The Way, the Truth and the Dead Read online

‘Yes,’ Alan had to admit. ‘And he was fit, too. Most keepers are.’

  ‘Trouble is,’ Lane continued, ‘we’ve pretty well pinned down his disappearance to the evening of the thirteenth of January.’

  Alan nodded, he too couldn’t forget that date.

  ‘And as you know, it’s been quite a wet late winter. Decomposition isn’t as advanced as it would be in August, but I got a phone call from the lab, who are doing a priority autopsy for us, and they suspect, but they can’t yet confirm, that he died by drowning.’

  Yes, Alan thought, it had been a while. They’d started the car park dig, done two documentaries and of course the live show, since then. It felt like an age. He closed his eyes and did a rapid mental count. It was now 7 March.

  ‘So that’s almost eight weeks.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a long time.’

  They both reflected on this. Alan couldn’t help thinking about the condition of Thorey’s corpse: how it would have looked after so long in the water. And his mind’s eye kept returning to the last dead body he had seen. It had been in a gruesome state. That gave him an idea.

  ‘I suppose it’s too early to say if he’d been drugged?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lane nodded. ‘That’ll probably take longer – if indeed they can tell at this late date. But I’ve got some ­pictures here.’

  Lane’s car was parked a few paces away. His laptop was on the back seat. He opened it on the bonnet. Alan didn’t know what to expect, but he knew it would be grim. And it was.

  The first image was a general view, showing the body lying on the grass where it had been laid out by the workman who was operating the mechanical grab that was fixed to the screens across the sluice. The grab operator had had the presence of mind to empty the rest of the cage separately alongside the skip. In the background Alan could see this small heap of debris and driftwood was being searched by two officers in white scene-of-crime overalls.

  ‘They’ll be there most of the day, poor devils.’ Lane smiled. ‘It’s a thankless task.’

  ‘Any other clues?’ Alan asked.

  ‘Hard to say,’ Lane replied, pointing to the second image. This was not a pretty sight: a close-up of the body, skin largely removed from the head and neck, but still wearing his keeper’s tweed Norfolk jacket and knee breeches and above-calf, stout lace-up leather boots. ‘As you can see, he’d zipped up the jacket and buttoned all the pockets; he’d even stuffed more brick pieces inside the jacke—’

  ‘Or someone had,’ Alan broke in.

  ‘OK,’ Lane continued patiently. ‘His jacket and its pockets were stuffed with brick pieces and it had been securely buttoned and zipped closed. There was no way those bricks were going to fall out.’

  Alan nodded; he wished he could cancel his hasty remarks about suicide.

  ‘Any idea how much they weighed?’

  ‘We’ll discover that soon enough, but I suspect somewhere around ten to fiften kilos.’

  Alan recalled the 20-kilo feed bags he had struggled with as a lad on the family farm. That was quite a weight.

  ‘What were the bricks like?’

  ‘Nothing special. SOCO reckoned they were modern, mass-produced. The sort of thing you’d find on a building site anywhere. But we’ll be getting them analysed. My bet is they’re London Brick Company, Peterborough or Bedford.’

  Alan had learnt to respect the judgment and experience of scene of crime officers.

  ‘And was it just bricks, or were there stones and other things there, too?’

  ‘No,’ Lane replied, clicking to the next image of five pieces of brick arranged on a folded disposable cover-all. ‘That’s what struck me at the time. It was just brickbats, nothing else. It all suggested cold-blooded preparation. The bricks had probably been broken with a lump-hammer and sharp bits had been knocked off. It’s almost as if he’d done a dress rehearsal to get the maximum number in each pocket.’

  Alan’s mind immediately flashed back to Stan’s death.

  ‘Was he drunk?’

  ‘He’s been a long time in the water, so forensics were very dubious. But of course they’ll check.’

  ‘And what about the rest of the body?’

  ‘Decay was quite advanced and there was a lot of obvious bruising and battering. The skin beneath his clothes wasn’t as badly decayed and damaged as his face and neck. And he probably went through several sluices before fetching up here.’ Lane paused while he selected another picture.

