Dying to Sin bcadf-8

by Stephen Booth

  Strands of tinsel glittered over his head as he passed through the door into the bar, expecting one of those silences that descended whenever a stranger walked into the saloon in a Western film. In here, Fry would have been pretty much a woman with two heads. He bet everyone had stared at her, but no one would have been willing to catch her eye. There were some situations where her approach didn’t necessarily work.

  The men in the bar were quiet as Cooper walked in. He greeted the sheepdog, which was the only one to acknowledge him, and went to the bar. At least there was a nice open fire, which was useful while he observed the customary wait. At his feet was a brick step up to the bar, and a bowl of water for customers’ dogs.

  Cooper always looked at the beer pumps in a pub — they could tell you so much about the customers. Real ale or keg, lager or Guinness? Here, they had Black Sheep, Ruddles, and Baboushka spiced ale from one of the Derbyshire breweries, Thornbridge. There was also M amp; B Mild, a drink that was definitely out of fashion in the trendy bars back in town.

  ‘Cooper, did you say?’ asked Ned Dain.

  ‘Yes, DC Cooper, from Edendale.’

  ‘And you work with that woman sergeant that came in the other day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was your dad a bobby?’

  ‘Yes, he was.’

  ‘OK, I get it now.’

  Dain laughed as he moved along the bar to serve a customer. It was a slightly disturbing laugh that he had, a sound like the deep, wet gurgle from one of his own beer pumps.

  ‘Oh, and tell that sergeant from me there’s no Billy,’ called Dain. In the corner, a man with a beard laughed.

  ‘Billy?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Just our joke. There never was any such person as Billy Sutton.’

  Puzzled, Cooper opened his mouth to put another question, but the landlord interrupted him.

  ‘You ought to talk to the old lady,’ said Dain. ‘My mother. She’ll remember the stuff you want to ask about.’

  ‘How do you know what I want to ask about?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Talk to the old lady,’ repeated Dain. ‘You’ll find her through there. And shut the door behind you.’

  The old lady seemed to have her own sitting room off the kitchen, where she could supervise what was going on through the open door without taking her eyes off the TV for too long. Cooper entered her lair respectfully, conscious that he was being studied critically. The first impression he made might be crucial, the one factor that could make Mrs Dain decide whether to open up to him or keep her mouth firmly shut, the way so many people in Rakedale were doing.

  When he introduced himself and told her what he had come to talk to her about, he could see her bending her head forward to listen closely to his words. He suspected she was not just hearing what he said, but listening to his accent, judging whether he was local, assessing from his manner whether he was worth talking to.

  To his surprise, she lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke. So the door to the bar was kept closed for Health and Safety reasons. No one would realize that there was a free passage of air into the kitchen.

  ‘Who else have you spoken to?’ she said eagerly, when Cooper told her the purpose of his visit.

  ‘Oh, Mr Palfreyman. Mr Farnham.’

  ‘Tom Farnham? Did you ask him about his wife?’

  ‘He’s a widower, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but you know what they say — a widower by choice.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well, it’s only gossip, I suppose. It’s just what people were saying at the time.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that Mr Farnham killed his wife?’

  ‘Not me. It’s what I heard, that’s all.’

  ‘He was never charged with anything. The inquest verdict was accidental death.’

  ‘Well, they never found any evidence. It doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her, does it? The perfect murder is the one they can’t prove you committed.’

  ‘It’s a point of view,’ said Cooper.

  Privately, he wanted to agree with Mrs Dain. There were plenty of cases where the police believed they knew the perpetrators of crimes, but were never able to prove their guilt in court. It was a mistake to believe that their aim was to achieve justice. Most effort was concentrated on putting together a strong enough case for a prosecution. Without sufficient evidence, and without a rigid adherence to procedures in gathering and presenting it, the concept of justice became academic. It was an interpretation of the criminal justice system that wasn’t normally shared with members of the public.

