‘Don’t start losing me, Ben. Stay in the realms of sanity.’
‘I’ll try.’ Cooper took another drink. ‘Well, the belief is that removing Dickie’s skull from Tunstead will bring bad luck. They say it’s been removed three times over the years — as a result, crops failed, a barn collapsed, livestock died, the house was damaged in a storm. The skull has been thrown in the river, buried in the churchyard, and stolen by thieves. The thieves were so disturbed by things that started to happen to them that they returned the skull to Tunstead.’
‘And this thing really is just a skull?’
‘I’ve seen photos of it. It’s just a yellowing old skull, holed and fragmented at the back as if it had been struck with a hammer at some time.’
‘We can establish cause of death in that case, then,’ said Fry. ‘Pity we can’t do it for more recent deaths.’
‘Dickie of Tunstead possesses supernatural powers to prevent anyone moving him out of his home,’ said Cooper, with a note of awe in his voice. ‘When the skull is left in place, everything goes right at the farm. He even acts as a guardian, warning when strangers approach. His real claim to fame was getting the course of the railway altered.’
‘Oh, come on. Railways are fairly solid and practical,’ said Fry.
‘It was in the nineteenth century, when they were building the Buxton to Stockport line. There was a compulsory purchase order for land belonging to Tunstead Farm. The railway company wanted to build a bridge and embankment on the land, but building work collapsed, and men and animals were injured. Engineers said the ground was unstable, but local people credited Dickie. In the end, the company diverted the line, and the new bridge was named after him. It’s still there, Diane. The bridge is real, and so is the skull.’
‘All right. And there was one of these skulls at Pity Wood Farm?’
‘Mr Goodwin says so. He was shown it, when he viewed the property. But it was one of the few things that had been taken away when he completed the purchase.’
‘A severed head inside the farmhouse.’
‘Yes, Diane.’
‘And this poor, gullible Manchester solicitor was told some ghostly legend about it, to keep him quiet?’
‘Well, there was definitely a skull,’ said Cooper.
‘So does Mr Goodwin know where the head went?’ asked Fry. ‘Has Raymond Sutton got it?’
‘In the bottom of his wardrobe at the care home? Hardly, Diane.’
‘Where, then?’
‘Mr Goodwin says the man who took it away claimed to be the farm manager.’
‘Tom Farnham?’
‘The very same.’
‘Let’s go, then.’
‘Right. Oh, Diane — aren’t you supposed to be on missing persons?’ said Cooper.
‘Sod missing persons. They can stay missing.’
Cooper had forgotten that there were areas in this part of the Peak where the viability of farming was already borderline even before the fall in prices, before foot and mouth even. It was obvious when you drove through. Many of the dry-stone walls were badly maintained, farms had scrap heaps of old machinery standing in their yards, and there was a generally unkempt feel to the landscape. Foot and mouth had shown how much tourism and farming depended on each other in a place like this. A rural way of life that had disappeared from most of England had survived here until quite recently.
Cooper recalled his father telling him about farms out this way that didn’t have electricity or running water until maybe twenty years ago. The 1980s, the decade of prosperity.
He bet most of the country wouldn’t have believed how people lived their lives, here on the fringes of the Pennines. ‘It’s not as if we’re living in a Third World country,’ they’d say. ‘There are cities only a few miles away, for goodness’ sake. You can practically see Manchester over that hill. Hi-tech industries and cafe society, a huge airport sending jet liners all around the world. How can anyone be living without electricity?’
But these local communities were conscious of the changes taking place around them. More conscious than most, he guessed.
Fairies and elves, spells and charms had been an integral part of life of the countryman, who wouldn’t have understood the causes and effects of droughts and floods, crop failures, or sickness in his livestock. Witches were blamed for evil in the Middle Ages, Celts had worshipped the head.
Lost in his own thoughts, Cooper only became aware of the nature of the silence when they were halfway to Rakedale.
‘What’s wrong, Diane?’
