Dry Bones

by Sally Spencer

  Mr Jenkins notices I’ve seen her, and says, ‘I don’t think you’ve ever met my wife, have you, Miss Redhead?’

  ‘No,’ I agree, ‘I don’t think I have.’

  ‘Then let’s rectify that right now,’ he says.

  As we enter the lodge, I can see that Mrs Jenkins is not just bending over Lennie, but is handing him a covered basin.

  ‘How hot do you heat the oven, Lennie?’ she is asking.

  ‘I turn the knob until the three is at the top,’ Moon says.

  ‘Excellent,’ Mrs Jenkins tells him. ‘And how long do you put it in the oven for?’

  ‘Thirty minutes.’

  ‘And you must make sure you don’t leave it in there any longer than that,’ Mrs Jenkins cautions.

  Lennie smiles, as if he’s pleased with himself.

  ‘I won’t,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a system.’

  ‘And what system is that?’ Mrs Jenkins asks, and I detect a hint of anxiety in her voice which suggests she thinks it just might be a system for disaster.

  ‘You know that programme that comes on the telly, where there’s a man who tells you all about what’s happening everywhere?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure I know the one you’re talking about,’ Mrs Jenkins says dubiously.

  ‘And then there’s another man – or sometimes it’s a pretty girl – who tells you what the weather’s going to be like.’

  ‘Do you mean the news?’

  ‘Yes, I think that’s what it’s called. Anyway, I know it’s exactly half an hour long, so I put the basin in the oven when it starts, and take it out again when it’s finished.’

  ‘Now that really is clever, Lennie,’ Mrs Jenkins says – and sounds as if she means it.

  She stands up. For the first time, I get a proper look at her, and it is only by a great effort of will that I avoid gasping with shock.

  I had imagined her to be around the same age as her husband, and I think she probably is, but whilst he has weathered well, she looks very much battered by the storm. She is thin – almost skeletal – though there is evidence, from the odd flap of redundant skin, that she was once a much more sensible weight. Her face is filled with deep ugly ruts which are slashed across her forehead and plunge down at each side of her mouth, bringing to mind a field which has been used for motorcycle scrambling.

  Her eyes are watery, her …

  ‘Lucy, this is Miss Redhead, one of my favourite ex-students,’ Mr Jenkins says. ‘Miss Redhead, this is Lucy, my wife.’

  We shake hands. Her skin feels like parchment, her fingers are like bony needles.

  ‘One of his favourite ex-students, eh?’ she says. ‘That’s quite an accolade, you know, Miss Redhead. I don’t think there’ve been more than four or five students who’ve qualified for that title in all the time he’s been working as a porter here. Isn’t that right, Harold?’

  And then she smiles fondly at her husband, and I catch a brief glimpse of the pretty woman she must once have been.

  Mr Jenkins returns his wife’s smile with one of his own, which is equally as affectionate.

  ‘Yes, I’m certainly very particular about who my favourite students are,’ he says.

  I wonder what has reduced this woman to the physical wreck that she is now – what she has suffered that could have resulted in such a transformation. It is not Mr Jenkins who has crushed her – I can tell that, just by seeing them together – so what is it? Did she have to nurse one of her parents through a particularly prolonged and painful death? Did she lose a child?

  I don’t know, but what is troubling me more than her personal tragedy is the feeling that Mr Jenkins deliberately engineered this meeting – that he took his time walking me around the grounds, and only returned me to the porters’ lodge when he knew (because Lennie had reminded him) that she would be there.

  But why would he want to do that?

  And more significantly – why would he want to do it just as I was starting an investigation into the college?

  You’re reading it all wrong, says a calming inner voice, which I sometimes think of (fancifully, I’ll fully admit) as my mental pixie. It wasn’t contrived at all, Jennie. You both just happened to be there at the same time, and Mr Jenkins thought it would only be polite to introduce you.

  Well, that’s at least one weight off my mind, I think.

  But my inner voice hasn’t finished with me yet.

  So, you see, it’s not him that’s being devious, it’s you that’s seeing conspiracies everywhere – you stupid, paranoid bitch! it says.

  Well, thanks a lot, mental pixie.

  SEVEN

  7 October 1974 – Evening

  As I stand outside The Head of the River pub, I feel the chill rising up from the Isis and I remember those long-ago mornings when I would drag myself out of a warm cosy bed at five thirty, and (after slurping a hasty cup of tea), would cycle madly down to the boathouse on the opposite bank of the river from the pub, in order to subject myself to early morning rowing practice. I never cared much for the sport even in the warm weather – endlessly pulling on an oar always seemed a pretty pointless occupation – but in the winter, when the wind slashed at my face like a razor, I positively hated it.

  So if it’s all so unpleasant, why bother to row at all, you might ask? And if you do need to ask, then its more than likely you’ve never been an eighteen-year-old girl, hundreds of miles away from home, attending a posh university, and desperate to fit in.

  Over time, Charlie Swift cured me of that. Over time, he taught me that the only chance you ever have of finding happiness is to be yourself – and even then it’s only ever a pretty slim chance!

