The Water Clock

by The Water Clock

  Looking around, Dryden felt subnormal might have been a bit wide of the mark as well.

  The car showroom was full of waxed BMWs and two Bentleys polished to the point where they seemed to have gained an extra, translucent skin. The piped-in Muzak was classical, had a rock ‘n’ roll beat, and was at that annoying sound level known as discreet. He counted a long five minutes.

  Roberts bustled in looking preoccupied. He was immaculate in white shirt, floral tie, gold Rotary Club tie-pin, dark blue suit, and polished slip-on black leather shoes. This was dress as performance art. It shouted respectability.

  It was immediately obvious why the police file may have been slightly unkind to Gladstone Roberts – he was black. Ely was not famous for its melting-pot society. The town was insular and insulated. A multicultural event in the Fens was a phone call from London.

  ‘Mr Dryden?’ The natural deep tone of Roberts’s Trini-dadian skin had weathered badly over the last forty years. But the lilting joyful voice was just discernible below the flat East Anglian accent.

  It was a question, and looking into the pained dark brown eyes he saw that it needed a bloody good answer.

  ‘Tommy Shepherd.’

  Roberts shook his head slightly and screwed up his eyes – a performance designed to ask: ‘Do I know that name?’ But he said nothing.

  ‘His body was found on Friday. He’d…’

  Roberts looked at the floor. He seemed weighed down by the effort of pretending he didn’t know what Dryden was talking about.

  Then he nodded. ‘Of course. The suicide.’ He fished in his pockets for a packet of Hamlet cigars and lit up without offering one. Dryden wondered if the greyness in the dark wrinkles was ash.

  ‘I’m just doing a piece on Tommy Shepherd – you probably remember the robbery at Crossways in 1966?’

  ‘Why would I remember that, Mr Dryden?’

  Dryden recognized he had arrived at the dividing line between being a reporter and a detective. He was reluctant to cross it due to a combination of innate cowardice and the lack of a blue uniform covered in comforting buttons and insignia. Also Roberts was the last person he wanted to insult. He imagined that years of racial discrimination had been insult enough.

  He stepped in close and felt a surge of power as Roberts rocked back on his heels. ‘I’ve seen the police file, Mr Roberts. On Thomas Shepherd and those associated with him between 1964 and 1966. I wanted a brief word – in private.’

  They found somewhere private. The office was above the showroom with an internal picture window looking down on the cars. With the snowfall the lights had come on to counter the gloom. The cars sparkled in that depressing way reserved for impossibly expensive merchandise.

  Roberts didn’t offer Dryden a seat.

  ‘Are you aware of the penalties associated with breaching the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, Mr Dryden?’

  Good line, thought Dryden.

  Roberts sat perched on a ridiculously large walnut desk. Gilt-edged picture frames covered the leather surface: wife, children, car, house, holiday, golf club. Dryden felt less sorry for him. For a 1950s immigrant he had done well for himself. Dryden could only imagine how hard that had been in a community which saw the world in two halves. The Fens were ‘home’ and the rest of the world was simply ‘away’.

  What was clear, however, was that he didn’t feel sorry for Dryden. There was a carefully constructed edge of menace in Roberts’s performance so far.

  ‘What offences?’

  A masterstroke. He saw Roberts struggling to find an answer that wasn’t self-incriminating.

  He sighed again. He looked uncomfortable despite being firmly on home ground. ‘Look. I wasn’t at the Crossways. Sure I knew Tommy Shepherd. So did half the petty crooks in the county. So what?’

  ‘So… the police at the time thought you might have been harbouring him. I’ve seen the file. Yes, they thought you might have been at the Crossways – but you had an alibi. A good one. There was a lot of money taken. It’s never been found. They think Tommy committed suicide. I think he was pushed. Any ideas?’

  It was Roberts’s turn to take a step closer. Dryden felt the inevitable urge to back off. He resisted it with a commendable effort not unassociated with an inability to move his legs.

  ‘Mr Dryden. Slander is a serious business. How can I put this? I have a choice – recourse to the law or my own devices. I use the second reluctantly, but expertly. Do I make myself clear?’

