The Coldest Blood

‘Because that’s where your guilt lies Ruth, or part of it. Telling me that you’d not had children because of Chips. That Chips couldn’t. But we found out the truth, didn’t we? You couldn’t give me a family so I found someone who could.

‘And then there was the business,’ he said, kicking the holdall. ‘Why the fuck should I let two wrecked lives stand in my way? I deserved my share. Just because I don’t have the pieces of paper doesn’t mean I don’t deserve my cut. We’d always been agreed on that, Ruth. I paid in blood. I can’t take the family with me, but I can take the money.’

She had a hand to her face and Dryden guessed she was crying, letting his words wound her.

His head was still down, counting in the holdall. ‘How did you make Chips agree to the sale?’

‘I told him it was what I wanted,’ she said, defeated now.

Fleet nodded, standing.

‘Did he have to die too?’ she asked. ‘He came to see me, he wanted to see me. I could have talked. It wasn’t about being sent away, it wasn’t about what happened to him, it was the kids. He told me when I phoned the prison. He wanted to know why we’d done that to them, Russ.’

‘It wasn’t a crime, Ruth.’

Dryden let his fingers bunch in fists, knowing that it was.

‘A bunch of kids. Jesus,’ Fleet said, lighting a cigarette, cupping it so that the flame illuminated the cradle of his fingers. ‘He wanted to see you all right. I found him at the back of the flat, under the fire escape, waiting for you to come home. It would have been a long wait, wouldn’t it? Telling darling William all about it, were you?’

‘He knows now,’ she said.

‘Oh, now– I see. But not till now – a mistake, I think. You didn’t trust him, did you, Ruth? Didn’t trust him with our secrets. It must have been a surprise for him, finding out I wasn’t a partner after all. He’ll remember that. It’s corrosive, distrust; it’ll get you both in the end.’

He unlooped a rope and pushed the dinghy clear. ‘And we were right. It’s been thirty years, but despite what every one of those years has done to my face Chips knew me – knew within seconds. So I said we should talk. We walked here while I explained that we thought it was what he wanted – to go away, to get away from the world. That nobody got hurt that way. We walked here and I took a chance – he was a strong man, Ruth, always was. But I crooked my arm around under his chin and I broke his neck. It echoed, the snap, across the water.’

She stood back then, climbing up onto the bank. ‘Go,’ she said.

Fleet threw a rope into the dinghy. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna become someone else – I’ve done it before. Perhaps I’ll come back one day, for old times’ sake.’ He picked up the starter line for the engine. ‘You’ll know the face.’

47

Russell Fleet pulled the starter cord on the outboard engine in a fluid, practised arc, and a harsh mechanical whine filled the night. He left without looking back, guiding the dinghy out into the main channel, skirting the clumps of reeds which crowded the banks, while the sky flickered still with the arcing electric sparks from the overhead wires.

Somewhere, lost now, Dryden could hear Ruth Connor running, the rigid frozen reeds snapping, her breath rasping. He ran too, trying to keep in touch with her sound, and they emerged together, above the old sluice, on the high dune above the chalets.

‘He’s gone,’ she said, knowing Dryden was there. She pulled a hood in close to her face and looked inland where the twin red and green lights of the dinghy crept along the channels of the marsh towards the river. Blood, black in the moonlight, trickled from the corner of her mouth where Marcie Sley had hit her.

‘Not yet,’ said Dryden. ‘Where will he go? The same place he went that summer? How long was he away?’

She shivered. ‘You can’t prove anything. Not about me.’ She took a step away, then another, trying to be alone.

‘Where?’ asked Dryden again, following.

‘Two years. Abroad – travelling. He sent cards. Norway, Sweden – heat was bad for his eyes, after the operation. I said I’d wait and I did.’

Dryden nodded, recalling the expert skater glimpsed through the porthole of PK 129. ‘That’s why he needed the passport,’ he said. ‘Distinguishing features: a zigzag scar.’

They heard the outboard engine surge as the dinghy reached clearer water.

‘I didn’t think he’d do that,’ she said. ‘With the knife. It always scared me; he’d do anything to have a life like other people – he just didn’t realize other people aren’t like that.’

‘I heard it,’ said Dryden, stepping closer. ‘That night, the cry of pain.’

‘I know. I know you’re Philip. Russ said he’d seen a picture on your boat. He’d gone out to check you over, knowing you wouldn’t drop the case, wondering why, and he said you had that picture – the one with the blood. He said there was a snapshot as well. A child in the sun, by the pool. And Petulengo had a snapshot at home too, the four of you. A match.’