The Maltings, part of the old Ely Brewery, had been converted into a cinema and restaurant complex on the riverside. The district council had put up most of the money with help from the Millennium Fund. As a result Ely’s civic dignitaries were out to squeeze every last drop of publicity they could from the project. Tonight marked the showing of the first film: Waterland – based on Graham Swift’s portrayal of life in the Fens.
As they walked down Forehill towards the river Dryden and Kathy found themselves in picture postcard country: the willows, dusted with ice, hung over a skating rink of river. Smoke drifted up into the snow clouds from the renovated waterside cottages which had attracted incomers into an area once infamous as a damp slum. On the opposite bank had stood the medieval suburb of Babylon, but now the marina sulked in the darkness, punctuated by the ghostly white shapes of floating gin-palaces up on blocks for the winter. Beyond them stretched the water meadows, gently suffocating below a freezing mist.
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.’