  Dryden went for another question. ‘Where’d you get the money for this place?’ He took the opportunity to step back and look out at the showroom below.

  Roberts composed himself by smoothing down his suit with exaggerated care. He stubbed out his Hamlet and took an overcoat from a brass peg. ‘I can’t help you any further, Mr Dryden. I have to be in church. Can I give you a lift home?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Dryden, with commendable bravado. It was a Rolls of course. Powder blue with the walnut finish. Registration plate: BOB 99. Nice touch that, thought Dryden. Very classy.

  The doors locked with a soundless miniature thud. Roberts was doing 60 m.p.h. by the time they crossed the forecourt and swung out on to the by-pass. They sped south and then took the corner into Barham’s Farm with a screech of burning rubber. Parked in sight of PK 122 they sat in an uncomfortable silence. Just time for Dryden to realize he’d given Roberts no directions. How many people knew he lived on the boat? Twenty? Fewer?

  Roberts slipped the locks and they sprang up. Dryden felt his nerve waver. He cursed his motto: There’s always one more question.

  But Roberts got in first. Only it wasn’t a question. He sighed again, and his chin, briefly, sagged down on his chest: ‘It’s a Yale.’

  Dryden knew he shouldn’t ask. ‘What is?’

  ‘The lock on the cabin door. Then there’s two bolts inside. But the coal chute’s only got one. No telephone. Gas cooker. Nice picture over the bunk bed. Pretty girl. Your wife?’

  Roberts had been aboard PK 122. But why? And when? Dryden was pretty sure he wasn’t the man he’d chased to Stretham Engine the night before. But clearly Roberts saw Dryden as a threat, and was prepared to stop him investigating Tommy Shepherd’s death.

  Dryden climbed out of the Rolls but leaned back in to invade Roberts’s personal space. A personal space about as attractive right now as an inner-city playground. He was close enough to smell the ash in his wrinkles.

  ‘Fuck you.’ First lesson with bullies. Never show them you’re afraid. Roberts didn’t move an eyelash.

  Dryden walked to the boat without looking back. He heard the Rolls purr away a few minutes later. By that time he was in the loo with a large malt whisky. He had the mobile with him so he rang his voice box at work. There was a message to ring Andy Stubbs. Stubbs answered immediately. The connection was astonishingly clear. Dryden could hear a light wind blowing in the background and the call of crows.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Cathedral roof – checking if anything else came out of his pockets on the way down.’

  Dryden heard the sound of shoes slipping on lead. It added to a growing sense of sickness. His stomach was still churning with fear from the encounter with Roberts. He gulped some more Talisker.’I want something.’

  He virtually heard Stubbs’s patience snap. ‘Look. You’ve got the exclusive on the link between Shepherd and the Lark victim – and much more. I want the story on the photofit to run. That’s it. Do we have a deal or not?’

  ‘No. I think I met our killer last night. He shot at me. And I think I know where the Lark victim died. All this is yours. What I need is a file.’

  Dryden heard a long leaden slide and the hefty thud of a body meeting stonework.

  Stubbs wheezed. ‘Great timing. What file?’

  ‘My wife Laura. The car accident. There’s a file – classified apparently. They won’t let me see it. Get it.’

  There was a long silence in which decisions were being made.

  Dryden rang
off before he got an answer. Then he called the lumberjack-shirted idiot at Feltwell Marina. In the background he could hear the saliva-dribbling Alsatian tearing something apart. He was told what he knew, that until 1st April next year it was closed while engineering work was underway. Dryden said he wanted a temporary berth on the river bank for a week – downriver of the new bridge. The sluices had been opened and the river was clear of ice. He said he’d be docked by dusk the next day.

  The Merlin engine fired first time, cracking the silence on the snow-clad fen. A wisp of oily black exhaust trailed from behind PK 122 as he nosed her towards the city wharf downstream. He tied up by the Cutter Inn and walked to the office to clear his head. The newsroom was Sunday teatime quiet. He checked his watch – Tommy’s cremation was at 3.30. He had time to knock out some copy for Monday’s early deadline for The Express.

  Heartless vandals burnt two circus ponies to death in an attack at dead of night, Ely police revealed at the weekend.

