The Funeral Owl (6 page)

A wooden sign, in the same gold, red and blue as the vandalised INRI, said: VIA DOLOROSA. A black graffito obscured part of the lettering, but was itself indecipherable.

The air inside the ring of trees was still, but his arrival seemed to disturb it, so that he was surrounded by the pungent aroma of pine needles. It brought back memories of a summer holiday with Laura's parents in Italy and a Sunday spent circling a mountain above the village, climbing the spiral path towards the shrine at the top, where three crosses depicted the crucifixion. This secret Golgotha seemed oddly out of place in an English churchyard. Dryden could only think that when Christ Church had been founded the Anglo-Catholic movement had been running particularly strong in the Fens, its imagery coloured by that of the rituals of Rome.

He followed the spiral path, rising very slowly, inch by inch, but relentlessly, so that by the time he had described a full circle he could look down through the tree trunks and see the entrance to the thicket where he had walked out of the sunlight. He had climbed less than six feet, but in the two-dimensional world of the Fens it seemed as if he'd ascended a mountain. Another half circle brought him within sight of his goal. Through the trees he could see the clear shape of a large cross of the traditional design, with a small roof provided to shelter the figure of Christ from the English weather, an apex added over the head of the dying man. Dryden's eyes were fixed on this shape, so that he did not see what lay on the path in the half-light until he tripped and fell. In the shock of the moment, he struggled to make sense of the image that was less than a foot from his face as he lay sprawled on the rough stones: a face, in agony, trickles of blood defying gravity by falling sideways, the eyes lifted upwards.

It was a face as familiar as his own: Christ's face.

He stifled a yell but the sound of his fall spooked a pair of crows which clattered out of the trees. Across the path lay the scattered wooden remnants of a figure of Christ. Dryden scrambled to his knees and looked around. The head had been lopped off the body, which lay in the shadows, one arm seeming to beckon him forwards. The other arm lay higher up the path, the severed joint showing as paler wood. One of the bare legs lay across the path and had caused him to stumble. Of the other there was no sign. The sculpture had not been painted for many years so that in places the original grain of the wood showed through the flesh. Standing, he peered through the branches at the crucifix and saw that the missing leg was still on the cross, because he could just see the pale foot.

He stumbled on quickly until the curve led into a small stone-flagged enclosure at the ‘summit' of the mound. There were two beer cans lying in the grass, both Special Brew. A plastic Tesco bag was wrapped round the base of the cross. He looked at these items with an almost manic intensity because he had sensed – but not yet seen – what hung from the cross.

Not the severed wooden leg of the Christ figure, but a man, one of flesh and blood. Shirtless, the skin and muscle of the upper torso hanging down as if gravity had gained some special force within this circle of trees. In places, on the upper arms and around the neck, the skin was bruised, livid and swollen. A pair of jeans hung from the narrow waist, torn open at both knees, one of which was bloodied and caked with dust. The body sagged, only staying aloft thanks to knots of blue plastic rope at the right wrist and around the neck. The left arm hung down across the body. The head, too, was down, so that Dryden had to step forwards to see up into the face. The features seemed bloated, the skin holding a yellow tinge. The eyes were hooded with fleshy lids, the hair black and glossy. The upper lip was swollen and a trickle of blood had hardened as it fell across the chin.

In death no face can hold the likeness of life. Dryden knew only two things about this man. He was ethnic Chinese, and he knew how he had died. Blood had flowed from a wound in the left side where, traditionally, the Roman's lance had been thrust into Christ's body. Flies buzzed around the wound and made it shimmer in the slated light. At the centre of the wound was a black hole. Dryden had never seen one before in once living flesh, but he had no doubt it was a bullet hole, and even less doubt that the flesh was no longer living.

