The Skeleton Man (28 page)

The drove ended at the cottages: the deadest of dead ends. The houses stood in darkness but as Dryden got out of the cab the downstairs lights in one came on. He walked up the short drive, stamping on the gravel, trying to flush out any dogs, but nothing moved. The lights were on in the modernized house so he went to the door and knocked loudly, listening to the echo bounce back off a brick barn half a mile away. A dog barked then, but to the north, where a security light lit the foot of a pylon.

He stepped to the side and looked in at the front room. The overhead light was on and so was the TV, although the sound was down. He worked his way down the side of the house through a gate to the kitchen door. Inside he could hear a radio playing and the light over the hob was on.

There was a custom-built wooden studio in the garden, beside the double garage, and through the window Dryden could see two computer work stations with flat screens big enough for design and make-up. The lights, which had been on, flicked off. On the door was a company logo and sign: DesignSolutions.

The studio lights flicked back on. ‘Time switches,’ said Dryden, and went back to the car. ‘Looks like they’re away, like the woman said,’ he told Humph as the cab trundled a three-point turn. Dryden watched the lights in the rear-view mirror, so that he almost missed the post box a hundred yards
down the lane where there was a lay-by for the van to park up.

‘Hold on,’ he jumped out and flipped up the unlocked cover to reveal a bundle of letters which he took back to the cab and examined by the vanity light.

‘That’s nice,’ said Humph. ‘And you reckon estate agents have no moral compass?’

There were some utility bills marked for Mr P. R. Cobley and Mr M. James, and what felt like some brochures and freesheets for the ‘occupiers’. But there was one package, in a jiffy bag, marked for Cobley & James and stamped PHOTO POST.

‘Look the other way,’ he said to Humph, and ripped it open. It was a set of holiday snaps, Dryden guessed Greece. Paul Cobley was in most, pictured in cafés, bars and neck deep in a blue pool. But there was one of them both, slightly off-kilter so Dryden guessed it had been taken with a timer, kneeling in the sand. Dryden recognized Cobley’s partner immediately and there were several things he didn’t know about him: he didn’t know what he’d been doing with his life for the seventeen years since he’d left Jude’s Ferry, he didn’t know how he’d earned his living, he didn’t know how many times he’d been in love. But he knew one thing. He had a twin brother.

They saw the fairy lights on the pub as soon as they turned off the main road half an hour later – shuffling white and red bulbs neatly outlining the building. But the car park was nearly empty now that darkness had driven the evening trade home, or back to the boats. When Humph killed the engine they could hear a party somewhere out on the water amongst the floating gin palaces, the clash of glasses punctuated by overloud voices.

Dryden left Humph enjoying a nightcap from the glove compartment and found Woodruffe in the bar reading the
Licensed Victualler
. A barmaid moved to serve Dryden but Woodruffe waved her back, pulling the reporter a pint and then helping himself to a large whisky delivered direct into the pottery mug.

Dryden looked around. There were half a dozen customers at one table and two teenagers at the bar talking about
Top Gear
. Woodruffe’s hands, trained by a lifetime behind the bar, effortlessly rearranged the bar towels and respaced a row of glass ashtrays.

‘I’ve just been out to Lowestoft for the day,’ said Dryden, dropping his voice to conspiratorial. ‘Had a chat with one of your mother’s old friends; a close
friend actually. That’s the thing about old age, it loosens the tongue, sweeps away inhibitions.’

Woodruffe walked to the barmaid, slipping a hand around her narrow waist, whispering in her ear. It was an intimate gesture and Dryden looked away. The publican flipped up the bar top and led the way to the patio doors which opened onto the riverside. There was a short jetty here for cruisers to use during the day. They walked to the end and Woodruffe stood at the rail, sipping his drink, his back to the water. The night was silent but for the ducks in the reeds and the rumble of generators from the cruisers moored on the bank.

‘You dug the grave for her, didn’t you?’ said Dryden, looking downriver towards the cathedral. ‘In the cellar.’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’ A denial without enthusiasm, Dryden sensed that Woodruffe was already aware how weak it sounded.

‘Right. Spain always a favourite holiday spot, was it? That’s when you started smoking Ducados? When’d you give up? The day you read about the forensic evidence they’d found in the cellar?’