  ‘I know how easily these rumours get around,’ said Cooper. ‘But it’s unwise to repeat them, Mrs Dain.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t repeat it to anybody else,’ said the old lady hastily. ‘But I thought it would be all right in your case. I mean — you know what it’s like, don’t you?’

  When the kitchen door opened again, Cooper caught the sound and smell of sizzling onion rings. He was starting to feel hungry. Cutlery rattled and a girl emerged from the kitchen and went into the bar with two plates of food. Proper countryside portions, too — the plates were laden. Cooper inhaled as the onion rings passed by.

  ‘It would be about five years ago. Your husband was the licensee then.’

  ‘His name was over the door. But I ran the pub.’

  Cooper smiled. ‘Yes, that’s what I heard.’

  ‘You heard right.’

  ‘At that time, there were some itinerant workers employed at Pity Wood Farm.’

  ‘Pity Wood? The Suttons?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was a shame about those boys. I knew them when they were young men. They were a few years older than me, of course, but as a girl I took quite an interest in them. I always thought Derek was rather dashing. He was the one I fancied, anyway.’

  She looked at Cooper with a hint of a twinkle, and he knew she’d been won over.

  ‘And Raymond?’ he asked.

  ‘Raymond wasn’t too bad, but he was a bit dour — especially later on, when he got all Bible and black suit.’

  ‘You mean when he took to religion?’

  ‘Aye. That was a bit of a shock. He thought we all ought to be as miserable as he was, told us we were going to Hell for enjoying ourselves. We never saw him in the pub after that, of course. Derek had to come in on his own. Sometimes he had a mite too much to drink. I couldn’t blame him, if all he had to go home to was that brother of his. But I bet there were a few rows at home over his drinking.’

  Cooper thought of his early image of Raymond and Derek Sutton sitting in their armchairs in silence. He had barely known their names then, but they’d been clear in his mind already.

  ‘I’m not so sure about that.’

  ‘And then, of course …’ Mrs Dain began to struggle out of her chair, and Cooper leaned forward to offer a hand to help her up. ‘There are some photographs here somewhere. I keep them in the drawer.’

  ‘Photographs of the Suttons?’

  Mrs Dain pulled out a set of photographic envelopes and began to sort through them very slowly, pausing occasionally, as if for private recollection.

  ‘Have you found anything?’ said Cooper.

  The old lady looked offended to be hurried, or perhaps Cooper had said something wrong. Whatever the reason, she changed her mind.

  ‘No. Now that I recall, I gave some photos to the new heritage centre for their exhibition.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘I’m sure there was a photograph of the brothers. Decent lads. I was never quite sure about their mother, though. I always had a suspicion she was of the Old Religion.’

  For a moment, the faint murmur of conversation from the bar and the clatter of cutlery from the kitchen were the only sounds. In the little sitting room, there was silence. Cooper sat quite still, holding himself in, hoping the old lady would explain. From the way she said ‘Old Religion’, he could tell the words had capital letters. But if he was too impatient again, or said the wrong
thing, he knew he would never find out what she meant. She would become one of Fry’s ‘Three Monkeys’ in an instant.

  So he waited. But instead of explaining, Mrs Dain slid the photographs back in the drawer with an air of finality, and picked up her cigarette from the ashtray. She put it to her lips, sucked, blew, coughed, and had to sit down suddenly.

  ‘The Old Religion,’ said Cooper. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  But it was no good. The moment had drifted by.

  ‘It’s all in the past,’ said Mrs Dain. ‘Beatrice Sutton is long dead. Things like that don’t exist any more, so there’s no point in talking about it.’

  ‘I’d be interested to hear — ’

  ‘There’s no point,’ said the old lady firmly, ‘in talking about it.’

  Cooper raised the palms of his hands in a placatory gesture. He didn’t want to antagonize her, not when he’d been doing so well. Mrs Dain had accepted him into her world, and he’d made good progress with her. She would tell him the rest of it when she was ready.

  Fry took delivery of a small envelope that had been left for her at the front desk in West Street. It was a grubby white envelope, with her name scrawled on it in felt-tipped pen and her rank spelled wrongly.