  Circus wintergrounds manager Joe Smith said thousands of pounds worth of damage had been caused by the vandals who struck on Friday night.

  Police are trying to trace a white van seen speeding from the scene of the incident at The Pools, near Ely. They later made extensive house-to-house enquiries in the Jubilee Estate, but without success.

  The horses, a piebald called Horatio and a black pony called Beauty, were trapped in the stables. The fire also caused extensive damage to dodgems and a wooden merry-go-round.

  ‘We were lucky to get out alive,’ said Mr Smith. ‘I am concerned that the local police take this incident seriously.’

  Det Sgt John Adams, of Ely CID, said: ‘We take all such incidents very seriously. We have appealed for witnesses.’

  It is understood that several caravans, which were slightly damaged, and the livestock and machinery are all fully insured.

  The Pools have been used as a circus wintergrounds for more than a century. This is the first serious incident of vandalism in living memory.

  Dryden was rereading the story on screen when he heard Gary coming up Market Street – his heels crashing down through the snow to the pavement below. He often popped in on a Sunday to check his stories for The Express – or to catch a quick nap with his feet up before trudging off home to his parents. The junior reporter had just had a pub lunch and as he sat down he patted a distended stomach and smacked his lips. He farted loudly.

  Dryden decided to ruin his digestion. ‘You doing a roundup on the snow? The subs will want it early tomorrow to lay out with pix. What you got?’

  Gary went red and turned on the pleading eyes.

  Dryden was merciless. ‘Have you got the out-of-hours number for social services?’

  Gary flipped desperately through his contact book. ‘Yup!’ He looked triumphant.

  ‘Well ring ‘em then!’ Dryden snapped. ‘Old biddies cut off. Newborn babies delivered on the farm. RTAs. Skating accidents. Frozen pipes. Schoolkids stranded. Anything. And plenty of human interest – this is supposed to be a downmarket free tabloid. But keep the details for a round-up in The Crow on Thursday.’

  Gary nodded excitedly. He pulled out a packet of cigarettes and inexpertly ripped off the cellophane. He stuck one in his mouth, unlit, and cradled the phone between chin and neck: a position from which he was unable to reach the telephone directory.

  Dryden couldn’t watch. He transferred the circus story off his PC screen to his own electronic basket – he’d check it through one more time on Monday morning before filing it to the newsdesk. Then he looked at the prints of the circus fire and picked out half a dozen for the insurance company and put them in a brown envelope. He put the best shot of the kids posing on the burnt-out merry-go-round on the news editor’s keyboard where it couldn’t be missed. Just one print: golden rule – never give the subs a choice.

  Half a yard of paper was trailing out of the office’s only fax. Dryden ripped it off.

  NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR ATTRIBUTION

  Hi.

  So you’re alive. Steph is well. We sent a card after the accident. Sorry. What can we say?

  Your questions are typically oblique if I may say so. You always were a mysterious bastard. Just to get things straight…

  A. This is a background note and not for quotation.

  B. Your question… to reiterate.

  If you were given £2,000 in 1966 what would it be worth today – if it had been wisely invested?

  I passed this to the stats people. They use an inflation table and then they have to make some assumptions about the investment. ‘Wisely’ is a tricky one to evaluate. Typically they gave me three answers. The lowest is based on sticking the money in a building society, the second on a decently performing investment portfolio, and the third based on putting it all in a goldmine like rental property. Your three answers are therefore…

  A. £32,000

  B. £115,000

  C. £265,000

  As the wise man said: there are three kinds of lies. Lies. damned lies, and statistics.

  Hope this helps hut suspect it won’t.

  Cheers from everyone.

  Guy

  Money, thought Dryden, grabbing his black greatcoat, scarf, and a pair of oversized insulated gloves which appeared to be nobody’s but were always available on the newsdesk. ‘Funerals,’ he said to himself. ‘Nothing as cold.’

  14

  The Victorians were good at crematoria. It must have been the combination of utilitarianism and worship. For once they had a good reason to be vulgar. Ely’s was a model of its kind – red brick and stucco friezes topped off with a campanile which could have graced any London railway station.

