The Coldest Blood Read online

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE COLDEST BLOOD

  Praise for Jim Kelly

  ‘Kelly is fast gaining a reputation for his literate,

  atmospheric novels’ Daily Mail

  ‘A significant new talent’ Sunday Times

  ‘A rare combination of poetic writing and a gripping plot’

  Sunday Telegraph

  ‘The sense of place is terrific: the fens really brood.

  Dryden, the central character, is satisfyingly complicated…

  a good, atmospheric read’ Observer

  ‘A masterful stylist, Kelly crafts sharp, crisp sentences so

  pure, so true, they qualify as modern poetry’ Publishing News

  ‘A sparkling star newly risen in the crime fiction

  firmament’ Colin Dexter

  ‘Superb… Kelly has produced another story rich in plot

  and character, with a bit of history as well’ Publishers Weekly

  ‘Kelly is clearly a name to watch… a compelling read’

  Crime Time

  ‘Beautifully written… The climax is chilling. Sometimes a

  book takes up residence inside my head and just won’t

  leave. The Water Clock did just that’ Val McDermid

  ‘An atmospheric, intriguing mystery with a tense

  denouement’ Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Excellent no-frills thriller with a real bite. 4 stars’ FHM

  ‘A story that continuously quickens the pulse… makes

  every nerve tingle. The suspense here is tight and controlled

  and each character is made to count in a story that engulfs

  you while it unravels’ Punch

  ‘Kelly’s evocation of the bleak and watery landscapes,

  provide a powerful backdrop to a wonderful cast of

  characters’ The Good Book Guide

  ‘A thriller debut of genuine distinction. Kelly is a name to

  watch and this is a compelling read’ Crime Time

  ‘The Water Clock’s praise is well deserved… highly

  recommended’ Washington Post

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jim Kelly is a journalist. He lives in Ely with the biographer Midge Gillies and their young daughter. The Coldest Blood is his fourth novel, following The Water Clock, The Fire Baby and The Moon Tunnel. His new novel, The Skeleton Man, is now available in hardback from Michael Joseph.

  He has been shortlisted for a number of awards, including the CWA John Creasey Dagger for The Water Clock, and Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award for The Fire Baby. In 2006 Jim Kelly was awarded the Dagger in the Library by the Crime Writers’ Association for a body of work ‘giving greatest enjoyment to crime fiction readers’.

  To find out more about Jim Kelly and other Penguin crime writers, go to www.penguinmostwanted.co.uk

  The Coldest Blood

  JIM KELLY

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

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  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published by Michael Joseph 2006

  Published in Penguin Books 2007

  1

  Copyright © Jim Kelly, 2006

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  EISBN: 978–0–141–01864–5

  For Peggy and Brian, who are together

  Acknowledgements

  This is a work of fiction but several experts have been generous with their time to ensure that technical details are as accurate as possible. I am particularly indebted to Dr Alan Whitmore, of the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and Moorfields Eye Hospital; Neil O’May, head of the criminal law department of Bindman & Partners; and the Forensic Science Service, for guidance on issues pertaining to blood. Thanks also to members of the Fen Skating Committee, who were welcoming and gave freely of their memories. Let’s hope that, despite climate change, their sport thrives for at least one more generation. All information on the national electricity grid and the network of pylons which are its backbone came from the internet – beginning with the indispensable Pylon of the Month website. Would-be pyloneers should start here. The National Farmers Union in East Anglia was helpful in explaining the use of commercial kites to replace more traditional bird-scaring devices.

  So much for specific areas of expertise. Others have given constant help and encouragement. My wife, Midge Gillies, has provided a wide-ranging consultancy throughout the writing of The Coldest Blood; from plot, through character, to setting she has made an indispensable contribution. Beverley Cousins, my editor, has continued to keep me on course with her combination of experience and skill. Faith Evans, my agent, is an ever-present guide to good writing.

  Trevor Horwood, my copy-editor again, combined meticulous attention to detail with a watchful eye on continuity. Other friends have provided help selflessly: Jenny Burgoyne read the manuscript with forensic intensity and Bridie Pritchard brought an overview to the final draft; Martin Peters set me on the right road from the start with some commonsense advice about the properties of blood. My brother Bob Kelly provided a vivid insight into the realities of an ice storm.

  And finally, the landscape – the English Fens and the cathedral city of Ely. As in Philip Dryden’s earlier adventures, The Coldest Blood combines entirely fictitious characters and plot with locations blending real and imagined geography. This has allowed me once again to be creative with place names, institutions and traditions in order to enrich the story and facilitate the plot, a liberty I hope will not infuriate my loyal, local readers too greatly.

  The Dolphin Holiday Camp, Sea’s End

  Thursday, 29 August 1974

  The dagger lay on his naked thigh, its blade as cold as a rock-pool pebble. Lying back in his bunk, he raised the weapon with one hand and splayed the fingers of the other across the muscle of his upper arm, stretching the suntanned skin taut as a drum. Outside, the water of the saltmarsh slapped against the Curlew ’s hull, rocking him on the incoming tide.

