The Skeleton Man

by Jim Kelly

  Broderick looked around, checking they were still alone. ‘Ten thousand pounds – unbelievable, really. Dad was rich, but still. It was an insult, an insult to me. Sometimes I think that if Peter had lived and stayed in England Dad would have left him the lot.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But I just took it, like I’d taken all the insults down the years. Peter took the cheque and went. It was never cashed, so I guess the rats had it.’

  ‘And Tholy went back to pack and you went down to the New Ferry Inn to join your friend Jason Imber. He said he wasn’t the only outsider there that night. That’s you, isn’t it? And you went down into the cellar.’

  Broderick took a small knife from his pocket and cut the rose free, pushing it through his buttonhole.

  ‘And that’s what I couldn’t work out. Why it was that nobody mentioned your name at all, why they’d all agreed to that. There was a deal, but what was in it for them?’

  The Reverend Lake appeared from the vestry, and sensing the mood walked quickly past, his footsteps echoing down the nave until the door swung open and they saw the rain still falling outside.

  ‘Then I got an e-mail from Colonel Flanders May, outlining how he’d undertaken the survey of Jude’s Ferry in the days after the evacuation. Apparently there was this young TA cadet who volunteered. He knew your father, didn’t he? So there was no problem getting a temporary posting. Terrific help apparently, lots of local knowledge, trawled through the questionnaires making sure nothing had been missed. It can’t have been difficult I guess, steering them clear of the outbuildings. Woodruffe did a good job covering the trapdoor. But it must have been a comfort to them, to know you’d be there, that you’d always be there. And when the worst happened you made sure they all knew, and that they knew what the plan was, who they should blame when the police started asking questions. What you didn’t know was that your friend was the real killer that night, and you’d snapped the neck of an innocent boy. But you know now. Did he tell you when you visited him at the hospital that day?’

  Broderick’s face froze, a vein on his forehead knotted with stress. ‘If I’d known the truth I’d have stopped it then,’ he said. ‘You can’t prove any of this.’

  ‘I know that. You’re quite safe. I’m just curious, you know, curious to know if you were glad to see Peter Tholy’s head lolling on a broken neck.’

  Broderick clipped his heels together. ‘I must go.’ He examined the braiding on his military cap. ‘I felt lots of emotions that night,’ he said. ‘We made a mistake, many mistakes, but I’m going to have to live with that.’

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid you are, that’s all the justice there is in Jude’s Ferry.’

  Postscript

  Jimmy Neate was cremated in Peterborough. Julie Watts attended but, seeing a press photographer, fled before the brief ceremony began. Walter Neate was taken by ambulance to the chapel and was the only mourner. He refused to comment on the case. A statement was issued by the health authority which ran the home in which he was a resident pointing out that he wished to be left in peace to grieve for his children, and his grandson.

  Magda Hollingsworth’s bones were buried in Ely in the town cemetery, just a few minutes’ walk from her daughter’s house. Dryden attended a crowded funeral service. The lesson was read by a representative from the University of Surrey, and tribute was paid to Magda’s years of sympathetic observation of her fellow villagers at Jude’s Ferry.

  Peter Tholy’s bones remained in police custody for some time. Australian police officers finally contacted his mother to inform her of her son’s death. She said she didn’t care what happened to her son’s remains as long as they didn’t send her a bill. Major Broderick paid for cremation in lieu of the £10,000 cheque from his father Peter Tholy never cashed. The ashes are interred at Ely Crematorium and marked by a simple stone plaque.

  The animal rights activist identified by Dryden at Thieves Bridge led DI Shaw’s team to arrest and charge three senior members of the organization based in Coventry, including the man known as Roland. Forensic evidence for the case was collected from Coleshill Airfield near Rugby. The three are due to appear at Newark Crown Court on charges of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm, and attempted blackmail. Eighteen similar charges are to be put before the court. The CPS is still considering DI Shaw’s recommendation that seven men face charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by withholding information about the murder of Kathryn Neate. Unofficially the detective has been advised the file is likely to remain open but that action is unlikely owing to the length of time that has passed since the original offence and the deaths of key witnesses.

