The Coldest Blood (21 page)

Silence.

‘That’s –’

‘I know, Mr Dryden. How can I help?’

‘Just a couple of details. I just wondered. It’s Joe and Declan’s holiday here in 1974, I just want to be clear about a few things. Did other children come to the camp from St Vincent’s in those years, and if they did, who looked after them and footed the bills?’

‘Well, we paid the bills, Dryden, but the costs were minimal thanks to a charitable donation from the management at the camp. Yes, other children had been. Several, in fact, most years from the late sixties onwards.’

Dryden sensed he was still dealing with a hostile witness. ‘And who looked after them here, Father? Who was responsible, in loco parentis?’

‘Well, most years I sent one of the priests, who gave up their annual leave, by the way, to attend. It worked well, actually; it was used within St Vincent’s as a kind of reward, for the children at least. We sent between two and six each year depending on availability at the camp.’

‘And there were never any problems with these trips?’

‘None. They were entirely beneficial for everyone involved, I think.’

‘But in 1974 it was different, wasn’t it – there was no priest?’

‘No. It was a slightly unusual arrangement, but for the best motives. We sent Declan and Joe in the care of Marcie’s foster mother – a woman called Grace Elliot. Things had been going very well with Marcie, and there was even hope that they would take Declan, perhaps even Joe. She was looking after baby boys, I recall, as well – but that was short term. Joe and Declan were inseparable. Grace Elliot wanted to see all the children together. There might have been a happy ending for them all.’

‘Father, are any of the allegations of abuse against St Vincent’s related to these trips?’

Dryden could hear the hall clock ticking in the presbytery. ‘I recall my lawyer’s advice again, Mr Dryden. I suspect this conversation is not entirely off the record, unlike our earlier one. You’ll forgive me if I get back to work.’

But he didn’t put the phone down. Dryden could hear him breathing at the other end of the line, waiting to be released.

Dryden almost whispered it. ‘Goodbye, Father.’

27

AIR

The single word was on the printout of Laura’s portable COMPASS machine. The nurse had checked on her and moved her to a lounger by the window, adjusting the head supports so that she could see out across the sands. The tide was rising quickly, leaving a thin-stretched world of sand and grass beneath a stormy sky, black clouds torn apart by a high-altitude jetstream. A container ship lay ten miles off shore, white water breaking at the bow. Visibility in the icy air was astonishing and Dryden half expected to see a distant iceberg to the north, drifting in the cold light.

He used the hoist to get Laura out of the lounger and back into the wheelchair, doing it twice before he’d worked out how to position the thermal suit so that he could zip her in once she was seated.

Finished, he touched the sweat under his hairline, realizing once again the physical effort needed to take care of Laura’s basic everyday needs. He made some tea in the kitchenette and filled a flask, sending Humph a text message at the same time. Then he rang the Home Office press desk in Whitehall to get the numbers for HMP Wash Camp – a category-D open male prison. Visiting time was daily between 5pm and 8pm, and he called in an old Whitehall favour to bypass the written application normally required to see a prisoner. With less than two days before DI Reade and his team arrived at the Dolphin, Dryden couldn’t afford to wait.

Outside the wind had picked up at sea, whipping the spray off the crests of white horses as they ran into shore. ‘Where shall we go?’ he asked Laura, but the COMPASS was disconnected.

A gust made the picture window flex, turning a whirlwind of dry snow in the lee of the chalet.

‘OK. Brace yourself.’ He pushed her out onto the ramp and down to the hard sand of the beach below the high-water mark. The sand was slightly crisp underfoot where the seawater was freezing. He left a footprint and watched a thin film of ice form across the flooded mark.

They went east towards the mouth of the river and then over the bridge in the tracks of William Nabbs. Dryden paused at the top to get his breath and looked out to sea: the container ship had slipped across the horizon and was now nosing in towards an invisible coastline to the far west, but another had taken its place.

On the far side of the river the coast swung north-east in a long, shallow arc towards the lighthouse a mile away. In the mid-distance Dryden could see the Capri, parked up in the marram grass, with Humph leaning on the bonnet in his giant insulated Ipswich Town tracksuit. Boudicca skittered around him in wide, ecstatic circles.