‘Nothing,’ she said.
He hated it when she said ‘nothing’ like that. Her tone of voice meant anything but ‘nothing’. It told him that he damn well ought to know what was wrong, without him having to ask her.
‘Come on, what’s the matter?’
‘I told you. Nothing.’
Well, at least that meant it wasn’t his fault. She’d never been shy about telling him when he’d done something wrong. Quite the opposite. So someone else had upset her.
‘This business with the skulls — is it what Mrs Dain meant about “the old religion”?’ asked Fry eventually.
‘That would be Old Religion — capital “O”, capital “R”.’
‘I doubt it’s in my dictionary, Ben, all the same.’
‘Actually, I think she might have been referring to a series of TV programmes that were made back in the seventies. The producers claimed to have found a community in the Dark Peak who still worshipped the old gods.’
‘Just a minute — I suppose that would be Old Gods, capital “O”, capital “G”? Are we talking Paganism here?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Cooper. ‘In fact, the people involved were mostly practising Christians, I think. No, it was said to be a sort of respect for traditional beliefs that didn’t conflict with their Christian practices. They believed in the old Celtic gods, but never mentioned them. The programme interviewed someone who called herself a “guardian”. She talked about a scattered community who still believed in the old ways. They didn’t name the small mill town she came from — but most local people could have a good guess.’ ‘That’s nearly thirty years ago. The world has changed a lot since then.’
‘Yes, even in … well, even in the Peak District.’
He turned on to the A515 towards Newhaven. Not far away from here was Arbor Low — a sort of flattened version of Stonehenge, a circle of megaliths laid out like a clock face. When he’d walked up there on a school trip once, Cooper had thought the stones looked as though they’d been blown down by the wind. But their teacher said it was more likely they’d been deliberately knocked over by Christian zealots who disapproved of the stones’ religious significance.
Religious significance? Arbor Low was built more than four thousand years ago, wasn’t it? Now, that was the real Old Religion.
‘Do you think Raymond Sutton knew about the bodies buried on his farm?’ asked Fry. ‘You’ve talked to him, Ben, what do you think?’
‘I think he might have had a suspicion,’ said Cooper. ‘But no more than that — just a suspicion that something bad had happened.’
‘Involving his brother?’
‘I don’t know. He talks about Hell a lot. Somebody is going to be damned.’
‘So here’s a scenario,’ said Fry. ‘One or both of the Sutton brothers killed these women, either during some barking mad pagan rituals in Derek’s case, or out of religious mania in Raymond’s case, because they were damned and needed to be punished and sent to Hell.’
‘Well …’
‘Whatever. I’m vague on the details yet. But word got out in the area — as it was bound to do round here. Rumour, rumour. Gossip, gossip.’
‘And then people just kept quiet?’
‘Well, in my scenario, Dixon of Dock Green turns up at the farm to see what’s what.’
‘PC Palfreyman?’
‘Yes, PC Bloody Palfreyman. “Evening, all,” he says. “What’s this I hear about you two lads
committing a couple of nasty murders? We can’t be having that, you know. I might have to give you a clip round the ear for being naughty boys.”’
‘It could only have been one murder,’ said Cooper reasonably. ‘The second victim died three years after Mr Palfreyman retired.’
‘True. But the principle is the same.’
‘You really think he might have known all about what went on at Pity Wood Farm, and covered up for the Suttons?’
‘Why not? “I called and had a few words. It never happened again.”’
Cooper shook his head. ‘I can’t see it. Granted, Palfreyman has his own ideas about justice, like so many of the old coppers did. But he wouldn’t cover up a murder, let alone two. That couldn’t be considered justice, not in anyone’s book. Could it?’
‘Well, actually, it might depend,’ said Fry, ‘on who those women were.’
‘Might it?’
Cooper considered that idea, and gradually realized what she was hinting at. There was one category of women who were considered not only dispensable, but sometimes undesirable.
‘Do you mean street girls?’ he said.