  ‘But there was one injury that puzzled me,’ Lane continued. The screen now showed a close-up of Thorey’s tweed knee breeches and the pale, mangled flesh beneath. The fabric over one leg, Alan reckoned his right, had been torn in a jagged line just above the knee. ‘You can see that whatever did this tore the fabric on both sides of the leg. And the flesh at that point was cut and damaged. Trouble is, it has also been nibbled by fish or eels. Anyhow, SOCO reckoned it was the sort of injury he’d seen previously when bodies got limbs stuck in those grilles that protect power stations or sewage outfalls – that sort of thing.’

  ‘And do you agree?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it seems reasonable enough. We’ll see what forensics think later.’ His radio bleeped. Lane put a hand up to his earpiece. ‘Sorry, Alan, I’m needed back at base.’ He closed the laptop and put it away.

  As he was about to drive off he asked, ‘Fancy a quick pint later? I’ve found a great little pub in Ely. I worked through the weekend, so I’m off early today.’

  Alan remembered it was Monday. Tricia had already returned to London for more meetings about her new TV series. Slightly to his own surprise he felt glad she was doing this: it was so obviously what she really wanted to do. But there was also a feeling of regret, if not pain. She had sent him a text saying ‘Thanks for a fun night’ and apparently that was it. She was so refreshingly straightforward, and Alan was aware that he was anything but. He caught a glimpse of his face in a pool by the river’s edge. He was looking serious: we are drawn to our opposites.

  Lane’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘Is that a yes, Alan?’

  Alan grinned. ‘Sorry, Richard, I was away with the fairies. Yes, that’s a great idea; I could murder a pint.’

  He was in absolutely no rush to return to Fursey and face Harriet.

  * * *

  Alan headed back south, across a couple of miles of open flat fen, towards one of the low ridges that extend north from the much higher Isle of Ely. After a quarter of an hour he arrived in Ely. He didn’t often find himself with time to kill, but now he decided to park the Fourtrak in one of the little medieval streets down by the river and take a stroll up the hill, through the Priors Gatehouse and into the old monastic precincts. The first view of the great Benedictine Abbey Church, which had dominated the small town around it for over a thousand years, never failed to move him. And this visit was no ex­­ception.

  As he passed beneath the gatehouse and drew clear of the buildings, he deliberately didn’t look up. Instead he walked over to the fence that bounded the rough pasture, which now covered many of the monastic buildings that were demolished after the Dissolution. He could hear the sound of sheep grazing close by and could detect their warm, lanolin pre­sence, but he kept his eyes firmly to the ground. Then he looked up. As his focus lifted towards the park and its trees, some just coming into leaf, he found his gaze was following the edge of a patch of sunlight, which rapidly expanded to bathe the scene before him in a glow of spring brightness. Soon he felt the warmth on his own back: a hint of the season to come. The air was crystal clear and the great south tower of the massive cathedral stood out pale against the scudding clouds. It was a transcending experience. For a brief, wonderful moment, time itself seemed suspended. Then he noticed that the sky above the cathedral was identical to the opening sequences of The Simpsons. The magic vanished.

  The pub was back down the hill by the river, and even though it was still very early in the year, people were sitting at tables outside. Alan went inside to order a couple of pints
. Several people recognised him and there were a few calls of ‘Itsagrave!’ He hastened back outside with two glasses of Old Slodger and had barely sat back down at his table, when he spotted Lane coming towards him.

  If they’d been meeting in a Leicester pub three years ago, the chances were that one or two people would have recognised Lane. Alan had learnt to spot the one’s Lane had nicked in the past: they smiled at him in a particularly subservient, ingratiating fashion and then acted the wronged criminal to their friends, but only behind his back. Here, however, he was still just a bloke in the crowd. Alan rather envied him this.

  Alan handed Lane his pint, which he gratefully received.

  ‘Well,’ Lane said, as he placed his glass back on the table with a contented sigh. ‘That wasn’t unexpected, was it?’

