The Coldest Blood

Ware produced a heavy-duty police-issue torch and lit a circle around his boots. Across the gravel was the clear trail of the victim’s body, the central furrow of the torso, the intermittent scuffs where the elbows had levered his weight forward.

They left the path and walked on the grass towards the mirrored surface of the pond, shattered now by the hole at its edge. Sharp shards were thrust up from the impact, refracting the moonlight into a jagged spectrum of cold rainbows.

The hole had frozen over but the star was clear to see.

Ware stood, his arms crossed over his chest, his hands in his armpits. ‘Looks like he fell in. He used to sit here.’ He touched the iron seat. ‘You can see the slip marks along the edge.’

It was true, Dryden acknowledged it with a nod. ‘Suicide?’

‘He’d talked about it,’ said Sley. ‘I asked Richard to keep an eye on the place – but you know, if he’d decided, what could we do? He might have tried, changed his mind, crawled back to the house.’

A single flashing blue light caught everyone’s attention at the same moment. It was a mile distant, slipping easily across the night like a ship’s light at sea.

‘I’ll meet them,’ said Ware, setting off quickly back towards the house. ‘Keep off the gravel and don’t touch anything.’

Sley didn’t move and Dryden knew why. They watched in silence as a satellite crossed the sky, horizon to horizon in an elegant curve.

‘How much of the dope have you got left?’ asked Dryden.

‘Not much. Joe’s supply until the first harvest of spring, I guess.’

‘Why did you need the money?’

Sley didn’t answer.

‘Destroy it. Strikes me you’ve got a bumper surplus now your friend’s dead. Just burn it. The police are giving us updates. Any stuff appears on the street I’ll go straight to the station – OK?’

Sley turned to the house where the ambulance had parked by the front porch.

‘And I want a lift back into town – we need to talk some more,’ said Dryden, troubled now by a double coincidence he didn’t trust: two deaths by ice, two regulars from the Gardeners’ Arms.

He told Humph to go home and went round to the kitchen door. Ware was in the living room, overcoat off, perched on a double radiator. A phone stood on the window ledge and the PC pressed PLAY for messages.

‘Message timed 11.15am Thursday, 29th of December.’

‘Joe? It’s Marcie. We hope you’re feeling better. They said at work you’d taken a few days. Look, it’s really important you ring me, Joe; there’s some news. Some bad news. I can’t just leave a message. Ring please.’

There were two messages and he hit PLAY again.

‘Message timed 6.45pm, Friday, 30th of December.’

‘Joe. Marcie. John’s coming out tonight to see you, OK? But if you get this and are feeling well enough, ring me – the mobile’s on.’

‘Did he ring?’

Sley shook his head.

‘So. That fits. There’s every chance he was dead by the time the messages were left,’ said Ware.

Dryden went back to the kitchen and began picking his way through the paper in the recycling bin: bills, junk mail, some typed business letters from the bank.

The kitchen units were modern, the oven hi-tech. But like the rest of the house the room felt unused, a showcase. A single plate and mug stood on the draining board, a black recycling bin full of paper by the back door.

Ware came through. ‘I should lock up.’

Dryden stood, kicking the bin with his shoe. ‘Odd. When does the council pick up recycled paper round here?’

Ware joined him by the bin. ‘Today.’

‘A week’s worth of rubbish but no newspapers,’ said Dryden.

Ware nodded: ‘And there is something missing,’ he said, turning back to the living room. ‘I’m sure there was another picture on the mantle. He’d picked himself out once when I asked – a faded snapshot from the seaside. This bunch of kids, smiling…’

16

A sky like an army blanket hid the stars. In High Park Flats a single bathroom light shone coldly out, joined only by a solitary string of Christmas lights trailing from a window ledge. Sley parked the 4x4 by the entrance to the allotments and killed the engine, checking his watch.

‘Two minutes past closing time precisely,’ he said. ‘I need a drink.’

Beyond the fluorescent lights of the car park the darkness lingered amongst the bean posts and frost-bitten furrows and Dryden stumbled several times as they picked their way towards the dull gleam of the stove pipe. Once, looking back, he saw a pair of car headlights swing into the shadow of the flats, then die.

Sley, playing a torch at his feet, found a log pile and collected an armful of kindling and wood, balancing it expertly with a splayed hand while inserting a key in the door of the Gardeners’ Arms.

Inside, the smell of drying fruit was intoxicating, the sweetness of apples mingling with the fusty aroma of yeast from the home brew. Sley stooped by the stove and quickly lit a fire, leaving the glazed door open to light the room. Something rustled in the corner, like an autumn leaf.