Dryden nodded. ‘Capable of what?’
Connor cracked his knuckles. ‘In the office we had a desk stapler – big thing, with a solid wooden base. So I picked it up and I hit him, from behind. Hard.’
The prisoner was breathing faster now. ‘That’s why there was blood there when the police arrived – and the splashes on the path outside, and the skin and hair on the stapler…’
‘Did you like Paul, Chips? You were at school together, yeah?’
‘I liked Paul. He could talk to the girls, but I couldn’t. They said he looked like a pop star.’ Chips was silent, a smile surfacing slowly.
Dryden tried to imagine the scene at the holiday camp on the night of the robbery, playing back in Connor’s memory. The warm night, the distant laughter from the bar and the casual cruelty of being ignored.
Connor ran a tongue along dry lips. ‘He ran after I hit him. I followed for a bit but he cut between the huts, towards the car park. He had a motorbike. I heard the engine and saw the tail-lights on the coast road… So I ran to our chalet and told Ruth and we called the police. That’s what I told them happened, because that’s what happened.’
The last sentence lacked emotion, a pro forma recital.
‘Why do you think he came back, Chips? Why did he end up on the boat in the marsh?’
‘The Curlew,’ he said.
‘The Curlew? Was that what it was called?’
He nodded. ‘Ruth’s dad owned it, John Henry. We were gonna rent it out but it needed a lot of work. She shipped water, and she was well stuck in the mud. Big job, that, so we left it a season. She’s still down there, Ruth says – but she’s gone to rot now.’
‘But why did he come back, Chips?’
A gentle buzz came from a device on the ceiling by the grille for the hot-air system. Connor looked up. ‘That’s the timer. You’ve got ten minutes. Never more, they trust us.’
Dryden leant forward. ‘The newspaper story said you talked to Paul Gedney earlier that night, didn’t you – with Ruth. That he needed somewhere to stay. Did you think he was afraid of anyone? Because if you didn’t kill him, Chips – someone else did.’
Connor was agitated now and Dryden could see a disturbingly ordered line of sweat drops along his brow, just below the hairline.
He fingered the arc-like scar which crossed his forehead. ‘He said he thought someone would get him, someone who’d helped him steal the drugs. He said he’d got involved with people, that he’d got in too far and that was why he needed to get away, make a fresh start. So we let him stay that night.’
‘Did he name names?’
‘He said they’d find him. So he couldn’t stay longer.’
Dryden nodded, even though he hadn’t got an answer, while outside in the corridor a family went by, several conversations networked into one.
‘Can you think of anyone who would want to keep you in here, someone who would want to stop you coming home?’
He grinned then, an adult’s cynical smile. ‘What about me?’
‘Don’t you want to be free? See your wife?’
‘I see her every week. I saw her yesterday. I’m looking forward to seeing her soon.’ His eyes widened. ‘Really soon.’
Dryden found it hard to believe the simplicity of Connor’s emotional life. He sensed a keener intelligence hidden inside the child. ‘What about the life you’ve missed, Chips? Children – don’t you regret that? You were good with children, weren’t you, Chips?’
‘Ruth couldn’t. We tried those first years,’ he said, suddenly standing and looking at a heavy-duty diver’s wristwatch. ‘They said we should adopt and we talked about it, but then…’ He looked out of his window at the night, studded with institutional lights, touching the scar again.
They didn’t shake hands but Chips did look him in the eyes for the only time. ‘Thanks for coming. I’m sorry about your friends.’
Later, outside, in the cold but reviving air, Dryden leant on the cab’s frosted roof and retrieved the ball of paper from his pocket. Connor hadn’t touched the application form, but he’d written on the blank side, in capitals, each stroke of the pen incised into the paper, overrunning its prescribed length.
I DIDN’T KNOW.
30
Dryden sat in the dark with Laura, the view beyond the picture window lit by a moon which had just risen from the sea. Ghostly white lines of surf ran into the beach below them, while further out a green light momentarily obscured a red one: ships eclipsing each other in the night. Despite the chalet’s double glazing Dryden could sense the coolness of the glass, a hint of the Arctic temperatures beyond.
Laura looked out, the hand-operated extension to the portable COMPASS machine lying unused in her hand. Dryden had hung a PEG-feed bag above the chair for her evening meal and he’d talked as the nutrient levels felclass="underline" a rambling dissertation on the mystery of Chips Connor which had elicited no response. He’d tried to hold the swimming brown eyes for a second: ‘If you’re unhappy here – tell me. We don’t have to do this.’ Nothing. They’d been at the Dolphin for twelve hours and she’d said nothing except the single word AIR.
Finally, he stood. ‘I’ll leave the lights off so you can see the view. There’s some videos up at reception. Art-club stuff as well as the usual – I’ll get something you’ll like. We can watch it later before bed. I’ll be ten…’ He flipped on the monitor by the bed, checked the PEG-feed, and double-locked the door on the way out.
On the step he looked east towards the dunes where he knew Humph was watching. He took a torch and flashed it three times, the immediate response a precise triple reflection. On the ghostly white beach he saw Boudicca, a sudden flash of jet-black shadow.
He looked up at the moon. A day had gone, but he felt further from the truth, unsure even if there was a truth. DI Reade’s arrival would destroy any chance he had of finding out what lay beneath the placid surface of the little community which was the Dolphin. It was up to him, but he felt he was failing, floundering amongst half-truths and lies.
A gravel path led inland, each pebble welded to its neighbour with a tiny coating of ice. Dryden picked his way past the camp’s new chalets, the deep sense of silence eerily complete. At reception the lights were on but the desk deserted, airport Muzak polluting the silence. He took a seat in the internet café and logged on, calling up from memory the website for Companies House. He was enough of a journalist to know that there were certain facts worth checking with official sources. He paid a £3 fee online by credit card and called up the last annual return for the Dolphin Holiday Spa.
‘Now that I didn’t expect,’ he said.
Two owners listed: Charles Frederick Connor – 50 per cent, Ruth Josephine Mary Connor – 50 per cent.
So much for Surfer Joe’s degree in business studies, thought Dryden. Three quid and he could have checked for himself. Either that or he had a decent reason to lie.
Dryden walked out through a carpeted lounge which smelt of synthetic lavender and followed the sign to the bar.
It was a shock, seeing it again, after thirty years: the polished dark wood panels, the art deco lights and wall fittings, the deep semicircular sofas, the polished parquet ballroom floor. He could still see his uncle and aunt sat on the high stools, as clear now in his memory as a family snapshot. It was an adult world, shadowy and darkened by the polished wood, infused with the aroma of beer, perfume and cigarettes, and splashed with evening sunlight. He’d never been inside, seeing it all from the garden beyond the French windows, with a glass of squash and a packet of crisps; a pre-dinner ritual which had briefly separated him from his newfound friends on the beach – a separation he had endured with grace, coveting the secret of the game to come.