The Coldest Blood

Laura’s auburn hair lay in a fan on the pillowcase. He lay down beside her and ran his fingers through it, smelling the rich natural scent of the oil, as pungent as a child’s.

‘Why do you think some kids never get adopted? They spend their whole lives in foster homes, or care. I guess it’s like animals – people always want the perfect one, the youngest one, the one they can mould themselves. They don’t want a history, they don’t want issues.’ That word again.

The COMPASS jumped into life, the roll of paper clattering as it fed out of the computer printer.

HOLIDAY PLEASE.

She never said please. Dryden sensed that she felt the word was too much; a symbol of dependency and need.

‘Of course. I’m sorry. It’s just so cold, and we can’t go far. A cottage, perhaps – the coast, like we said? How about one with an Aga?’

There was silence then, and he knew this was a reproach, for making her plead, and for failing to disguise his reluctance – a reluctance which sprang not from any rational fear, but from anxiety about what might happen if he took his wife away from The Tower. The leaving in itself would be good for them both, even if it suggested the possibility of not returning.

22

Humph dropped him on the riverbank, where the ice was now thick and pitted with the tracks of pebbles and stones pitched across its surface. A pair of ungainly swans strolled in midstream like cowboys. Dryden walked south past the Maltings and the Cutter Inn to a terrace of Victorian houses which looked out over the watermeadows. At the end of the row was a boathouse, the temporary HQ of the Fen Skating Association. The ground floor had originally housed the boats, while upstairs there was a balcony outside a function room behind a single picture window. Here Dryden had watched the Cambridge crew in training the previous year during a press event before the annual Varsity boat race, a memory clouded by six large glasses of Pimm’s No. 1 sucked through a straw.

The wooden doors which ran the entire length of the boat-house frontage were shut, leaving a small wicket gate as the only entry point. Inside, trestle tables had been set up between the low-hanging boats, piled high with skater registration forms. The space was crowded with men in Christmas sweaters and other assorted festive knitwear. Fluorescent yellow stewards’ jackets hung in lines, above a rank of metal lanterns. There was a small kitchen at the rear and soup was being decanted into thermos flasks. Dryden found Ed Bardolph unwrapping loudhailers from a packing case.

Dryden shook his hand. ‘Ed.’

Bardolph’s face was flushed with the cold and adrenaline, and the room buzzed with childlike excitement.

‘The river’s nearly solid,’ said Dryden.

Bardolph nodded, checking a small oven crammed with heating pies. ‘Should be safe by 8.00pm we reckon. We might try and rerun the long-distance race to Cambridge. They did it in ’63.’

‘Time?’

‘Late. Maybe midnight. We could wait a day but the forecast is not 100 per cent – there’s warm air up there, if it touches ground level we could lose the lot and freezing rain would ruin the ice.’

‘I’m sorry…’ said Dryden, stepping closer. ‘I’ve got some bad news that you may not have heard yet. Can we talk… in private?’

They climbed the stairs. Bardolph had clearly been dividing his time between his real job and his passion, and had set up an impromptu office on the bar in the function room complete with fax, laptop, mobile charger, and file case.

‘I can work pretty much anywhere,’ he said, as if trying to convince himself. ‘And we only get the weather once in a blue moon.’

They went out on to the balcony. The view across the frozen Fen was breathtaking, a living Dutch masterpiece of gliding figures.

‘It’s Joe Petulengo, Declan’s friend. He’s dead.’

‘What?’ Bardolph leaned back against the low balcony rail.

‘An accident, probably. Out at his farm. He fell, into water, and froze to death.’

‘Jesus,’ said Bardolph. ‘That’s dreadful. You know the link…’

Dryden nodded. ‘Petulengo was one of the victims of abuse at St Vincent’s – like Declan. They grew up together, in care. Did you meet him?’

‘No – never. I didn’t talk to Declan about the case either – except right at the start. It’s difficult. I work for the social services department and they were likely to end up in the dock too over St Vincent’s… but Declan was my client. I advised him to see a third party before agreeing to give evidence against the diocese – a colleague from outside the county. We played it by the book.’

‘I didn’t say you didn’t,’ said Dryden. ‘So what’s Chips Connor got to do with it?’

‘Connor! How…?’ Bardolph looked out over the frozen Fen, knocking his gloved fists together in frustration. ‘Look. Wait there.’

He went inside and Dryden could see him rifling through the box folders, before returning with a single Manila file. ‘You need to understand,’ he said, ‘the two cases are linked.’ He retrieved some reading glasses and scanned the first page of the file.