‘When were the video cameras put in?’
‘Recent that. Early 1990s, I think. We were asked to tender for the work but a specialist firm got the contract – we don’t get everything. There’s plenty of competition.’
Dryden hadn’t suggested otherwise. He pursued the point. ‘But there can’t be that many firms able to take on work like this?’ He patted the stone parapet and imagined a slight swaying movement underfoot.
‘’S right. Skills are dying. But there’s no fortune in it either – the cathedral knows we rely on the contract. They get their pound of flesh.’
‘Do anything else?’
‘Loads. Rebuilding. Specialist stone work. Water authority too – specialist stuff again. We used to do general building, but I’ve tried to focus on the high value-added stuff, that’s where our name is known. Some export stuff as well, States mainly.’ He patted the stonework. ‘Craftsmanship. The diocesan work is our bread and butter. The contract runs on a ten-year cycle. We’ve just started a new one.’
‘Nice position to be in.’
‘Wasn’t so nice six months ago when we didn’t know for sure if we had a future. I employ sixty people. That’s a lot of families. One of the biggest employers in the town.’ Nene spread his short pudgy fingers over an ample belly.
Self-satisfied bastard, thought Dryden.
He produced a notebook, not as an aide memoire, but purely to intimidate. ‘And it’s been your firm doing the work for how long exactly?’
‘Cork & Co did the first modern restoration under the Victorians – eighteen eighties. I did my apprenticeship with them. Fifteen long years. I bought them out in seventy-six. Since then it’s been Nene & Sons but it’s the same outfit – just a lot bigger. Annual turnover…’
‘Annual profits…?’
Nene adjusted the lapels of the smart blue overalls. ‘Private company, Dryden. Private information. But we do all right.’
‘We?’
‘My wife – Elizabeth – we own all the equity.’
‘I see.’ But Dryden didn’t. He thought money was supposed to make you happy. Nene’s face had thirty years of misery written over it in capital letters.
‘It’s difficult to believe that Tommy Shepherd’s body could stay up here for thirty-five years without being found.’
Nene lit up and began to wheeze as he smoked. Dryden sensed his witness had become hostile.
‘Why? There’s plenty of spots on the roof that can’t be seen easily from here or the Octagon. We do visual checks each year but most of the survey work is done from the ground by theodolite.’
‘And that’s your responsibility, is it?’
The bells stopped suddenly at St Mary’s and they heard the mechanism of the West Tower’s clock turning below them as it began to strike the quarter-hour.
‘No. That’s down to the diocese – the Master of the Fabric. They employ a firm of surveyors as well. But they’re looking for structural weakness, movement and cracking. We rely on their reports to frame the restoration programme which the Dean and Chapter then have to pass.’
Snow began to fall and Dryden turned his face up to meet the flakes. He felt a warm trickle of blood set out from the bandage down the inside of his neck. He fingered the blood and examined it cooly.
Nene gave him a look reserved for runaway lunatics.
‘Gunshot. Someone tried to kill me.’ Dryden had always wanted to say that. He contrived a shrug which indicated this happened almost every day.
He had, at last, got Nene’s full attention. ‘Wha…?’
‘What about aerial photography?’ Dryden enjoyed cutting Nene off, he wasn’t as imperturbable as he liked to think.
Nene hastily lit a fresh cigarette. He took three attempts to light it. ‘As I said t’other evening we get regular requests to overfly from commercial aircraft – the RAF boys and the Americans are banned from flight paths which go straight over the top. Not that you’d think it if you watch them line up to come into Mildenhall. Still, that’s the official line.
‘Most are for reproduction and sale. You know the kind of thing, aerial pictures of pubs and people’s backgardens to stick on the wall. They don’t have the kind of detail you’d need to spot a body from five hundred feet, not one mostly obscured by stonework. I’ve looked through a few we’ve got in the office and you can’t see a thing without a magnifying glass, and then only what looks like a pile of leaves.’
Through his bones Dryden felt the deep vibration of the cathedral organ signalling the start of a service below. Out to the east they turned to a noise – the sound of a giant blanket being snapped in the wind. Instead they saw a vast flock of Canada geese rise from the reserve at Wicken Fen and head south.