Black dog bcadf-1

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Lee hasn’t done anything,’ she said.

  ‘He worked at the Mount,’ said Tailby, ‘so he knew Laura Vernon. And since his whereabouts are unknown …’ ‘I know. I know, that’s what the others kept saving. But it

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  means nothing. He often goes off for a day or two. He’s a devil for wandering off for a bit, is Lee. But that doesn’t mean he’s done anything wrong, does it?’

  ‘If you could help us find him, Mrs Sherratt, we’ll soon be able to establish that, won’t we?’

  ‘Anyway, he didn’t work there any more. At that place.

  They gave him the push last Thursday. Them Vernons. Unfair,

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  it was.’

  ‘Did he resent the fact he had been sacked?’

  “Course he did. He was unfairly dismissed. He’d done nothing wrong.’

  In Tailby’s experience, nobody’s son or daughter had ever done anything wrong. They were all angels, pure as the driven snow, every one of them. It was a wonder there was any crime at all.

  ‘Mr Vernon claims that Lee was pestering his daughter.’

  ‘Rubbish. Lee has a steady girlfriend. They might be getting married.’

  ‘Might they?’

  ‘That’s why he was set on getting a bit of a job, earning some money. There’s nothing round here for the young ones, you

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  know. God knows, them Vernons didn’t pav him much, hut at least he was trying.’

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  ‘I’m sure vou’rc ri^ht. But it doesn’t prevent him from havina

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  taken a fancy to Laura Vernon, does it?’

  Mrs Sherratt sniffed. ‘Wei!, if you want the truth, she wasn’t liis type. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead and all that, but he could never bear them stuck-up types, all posh accents and jodhpurs. It was more likelv the other way round. I reckon v/ii took a fancy to him. He’s a good-looking lad, my Lee. 1 bet that’s what it was, and Mr Hoity-Toity Vernon wouldn’t like that, his girl fancying the hired labour.’

  ‘And, if that was the case, you don’t think Lee might have responded?’

  ‘No. Like I say, she wasn’t his type.’

  ‘Did he mention Laura Vernon much?’ ‘Hardly at all. He hardly mentioned any of them much. ‘Course, he didn’t see much of him, or the girl either, except in the school holidays. It was mostly her he saw, when he went up there.’

  ‘You mean Mrs Vernon?’

  ‘That’s right. Not that she would do anything but give him his orders, I suppose. None of them Vernons has ever mixed with anybody in the village, you know. They think they’re better than

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  the rest of us, just because they’ve got a bit of money to spend on big houses and flashy cars. Well, it isn’t so. Having money doesn’t make you a good person, does it? It doesn’t give you any better morals than the rest of us. Some of us know what’s right and what isn’t. If you ask me, them Vernons have forgotten all about that, with their money.’

  Tailby’s attention was wandering. His gaze drifted out of the

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  kitchen window, across a small garden with a few vegetables struggling to force themselves through the weeds. There was a rickety garden shed and a small flock of house sparrows fluttering their wings in a depression in the dust in front of its door. A low wooden fence separated the garden from the field at the back of the property. It would present no barrier for anyone to climb over if they wanted to approach from the field instead of from the road.

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  ‘So, as far as you arc awaro, there was no relationship between Lee and Laura Vernon, apart from the fact that she was the daughter of his employer?’

  ‘I told you. he didn’t like her.’

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  ‘He actually said so?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure he did. Stuck-up little madam, he called her, something like that.’

  ‘Why did he call her that? Did he give any particular reason?’

  Mrs Sherratt screwed up her face, which Tailby took to be a sign that she was thinking. ‘It was not Ion? after he had started

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  working up there that he said it the first time. He’d had a bit of a run-in with her one day, I think.’

  ‘You are referring to Laura now, aren’t you?’

  ‘I said so, didn’t I? She was at home from school one day. It must have been their holidays or something. I don’t know. But he said she was out in the garden, weighing him up, asking him questions. Lee said he made a joke, and she took exception. Told him to keep his remarks to himself, sort of thing. He was a bit put out when he told me about it, and he never liked her after diat.’

  ‘Was that anything to do with why he was sacked, do you think?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. Because she took against him, you mean, and told her dad? I don’t know. But he hadn’t done anything wrong, I know that.’

  ‘You don’t think Lee might have arranged to meet Laura after

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  he had been sacked by Mr Vernon?’

  ‘No, I don’t. He’d be glad to get away from her, if anything. He wouldn’t have touched her, not in any way.’

  ‘Mrs Shcrratt, where does Lee usually go when he’s off wandering for a day or two?’

  ‘I don’t know,” she said. ‘He doesn’t tell me.’

  ‘Not to his girlfriend?’

  ‘I doubt it. But you can ask her, can’t you? I gave the other lot her name and address, to be helpful.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Tailby sighed. They had already interviewed the girlfriend in question, along with several others whose names

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  had been suggested by Lee Sherratt’s drinking pals. If he reallv was intending to get married, it hadn’t stopped him spreading himself around half the female population of the valley. But none of them admitted to knowing where Lee headed for when he

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  went wandering. Here at Wye Close, officers had also already searched the house, turned over Lee’s room, and checked out that garden shed.

