Nene coughed weakly as though preparing for a speech. ‘Not much to tell.’ His voice was reedy and high-pitched. ‘I came up about five o’clock to check the roof ahead of tomorrow’s work. You can’t see the gutter from anywhere except the Octagon Tower to the east – this stretch is obscured anyway by one of the pinnacles which rise from the walls of the nave. And we’re too close to the base of the West Tower for this to be visible from the viewing platform. We were going to raise some scaffolding to clear the outer guttering in case water was trapped in the freeze. I found, er this, as you see it – and raised the alarm with Mr Hodgson.’
The cathedral policeman nodded. It was he who had crossed himself. Dryden knew Hodgson. Sanctimonious bastard, he thought and gave him a sympathetic smile.
‘Any suggestions?’ asked Stubbs.
Nene’s eyes were rheumy and ill. ‘My guess would be that he jumped from the tower – hit the roof and slid down to the guttering, Looks like he didn’t die straightaway – but managed to crawl into a half-sitting position behind the griffin.’
‘Date?’
‘We did work at this end of the cathedral twelve months ago – but much lower down. The last time anyone actually came up here to walk the gutters was probably in the mid-sixties, when the West Tower started to shift and we had to pin everything with steel rods.’
Dryden drew deeply on the illicit cigarette. ‘Aerial photographs?’
Stubbs winced. An obvious question he would never have thought of asking. It was a small consolation that Stubbs knew how bad a detective he was.
‘My guess is you wouldn’t have seen it unless you were looking for it,’ said Nene.
Dryden threw the remains of the cigarette over the wall and watched it drop like a miniature distress flare into the blizzard. He fought back the urge to ask for another. He tried a question instead. ‘Was the work on this roof part of the special extension of the restoration programme?’
The builder nodded. ‘Last part. We were going to run scaffolding up tomorrow – although I doubt we could have in this weather.’
‘Couldn’t you have done the work from here?’
Nene shook his head. ‘Health and safety regs. You need a working platform of a certain width – it’s OK to come up and survey it by foot but if you have to work on the stone you need more room. Much more room. And some of the gargoyles are choked at the mouth end – that’s several feet over the edge.’
Nene looked down but Dryden took his word for it.
‘So how long do you think our friend has been up here?’ repeated Stubbs, pointedly turning back to Nene.
Dryden leaned forward and edged towards the bone hand which had become joined to the gargoyle’s frosted neck. ‘It certainly didn’t happen yesterday. Lichen is a slow grower – there must be several summers’ worth here. Ten? Twenty? Thirty? More?’
‘Is that possible?’ asked Stubbs.
Nene lit a fresh cigarette before answering. ‘Yes. Yes, it is. It could be much longer. There’s not much left, even given the place is running with rats, and the gulls will have pecked it.’
There was an uncomfortable shuffling of feet. Those that could studied what was visible of the corpse.
Two ambulance men appeared from the small doorway in the West Tower carrying a collapsible stretcher and a silver body bag.
This I don’t need to watch, thought Dryden. Then he spotted something on the frosty stone ledge by the corpse. ‘You might want to look at that.’ He put his finger within an inch of what looked like a lichen-covered coin. Stubbs gravely produced a clear plastic exhibit bag into which he dropped the coin with a pair of callipers.
Stubbs studied it by the light of the arc-lamp. ‘Half-crown. 1961.’
Dryden moved back into the light. Stubbs was holding two other exhibit bags – both containing what looked like the remains of documents.
‘Pockets?’
Stubbs nodded. ‘Standard procedure. This was from the back pocket of the trousers, or what’s left of them. They were inside this.’ He produced another plastic evidence bag inside which was a fisherman’s oilskin pouch. ‘Waterproof. Otherwise nothing would have lasted.’
He held the bag to the light. ‘One’s a driving licence. The name’s gone but the number’s still legible. We can trace it through vehicle registration at Swansea. The other’s what looks like a betting slip.’
Stubbs flipped the plastic bag over and turned the torch on the faded white paper. A misspent youth told Dryden all he needed to know. The betting slip was pre-computers. An on-course bookie’s mark had faded beyond recognition. But the torn halves told a happier story: the winnings had been collected.