The Fire Baby

I know these requests are onerous and may seem baffling to you but please carry them out without change or delay. I would wish the story you write to appear after my funeral, the details of which I have set out separately for Estelle and Lyndon.

And one final request. The memorial stone marking the site of the 1976 crash carries Matty’s name. I have no wish for it to be removed, but please see to it that Lyndon Koskinski’s is added. My solicitors will find the sum of £100 in my will to cover the costs of the stonemason. I shall lie in the same graveyard as that child, whom I wronged so completely. I shall have to deal with the consequences of that if, as I hope, there is life after my death.

Your loving friend, who will always be in your debt

Margaret Alexandra Beck

Witnessed by John R. R. Gillies, solicitor

1 May 2003

13

Nothing moved on the Jubilee Estate except the burglars returning home after a good Friday night’s work. Kettles whistled and pots brewed as bags of third-rate jewellery and fourth-rate silver were excitedly examined by bedside lamps. Outside No. 29 Wissey Way Humph had parked by his own front gate and, flipping open the glove compartment of the cab, he exhibited no desire to travel the last three yards to his own front door.

Dryden was equally overcome by the need to go nowhere. Humph passed him a bottle of Bell’s whisky and then switched off the interior light. This was a minor ritual in their relationship, allowing them to view the world outside without being seen themselves.

A white cat with a collar that sparkled like the glitter-ball in a cheap dancehall selected the middle of Humph’s blistered lawn to expel a sizeable pond of piss, the black creeping lake expanding stealthily several feet in all directions. On the other side of the road a couple shouted at each other beneath a bare lightbulb in an upstairs bedroom.

‘… fucking Cymbeline…’ shouted the man. But surely not, thought Dryden.

Humph tried to weigh up whether Dryden’s silence was due to Maggie Beck’s death, but as he was silent most nights it was a difficult call. ‘Nice old girl then,’ he said eventually, judging the moment badly.

‘Yeah,’ said Dryden, swigging the tiny bottle and accepting another. He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. He told Humph about Maggie’s confession. ‘But there was more, I think, something else…’

‘Perhaps it’s on the tapes,’ said Humph, who knew as much about Dryden’s present life as the reporter did himself.

‘The tapes,’ said Dryden. ‘I guess they’re Estelle’s. Yes. You’re right. It must be on the tapes.’ Dryden had given Maggie a tape recorder to let her tell at last the story of her life, and to encourage her to talk out loud for Laura’s benefit. He’d never imagined the result would be a vital testament, a key, even, to the real mystery of Black Bank: Why had Maggie Beck given her son to strangers?

He stretched out his legs and took out the letter, handing it to Humph. Then he took out that night’s section of tickertape torn off the COMPASS machine. As he read each foot of the tape he passed it over to Humph, tearing it off along the dotted lines. The cabbie was a crossword puzzler of strictly limited ability, but Dryden valued the double check. If he ever missed anything he could always blame Humph. He read the first take and passed it over, wordlessly, to the cabbie.

DHFVIUROIF SUFJJF SUFT DKJOO J J INDIGA

FGJGF

SHFDUTH ABABYGHTUKDN FHGFHFO SHOSJ

Dryden searched in his jacket pocket for the chocolate bar he had bought earlier that day.

Humph squirmed in his seat. ‘A baby?’

‘Maggie said she swapped the kids on the night of the Black Bank air crash. The one that survived – the Yank pilot – is her son.’

‘Jesus!’ said Humph, actually turning in his seat. ‘How does Laura know?’

Dryden considered this: ‘I guess she heard Maggie using the tape recorder. If that’s the baby Laura means.’