The Coldest Blood

‘Philip Dryden,’ he said, as she pulled out onto the coast road and then almost immediately turned south on the long road to Whittlesea. ‘So, if you don’t normally drive, what do you do?’

‘I’m Muriel,’ she said. ‘I run the cleaners, chambermaids.’ She let a silence lengthen that threatened to last the whole journey. ‘Muriel Coverack – it’s Cornish.’

On the dashboard was a bunch of keys attached to a key ring in the form of a small plastic photo frame: two children, teenage girls, leered into the camera, clutching each other.

Dryden tapped it. ‘Yours?’

‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Sister’s. But they come for the hols.’

Dryden nodded, sensing the presence of a lonely life.

She checked the rear-view again. ‘You’re the one with the wife – in the wheelchair. We don’t clean those chalets without a call first – perhaps tomorrow? We’ll be really quick.’

‘Sure. Thanks.’

Another silence in which Dryden imagined sympathy welling up. ‘So, what happened?’ she asked, embarrassed too. ‘There was something on the local radio – we all heard it on the way. Russ said it was Chips – that he’d been found on the beach. That right?’

‘Sure. I found him, actually – someone broke his neck.’ He nodded inappropriately, realizing that the image of Chips’ contorted hand, reaching out from the water, had haunted him since he’d woken that morning. He still felt cold from the night, and began to shiver violently.

Muriel turned up the heating. ‘There’s a rug on the seat behind – use it. You seen a doctor? It might be shock.’

Dryden put the blanket round his shoulders and told her as much as he could, spinning out the story so that he could try and win something back in return. They drove south across the Fens, the thirty miles to Whittlesea like a trek across the Great Plains.

‘Odd place, the Dolphin,’ he said eventually, as they edged over a crossroads where the traffic lights were out. ‘Decent job though?’

She nodded. ‘Might all be over soon.’

Dryden turned in his seat. ‘Why’s that?’

‘They’re gonna sell it, aren’t they? Russ says no when we ask. But last year they had the agents in, and last week they was back. They had guests over Christmas, too – showed them round. They’ll do it this time.’

Dryden nodded, remembering something odd. ‘Russell always catch the bus in, does he? No car?’

She shrugged. ‘Jean drives – I’ve never seen Russ behind the wheel. We pick him up at Sea’s End every morning – six thirty. Hasn’t missed a day in twenty years.’

‘Settled, then?’

‘Yeah – yeah. They’ve been together nearly as long now. The kids are smart – hardly kids, really. Twins – teenagers. Nice family. Everyone has a row now and then though, don’t they?’ she added.

Dryden nodded, thinking of Laura again, thinking how wonderful it would be to have a row. When he’d got back to the chalet he’d caught some sleep in a chair and made breakfast as dawn broke. They’d eaten something together: coffee and a milky cereal. He’d gone to shave and when he got back she’d written something on the COMPASS.

YOU PROMISED. IT’S TIME.

He’d made so many promises, but he knew all too well which one she wanted him to keep. He’d lit the propane heater, set it on low, just in case the heating failed while he was out. He’d smelt it then, the smell of heated gas, burning innocently. He could have blown the flame out with a kiss, letting the deadly gas fill the chalet.

He looked out of the minibus window through the circular porthole he’d cleared and saw the black peat, a blur to the horizon. ‘So you go back that far, do you – twenty years? Is that when Russ arrived?’

‘Oh no, I can beat that,’ she said, creeping past a police car parked near where a lorry had slewed off the road and into the dyke. The container stuck up at a crazy angle, the cab embedded in the bank.

‘I started work at the Dolphin in ’69. Chambermaid. I worked for Ruth’s father – John Henry. I’m the boss now – twenty staff. I’m running the bus because the driver didn’t make it.’

Dryden swung round in his seat. Other than Ruth Connor she was the first person he’d found who could recall the camp before the murder of Paul Gedney.

‘What was he like – the old man, John Henry?’

‘Nothing like her,’ she said, and realizing she’d said too much, she made a show of concentrating on an L-driver ahead on the icy road.

‘She’s a cool customer,’ said Dryden, as lightly as he could. ‘It was ’75, wasn’t it – when Chips was jailed? I’ve been in to see him – nice guy. What did people think?’

She checked the rear-view again. ‘Russ said you were a reporter.’

Dryden looked out of the window. ‘That’s right. But I’m off duty. You know there were two witnesses who could have got Chips freed – kids at the camp in ’74. They were friends of mine. I was here too that summer. I was just a kid.’

‘Thanks. Now I feel ancient.’

‘Sorry,’ said Dryden, smiling into the rear-view. His eyes were tired, and his shock of black hair flattened on one side where he’d slept heavily back at the chalet.