.

  Dryden nodded, backing off and giving him room. ‘No problem. I was just interested. I was there, like I said in that piece, in the cellar when they found him.’

  He retreated with the drinks and they waited in the dusk, watching the river turn violet under the first stars.

  ‘Are they catching that fish?’ asked Humph. ‘We could have had chips in town by now.’

  Woodruffe brought the food on a tray and set it out, then retreated without a word only to return a minute later with the pottery mug. He sat, placing a large packet of chewing gum on the table, which he began to rotate in 45-degree instalments.

  ‘Bar staff are on now – it’s eight. I can talk, for a bit.’

  Dryden pushed a plate of chips towards him, noticing the sheen of sweat on his forehead even in the cool night air. He wondered what had changed his mind. ‘Help yourself,’ said Dryden.

  Woodruffe shook his head. ‘Off me food.’

  ‘Big party in?’

  Woodruffe’s shoulders sagged. ‘Every Tuesday. We do a cut-price meal for OAPs; it’s all linked to the heart unit at the West Suffolk. I did their Christmas bar last year, girls came too. They looked after Mum – the West Suffolk – did a great job so it’s the least we can do.’

  A hand strayed across the table and rearranged the ketchup and salt.

  Dryden nodded, thinking about the woman in the picture in the bar. Looking round he saw that a couple of children were still playing on a climbing frame set back from the riverbank.

  ‘Your kids?’

  ‘No. No.’ He flipped the gum packet and took some and Dryden guessed he was trying not to think of a cigarette, the moment when the nicotine hits the nervous system a second after the first deep breath.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Dryden, knowing he was about to push his luck, delving into someone else’s past. ‘I thought you were married – there was a woman with you on that last morning, outside the inn, and we found kids’ stuff in the cellar.’

  ‘You were there? What – back in 1990?’

  Dryden nodded. ‘Like I said, it was one of my first decent assignments so I’m not likely to forget.’

  Woodruffe watched a pleasure boat slip past, the portholes lit. ‘Jill Palmer – we weren’t married. A lot of things didn’t survive the move, you know – that was one of them. She went north – Lincoln, I think. A new life. Haven’t seen her since we left.’

  One of the waitresses came out with a ham sandwich and salad and put it in front of Woodruffe. He watched her leave and then tossed the lettuce into the reeds, biting without enthusiasm into the white processed bread.

  ‘I didn’t ask for this. They think I need mothering,’ he said. Then, almost without a beat, he went on, ‘So you were there when they found him. Anything else… ? The police don’t seem to know what it was all about… this bloke’s skeleton just hanging there all those years. I mean, that’s fucking weird.’

  The children sniggered at the language. Woodruffe dropped his head, sipping from the mug. The scent of the whisky hung about them now in the evening air and Humph sniffed loudly.

  ‘I think it’s all in the paper,’ said Dryden, nodding at the rolled-up copy. ‘All that they know.’
r />   Woodruffe unfurled the Express but didn’t even try to read it, and Dryden guessed he’d been through it several times.

  ‘So the police have been round?’ Dryden asked.

  ‘Could say that. Two hours this morning. I had to go in this afternoon, all the way to soddin’ Lynn. I’ve got a business to run.’

  ‘You can see why they’re worried,’ said Dryden carefully. ‘He was hanging in your cellar. A cellar you hadn’t registered with the army. I’ve seen the questionnaire – nothing’s listed. It’s your mother’s signature, right? But I guess they think you would have checked the place out. What are they supposed to think?’

  Woodruffe nodded. ‘I don’t want this in the paper,’ he said.

  Dryden held his hands up as if that constituted a promise, wondering again why Woodruffe had agreed to talk, what was in it for him.

  ‘We never used that cellar, it floods in winter. I told ’em. When the form came round there was loads to do – it just slipped by. I’ve told ’em I’m sorry. And then they didn’t find it after anyway, did they? When they did a survey. It’s not all my fault.’

  Dryden let the answer peter out. ‘So, who do you think he is, our Skeleton Man?’

  Woodruffe pushed the gum packet away, turning the now-empty sandwich plate with his other hand.