  He tasted salt on his lips as he bit down on the leather belt in his mouth and pressed the dagger’s V-shaped point into the biceps, wincing at the gritty sound of the metal penetrating the flesh. He knew he mustn’t scream, but his stomach rolled at the thought of what must come next.

  The holiday camp was a mile away but he’d seen kids wandering at dusk in the marsh, four of them, torches dancing amongst the reeds. No one must hear. No one must know.

  He held his breath and bit down again on the strap, drawing the blade through the skin, revealing a hint of the meat of the inner arm, a single artery exposed, then severed. Blood flowed like poster paint, dr
ipping from his elbow, as the pain – sudden and electric now – jolted his nervous system and made him drop the dagger and cry out, despite himself.

  He gagged on the strap, wanting to weep, and spat it out. ‘Two more,’ he said. A jagged S, like a lightning bolt. Three cuts. But he knew he couldn’t see it through, not then, so he lay flat, matching his breathing to the slow cadence of the sea beyond the dunes, and for comfort placed a hand on the cold metal of the box at his side, a finger outlining the double locks.

  If he could just do this, he told himself, it would be perfect. Not for the first time in the twenty-three years of his life he felt God-like, weak with control. Nothing could stop him if he had the courage to finish it; so he felt for the blade again.

  But the touch of the metal brought him to the edge of unconsciousness. He reached out for the warm wooden ribs of the old boat: it had been his home for thirteen days now: but he would be rid of it soon enough.

  The sounds of the coming night began. The distant jukebox at the camp drifting on the wind, and the tinny loop of metallic tunes from the funfair.

  In his mind he danced with her then, beneath the dubious glamour of the glitterball, his thigh gently kissing her crotch with the beat, her lips braiding his hair.

  He smiled, for he’d be dead soon, and they’d be together.

  1

  Letter M Farm, near Ely

  Tuesday, 27 December, Thirty-one years later

  The hoar frost hung in the curved canopy of the magnolia tree, a construction of ice as perfect as coral. The weight of it made the trunk creak in the still, Arctic air. Below it the dewpond was frozen, steaming slightly in the winter sun, a single carp below the powdered surface dying for air.

  Joe stood, admiring its gasping beauty, each of his own breaths a plume which drifted briefly, catching the rays of the sunset. Lighting the cigarette he had made indoors, he drew the marijuana deep into his shattered throat. He sat on his bench with a rowan at his back, heavy with blood-red berries.

  ‘Christmas,’ he said to no one, surveying the circular horizon of the Fen.

  He expelled the smoke, and replaced it with a surge of supercooled air, willing it to purge him of the cancer that was destroying him.

  The house was fifty yards to the north and the only visible building: Letter M Farm was – he had long admitted – as good a place to die as any.

  Inside the foursquare Georgian building the lights he’d left on shone into the winter afternoon, and through its double-glazed windows he could see the twin reflections of the open fire within.

  He stood, turning to go back, swinging his sticks round to keep him steady. A wave of nausea made him stop, closing his eyes and wishing again he wasn’t alone. With eyes closed he drew deeply on the dope, letting the sweet relief flow like a current through his veins.

  When he opened his eyes his wish had come true.

  A man was at the house, coming out of the front door, putting something in his pocket. In his free hand he held a black bag, like a doctor’s, and Joe wondered if he’d come from the unit. He tried to shout but his throat failed him. Then he saw that the man’s head was obscured by a hood.

  The man walked back towards the road where a small white van Joe hadn’t noticed before was parked amongst the uncut Leylandii. Joe hadn’t heard the vehicle approach and a thought insinuated itself: had it been there all day, waiting?

  His eyes swam with the strain of focus. When they’d cleared the man was walking back towards him, a spade in one hand, a bucket in the other, the bag gone. From the way the man swung the pail as he strode over the frozen field Joe knew it was empty.

  He shivered, aware that something had been planned, planned without him. He lifted a hand to take the cigarette from his lips knowing that even now, when he knew that death was coming anyway, fear could be a pungent emotion. Feebly he took another step forward, straightening his back and raising his arm in greeting when the man was almost upon him.

  But there was no response from the face hidden within the shadowed hood. Joe scanned the fields, but the landscape was empty, a lifeless network of ditches, drains and reeds smoking with the mist of nightfall.

  The man’s measured stride did not diminish. The pace of advance was relentless and suddenly Joe saw his eyes: a smoky grey-blue, the whites clear despite the shadow of the hood, the line of the mouth uncertain, a tongue-tip showing.

  Joe took a step back but the man had timed his attack precisely. The spade swung out in a practised arc and crashed, the face turned flat, against his knee, which buckled and splintered beneath the wasted skin. He fell, the pain in his leg oddly distant. His cheek lay on the frozen peat, tiny perfect orbs of ice rolling away from the impact of his body. A hand gripped him by the collar and jerked his head round so that a small gold crucifix on a chain spilled out from around his neck and lay on the peat.