Humph tiptoed over the sand, leaving footprints a foot deep. ‘Hi,’ he said to Laura, in a voice Dryden hadn’t heard before.

‘Shit,’ said Dryden. ‘I’m sorry – you’ve not met.’ He’d known Humph five years but he’d never taken the cabbie inside The Tower. ‘Laura – this is Humph.’

The cabbie tried a wave, then plunged the hand deep inside a pocket.

‘Humph, this is Laura,’ he said, completing the introductions. ‘And she’s as bloody cold as I am.’

Humph trained a pair of military binoculars on the chalets by the beachfront.

‘Clear?’ asked Dryden.

The cabbie nodded, his tiny mouth forming a perfect bow. ‘No problem.’

‘Thanks again,’ he said.

‘’S OK,’ said Humph, turning abruptly to scan the horizon. ‘It’s a holiday, really.’

‘You OK to sleep in the cab? It must be bloody freezing.’

Humph nodded: ‘I keep the heater going – long as I don’t run out of petrol I’m fine. Dog’s hot.’

Dryden suppressed an image of them cuddled up together under the tartan rug.

‘There’s this,’ said Humph, producing a rolled-up newspaper from his pocket. It was Saturday’s
Lynn News
. The page-three lead ran under the headline:

TRAGIC DEATHS END APPEAL HOPES FOR JAILED HOLIDAY CAMP KILLER By Alf Walker for the Press Association

The family of convicted murderer ‘Chips’ Connor has abandoned a campaign to have his case heard by the Court of Appeal following the sudden deaths of two vital new witnesses in the 30-year-old case.

Connor, a seaside children’s entertainer and lifeguard at the Dolphin holiday camp at Sea’s End, was jailed in 1975 for the brutal murder of Paul Gedney.

Ruth Connor, manager of the Dolphin Holiday Spa, said recently that she was certain her husband would be freed once the new evidence had been heard.

Today she was too upset to talk about the case but a statement
issued by George Holme, the family solicitor, confirmed that the file had been withdrawn and no leave to appeal would now be sought.

‘It is a tragedy that Chips Connor is now likely to see out the rest of his life in custody because of the unrelated deaths of these two witnesses.’

He said that the police had been notified in both cases, but that there were not thought to be suspicious circumstances in either of them.

The names of the two men are not being released to the press.

Mr Holme said that while both men had made statements outlining their evidence the advice of legal experts was that this would not prove sufficient for the Court of Appeal.

‘All evidence in such cases must be open to cross-examination,’ said Mr Holme. ‘Clearly in this case that will now not be possible. We have reluctantly withdrawn our action.

‘Strenuous efforts have been made to contact another potential witness without success,’ he added. ‘We will always be ready to take up Chips Connor’s case, but for now the family would ask to be left in peace.’

The two witnesses, believed to be from the Ely area, came forward after the
Lynn News
ran the original story launching the appeal for fresh information to mark the 30th anniversary of the court case.

Mr Holme said that the contents of the statements made by the two witnesses had been passed to the police and he was hopeful that detectives would at least review the files.

‘I have written to the Chief Constable urging him to take a fresh look at this case in the interests of justice,’ said Mr Holme. ‘But for now we have to accept that we no longer have the evidence to force an appeal.’

‘Excellent,’ said Dryden. The story made it plain that the elusive third witness had not been found. He watched Boudicca pounding along the waterline, white water trailing her through the shallows.

‘Any progress?’ asked Humph, producing a paper bag crammed with sticky buns. The cabbie looked at his watch.

‘A bit. I’ve found two people who could have a good reason for keeping Chips inside – his wife and a junior partner. If Chips got out he could call the shots – if he really wanted to. He holds a 50 per cent share, which makes him the senior partner in my book. I wonder what he thinks of all this…’

Dryden nodded towards the distant dome of the leisure complex.

‘His wife?’ asked Humph. ‘His wife’s got a good reason for keeping him inside? That would be the woman who’s been running a campaign to get him out, yup?’

Dryden intercepted the tennis ball and threw it again for the dog, the ball bouncing once before dropping into the oncoming surf. ‘I said I’d made a bit of progress, not a lot.’