  Henry Peyton’s business continues to flourish, security enhanced by the return of his wife’s three pedigree Alsatians. Contracts with a group of overseas universities and research institutes have allowed Sealodes Farm to concentrate exclusively on providing animals for medical research. All supplies to cosmetic and other commercial companies have been terminated. The business won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise.

  Jason Imber’s body was identified by dental records. He was buried privately in Upwell but a memorial service was held at All Souls’ Church in London, beside Broadcasting House, attended by TV executives, actors and fellow writers.

  Laura’s performance in The Silent Daughter was widely praised. Her return to TV seven years after the accident which appeared to have ended her career prompted a series of tabloid newspaper stories. She made a string of brief appearances in Casualty. Further offers of work are being considered by her agent.

  Major Broderick resigned his commission shortly after witnessing the bombardment which had killed Jimmy Neate. The family business – Blooms – continues to blossom, and the major has diversified further, returning to his father’s first love – the breeding of roses. A deep red variety, with an almost black heart, sells extremely well and won a silver medal at the Chelsea Flower Show. It is called ‘Jude’s Ferry’.

  The death of Jimmy Neate marked the end of any campaign to reclaim Jude’s Ferry as a living village. The range at Whittlesea is now in use throughout the year, training soldiers for active service in the Middle East. Joint operations with the US army are a regular feature of these exercises. The church has suffered no more wayward shells but dry rot has attacked the roof beams and a storm severely damaged the louvres surrounding the bell chamber. The church has been deconsecrated. There was no last service.

  The hunt for Philip Dryden after his disappearance from the hide at Wicken Fen, and the story he had to tell once he’d walked to safety out of Jude’s Ferry two days later, made national news. But soon the media circus had rolled on and he returned to The Crow’s diet of petty crime and parish pump. But not all has remained the same: he now has a more flexible contract with the paper so that he can sometimes be with his wife during rehearsals and filming. Laura’s speech has improved remarkably, although her doctors still consider a full recovery unlikely. She has, however, mastered crutches and the wheelchair has been stowed below decks.

  Ruth Lisle has written a book based on her mother’s observations of life in Jude’s Ferry. It has, as yet, failed to attract a publisher.

  The Peyton Society of Pittsburgh paid $360,000 for the transfer and restoration of the family tomb to St John’s Church, Boston, Lincs. An action for compensation against the MoD was settled out of court for a sum understood to be in the region of £60,000.

  Humph enjoyed Christmas in the Faroe Islands and is now learning Sami, having booked Christmas 2008 in Lapland.

  Dryden has built Boudicca a wooden kennel on the bank beside PK 129.

  DI Peter Shaw sits beside his sea rod on the beach at Old Hunstanton, waiting for his next case.

  If you enjoyed The Skeleton Man, look out for

  DEATH WORE WHITE

  by Jim Kelly

  (Published in Penguin paperback in January 2009)

  Introducing a police partnership as memorable as Morse and Lewis, as delightfully mismatched as Gene Hunt and Sam Tyler in
Life on Mars…

  In the middle of a heavy snowstorm, eight cars stand on a lonely Norfolk coast road, as night draws in. A fallen pine tree stops them from going forward, the snowbound road prevents them going back.

  Two hours later no car has moved – but one driver has met a violent end. Except no one has had the means or the opportunity to commit the murder, and there are no incriminating footprints in the snow.

  For Detective Inspector Peter Shaw and Detective Sergeant Valentine it is an extremely puzzling case – made all the more disturbing by the distorted corpse that washed up on the beach only hours earlier. A man who appears to have died from a human bite mark on his arm…

  Read on for a taster…

  1

  The Alfa Romeo ran a lipstick-red smear across a sepia landscape. To one side snow flecked the sand and dunes at the edge of the crimped waters of The Wash, a convoy of six small boats caught in a stunning smudge of purple and gold where the sun was setting. To the landward side lay the salt marsh, a weave of winter white around stretches of dead black water.

