The Fire Baby Page 7

  The phone rang again. If it rang four times Henry would be out of his office. Dryden, who liked nothing but a quiet life, walked over and picked up the receiver, leaving a slight imprint of sweat on the cool black Bakelite. Despite having spent more than a decade as a reporter, Dryden retained a deep-seated fear of meeting any member of that mythical but terrifying group: the readers. He had long since realized that advancement in his profession relied on the simple truth that journalists wrote newspapers for other journalists to read. The readers? Who cared what they thought? Who cared, that was, until they turned up on your doorstep demanding to talk to a reporter.

  ‘Hi. Newsroom. Philip Dryden speaking.’ He always hit a confident tone. That way he had plenty of room for what was, inevitably, an occasion for abject apology.

  ‘Hello now. I didnae think this thing would actually work,’ said a voice dipped daily in nicotine. ‘The name’s Sutton. Bob. It’s no’ really a complaint about yon paper. It’s the polis I’m after complaining about.’

  ‘I’ll be right down,’ said Dryden, who loved little more than landing a well-judged boot upon the idle rump of the local constabulary. He clattered down the newsroom steps with enthusiasm. Bob Sutton turned out to be the human incarnation of the Tate & Lyle sugar man: a cube of muscle with arms and legs hung from the corners of a barrel chest. Each fist resembled a solid two-pound bag of sugar. He wore a cheap security man’s jacket in black. He was in his forties, with sandy thinning hair and a dollop of an accent which Dryden guessed originated somewhere on the Clyde; somewhere with a big crane. He would have looked menacing if he hadn’t clearly spent most of the last twenty-four hours crying. He rubbed butcher’s fingers into reddened eye sockets.

  ‘It’s my dau’ta. Alice. She’s gone missing. I’ve had the polis round. Bloody useless, man. They seem tae think she’s run off. It’s crazy.’ He spread his hands out on the counter as if they were proof of his determination to find his daughter. ‘She’d not go with a fella like that. You know? She’s a good girl,’ he added, taking a cigarette from behind his ear and gripping it between his teeth.

  Dryden reflected that it was every father’s lament, that his own daughter could not fail but be a grown-up extrapolation of an innocent five-year-old. But he took a note. Alice, aged twenty-one, had last been seen leaving her job as a bar maid at the Pine Tree pub, three miles west of Ely, five days ago shortly after closing time. The landlord had told her father, and later the police, that she had spent most of the evening chatting with a young man in a white T-shirt, jeans, and a pair of wrap-around reflective sunglasses which were held in his short blond hair. The landlord had described the man as late twenties, with an athletic build and a confident manner. The landlord’s wife, who had seen him briefly on popping down during the evening to put out sandwiches and hot sausage rolls for the quiz teams, said he looked like a male model. She’d seen him walk over to the bar from a one-armed bandit by the door and told the police that his movements were ‘silky’.

  Later, said the landlord, Alice had asked to go early, explaining that she had a date. He’d watched her get into a car beside the Pine Tree. It was silver, he said, a sports car, with an expensive badge on the bonnet. He was sorry, he told Bob Sutton, but he was bad at spotting cars. She’d been seen sitting in the front with the bloke: kissing, he said, trying to find euphemisms for what he’d seen.

  ‘He chatted her up,’ said Bob Sutton. ‘No way she’d just be going after someone. It was him that made the first move – no question.’ He produced a box of matches and moved to light the cigarette. Dryden pointed timidly at the ‘No Smoking’ sign that Jean had knitted herself.

  Sutton glowered.

  ‘Done it before?’ asked Dryden, judging the moment badly.

  ‘Never,’ said Sutton, thumping a fist on the counter, which jumped on the rebound. ‘Can you do anything?’

  Dryden shrugged. Missing teenagers were two a penny, the small change in the currency of the disappeared. He could do something for the Express, but that didn’t publish for four days. And a freelance paragraph on a missing adolescent would sell nowhere on Fleet Street. Alice was probably having the time of her life with her dream man; either that or he’d dumped her and she was making her way home, pausing only to delay the inevitable humiliation.

  Sutton searched his jacket pockets and flipped a passport-sized snapshot over the counter.

