The Coldest Blood

Dryden walked down the centre of the road in the Capri’s headlights until he was level with the farm track. As he walked away from the main road and the comforting lights of the cab he was aware for the first time that the temperature had dropped further – into unknown territory. Pressing a finger to his cheek he felt the skin, hard and numb, and a dull pain had begun to grip his throat. The farmland around him was open and featureless under the moon, except for a single magnolia, unseen from the road, bent over an oval of starlit pond. Soon he was amongst the poplars skirting the house, and he could see the 4x4 parked amongst farm buildings to the rear. By a security light Dryden could see Sley on his back on the trolley again, retrieving whatever he’d stashed beneath the car.

This was the moment Dryden always dreaded: the tipping point between his life as an objective recorder and the less familiar role of active participant. Life for him often seemed to be something to watch. But now he knew he would learn nothing more unless he took an active role himself. The thought made his guts twist.

He was within six feet of the 4x4 when the sound of his footfalls alerted Sley to his presence.

‘Joe?’ said the voice under the car, untroubled.

‘Don’t think so,’ said Dryden, dropping down on his haunches.

Sley slid out without a smile, turning an oily rag in his hands like a garrotte.

Dryden, aware he might have made an error of heroic proportions, glanced back at the main road where he feared Humph would now be sleeping soundly. He regretted the Interpol joke, like almost all his jokes.

‘Sorry. It’s me again. We were passing and I saw your 4x4. I’ve seen it before.’

He’d said it quickly, crossing the line before he had a chance to retreat. Sley stood, one huge hand holding a metal box retrieved from under the chassis, which he folded into a green baize cloth he held in the other. Dryden was struck by the odd contrast, between the bony mass of the man’s hands and the deft, almost delicate, precision of the fingers. Silence was clearly a medium he was happy with so Dryden carried on. ‘On police CCTV. Someone’s been peddling cannabis to the kids. How’s the dog?’ he asked, nodding at the meshed interior of the rear of the vehicle.

‘Hungry,’ said Sley, glancing at the house still lit up in the darkness. The lights on the Christmas tree in the window seemed to tremble. ‘Look…’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’ve got no idea what this is about…’

But Dryden knew he was lying. He’d have thrown him out if this didn’t make sense.

‘You grow it in the long shed at the allotments. Force it, I guess – then plant it out in the summer? That’d be it. I saw the red light – that’s sodium. And the blue? Mercury-iodide. There was case up in crown court last year. Very sophisticated. I’m just kinda interested in why, that’s all. To kids. How much you make?’

Sley twisted the cloth again. ‘Look, I’ve got to get on…’

Dryden turned again and with relief saw that Humph was out of the cab, standing in the headlights firing the tennis machine ball down the deserted lane for Boudicca to fetch.

‘That’s my oppo. He knows why I’m here. The police have the film, and we know where the stuff was grown. If you’re planning on bluffing I think that’s a big mistake.’

Sley opened one of his huge hands and revealed the metal box. ‘I need to get this to Joe.’

‘Joe,’ said Dryden. ‘Declan’s mate, right? Another customer? A bit mature for your market, surely, he must be fifty if he’s a day.’

Sley stepped a foot closer. ‘He’s forty-one. But he won’t make forty-two. Cancer – larynx. You should hear him talk.’

Dryden shrugged. ‘I was looking forward to it. Marcie said she’d pass on my number. But no go, eh?’

‘We left messages,’ said Sley. ‘But the illness is bad right now.’

‘What’s that to me?’ asked Dryden, sensing that he’d been expertly hooked into the trap of empathy.

‘That’s why we grew the cannabis,’ he said, getting out a packet of Marlboro and lighting one up. The ash at the end, after the first deep draw, was the same colour as his hair.

‘Joe started it on the allotment, when he knew the pain was coming. But the supply never stretched through that first winter. That really scared him, and he was too ill to plant again in spring, and he’d bought this place. So I took over the shed: it’s not difficult stuff to grow if you get the gear, and there’s guides on the net. He needs the supply, he needs to know it’s there. This year was good – you know, the wet spring, the clear summer. There’s a surplus so… it got sold.’

He slammed the door of the 4x4 and the echo ran round the Fen, bouncing back off a brick-built pumping station half a mile to the east. A dog barked four times, rhythmically, and was quiet.

‘Why don’t you come with me?’ said Sley, walking off towards the house. ‘Meet the customer.’