The Fourth Friend (DI Jackman & DS Evans #3)(21)

The old man sat down and raised his glass towards his guest. ‘So. You need to ask me something, don’t you, young’un?’

Carter looked at him. ‘You’ve known all along, haven’t you?’

‘Maybe. Ask the question and we’ll find out.’

‘Ray confided in you, didn’t he?’

‘Ah, a good lad that one. Dreadful waste.’ Silas stared out across the river. ‘Not frightened of hard work either, and he loved the fen and the birds here.’ He sighed and sipped his drink. ‘Aye, we talked a bit.’

‘About money?’

‘Amongst other things.’

Carter’s expression tightened. Much as he loved the old cuss, he was in no mood for games. ‘I have to find it, Silas, and get it to Joanne. She’s struggling. She needs it, and Ray wants her to have it.’

‘Well, he told me all about them ne’er-do-wells he called his family. But listen up. He said he had “something” he was worried about. Not actual cash. A thing.’

‘So he left it with you?’

‘Not exactly, but I can help you find it.’ Silas rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘’Ere, why did you say “Ray wants her to have it?”’

Carter inhaled. He had never been able to lie to Silas. ‘I see them.’

‘At night? In your dreams, like?’

‘I just see them, Silas. We talk.’

The old man folded his arms, and nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I think you would, all things considered.’ He paused, still nodding. ‘I think you would.’

This was deeply reassuring to Carter, although he knew very well that seeing the dead in one form or another was part of the lives of the old “web-footed” fen men.

‘Recall that night, young’un? When you were coming up ten years?’

Carter stared into his glass. Yes, he remembered. Carter had never understood what he saw that night, and he still didn’t.

He had been just a boy . . .



Carter was woken by the sound of gravel thrown against his window. He scrambled from his bed. He looked down and made out the figure of Silas standing in the shadows of the courtyard. He was beckoning.

He pulled on his jeans, dragged a sweater over his head and crept out of the house. Silas led the way in silence, down the lane and into the old churchyard. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and together they crouched behind a crumbling, ivy-choked wall. Silas held a finger to his lips and pointed towards the church path.

For more than a quarter of an hour, tiny flickering lights danced along the path that led from the lychgate to the church door. The wind didn’t extinguish them and they grew brighter just before they disappeared.

‘Corpse candles,’ whispered Silas. ‘There’ll be a death in the village.’

Carter almost forced the reluctant Silas up to the church door, but there was nothing there. No candles, no lanterns. Nothing. On their way back to the house, Carter plied his companion with questions, but Silas said little. They were there to lead the way for the coffin bearers. Some saw them, others didn’t. Simple.

And that was that. The following Friday, Carter’s mother’s car skidded off the road on the Westdyke Bridge, and she drowned in the Westland River.



Carter poured them another two fingers of whisky. He had wondered about those lights for years. He’d never spoken about what he’d seen. There was a rational explanation for those lights, he knew. He’d just never discovered it. Silas would never have played a trick on him, he just wasn’t like that. Eventually he concluded that it was methane gas. The wetlands emitted marsh gas when the conditions were right. It was a strange but perfectly natural phenomenon. But Carter was never entirely convinced. Maybe he had spent too much time with old Silas when he was a kid.

He spoke softly. ‘I still wish it had been my father. The bastard.’

‘Now, boy. Don’t speak ill of the dead,’ said Silas sternly.

But Carter didn’t want to get onto the subject of his family now. He wanted to know about Ray’s money. ‘So, my friend, are you going to help me find my mate’s nest egg?’

The old man set down his empty glass on the bench beside him and stood up. ‘Fancy a walk?’ He reached down and patted the dog’s head. ‘Come on, Klink, lad. Let’s take this impatient young whippersnapper to find the buried treasure, shall we?’

*

Jackman’s office was a haven, a refuge from the bedlam of the CID office.

He had made it his own, bringing in scavenged furniture. There were no official police photographs on the walls, just rows of books and a picture of his beautiful and sadly long-gone horse, Glory.

He put his finger to the decorative globe on his desk, and watched the countries of the world revolve in a many-coloured blur. ‘If only real life was as beautiful,’ he murmured.

‘It is, if you look in the right places.’

Jackman looked up. The elfin face of Laura Archer peered around his partly open door.

‘You’re working late. Come in.’

Laura sat down opposite him and smiled grimly. ‘I was summoned to help the FMO with a situation in custody.’

‘Ah, I heard we had a difficult customer. Everything okay now?’

‘He’s on his way to hospital, but he’s much calmer.’