  Another fine quality was its position – well out of the way. Built on waste ground by the water meadows its dignity had been undermined by the arrival of the Bury Co. sugar beet factory in the sixties. The smell of gently roasting vegetables mingled with the wisp of white smoke trailing up from the crematorium’s furnace.

  The sun was failing fast, a watery circle of pale yellow obscured by mist rising from the snow. As Dryden walked through the wrought-iron gates a flock of crows rose from the roof and relocated to a bare magnolia. There were five cars in the car park. The sound of organ music was just audible. Bach. It was so well played it had to be a tape.

  The congregation was four-strong and he knew them all. The young woman from the circus wintergrounds, presumably Joe Smith’s daughter, was in the back row. She ducked her blonde bobbed head when she recognized Dryden. The mayoress, Liz Barnett, was in the front row. Having found her ‘romantic’ link with Tommy Shepherd in the file Dryden wasn’t surprised, but he admired her loyalty. A lot was still at stake even if the passage of time had lessened the risk to reputations. Dryden had spotted the civic limo outside with the chauffeur asleep under his peaked cap. She sat still, and rigidly upright, and didn’t turn when Dryden closed the chapel door. The last time he’d seen her she’d been calmly finishing her drink at the Maltings while her husband had been rushed off to the Tower. He’d checked on Roy’s condition on Saturday afternoon. The mayor had discharged himself and refused a twenty-four-hour heart monitor.

  Former Deputy Chief Constable Bryan Stubbs was in the second row. He turned to see Dryden slip into the third row behind him. He was welcomed with a weak smile. No guilt, no embarrassment, no discomfort. Stubbs Senior returned to the Book of Common Prayer.

  Beside him sat Dr John Mitchell, the district coroner. Dryden had seen Mitchell at funeral services before; he seemed to make a point of attending if there was any chance nobody else would. For a coroner Mitchell had the wrong face: he always looked like he’d been treated to a good joke and the punchline was just about to be delivered. Jovial expectancy. Perhaps it was job satisfaction. Mitchell’s head was back and he was studying the Victorian painted ceiling – a sickly arrangement of blue sky, stars, and fat angels. Dryden caught a thin whiff of whisky on the air. Mitchell and Stubbs clearly had something in common. It was a good job it wasn’t a
Catholic service, one candle and they could have both gone up in a ball of fire.

  With only a mild shock, Dryden realized he was wrong, he knew five people at the funeral of Tommy Shepherd. The presiding priest was the Reverend John Tavanter of Little Ouse. He stood from seated silent prayer and his dove-grey eyes swept the congregation. There was no need to wait for silence. He made a brief fuss with his simple vestments and placed a modest wreath on the coffin which stood in plain pine on a draped trestle. A brass plate had been engraved Thomas Shepherd: born 1947, disappeared 1966.

  The service was like Tommy Shepherd’s life: short and bleak. The congregation seemed uninterested, each lost in a private world of memories. Dr Mitchell stuck with the ceiling. There may have been some snuffling in the back row, but everyone had the good British manners not to look. Otherwise there wasn’t a wet eye in the house.

  Dryden sneaked a miniature pork pie into his mouth. He thought, not for the first time, that religious ceremonies brought out the worst in him. It was one of the few good things about a Catholic education. Finally the great moment of comedy arrived. Dryden could never watch the end of a cremation without wondering how everybody else kept a straight face. The Reverend Tavanter pressed a button by the pulpit lectern and the coffin began to slide electronically towards some parted purple curtains. The music was insipid, pastoral and piped. When it ended there was a silence in which the sound of a gas furnace was distinctly audible. Dryden suppressed the image of some superannuated grave-digger frantically ramming 10p bits into a gas meter. Then the music returned, upbeat, hopeful and entirely inappropriate. It was worth making a will, thought Dryden, just to make sure that it didn’t end like this.

  Tavanter, hands together around his slightly rounded frame, moved towards the tiny congregation, but almost everyone was too quick for him. The woman from the travellers’ site bolted for the door and the mayoress was halfway down the aisle before he’d got to the front row. She had failed to dim her usual patchwork of colours for the funeral – save for a jet brooch at her neck. She gave Dryden a look which mixed a lot of anger with just a little self-pity.