Dying to Sin bcadf-8

by Stephen Booth

  The main part of the village clung to the hillside just below its brow. But there were many far-flung farms, where a hard living had been scraped from sheep farming for centuries. Three or four farms clustering around a double bend formed the centre of Rakedale. There were more cattle sheds than houses, more trailer ramps and livestock gates than front doors. The only observer as they passed was a black-and-white calf peering from a pen in the corner of a yard. The calf watched them miserably, kicking at its straw.

  There were no road markings here — no white lines or yellow lines, no chevrons or rumble strips. Even the edges of the road itself were unclear. At the top of the village, where they had to make a sharp right turn, the junction was pretty much indistinguishable. Every direction looked like a farm track.

  Cooper parked in front of the village Methodist chapel and they all got out, pulling on their coats, sorting their interview forms into plastic wallets to keep them dry, and dividing the village up into three sectors. Fry looked at a giant puddle between the car and the road.

  ‘And now I suppose you’ll tell me that Derbyshire is disappearing under water because sea levels are rising.’

  ‘No, but parts of Lincolnshire are going to disappear,’ said Cooper. ‘Perhaps not in our lifetime, but — ’

  ‘Oh, give it a rest.’

  ‘You brought it up.’

  Fry walked off, and Murfin nudged Cooper as they watched her go. ‘I think you won that one, Ben.’

  ‘It’s not a competition, Gavin. People should be thinking about these things.’

  Murfin pulled a couple of chocolate bars out of his pocket and handed one to Cooper.

  ‘Blimey. As long we can still grow food, what does it matter?’

  House-to-house. It wasn’t always the most popular job on a major enquiry. Especially when it was raining.

  And today, in Rakedale, it was definitely raining. From the state of the roads and the farm entrances, it looked as though it had been raining all year. The village might as well exist under some permanent black cloud that trickled constantly, like a leaky hosepipe.

  Cooper crossed the road to a row of four cottages. He knocked on the door of the first house, drew up his collar and readied his clipboard. When you did house-to-house, bad weather was a useful barometer for what sort of people you were dealing with. In parts of Edendale, they’d leave you standing in the rain without a qualm, would rather see you drown in front of their eyes than let you over their threshold. If you were visiting an address on the Devonshire Estate in a downpour, you’d better be carrying a warrant, or an umbrella.

  Out here, though, you’d expect members of the public to have a bit of sympathy, and not to watch you dripping on their step without a flicker of concern.

  But that was exactly what the first householder did, admitting that she’d heard of the Suttons of Pity Wood Farm, but she knew nothing about them, or anyone who’d ever worked there. At the second house, he got the same response. And at the third.

  Cooper paused before calling at the end house, and studied the village. There wasn’t much in the way of Christmas decorations visible in Rakedale, but that was true of many Peak District villages. In Edendale, the streets were strung with lights, and almost every shop had a tree fixed to its upper storey, decorated and ready to be lit when darkness came. The same sort of thing could be found in other places — Castleton or Bakewell, for example.

  But there was a difference. Some villages relied on income from tourism for their survival, and went out of their way to bring in visitors. Others had no interest in being tourist spots. Quite the opposite. Those were the places where residents didn’t want members of the public clogging their streets and peering into their gardens. In those villages, there were no visitor centres, no helpful signposts, no tea rooms or picnic sites. You could drive through some of them as often as you liked and find nowhere to park. ‘Keep moving’ was their message.

  The last cottage in the row was empty, with green paint peeling off the door. On a side lane, where the woods started, Cooper found a 1950s bungalow strung with Christmas lights, and a chained Alsatian barking in a yard. He thought it looked more promising. But, frustratingly, it was the first property on his list where no one was at home. He made a note on the sheet and turned back towards the Methodist chapel, where he’d left the car.

  The chapel was a square, unpretentious building standing between two farms. Primitive Methodist, according to the noticeboard. The name was a bit unsettling, but remarkably apt.