  Dryden felt the hairs rise on his neck. He knew immediately, but took a long second look. The last time he’d seen those eyes they’d been glazed and staring out of one of Inspector Newman’s X-rated snaps. It was the girl in the pillbox, but this version was quite different: college scarf, excited smile, and the sheepish grin that said ‘Daddy’s Girl’.

  He calculated rapidly and decided Inspector Newman needed to hear first. ‘I can try to find her, Mr Sutton. Perhaps use the pic? Would that be OK?’

  ‘Sure, laddie. You do that. Anything comes up, ring me.’

  The card said: Bob Sutton Security, The Smeeth, Wisbech. Dryden considered, not for the first time, the ability of the Fens to add a sense of mystery to English place names.

  Sutton paused in the doorway letting the sunlight flood in behind him. ‘Meanwhile, I’m lookin’ too.’

  Dryden wondered what Bob Sutton would do if he knew that the place to start looking for innocent Alice was under the counter at the local backstreet video shop.

  10

  Humph swung the Capri through the gates of The Tower and grinned as the tyres scattered the loose chippings. Dryden gave him a long-suffering look. ‘Every time? Do you have to do that every time?’ He kicked his feet out in irritation to try to find more room in the suffocating heat radiating from the cab’s labouring engine. He seemed annoyed that the standard model was not built for someone of his height. Dryden’s petulant mood was not entirely due to Humph’s idiosyncrasies. He was dreading bad news. Maggie’s life was perilously close to its end.

  They parked where they always parked, about a hundred yards short of the neon-lit entrance lobby to the hospital, in a lay-by under a monkey puzzle tree. Dryden eyed the forecourt of the hospital. Most nights he delayed his visit by sitting on a wrought-iron bench on the edge of the lawn. Tonight, when he would have treasured ten minutes of solitude, there was someone there already.

  Humph slipped his language tape into the deck. The imaginary Greek village was celebrating: a new taverna was opening and Nicos was looking forward to the food, a tasty platter of small delicacies. ‘Methedes,’ said Humph, spraying the dashboard with a light shower of saliva.

  Dryden pushed open the cab door and noticed that a talcum of rust fell on his worn leather shoes.

  He was almost past the bench when the man on it spoke. ‘Mr Dryden? Philip Dryden?’ The man stood, stepping into the pool of neon light shed by The Tower’s foyer. It was Lyndon Koskinski. Dryden felt a surge of relief that he’d managed, at least in part, to fulfil Maggie’s wishes.

  Koskinski brushed down the creases on his uniform, that of a major in the US Air Force. The physique was anything but GI – there was nothing general issue about the tall wiry frame and almost complete lack of puppy-fat. He radiated a shy intelligence and a civilized reserve which made Dryden wary.

  ‘Hi,’ said Dryden, walking back.

  The pilot’s face was handsome in the light, spare of flesh and still with a desert tan. He was bare-headed with his forage cap folded and held under one epaulette. The hair was brown-blond and longer than military regulations normally allowed: the eyes were hooded and held a permanent squint, like someone looking constantly into the glare of the sun. Dryden felt himself in the presence of a personality which habitually radiated an almost tangible sense of calm and self-possession. But Koskinski’s air of complete physical control was undermined by his hands, which fluttered awkwardly at his pockets. Dryden concluded this man liked his own company, and possibly even prized it. He felt like an emotional trespasser but pressed on, sensitive only to his own curiosity.

  ‘
Hi, Lyndon,’ said Dryden, his tone light, insincere, and almost perfectly pitched to avoid any real emotional contact. They shook hands. Koskinski’s eyes, dimly seen beneath the heavy upper eyelids, seemed to brighten a few watts. ‘Major Sondheim got the message to me. About Maggie. We’re both back. Estelle’s up in the room.’

  Dryden saw again the newspaper picture of the baby saved from the crash at Black Bank being held up by his grandparents for the Evening News’s photographer. He’d be twenty-seven now. The only survivor, with Maggie Beck, of the 1976 air crash.

  Koskinski looked up at the half-moon Victorian window: ‘I phoned the base to see if I could get my treatment in the UK extended. The medics said Major Sondheim had left a message. So we came back…’

  Nobody seemed in a hurry to go up to Maggie’s bedside. Dryden sat. ‘I was reading, yesterday, about the crash. The crash in ’76. She saved your life, that night. Bringing you out of the fire.’

