Dying to Sin bcadf-8

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Dig it up? Do you know how long that would take?’

  ‘I think it will have to be done, Wayne.’

  Abbott put his ladder down. ‘Ground-penetrating radar — that’s your answer. It’s not much use in woodland or on sloping ground, but we can try it here.’

  ‘Is it effective?’

  ‘All it does is use the electrical properties of the soil to identify disturbances in the ground. It’s a lot better than sticking a probe in. You need proper training to use those probes, really. If there is a body, and you go too deep, you can poke the end right in. It doesn’t please the pathologist, I can tell you. I heard of one probe injury that was identified at the PM as the entrance wound of a bullet.’

  Fry looked around the farmyard — all those nooks and crannies, corners and gateways, paddocks and overgrown gardens.

  ‘Where would we start?’

  Abbott consulted his watch, as if the time of day might make a difference, or perhaps he had something more important to do. Christmas presents to buy, the turkey to pick up.

  ‘We could mark out the site and look for depressions,’ he said.

  ‘Depressions,’ said Hitchens. ‘I think I might be getting one of those.’

  ‘You and me both,’ said Abbott. ‘Especially since you started talking about digging the whole place up. You do know it’s nearly Christmas?’

  ‘Why depressions, Wayne?’ asked Fry.

  ‘Look, a body takes up a major amount of space when it’s buried, so there’s nearly always surplus soil displaced around it. When the internal organs start to decompose, the soil above it sinks, creating a depression.’ He demonstrated with his hands. ‘Eventually, the entire area will sink as the soil settles. And here’s where the weather becomes an advantage. Depressions will collect water and form large pools when it rains.’

  ‘Look for the puddles, then?’

  ‘Essentially. I can’t promise you ground-penetrating radar until after Christmas, anyway.’ Abbott hefted the ladder back on his shoulder. ‘At least we can dig the place up without irate householders having fits about the damage to their garden. Do you remember that case we had in Dronfield? You’d think we’d just turned up to vandalize the woman’s property. And all she had was a few old rose bushes and a bit of lawn.’

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ said Hitchens.

  ‘I’d say it was a pleasure, but …’

  Hitchens didn’t look any happier.

  ‘There’s no one here to object,’ he said to Fry. ‘That’s part of the problem.’

  If Fry had thought it couldn’t get any worse, she’d have been wrong. What would normally have been the front door to the farmhouse was almost inaccessible through the muck and rubble in the yard. From a glance into the porch, Cooper thought it looked unlikely that the door would open, even if they could reach it. There was almost as much debris inside as there was outside.

  ‘What in God’s name happened here, Ben? Did somebody drive a herd of buffalo through, or what?’

  ‘Not the front door, Diane. Don’t you know that yet?’

  Like many houses in these parts, the occupants of Pity Wood Farm must have come and gone mostly through the back door. Neighbours would know never to call at the front of the house, and the postman had his own routine. Only strangers and DEFRA officials would try to approach the front door. When you realized that, the obstacle course of foul-smelling rubbish might start to look like a message.

  For a moment, Fry seemed determined to get in anyway, as if she couldn’t accept that things weren’t done in a logical way.

  ‘Hold your noses. It’s like entering a kind of hell,’ said Wayne Abbott as he passed a few yards away.

  ‘Why is he always around?’ said Fry.

  ‘It’s his job,’ pointed out Cooper.

  ‘It’s not his job to annoy me.’

  They walked round the house and Cooper led her inside through the back door, passing the cleared rooms and entering the hallway.

  ‘They left everything. Look, they even left the family Bible on the hall table,’ said Cooper.

  ‘So one of them found God, do you think?’

  ‘It happens.’

  ‘It must have been Raymond. He sounds the type.’

  ‘Do you think there’s a type, Diane?’