  The fact that there was no parish church in Rakedale told Cooper something about the village. He was reminded of the old social division in rural communities — chapel for the workers, church for the squire. These non-conformist chapels were where the working classes had first learned to speak for themselves, to educate themselves, and to organize. They’d been a natural breeding ground for trade unions. Once working people had tasted religious freedom, they wanted political and social freedom, too. In some of these ancient villages, the parish church was still associated with the power wielded by the lord of the manor, a symbol of servitude. The priest took the squire’s money, and he preached what the squire wanted to hear.

  But not in Rakedale. The nearest parish church must be in Biggin or Hartington. Villagers here were out of the gaze of any squire or landowner. And if the priest tried to visit, he would have been seen coming for miles.

  Fry had made a deduction. Mud must be a perfectly normal occurrence in Rakedale. She had found brushes and scrapers by every front door for visitors with muddy boots. Not that she was allowed across the mat very often, but the possibility was at least hinted at in the provision of a scraper.

  In other ways, too, everyone she spoke to seemed unsurprised to see her, as if they’d been warned in advance.

  So it was a relief to come across the Dog Inn, a small pub set so far back from the road that it was almost hiding. For once, Fry didn’t have to expect some sour-faced woman in a baggy sweater blocking her way. It was a public house, and she was a member of the public. So she must be welcome, right?

  The Dog Inn was entered through a tiny porch, its door at right angles to the main entrance to face away from the prevailing wind. The porch door was red, matching the Russian vine covering the walls and a row of three brick chimneys on the roof, and a horseshoe was nailed to the centre panel.

  Inside, Fry found a small L-shaped bar with a settle against one wall, and an open fireplace with real logs burning in it and a stone chimney breast. A tiny side room held a pool table and a battered dartboard. A man with a long, grey beard was rolling cigarettes from a battered tobacco tin and brushing the remains of his tobacco off the racing page of the Daily Mirror. A few other men sat at tables further down the bar, all in complete silence. She felt sure it hadn’t been quite so silent before she walked in.

  Fry was faced by a ‘Merry Christmas’ sign hanging from the beer pumps, and a row of Christmas figures over the bar counter — a few motley Santas and a snowman. She’d followed a trail of muddy paw prints into the bar that she guessed must belong to the collie dog lying on the floor.

  On the jukebox she could see Now That’s What I Call Music — 1964, a bit of Elvis Presley, and the Eagles’ Greatest Hits. The selections were numbered one to twelve down one side, and fourteen to twenty-five on the other. Twenty-eight choices of naff sixties and seventies pop hits. According to a sign, bed and breakfast at the Dog Inn was only twenty-five pounds a night. She didn’t feel tempted.

  For a few minutes, Fry thought it was strange that no one seemed to be looking at her, as if they’d accepted her without curiosity. But then she realized that they were watching her, after all. They were making an elaborate pretence of not noticing her, but they were observing out of the corners of their eyes, letting their gaze sweep casually across her as if she wasn’t there, but registering more and more details about her each time they turned their heads. Bystanders were notoriously poor at remembering descriptions, but these people would be able to dr
aw her accurately from memory, each and every one of them. They were all watching her.

  As she waited, a desultory conversation started up about the weather. Wasn’t it wet and cold and windy, they said. Wetter and colder and windier than usual for this time of year. It would probably be even wetter and colder over Christmas, just their luck. Somebody must have stood on an ant.

  Fry finally got some attention when a middle-aged man emerged from a door behind the bar. He was wearing an old cardigan and carrying a mug of tea with ‘Number One Dad’ printed on it. He introduced himself as Ned Dain, the licensee.

  ‘The Suttons?’ he said. ‘I remember the two old men. They’re not still at the farm, surely?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought not. We haven’t seen them in here for ages. Died, did they?’