  ‘No.’ Alan immediately knew he was referring to Thorey. ‘Not after he’d vanished. But I’ll be interested to see what happens next.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Whether it restarts all that bollocks about the Curse of the Cripps. Because if it does, I think this is deliberate. Using the rumours to build up bad feeling against the family.’

  ‘Interesting you should say that. The desk sergeant at Ely has told me he’s already received anonymous calls suggesting that we “look more closely”, or some such.’

  ‘I wish I could say I was surprised.’

  ‘That’s not all,’ Lane continued. ‘In fact, as I drove here, I got a call from a reporter from the Enquirer, who wondered if there was any truth in the “rumours” about a possible murder. Reports of his death have already been on local radio and will be on all the regional lunchtime TV bulletins.’

  ‘So it’s big news?’

  Lane leant back and stretched. ‘I don’t know about that, Alan. Maybe locally. But it certainly won’t make the ­nationals.’

  ‘That’s a relief. I feel for the Cripps family. They’ve put a lot of time and effort into the project and it would be a shame if—’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ Lane broke in. ‘It won’t make people stay away. Far from it. If anything, it’ll bring them in.’

  But that wasn’t what Alan wanted to hear, either. It was bad enough having to deal with ‘Itsagrave’ and thinly disguised questions about death and decay, without introducing ancient curses. Before they knew it, they’d have vampires and werewolves to contend with.

  Lane took a second long pull from his pint. Alan could see his friend was very tired.

  ‘So tell me, Alan,’ Lane’s voice came as welcome relief, ‘what’s been happening behind the scenes at Fursey?’

  Alan told him about Heritage Projects Management, led by John Cripps, taking on the day-to-day running of Fursey – and how it made sense, which it undoubtedly did – to pool publicity budgets and run Fursey and White Delphs together. When he had finished, Lane thought over what he’d just been told.

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ Lane reflected. ‘I don’t know whether you ever knew, but when HPM took over at White Delphs there was a rumour that they were just a cover for a property developer based in London. They were known to have loads of spare cash and we all thought they’d buy acres of land and then apply for development rights. That way it would be win-win for them: they’d attract more visitors to the area and the attraction – and of course they’d make a killing on the property deal.’

  Alan was puzzled. These stories had escaped him entirely. ‘But did it happen?’ He asked, still slightly astonished.

  ‘No, it didn’t. And that’s the point. Instead, they invested heavily in the attraction and even put a largish sum into the new Community Centre. In fact, they’re very popular locally.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alan said. ‘And with their workforce, too. I took their digging team on as soon as the White Delphs dig ended, and none of them would hear a word said against HPM.’

  ‘Really?’ Lane continued, smiling now. ‘It’s not very often that I get to deal with paragons of virtue in my line of work. Who’s the man behind it all?’

  ‘I met him on my first visit to White Delphs. Drove a flash Bentley. We didn’t have an in-depth conversation, but I got the strong impression he was no fool. Name’s Blake Lonsdale. I gather he’s a successful east London businessman. Certainly John Cripps thinks highly of him. Sarah Cripps, too, so far as I can tell.’

  ‘Any idea of his “business”?’

  ‘I don’t know how he made his money originally, but now he manages Water World historical theme park near Hackney Marshes. It’s getting really big now that the 2012 Olympic Park is gathering pace. They’re just down the road.’

  ‘But you still don’t know how he earned it in the first place?’

  Alan shook his head.

  ‘Can’t say I do. But Barty told me he was the biggest in­­vestor by far in HPM – which is unusual, seeing as how he runs them, too.’

  Alan was intrigued: why was Lane so interested all of a sudden? He tried fishing. ‘Why the questions about HPM? Do you suspect something’s going on?’

  ‘No, not really. It’s just that I’m – how can I put it discreetly – interested in large sums, or potentially large sums, of investment money coming into the area.’

  ‘Something to do with your new job with Fenland?’

  ‘Yes, sort of. The thing is, as you know, Cambridge is the fastest-growing city in Britain and development land is very hard to come by. Prices are sky-rocketing. So far, most of the development has been to the south, east and west.’

  ‘On the higher, drier land, presumably?’