Woodruffe shook his head. ‘This is crap.’ He turned round, looking out into the night. On the far side of the river a flock of birds rose off the distant fen and crossed the moon.

‘But they’ve asked for a DNA check, haven’t they – so they’ll know soon. They’ll match you with the stub. That puts you in the cellar digging the grave.
What was it going to be: pills? A pillow over the face?’

Woodruffe looked away but in the darkness Dryden could see the moonlight reflecting off the tears.

‘You’d promised her, promised that if it came to it you’d end her life there, in Jude’s Ferry, to save her the pain, and to give her the peace she wanted. So you got it all ready – the grave in the cellar, the concealed trapdoor, the booking at the Esplanade in case anyone asked where Ellen was going. You’d always planned to cancel it. But then you lost your nerve. What was Spain – a holiday to buy her off?’

He tried to gulp the whisky but fumbled with the mug so that it fell into the river without a splash.

‘I bought a bar, back in the eighties. Sitges, down the coast. I’d always planned a long break and I said she should come too. I’d arranged nursing care, everything. If we liked it we could stay, flog the licence on this place.’

He bowed his head. ‘But she wanted me to end it for her, then, at the Ferry. Her whole life had been in that village, she was born down along The Dring, moved to the pub when she married Dad, I was born there. It’s like the place was part of her, like a limb. She used to say she could close her eyes and see it all, every door, every tree, and all the people who’d been there, even the ones who were dead.

‘But I couldn’t kill her. That’s what it is, even if she said it wasn’t. When I told her about Spain she cried all night, begged me to end it. She said that
Dad would have done it for her, which I guess was true. Next day she started packing, and we never mentioned it again.’

He held a hand wet with sweat to his forehead. ‘And it was a new life, a new life for me. Mum had her own flat and everything, a balcony, the sea near by, the nurse was good, the doctors. I said she could stay and I’d come out every month, see her, check on the bar. Winters it wasn’t too hot, I said she’d get used to it; she said she couldn’t take the pain, that she was just sick of living really and why didn’t she just go home, see England again. She said if I wanted a new life why didn’t I just stay in Spain.’

He knelt on the boards, fishing with his right hand in the dark green water for the mug. Then he stood, black strands of weed curled round his elbow.

‘So you came back,’ echoed Dryden. ‘And the years went by and nobody found the Skeleton Man. But the police aren’t going to stop asking questions, are they? Not if it is your DNA on that butt. And they’re gonna keep asking you. They need to find out who killed George Tudor. Perhaps they think you helped. Kathryn was your cousin, if the family turned on George they’d expect you to back them up, right?’

Woodruffe wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, his eyes on Dryden. ‘Paper said they think Mark Smith killed his brother. They fought that night, we saw them out in the yard at the Ferry. It’s Matthew in the cellar – got to be.’

‘Bad news,’ said Dryden. ‘Matthew James Smith is alive and well and living with Paul Cobley – he’s changed his name – fixed himself up with a new life. They run a business out on the Fen – by the looks of it pretty successfully. One Greek holiday this year already – my guess is they’re just on another. To use a quaint term, they’re an item. But my guess is you knew that. That was what that argument was really about, wasn’t it? Mark wanted to set up a business with his brother but his brother had a better offer. Dirty linen in public, never a pretty sight.’

Dryden could see Woodruffe calculating. ‘It’s not George Tudor,’ he said. ‘I talked to Georgie by phone three days ago. He’s running a smallholding in the Swan Valley near Perth, Western Australia. Three hundred sheep, a grove of olive trees and a vineyard. Sounds like paradise.’

Dryden was thinking fast. ‘Why’d you ring him?’

‘We kept in touch.’

‘You told him what we’d found in the cellar, didn’t you? Why did he need to know that, Ken? There was a murder in that cellar and you’re shaping up as one of the main suspects. You need to tell the truth, and you need to tell it quickly. The police are gonna put you in that cellar – your cellar. And they’re going to ask questions, questions like did you provide the rope as well.’

Woodruffe’s head jerked up and Dryden saw for the first time the desperation he’d been hiding. The publican sank down to the wooden planking and sat,
cradling his knees. ‘I didn’t go down. The others did but I didn’t.’

Dryden fished in his pockets for a packet of Gauloise and offered one. Woodruffe took it with a steady hand, the prospect of confession calming his nerves.