  ‘Only one of them did.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Well, I bet that would be really hard on the other brother,’ said Dain. ‘They were so close they were almost like twins. Spoke the same, had a similar manner. Yet someone told me once they didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. They kept it hidden well, if that was the case.’ He took a sip of tea. ‘There were a few years between them in age, I think.’

  ‘We’ve been told Derek was the youngest by four years.’

  ‘Is he the one that died?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Damn.’

  The men in the bar had moved on to discussing the Middle East problem, and whether anyone had seen the darts on the telly last night.

  ‘Can you tell me anything else about them?’

  ‘They always kept themselves pretty much to themselves,’ said Dain. ‘But there’s usually somebody who knows something around here. What did you want to know?’

  ‘Was either of them married, for example?’

  ‘Hold on. Hey, Jack!’

  The man with the long, grey beard looked up. ‘Aye?’

  ‘The Sutton brothers at Pity Wood — was one of them married?’

  Jack glanced slyly at Fry before answering. ‘I don’t rightly recall. Might have been. It was a long time ago, if so.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Dain. ‘I don’t recollect they were married. A set of old bachelors, I’d reckon. We mostly saw the brothers together, if we saw them at all. If there was ever a wife, she must have died, too, or walked out — who knows?’

  ‘Well, who does?’

  Dain seemed not to be able to answer a direct question.

  ‘Derek,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘And then there was, let’s see … Billy? No, of course not. That’s me getting mixed up. I’m getting a terrible memory for names.’

  ‘Billy?’ The man called Jack coughed and laughed into his beard. ‘There was never any Billy. You’ve got that wrong, Ned.’

  ‘Raymond,’ said Fry.

  ‘Raymond. That’s right. Derek, Raymond …?’

  ‘Yes, Derek and Raymond. Those are their names.’

  Dain gave her a quizzical look. ‘All right, if you say so. Well, Raymond, now — he played the organ at the chapel. You could ask the minister about him. He’s circuit, of course, based in Monyash. Or there’s Ellis Bland — he’s the caretaker.’

  Jack spoke up again. ‘Ned, they had a funeral at the chapel, didn’t they? The Suttons.’

  ‘That would have been Derek, then,’ said Fry.

  ‘Aye, Derek. Funny bugger — superstitious as all get out. Magpies, black cats, I don’t know what. He thought everything he saw was going to bring bad luck.’

  ‘He’s dead now, so he must have been right,’ said Dain.

  ‘Well, we hope he was dead, since they buried him.’

  Jack cackled and went back to his tobacco. Fry tried to regain the attention.

  ‘Apart from the Suttons themselves, were there any farmworkers that used to come in the pub?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but perhaps my Dad would remember them, if they came in here.’

  ‘Was your father the licensee before you?’

  ‘Not him,’ said Dain with a laugh. ‘Well, his name was over the door, but running a pub would be too much like hard work for that drunken old bastard. No, you’d have found him sitting on that side of the bar most nights. He knew everyone around here, though. If strangers came in, he’d be giving them the once-over as they walked to the bar, and he’d know everything about them by the time they left the pub again. You could do with blokes like my old dad on the police force, if you want information.’

  ‘I suppose he’s not still around,’ said Fry.

  ‘Well, not around here, thank God,’ said Dain. ‘We put him in a home when he got too bad. Cracked as a tin bucket he was, by the end. Too much drink wrecked his brain. But it was his liver that did for him in the end.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Me, I won’t go that way. I’m as fit as a fiddle, and twice as tuneful.’

  Dain rubbed a hand on the bar counter, as if finding a blemish on the polished wood.

  ‘Come to think of it,’ he said, ‘I think the police did use my dad as a source of information from time to time. The local bobby would come in here himself in those days, in uniform and all. And he’d expect free drinks. Those were different times, I suppose. He even brought his sergeant in sometimes.’

  Picturing the scene, Fry suddenly had a bad feeling about the answer to her next question. ‘Can you remember the name of that sergeant?’