  Lyndon, not answering, took out a lighter. It was a Zippo, the kind pipe smokers use, and roll-your-own fanatics; standard issue for GIs. They were icons, if original, and this one was worn to a golden sheen by years of use. Koskinski flicked the top up expertly, sparked it, and examined the blue flame. Dryden noted the smell of the fuel, and a pronounced shake in the pilot’s right hand.

  ‘This was Dad’s,’ said Koskinski, gazing into the flame.

  ‘They found it?’ said Dryden. ‘At Black Bank?’

  Koskinski shook his head: ‘They didn’t find anything at Black Bank. Not even a body. The coffin just carried his medals and a dress uniform. Grandpa told me that, later. I never forgave him. No, their luggage went separately from the air convoy. Clothes, some furniture, stuff from ’Nam and Cambodia. This was in a trouser pocket. Not much else.’

  ‘What happened to you?’ Dryden was pleased with the ambiguity of this question.

  ‘Nerves got shot,’ he said, examining the shaking hands.

  Dryden nodded and let him fill the silence. ‘I spent some time in Al Rasheid. Baghdad Hilton. The war. Four weeks in a cell. Shit happened, every day, like the sun coming up. You don’t want to hear.’

  ‘Solitary?’ asked Dryden, imagining it would be better if it was.

  Lyndon shook his head and took so long to answer that Dryden thought he’d have to ask again. ‘Nah. I was with Freeman, Freeman White. We came down together – engine failure. Freeman was bad. But we stayed together.’

  ‘Where’s Freeman?’

  ‘Mildenhall. Medical treatment like me, then home, I guess. Ejector seat made a mess of his head.’

  Dryden winced. ‘You kept in touch with Maggie Beck. It’s been nearly thirty years.’

  Koskinski seemed to think this was a question. He held his hands out, palms up, as if mystified. ‘She kept in touch. She lost her kid, didn’t she? It must’ve hurt plenty, so I guess I help in some way. I don’t like to think of it like that, but that’s the truth. I guess I’m a consolation. Second prize. I don’t have to do anything. I just seem to help.’

  ‘Why now?’ said Dryden, relaxing visibly, trying to put his interviewee at ease. ‘Why visit now? Did you know Maggie was ill?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head both ways as if trying to dislodge persistent desert flies. ‘They knew at home but, I guess, they felt – my folks – I had enough to deal with. I was just going home. To Austin, to Texas.’

  ‘Folks?’

  ‘My grandparents. They brought me up after the crash. We’ve talked about Maggie and they think I should stay too, hang around while she needs me. We all owe her. I was flying back to the States but they’ve got the medical teams here. I had some treatment to wait for – that’s when I ran out to Black Bank. I didn’t plan to. It just kinda happened. I’d never been. Weird.’ He shook his head again.

  ‘Why weird?’

  ‘Coming back through Mildenhall like that. Just like Dad did in ’76. I’m glad. I’m glad I’m here.’ He smiled again, and Dryden sensed a real joy, even excitement.

  Lyndon flicked the Zippo lighter again, pocketed it, then looked at a watch on his wrist which would have embarrassed James Bond. ‘We’d better go. She’s out cold but the doc said I should be there when she comes out of it. If she comes out of it.’

  ‘We?’ said Dryden, standing reluctantly. ‘Why we?’

  ‘She asked. She asked both of us – Estelle and me – to make sure you were here too. She’s got something to say – to all of us.’

  11

  Dryden and Lyndon walked towards The Tower. It stood against the dusk like a cheap set from a horror film, its Gothic tower a pin-sharp silhouette against a sky which had finally relinquished the sun. But the heat remained. The moon blazed down like a scene-of-crime lamp on the hospital’s Victorian façade.

  Inside, the irritating background music which normally enveloped the foyer had been turned down to an almost imperceptible level: a far more emphatic signal than any doctor’s opinion that one of the patients was about to die.

  The curtain had been drawn around Maggie’s bed. Lyndon slipped inside while Dryden sat beside Laura’s bed, holding her hand with a pulsing grip, watching the shadow-show. Spasmodically a brief flame flared, like a struck match, seen through the gauzy material of the mobile screen. A doctor came and went with the over-careful steps of a mourner.