  ‘Yes — those who show some signs of having a conscience in the first place. No, wait. There’s another type — the ones who’re already disturbed, hovering close to the edge. We see it all the time among convicted criminals. They get hold of some delusion that they interpret as a spiritual revelation, and suddenly they’re born again. They think they’re one of God’s chosen representatives on earth, redeemed from their sins for some special purpose that He has in mind for them. And, hey presto, they don’t have to feel guilty about their crimes any more.’

  Cooper nodded, but reluctantly. He no longer went to church regularly himself, but he did at least feel guilty about not going. The way Fry talked about other people’s religious beliefs made him uncomfortable. The worst thing was that he couldn’t tell her how he felt, because he knew she’d take it as a sign of weakness.

  ‘Actually, there’s a third type, isn’t there?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, is there?’ Fry watched him expectantly.

  ‘There are those who pretend to have found religion, because they think it will help them get parole.’

  ‘Yes, it’s common enough. But it’s a tough act to keep up, especially when you get on the outside.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Fry looked at the Bible, prominently displayed on the hall table. ‘I mean, if someone is genuinely religious, you’d expect to find some sign of it in their house, in private — not just for public show.’

  She began to walk back towards the next room, and Cooper followed her. They moved cautiously about the house, looking for anything that resembled an office where the farm records might have been kept. But they ended up in the kitchen.

  ‘We might as well start here,’ said Cooper.

  There were still no cats. Not even the signs of their food bowls or a litter tray. Wasn’t a cat the Celtic equivalent of the dog Cerberus, the guardian at the entrance to the Underworld? If this was a kind of hell, where were the guardians?

  Cooper hoped the farm cats had taken themselves off into the woods and fields to find their own food. He didn’t like to think of them becoming roadkill. Their deaths would never be reported, if that was the case. Like the body in the excavated grave, they would never be missed, or even become a statistic.

  He saw a Daily Express that lay folded on the kitchen table, gathering dust.

  ‘This newspaper is nearly nine months old.’

  ‘Is Winston Churchill still Prime Minister?’ asked Fry.

  ‘No, but someone’s landed on the Moon.’

  They went through all the drawers they could find in the kitchen, the sitting room, and a small parlour. Eventually, their search turned up a large, leather-bound book like a ledger, and sheaves of paperwork left loose or stuffed into boxfiles. Cooper lifted out the book and freed it from the papers.

  ‘Farm accounts?’ asked Fry.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Bag everything, Ben, and make sure it’s all logged as evidence. We’ll look at it when we get back to the office.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  Cooper did as he was told, then continued to poke around in the kitchen cupboards, curious about what the Suttons might have left behind that gave an insight into their lives.

  ‘This is interesting, Diane.’

  ‘What have you found?’

  ‘A Sani Bag.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A sanitary-towel disposal bag. This one is from a Novotel. They provide them in their bathrooms for guests.’

  Cooper turned the bag over in his hand. He’d never looked at one closely before. It was made of a strong, shiny white plastic, overprinted with blue text in four languages, and it could be sealed by peeling off an adhesive stri
p and folding down the flap, the way some envelopes were sealed. A set of symbols on the back made it clear that the bag should be disposed of in the bin, not in the toilet bowl. For some reason, these instructions were given in six languages, rather than four.

  ‘There’s a Novotel in Sheffield,’ he said. ‘On Arundel Gate, near Hallam University. That’s the nearest one I can think of.’

  ‘There’s another at Long Eaton, near Junction 25 of the M1.’

  ‘The M1? Well, that would be convenient, too. I suppose it’s the sort of thing you might take away with you from a hotel, like those little bars of soap, and hand towels.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fry. ‘But only if you’re female.’

  ‘So we’ve found evidence to suggest that at least one female was living at Pity Wood Farm. One of our victims, Diane?’

  ‘Impossible to say, until we have an ID.’

  ‘We need to get SOCOs into this kitchen,’ said Cooper. ‘If violence was committed, this is a likely place for it to have happened.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose we might hit lucky — old bloodstains on one of those knives, or in between the tiles of the floor.’

