The Coldest Blood

Humph licked the chip paper as Dryden considered the implications of Ruth Connor’s nocturnal stroll along the beach. He was hardly surprised she’d found solace somewhere, perhaps anywhere, after thirty years of virtual widowhood, but he wondered how much Chips Connor had been told.

But first he had some more questions for Father John Martin. Urgent questions: and this time he wasn’t going to let him dodge those questions down a telephone line. ‘Let’s go home for a bit,’ said Dryden. ‘St Vincent’s – Lane End.’

Paul Gedney’s foster mother had been buried a Catholic and her fostered son had been in care in Ely sometime in the sixties. It seemed that St Vincent’s might be more central to the story of Chips Connor than Dryden could ever have guessed. He wondered what else Father Martin had seen fit to keep from the reporter, on the convenient pretext of protecting other people’s interests.

They sped south, a miniature motorcar on a giant Monopoly board, untroubled by any variation in height or direction, across the reclaimed miles of the Great Soak, a journey calibrated by the passing shells of forgotten windmills. At one point they passed a sign on the roadside: ‘Cabbage 20 miles’– the kind of detail that made Dryden revel in the landscape. Ten miles from the edge of the city Humph swung the cab out to overtake a tractor and, untroubled, stayed in the middle of the road for a mile, whistling tunelessly.

Dryden’s mobile rang, and noting that the number was unknown he flipped it open.

‘Mr Dryden? This is Mr Holme’s secretary – I’ll put you through.’

Dryden heard an old-fashioned purp-purp of a desk phone ringing. ‘Mr Dryden? I’m glad I’ve caught you. Thank you for your message. Can you talk?’

Dryden looked out on the limitless expanse of black peat, calculating swiftly what he should say. ‘Sure.’

‘You have our witness, I understand. Clearly I need to interview him, perhaps informally at the first meeting. Can we do that?’

‘I think so, yes. I need to talk to him, of course – but I can’t see a problem. Can I ask if you’ve told anyone else about my call?’

‘Er. Well, my client, of course, is Chips Connor, but I don’t feel it would be appropriate just now – the fact that we were forced to drop the petition to appeal was a great disappointment. He’s a fragile character – as I understand you may appreciate. A visit, I’m told.’

‘Yes. I see. Not Chips. But his wife, then. You’ve told her?’

‘Indeed. I think that’s best for now.’ Dryden had banked on the news filtering out; if the killer was close he needed to flush him – or her – into open country.

He looked out of the cab’s passenger window at the limitless horizon. ‘I’ll get back to you,’ he said. ‘You’ll want him to come to the office, I take it?’

‘Ideally. But we could come to him, if that’s an issue.’

Dryden said he’d ring and killed the signal, shivering. They’d arrived: Lane End was deserted, the only movement a sluggish line of black smoke trickling out of a chimney pot in the single crescent of council semis. Three children, hands linked, skated on shoes down the drain which ran beside the road.

The presbytery door was opened by the novice with the purple and gold football scarf. ‘He’s not in,’ he said, before Dryden had spoken.

‘Tell him I’ve come about Paul Gedney. He’d be really pissed off to miss me.’ Dryden noted that the profanity brought some colour to the young priest’s face, and an unattractive hardening to his eyes. Dryden hoped his first parish would be poor and violent, somewhere so bad nobody could believe the statistics.

Dryden stood on the step, daring the novice to shut the door in his face. They heard a light footfall in the hall beyond and Father Martin appeared, dabbing his mouth with a linen serviette by way of apology. ‘Daniel didn’t know I was in my room. Come in, come in…’

The hallway was familiar to Dryden: identikit Catholic interior decor from the seventies. A cold tiled floor was scrubbed clean, an ugly telephone sat on an MFI table, a hatstand hung heavy with overcoats. On the wall Christ exposed his Sacred Heart, and a landscape shot of the Connemara Mountains hung in a heavy dark wood frame, the colour leached out by light. The house reeked of Pledge edged with incense. There was also a strong aroma of stewed tea, the tannin obscuring something less wholesome, something a lifetime past its sell-by date.

‘Please…’ They climbed the stairs and crossed a landing creaking with lino, to a study bedroom. The bed was a single, neat as a prayer, and made up by someone who did it for a living. The desk faced the window looking towards the ruin of St Vincent’s. On the leather blotter stood a glass of milk and what looked like a cheese sandwich made, Dryden guessed, by the same professional hands which had produced the bed’s crisp hospital corners.