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  ‘Besides,’ said Mrs Sherratt, as if suddenly remembering

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  something. ‘That girl at the Mount. She was only fifteen, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Sherratt, she was.’

  ‘Well then.’

  Leaving the house, Tailby crossed the street to the Vauxhall again.

  ‘Give it a few minutes, then check that garden shed round the back again,’ he said. ‘But don’t make a fuss about it. You

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  never know, the saintly Lee might just have appeared by some miracle.’

  Helen Milner found her grandfather sitting on a boulder on the path leading up towards Raven’s Side. A small cloud of pipe smoke marked his position. His knees were spread, and his back was as straight as if he had been sitting on one of the old upright chairs at the cottage. At his feet was Jess, chewing at a stick. The dog had stripped the bark to shreds and was splintering the soft inner flesh of the wood with her teeth, dropping the fragments on the ground like a scattering of confetti. Jess looked up cautiously as Helen approached, gave her soulful look and went back to her stick. Her teeth gleamed white and sharp as they ripped into the wood.

  This was not Harry’s usual route for his morning walk. But below the ridge the reason for the change in routine was obvious. A white caravan sat in the corner of a field, where it had been dragged by a Land Rover. It was the furthest spot the caravan could reach before the woods began and the ground grew steep and rocky as it plunged towards the valley bottom. Three more four-wheel-drive vehicles were parked behind it. Further down the slope, figures in white boiler suits and hoods were moving

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  slowly around in the undergrowth, which had been cut down and removed in a idc circle. Other men and women could be glimpsed in the trees on either side. Some were on all fours, as if they were praying to some strange god for guidanc
e in their bizarre task. Blue plastic tape had been wound round the trees, and it danced and flickered in the sun, signalling the spot where Laura Vernon’s body had lain.

  ‘If the ground wasn’t so dry, they’d never have got that caravan to that spot,’ said Harry, as his granddaughter crouched down beside him.

  ‘What do they use it for?’

  ‘Making a brew and having their snap in, as far as I can tell.’

  Helen could see a constable in shirt sleeves standing by the field gate between the caravan and the woods. His face was turned up to the hill, and now and then he put a hand up to shade his eyes as he squinted into the sun. He was watching Harry.

  ‘They know you’re here,’ said Helen.

  ‘And they don’t like it either, but there’s bugger-all they can do about it. It’s a public footpath, and I’m not anywhere near their precious tape.’

  ‘Have they said anything?’

  ‘Oh aye, they sent some bugger up to talk to me half an hour ago. He wanted to know who I was and what I was doing here.

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  Then he took my name and wrote it down in a little book. He knew who I was then, all right. I thought he was going to ask for my autograph. I’ve never been so famous. You’d think I was somebody off telly.’

  ‘Did the policeman ask you to move?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  A gleam of amusement came to Harry’s eye. Helen sighed.

  ‘Oh, Granddad. You shouldn’t. It doesn’t do to upset them.’

  ‘Bugger that. Somebody has to keep them on their toes.’

  Looking at her grandfather, Helen wondered whether she had been right to come. She had been into school for a pre-term staff meeting, but had been given permission by her head to leave early. She had made use of the time to make a mad rush across

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  the countryside to check on her grandparents. She had found (jwen subdued but calm, and Harry missing. Now she had tracked him down, he did not seem like the Harrv she knew. Fven more than on the previous day, he gave the impression that in some way he was enjoying himself. But she knew her grandfather was not a cruel or callous man. He ould not revel in the death of a young girl. But somehow he saw the event as a challenge of his own he had to face. Perhaps it would have been bettor if she hadn’t come at all. She did not want to end up in an argument with him.

  ‘Have you seen the newspapers?’ asked Harry.

  ‘Some of them.’

  ‘A lot of rubbish, they print,’ he complained. ‘Two of them have spelled my name wrong.’

  ‘.I suppose there’ll be more in the local papers.’

  ‘They’re not out until later in the week. It might be over by then.’

  ‘Do you think so, Granddad?’

  Harry had his pipe in his mouth, his jaw clamped into a habitual grimace. Helen couldn’t read his expression at all. She wondered what had happened to the rapport she had always had with him, the sense of knowing what he was thinking without him having to saw it out loud. Her understanding of him seemed to have

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  died. It was dead since yesterday.

  ‘Maybe it will,’ he said. He puffed at his pipe as if giving the question some thought. ‘If the coppers pull their fingers out. Or even if they don’t. Maybe it will be over all the same.’

  ‘It says in the paper they’re trying to trace the Sherratt boy.’

  He snorted. ‘Much good that youth will do them.’

  ‘He’s disappeared. I suppose it looks suspicious.’

  ‘He was never going to last long at the Mount,’ said Harry. ‘Not him. I can’t think what made them take him on.’

  ‘According to Dad, Graham Vernon said he wanted to give him a chance.’

  ‘Oh aye, him,’ said Harry. ‘He’d give anything a chance. He’d give the devil a chance to sing in the chapel choir.’

  ‘It looks as though he might have been wrong this time.’