‘“Street girls” isn’t really a suitable euphemism out here,’ pointed out Fry. ‘Shall we call them sex workers?’
‘Prostitutes, if you like. But where would they do business?’
‘Wherever there are numbers of men with nothing much else to do.’
Cooper pictured Pity Wood Farm. ‘Targeting itinerant farmworkers, for example?’
‘Who else?’
At first, he thought it was a rhetorical question. But the tone had been wrong, and Fry seemed to be waiting for an answer.
‘Yes, who else?’ said Cooper, regarding her curiously.
‘All right. I was thinking about old-fashioned police officers who operate under their own discretion and run their own patch, with no questions asked.’
‘That old thing?’ said Tom Farnham. ‘Who would want that? It’s just an old skull. Some damn superstition of Derek Sutton’s. Mad bugger, he was.’
Farnham fidgeted with the spray can he’d been using to touch up a dent on the lawnmower. Its repair was nearly complete now. Its working parts gleamed with oil, and its paintwork had been cleaned and polished.
‘But you do have it, sir?’
Farnham sighed. ‘Don’t you need a warrant or something?’
‘Only if you don’t agree to help us. But why would you want to prevent us seeing this skull if it’s worthless?’
‘Why indeed? Screaming Billy, that’s what the old fool called it. Supposed to protect the farm from bad luck, or something. Raymond didn’t see eye to eye with him on that, not at all. He wanted it out of the house when the place was sold. Said he wouldn’t curse the new owners with it. Raymond, he didn’t care about anything else — he was glad to get shut of the place in the end. It was just that skull he had a bee in his bonnet about. He rang and asked me to get rid of it before the new bloke took over the farm. So I did him a favour, see? For old times’ sake, and all that.’
‘Very loyal of you, sir. And it’s still here?’
‘Yes, it’s still here.’
Farnham moved across to his work bench and took a key from his pocket. He unlocked a cupboard under the bench and withdrew a cardboard box packed with old newspaper. In the middle of the newspaper, something smooth and yellow nestled.
Cooper took the box from him and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He carefully lifted the skull free and placed it in a plastic evidence bag. The bone was faintly yellow, like paper that had been left in the sun.
‘You couldn’t sell it, then?’ said Fry.
‘What?’
‘That’s what you were hoping for, I imagine.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. Raymond couldn’t have cared less. He just wanted it out of Pity Wood. He’s never mentioned it to me since, so why shouldn’t I sell it? I got nothing out of all the time I spent working with the Suttons, you know. Look at me, I’m broke. I try to make a living repairing other folks’ lawnmowers. A few quid would have helped me out a bit.’
‘But you had no luck?’
‘There were a few collectors interested. But it’s not good enough quality, they said. Too damaged.’
‘Damaged?’
‘A bit of bashing about. Look, at the back there. But that’s to be expected, when it’s so old. I mean, it had been in the farmhouse for, I don’t know — centuries, I suppose.’
‘Are you sure of that, sir?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Can you tell whether this is an old skull, or a more recent one?’
‘More recent one?’
Farnham stared at her, then snorted and began shaking his head vigorously. ‘Oh, no. You’re not going to pin something like that on me. You’re trying to tie me in with those bodies you found at the farm, aren’t you?’
Cooper tensed. The fact that the head had been removed from one of the bodies had not been released to the media, so Farnham shouldn’t know that. But had he really made an admission? Or was he just putting two and two together, and making a clever guess?
‘You’ve confirmed that you were working at the farm during the relevant period,’ said Fry. ‘You must have known who else was working there. If you want to help us, you should suggest some names. That would be your most sensible move, Mr Farnham.’
He looked at the skull Cooper was holding in its new evidence bag. Several teeth were missing from the jaw, and the skull grinned horribly, as if at some private joke of its own.
‘You know, they were mostly workers who came for a few weeks or a few days, then moved on. You can’t expect me to remember their names. I hardly got the chance to know some of them to speak to.’
