The Water Clock

Saturday, November 3rd

8

At weekends Dryden abandoned time but embraced food. PK 122’s handsome ship’s clock had stopped at 9.19 a.m. – in 1948. He removed his wristwatch on Friday night, a tiny ceremony which gave him immense pleasure. During the week he grazed on a conveyor belt of pork pies, crisps, sweets, and anything else he could get in his pockets. At the weekend he ate Big Time: and first call was the Box Café, affectionately known to a small but undiscerning clientele as Salmonella Sid’s. He walked to town along the river bank in the hyper-clear air which follows a snowstorm. About six inches had fallen in the night and it was still held by frost to the pitched cathedral roof on the horizon. He stopped on the bank and studied the south-west transept through pocket binoculars. The scene-of-crime lamp was still in place – as was a single policeman, huddled in the high doorway through which he had climbed last night. He hoped it was the incompetent Sergeant Pate.

Salmonella Sid’s was a steam box. A wall of hot air and grease hit you when you came through the door. Dryden ordered the Full English and settled down with a discarded copy of the Mirror. The body on the roof of the cathedral had made a paragraph on page ten: HEAVENS ABOVE! Nice touch. He made a note to bill them – like most of Fleet Street they were lousy payers. He’d check the rest of the tabloids when he got to the office. He’d filed 350 words for the Telegraph, Times, and Independent as well; they’d ordered and would eventually have to pay up whether they ran the copy or not. The Guardian had just taken a paragraph and he guessed they might send a staffer out to do a colour piece. The News, his old employers, had taken 350 words. He doodled on the Mirror with a biro. If the tabloids used it as well as the serious papers he’d make about £700.

Not bad for an hour’s work – even if it had been at one in the morning.

Loaded down with enough cholesterol to block the Channel Tunnel he headed for the office. The front counter was open taking ads but the rest of the building was empty. Henry had a flat above the offices on the third floor but enjoyed a private entrance from the backyard to his flat. At weekends the only indication of his existence was the occasional creaking board and the strains of Radio Three. Jean, the bellowing deaf telephonist, had Saturdays off. A long line of temps dealt patiently with enquiries from readers who all seemed to like shouting.

Dryden checked his answerphone.

‘Dryden?’ He recognized the languid tones immediately. He imagined the Reverend John Tavanter at the payphone mounted in the hallway of the retreat at St John’s. ‘Bad news I’m afraid. The vandals returned last night after we’d left. Persistent, aren’t they? They attacked the stones again and crushed the pieces nearly to rubble. Dreadful mess. No one heard anything of course. I thought you might want to know… I’m at home Sunday evening if you need to ask any further questions. You mentioned a picture. If the photographer rings me at the centre in Cambridge I can meet him there any time Sunday afternoon. Cambridge 666345. Goodbye, Dryden.’

However hard Dryden tried he could never imagine Tavanter saying: ‘God bless’.

A second message: ‘Andy Stubbs here. Swansea have come up with the name of our man on the roof.’

Dryden cursed loudly; he’d hoped it would take them longer. This way the dailies got a crack at the story before his next deadline. It was another favour from Stubbs – and a useless one.

‘It’s Thomas Shepherd, no middle name. Shepherd spelt S.H.E.P.H.E.R.D. Official address given as Belsar’s Hill – that’s a gypsy site out on the Great West Fen. We’ve checked the files and at the time of his disappearance in the summer of 1966 he was a suspect in a robbery and attempted murder investigation. The robbery took place at…’

Stubbs’s notebook crackled.

‘The Crossways garage on the A10 on July 30th – you may have a file on that if The Crow was published. Our file is pretty pathetic. His finger…’ Dryden’s tape cut out.

Third message: ‘Sorry. As I was saying – his fingerprints were found at the scene. He went to ground immediately after the robbery. His family claimed he was in Ireland. He was never seen again by a reliable witness. He was nineteen. On the run, clear evidence which would have put him inside for fifteen years at least, and half the force looking for him – looks like a reasonable scenario for suicide to me. There were two other members of the gang, never identified. The inquiry was closed down in 1968 but had made very little progress once Shepherd had disappeared. Hope that helps.’

There was one more message. It was Stubbs again.

‘Hi – sorry, you asked about cause of death. That far back it’s impossible to make even an educated guess. Coroner likely to go for death by misadventure and leave it at that. He’s already released the body for burial. The pathologist says both thighs were broken and one leg – the right I think – had broken in so many places it was virtually powder. The right arm was also badly broken. Looks like he fell on that side. Left arm and leg are intact. One oddity. All the fingers on the right hand are broken just above the middle knuckle.

‘Anyway, he must have hit the roof with a hell of a crash, probably near the apex, and then slid into the gutter. Our blokes say that with injuries like that he couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes – especially on a cold night. I didn’t tell you any of that. Everything is non-attributable. Bye.’

