The Coldest Blood

As he walked between the chalets the air was as cold as a butcher’s fridge. A North Norfolk Electricity van was already parked in the staff car park beside two squad cars and a police van. Ruth Connor sat in reception, behind the downlit counter, drinking from an espresso cup. Her pale fingers encircled the thin china, and Dryden expected to see it shatter under the suppressed anxiety which radiated from her like a colour. A WPC sat in one of the foyer’s comfy chairs by the internet café, arms folded, with a stare as blank as a bank teller’s. Dryden let his shoulders sag in the sudden damp heat which seeped into the room from the misty heated pool.

Ruth Connor looked up, looked through him, and turned to the WPC. ‘You don’t have to wait, really…’ She caught Dryden’s eye. ‘There’s work to do here, I’ll be fine now.’

As if to prove it they heard a shout from the indoor pool followed by a splash.

The policewoman checked her watch. ‘No problem – I’ll stick around till your partner gets here. About seven thirty you said?’ Dryden noted that apparently some truths may have been told during the night, if not all.

He pulled a high stool up to the reception counter. ‘You all right?’ he said, wanting to hear her talk, wanting to see her struggle to maintain that remarkable façade. She looked like she hadn’t slept, the hair failing for once to divert attention from the spider’s web of wrinkles by her eyes.

She nodded. ‘William’s out with the engineers, at the pylon. We’re going to take a break away; a few days, when the police are done.’

They both tried identical insincere smiles. The phone rang and she grabbed it, her relief palpable as she became immersed in taking down a booking. Dryden was more convinced than ever that she was hiding something, but other than her discreet relationship with William Nabbs he’d got no closer to finding out what it was.

Tyres crunched over snow outside as the Dolphin’s staff minibus edged up to the foyer. Russell Fleet dashed over the tarmac and in through the automatic doors. He swapped a glance with his boss, a nod with Dryden, and headed for the bar.

She finished the call and before Dryden could resume the questions she stood. ‘Excuse me. Russ phoned earlier – I need to get him up to speed – he’ll be running the place for a few days.’

Dryden sat down opposite the WPC, who continued to examine a spot in the mid-distance. Outside, the minibus idled, waiting for its return passengers to Whittlesea and the surrounding villages. Dryden considered his options: for a day at least the Dolphin would be crowded with police, a team working inside the taped-off scene of crime area by the beach, while a separate search was being carried out by frog teams and foot parties across the saltmarsh. DI Parlour, he knew, planned further interviews, and they’d swapped mobile numbers. And then there was DI Reade. But Dryden calculated that a fresh corpse outranked a thirty-year-old miscarriage of justice. The review of Chips Connor’s conviction would have to await the completion of the inquiry into his murder. Dryden’s role, as witness, victim, amateur detective and, for all he knew, suspect, would be central. He didn’t relish being around when DI Parlour discovered just how many details Dryden had left untold, or having to watch the tussle for power in the investigation.

And there was still one place he wanted to go: one central character in the tawdry tale of Paul Gedney who remained a cipher: Elizabeth Lutton, the pharmacist who had made his crime possible and then slipped away from the scandal of Whittlesea Hospital. She was a crucial link to the real story of Chips Connor. Her successor at the hospital had been circumspect. What Dryden desperately needed was a more immediate witness, someone who could tell him how she had felt, who else might have been entangled in their deception, how she’d lived out the rest of her short life. He logged on to one of the screens in the camp’s internet café and punched in her husband’s name. From the website of his private clinic at Lynn he took up a weblink to Whittlesea District Hospital’s outpatients clinic.

‘Bingo,’ he said, waking up the WPC. George Lutton’s NHS clinic ran every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

He took a decision then, and deserted the warm embrace of the Dolphin’s foyer. The minibus was fugged up, the onboard heater gently cooking the only occupant – the driver. Dryden tapped on the window. ‘Sorry, I know this is a bit cheeky – I need to get into Whittlesea – any chance?’

The driver was a middle-aged woman, big-boned with a moon face and a nylon uniform bearing the Dolphin’s blue motif. ‘Sure. At your own risk, mind – we saw three accidents on the way up, and I don’t normally drive this old tub. And these don’t help…’ The windscreen wipers had locked, and the glass was a web of cut-glass ice, like a Victorian fruit bowl.

She passed Dryden a can of de-icer and he sprayed the wipers free, before taking the front passenger seat.