‘So where did these individuals come from?’
‘They were contracted in. See, that was the way it was at Pity Wood in those days. We didn’t employ any workers ourselves. We had a contract for labour, and when we asked for them, they turned up. Sometimes we wanted people on a regular basis, but other times we just needed a gang in for a few days. It depended on what we were doing. It changed every year at Pity Wood. Every season.’ He looked at Cooper. ‘You understand, don’t you?’
‘All your failed enterprises,’ said Cooper. ‘None of them lasted more than a year or two.’
‘Yes. Well, like I said, it wasn’t my fault they failed. Times were difficult. We had a lot of bad luck.’
‘We’ll need to know who sub-contracted your labour. Who was the gang master?’
‘Look, do I have to?’ said Farnham. ‘I want to help, really I do. But dumping on someone else is not good.’
‘Well, we could arrest you, Mr Farnham, and take you into custody in Edendale. And then we could search your house, as well as taking your fingerprints and your DNA. And we’ll see what that ties you to.’
Farnham groaned. ‘His name was Rourke.’
‘Rourke?’
‘Martin Rourke, yes. He was the man, you know — the fixer.’
‘Is he local?’
‘No, not him. I think he lived in Chesterfield at that time, but he was Irish. I haven’t seen him around for a year or so. I can give you the phone number we used for him, if it’s any help.’
‘Yes, please. And what about the women, sir?’
‘Women?’ said Farnham. ‘Which women do you mean?’
‘Which women? Were there a lot of them?’
Farnham began to look shifty again. For a few minutes, he’d been telling the truth, but now his eyes were roving around the workshop, his hand went to cover his mouth, as if to keep the words from escaping.
‘Well, there isn’t much entertainment out here, you know. Just the pub in Rakedale, which doesn’t satisfy all of a man’s needs, if you know what I mean. And a lot of the blokes didn’t want to go to the pub anyway. If they were dossing on the farm for a week or two, they needed something to keep them happy.’
‘So women came to the farm?’
‘Now and then.’
‘Now and then? What does that mean? Once a week, once a month? A special treat on someone’s birthday? What?’
‘Most weekends, I suppose. But only in those seasons, you know — when there were gangs on the farm to get the harvest in, or to get an order out. You want to talk to Rourke — he was the one who organized it all. He always seemed to have the right sort of contacts.’
‘Are you sure you don’t know where Mr Rourke is now?’
‘Nah. He could be anywhere. He might be working in agriculture, or the building trade. Rourke was the sort who could turn his hand to anything, I reckon. Always good at talking himself up, you know? He might have gone back to Ireland, of course. They say there’s a lot of jobs over there now. No need for the paddies to come to England for work any more.’
‘The Celtic Tiger.’
Farnham rallied enough to make a joke. ‘Yes, I suppose you might call him that.’
Fry never responded to interviewees who tried to be funny or make light of the subject. She regarded Farnham sourly until he stopped smiling.
‘We suspect that Pity Wood Farm was being used for some kind of illegal activity, Mr Farnham,’ she said. ‘We think this was happening during your period there as a partner or farm manager, whatever you want to call yourself.’
‘If anything was happening, you can’t prove I was involved.’
‘The circumstances look very suspicious.’
‘Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you to your speculation. I congratulate you on your imagination, Sergeant. But I don’t have much time for flights of fancy myself.’
‘The evidence is there at Pity Wood, Mr Farnham. Once we have a tight enough case against you, we’ll be back.’
‘Look, I’m not so stupid that I’d leave evidence lying around, if I’d committed a crime, now, am I? So if there was evidence left lying around, that proves that I didn’t do it, right? That is clearly the action of somebody with much less ability for planning ahead and foreseeing all eventualities than I am. So it’s psychologically wrong, don’t you see?’
‘Mr Farnham, we only deal with the facts, not with psychological theories.’
‘OK, you do that. You won’t find any evidence that connects to me. It just isn’t possible.’
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