He laughed, brushing the back of his hand over his lips. ‘There was gonna be blood spilt. Something about the drink, and leaving, it seemed to make everyone crazy for a night. And there was this blood-lust, you just knew it would end in blood.’
A pike surfaced on the river and then dropped out of sight with a plop.
‘Anyway, we was all watching the fight but John Boyle – he’s long dead – was out on the front step throwing up and he looked up the street and saw them coming. George had him round the throat so we knew then that he’d done something terrible because nobody stood up for Peter more than George. They said he’d killed Kathryn, strangled her down by the reeds because she wouldn’t go with him.
‘Everyone looked at Walter, of course. He’d doted on her all her life, since the mother died. He just crumbled at first, then turned on Jimmy, saying it wasn’t true, that it couldn’t be true. He felt guilty anyway, about the kid, we all knew he’d never wanted it. We were all looking at him, waiting for a lead I guess. So he went for Peter, like he’d kill him there, so we dragged him back – told him we hadn’t heard Peter speak, that he had to have the chance.’
Dryden shivered, the sweat beginning to cool on his forehead. ‘So what did Peter say?’
Woodruffe shrugged. ‘He said he didn’t do it, said he hadn’t seen her that day at all. But Jimmy cut in, asked him if he was the father of her kid, and you could see he was because he couldn’t think of an answer. So Jimmy said there was a place they could find out the truth. The cellar.’
‘How’d Jimmy know about that?’
Woodruffe looked at his hands. ‘Like I said, family. Jimmy said he’d help, when Mum said she wanted to die, he said it was what his mum would have wanted. I couldn’t do it alone so we dug the grave.’
‘Did anyone think of phoning the police?’ asked Dryden. ‘What about the army, didn’t they have anyone in the village that night?’
Woodruffe shook his head. ‘She was dead, they weren’t gonna bring her back, were they?’ He paused, deciding. ‘I didn’t go down. But they said – later – said they’d snapped his neck. Snapped the runt’s neck.’
‘And Kathryn?’ asked Dryden, but he knew already. He’d held her skull that night on Thieves Bridge, the searchlight driving the shadows into the eye sockets.
‘They’d sobered up by the time they came back up,’ said Woodruffe, ignoring the question. ‘When they realized what they’d done, Walter was kind of pumped up, like he’d enjoyed the revenge, as if he’d left his own guilt down in that cellar.’
‘This was in the bar?’
Woodruffe nodded. ‘Walter said that justice had been done and that now we had to keep Tholy’s crime a secret, between us, for ever. They left him hanging in the cellar – I said the army’d find him but they said the trapdoor was good enough and they’d covered it up. Besides, Jimmy knew I’d left it off the plans the army made us fill in, so it wasn’t like they’d look for it.
‘It was Kathryn that was the problem. They had to hide the body. Walter and Jimmy hadn’t finished with the child’s grave up at the church, they were gonna do the rest in the morning. So that’s where they took her. Walter wanted that, insisted, even when Jimmy said they should bury her out on the mere. But Walter said she deserved more than an unmarked grave.
‘We worked the rest out next day at Orchard House. George said he’d cover Tholy’s tracks – made sure no one was ever suspicious about where he’d gone. Tholy had told him about his mother out in Perth, so George said he’d fix that when he got out there. He went and saw her and said Peter had changed his mind, that he’d gone to the Midlands somewhere on a big farm. That he didn’t want to be a burden.’
‘And he sent cards back to Fred Lake,’ said Dryden.
‘Look.’ Woodruffe held out his hands, and Dryden could hear the stress in his voice now, serrating the words. ‘I didn’t go down. He’d squeezed the life out of her. Jesus, she was sixteen, Dryden.’
Dryden thought about the chipped ribs amongst the bones he’d collected on Thieves Bridge. ‘You knew Kathryn well, all her life. Any accidents, violence at home, fights?’
Woodruffe shook his head, confused. ‘Childhood stuff – chicken pox, the usual. She was a quiet kid, she wouldn’t fight. And her dad and brother made sure she didn’t get picked on.’
Dryden stood, hugging himself against the sudden cold. ‘So who did go down into that cellar?’
Woodruffe shook his head violently, tears flowing now, but Dryden guessed that it was self-pity.
‘They’ll want names,’ said Dryden. ‘I’d be prepared for that. If they don’t get names they’ll put you down there – with the mob. So think about it – my guess is George Tudor, Jimmy, Walter.’
Woodruffe shook his head, but it didn’t stop him talking. ‘Walter. Yeah, Walter. You couldn’t stop Walter that night. But Jimmy didn’t – Walter told him to stay in the bar and keep a lookout with George, that it was his job to deal with Peter. We all just sat tight.’
‘So who?’
Woodruffe closed his eyes. ‘Johnny Boyle, Jack Forde, Reg Bright – I think. They were from the almshouses and they’d been drinking all night. The rest, who knows? Some went home when they saw what was up. How many does it take?’
Dryden memorized the names. ‘So – Boyle, Forde and Bright. How many are still alive?’
Woodruffe shrugged. ‘Reg died last year – they always read out any deaths when we have the annual service back at St Swithun’s. Johnny’s dead too, like I said. Jack – I don’t know.’
And Walter Neate’s in a geriatric unit, thought Dryden. He suspected that, given time, Woodruffe would use the ranks of the dead and infirm to people the cellar that night. ‘And Paul Cobley? That was it, wasn’t it…’ Dryden could see it then. The scene in the bar that night as the clock ticked towards midnight. They’d closed ranks, all of them, putting aside prejudices, and so Paul Cobley and Matthew Smith had escaped what had been coming to them – a beating, perhaps more.
Woodruffe didn’t answer. Dryden saw him in his memory again on the sunlit doorstep of the New Ferry Inn.
‘And Jill, was she there?’
Woodruffe covered his eyes. ‘I sent her upstairs. She didn’t see anything.’
Dryden wondered how true that was. ‘But that’s why she left you? Because of what you did that night? Because you let it happen. That was the end of it for her, wasn’t it?’
Woodruffe ignored the question, looking out into the dark. ‘How long have I got before you go to the police?’
‘I’ll ring DI Shaw first thing. Take my advice – drive up yourself, to Lynn. Tell him you want him to know the truth – and don’t leave anything out. Tell him everything you’ve told me.’
Woodruffe knelt again and splashed some of the river water in his face.
Dryden looked up at the moon and thought of the cool light falling onto Laura’s bunk on the boat.
‘And what about Jason Imber? If you met at Orchard House the next day he must have been there. Did he go down into the cellar? And who else, Ken? Who else?’
He looked up but Woodruffe had gone, fleeing along the riverbank, away from the lights, the people, and the questions.
32
Dryden strolled to the bar of The Five Miles From Anywhere and got himself a pint and Humph a fresh hamper of bar snacks and two pickled eggs. The cabbie had swung the cab round so that he could sit in the driver’s seat while, with the door open, he had an uninterrupted view of the river running north towards the silhouette of the cathedral. Suddenly, flying into the halo of light above the town, a fat-bodied military jet appeared heading east towards the runway at Mildenhall. As they watched another took its place, the beginning of a necklace of flights completing their transatlantic crossing.