The Coldest Blood

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘As you said, we’ve got a joker pretending to be a plumber, but that’s just the older semis on the edge of town. He’s never touched a flat. That’s pretty rare, of course; there’s less to filch and it’s much more difficult to get away quickly in one of those blocks if the con fails and they get sussed. High Park is not a good place to upset the natives.’

Dryden nodded. ‘Declan McIlroy had a visitor the night he died. I’m pretty sure it was a bogus doctor – he took in the old folks next door as well.’

‘Get away with anything?’ asked Reade, making a note.

Dryden shook his head: ‘Perhaps the motive wasn’t theft.’

Reade sat at the PC and keyed in some instructions. He read quickly, then gave Dryden a sympathetic look: ‘Not much suspicious about McIlroy’s death,’ he said. ‘Lonely guy, history of mental illness, neighbours heard nothing. Inquest was this morning.’

Dryden felt a hot spate of anger. ‘Shit – that was quick. What’s the hurry?’

Reade straightened. ‘It was today or wait a week – nobody objected. We like to expedite such matters.’ He blushed, knowing he’d tried to fob them off with a long word.

‘Verdict?’

‘Misadventure. Death by hypothermia, but he had enough booze in him to knock out a rugby team plus a dangerous level of painkillers.’

‘Any witnesses called?’

Reade was shaking his head. ‘Oh. Yeah – there was. Social worker. Ed Bardolph, and a relation – sister.’

Dryden’s spirits rose. He knew Bardolph, and he knew where he’d be.

‘Thanks. I’ll have a chat, I know Ed. Look, I know you’re stretched but I really think this case is worth a second look. There’s been an intruder at the flat as well – the dead man’s flat, today. The neighbour, Mr Timms, can fill you in. A visit would pay dividends.’

Reade nodded vigorously. ‘That’s one of the problems with the Jubilee. Anything left empty gets stripped pretty quick. I’ll get the community man to pop in, no problem. I’d better take some details as well…’

Dryden nodded, knowing he’d been brushed off. But for once it suited him. He’d done his duty and reported both incidents; if DI Reade didn’t want to take it seriously, that was fine by him. He’d ring on Monday to check any progress but as it stood he could legitimately write a story saying that police were investigating the bogus caller and any possible links with Declan McIlroy’s death.

Reade made a note of the facts on the bogus caller and the intruder and got Dryden’s signature on both. They left the detective shuffling paper, searching for his coffee mug. The automatic doors at the front counter swished open, expelling them into the cold air, and above them the starlings rose as on a single wing.

12

Dryden walked down towards the river from Market Square. He wrapped his oversized black coat around him, the buttons and buttonholes overlapping across his narrow chest. Across the Fen a snow squall smudged the black horizon like an artist’s finger, while in the foreground skaters criss-crossed the frozen watermeadows watched by a scattered crowd lifted wholesale from a Brueghel landscape.

At the foot of the hill lay the district of Waterside, a collection of warehouses and cottages which had grown up alongside the river’s wharves. Beyond that lay the frozen river. Dryden noted that the ice here was patchy and floated in rafts, unlike the solid white crust that had encircled PK 129 upriver. But even here, despite the tidal ebb and flow provided by the sluice gates downstream, thicker pack ice was creeping out from the banks. By dusk the ice would be solid from shore to shore.

Dryden crossed the river by a steel footbridge as a single rower passed beneath, swaddled in jumpers, heading quickly for the sanctuary of a boathouse, the skiff’s hull nudging aside miniature icebergs. On the far bank lay Quanea Fen, a skaters’ paradise, lit by a low sun just now breaking through a bank of clouds. The temperature had fallen below minus 6 degrees centigrade for three consecutive nights – the official stipulation before a championship skating event could be held in safety. Sympathetic farmers had opened the field sluices to flood the Fen, preparing the vast arena for the event. Ice already covered the two-inch-deep man-made mere, creating the perfect venue for the championship – a solid steel-grey surface several times bigger than any Olympic rink.