  Dain shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. It’s too long ago.’

  ‘Shame.’

  Dain ran a cloth across the bar counter. ‘Wait, though … it was a fairly common name. Oh, that’s annoying. It’s right on the tip of my tongue.’

  Fry waited as patiently as she could while he fumbled through his memories, but nothing seemed to be emerging.

  ‘Cooper?’ she suggested. ‘Sergeant Joe Cooper, perhaps?’

  ‘Who?’ said Dain. ‘Nah, that’s not it. Cooper? Where did you get that from?’ Then his face broke into a broken-toothed smile. ‘Nothing like it. Williams, that was his name. Big Welsh bloke. We called him Taffy.’

  ‘And the local bobby himself?’

  ‘Oh, Dave Palfreyman? He’s still around, all right. You won’t be able to miss him.’

  Outside the Dog Inn, Fry stood for a moment in the rain. Something about the conversation in the pub was worrying her. Not the barely concealed hostility, or Ned Dain’s infuriatingly poor memory — if that’s what it was. No, it was a faint ambiguity that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Not anything that had been said, but something that had been missing.

  Fry stepped over a pothole in the car park that was slowly filling with water, and found herself thinking about the patch of disturbed ground that Jamie Ward had pointed out at Pity Wood Farm. It had been nagging at the back of her mind the way things did when she’d overlooked them, or not acted when she should have done.

  She took out her phone and called DI Hitchens, who was still at the farm.

  ‘Yes, I feel we should try to make it a priority,’ she said. ‘As soon as possible. Yes, I understand, sir. Resources … Well, Jamie Ward believed it was important enough, and I think I agree with him.’

  9

  Apart from the pub, the village’s facilities seemed to consist solely of a small post-box lashed to a fence post. When he’d finished his calls, Cooper sat in the car and watched the rain soaking the walls of the chapel.

  ‘There’s no post office,’ he said, when the others returned. ‘That would be the place to go.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The next village has one.’

  ‘We could give it a try.’

  He saw there was a Town Head Farm at one end of the village, and Town End Farm at the other. He supposed it helped visitors to Rakedale to know whether they were coming or going.

  Most of the farms along this road were well kept. Of course, they were fully functioning enterprises, with neat signs displayed at the roadside — the name of
the farm, the family who owned it, the type of cattle they bred. Friesians and Holsteins mostly, with the appropriate illustration of a proud beast under the family name. There had been no such sign at Pity Wood.

  The post office in the next village was open for business only from eleven a.m. to one p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Like so many rural post offices, it was operating what were officially called ‘satellite hours’. Villagers here were lucky — many areas had lost their facilities altogether. But, since this was Friday, it was no less closed.

  Most of the buildings seemed to be either holiday cottages or offering B amp;B. They were deserted in mid-winter, dormant and empty, awaiting an influx of tourists in the spring, their owners praying there wouldn’t be a repeat of 2001, when the foot and mouth outbreak had destroyed their business.

  The only other notable feature in the village was a farming heritage centre, which looked quite a new development. An interesting avenue of diversification, preserving the heritage instead of farming.

  ‘Any other suggestions?’ asked Murfin.

  Cooper unfolded a map of the Rakedale area. ‘There’s another farm up the road, away from the village. We oughtn’t to miss that.’

  ‘I’ve been given the name of a retired bobby who lives near here,’ said Fry. ‘Palfreyman, he’s called. Now, if he’s an old-style copper, he could be a very good bet to know all about the Suttons. Well, as much as anyone here does.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘Hollowbrook Cottage, the landlord of the pub said. It should be up this same road.’

  ‘I see it,’ said Cooper, with his finger on the map. ‘We can do both together quite easily.’

  ‘You know what? I think you can take the ex-bobby, Ben,’ said Fry.

  ‘Oh, thanks. Is that because you think I’m the best person for the job, then?’