The Skeleton Man

Shaw looked at his boots in the grass. ‘My job’s getting people into court, Dryden. If there’s one missing, there’s one missing. Fact is, I haven’t enough evidence to issue a parking ticket to any of them when it comes to murder. My best bet was conspiracy to pervert, seeing as they do admit that they knew Kathryn had been killed, and that they failed to report that in 1990, and again when Peter Tholy’s skeleton came to light. But conspiracy’s a tough call – it only needs one of them to slip the charge and the whole lot walk. And do we really want a trial which highlights the fact we can’t nail anyone for the murder? The file’s with the CPS, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.’

‘So they got away with it, didn’t they?’ said Dryden.

‘You think? You don’t have to be behind bars to serve a sentence, Dryden. Jimmy Neate went gladly to his death, which tells you something about the life he had.’

The wind had picked up, and Dryden turned his face into it, closing his eyes.

‘I’d like them to know that their guilt isn’t a secret any more,’ said Dryden.

Shaw climbed into the Land Rover. ‘They know,’ he said. ‘Believe me, they all know. But if I can’t get a conviction I need to move on. They’ll just have to go on living with what they did. They hanged an innocent man, something they didn’t know until a few days ago. So that’s something Jason Imber would be proud of. The truth. It’s justice of a sort.’ Shaw edged the 4x4 forward, rolling up the side window, and joined the queue of vehicles edging its way down Church Hill.

The rain, heavier now, began to bounce off the gravestones.

Dryden found Major Broderick in the church standing before the wreaths arranged on the Peyton tomb.

‘Spectacular,’ said Broderick, nodding at a huge bouquet of lilies.

‘Your father grew lilies, didn’t he, when he was here at Jude’s Ferry. It was a kind of brand almost, what he did best, right?’

Broderick nodded, sensitive enough to pick up the insistence in Dryden’s voice, the edge of accusation.

‘So when he offered to decorate the church for Jude Neate’s funeral it had to be lilies. Lilies, Fred Lake said, hundreds of them beautifully arranged. And that must have been you. Your father was in a wheelchair by then and no one else had the skills, except perhaps for Peter Tholy and he said he spent all day packing in his cottage down on The Dring – except for a brief visit to your father that evening. Did you meet him then?’

Broderick stepped forward and ran the petals of a rose through his fingers.

‘Did you hate him?’ asked Dryden, walking round the tomb, aware now that they were alone. ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did. He’d taken your place in some ways, a son’s place. And then he came that last evening and your father gave him something, didn’t he, some money?’

Dryden nodded as if there had been an answer. ‘He tried to buy his life with it later, in the inn, didn’t he? He told them he had money but they all laughed. Did you laugh?’

Broderick looked around, checking they were still alone. ‘Ten thousand pounds – unbelievable, really. Dad was rich, but still. It was an insult, an insult to me. Sometimes I think that if Peter had lived and stayed in England Dad would have left him the lot.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But I just took it, like I’d taken all the insults down the years. Peter took the cheque and went. It was never cashed, so I guess the rats had it.’

‘And Tholy went back to pack and you went down to the New Ferry Inn to join your friend Jason Imber. He said he wasn’t the only outsider there that night. That’s you, isn’t it? And you went down into the cellar.’

Broderick took a small knife from his pocket and cut the rose free, pushing it through his buttonhole.

‘And that’s what I couldn’t work out. Why it was that nobody mentioned your name at all, why they’d all agreed to that. There was a deal, but what was in it for them?’

The Reverend Lake appeared from the vestry, and sensing the mood walked quickly past, his footsteps echoing down the nave until the door swung open and they saw the rain still falling outside.