  ‘Who’s this?’ said the voice, younger than he’d expected, and perfectly modulated, stress-free. Its casual authority told him what he’d begun to suspect: that he might be granted his greatest wish, to die before his illness killed him.

  Into his face was thrust a photograph, in a wooden frame, taken from the drawing-room mantelpiece. Four children pictured in the sun, a rolling beach, reeds, and a distant floating buoy in the middle of a channel cut through the sands.

  ‘This one,’ said the voice again, a gloved finger stabbing the figure of the child on the left. The boy with black hair and the immobile face.

  ‘We never knew,’ said Joe, desperate to understand. ‘We called him Philip – just Philip.’

  Savagely the man let his victim’s head drop to the frozen earth and placed two fingers on his jugular, feeling the strength of his pulse. His assailant stood, surveying the horizon, silently listening.

  ‘You’re dying,’ he said finally. ‘I can’t wait.’

  He took the spade and freed the fish from its icy prison in the pond, filled the bucket with glacial water and poured it carefully over Joe’s body, starting at the waist and working up to the chest and head.

  The shock made Joe’s limbs jerk wildly. The second bucket stilled them.

  2

  Ely

  Thursday, 29 December

  Dryden had been unable to sleep, his propane gas heater failing to stop the frost penetrating the steel hull of his floating home – PK 129. Long before dawn he had turned his head and watched as his breath melted the frost on the porthole. He’d gone up on deck in the moonlight and stood, crushed under the weight of stars, looking along the pale sinuous ribbon of the frozen river towards the distant cathedral two miles to the north.

  After making a cup of coffee, he wrapped himself in his winter trench coat and sat in the open wheelhouse. The river was white, the swans dark by comparison, lined up exactly in mid-channel to survive the night-time visit of the fox. Across the silent landscape the only sound was the creak of ice, compressing the hull of the moored boat. In the distant miniature city of Ely nothing stirred except for the trundling amber light of a gritter, glimpsed intermittently on the edge of town. A single house, still decked in Christmas lights, blinked back.

  For the thousandth time since he’d bought his floating home he ran a gloved hand over the brass plaque above the wheel.

  DUNKIRK 1940

  It was a romantic touch which had sealed her purchase. He caressed the cold metal once more, feeling history, seeing again in his imagination the boat weaving in the shallows between the flailing, desperate soldiers.

  A seagull, the first of the morning, screeched over the cathedral’s Octagon Tower.

  Cradling the hot mug Dryden traced with his eyes the outline of the town, west from the cathedral to the Victorian mass of The Tower Hospital. There his wife lay between cool linen sheets, locked still in the coma which had brought both their lives to an abrupt halt: stalling them in this twilight world between the past and the future.

  Dryden stood, trying to shake off the depression which always lurked in the hour before dawn, and stepped
out over the frozen water to the riverbank. His coarse jet-black hair was already iced white by the frost, a frame around the stone-like geometry of his face. The features were medieval, a Norman brow dominating perfectly symmetrical cool green eyes – a face from one of Chaucer’s tales. He could have passed for thirty-five, but by nightfall he’d look a decade older.

  The moon cast a long shadow from his 6' 2" frame and he paced the riverbank with it, trying not to think of the past. A sound brought relief, the crunch of tyres as a car left the high road and began to zigzag across the Fen towards Barham’s Dock, the long-abandoned inlet where PK 129 was moored. He checked his watch: 7.25am. His other life had begun.

  The light was greyer now, the stars fading, as a lifeless colour crept into the December landscape. The white blanket of frost held more light than the pre-dawn sky.

  He began to prepare the ritual round of coffees, looking forward to the egg sandwich which would be his in return. When he got back on deck Humph had parked the cab half a mile from the dock and was outside, circling it, his only daily exercise. The cabbie was not hard to see, even at that distance. He carried his startling weight lightly on ballerina’s feet, a skipping gyroscope teetering around his beloved Ford Capri, the only two-door taxi on the road.

  The third circuit complete, Humph retrieved the greyhound, Boudicca, from the rear seat, taking from the boot the tennis machine Dryden had bought them both for Christmas. The cabbie set it on its tripod feet, putting a fluorescent green ball in the slot, leant back on the Capri’s peeling paintwork and pulled the handle, shooting the ball fifty yards along the riverbank. Boudicca, unleashed, moved like a swallow over the black peat, a graceful thudding icon of speed.

  The ball returned, Humph loaded it again, and fired.

  Dryden zipped up the green tarpaulin covering the wheelhouse and joined them. They drank coffee wordlessly having extracted their egg sandwiches from the foil provided by Humph’s favourite greasy spoon café. Humph encompassed his in two bites, the oozing yellow yolk the only colour in the dawn light.