‘Grave robbers?’ asked Broderick.
‘Perhaps. Everyone knew that there was no shelling while the court case was being heard. So it wasn’t a bad time to make a visit – there was a good chance the villagers weren’t coming back, so perhaps they thought no one would care. But it’s not the first time – there are signs of vandalism. You must have seen them too?
‘I need to get to a phone,’ he said when the major didn’t answer. ‘Any chance?’
‘I can patch in a call to your mate in the cab – get him back early.’
‘Thanks. That’s a big help.’ Dryden planned to call the local radio station and see if he could get on air with the story, making sure his paper got credit, and promising a full version in the Tuesday edition. It was the only way he was going to get anything out of the story before it broke for the competition.
He took a deep breath, wishing he had a pint in his hand. ‘So what do you think?’ he said. ‘Suicide, right?’
Broderick’s soft face creased in a frown. ‘I guess. Hands are bound, but in front, which she could have done herself to prevent a reflex attempt to loosen the noose. Feet are unbound, so she could have just stood on the stool, and then stepped off and kicked it away.’
‘She? No doubts about that?’
Broderick shrugged. ‘Well, we know there was a missing woman. You can’t tell much from the bones until they get them in the lab, but anything’s better than calling her it…’ He’d removed the heather from his tunic and turned the silver-paper bouquet in his hand, placing it carefully on the map.
‘That call?’ prompted Dryden.
‘Sure,’ said Broderick, turning away to use a mobile.
Dryden took out the map Broderick had given him and spread it on the bar top. When the major returned he tapped his finger on the outhouses next to the New Ferry Inn.
‘There’s no cellar shown,’ he said.
Broderick studied the plan carefully. ‘Well that can’t be right – a lot of time and effort went into making these things. They’re based on a series of surveys taken in the three months after the final evacuation – and on questionnaires the villagers had to fill in.’
‘So that’s kind of weird, isn’t it?’ said Dryden. ‘Not only did the cellar not crop up on the questionnaire, the engineers missed it when the surveys were done after the evacuation. Whereas the cellar under the pub is clearly marked,’ he said, stamping his foot on the bare floorboards.
Dryden looked at the key to the map and the legend which carried the name Col. Flanders May.
‘Who’s Flanders May?’ he asked.
‘CO for the engineers, the map-makers. That’s why it was a work of art. Perfectionist – but then even they make mistakes, right?’
They heard the thwup-thwup of the approaching helicopter and stepped outside.
Dryden looked up into the falling rain, watching the black underbelly of the helicopter emerge from the grey cloud base.
‘The questionnaires – they still in the records?’ asked Dryden.
But Broderick pointed at his ears as the rotors screamed over their heads.
5
‘This is BBC Radio Cambridgeshire bringing you all the news at 6.00pm. This is Mark Edwards in the studio.’
Dryden leant forward and edged the volume up on the Capri’s radio; the headlines were dominated again by the mounting death toll in Iraq. Humph flipped down the glove compartment and retrieved two miniature bottles of Bell’s whisky, part of the haul he regularly replenished on trips to Stansted Airport.
They cracked the bottle tops open in perfect harmony. The cab stood beside the single-bar gate to the firing range, the landscape beyond reduced to a smudge of bog-green seen through the condensation running down the windows. Rain clattered on the cab roof.
Parked up next to them was the BBC radio car, its telescopic mast now fully extended. Dryden swigged the whisky, shuddered and pushed the passenger door open, rust screaming from the hinges. The door of the radio car was open for him by the time he reached it, and he settled into the seat, folding his six-foot-two-inch frame as neatly as a deckchair. The radio reporter was sucking the life out of the butt end of a cigarette before crunching it quickly into an overflowing ashtray.
‘And now we go live to Whittlesea Mere Firing Range south of Peterborough where Jason Diprose has a breaking story…’
‘Indeed, Mark…’
Dryden felt his guts tighten at the prospect of the live interview. He tried a smile in the rear-view mirror to boost his confidence but his green eyes, wary now, betrayed his anxiety at the prospect of a public performance.
But Diprose was in full flight. ‘… I’m at the gates to the range right now and we have initial reports that during routine training an army patrol has made a gruesome discovery in the village of Jude’s Ferry – listeners will recall the village was evacuated by the army nearly twenty years ago to make way for military exercises. I’m joined by The Crow’s chief reporter, Philip Dryden, who was with the soldiers of the Ely-based TA unit when they went in this morning. What did you find, Philip?’
Through the window Dryden could see Humph, head thrown back in an attempt to enter deep sleep.
‘It was very dramatic, Jason. We found a body, well – just a skeleton really, hanging in a cellar near the village pub, the New Ferry Inn. It’s pretty clear it had been there many years – perhaps since the evacuation in 1990. The wrists were tied – but in front of the victim. It was a sad sight, and there is speculation of course that it may have been suicide, but at this stage they can’t rule out murder.’
‘Any idea yet who the victim was?’
‘Too early, Jason. The military police have secured the scene and all firing has been suspended – initially for a week. I understand CID from King’s Lynn will be visiting the scene later today. The pub was the centre of village life, and most of the residents who had hung on to the bitter end were there on the last night. At the moment there’s a presumption the victim was a woman – but that’s all it is. The clothes have just about disintegrated, so they’re not much help. At this stage there are very few facts. I’d hope to have a lot more to say in the Ely Express on Tuesday, and of course in Friday’s Crow.’
‘And not the only drama today?’
‘That’s right,’ said Dryden, relaxing now that he’d found a spot to slip in his free advertising plug. ‘Before we went in there was an artillery bombardment of two targets on the edge of the village. There were two stray shells – one hit the church, and one the outbuildings next to the pub. That’s how we found the victim in the cellar. The damage to St Swithun’s was extensive, I’m afraid.’ Dryden had decided not to mention the opened grave in the church for two reasons: one, it complicated the story which was strong enough already, and two, it left him something to work on for the paper that probably wouldn’t get released by the police in the next twenty-four hours. He’d also decided to keep to himself speculation the victim could be Magda Hollingsworth; there was always a chance he could follow the lead up himself and get a new line for the Express.
‘What will be the reaction from the villagers – there’s an association, isn’t there – a campaign group?’
‘Sure. Friends of the Ferry. There’ll be some bitterness. They were angry anyway. This year was the first year in which they were not allowed to return to Jude’s Ferry on St Swithun’s Day. The MoD announced only last week that there will be no annual pilgrimages back to the village, and the courts have failed to back the villagers’ case that they have a right of return. What with the war in Iraq, the chances of getting back are fading fast – and I think they know that now. But the army did promise back in 1990 – in writing – to make sure the church survived. It’s still a Grade I listed building. I think this will be seen as a further signal that, as lost villages go, Jude’s Ferry is lost for ever.’