  ‘God knows,’ he said, and Dryden found he wanted to believe him. But the landlord’s hand shook slightly as he sketched a line on the rough wooden tabletop.

  ‘But it was your cellar. There was stuff down there. You must have used it.’

  ‘Must I?’ Dryden saw a flash of anger in the eyes and watched as the muscles on Woodruffe’s arm bunched, adrenaline pumping round his blood system.

  He pushed himself back from the table, creating more distance again between them.

  He ripped open a piece of chewing gum and his jaw began to work at it manically. ‘Like I said, it flooded most winters. We used the bottle store above, but the cellar was useless. Everyone knew it was there – back in the eighties they tried running a folk club in it in the summer. Some kids formed a group and hired it for practice. It was no secret. There was no key, and you didn’t need to be the Pink Panther to get into the bottle store upstairs. Mum had put some things down there from when I was a kid because she didn’t want to chuck them, but that was it. That and some old bottles.’

  ‘Why d’you think the army never found it then?’

  Woodruffe stretched his arms above his head, the joints clicking.

  ‘We stored stuff over the trapdoor, timber, logs for the inn. I guess they didn’t look very hard,’ he said, avoiding Dryden’s eyes.

  ‘When d’you go down last?’

  He shrugged again, running a hand through the thinning hair. ‘Last day, perhaps second to last, to make sure there was nothing worth taking away with us. There were some glasses I think – but we left most of them because they were old-fashioned straights. Worth a fortune now,’ he laughed. ‘And Mum wanted some kids’ books, a few wooden toys.’ Dryden looked him in the eyes, which were small but calculating. So he’d remembered to check the cellar out. He could see why the police wanted another word.

  ‘That last night in the pub. It must have been extraordinary, knowing that you might not come back. Any of you. What was it like – party or wake?’

  ‘Bit of both,’ said Woodruffe, tipping the mug back. ‘There was certainly a party on by the time I closed the place, no point in leaving half-filled barrels, was there? We’d saved one for the next morning but they drank the rest and I wasn’t charging. MoD had put enough cash behind the bar to keep them happy for a week. A few lads had too much, and we had the old boys from the almshouses in – kinda guests of honour, if you like, and they can put it away. But then they didn’t have far to stagger home.’

  ‘No trouble? No scores settled?’

  ‘I’ve told the police everything, OK?’ Dryden noticed he hadn’t answered the question.

  ‘Punch-up?’

  ‘Nothing that wouldn’t have been out of place in most pubs on a Saturday night. A family dispute, there’s nothing like brothers for falling out.’

  Dryden was mildly drunk, the effects of the third pint multiplying his natural intuition. With fifty people left in the village there can’t have been that many siblings in the bar that night. ‘Twin brothers?’ he asked, remembering the list he’d compiled from the TA records.

  Woodruffe watched a couple kiss at a table in the shadows. ‘Like I said, the police are on to it.’

  Dryden decided not to push; he could track down the Smith brothers soon enough, although he suspected DI Shaw would have got there first.

  On the river a boat went past, its engine spluttering, the portholes lit.

  ‘That last morning there was some trouble, when one of the old women was dragged out of her home. But you helped calm everybody down, didn’t you? People seemed to respect you.’

  Woodruffe held his face in a mask.

  ‘I’ve always wondered why,’ said Dryden, allowing the ambiguity to remain unclarified.

  ‘What was the bloody point?’ he said. ‘We’d sold up, taken their money, and now they wanted us out. If there’s one thing running a boozer teaches you it’s to give up on anything if you think you’re coming second.’

  Dryden opened his notebook at the page where he’d listed his eight potential victims, turning it so that Woodruffe could read. ‘We know the victim was average height – five-ten, eleven – something like that. Any of these a lot bigger, or a lot smaller?’

  Woodruffe read the list too quickly. ‘Nah. Paul Cobley wasn’t a big lad – but, it’s difficult to tell. And Jimmy Neate looked six foot.’

  Dryden closed the notebook. ‘Ellen Woodruffe, your mother. Did I speak to her that last day? Is that possible?’

