The Skeleton Man

9

The Crow’s offices reverberated to the sound of computer keys being struck. Below, through the open bay window, umbrellas jostled. A bus reversed, grinding gears, while two shops along a parrot screeched from the covered cage hung outside a barber’s shop. The aroma of freshly ground coffee slipped into the room like a burglar.

Charlie Bracken, the paper’s news editor, sat behind a desk by the window exhibiting several signs of alcohol depriv ation. A splodge of sweat marred his unironed blue shirt and his eyes occasionally flitted towards the window and the comforting sight of The Fenman bar opposite.

‘You all right for time?’ he asked Dryden, wasting more of it.

‘Sure. I’m nearly there. I need to make a couple of last calls.’

Charlie nodded, running copy up and down his PC screen without reading a word.

Dryden considered the intro for the last time, knowing it was the front-page splash for the Express. The paper’s circulation was limited to Ely and the villages of the isle, and was a step downmarket of The Crow’s county readership. The Jude’s Ferry story would go at the foot of the tabloid front, with another story inside on the wayward bombardment of the village, with Dryden’s pictures from Whittlesea Mere.

Dryden sipped coffee and tried to concentrate.

By Philip Dryden

Two severed human fingers were found in a fisherman’s net on Ely’s riverside this morning (Tuesday).

A police diving team arrived at the scene within minutes of the grisly discovery to search upstream.

‘Clearly there’s a possibility we are dealing with a fatal accident here. We’re assuming the injuries were caused by a propeller. We need to find the victim quickly,’ said Sgt John Porter, of the county underwater search and rescue unit.

Local postman Andrew Paddock was fishing upstream of the railway bridge when he felt something on the line.

‘I got a bite and started to reel it in – it was a zander, a big fish too, so I waded into the reeds to get it. When I got the net on the bank I found a load of weed and the fingers. I was pretty upset, but the other fishermen on the bank helped me call the police and take the net along to the Maltings.

‘I should have stayed where I was and used the mobile but I just didn’t think,’ added Mr Paddock, of Teal Rise, Littleport. ‘I’ve taken the week off to join in the associ ation’s competition – but frankly I’m going to give it a miss now. Let’s hope whoever it is is still alive.’

This summer has seen several police warnings issued to swimmers in the river at Ely. One man who refused to get out of the water was forcibly removed and later charged with being drunk and disorderly.

A sponsored swimming race past the marina was cancelled owing to concerns over loose fishing lines, river cruiser traffic and the dangerous condition of some of the banks.

Dryden, floundering for more information, checked the word count. ‘That’s 250 – enough?’

Mack, the chief sub, obscured by a bank of electronic make-up screens, stood up: ‘Do me fifty more please – anything, just tack it on.’

Dryden ran through the stories provided online by the Press Association and found a discarded two-paragraph item about a fire on a houseboat in Cambridge and, adding the word ‘meanwhile’ tacked it on to the end of the story to make up the length, and then filed the story straight through to the subs.

Then his mobile rang, vibrating in an insistent circle on the Formica desktop.

‘Hi. Dryden,’ he said, aware that his voice had picked up the general atmosphere of stress. It was the press officer for the Friends of the Ferry returning his earlier call. And there were no surprises; the group had met again briefly to consider their position after the shelling of the church and the discovery of the skeleton. There was little appetite for a new campaign, the older members were now resigned to never going back, and the younger ones had always been more interested in the principle involved rather than actually living in the old village. The group had agreed to disband after nearly eighteen years.

Dryden added a line to the main Jude’s Ferry story and re-filed to the sub-editor’s basket.

They heard footsteps thumping up the wooden steps from reception and Mitch Mackintosh, The Crow’s photographer, barged into the newsroom fresh from the riverside. They all crowded behind the photographer’s shoulder to see the shots come up on the digital display of the camera.

The Crow’s cub reporter Garry Pymoor was double-checking wedding reports, a tedious chore reserved for the office junior. Dryden got his attention: ‘Garry. Ring King’s Lynn CID – see if there’s anything more on Jude’s Ferry. Chop chop.’

