At the water’s edge a crowd had gathered around a narrow boat moored by the Cutter Inn. The excruciating sound of splintering, tortured wood echoed in the silence. The boat sat at a dizzy angle, her plant pots smashed on the ice and her gay green and yellow painted boards twisted and cracked. A dog barked at the creaking wood.
The crowd, warmed by the prospect of witnessing a minor tragedy, had formed a small amphitheatre around the Sally Anne – the name just showed above the ice – as the owners ferried valuables out through her side windows and hatch.
Dryden fished a notebook out of the folds of the greatcoat – always a good way of getting attention. A young man in an old sailor’s blue cap gave him a suspicious look.
‘Can I help?’
In Dryden’s experience this was a euphemism for ‘fuck off’. The man was about twenty-five, tall, fit and sporting an outdoor tan.
‘Philip Dryden, The Crow’
Kathy shimmied up and struck a pose. ‘Kathy Wilde – also with The Crow.’
‘You must be desperate – sending two of you…’
‘We were just passing actually. Sorry to bother you, especially now. Can you spare us a second?’
It was nicely judged. Dryden’s body language, like Kathy’s, was relaxed and vaguely bored. Years of experience had taught them both that excited aggression – the normal stock-in-trade of the Fleet Street reporter – was inappropriate in almost all situations outside TV drama.
‘Paul Camm, Camm’s Boatyard. This is one of ours.’
Dryden nodded, biro poised. Kathy walked along the towpath checking the other boats. She too produced a notebook and started interviewing one of the river authority’s watermen who had turned up to catch the last hours of the Sally Anne.
Camm was in a hurry to tell his story. ‘She’s stove in. It’s minus 2C. Probably cracked her boards early this morning and slipped under when the air warmed up during the day. Now she’s locked in again. She could well go under completely tomorrow.’
‘Don’t you heat them during the winter?’
Camm scowled.
Tactless, thought Dryden. Concentrate.
Camm broke eye contact and looked out over the water-meadows: ‘Yeah – usually anyway. But we’ve got thirty boats. We’re short of people – this one got left out. The heater must have run out of oil.’ Camm looked distracted. Worried, yes. But about more than the narrow boat.
‘Heaters do work though?’ Dryden pictured his own boat out at Barham’s Dock. He’d refilled the heaters with paraffin that morning.
‘Oh yeah. Yeah.’ Camm’s eyes searched the far bank, the middle distance of reeds and trees white in the frost. ‘No problem. Or just leave the pump on and keep the water moving around the outflow – as long as there’s somewhere for the ice to expand to. But this one we cocked up.’
Dryden nodded to a pile of kitchen ware, cushions, books, and ornaments. ‘Whose stuff?’
‘Just standard fittings – we hire them out as part of the package. TV, all mod-cons, corkscrew. That’s what most of them really want – a chance to relax and get pissed for a week.’
‘Must cost a few bob these?’
It was a nice try but Camm was no fool.
‘Enough.’
‘How much do you hire them for?’ Reasonable question – and if he didn’t answer Dryden could find out.
‘Four hundred a week in summer – it sleeps eight.’
‘Bit of a warning to others then?’ That, Dryden decided, was what the story needed – a forward-looking angle.
‘Yeah. If we can lose a boat anyone can – especially in this weather. It’s going to get worse as well.’
Dryden scribbled the quote – relying on his erratic spidery shorthand.
Inside the Maltings the ceremonies had begun. The place was an industrial palace in newly pointed brick. All the usual suspects were up on a makeshift stage, most of them with some variety of bent-spoons strung round their necks. A crowd of about a hundred, enlivened by a free sherry, was prepared to listen politely to a speech by the Lord Mayor, Councillor Roy Barnett. Kathy started taking a note and gave Dryden her wallet.
At the bar he ordered a pint of bitter and a Campari and soda – he could not resist that sickly red colour. Inside the wallet was a picture of Kathy’s father, Eugene. Dryden had heard the story several times, always in a bar. A Catholic lawyer in Londonderry, he’d specialized in taking cases against the IRA – harassment, punishment shootings, extortion. He’d stood and been elected to the new Ulster Assembly, until a midnight knock at the door had left him with a gunshot to the head. He was the most potent of all role models for his daughter – a dead one.
The mayor was speaking from what appeared to be handwritten notes in green ink: two bad signs in one. He looked no better than usual – a Bobby Charlton haircut spread over skin the colour and texture of grey lard. Kathy was taking a crude note which she would tidy up into proper sentences later for a piece. She knew that if most politicians were quoted accurately they’d sue.
Beside the mayor sat his wife, Liz, a Labour councillor herself and one-time leader of the party on the district council. The mayor’s office was largely ceremonial. The party leadership had involved the wielding of some real political power – even if it had been on a tiny provincial stage.
Roy Barnett’s speech was rambling, incoherent, and extremely badly delivered. A model of its kind, it also ran for twenty-three minutes. Kathy had time to visit the bar regularly and both she and Dryden were much happier by the time the mayor sat down – the gasp of delight this produced being a mark of relief not admiration.
Kathy recognized a couple of pliable councillors and slipped off to see if they were in an indiscreet mood. Liz Barnett caught Dryden’s eye across the second round of sherries and motioned him towards the bar. By the time she got there Dryden had bought her a large malt whisky and for himself a deliberately understated brandy and Babycham.
She noted the malt with a slight nod of appreciation and Dryden’s drink with horror. ‘The press,’ she said, as a toast.
Liz Barnett was one of those women who inspire two questions. How, followed promptly by why: how did the appalling Roy get her to the altar in the first place and why had she stayed with him for more than thirty years? She had been a beauty once and was still striking. Auburn hair turning grey, with no attempt to cheat nature. Strong features and a naturally tanned skin supported by industrial quantities of make-up expertly applied. Her secret was colour: she wore shawls, dresses, headscarves, and various layers of material in bright gypsy designs. She was fifty-four and looked good: husband Roy was sixty and struggling to keep a beer gut inside a nylon shirt.
The mayoress’s political assets were impressive. She could give an impression of genuine, rapt interest while being shown round a basket-weaving class for the fifth time in a year. She had proved adept at slipping into the clothes of New Labour while preserving a sharp edge of social antagonism towards the middle classes. Socialism had never been a great force in the Fens – radical Liberalism being the natural successor to religious nonconformism and rural deprivation. But Liz Barnett had channelled some of those forces into support for Labour during the Thatcher decade. If she hadn’t been a woman she’d have made it to Westminster. But being a woman had taught her one thing, the corrosive evil of prejudice. Dryden looked at her feet. She still wore an ankle bracelet, a gypsyesque touch that had caused a scandal at Roy’s investiture as mayor at the start of the year.