  ‘Or poisons in the fridge.’

  Cooper opened the door of the Electrolux and let her have a glimpse of the jars with their unidentifiable crystallized residues.

  ‘Jesus. Did people really live in this house?’ said Fry. ‘Or did they just turn it over to the animals?’

  ‘If we can establish a primary crime scene, Diane, it would change everything.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. I’ll suggest it as a priority.’

  Fry stood in the middle of the room and turned slowly on the spot, examining the kitchen — its stained walls, its old armchairs, its cast-iron range, and even the still dripping tap in the sink.

  ‘What do you think, Diane?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘To be honest, I think you must be Doctor Who, and you’ve just zipped us off to another place and time in your Tardis.’

  ‘I do know where there’s a police box,’ he said helpfully. ‘But it hasn’t moved for years, to my knowledge.’

  ‘Ben, I don’t recognize this world. These people are an alien species to me. I feel like an anthropologist examining the remains of a vanished civilization.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  Fry stepped over a heap of muddy straw on the kitchen floor. ‘Actually, “civilization” is putting it a bit strong.’

  She was trying to make a joke of it, but Fry really did feel out of her own place and time. The sensation was very disturbing, as if the time machine had left her travel sick and nauseous.

  And she had the suspicion that it wasn’t the Suttons who were the aliens around here.

  Just as she was thinking about aliens, Wayne Abbott put his head round the door. His shaved head bristled aggressively.

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ he said. ‘I was just wondering whether you’d knocked off and gone home. I thought you might like to know — there’s an extensive burnt area behind the poultry sheds. Do you want us to start sifting through it?’

  ‘How large an area?’ asked Fry.

  ‘Like the size of several bonfires. It could have been an entire building that went up, if it was made of wood. But there’s no sign of a concrete or brick base. I’d guess someone was burning rubbish, and used accelerant to make a good job of it. The ash is several inches deep in places.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll need more resources for that job?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘Contain it for now, and we’ll let you know.’

  ‘No problem. Oh, and the builders’ foreman is here. The Polish bloke. He says you wanted him.’

  Nikolai Dudzik nodded cautiously, sensing from Fry’s manner that he was in a difficult position. Instead of his yellow hard hat, he was wearing a shapeless woollen cap, indicating that he was off duty.

  ‘Bones,’ he said. ‘A few bones, that was all.’

  ‘Yes, bones, Mr Dudzik.’

  ‘The skeleton of an animal, yes? It’s a farm, after all. There must have been lots of animals buried here, I think.’

  ‘So you got the men to fill the hole in again and cover it up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For God’s sake, why?’

  Dudzik raised his hands apologetically.

  ‘I knew there would be a lot of fuss if we reported it, Sergeant. It would have delayed the job too much. We’re already behind schedule, you see. Because of the weather.’

  ‘The skeleton of an animal wouldn’t have delayed anything,’ said Fry. ‘You knew it was human.’

  ‘History,’ he said. ‘They send in the scientists. They don’t let you build for weeks, for months.’

  ‘You’re saying you thought the discovery would involve archaeologists coming here to dig up an ancient graveyard?’

  ‘Yes, exactly.’

  Fry could see the second body tent in the background. The thought of an entire graveyard at Pity Wood Farm made her skin go cold.

  ‘But this isn’t history, Mr Dudzik.’

  ‘I’m sorry. We thought we were doing the right thing.’

  ‘Jamie Ward seems to be the only one who wasn’t let in on it.’

  ‘No, we didn’t trust him. He was different, he would want to speak to the authorities.’

  ‘Thank goodness he was around. He was the one who did the right thing.’

  Fry sighed. It was still too late, wasn’t it? The grave had already been disturbed, and crucial evidence could have been lost.

  ‘Am I in trouble, Sergeant?’ asked Dudzik, anxious now to get away.

  She looked at him thoughtfully.

