by Jim Kelly
‘And then Rory Setchey’s little boy died. I presume he knew your husband – the family. It was the fishing – right? The champion pike. I know Arthur was keen . . .’ He touched the gravestone. ‘And that’s when the thought occurred – which is a dark thought, and not at all obvious – that if you stole the life of someone who hadn’t yet lived, then you could build it, construct it, design it, even – for sale.’
‘The real question is whose idea was it? And what was the purpose? It’s such a cold thing to do. Mathematical?’
She looked away then to the house, then up to the sky.
‘I thought it was probably Martyn’s idea. But then I thought he was your son. That there had to be something in you of him – a coldness. But most of all, I think it was your idea because you had the motive. You were struggling here – death duties, taxes, agricultural wages, competition. You had to sell land. Rent land. Then the government announced the plan to re-flood the fen and you needed a lot of money to stop that. So I think you conceived of the plan and Martyn did the work – stealing the lives of the dead. It would take years. But he didn’t mind, and neither did you. Years, to let the stolen lives grow and blossom.’
‘This is crazy,’ she said, moving to stand, but Kross held up his hand.
‘It’s called ghosting, by the way,’ added Dryden. ‘Kapten Kross here, and his colleagues in Interpol, can tell you all about it. But maybe you already know. And Rory helped – didn’t he? And later, when it was time to start selling the lives, he’d be the ferryman.’
Dryden rearranged his feet, hit by a wave of nausea, the taste of marine fuel in his mouth again. ‘Patience, of course, it needed patience. And you had to sell the idea – and I think Martyn knew the people – the right people – from Lincoln, who could find you the customers, or at least the kind of people who’d be able to reach the market. And it was easy for you to intercept the death certificates because you were at the post office. The registrars use registered post. You had access to the ‘cage’ – all you had to do was request to see certain items at certain times. A package – a dozen forms, who’d miss the odd one that never got to the General Register Office?
‘And very soon everyone thought what a good idea this was. An almost beautiful idea. Even noble – that’s what you told yourself. Because the money was being saved – a fortune building, ready for the day when you’d be able to save Petit Fen. To make the system perfect you needed one more person. Someone to alert you when a child had died – preferably one buried by the council, in the open graves, where no one goes because they just want to forget, not remember. And that’s why Billy Johns was recruited. That baffled me for a while – but then, of course, there’s the chapel on Petit Fen where the bikers meet. Did you find him there? Seek him out? And he needs money – he grows cannabis, out the back at the cemetery in that shed of his. It’s not all for customers, is it? He has his own habit to supply. And then there’s the Harleys. So he couldn’t have been too hard to tempt. Especially as you no doubt told him, told everyone, it’s a victimless crime.’
She actually flinched at that, which gave Dryden some kind of satisfaction.
He spread his arms. ‘And so it went on until the unexpected happened. We never think our loved ones will leave us – do we? Until it is too late. Martyn died in that burnt-out van at Manea and suddenly it looked as if you might lose everything. You knew there’d be questions about the true identity of Jack Dryden. One day they’d track him back to Lincoln, to Martyn’s cell, and then the truth would be out – or at least part of it. So the assets that you’d been nurturing all those years – the lives of the dead – had to be sold, sold quickly. Everything. A fire sale.’
‘This is completely ludicrous,’ said Petit, trying to smile, but her lips formed an ugly jagged line.
‘In the meantime a parcel of land came up for a quick sale on Petit Fen. So what did you do – borrow the money on short loan rates? High interest. You knew you’d have the Saars’ brothers money in your hands within days. So you bought the land with the bank’s money. And now you’ve paid off the banks with the Saar’s money. But it’s not their money at all – it’s the Russians’. So very soon the real trouble will begin.’
‘Why?’ She’d meant it to sound like a challenge but the word caught in her throat.
Kross stepped forward with a plastic evidence bag and emptied the contents on to the flat stone set in the grave. It was paper, burnt, charred, wet. The air filled with the stench of ash.
‘That’s what’s left of the twenty-five IDs,’ said Dryden. ‘Setchey hid them in the fuel tank of the boat.’