  I check my watch and see that DI George Hobson is half an hour late, which is not like him at all. I feel a shiver run through me, and I am almost certain that is less to do with the cold than it is with the bad feeling that I have been doing my best to shake off.

  I light up another cigarette. I’m smoking too many these days, but then, if you believe the medical reports (and there’s no earthly reason why you shouldn’t), one cigarette is one too many.

  Another ten minutes have passed, and I’m almost on the point of giving up when I see George’s green Cortina pull up on the car park.

  When you want something from someone, you can’t afford to be petulant. So instead of huffing over his tardiness, I walk over to his car, and as he gets out, say, ‘Hi George,’ as if he’s not kept me waiting at all – and even if he has, I haven’t noticed.

  His eyes are hollow, as if he’s been worrying about something.

  ‘I nearly didn’t come,’ he says.

  ‘Oh,’ I reply.

  ‘Don’t you want to know why?’ he asks.

  ‘Why?’ I say, because honestly, he’s not really left me much room for manoeuvre here.

  ‘I nearly didn’t come because I’d decided that if you were digging yourself into a deep hole – and I really think you are, Jennie – then I didn’t want to be any part of it.’

  ‘So what changed your mind?’ I say.

  He shrugs. ‘You’re a fully paid-up adult, and if you want to bury yourself, then that’s really nobody’s business but your own.’

  But that’s not it at all. He’s not here to assist me in digging my own grave – he’s come to persuade me to throw away my bloody shovel.

  ‘Shall we go inside?’ I suggest.

  Another shrug.

  ‘Why not?’

  We are sitting at yet another table with a beaten copper top, (what is it with breweries and beaten copper tops?), and George has a beige folder spread out in front of him, which, I assume, is the result of his day’s labours on my behalf.

  ‘I have two names that might be of use to you,’ he says, all crisp and business-like. ‘The first is Albert Boulting. He comes from a very old county family, and was educated at Harrow School. He disappeared one night in February 1916. His disappearance may or may not have something to do with the fact that the police were watching him.�
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  ‘Why were they watching him?’ I ask.

  George tells me, and as his tale unfolds, I feel myself getting sicker and sicker.

  ‘So why hadn’t the police already arrested him?’ I demand, when George has finished his foul story.

  ‘You’re getting too emotional, Jennie,’ he cautions.

  ‘It’s an emotional subject,’ I say, in my defence.

  ‘We’re talking about crimes that happened over sixty years ago, and if you’re upset about them, it can only be because you’re already upset about the situation that you find yourself having to deal with now.’

  He’s probably right, though – aside from the fact I’ve failed to report a serious crime to the police, which could well mean I end up in prison – I can’t think what might be upsetting me.

  ‘So why hadn’t the police already arrested him?’ I repeat, this time more calmly.

  ‘They didn’t have enough proof,’ George says.

  ‘Oh, come on now, George, from what you’ve just sketched out for me, there must have been at least a dozen witnesses who could have placed him very near the scene of at least one of the crimes.’

  ‘What you’re forgetting, Jennie, is that it’s 1916 we’re talking about here,’ George says.

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Back then, there were the wrong kind of witnesses and there were the right kind of witnesses.’

  ‘Meaning …?’

  ‘Meaning that if the magistrate had had to choose between taking the word of a man like Albert – someone with a background no doubt similar to his own – and taking the word of a washerwoman or a small shopkeeper, he’d take Albert’s word because Albert was a gentleman.’

  ‘That’s outrageous,’ I say.

  ‘Yes,’ George agreed, ‘but that’s the way of the world, and most magistrates would have been inclined to believe that the washerwoman was lying, probably for profit, while a gentleman would never stain his soul by uttering an untruth. It’s all down in black and white, in the local inspector’s official papers. He seems to have been a decent man who wanted to do his duty, and he wrote that, while he had enough evidence to arrest Albert Boulting, he had nowhere near enough to be certain he could make it stick.’

  ‘Tell me about the other man who disappeared,’ I say.

  ‘His name was James Makepeace – funny name to have, “Makepeace,” in the middle of a war, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s absolutely hilarious,’ I say.

  ‘He had a similar background to Boulting, but he went to Eton rather than Harrow, and there’s no indication he was addicted to the same disgusting vice as Boulting was. Anyway, his disappearance …’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I tell him. ‘You say there’s no indication he was addicted to the same disgusting vice?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where is there no indication?’

  ‘In his police record.’

  ‘He has a police record? What does it say?’

  ‘I’m coming to that, if you just be a little patient,’ George says.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Makepeace disappeared in late October 1943, and just like Boulting, one minute he was there and the next he was gone. Neither took anything with him, and both had been called up by the army and were about to be posted, so it’s possible they both deserted.’

  ‘The police file,’ I say, impatiently.

  ‘James Makepeace does have a police file,’ George says, ‘but there’s absolutely nothing in it.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘But there must be some way to find out,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t think there is.’

  ‘It’s only thirty years ago. There must still be coppers at the station who were there when the file was opened.’

  ‘It was opened in late 1942, by which time all the younger regular police officers were in the army, and the station was being run by blokes close to retirement, who were supplemented by other blokes who’d retired years before. So what do you think are the chances of any of them being alive today?’