Stubbs was clearly trying hard to win Dryden’s help in publishing the photo fit story. There must be a good chance they were going to demote him. Embarrassing at the best of times, but even more so for the son of a former deputy chief constable.

The Crow had been published every Friday since the beginning of 1946. Before that it had come out on Thursday – market day. In 1982 Henry had launched The Express, a down-market tabloid for Tuesday. It was designed to protect The Crow’s Friday circulation by deterring free newspapers.

Paper copies of The Crow were too unwieldy to store, but the library had them on microfiche. Dryden inhaled a cup of coffee from the machine and wrapped himself in the greatcoat. The library was a brutal sixties block nicely situated right outside the cathedral. The cold snap had kept the borrowers at home. Dryden headed straight for the records room in the basement.

He found the first report on the robbery in early August – the Friday following the raid. There was an update each week and plenty of coverage throughout the summer’s so-called silly season when news was scarce. The location of the Crossways filling station on the main route north to the coast helped keep the story topical throughout the school break. The condition of Mrs Ward also kept the story going. She was on the critical list for four weeks and did not finally return home until Christmas.

According to the cuttings, the Crossways was a very different place from the one she had left in an ambulance on 30 July. Her husband had sold out to Shell and the café had closed. An interview with the couple in February 1968 said they had decided to keep the bungalow and run the garage on a franchise. The mechanic, the other witness in the robbery, left to work in King’s Lynn.

Dryden read and reread the reports. The evidence against Thomas Shepherd was conclusive: his fingerprints at the scene and the description given by the motorist who stopped for petrol were good enough. But his decision to flee the police hunt was just as eloquent of guilt.

Had Shepherd been on the run for years before his death on the cathedral roof? Or did he jump within hours of seeing the injuries to Amy Ward at the Crossways and hearing the radio news that the police were on his track?

One thing made Dryden uneasy – it was a fact rather than a question. The identity of the police officer who had first led the hunt for the A10 robbers before Scotland Yard had been called in to take over the investigation in early 1967: Detective Inspector Bryan Stubbs, then at the start of a career that would take him to the giddy heights of Deputy Chief Constable. A fine career in detection that he must have then hoped would be carried on by his son, Andrew.

Dryden got back to the office via the High Street butchers where he bought a hot steak and kidney pie and three sausage rolls. No point in dying of hunger.

He looked Stubbs Senior up in the directory. It was a Newmarket number. Dryden was surprised it wasn’t ex-directory – most ex-coppers were. A rare display of public accountability? Or arrogance?

Stubbs Senior answered on the tenth ring. After a brief introduction Dryden said what he wanted. He reckoned he had less than a one in fifty chance of getting anything out of him – and even that was certain to be background only.

‘It’s about a case you investigated in 1966. The papers called it the World Cup Robbery…’

Dryden left silence as a question.

‘Yes. Yes, of course, I remember it well.’

‘There’s been a development.’

If the former deputy chief constable made a reply it was lost in the chimes of what sounded like a shopful of clocks. Dryden checked his wristwatch: 11 a.m. precisely.

Stubbs Senior didn’t bother to explain. ‘Don’t tell me that gypsy kid has finally turned up?’

Dryden wondered how close the Stubbs family was. Had they talked that morning?

‘You could say that. Could we meet, briefly? It would only take a few moments.’

There followed a pause worthy of a deputy chief constable. ‘Dryden, you said? Philip Dryden?’

Dryden decided this needed no answer.

‘I live at Manor Farm – on the Newmarket to Lidgate road. Any time after four would be fine.’ He repeated the address and put the phone down.

Dryden tackled the weekend calls. There was a rota for the chore but he picked up the job most Saturdays. In return Henry looked kindly on his expense claims. One incident worthy of the name: the fire brigade reported an overnight blaze at the circus wintergrounds on Grunty Fen, a stretch of bleak bogland beyond the reclamation skills of even modern drainage engineering. It was an area known locally as The Pools. The police said they were investigating arson. By the newsroom clock he just had time to visit the scene and make his appointment with Stubbs Senior.

Mitch, the gibbering Scotsman, minded his High Street photographic shop on a Saturday and didn’t take pictures for The Crow or The Express unless in an emergency. Dryden grabbed the office camera, an antique that looked like a prop from a Charlie Chaplin film, and headed for the taxi rank.

Humph was first in line. The cabbie had dealt with the impact of divorce on his private life by simply expanding work to fit the empty hours now available. An hour off meant sixty minutes’ kip in a lay-by.

‘Newmarket by way of The Pools. Top speed,’ said Dryden not bothering with hello.

