The Fire Baby

Ms Beck, then 16, walked out of the wreckage of the farm, where both her parents were killed, carrying the baby. She said her own two-week-old son Matty had died with the rest of her family.

But on Friday night at The Tower Hospital, Ely, Mrs Beck told close relatives, shortly before her death, that she had swapped the children.

After the crash her son was flown to the US and brought up by the parents of the US pilot who died in the crash – Major Jim Koskinski.

The boy – Lyndon Koskinski – became a pilot in the US Air Force and, having kept in touch since the 1976 crash, was visiting the Beck family home when his mother fell seriously ill with cancer.

He was at her bedside when she died.

Major Koskinski is on leave from the USAF after active service in Iraq, where he was forced to bail out of his aircraft while patrolling the no-fly zone in January and spent two months in a Baghdad gaol before coalition forces liberated the city.

He spoke exclusively to the Express about his feelings.

‘I’m a US pilot. That’s my life. This doesn’t change anything, shouldn’t change anything. I do feel cheated and angry. And lost. I can’t imagine why she did it. We never had a chance to speak.

‘Yes, I’m confused. Who wouldn’t be? I’ve just visited my own grave,’ he said. It now appears the grave marked Matty Beck at St Matthew’s Church, Black Bank, is that of Lyndon Koskinski.

Dryden, who’d decided to leave his notebook in his pocket during his discussion with Lyndon, made the quotes up. He didn’t so much rely on his own memory as the poor memories of others.

Military police at USAF Mildenhall will be investigating the original crash records to see how Mrs Beck was able to fool doctors and officials at the time.

Ely police will be informed of the confession and will have to re-open the inquest into the reported death of Matty Beck in 1976. But detectives indicated that they are unlikely to take the case any further, given the length of time involved and the death of Mrs Beck.

Before her death Mrs Beck left instructions that the father of Matty Beck should be allowed to contact his son now that the truth had been told about the events at Black Bank in 1976.

She has made provision for him to inherit a sum of £5,000 if he contacts solicitors Gillies & Wright of Ely. They are in a position to verify his claim.

Dryden re-read it once, made some small changes, and filed it to the news-desk computer basket with a note attached to make sure the subs left the last two paragraphs. He would track the story down electronically later to make sure they had respected his instructions.

He was pleased: it was a good story, and now that he had written it he saw how clearly one question still hung over Black Bank Farm: why did Maggie Beck give her son away?

Charlie Bracken had not returned and was clearly administering emergency stress relief in the Fenman bar opposite The Crow’s offices. The rest of the team was hard at work. Garry was exploring his nose with a Biro and behind his glass partition Septimus Henry Kew, editor in chief, was reading the proofs for the edition. Either he was distinctly unimpressed with his news editor’s efforts, or he was sniffing cocaine.

Dryden checked his watch: nearly noon. He picked up the phone and ran through the usual litany of last-deadline calls to the emergency services. The fire brigade had two fires, less than average in that incendiary summer. The first had started in a lock-up garage on the edge of town, swept through a nearby allotment and gutted two council houses. The smell of burnt vegetables apparently hung, even now, in the air over the Jubilee Estate.

‘Anyone hurt?’

‘Nah,’ said the control-room operator. ‘It was mid-morning. Mum at work, kids at school, Dad’s a travelling salesman. Nice to come home to, though – a real fire,’ he said, laughing at the old joke.

‘Cause?’ asked Dryden.

‘Kids. Mucking about round the garages. They found some matches, traces of lighter fuel… but I doubt anyone can be nailed for it. The other one’s a bit different.’

Dryden heard the inexpert two-finger tapping of a PC keyboard. ‘Here we are. Register Office – at Chatteris. Someone broke in, smashed the place up, set fire to the filing cabinets – destroyed all the records. Every last one.’

‘Bloody hell. Someone’s honeymoon went wrong.’ Dryden took the details for a par in the Stop Press. With almost telepathic timing the phone rang again as he put it down. It was Jean. ‘Dryden!’

Dryden felt his ear-drum pink like an overloaded loudspeaker.

‘There’s a girl here to see you.’ Jean had taken up a voluntary unpaid job as Dryden’s chaperone. ‘Shall I tell her to go away?’

Dryden took the stairs four at a time on the way down, missed the last one and went flying. The girl helped him get up.