C
onstable Stokely Powell was Brimstone Hill's community policeman. Dryden had got to know him well in the few weeks he'd been in the township and found him relaxed and approachable, but it was clear he liked to preserve a certain formality: he was
Constable
Powell, and Dryden guessed that was because he was just a bit nervous of the Stokely. Powell was in his late twenties, early thirties – so he'd probably been named for
the
Stokely: the black civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael; the kind of black man a lot of white men didn't like. The Fens were a recruiting ground for racists, energised by the influx of East European migrants. But that didn't mean they wouldn't take time out to abuse a black man – and Powell was Caribbean black. He sat now in the last light of the sun, basking, immobile as a lizard on a stone wall. A still man, his limbs seemed effortlessly to be always at rest.

They sat together in the garden of Sexton Cottage, across the sheep field from the graveyard of Christ Church, Brimstone Hill. The house had been built in the same style as Christ Church, the rectory and the school – a playful Victorian confection of lancet windows and carved whitewashed guttering; further evidence that Brimstone Hill had a brick heart. It was early evening and the white light from the scene-of-crime lamps in the stand of pine trees around ‘Golgotha' was growing brighter by the minute. The body of the victim had been taken down, but not yet taken away. Through the pine trees Dryden could see the neon shape of a forensic tent on the summit of the small hill. He'd been told the pathologist wished to see the body
in situ
. Dryden imagined it laid out beneath the brightly lit plastic, the bruises and bloody wounds stark on the white skin. He felt his mouth go dry each time the memory came back, reliving the first sight of the slumped and bloodied flesh. The simple charm of the English country garden around them seemed to make the reality of what lay amongst those pine trees all the more macabre. Sexton Cottage had been requisitioned as a murder incident room for the duration. A forensic unit was based in the kitchen, uniformed branch in the front room.

PC Powell had taken Dryden's statement several hours ago. A printed version lay in front of him now on a wooden table. Dryden had one hand spread out over it to keep it in place. Sudden gusts of wind, remnants of the earlier dust storm, still disturbed the evening air. The constable had a penchant for bling and wore a Rolex with a gold strap. He had a wrap-around set of Gucci reflective sunglasses in his shirt pocket and a gold chain round his neck, which Dryden could see because he had his first two shirt buttons open. And the panda car, parked in the narrow lane which led to the cottage from the road, was strictly for the job only. Powell's own car – a low-slung sports car – made occasional appearances when he was off duty but checking his patch.

Since Dryden had opened the Brimstone Hill office he'd seen Powell every few days. The policeman would bring snippets of local news to the office. Dryden, in return, had agreed to let
The Crow
back some of Powell's local projects: a new telephone-based neighbourhood watch scheme, an anti-vandalism campaign aimed at kids, and an amnesty on guns and knives. Dryden thought they had a good working relationship, because they both got something valuable out of talking to each other.

‘So – to summarize,' said Powell, ‘we need to be clear on three points: the lancet door to the roof was back on its hinges when you found it open just after thirteen-thirty hours today, the wooden sign was nailed to the
outside
of the door, and you believe the victim was dead when you found him?'

‘Right on all counts,' said Dryden. Powell was a fan of logic and Dryden always enjoyed their conversations. ‘Now. Can I make that call?'

‘Sure,' said Powell, pushing the statement over for Dryden to sign.

They'd taken Dryden's mobile away and asked him to stay at the scene in order to give his statement and answer any questions when CID arrived from Ely. A message had been relayed to Laura that she had to come out and pick up Eden from the crèche. Beyond the church Dryden could see a line of vehicles – an ambulance, two squad cars, several pool cars for CID, and now a van from BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. Parked in the distance he could see Humph's Capri.

Powell gave him his phone back in a plastic evidence bag. ‘All yours. Mind you, I'm not promising there's any signal. That's why half of CID is inside using the landline …' He nodded at the kitchen window of Sexton Cottage. All the windows showed lights and they could hear the constant hum of conversation and the clatter of a digital printer.

Dryden stood on one of the garden tables to get a single reception bar on the phone. He called Vee Hilgay at
The Crow
's office, knowing she'd have heard news on the radio and presumed he was on the case. With Powell in earshot he kept it short and to the point. He had the story; he'd write it overnight for the
Ely Express.
He had a few pictures on his phone of the police and scene-of-crime forensic officers with the church in the background. But Vee should get
The
Crow
's photographer, Josie Evans, to run out in case there were any better picture opportunities later.