  ‘We could sort it out, if you’re co-operative, sir.’

  ‘Anything I can do to help. I’m at your disposal.’

  ‘Your workmen — they must sometimes pick up small items for themselves. Things they find, that look as though they aren’t wanted by anyone.’

  ‘Ah, yes. They do like these old places, particularly. Sometimes they find little bits of treasure.’

  ‘I’m looking for a specific bit of treasure.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Fry told him about the broken cross that Jamie Ward had dug out of the first grave, which hadn’t turned up in the skip with the rest of the debris. He’d described it as a cheap crucifix on a chain, with part of the base chipped away.

  ‘Whoever has it, Mr Dudzik, I want it returned,’ she said.

  Dudzik pulled his cap back on.

  ‘Leave it with me, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘I’ll find it for you.’

  When he finally got back to his desk in Edendale, Cooper took a return call from his contact in Norfolk, where the horticulture business was totally reliant on transient workers.

  ‘You don’t need as much accommodation for illegals as you might think, Ben,’ he said. ‘Most gang masters practise a hot-bedding system.’

  ‘Two men sharing the same bed, working and sleeping in shifts?’

  ‘Right. It’s incredibly difficult and time consuming to check them all for forged documents. Some are very good forgeries, in any case. There’s nothing special about those IND documents they’re supposed to produce for employers.’

  ‘Hold on — IND? It’s a Home Office department, I know, but I don’t have my acronym dictionary to hand.’

  ‘Immigration and Nationality Directorate.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘King’s Lynn is the hub for East Anglia. We have at least two thousand illegals here, at last count. They sleep in sheds and garages, as well as any houses they can find to rent. They’re charged for accommodation and transport, and sometimes up to twenty thousand pounds for a false passport. They’re promised that they’ll earn three or four hundred pounds a week when they get to Britain, but they’re lucky if they get half that, in reality. They’re told they have to work to pay off their fees, and the gang master takes a cut.’

  ‘I described it to my DS as like being sold into slavery,’ said Cooper.

  ‘You�
�re right. Yes, it is like being sold into slavery. Many illegals don’t earn more than two pounds or two pounds fifty an hour, even if the employer pays the legal minimum wage. So workers are trapped — they have to carry on sending money home to pay their debt. Even if they get regular work, that takes about five years.’

  ‘And from the employers’ point of view, it’s all about convenience, I suppose.’

  ‘Of course. Farmers simply ask for a certain amount of labour on a certain day and turn a blind eye to where it comes from. When farmers or growers employ illegal workers, it’s because they can’t get legal workers locally, and then they have to rely on a third party to provide them, or lose the crop.’

  ‘So do you have anything specific for me?’

  ‘I checked the intelligence when you emailed, Ben. Sorry, mate — there’s nothing in your area. I thought it was all sheep in the Peak District, anyway?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘Well, if you want to take it any further, you’ll probably have to tackle the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in Croydon. They’ll have an Enforcement and Removals team that operates in your region.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Oh, and Ben?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Watch out for anyone called Ernest Xavier Ample.’

  Half an hour later, Fry stood with Hitchens at the tape marking off the freshly excavated patch of ground, now covered by its own tent. Pity Wood Farm was starting to look like a campsite for tourists with strange tastes in sleeping arrangements. Inside the tent, Dr Pat Jamieson was humming to himself, like a mechanic under a dodgy Ford Escort.

  Forensic anthropologists were conservative by nature, especially when asked to report on the biological profile of a victim. Jamieson was one of the most conservative of all, likely to suck his teeth and shake his head without committing himself to an opinion.

  ‘You know I can’t address cause of death, Inspector,’ said Dr Jamieson, his bald head gleaming briefly in the light. ‘That’s a medical determination, for the pathologist to make. An assessment of age, sex, stature and ancestry, yes. Time since death, possibly. But beyond that, well …’

  While Hitchens was fidgeting impatiently, Fry took a call from Murfin on her mobile.