The Coldest Blood

16

A sky like an army blanket hid the stars. In High Park Flats a single bathroom light shone coldly out, joined only by a solitary string of Christmas lights trailing from a window ledge. Sley parked the 4x4 by the entrance to the allotments and killed the engine, checking his watch.

‘Two minutes past closing time precisely,’ he said. ‘I need a drink.’

Beyond the fluorescent lights of the car park the darkness lingered amongst the bean posts and frost-bitten furrows and Dryden stumbled several times as they picked their way towards the dull gleam of the stove pipe. Once, looking back, he saw a pair of car headlights swing into the shadow of the flats, then die.

Sley, playing a torch at his feet, found a log pile and collected an armful of kindling and wood, balancing it expertly with a splayed hand while inserting a key in the door of the Gardeners’ Arms.

Inside, the smell of drying fruit was intoxicating, the sweetness of apples mingling with the fusty aroma of yeast from the home brew. Sley stooped by the stove and quickly lit a fire, leaving the glazed door open to light the room. Something rustled in the corner, like an autumn leaf.

Dryden sat on some sacking piled on an old garden stool, aware that the hessian was crisp with frost. He imagined the ghosts of Joe Petulengo and Declan McIlroy just beyond the light, cradling mugs of the tangy double-strength alcohol. The Gardeners’ Arms was a refuge, Dryden could see that now, a hidden corner of the world reserved for outcasts, and those who had chosen to join them.

The fire began to draw and Sley added the logs. He lit a cigarette and rubbed at his scalp with the heel of his hand.

‘How well did they know each other – Joe and Declan?’ asked Dryden, taking an earthenware cup from Sley. The beer was icy, the thud of the alcohol palpable.

Sley held his own full glass but didn’t drink. ‘It’s history. I don’t understand what you’re trying to prove…’

It was an odd word to choose. Dryden set the mug down and retrieved a Greek cigarette from a packet in his overcoat and lit it with a piece of kindling from the fire. He watched Sley’s hatchet face, half lit in the firelight, and wondered if he’d regret not going straight to the police with what he knew.

‘I’m not trying to prove anything,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to write a feature about those in danger from the cold – if they were friends, that helps. This is information I need. But just a reminder – if I don’t get it, I’ll get something else off the police in return for tipping them off as to the identity of the elusive drugs peddler. How does that sound?’

Dryden realized he didn’t fear Sley any more. It was an eloquent admission that he sensed a common decency beneath the brutal exterior.

Sley drew in two lungfuls of nicotine. ‘So. How well did they know each other?’ repeated Dryden.

‘The allotments were a meeting place. For all of us.’

‘But before. How long had they been friends?’ Dryden could sense the boundary he was pushing at, sure now that just beyond it lay the link he sought. He watched Sley through the drifting smoke from the cigarette, and sensed he was calculating a reply.

Sley stood, drinking savagely, the liquid slopping in the glass. ‘They grew up together, in care. Brothers really, but for the accident of blood.’

Dryden nodded. ‘So what’s the big secret?’ But his thoughts raced: if Joe had been at St Vincent’s was he too embroiled in the action against the orphanage?

‘There’s no secret. It’s just private, isn’t it? They were orphans. Joe’s parents were travellers, Romany. Gyppos – take your choice. Petulengo – a name he was proud of, eventually. But that was the nightmare for him – being in care, being inside, being locked up.’

‘And you?’

Sley ignored the question, refilling his glass. ‘Joe lived in a caravan, a mobile home really – plush. You’d be surprised. Snug as a peg.’ He laughed again, and Dryden sensed a longheld prejudice, finally liberated by death.

‘Until…?’

‘Last year. He was diagnosed with the cancer, throat. He said he’d always promised himself he’d die in a house. Die in his own home. Crazy. So he bought the Letter M and then spent most of his time on that seat by the water, just looking at it.’

‘He had the money then?’

‘Oh yeah. He was never short, Joe.’ He laughed without a sound. ‘And when Mary died he’d nothing left to spend the money on.’

‘A wife – I saw the picture,’ said Dryden.

‘Yeah. She was older, MS. Pretty nasty really. He never really got over it, although most of us thought she was pretty aloof, focused on the money. She’d married it, after all.’

Dryden let the slight pass. ‘And the allotment?’

‘Outside again. He spent hours here. It was Declan who’d started first. The council gave him that flat but he couldn’t stand it. Claustrophobia – much worse than Joe – even when he was out on the balcony. He’d slept rough for years – that’s where he really wanted to be. He just used to shrivel up indoors.’

Dryden nodded as if he understood. ‘Is that why he drank?’

Sley shrugged. ‘Life he’d had, you don’t need an excuse.’

‘And the cannabis. Anyone else smoke the stuff? Declan?’

Sley shook his head.

Dryden stood. ‘You said orphanage. He was a Catholic, Joe – yes? I noticed a cross, a crucifix on a chain at his neck.’

‘Sure. St Vincent’s, with Declan. It’s closed now.’

Dryden smiled, enjoying the inevitability of fate.

‘Declan was a victim of abuse in the case against St Vincent’s. Was Joe another?’

Sley shrugged. ‘Sure. I doubt any kid who went through that place escaped, do you?’

Dryden accepted a second mug of beer. The glow from the stove was more substantial, and he stretched out his legs in the heat. He saw them differently now, these two men whose damaged lives had ended so savagely; saw them at a dormitory window, two pale faces, held close, dreaming of an end to childhood.