Dryden caught the sudden electricity in Petit’s grey eyes.
‘Yes. So near,’ he said, realizing that inflicting cruelty was dangerously satisfying. ‘Rory kept a spare ignition key in the fuel tank – an old trick – and another in your boathouse. That’s where the Saar brothers got theirs. The IDs came in watertight wallets so he popped them in the tank. He thought they were safe – until he found a buyer. I guess they were.
‘He would have told them soon enough where they were if his heart hadn’t given out. The one shot was a warning? An accident? It hardly matters.’
Dryden knelt on the grass, leaning back to relieve the pain in his back. ‘So think on this. The Russians have paid all their money to the Saar brothers who gave it to you – no doubt minus their own cut. But these twenty-five IDs – half your consignment – are gone forever. They’re scattered on the surface of Adventurers’ Mere. And once we’ve looked through the records of children buried at Manea over the years – especially the ones in the public graves – we’ll know the names of the rest, or most of them. In which case, the batch of twenty-five that they already have will be useless. Especially after Kapten Kross has made it clear through the appropriate channels that we have the names.
‘So one day soon you’ll be seeing someone. A representative. He’ll want their money – the Russians’ money. All of it. He’ll be terrifically keen. I don’t think the Russians do IOUs. You may think – on reflection – that a cell would be the best place to be.’
She looked up at the two-thirds sky. ‘Never.’
The final cruelty was too exquisite to be denied.
‘And there will be nothing for the boy now. Martyn’s son. The heir. By the time the Russians have finished with you I doubt you’ll own anything on Petit Fen. You’ll be landless, homeless, and so will he.’
She looked at him frankly then, her eyes wide, and he saw some genuine hatred in the light.
‘Martyn was never suited for this – for the farm, the land,’ said Dryden. ‘He lived in his head. He was happy to make you the money you needed. And he got some cash back – for his toys. But what about your grandson?’
And then Dryden knew; the final piece of the Petit family jigsaw falling into place.
‘You brought him up, didn’t you? But not here – at Petit Hall. That would have prompted too many questions. Boarding schools – abroad, even? Then university. No – because he wasn’t academic, was he? That’s what Martyn told one of his pupils – that he wasn’t good at school. So maybe college, a land economy degree? Yes, that would be perfect. And his reward?’
Dryden pointed down the drove towards Home Farm. The Victorian farmhouse stood on one side of an open square, barns and outhouses on the other two. A yellow John Deere tractor stood in the lee of a few trees, washed clean.
‘Edward Petit,’ said Dryden. ‘Your nephew – running home farm. Really? Sure he’s not your grandson. Why don’t we ask . . .’
Dryden turned to go but she raised a hand.
‘Stop,’ she said.
‘I wonder what he knows?’ asked Dryden. ‘And there’s his child too – a girl? A virtual dynasty.’
Her lips formed a line, murderously straight. ‘He knows nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’ The colour flooded out of Sheila Petit’s face. Given the calculated dishonesty she’d been capable of Dryden was appalled to feel pity for her.
‘Shall I tell him – or will you?’
FORTY-FOUR
Humph brought breakfast to Petit Hall in the Capri: egg and bacon sandwiches wrapped in foil washed down with Russian vodka in little airline bottles marked Reyka. He’d brought a flask too, into which he’d got someone to decant half-a-dozen double espressos. They sat in silence, waiting for the moment of dawn, as a small convoy of police vehicles left Petit Hall. Sheila Petit was in the last one, alone in the back seat, and something in her eye caught the morning light as she slid past the parked cab.
Dryden had two cellophane packages in his lap.
He talked Humph through them. One was his father’s compass watch, which had been found hooked over the wheel of Rory Setchey’s boat when the floating crane had brought its remains to the surface of Adventurers’ Mere. The watch was in no better condition than the body of Miiko Saar. The watch face was marbled with cracks, the glass shattered, the little compass needle blown away. There was a slight smear of blood on the inside of the plastic evidence bag in which it lay.
