The Coldest Blood

‘And then along came William Nabbs,’ said Dryden.

‘Yeah – but he wasn’t the first. That’s the school…’ she said, nodding to the side of the road where a set of iron railings ran beside a playground. ‘Whittlesea Catholic High School. That’s where they all met.’

Dryden was surprised the school was open. Children played, wrapped in scarves and hats. One enterprising teenager was sledging down a frozen grass slope onto the tarmac. As a bell rang he imagined the three of them, a group apart, their heads together, planning.

42

The entrance to Whittlesea District Hospital was an echoing cavern of Victorian marble marred by ill-disguised wiring and a large poster exhorting patients to save your local hospital. The Grecian bust still stood, eyes blank, and dust-covered. On one wall the faded colour picture of Elizabeth Lutton hung, the smile still wavering. Dryden dwelt on the white blonde hair, thinking of the bodies entwined in the morning sunlight of the dunes thirty summers earlier. Today the bitter cold had seeped into the hall and somewhere Dryden could hear the trickling of a burst pipe. The WRVS had a stall selling tea and biscuits and he asked for directions to the weekly clinic. Out through A&E, where a single elderly patient sat holding a bloody home-made bandage to his ear, he followed a broken path of sand across the tarmac to a Portakabin. By the ramp up to its doors stood a board.

WHITTLESEA CLINIC.

Clinics morning: 9.15am to 12.15pm. Clinics afternoon: 1.15pm to 3.15pm.

TODAY: Cataract Clinic: Mr Lutton. Medical photography: appointment only. Blood Donors Clinic – all day (Caxton Road Site).

Inside the Portakabin three rows of plastic seats stood empty. In the two far corners paraffin heaters had been lit, scenting the air. The sound of the door closing brought a nurse out from behind a partition.

‘Mr Lutton?’ asked Dryden. She took Dryden into a consulting room which was also empty.

‘Mr Lutton’s just at the pharmacy – he’ll be five minutes. Take a seat.’

Dryden examined the wall, covered with medical information posters. He winced at the sight of a set of photos illustrating the onset of cataracts. In the final one a blanched retina swam in an eyeball marbled with tiny blood vessels.

Dryden considered what he’d learnt about the human triangle which had been Ruth Henry, Chips Connor and Paul Gedney. Childhood friends in a small Fen town. Ruth leaves school and goes to work in her father’s business, and as his final illness deepens, she takes over the day-to-day management of the Dolphin. Chips Connor, handsome, cheerful, and in love, follows her out to the coast. Perhaps they were happy, but somewhere in the background is an unfinished affair with Paul Gedney. Then comes Chips’ accident, and his retreat into childhood and manic insecurity. For the young Ruth Henry – a beauty queen and an heiress – it must have been an almost insupportable blow – to be chained for life to a man she would have struggled not to despise.

Dryden covered his eyes and let the cool palms heal the soreness beneath.

A phone rang on Lutton’s desk and Dryden jumped. He considered the coming interview without relish. What did he know about Mr George Lutton, consultant ophthalmic surgeon? Paul Gedney’s drug-pilfering scam relied on falsified records. Elizabeth Lutton had been the pharmacist at the time Gedney had committed his crimes. The police had gone after Gedney, but she’d been allowed to take early retirement. If Gedney had been found, would his testimony have implicated others? Was it a good enough reason to see him dead? When, and how, had Elizabeth Lutton died?

Impatient, Dryden stood again, and scanned the wall posters. One showed an eye, bulging out in diagram, incisions marked at the side.

Graves Disease, read the caption: It can be treated.

You’d never forget the eyes: it’s what everyone had said. Dryden began to read the small print but the Portakabin shook suddenly as someone climbed the outside steps.

George Lutton was the wrong side of 15 stone, a bow tie accentuating the stretched white shirt over his stomach. His face was hairless and his cheeks had livid red spots, as if the exercise of crossing the hospital yard had been a significant challenge.

He crashed into his chair and adjusted his glasses.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, reading a note, and immediately began to pack away pen and documents into an attaché case. ‘I’m sorry. I know you rang but I really can’t help you now. Elizabeth and I separated in ’78. As you know, she died in ’89; she’d been ill for several years. By that time she had a new family, and so did I. So you see…’

‘It was about Paul Gedney.’

Lutton stood, taking an overcoat down from a wooden hat stand. ‘Indeed. But I don’t want to talk about Paul Gedney, Mr Dryden.’

‘I’m sorry, it’s just I’ve never understood why your wife got involved.’

Lutton froze. ‘It’s almost impossible to slander the dead, Mr Dryden, but be careful. Involved in what?’