1
Humphrey H. Holt’s licensed mini-cab stood on Ely market square in the dense, damp heart of an early morning smog. Humph cleaned a fresh circular porthole in the steamed-up windscreen and peered out: nothing; he could have been shrouded on an ice floe in an Antarctic mist. Shivering, he realized he could just see the outlines of the nearest buildings, the old Corn Exchange and the cinema, and a single postbox like a hunched figure, just on the edge of sight. Beyond them the vast bulk of the cathedral loomed, but only in the memory. A duck stood on one leg on the glistening red bricks of the square, its head tucked under a damp wing, while a cat tiptoed by and was gone.
An autumn leaf fell from an invisible sycamore and settled on the windscreen of his beloved Ford Capri. The cabbie considered it morosely before swishing it aside with the wipers. The smog had enveloped the town for three days now, a suffocating blanket which left an acrid taste on the tongue and made Humph’s small, baby-blue eyes water. He rubbed them, and thought about a nap, but decided the effort was too great this early in the day. Instead he turned up the aged cab’s heating system, and gently wriggled his body until every one of his sixteen stones was comfortably arranged. He was not so much sitting in his cab as wedged into it.
He punched the ‘on’ button of the tape deck with a nimble, lean finger. The first instalment of his latest language course flooded the cab with sound: conversational Polish for beginners. As he repeated Justina’s greeting to the old village lamplighter he looked east himself, down Fore Hill, towards the Black Fen below. The mist buckled briefly, like a giant duvet being aired, and through the gap he glimpsed the blue smudged horizon as distant and flat as any on the great plains of eastern Europe.
Philip Dryden, chief reporter on The Crow, slapped his hand on the cab roof, pulled open the passenger side door and crashed into the seat. At six foot two inches his angular frame had to be folded to fit into Humph’s cab – the knees up, and the neck slightly bent. He wore a heavy black overcoat which was spangled with droplets of mist.
‘Well, that was highly entertaining,’ he said by way of greeting.
He tossed his notebook into the glove compartment, swapping it for one of the miniature bottles of liquor Humph collected on his regular trips to Stansted Airport. Dryden snapped off the bottle top and took a swig of Talisker, single malt. Humph, sensing a sociable moment in their otherwise adversarial relationship, helped himself to a small crème de menthe.
Dryden closed his eyes and threw his head back. His face was Early Norman, a medieval arrangement of sombre, geometric features which could have graced the back of any coin from the Conquest to Henry V: a straight brow, jutting cheekbones, and deep-set green eyes, while the black hair was thick and short. His age was thirty-something, and would be for a decade yet.
‘I feel like I’ve been injected with concrete. I was so bored I nearly passed out,’ said Dryden. ‘Two people did.’
Humph laughed inaudibly, emitting a vaguely suspicious odour of cabbage and curry. Dryden lowered the window despite the damp, and took a second swig. One of the shops on the square had just reopened after a decade of stately dilapidation and now specialized in camping, climbing gear and outdoor pursuits. A mildly famous Alpine climber had been drafted in to cut the red tape. Dryden had been there to find a story.
‘The Fens’ own mountaineering supply shop. Brilliant. That’s really going to bring ’em in,’ said Dryden.
‘It might take off,’ said Humph, firing the Capri into life and pulling away.
Dryden considered his friend. Humph might be at conversational level in eight obscure European languages but his conversational English was as underdeveloped as the East Anglian Mountain Rescue Service.
‘That’s quite a recommendation from the owner of the only two-door taxi-cab in Ely. That’s your unique selling point, is it?’ said Dryden, enjoying himself. ‘You have a hackney carriage accessible to only half the population. And only half of those who can get in, can get out again.’
‘It’s good for tips,’ said Humph defensively.
‘I bet it’s good for bloody tips!’ said Dryden.
Humph allowed his rippling torso to settle slightly, indicating an end to the subject. He scratched his nails across the nylon chest of his Ipswich Town FC replica shirt and brought the cab to a sharp halt in a lay-by in the cathedral close, realizing they were going nowhere. The mist, suddenly thickening, caressed a buttress of the cathedral down which the damp was running in rivers.
‘Where next?’ said Humph, by way of a challenge.
Dryden was in no hurry, and indeed had not been in a hurry for several years. He turned to the cabbie. ‘So. What did the doctor say?’