Humph wiped grease from his lips with the back of his hand.
‘Kross said I could keep it,’ said Dryden.
The other bag contained a metal ID tag and bracelet. The bracelet was minute, and would only encircle three of Dryden’s fingers. The clasp was open and the jagged tooth-edge had entangled in it several shreds of very dark hair.
‘That’s all that’s left of the child the Yorubas lost at Manea. To the fox – I told you?’
Humph nodded. ‘Why’d he give it to you?’
‘I asked for it. It’s important.’
‘Hey up,’ said the cabbie, nodding back towards Petit Hall. Halfway up the drove a police car was parked outside the entrance to the Home Farm. Edward Petit stood with a woman by the gate, a baby girl held between them. Then he got in the car and it crept towards them, past them, to follow the convoy which had already left. Edward waved back at his cottage, but the woman didn’t wave back.
‘Let’s go,’ said Dryden.
‘Is it over?’ asked Humph.
Dryden knew he meant the whole case: Jack Dryden, Martyn Petit and Rory Setchey – and, most of all, Roger Stutton.
‘Yes. For us, it is over. We just have to bury Roger. The funeral’s next week.’
He checked his watch: it was too early to ring Laura. The pain in his hip was worse now than it had been for hours so he took some of the painkillers he’d been given at the hospital, then asked Humph to put the cab in a lay-by. He was asleep before the hand brake creaked. He didn’t so much go to sleep as pass out.
When he woke Humph was banging on the roof of the Capri.
Getting out Dryden saw that something extraordinary had happened to the sky. He couldn’t have been asleep for more than ten minutes because it was just a few seconds before the moment of dawn. Above them stretched a high rack of cloud, like a skein, made up of the brightest colours Dryden had ever seen in the sky – not iridescent, brighter than that. Other clouds, scuds, drifted past, but these brighter clouds seemed untouchable.
‘That’s what I saw,’ said Humph. ‘I couldn’t find them in the book. So I thought . . .’ He seemed lost. ‘I thought of the Northern Lights but that’s crazy – all the books said that was crazy. So I just made up a name.’
‘I know what they’re called,’ said Dryden. His father had seen them on the farm – always at the same times – just before dawn, just after sunset. They were high level, stratospheric, and that was their secret, because they were so high they caught the sun that had not risen, and the sun that had just set. They were the clouds of sunrise and nightrise.
Humph seemed captivated.
‘Nacreous – they’re called nacreous clouds,’ said Dryden. ‘It’s Latin for mother-of-pearl. They’re rare here – exotic. What did you call them?’
The colours were getting brighter so that Dryden made a physical effort to widen his eyes, open them out, to let in the light.
‘I see them all the time,’ said Humph. ‘I call them The Eastern Lights.’
FORTY-FIVE
A week later
A police squad car stood outside the Victorian folly which had been Billy Johns’ home. The front door was open and the hall beyond was empty – the Electra Glide long gone, and with it the cemetery caretaker. Money and a Harley Davidson would get Billy Johns a long way – DI Friday had told Dryden they’d had reports of the bike from Spanish customs in the Pyrenees. And there’d been those crisp euro notes in his wallet. But Dryden suspected that was not quite far enough to slip the grasp of Interpol and Scotland Yard. Which was a shame because he suspected that Miiko Saar had ordered Johns to bury Dryden alive the night the Estonian had dumped his body in the open paupers’ grave. Johns had disobeyed orders, then fled. If they ever did bring him to trial, Dryden would be more than happy to tell a judge and jury of his act of mercy.
The caretaker’s absence, and the police presence, had brought chaos to the orderly running of Manea Cemetery and Crematorium. The interment of Roger Eden Stutton had been delayed two days. Beneath the chosen cedar Dryden and Laura joined the small crowd which had gathered, finally, for the burial, ferried by a cortège of polished black limousines which had zigzagged over the fen from Buskeybay. Eight spotless cars and Humph’s Capri. Con stood slightly apart with her son Laurie, holding him by the arm but looking away. Humph sat on a bench on the gravel path in what might have been a suit; but stood when the priest appeared, walking ahead of the coffin.