  She pulled on a pair of gloves before she opened it. You couldn’t be too careful. She was pretty sure it wasn’t a letter bomb, but there were plenty of people who might think of sending her other unpleasant items by way of greeting.

  But inside the envelope she found only one thing — a small, cheap crucifix with part of the base chipped away.

  Fry let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  ‘Thank you, Nikolai,’ she said.

  Cooper took the opportunity to take a toilet break, and discovered that the toilets at the Dog Inn were reached through a series of winding stone passages that seemed to lead almost into the next village.

  When he returned to the bar, it was as if Ned Dain had been given some kind of signal by his mother, or maybe it was just the fact that she’d agreed to speak with Cooper for so long that had given the official seal of approval. Whatever the reason, Dain sidled up to him before he left the pub and whispered in a conspiratorial manner.

  ‘I thought you ought to know, there was a foreigner in here last night, asking questions.’

  Cooper stopped. ‘Oh? What sort of questions?’

  ‘He wanted to know what all the police activity was. What was going on up at that old farm? He wasn’t very subtle about it. His English wasn’t too good, but we could see what he was after. Nosing about, wanting the gossip.’

  ‘Could you get an idea of his nationality?’

  Dain shook his head and flapped the moisture out of a bar cloth. ‘Not really. He looked like you or me. Not totally dark or anything, I mean. Not that kind of foreigner. He sounded like some of those blokes that have been doing the building work at Pity Wood.’

  ‘East European?’

  ‘Probably. I couldn’t be sure. A few of those builders came in here on Thursday, chattering away to each other. He sounded like them.’

  ‘Can you describe him? Age? Height? How was he dressed?’

  ‘Hold on, that’s too many questions all at once. I suppose he’d be about twenty-five or twenty-six, not above average height. Oh, and I do remember he was wearing a sort of black padded coat. You know, you see asylum seekers wearing them when they get pulled off the EuroStar.’

  ‘And you didn’t find anything else out about him?’ asked Cooper, sure that the landlord must have tried.

  Dain wiped an imaginary spill off the bar counter with his cloth. ‘Close-mouthed, he was. I’d go so far as to say ignorant. I can’t do with folk like that, who come in here and don’t know how to make conversation. They take offence if you ask them an innocent question or two.’

  ‘Funny, that,’ said Cooper.

  17

  ‘Bloody man. He never mentioned to me that his mother was still alive,’ said Fry when Cooper reported on his visit to the Dog Inn.

  ‘He probably thought she wouldn’t want to talk to you.’

  ‘Well, why — ? Oh, never mind. It sounds as though you did well, Ben.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Cooper, knowing that he hadn’t yet learned how to keep the note of surprise out of his voice on the rare occasion that she said something complimentary to him. ‘It’s a shame Mrs Dain didn’t have any photographs she could show me. I might try to make time to call at the heritage centre and see what they’ve got.’

  ‘Put it on your list,’ said Fry.

  ‘What’s next, then?’

  Fry smiled. ‘I think I’d like to have a chat with your PC Palfreyman.’

  ‘Ex-PC.’

  ‘Whatever. Do you fancy a trip out?’

  ‘He’ll be absolutely delighted to see us,’ said Cooper.

  David Palfreyman emerged from his kitchen to answer the door. Although he was in the house, he was still wearing his floppy hat. When a man wore a hat all the time, it usually meant that he was completely bald. But Cooper knew that Palfreyman still had some hair. Perhaps it was all those years of wearing a helmet that made his head feel naked.

  ‘Do you live on your own, Mr Palfreyman?’ said Cooper. ‘I never thought to ask you last time.’

  ‘I’m divorced. You know what it’s like — they can only stand the job for so long.’

  ‘Of course. It happens a lot.’

  Cooper refrained from saying that he thought what police officers’ partners couldn’t stand wasn’t the job, it was coming second to the job. If he ever got married himself, he’d make sure it didn’t happen. Not to the point of divorce, anyway.