Humph thrummed his delicate fingers against the steering wheel in anticipation of the drive.

They clanked through town past the occasional dedicated shopper flecked with snow. On the market square a few traders had put up stalls for the Saturday craft market but most were watching proceedings from inside the Coffee Pot café. The Salvation Army band played stoically at the foot of the war memorial to a crowd that consisted of two dogs and an unaccompanied, and empty, pushchair.

They swept down Forehill and out on to the fen. It took them ten minutes to get out to The Pools. At this time of year the fields of snow were punctured with ponds of ice. Three months a year, out of season, it was the wintergrounds for a travelling circus. It was Kathy’s beat and she got a steady stream of stories, mostly about the animals. Chipperfields it wasn’t; nothing more exotic than a llama amongst the livestock, and the usual old-fashioned rides like dodgems and a small rusting Ferris wheel. The scene was bleak to the point of beauty, like a TV ad for the Irish Tourist Board.

They pulled in beside a circle of caravans, each smoking gently from a stove pipe on the roof. A fire crackled orange-red in the freezing air inside a large open brazier fed by a gaggle of children. The Ferris wheel stood out against the fading light of the sky, dripping a fresh winter crop of lurid orange rust.

Dryden took in the scene: Dogs, he thought.

A Dobermann pinscher strained at one leash and an Alsatian at another. He sat for a few seconds to check the radius of their movement and then got out of the car, pausing to check no unleashed dogs were lurking. Humph made an entirely unnecessary settling-in movement which indicated he was going nowhere.

The flimsy metal door of one of the caravans jerked open and a large man, wrapped in several sweaters, jumped down and came over with a well-measured combination of hostility and nonchalance. He put the open fire between them and said nothing while holding at his side the largest wrench Dryden had ever seen.

A decade of experience had taught Dryden that in such situations ploys are unlikely to work. ‘Hi, The Crow, Ely. We heard about the fire. Could I have a few words?’

It was hard to see the man clearly through the rising heat which distorted the air between them. He might have been handsome once. He was at some age over fifty but an outdoor life made any estimate beyond that less than a guess. The hair was tyre-black and full. The face was hard and muscular and made up of flat clean facets, like the bodywork of a truck. The eyes were small, green, and intelligent. One arm of the overalls was empty and folded neatly back to the chest: his disability went unhidden, more – he wore it as a badge of experience. He kept the fire between them but eyed Dryden’s camera out of interest rather than concern.

‘If you’re taking pictures, mister, I’d like to see some…’ The accent was a tussle between Ely and the Bronx – and New York had won.

Dryden pointedly eyed the straining Dobermann.

‘Insurance,’ said the man. Dryden was unsure if he was referring to the dogs or the need for pictures of the fire damage.

The gypsy snapped suddenly at the dogs. ‘Shut it, boys.’ They shut it and, whimpering, skittered under the caravan.

‘Joe Smith,’ he said, picking up an iron bar and prodding the wood in the brazier.

Fine by me, thought Dryden, who’d made up less believable names.

Smith held his one hand out over the fire and kindly shooed the kids away.

Dryden stepped into the circle of heat. ‘So what happened?’

Smith slipped a piece of chewing gum into his mouth. ‘Could’ve killed us. There’s a dozen kids on the site. No warning – nothing. Just set light to the stables.’

Dryden tried an expression of world-weary cynicism – a subtlety lost in the weaving heated air between them. ‘Police didn’t seem to think…’

‘They think we did it to get the insurance. Gonna print that, fella?’

‘Dryden. The name’s Dryden. So… who…?’

‘Never saw ‘em. They stuffed straw from the stables under the caravan as well – didn’t light it. Just a gesture. Nice people.’

‘But the dogs…?’

‘Inside. Cold. They’re pets. They lit the fires and drove off – we heard them reversing on the drove road, looked like a van, a Ford perhaps. We were too busy fighting the fire to follow’

‘All of you too busy?’

This observation was apparently a mistake. Smith came round the fire. Dryden estimated that a blow with the wrench would be fatal – or even a promise to deliver one. The potential weapon had now assumed the proportions of a small fork-lift truck.

‘You’ll want to see the animals.’ He walked off towards the stables and Dryden followed. Inside the straw was burnt and wet. Sprawled innocently in the debris were the charred bodies of two ponies. The smell was pure Salmonella Sid’s – overcooked greasy meat with a hint of burnt toast.

‘Oh shit,’ said Dryden and put his breakfast in the sawdust. When he finished retching and stood up Smith was standing ready with a metal canteen of water.

‘You found them like this?’

‘Nope. If we hadn’t got to them the whole block would have gone up – we’ve got nearly fifty animals. These two had gone down with the fumes. The half-doors had been bolted and a petrol bomb tossed in. Some of the fairground stuff is stored in there – we dragged that out but a lot of it’s trashed.’ Smith looked around and shook his head. ‘Don’t ask me why.’