  The sports car nudged the speed limit and Sarah Baker-Sibley watched the first flake of snow fall on the windscreen in the middle of her field of vision. She swept it aside with a single swish of the windscreen wipers and punched the automatic lighter into the dashboard, her lips counting to ten, the cigarette held ready between dry teeth.

  Ten seconds. She thrummed her fingers on the leather-bound steering wheel.

  It was two minutes short of five o’clock and the Alfa’s headlights were waking up the cat’s eyes. She pulled the lighter free of the dashboard. The ringlet of heated wire seemed to lift her mood and she laughed, drawing in the nicotine enthusiastically.

  She turned up the heating to maximum as a spiro-graph of ice began to encroach on the windscreen. The indicator showed the outside temperature at 0°C, then briefly -1°C. She dropped her speed to 50 mph, and checked the rear-view mirror for following traffic: she’d been overtaken once, the car was still ahead of her by half a mile, and there were lights behind, but closer, a hundred yards or less.

  She drew savagely on the menthol cigarette, swishing more snowflakes off the windscreen. Attached to the passenger-side dashboard by a sucker was a little pink picture frame enclosing a snapshot of a girl with hair down to her waist, in a school uniform complete with beret. She touched the image, as if it was an icon, and smiled into the rear-view mirror; but when she saw the lipstick on the filter of the menthol cigarette, and the imprint of her thin dry lips, her eyes filled with tears.

  Rounding a bend she saw rear lights ahead again for a few seconds. And a sign, luminous, regulation black on yellow, in the middle of the carriageway, an AA insignia in the top-left-hand corner.

  DIVERSION

  FLOOD

  An arrow pointed bluntly to the left – seawards down a narrow unmetalled road.

  ‘Sod it.’ She hit the steering wheel with the heel of her palm, then brushed a tear from her eye. Ahead, the road ran straight for a mile but there was no traffic either way.

  She slowed and looked at her watch: 5.09pm. Throwing her head back she let the smoke dribble out of her nose, as if the day had delivered its last fatal blow.

  Looking in the rear-view again she saw that the following car was close, so she put the Alfa in first, and swung it off the coast road on to the snow-covered track. The headlights raked the trees as she turned and fleetingly lit a figure, stock-still, dressed in a full-length dark coat flecked with snow, the head turned away. Then the lights swung further round and she saw a road sign.

  SIBERIA BELT

  Ahead, immediately, were the tail lights of the car in front. There was a sudden silence as a snow flurry struck; muffling the world outside. For the first time she felt afraid, haunted by the sudden image of the lone figure, behind her now, somewhere in the dark. The wind returned, thudding against the offside, fist-blows deadened by a boxer’s glove. She searched the rear-view mirror but there were no lights behind, no trace of the figure following. The tail lights ahead were still visible; warm, glowing and safe. She pressed on quickly in pursuit.

  2

  Detective Inspector Peter Shaw stood on the waterline as the snow fell. He tried to smile into an Arctic north wind. The seascape was glacier-blue, the white horses whipped off the peaks of the waves before they could break. A sandbank offshore was dusted white with snow – icing sugar on marzipan. As quickly as the snow flurry had come, it was gone. But he knew a blizzard would be with them by nightfall, the snow clouds massed on the horizon like a range of mountains.

  ‘Dead water,’ he said, licking a snowflake off his lips. ‘So it should be here. Right here.’ He tapped his boot rhythmically on the spot, creating a miniature quicksand inside his footprint, and zipped up his yellow RNLI waterproof jacket. ‘We’ll have to wait.’ Waiting was something he found it impossible to do well. He wanted to run, along the water’s edge, feel his heart pounding, blood rushing, the intoxicating flood of natural painkillers soaking his brain. Standing still was a form of torture. He needed the runner’s high.

  Detective Sergeant George Valentine stood six foot down wind, his face turned away from the sea. He stifled a yawn by clenching his teeth. His eyes streamed water. An allergy – seaweed perhaps, salt on the air, or just fresh air. Valentine looked at his feet, black slip-ons, oozing salt water. He was too old for this: five years off retirement, rheumatism in every bone. He blew into his hands and smelt a hint of nicotine from his fingernails.