The service was mercifully brief and might have been for a stranger. No one cried. When it was over Dryden took out the forensic bag Kross had given him and ripped it open, taking out the compass watch. The time said 12.08 a.m. The exact moment Miiko Saar died. He walked to the grave’s edge, didn’t look down, but dropped the watch. He felt strangely giddy, even weightless, and standing there, trying to think of Roger, he saw instead his father, or rather felt that he was his father, floating in that Scottish tarn, reaching out to try and save the boy who was already dead. And then the moment was past and he felt the clay beneath his feet, and locked his eyes on the distant flat horizon, so that he could walk away from the grave’s edge. Eden lay in the grass on his back, his eyes full of sky.
Dryden gave Laura an envelope. ‘This was on my desk.’
It was from Fenland Newspapers, owners of The Crow. They were delighted to inform him that they were able to offer him the position of editor of The Crow and the Ely Express newspapers and associated website.
‘Associated website,’ he said. ‘We haven’t got a bloody website.’
‘That’s your first job then,’ said Laura. ‘Well done.’ The smile was genuine but brief.
‘It’s a good job we’re moving. You’ll need to be nearer.’
They’d made the decision the day Humph ran Dryden up to Cromer. Living in Flightpath Cottages had been a dream. But the reality had been stifling. It was too remote for Laura, too domestic for Dryden. They’d come back from the coast by a boatyard at Denver Sluice and bought a narrow boat to moor beside PK 145 – their old floating home on the river near Ely. They’d sleep in the new boat, live in the old, and teach Eden a life afloat. There was a FOR SALE sign outside the house.
Laura was watching Con, alone, stood beside the grave, which seemed to hold her in a kind of spell.
‘They should fill it in,’ said Dryden. A mechanical digger stood under the trees, waiting silently, a workman smoking at the wheel.
‘It’s a good place,’ said Laura. ‘We can get another bench – over there, nearer the grave. Look.’
Following her pointing finger east Dryden saw the West Tower of Ely Cathedral. It was a fine day and Dryden knew then he’d sit here and try to see it many times in the future but that he’d often fail. The dense, damp fen air was ideal for shrouding distance.
Dryden was glad his father didn’t lie in a grave. He thought of him still as being out there, washed away into the waterscape, beneath the clouds.
He picked up Ed
en and showed him the view.
Con walked over and sat with them. Her son, Laurie, was talking to the priest. Laura produced a flask of tea and what looked like sandwiches neatly packaged in tin foil, and a plastic container for biscuits.
Con smiled. ‘This is our wake.’
FORTY-SIX
Dryden left them and walked alone to the crematorium chapel. It had a working area, screened off, at the rear. There was a single wooden door, studded in a mock-medieval style, but unlocked. Inside was a waiting area. On a trestle table a small white coffin stood. It made Dryden’s blood rush to his heart.
The undertaker he’d met at the funeral parlour appeared from the chapel. ‘They’re here,’ he said.
Dryden recalled the name – Matthew Carney.
‘I’ll see them at the graveside,’ said Dryden.
Carney nodded and then, turning to the small casket, simply lifted the lid.
Dryden looked away. An instinct of self-preservation. It was, after all, a perversion of nature, the child going before the parents.
‘Mr Dryden,’ prompted Carney.
He turned back and produced the forensic bag with the ID tag inside.
Now they both stood looking into the casket. There was a teddy bear which seemed brand new, a Bible, and a single lead weight marked seven pounds. Dryden held the tag up to the sunlight which streamed in through the stained glass. The jet-black hair glistened. Dryden placed the bracelet at the head of the casket and stood back. Carney screwed the lid on – six screws, arranged at intervals.
Dryden was dismissed with a smile.
Outside the sun fell on the landscape with its full weight. Humph slept in the Capri. Everyone else had gone so that the cemetery seemed muffled in heat, silent, the hot air buckling slightly. Out on the road he could see a bus, the logo faded but discernible: CERTIO. He could see faces inside, pressed to the windows. The driver’s door stood open.
