The Moon Tunnel(55)
Attention Mr Thomas Alder.
A brief line to confirm that I’d like Alder’s to complete a house clearance – actually a barn clearance in this case. Please contact Roger Stutton, Buskeybay Farm, near Little Ouse – Tel: 01353 66884. He has sorted the stuff – mostly furniture and memorabilia left by my mother, but some items much older – and should have put aside anything he wishes to keep. Everything else should go, preferably by auction.
Philip Dryden
He heard heavy steps rising towards the newsroom, like those of a man climbing a scaffold. Charlie Bracken, the news editor, was serving out his time until retirement; unfortunately this amounted to the small matter of twenty years. You wouldn’t know he was 45 to look at him, drink having disfigured those parts of his face left unblemished by nicotine.
Dryden could tell his mood by his blood pressure, a spectrum of stress stretching from pink potato blotches to traffic-light red. This morning he was a glistening amber, which Dryden guessed had something to do with the radio earpiece he was wearing.
The relief on his face when he saw Dryden was theatrical. ‘Murder?’ he mouthed, still listening to the news report. Dryden refilled his coffee.
‘You got this?’ said Charlie, pointing stupidly at the radio.
‘I found the body,’ said Dryden. ‘I’ve written a news story, and two backgrounders. They’ll be in your basket in ten minutes. Then I’ve got a coupla stories out – I’ll try and get the widow. I can check the biog facts with her. I’ll ring in any adds.’
‘Good boy,’ said Bracken, his eyes involuntarily flickering to the window and the Fenman bar beyond. With a bit of luck he’d be in there by noon for the ritual post-deadline staff piss-up. Dryden, not averse to such occasions, had work to do first: he had to witness an eviction and harass a widow.
22
Cowardice thrives under cover and the bailiffs had called on Vee Hilgay early that morning, as the fog shrouded the Jubilee Estate. Humph, nosing the Capri forward, stopped when he saw furniture out on the street: the smart Ikea chairs and table, an oak bed which Dryden guessed might have come from Osmington Hall and a standard lamp with a bright orange shade. A single wicker Lloyd-loom chair stood on the lawn and Vee Hilgay sat in it, looking small and crumpled, wrapped in a donkey jacket. Russell Flynn stood loitering, hands in pockets, his flame-red hair diminished by the gauzelike mist.
Dryden extracted himself from the passenger seat, his joints popping, but the fog muffled the noise, and indeed all sound, so that when it came it was as a distant vibration – like a radiator tapped. Somewhere nails were being driven into wood. A bailiff in a fluorescent jacket appeared from the direction of the house holding a tool box. A wedge of light stood where Vee Hilgay’s front door should have been, a bending figure changing the locks.
‘You can’t blame them,’ said Vee, as if anybody had.
Russell, cheeks blotched, seemed either angry or embarrassed. ‘We’re waiting for a van. I know a bloke… Vee’s gonna take the room they’ve offered after all.’
The old woman’s head fell briefly, and then her chin came up. ‘Any news on my painting, Mr Dryden? Is wealth just minutes away?’ She smiled, but Dryden saw that some of the resilience had gone, some of the impish sparkle.
One of the bailiffs appeared with a mug of tea and offered it to her. She turned down a cigarette.
Dryden considered what to tell them. ‘Another body’s been found on the site of the dig.’
Russell reached for a packet of cigarettes, patting the pockets of his jeans, and laughed inappropriately.
‘The archaeologist leading the dig, he’s been shot – murdered. The picture – perhaps it’s a motive.’
Vee didn’t answer but drank the tea, and Dryden noticed that around her neck hung a line of tooth-white pearls.
‘The police came round again?’ he said, touching his own neck by way of explanation.
She fingered the clasp: ‘Yesterday. Last night. Questions, about the Dadd. A detective, with a double-barrelled name? And some advice, about taking the council’s offer of the flat. They didn’t hold out much hope I’d wake up rich, Mr Dryden. I expect our masterpiece rotted in the ground long ago.’
The bailiff reappeared and placed a tea chest of belongings on the lawn. ‘Sorry. We’ve got to take the TV, the cooker – freezer, that kind of thing. There’s a debt to pay off. But the stuff out here is yours, OK?’ he glanced nervously at Dryden. A bedside table was lobbed into the back of the bailiff’s truck, where it splintered into firewood.
‘Is that necessary?’ said Dryden, realizing now where he’d seen the bailiff. ‘Don’t you work for Ma Trunch?’