The Skeleton Man

‘Thanks, Philip. Stick with us for a minute and we’ll talk some more after the rest of the local news. I’m sure there are some listeners out there who remember Jude’s Ferry and would like to share those memories with us. Do ring us or e-mail. But in the meantime…’

The live feed switched back to the studio. ‘Quiet day?’ said Dryden when he knew they were off air.

‘Like a graveyard,’ said Diprose. ‘We led the lunchtime on twenty-five deaths in Iraq – outside a police station in Baghdad – so that’s how thin the news is. Most days it’s fifty and it’s the last item. Good job this turned up. Bloody rain on the roof doesn’t help – I better check they want a second slot. Do you mind sticking around?’

They listened to the rest of the bulletin in silence, the radio reporter jotting down questions on a foolscap pad. Dryden fished in his trouser pocket and found a wine gum which he sucked noisily. The studio gave the go-ahead for a second slot on the story, largely because it was indeed a quiet news day both locally and nationally.

The studio finished up the bulletin and came back to the radio car.

‘Welcome back,’ said Diprose. ‘I’m here on the edge of Whittlesea Mere, a few miles south of Peterborough. Earlier today a group of soldiers on exercise in the army’s firing range discovered a skeleton – thought to be that of a woman – hanging in a cellar in the abandoned village of Jude’s Ferry. I’m joined again by Philip Dryden, chief reporter on The Crow, who was with the platoon which made the discovery. Philip, you were in the village seventeen years ago on that last day. Can you describe what it was like?’

Dryden felt the almost visceral thud of the memory.

‘It was a very emotional day for some of the villagers, of course. I saw one elderly woman literally carried from her home. She’d been born in the house, her husband was buried in the churchyard, her children had all moved on… the village was all she had.

‘But, even then, I think many of the villagers knew that Jude’s Ferry didn’t have a future. The school had long closed and most of the youngsters had left. The beet factory shut down in ’89, I think… a real blow. And whatever you want to say about the village it isn’t the kind of place that would have thrived as a dormitory for commuters. It’s not thatched-cottage country at all and Peterborough’s still a good drive away, while there are other villages much nearer, much more chocolate-box. So the writing had been on the wall for some time.’

‘Right. But it seems incredible now, doesn’t it, that these people were moved, just thrown out of their homes. I guess public opinion has shifted since the attacks on New York, Madrid, London – but back in 1990 it must have caused an uproar, surely? It seems sort of medieval – how could the army do that in the twentieth century?’

‘Well, the fact is it was, you know, partly the villagers’ own fault. The MoD had always used the mere for exercises but in the eighties, when farmers in places like Jude’s Ferry were really struggling to stay in business, the government offered to buy the land. They put up a good price and an undertaking to rent back the property to the original owners at low rents, peppercorn actually. And it wasn’t just the agricultural land – they bought the cottages in the village, the shop, the pub, the lot. Once the big landowners had sold there was a rush to take the money because people feared that anyone who hung out would get caught by a compulsory purchase order. They said, the army, that the idea was to increase the number of days on which they could use the range for firing, but leave the village as a going concern. But when it came to the crunch, and the crunch was the Middle East, of course, and Saddam Hussein, they had the right to terminate the leases with just twelve weeks’ notice. I guess that’s the lesson, you know – it was always there in black and white, why write that into the lease if there wasn’t a chance they’d use it? So these people had less than a hundred days to say goodbye to everything, and in some cases each other.’

‘But there was some money too, wasn’t there?’

‘Sure. Compensation was paid for loss of earnings and some removal costs – that was all in the lease agreement as well. And there was this unwritten promise that the villagers would be allowed back, one day.’

‘Right. And we’ve had plenty of e-mails about that – and we’ve got someone on the line, I believe. A Mrs Drew, is it? Elizabeth Drew – from Peterborough. Hello Mrs Drew, what’s your point?’

‘Hello. Yes. I just wanted to say, you know, that Mr Dryden makes it sound like Jude’s Ferry was dying on its feet, but I don’t agree.’

‘You were a villager?’ cut in Diprose.