  He stood. ‘Doubt it. Mum didn’t want to go and she didn’t make a secret of it, but she was very ill that summer, and she wasn’t stupid. She knew the army would do what it wanted to do. She’d had a coupla strokes the year before, paralysed her left side, so she knew she was on borrowed time. She wanted to die in Jude’s Ferry; in fact that’s all she wanted. But she didn’t die, that took longer, a lot longer than she wanted. Anyway, she left quietly enough. She’d given up the fight.’

  ‘I’m sorry – what happened to her?’

  ‘I got her into a nursing home on the coast. Lowestoft. Cost a fortune, of course, but we’d banked the money when we sold the pub to the army back in the nineties. The price was good, very good. We know why now, of course – so they could chuck us out for good.’

  The landlord pulled out a wallet and flicked it open. It was her again, a hand held to ward off the sun, the arcaded front of a Victorian seaside villa behind. In discreet letters above the bay window a sign read ‘Royal Esplanade’.

  ‘She died in ’97, that winter. But she did come home in a way. I scattered her ashes at St Swithun’s – on the feast day. I didn’t ask. I just did it. So she came home in the end.’

  They’ve told me to write a letter, every day, setting down what I have remembered.

  But a letter to whom? I know I loved someone once, because I can feel the ring now, cool, solid, and gold, but I’ve forgotten her with almost everything else.

  So this is for nobody. A message on a computer screen, tapped out with the fingers of my one good hand, for no one to read.

  And this is what I have remembered.

  At first there was a place, Jude’s Ferry, lying beneath the two hills, the spotless Georgian windows of a house looking out towards the single brick chimney of an old factory. On one hill the church, on the other a water tower with a wooden painted dovecote.

  I was a child then, thrilled by the sight of the two hills glimpsed through the windscreen of a car, bumping along a road without a single turn.

  And then, like a gift, there was another name.

  Kathryn.

  I knew something about Kathryn. I knew she didn’t give me the ring that I wear.

  W
here do I see her? I see her first sitting with the others at the back of a classroom. No proper wooden desks, just those plastic seats with the flip-over rest. She’s what? Sixteen perhaps, maybe not. There are no uniforms, no clues. Outside a vast concrete playground disfigured by puddles. I see her hair, lustrous black, under the neon light, and the small ripe mouth partly hidden by the hand.

  And although I can’t see it I know her body beneath; the long limbs curled effortlessly in mine, the thin white neck arched with pleasure.

  What am I to her? I’m outside looking in, a porthole meshed with wire, and then the door opens and I find the desk at the front, sitting on the edge, a lesson begun, while I watch her with peripheral vision.

  So we know now what I did. And was this what was wrong?

  Now the nurse comes with the painkillers. I can see her through the porthole window, like the one in the classroom door, checking, just as the others have done, waiting for me to finish. To rest.

  But there is too much fear for sleep. And I still have work. I must set down what I know now to be true, even as I write it: that Kathryn is dead and guilt, like the dusk, fills my room.

  Wednesday, 18 July

  14

  He took the call on the deck of PK 129 in the early morning rain, his voicemail ringing him back with a message left overnight. The river, cratered with big fat storm drops, gave off the exhilarating aroma of dawn.

  A voice echoing in an enclosed space, cars swishing past, a whisper close up. ‘Listen.’ The menace in the word, the cruelty, made his heart freeze for a beat. ‘Jude’s Ferry, you were there. We were there too. We opened the tomb, at St Swithun’s. We’ve taken her bones. If Peyton doesn’t shut down Sealodes Farm – stop the breeding – he’ll never get them back…’

  There was the rustling of paper and, approaching, the sound of a light aircraft.

  ‘Our aim is to inflict economic damage on those who profit from the misery and exploitation of innocent animals…’ he read on, another voice cajoling in the background. A prepared statement, larded with the stilted language of the true fanatic. Then he said it again: if they didn’t shut down Sealodes Farm, announce it in the press, then they’d ditch the bones down a sewer. There was a brief silence in which Dryden could hear the light aircraft returning. ‘We’ve told them. Now we’re telling you. We want it in the paper that they’re closing down the business. Otherwise this is just the start. We gave them a little visit a couple of weeks ago. This time no police, until it’s in the paper. Tell ’em that.’