‘Security,’ he said out loud, and saw again the agonized limbs of the three dead Alsatians.
The Littleport bus had just pulled up at the stop in front of The Crow’s offices and the smog swirled around it, rivulets of water running down the windows. From somewhere outside came the rhythmic percussion of shoes fitted with metal blakeys hitting the pavement hard. Dryden waited as the solitary beat drew nearer, The Crow’s front entrance bell rang, and then the metallic tattoo climbed the stairs. Garry Pymoor burst into the newsroom. ‘Hold the front page!’ he shouted, as he always did.
From behind the editor’s screen a series of sharp sniffs erupted.
Garry had suffered from meningitis as a child and in order to give him some semblance of the balance the disease had destroyed the doctors had hit upon the sonic shoes: the regular audible feedback helping him to stay upright. But disorientation was part of Garry’s character, and even if he stayed on his feet he’d normally find some other way of falling down.
‘Got the feature,’ he said, dropping his notebook onto his desk and putting his feet up. ‘Could be fifteen job losses in the short term – twenty-five if it closes for good. End of a family business etc., etc.’ Garry grinned, happy wallowing in someone else’s misfortune.
‘Drink?’ Dryden asked, standing and closing down the PC. ‘How about Jerry’s?’
Garry, pleased they were boycotting the usual drunken post-deadline bash in The Fenman with Charlie Bracken, grabbed the full-length leather coat he had worn throughout that stifling summer. His personal hygiene was what the Americans like to call ‘an issue’.
‘On the mobile,’ shouted Dryden, leading the way.
5
Jerry’s was Ely’s only nightclub, a refurbished former bingo hall just off Cambridge Road. At Christmas and on Friday nights it employed a solitary bouncer in ill-fitting DJ, but the rest of the time the last thing Jerry’s needed was someone to turn people away. The interior was painted blackout black, principally to disguise tatty furnishings. A neon sign outside flashed ‘J rr ’s Nites ot’. A blackboard advertised live Premiership football and a ‘happy hour’ from 5.00pm to 8.30pm nightly.
Dryden bought Garry a bottle of industrial-strength lager which he drank by the neck, and a pernod and blackcurrant for himself, insisting that the barman add the cocktail umbrella advertised on the poster behind the counter at the inclusive price of £1.80. They took seats by the pool table and watched as two teenagers wordlessly played out a game. The juke box finished playing something contemporary Dryden didn’t recognize and then fell silent, the scattered customers unwilling to invest further cash. Beside the clash of the pool balls there was silence; it was 4.29pm on a Thursday, pay day for most of Jerry’s customers. Later on things would quieten down.
Garry fingered his crotch and lit a cigarette, the exhaled smoke catching the spotlight beams focused on the pool table. His acne, in full battle formation, shone under the harsh lighting. Dryden heard the distant sound of the cathedral bell tolling the half hour and stood, putting a pound coin in the juke box, from which he selected ten records, six from the golden oldies section after first picking four at random from this year’s hits. This way he would be sitting down before his own embarrassing choices came on. With luck, another punter would be at the juke box by then.
Dryden inhaled some alcohol and thought about the body in the PoW camp tunnel. He thought about his dream: the compression of the sand around him, the grains in his mouth. How had the victim died? And who was the killer? It seemed certain that he had been crawling into the camp. Had his killer been waiting for him, or attempting to escape?
The door opened, admitting a wedge of spectral autumnal light which illuminated a smashed bottle in a corner by a one-armed bandit. And in walked Russell Flynn trying to look old enough to buy a drink. Russell was one of Dryden’s contacts, the provider of a string of lowlife tipoffs from the town’s notorious Jubilee council estate. Russell had been born on the Jubilee, Ely’s answer to Moss Side, a rabbit warren of terraced council houses enlivened by the odd wrecked car.
Dryden’s cat-green eyes followed him to the bar. The teenager had bright red hair, innocent freckles and teeth with gaps, none of which had prevented him from getting two years’ community service after pilfering the contents of an entire row of allotment sheds on the edge of town. The manhunt to track this super-criminal down had been aided by the discovery at the scene of Russell’s coat, hung on a hook in the first hut, where he had taken it off in anticipation of working up a sweat as he loaded the pilfered tools and assorted hardware. Inside the coat was Russell’s wallet. Inside that was his benefit card and provisional driving licence. It was a crime of such baffling ineptitude it even made it on to the ‘and finally’ section of the local TV news. The magistrates were less amused, and but for some entirely fictitious story about his father dying of cancer Russell would have spent the rest of the year in Bedford prison.
Russell had met this setback to his career as a criminal mastermind with typical aplomb by attempting to mar his juvenile looks with a dragon tattoo emblazoned on his neck, rising from a basket of flames which matched his hair. Bright was what Russell wasn’t, but he was skint, and Dryden’s occasional fiver for information received was much sought after.
Dryden bought Russell a double Southern Comfort and lemonade, thankful again that he didn’t need The Crow’s pitiful wages to rent a flat. His boat, PK129, stood on the edge of town at Barham’s Dock, a floating bolthole with a mooring fee of £25 a year. It left enough to live on, in a kind of desultory way, while Humph bolstered Dryden’s fares with a series of lucrative late-night bookings, mainly ferrying bar staff home from the clubs in Newmarket and Cambridge. They were a small-scale black-market economy.
Russell sat tinkering with an already empty glass. ‘Nighthawks,’ said Dryden. ‘Heard anything?’
The first of Dryden’s selection came over the speakers. ‘Jesus,’ said Russell. ‘Who put that crap on?’ All eyes turned to a teenager in immaculate trendy T-shirt and jeans making a selection at the juke box.
Dryden shook his head at the inability of some people to stay abreast of modern cultural developments.
‘They lift stuff off these digs, yeah?’ said Russell finally. ‘R. K. Logicial, innit?’
‘Heard anything local? How do they shift the stuff?’
Russell shrugged. ‘It’s a London crowd what do it. I s’pose they have people local too – but I ain’t ’eard. It’s well organized, like hare coursing. If they need to shift the stuff they have fences – like for burglary. For that kind of stuff you’d need to get it to auctions, or sell it private. I’ve heard some goes abroad.’
Dryden wondered how much Russell would know about crime when he was old enough to vote.
‘And where would I look for a fence like that, Russell?’ said Dryden, putting a fiver under the 16-year-old’s glass.
‘You can forget the Jubilee – it’s all cheap stuff. TVs, DVDs, CD players, anything ’lectric. This is totally different.’
There was a silence as they watched Garry slicing a pool shot so badly he left a deep scuff mark in the green baize.
‘Well?’ said Dryden, suddenly tired of the week.
Russell ran a finger around the sticky top of his glass. ‘You could try Alder’s.’
‘The undertakers?’
‘Sure. Old Man Alder’s been in the game for years – my dad used to use him.’ Russell’s father was currently holidaying on the Isle of Wight, postcards care of HMP Parkhurst.
‘They used to do house clearances, when they had a stiff. Body out the front door, heirlooms out the back. They’re always selling stuff – most of it legit. Alder used to run auctions as well. Now it’s more – discreet.’ Russell liked that word, so he grinned, revealing some green vegetable matter clinging to one incisor.