  ‘Slim,’ I say.

  ‘Well, that’s all the information I’ve got for you,’ George says. He sighs, heavily, and I realise that we’ve come to the point where – much as he might not like the idea – he simply has to say his piece.

  ‘There’s one thing that’s been troubling me, Jennie,’ he says, ‘and it’s this – why did you ask me to do your checking up for you?’

  ‘I asked you because you’re my friend, and friends are always asking friends for favours,’ I reply. ‘And you know, don’t you, that if I can ever do you a favour in return, you’ve only to ask.’

  ‘You see, it’s not that you asked me to do you a favour that’s got me worried, it’s that you asked me to do this favour,’ George says.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ I ask, and I realise that I’ve started to tremble, because my gut is telling me that whatever he says next, I’m not going to like it one little bit.

  ‘You see, I haven’t found out anything that the bursar of St Luke’s … his name’s Swift, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I haven’t found out anything that Swift couldn’t have come up with a bloody sight quicker. Now, given that he’s also a friend of yours … I’m right about that, too, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘Given that he’s also a friend of yours, I’ve been wondering why you didn’t ask him directly, and however much I think about it – and however many different angles I examine it from – there’s only one explanation that seems to make any sense at all. Would you like to hear it?’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ I say. I don’t sound enthusiastic, because I’m not. In fact, I don’t want to listen to what he’s about to tell me at all, but I know that I’ll have to sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner.

  ‘My explanation is that your client – whoever he is – specifically asked you not to go to the bursar for information. And if that is the case – if he wants Swift kept in the dark about what he’s doing, then I’ve got serious reservations about him. And if I’ve got serious reservations about him, then I’ve got serious reservations about your whole investigation.’

  I should already be preparing the snappy answer which will smooth over all his doubts – but I’m not doing that at all. And the reason I haven’t produced a snappy answer is that I’m in a state of near shock, because what he’s just said is perfectly logical.

  My client can’t be the bursar, because the bursar wouldn’t need me to collect information that he already had. But my client is the bursar, and he is paying me to find out things he already knows, for reasons that I can’t even begin to guess at.

  I’m wondering why I didn’t see all this before – and why it needed George Hobson (a solid copper, but not the brightest star in the firmament) to point it out to me. And what I soon realise is that my own logical thought processes have been numbed (or maybe just diverted) by the almost hysterical show of emotion that Charlie bombarded me with in my office.

  George Hobson is still looking at me – waiting for me to say something to calm his fears for me.

  ‘Relax,’ I tell him.

  ‘Relax?’ he repeats incredulously. ‘I can’t relax – and after what I’ve just told you, you certainly shouldn’t be able to, either.’

  ‘But I can relax,’ I say, ‘because I know exactly why my client didn’t want me to use the bursar as a source of information. It’s a very good reason – though, for professional reasons, I obviously can’t tell you what it is – but you can rest assured that there’s absolutely nothing for either of us to worry about.’

  And even as I’m saying the words, I’m thinking that because of Charlie I’m turning into a woman I have little choice but to despise.

  I call in at Charlie’s rooms in St Luke’s, and he isn’t there. I ask Mr Jenkins if he knows where he’s gone, but the head porter is una
ble to enlighten me. Charlie’s not in the Lamb and Flag or the Eagle and Child either, so, unless he’s out on what he so elegantly (and so euphemistically) calls a ‘hunt for fresh young buttocks’ he’s deliberately hiding from me.

  I don’t want to spend any more time in either of the pubs where I habitually drink with Charlie, so I go back to the old, reliable Bulldog, and just manage to order a G&T – a double – before the pub lights all flash dementedly and the barman throws the towel over the draught beer pumps.

  It’s when I’m half way down my drink that I realise that some part of my brain has already decided I’m going to carry on with the job Charlie gave me.

  So just what kind of idiot does that make me?

  EIGHT

  12 February 1916

  When Albert Boulting chose to become introspective, as he did occasionally, what he usually discovered at the very core of his being was a genuine hero, a man made of much the same mettle as Christopher Columbus and David Livingstone.

  He, like them, was an explorer, he told himself, opening up trails that others dared not open, entering into the places which – by that very act of entering – put his life in danger. But it would not be like this forever. Eventually, the rest of the world – currently so backward in its thinking – would catch up with him. It would, in other words, overcome all its prejudices and understand that what all these small girls (the ones he’d been with) had ever wanted from their miserable little lives was the opportunity to serve him, whilst experiencing, for the first time, their own sexuality. Once that obvious truth had been universally accepted, he was quietly confident that there would be statues erected of him throughout all Europe and beyond.

  That afternoon, his adventurous nature had led him to stand on a small pile of bricks, which made him just tall enough to see over the crumbling wall and across to the patch of waste ground, where the children – ignoring the cold – were playing a game of rounders, with a plank for a bat and a ball made of rags.

  Though there were other sweet children there – so many juicy berries to pluck! – it was a little girl of about seven years old who he was focussing his attention on. She had long blonde hair, which was badly knotted through lack of care, and was dressed in a ratty red woollen cardigan, and a heavy grey flannel skirt that was much too big for her and trailed along the ground.