The Fire Baby

The pathologist consulted his notes. He held out his right hand: ‘Three puncture marks on the left cheek.’ He held out his left hand: ‘Four on the right.’ He stepped forward and held Dryden’s face in a grip with his fingertips, gently applying pressure. ‘My guess is someone held him like this, and then went on applying the force. Some of the nails dug in. The thumbs raised bigger welts, to the centre, the fingers less so, trailing off towards the neck.’

Dryden looked into Beaumont’s eyes. He could see the irises widening as they accommodated the drop in light level outside the pillbox.

‘Then he hit him?’ said Dryden.

Beaumont nodded, releasing his grip. ‘Yes. Hard. Some of the cartilage has been forced back into the brain.’

‘Did it kill him?’

‘No. No, I don’t think so. I think he died of thirst.’

21

Dryden, released from police questioning at 12.30am, got Humph to drive him straight to The Crow. He filed stop-press single pars to all the broadsheets and most of the tabloids for the Tuesday morning’s late editions. He’d agreed with Inspector Newman to withhold most of the details – but there was enough there to flog the story: wartime pillbox, semi-naked corpse, partly eaten by wild animals. What more did they want? Newman had signed-off a form of words to cover how the body was found: the time was withheld, and the discovery attributed to a local farmer – name also withheld.

Having finished filing he woke Humph to drive him to The Tower. There was no way either of them would sleep so they shared what was left of Humph’s Greek picnic and rammed that home with a couple of Metaxa 3-star brandies. He brought Humph up to speed on the investigation by reading out the copy he had filed. The cabbie listened, whistled once, and settled down to sleep.

Dryden decided it was visiting time. Laura’s breath whistled like a cat’s. Dryden, and the nursing staff, had long since agreed that her sleeping time should be respected, and despite her open eyes the room was darkened, and the COMPASS machine turned off, between 10.00pm and 7.00am.

Dryden sat quietly for a minute, studying her face in the blazing moonlight. He stood and went to the window. Below, the caretaker was sweeping the forecourt. Clearly an insomniac, he whistled happily. Beethoven again, perhaps ‘The Emperor’, thought Dryden. In the cab Humph read his language primer by the courtesy light.

He turned back to the room. It had changed since his visit the evening before. Estelle and Lyndon must have been in to ferry out Maggie’s stuff, large amounts of which had accumulated in her final weeks. A bookcase had been filled with gifts from family, neighbours and friends and a wardrobe had held clothes for when she was judged well enough to walk in the grounds of The Tower. The cardboard box in which Dryden had stored Maggie’s tapes had been emptied shortly after her death, the box left under the bed. Her life, in her own words, was back at Black Bank. The cupboard stood open and empty. The only thing left of Maggie’s in the room was the tape recorder on the window ledge.

Dryden sat down by Laura’s bed and examined her hands, which lay lifeless on the single sheet. The image he was trying to suppress seemed to be etched on his retinas – the outstretched hand of the corpse in the pillbox and those undulating, angry, skin grafts. Who had killed Johnnie Roe? Had Bob Sutton’s inquiries disrupted the trade in pornography? Had the crooks behind the business come looking for Johnnie? Or had Sutton got there first?

Quietly he stood and walked to the COMPASS machine. For once his curiosity seemed dimmed. He stuffed the tickertape in his pocket unread, and went back to the cab.

SHFYTJF SHDURIT DHEOFJO DJDO

GHGEIKOW WATCHWHITE KRUBBYO

ASAIUDSJ HD UCANSEETIERIVERGHHUJI

Over the months he’d learned the telltale signs. The tiny sounds which said the light was coming.

First there was the outer gate. A rusted hinge grated. Not like the others he could hear at dawn and dusk. The hundreds of iron doors opening and closing in the prison of Al Rasheid.

This one had a note. He’d played cornet at high school. Was it a G? Perhaps. Middle register. Pleasing.