  The setting sun broke free of the clouds for a moment at the death and in a splash of light out at sea Shaw counted six cockle-pickers’ boats, heading in for Lynn. He scanned the ruffled seascape with a telescope raised to his good eye. The iris was blue, as pale as falling water; the other was covered by a dressing, secured with a plaster across the socket, the inflamed red edges of a fresh scar just visible beneath. ‘A bright yellow drum, right? Mustard, like the other one.’ He put a finger to the wound, a plain wedding band catching the light. ‘And floating a foot clear of the water. So where is it?’

  Shaw’s face mirrored the wide-open seascape; the kind of face that’s always scanning a horizon. His cheekbones were high, as if some enterprising warrior from the Mongol Horde had wandered off to the north Norfolk coast, pitching his tent by the beach huts. The skin on his forehead was tight, tanned and unlined. He stood with his feet squarely apart, matching the width of his shoulders, as if he owned the beach.

  DS Valentine looked at his watch. He’d bought it at the Tuesday Market in Lynn for one pound and was pretty sure the word ROLEX was fake. Its tick-tock was oddly loud, but the second hand had stopped. He shivered, his head like a vulture’s, hung low on a thin neck. He tried to keep his mouth shut because he knew his teeth would ache if they got caught in the wind. Shaw, who studied faces as closely as George Valentine studied the odds at Newmarket, thought his DS’s bore a remarkable resemblance to a whippet’s, the lines around his lips – the striae – turning his mouth into a small snout.

  A radio crackled and Valentine retrieved it from the shapeless raincoat. He listened, said simply ‘Right.’ Fumbling it back inside the folds of the coat he retrieved a tube of mints, popping one, crunching it immediately. ‘Coastguard. They lost sight of the drum an hour ago. The water’s churning up with the tide.’ He shrugged as if he knew the moods of the ocean. ‘Not hopeful.’

  ‘We’ll wait,’ said Shaw, running a hand through close-cropped fair hair. ‘An hour. The tide’ll turn.’

  They stood together, one looking south, the other north, wondering how it had come to this.

  Shaw and Valentine, North Norfolk Constabulary’s latest investigative duo. Some joker in admin, thought Shaw, some old lag who knew the past and didn’t care about the future. They needed a new partner for Shaw, who at thirty-one years of age was the force’s youngest DI, the whiz-kid with the fancy degree and a father once tipped to be the next chief constable. And they’d come up with George Valentine – a living relic of a dif
ferent world, where crooks were villains, and coppers gave hooligans a clip round the ear. A man who’d been the best detective of his generation until one mistake had put him on a blacklist from which he’d never escaped. A man whose career trajectory now looked like a brick returning to earth.

  Shaw walked down to the water’s edge and let the next wave leave white bubbles on the toecap of his boot. Valentine followed reluctantly, popping another mint, the fingers on his right hand phlegm-yellow from cigarette stains. Half a mile east Shaw could see a clump of trees marking the point where the creeping dunes had come to rest for a lifetime, a row of low hummocks thirty foot high. Gun Hill. Just below the crest were the cracked remains of a military emplacement, the metal fittings for an Ack-Ack gun in the concrete, snow in the rusted grooves. He’d stood there a decade ago with his mother, watching his father’s ashes blow away into the beach grass.

  Detective Chief Inspector Jack Shaw. Shaw had been proud of his father, proud to follow in his footsteps, proud he’d defied him by joining the police: the one career Jack Shaw didn’t want for his only son. They’d loved the beach; father and child. It was the only place where his father could forget the job. The only place where they’d shared the same world.

  ‘Let’s get up there,’ said Shaw, pointing at the hill. ‘Get some height.’

  Valentine nodded without enthusiasm. Water welled in his eyes and he sniffed. ‘I think I’m allergic…’ he said, taking as big a breath as he could into his damaged lungs, ‘to something.’

  ‘It’s fresh air, George,’ said Shaw.