The pictures were lurid, the best unusable. ‘Henry’s not gonna like that…’ said Charlie, of a crisp shot of the severed fingers in a bed of weeds. Henry Septimus Kew, venerable editor of both The Crow and the Ely Express, would make a ritual appearance just before the final deadline to check the paper’s contents. Charlie’s job boiled down to guessing what Henry wanted before the editor knew it himself.

‘This one then,’ said Dryden, nodding as Mitch paused on a picture of the crowd on the riverbank and one of the police divers slipping into the water. Mitch, a monosyllabic Scot with a strong line in cynicism, grunted and set off back to the darkroom where he lived.

Garry was waving his arms in semaphore thanks to telephone headphones. He pointed at the earpiece and put his thumbs up.

‘I’ll hold,’ he said, then knocked the microphone away from his mouth. ‘They say your skeleton is a bloke.’

‘What? Bloody hell.’

Garry was nodding. Incompetent in many ways in daily life, The Crow’s junior reporter was sharp and reliable with facts if there was a story involved.

‘No doubt. Build was slight for sure – dental work might be traceable apparently. Height was average, even if he was a bit thin-boned. They reckon five-ten, eleven.’ He looked down at his notebook: ‘Age somewhere between twenty and thirty-five – although the build makes those numbers just a guideline, could be a coupla years either way. Date of death somewhere between 1975 and five years ago. They need to examine the scene to get a closer fix. Talk about covering your arse, eh?’

Dryden nodded, calling up the Jude’s Ferry story he’d already written on-screen to make the last-minute changes.

Garry talked some more and then hung up. ‘Bit more. The wrist bones were bound with garden wire – the plastic coated stuff. Pathologist believes the victim could have tied them up himself. The knots are loose, but would be – hold on, better get this dead right – “sufficient to prevent a reflex” attempt to save himself. There’s some flesh left on the torso – tendons and stuff – and what he called “atrophied” organs. They’re all being analysed but at the moment there’s nothing sinister showing up. No poisons. Stomach contents long gone. Some indications of rodent activity along the bones. And something else on dating: old newspapers in the cellar used to wrap beer glasses were mostly dated July 1990 – the most recent was the 12th, three days before the evacuation. Daily Mail.’

‘I need that story,’ said Charlie, feeling free to break the office’s no smoking policy for the third time in an hour. ‘I need it now, Dryden.’

‘Well if you have it now it’s fucking wrong…’ said Dryden, stabbing the keys. ‘So wait.’ Dryden’s junior role relative to Charlie was largely nominal. His Fleet Street track record outranked the news editor’s formal authority. An embarrassed hush fell over the office while Garry grinned hugely.

‘And one other oddity,’ said the junior reporter. ‘Clothing is in shreds, OK, but there were several layers still on the arms and beneath those, on the left arm, was the remains of what appears to be a piece of surgical gauze.’

‘What?’ said Dryden, looking up.

‘Surgical gauze. Don’t ask me. That’s what he said.’

Dryden skimmed the Jude’s Ferry piece and rewrote the intro…

By Philip Dryden

Forensic experts today (Tuesday) identified a skeleton found hanging in a cellar in the abandoned fen village of Jude’s Ferry as the bones of a young man who may have taken his own life.

He dropped down through a description of how the discovery was made to add in the new detail from the CID, and the pathologist’s judgement on the knots at the wrist. Then he dropped down further and amended three pars on Magda Hollingsworth, making it clear the police would now be able to exclude her from their inquiries and leaving in the quotes from her daughter.

‘Looks like suicide now,’ he said when he’d filed it back to Charlie.

‘Good job it’s down page,’ said the news editor, enjoying nothing more than vindication.

Dryden’s mobile trilled. It was Humph, and for a second Dryden could hear the heavy breathing of the greyhound as the cabbie fumbled with his handsfree. ‘Could be nothing,’ said Humph, his voice light, almost weightless. ‘Up by Cuckoo Bridge. I’ve just come along the back road and there’s an ambulance and a search and rescue vehicle parked up. I’ll try and get a pic.’ Dryden heard the sound of Humph extricating himself from the Capri, like a cork from a bottle.

The reporter grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. ‘We may have the owner of the fingers,’ he said. ‘I’ll phone.’