  ‘That’s right. But recently there’s been much talk of ­“Silicon Fen” and many developers are now looking around here. And some of them have got very big wallets – and backers – indeed.’

  ‘So the police are worried about corruption?’

  ‘Well, wouldn’t you be?’ Lane was now leaning forward, talking very softly. ‘There’s billions involved and local politicians could set themselves up for life with just a small backhander.’

  ‘And do you have anything to go on yet?’

  ‘I’ve got one or two likely looking cases starting to grow, but these are much closer to Cambridge. Part of my brief is to keep an eye on what’s happening around here, too. The one thing a police authority doesn’t want is to be taken off-guard. If I’m nosing around, however incompetently, they can tell their political bosses that everything’s under control.’

  ‘So will you be checking out HPM and Blake Lonsdale?’

  ‘Oh, yes, don’t worry. I’ve got an old friend who’s a DC down in Hackney. If there’s anything to turn up, he’ll find it.’

  ‘But do you smell any rats around Fursey?’ Alan had to ask.

  ‘So far I don’t. In fact, it smells very clean—’

  ‘Too clean?’

  ‘No, Alan.’ Lane laughed. ‘I never said that, and you know it.’

  * * *

  Back in his house in Fursey, Alan poured himself a strong black coffee and opened a packet of chocolate digestives. He’d already started to work on Stan’s hidden notebook, but hadn’t made much actual progress with interpretation, although he had managed to disentangle some of the initial, upland layers and levels. But now he was far more interested in what lay around the fringes of the drowned prehistoric and medieval island. And that meant trying to make sense of the borehole logs.

  A search on the Internet had produced location maps of all dykes maintained by the various Internal Drainage Boards of the Fens. Alan clicked on the Padnal Delph IDB, and stared closely at the map. The drains leading into the South Padnal Engine Drain formed a distinctive Y shape, with a long, curved dyke to the south, which skirted the edge of Fursey island and fed directly into the dead straight Engine Drain which headed north for a mile or so to Padnal Pumping Station Number Two. This was the pump that raised their water into the embanked Padnal Delph. It was a very distinct­ive drainage pattern and it precisely matched what Stan had sketched in the back of his notebook.

  Alan’
s next job was to copy Stan’s sketches onto the large sheet of graph paper he’d bought the week before the live shoot. He arranged them around a horizontal datum line, or TBM (temporary benchmark), precisely as Stan had done in the notebooks. He’d be able to level-in the benchmark, which was on a disused 1950s sluice gate, when he could find an hour or two to spare. Just glancing at the profiles, Alan reckoned that Stan had set his TBM somewhere around half a metre above sea level, or OD (Ordnance Datum), as the notebook had it.

  By four o’clock he’d done about a dozen profiles and couldn’t face another coffee. He needed fresh air. He knew he ought to have gone to the dig that afternoon, as it was the start of a crucial week, but he was certain that Stan’s notebook held the clue to his death, and they were also becoming increasingly relevant to the latest discoveries at Fursey itself. But he had to admit they were an excuse not to visit the dig. He stared up at the ceiling, then took a deep breath, he was behaving like a gutless worm. Not turning up would only make matters between him and Harriet worse.

  When he entered the shelter, he found Jake and Kaylee starting to clear up. Harriet wasn’t there.

  Alan asked after her: had she been there at all, today?

  ‘Oh yes,’ Jake replied. ‘She was here all day. Said she had to get back promptly for a college commemoration feast or something.’

  ‘Damn, I wanted to catch her before she left. Any news?’

  ‘Not really. She said Grave 2 is almost exposed. She should start lifting tomorrow.’

  Alan was impressed. He was also glad that Jake had been there. He felt he owed him a word of explanation for his absence.

  ‘The thing is, I thought I was going to get down here first thing, as usual, but I got a text this morning and had to see someone at County Hall ASAP. I’ve only just got back.’

  ‘Yes.’ Jake smiled. ‘She said you’d probably not show up. Candice had told her how much booze they were providing for the dinner. Apparently she had said it was the least they could do, after all you’d done.’ By now Alan was frowning. ‘I think Harry thought it a bit of a laugh,’ he added, by way of explanation.