‘They’re not George Tudor’s bones,’ he said, his throat full of fluid. ‘They’re Peter Tholy’s. George was six foot, a carthorse. That sound right to you?’

Dryden tried to put the jigsaw back together, trying to picture the frail boy with learning difficulties Elizabeth Drew had described. ‘But Peter Tholy went to Australia – Fremantle,’ he said. ‘He sends cards back to Fred Lake, he visits his local church. Why would he end up on the end of that rope – he wasn’t a danger to anyone.’

Dryden took a step closer and saw that Woodruffe was still sweating in the moonlight. Under the jetty the river glugged and the cool stench of rotting weed was heady.

Woodruffe put the cigarette between his lips and hid his hands. ‘Peter Tholy killed Kathryn Neate because she wouldn’t go with him to Australia.’

Dryden sucked in some night air. ‘You’re saying Kathryn Neate was murdered?’

Woodruffe nodded, chin down.

‘Hold on, hold on,’ interrupted Dryden, struggling to take it in. ‘It was George Tudor who wanted Kathryn to go with him to Australia. Peter Tholy just made up the party – because George looked after him.’

Woodruffe shook his head, exasperated. ‘Sure, George wanted Kathryn to go with him, because he wanted her to have a life away from the Neates. But it was Peter that wanted to love her, wanted her as a wife. George went back to Neate’s Garage that night to plead for Peter. George was like a big brother to that kid, always had been since school. George likes to protect people – he tried to protect Kathryn, for her mother’s sake. Christ, she needed it. She’d never really grown up. After Marion died she went back in her shell and Walter didn’t help, couldn’t help. He couldn’t look at her sometimes, it was like Marion had come back to life.’ Woodruffe raked in some more night air. ‘And Jimmy isn’t the type to give someone a shoulder to cry on. So she didn’t really have anyone. But she was beautiful, and I don’t think she understood, you know…’ He looked at Dryden. ‘What they were after. She was too lonely to keep them away.’

He rubbed fingers into his eye socket, trying to clear an image. ‘George only turned up at the funeral because Tholy had promised Kathryn that he’d be there, because he was the father, because he loved her. But he didn’t have the guts to show his face. Someone else letting her down, see? It was little Peter’s child, and little Peter wanted to take Kathryn to Australia: the three of them, escaping. But Jimmy and Walter wouldn’t have it.’

‘And how do you know all this?’ asked Dryden.

Woodruffe looked away. ‘George and Jimmy told us – all of us – the next day. We met at Imber’s house. And I knew about Kath, through the family.’

Dryden remembered the open window, the sunlight on the orchard below.

‘They weren’t lying, Dryden, believe me. It was little Peter that loved Kathryn Neate.’

Dryden closed his eyes, trying to imagine night falling on Jude’s Ferry.

‘When the family got back to the garage that night, after the funeral, Walter told Kathryn she had to be straight with Peter, tell him to go without her. Jimmy said later she set off down to The Dring towards Tholy’s cottage, about six thirty. That was the last time any of us saw her alive.’

On the horizon the floodlights on the cathedral’s Octagon Tower blanked out.

‘Jimmy said it was late – nearly ten thirty – by the time they got worried enough to organize a search. He went down to Tholy’s cottage, tracing her steps, and George checked out around the Methodist Hall – the dance was over but there were still kids about. Anyway, Jimmy found her soon enough, behind Tholy’s cottage on the riverbank. He reckoned they’d met on the path where it cuts behind Orchard House. She’d been strangled and the prints were black round her neck – the fingers, where he’d pressed into the flesh. Jimmy said that as he’d come along the river he’d seen someone by her body, but they’d heard the footsteps and run for it back to the house, Tholy’s house.

‘Jimmy took her body along the river path back to the garage and then he found George by The Dring
and they knocked on Tholy’s door, forced it off its hinges. He was alone, packing, and he said he’d been alone all night, that he’d gone to say goodbye to old Broderick, but he hadn’t seen Kathryn. That’s when Jimmy said he knew he’d done it because he’d been down by the body. So they dragged him out in the street and down to the inn.

‘We were all out in the back yard watching the Smiths fight. It was sport, really; everyone was drunk, and if they’d finished we’d have turned on Cobley next. We knew about them, see, knew what they were. They couldn’t hide it that night, couldn’t say it wasn’t true.’