28

The Eel’s Foot lay embedded in the bank of Blue Gowt Drain, a mile south of the marshland village of Sea’s End. The long silver line of the frozen dyke cut the landscape in half, running impossibly straight, its ends unseen. The pub, built to feed and water the Dutch prisoners of war who had dug the ditch more than 300 years before, was low-beamed and dark, the windows looking away from the water and across the black expanse of peat which ran south to Ely.

Alf Walker sat in a window seat nursing a half pint of fresh orange juice and a copy of
The Complete Birdwatcher
.

‘I hate pubs,’ he said, as Dryden sat, having already drained three inches of his pint of Osier’s Ale.

Outside, the Capri stood alone in the car park, the cabbie inside asleep with his language tape headphones firmly clamped over his ears.

‘Sorry,’ said Dryden. ‘It’s a bit tricky meeting at the camp.’

Alf took a file from a rucksack on the seat beside him. Inside was the cutting Humph had ripped out of the
Lynn News
. ‘Thanks for this,’ said Alf. ‘Most of the local evenings took it – and
The Crow
, of course. I presume that’s why you stipulated a Friday embargo?’

Dryden nodded. He might be on leave but he wasn’t in the business of scooping his own paper. He’d spent many a dreary afternoon in Alf ’s company on the press bench at the magistrates’ court in Ely. Alf was the wireman for the Press Association in eastern England and had a daunting patch: from Lincoln Cathedral to the Thames Barrier, from
Luton Airport to Southwold Pier. Alf had held on to his job for twenty-five years, despite stiff competition, by carefully avoiding vices such as alcohol. His passion was birds, and if the court case was dull he’d fill his neat shorthand notebook with immaculate sketches of wrens and sparrowhawks, swallows and marsh waders.

Dryden drained his glass. ‘’Scuse me.’ He ferried out a double all-day breakfast to Humph and returned with a fresh pint for himself.

Alf ’s pre-ordered salad sandwich arrived with an offending handful of crisps, which he cordoned off with a delicate shuffle of his napkin.

‘So,’ said Dryden, spilling nuts across the table. ‘I need help, Alf, and I haven’t got much time. I need to know about the first story – the one that started all this off, about the appeal being launched for fresh information. When was that – last summer? Did the PA run it – or did it start with the
Lynn News
?’

‘Started local,’ said Alf, folding a leaf of lettuce neatly into his mouth.

‘And Ruth Connor just rang ’em – or was it Holme, the solicitor?’

‘Neither. Far as I know, the first story had very little to do with the family. It was silly season – you know how it is – there was nothing much happening anywhere. So they did what you and I have done a thousand times, they went through the files looking for an anniversary. Anything: triplets born ten years ago, a child missing a year, a National Lottery winner five years ago. Then you just go back and do an update. So they latched on to the thirtieth anniversary of the Connor case – the sentencing, anyway; the murder was actually the year before, of course. Connor had always said he was innocent so they rang the family and said
they were going to run an appeal for people to come forward with any information which might help spark an appeal – there’d been none at the time so legally they still have the option. Then they got a quote off the wife backing the campaign, and that was that.’

‘Until…’

‘Right. Until someone came forward with fresh evidence. Frankly, they were amazed. They thought they’d get a coupla stories out if it, tops. Then the lawyer rings and says two reliable witnesses had come forward and there were high hopes the original verdict would be called into question.’

‘And Holme was clear – I take it. That the witnesses had seen the newspaper story and then come forward?’

‘Right. Either that or they’d seen one of the posters.’

‘Posters? Why’d they print posters if the story was just a run-up to fill space?’

‘They have a monthly campaign – a poster each time. It’s just for advertising, really; there’s a different sponsor for every one. Missing people, mainly, appeals for witnesses at crash sites, that kinda thing. So that month it was the Chips Connor case.’

Alf rummaged in the rucksack. ‘Here,’ he said, unfolding the poster, which they spread out on the table.

The picture Dryden had seen in the
Lynn News
had been a thumbnail, and he’d wondered at the time how anyone could have come forward on the strength of such an indistinct image. But the poster was quite different: pin-sharp and in colour. Paul Gedney had thick brown hair cut stylishly for the seventies, a powerful muscular neck and clear taut skin. But it was the eyes that were extraordinary, and dominated the face completely.