  ‘So no woman in the house, then?’

  Palfreyman looked at Fry. ‘Not until now.’

  When they were seated in the lounge, Fry stepped in and took over the conversation.

  ‘Mr Palfreyman, DC Cooper tells me you know pretty much everything and everyone in Rakedale.’

  The ex-bobby’s eyes flickered sideways to Cooper. ‘Yes, pretty much. What do you want to know?’

  ‘We need to know everything about the Sutton brothers at Pity Wood Farm,’ said Fry.

  ‘Of course you do. I’ve watched the news and read the papers. Two unidentified bodies now, isn’t it? Unless there have been more since the last news bulletin …?’ He raised an enquiring eyebrow at Fry. ‘But, of course, you came here to get information, not to provide it.’

  ‘You must have visited Pity Wood Farm occasionally when you were on the force.’

  ‘Yes, a few times. Courtesy calls, that’s all. I don’t suppose you do that any more? No, I thought not. You wait until a crime has been reported before you meet the law-abiding public. And then it’s already too late to form a proper relationship.’

  ‘We didn’t come here for a critique of modern policing methods,’ said Fry.

  Palfreyman sighed. ‘My views are of no interest to you. I understand, Sergeant. I’m just an irrelevant old dinosaur. I can’t possibly know anything about policing now that I’m retired.’

  ‘Pity Wood Farm …?’ said Fry.

  ‘I was never called to an incident there. I never heard of any other officers attending an incident either. There were certainly no missing persons reports during my time. None made from the farm, none that led to enquiries at the farm. But you must know that; you’ll have checked.’

  ‘Of course. But during your courtesy visits, did you meet any of the itinerant workers employed there? Did you have any reason to wonder what had happened to any of them?’

  ‘You’re presumably thinking of the women? You don’t say so, but it’s obvious. Your theory is that one of the workers was killed during her employment there and buried on the farm. No — two of them?’ Palfreyman’s eyes twinkled. ‘Interesting theory. Two murders, both of which went undetected. And three years apart, if the media have it right.’

  ‘Approximately,’ said Fry, through audibly gritted teeth.

  ‘Careful, Sergeant, you’r
e almost revealing information. Not quite, but it was confirmation.’

  Cooper could sense that Fry was likely to stop playing the game soon. She wasn’t long on patience, and Palfreyman was pushing her close to the limit. The ex-bobby wouldn’t like it if he saw her other side.

  ‘I can’t remember whether you asked me how long ago I retired,’ he said, in a more conciliatory tone. Perhaps he, too, was able to recognize that look in Fry’s eye. ‘I’ll tell you anyway — I hit my thirty just over four years ago. Celebrations all round, kind words from the chief, a bunch of the lads getting pissed at the pub. And then I was out of the door, with my pension in my pocket. And no one ever thought of Dave Palfreyman again. I was history as soon as I handed in my warrant card.’

  ‘Your point is …?’

  ‘I wasn’t in the job when your murders happened, Sergeant. If they were murders. Do you have direct evidence?’

  ‘You’re not my DI,’ said Fry.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, stop talking to me as if you are.’

  Palfreyman inclined his head. ‘I apologize. Sergeant.’

  An uneasy silence developed. Cooper shifted uncomfortably in his chair, desperately wanting to say something to break the silence, but afraid of wrecking Fry’s strategy. Presuming she had a strategy. But she could keep silent as long as she needed to, and it was Palfreyman who broke the mood.

  ‘You went to see the Brindleys over at Shaw Farm yesterday, didn’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Very observant. You know them?’

  Palfreyman nodded. ‘Yes, I know them. Alex and Jo. They have two teenage kids, Chrissie and Evan. The parents are kind of snobbish, academically speaking.’

  ‘They’re a bit fussy who their children mix with?’

  ‘Fussy? Any kid who wants to visit their house has to take an entrance exam. Stand-offish, the Brindleys are. Stuck up. You probably noticed.’

  Fry didn’t smile. ‘You seem to know a lot more about them than they do about you.’