  Dryden looked into Laura’s eyes. Did she know what was happening?

  ‘They’ve come,’ he said, gripping the fingers still harder. ‘August found them. Trust August. She’ll be fine now.’ He tried a smile and hoped Laura couldn’t see its fragile confidence.

  One of the shadows stood and parted the curtain. Lyndon Koskinski stood over Laura’s bed. ‘I’ve wondered, you know, about her,’ he said. ‘When we’ve been visiting, we’ve often sat here, talking, and thought about her. I’m sorry.’

  Dryden, confused by kindness, shrugged. For the first time he’d caught the tension in Koskinski’s accent: the preppy college correctness only just obscuring the twang of the Deep South.

  Dryden looked at Laura too, catching again a regular sensation that he was seeing her for the first time. ‘She’s getting better. That’s what they say, anyway.’

  ‘She wants you now,’ said Lyndon simply, turning back towards the screen. Dryden stood, aware that he was about to be asked to play some role other than sceptical observer. He felt unease seep through his guts like a bad curry.

  Estelle Beck sat at her mother’s bedside. Her slim, athletic body squeezed into a pair of stone-washed jeans and a white T-shirt. Her hair was a trendy blonde bob cut asymmetrically, which captured what little light surrounded her mother’s bed. The bedside lamp showed a face younger than her twenty-five years. The unmarked, olive skin held a bloom in both cheeks; the eyes a sensational lichen green. She could have been looking out of a sixth-form end-of-term picture. Dryden had met her at visiting time, and once out at Black Bank before Maggie had been admitted for the cancer treatment. She’d told Dryden her daughter was a teacher, in a primary school out on the Fens. He couldn’t remember where: Ten Mile Bank, or Barrowby Drove.

  She smiled now, seeing him. ‘Hi. Thanks, for everything. I just feel so guilty we were away…’ she said, her hand seeking out her mother’s on the counterpane.

  The heat was suddenly overpowering. Dryden felt a trickle of sweat begin on its long journey from his hairline down one temple. It wasn’t just the heat. Since childhood he had feared being asked to play any role other than bystander. Why did Maggie Beck want him now?

  Estelle must have known it was going to happen just before it did, because she leant forward and stretched out a hand towards Maggie’s face. Her mother’s eyes opened slowly and she raised her head from the uncreased pillows with surprising force.

  ‘She’s not going to die,’ thought Dryden, mistaking the morphine-induced serenity for self-possession.

  ‘Estelle?’ Maggie said, taking her daughter’s hand. She smiled then, and Dryden saw the truth – the irrational exuberance the drugs were pumping thr
ough her bloodstream.

  ‘I’m here,’ said Estelle. ‘And Lyndon. And Dryden, as you asked.’ Dryden felt even less comfortable, like an interloper. He saw the fear in her eyes as she clutched at her own wrists, as if seeking a pulse. Lyndon crouched down beside Estelle and the three held hands together. Maggie’s other hand covered her mouth, afraid perhaps to tell a secret she had vowed to keep. Suddenly exhausted she slumped back and let her hand fall, the eyes closing and rolling back. Lyndon stood, retreating to the shadows. In the long silence that followed he retrieved the lighter from his pocket and sat, rhythmically flicking the flame on and off. On and off.

  In the silence Dryden considered Maggie’s life. A life of predictable Fen insignificance, flat and featureless except for that single night of unspeakable horror. What had it done to her? What scars had lingered within, as the corkscrew burn on her cheek had faded with the years?

  They all jumped at Maggie’s voice, suddenly loud in the hushed space around the deathbed. Her eyes remained closed and still but the tendons in her neck flexed visibly with the effort of speech. ‘I lied,’ she said, and Dryden was astonished to see tears running in a beaded stream from one eye. She struggled with herself, twisting in the bed as if resisting questions in an interrogation.

  They waited. The windows were open in the heat and the sound of a bus changing gears came across the fields from the main Cambridge road. Dryden watched skylarks in the patch of china-blue sky which marked where the sun had set. The Tower was silent except for the cool snapping sounds of linen being folded by a nurse in the corridor outside. The caretaker whistled, perhaps outside, crossing the lawns.

  Maggie’s eyes opened again, but this time she saw nobody, at least nobody there.