Dryden couldn’t resist. ‘Why?’

Smith tried a grin. ‘If you want a list of our enemies we’d betta sit down.’

Perhaps the police were right – perhaps they were making it all up for the insurance money.

‘You the owner?’

‘Nope. We just look after it from the fall onwards. Feed the livestock, oil the machines, run ‘em now and again to keep it all moving. Do a bit of painting as well. Circus people come back in February from Ireland, pick her up and off on tour.’

‘So you’re not the insurance policy holder?’

‘Nah. But we’re all in cahoots. Gypsies are like that – ask anyone.’

‘You tour?’

‘Some of us go, work the stalls and the rest. Others stay here – keep an eye on things. Earn an honest dollar.’ He looked Dryden straight in the eyes. He said it again. ‘Honest dollar.’

Dryden started taking his pictures. Smith got two of the kids to pose with some of the charred circus rides – an old merry-go-round and some dodgem cars. Nice pic – very nice pic. A woman who might be the kids’ mother hovered by the caravans tending the fire. If you’d asked the average bigot what a gypsy woman looked like she was the opposite: neatly dressed in designer jeans and trendy sports windcheater. She had short blonde hair and bright cat’s eyes like Joe Smith – and shared his accent without the undercurrent of the Fens.

She inveigled the children into posing for the pictures and smartly slapped one who asked Dryden for a fifty-pence piece for his trouble.

Dryden took a set of pictures for the insurance company showing the extent of the damage. Smith insisted on a shot of the burnt-out stables. Dryden was relieved to get back out again into the fresh, cutting air.

His mobile chirrupped. It was Andy Stubbs. ‘Hi. You OK to talk right now?’

Smith had returned to the fire and was chatting with the children.

‘Yeah. Fire away.’

‘Chummy in the car boot – we’ve found the record that goes with his prints.’

Dryden waited. ‘There’s a link with the body on the roof. The prints were found at the Crossways garage – next to Tommy Shepherd’s on the shop counter. No ID of course, they never found the rest of the gang. But a link.’

Dryden’s imagination wheeled. The body on the cathedral roof was that of the prime suspect for the Crossways robbery. The victim in the boot of the car fished out of the Lark had been there too – but never identified. And the Lark victim died forty-eight hours before his one-time partner in crime Tommy Shepherd was discovered on the cathedral roof.

‘Look, I’ve got an incoming call – better go. You still OK on the photofit story?’

‘I don’t remember saying I was.’

Stubbs’s desperate need for help was becoming cloying. Dryden guessed that he was getting increasingly worried that the tribunal would chuck him out of the force. The station must be full of rumours and most of them would be fuelled by the natural desire of his colleagues to see the golden-boy son of a former deputy chief constable publicly humiliated. Stubbs needed the story to run. And he needed it to run Tuesday morning, so Dryden was his only hope. The local evening wouldn’t touch the story, they’d just want to wait for the photofit itself. And the nationals had already moved on. Dead body found in the Fens. A story on day one. Not much on day two. But Dryden needed to string Stubbs along. He wanted that file. But he could afford to wait, he was holding all the cards. He faked some static on the line and switched the mobile off.

He rejoined Smith at the fire. The gypsy looked happier, so Dryden tried his luck: ‘Ever have anything to do with the camp at Belsar’s Hill, Mr Smith?’

He gave Dryden an old-fashioned look. ‘Some. They buy and sell horses a bit. Why?’

‘I had some news for a family that used to live out there – name of Shepherd?’

‘Common name – same as Smith.’ He let a smile touch his eyes. ‘I can take a message unless you want to go in person.’

‘It’s about someone called Tommy Shepherd – a kid really, teenager. He went missing in the sixties. There might not be anybody left who cares – but his body has been found. Perhaps you might ask if one of the family could give me a ring – on the mobile.’

He scrawled the number on a page of his notebook – Henry’s budget didn’t run to business cards. ‘I’ll drop the pictures by – but you’ll ask at Belsar’s Hill?’

Smith looked to the woman. ‘What do you want me to tell ‘em? Where was he found?’

‘It’s a long story. They found him on the roof of the cathedral – in one of the gutters. He’d been there thirty years – perhaps longer. Suicide the police say – jumped from the West Tower.’

Smith nodded. Went on nodding. Poking the fire.

‘I’ll have more by Monday,’ said Dryden. ‘The autopsy. That kind of thing. They can ring if they want. I can put them in touch with the police who are investigating. If they want.’

Smith nodded by way of goodbye. As Humph’s cab pulled away Dryden watched him in the rear-view mirror. The New York gypsy with the giant wrench watched him back.