‘She left half an hour ago,' said Vee, sounding irritated. It was one of Dryden's failings, he knew: reminding his staff to do things before he knew they'd forgotten to do them. He struggled to believe anyone might be better at this job than he was.

‘Great. Well done.' But the line was dead, the single signal bar flickering out of life.

A woman PC brought out a tray of tea and biscuits, followed by DI George Friday, the doyen of Ely CID. Dryden had known him for five years. They had one of those sparring, tetchy relationships which can come very close to friendship. Friday sank his hands deep in his raincoat pockets. He was thirty-five but acted fifty and never complained of an injury which made him limp slightly with his left leg. He had three sons and spent Saturdays on windswept fields watching them play football, sipping coffee from a battered flask.

Friday was one of those smokers who appear to get no pleasure from their habit. He lit up now and threw the match away in disgust. ‘Good job you found him,' he said. ‘Mind you, this weather, we'd have got a whiff before long.'

Dryden felt something rise in his throat. The shock of finding the corpse might have receded but the sense of violation was still tangible. He felt that the world, certainly his world, had been despoiled. His first urge, kneeling there in front of the crucifix, had been to run to the village school and make sure Eden was safe. As he sipped his tea, the image of the figure draped on the cross flashed across his eye, reprinting itself on his retina when he blinked.‘I've got a story to write,' he said, trying to snap back to the present. ‘Any theories? Arrests?'

Friday mimicked a laugh.

‘Gang of Chinese migrants nick lead off a church roof then fall out, but over what?' asked Dryden. ‘Who's set to get the most cash? Or did someone lose their nerve? But then there's the ritual element – the cross, the wooden sign nailed to the church door. You must have some idea?'

‘Must I?' asked Friday, letting cigarette smoke seep out of his mouth through his teeth. ‘That all sounds good, but it didn't come from me. You found the victim, you know he was Chinese. You can go from there. That's where we're starting, too – Chinatown in Lynn.'

King's Lynn was eighteen miles north, an old seaport with a big migrant Chinese population who'd arrived in the town to meet local demand for cockle-pickers out in the Wash. They'd settled down by the docks in an area loosely known to the locals as Chinatown.

‘And that's why we're not saying anything much today,' said Friday. ‘Because, as far as is possible, I don't want them to know we're coming. Well, not all of them anyway. The ones who did this will be ready for it. Or they may have just gone to ground. Anyway, I'm not putting out any details until forensics have done their job. Not even a name – if we had one, which we don't. So it's all yours for twenty-four hours. I presume you aren't flogging this?'

Friday knew that Dryden made money as a stringer for Fleet Street, selling on news when it fell between his own newspaper deadlines. He also knew that he was fiercely proud of his own newspapers and would fight to keep a story a scoop.

‘I'll put out a paragraph for the wire services, the bare details, but nothing that I can keep for the paper. That'll hit the streets tomorrow afternoon.'

Friday handed Dryden a piece of paper. ‘That's the statement we're putting out.'

The body of a man was discovered in woodland near Christ Church, Brimstone Hill, at 1.30 p.m. today. Earlier, thieves had stolen lead from the roof of the church. Ely CID is treating the death as suspicious. The victim has not been identified. Anyone with information which might help the police in their inquiries should ring Ely 886345.

‘So nobody heard a shot last night? You've done door-to-door; I've been watching.'

Friday's face glazed over. ‘Like I said, just the statement. You know what you know; I can't do anything about that. Otherwise this investigation releases information when I'm ready for it to release information. Got it?'

On the road outside Christ Church a line of cars had now formed into a convoy, engines running. The buzz of police radios was like a distant swarm of bees.

‘I'm off,' said Friday. ‘Chinatown calls. The scene's all yours, Powell. Forensics are just finishing up. When the body's gone you've got a uniform from Wisbech to help keep the nosy parkers out.'