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  Harry took his pipe from his mouth and tapped it against the boulder.

  ‘I tell you what, lass. He was wrong, all right. He’s been wrong all his life.’

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  ‘I know you don’t like him …” ‘Like him! If it were left to me

  ‘I know. I know. Don’t let’s go over it all again, please.’ ‘oo ‘ r

  ‘Well. You’re right. It doesn’t need saying over again.’ The silence stretched into minutes. Helen had never felt uncomfortable with silence between them before. Now, though,

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  it was different. She had no idea what Harry what thinking. She moved her shoulders, easing her bra straps where her skin was tender from spending too long in the sun the day before.

  ‘I think I’ll walk Jess on a bit further,’ said Harry. ‘It’ll give that lad’s eyes a rest.’

  ‘Granddad. Don’t get into trouble, will you?’

  He pulled himself upright, regarding her with dignity. The? Don’t you know me, lass? I’m a match for any of that lot.’

  She watched him tug at Jess’s lead, flexing his stiff legs and straightening his jacket. The toecaps of his boots gleamed so brightly they were dazzling. For a moment, Helen caught a glimpse of herself, distorted and blackened, turned upside down on the toes of her grandfather’s boots. She had never known anyone else with such innate dignity and self-control. If occasionally he said things that shocked people, it was only because he believed it was right that you should say what you thought, and because he didn’t really care what people thought of him. His pride in himself made her feel proud of him too, and she felt her eyes fill as he moved slowly away.

  ‘I’ll see you later then,’ she said.

  ‘No doubt.’

  After a last glance at the police activity down the hill, Helen walked back to Dial Cottage to see her grandmother. She was surprised to find her father standing in the hall, hovering between the doorways to the front and back rooms as if he had forgotten where he wanted to be. He was dressed for the office, in a dark suit with a grey pinstripe, a white shirt and a tie in red and grey diagonal stripes.

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  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Hello, love. 1 was in the area and just called in to see how Gwen and Harry were managing after yesterday. We’ve got to look after them when they’ve had such a shock, haven’t we?’

  ‘That’s right. It was a shock,’ said Gwen. She was in her chair in the hark room, toying with a piece of knitting. It was shaping up into a long-sleeved cardigan made from bright-pink wool, and Helen had a horrible feeling she knew who it was intended for. But at the moment, her grandmother’s fingers were moving the needles without making any impression on the wool, as if she had to be doing something with her hands.

  ‘Granddad’s out there with Jess, watching the police.’ ‘He’s better off out there,’ Gwen said. ‘At least he’s not under my feet.’

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  ‘What are the police doing? Have they been here again? Have they been … digging or anything?’

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  ‘Digging?’ Helen looked at her father in astonishment, won

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  dering why he didn’t come further into the room. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and she smiled at his old-fashioned reluctance to go without his suit jacket even in such heat. ‘Why should they be digging, Dad?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s the sort of thing they do, isn’t it? Digging people’s gardens up, and all that.’

  ‘Looking for what?’

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  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  Gwen’s mouth had fallen open. ‘They’d better not try to dig my garden up. It’s taken years to get it like it is.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Grandma, they won’t do that.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Andrew. The don’t know why I said that. I just wondered what they were doing out there, that’s all.’

  Helen realized he was hovering in the doorway so that he could

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br />   keep an eye on the view of the street through the front window, as if there was something going on out there that he didn’t want to miss. He was fidgety and nervous, and she remembered that Laura Vernon’s death would be having an impact at the office too.

  ‘I don’t suppose Graham Vernon has been into work today, Dad?’

  ‘No, no. He phoned to say he would be at home for a few

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  days to look after Charlotte. And to help the police, of course. He said we could contact him there if we need him. But ill the meantime I’ve to carry on as normal. I’ve got to take over all his appointments and meetings.’

  Andrew looked at his watch as he said this, shooting back a white cuff containing one of a pair of gold cufflinks that Helen had bought him. ‘I can’t stop long,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to be back in Sheffield by twelve for a lunch.’

  ‘I’ll have to be going soon too, Grandma.’

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  Gwen dropped her knitting and reached out for Helen’s arm. ‘I daren’t go out, Helen. Will you fetch me some bread and tea from the shop before you go?’

  ‘Why daren’t you go out, Grandma?’

  ‘Why? Can’t you imagine what people are saying about us? They’re looking at me if I even go near the windows. That’s why I closed the curtains.’

  ‘Take no notice, Grandma. People will soon forget.’

  Helen had noticed the extra activity in Moorhay. There were more walkers than usually passed through, even in summer. Many of them were not dressed for walking, but stopped and peered into the windows of the cottages they passed. The car park at the Drover was full, and there were cars parked along the roadside, their roofs shimmering with heat. There were even two cars in the layby where the Hulley’s bus stopped twice a day. The bus driver would be annoyed when he came.

  Andrew began to mop his brow with a white handkerchief as he cast another glance towards the front window. ‘So the police haven’t been back then, eh, Gwen? That’s good, isn’t it?’

  The old woman didn’t look convinced as she fumbled for some money in an old purse. ‘I suppose so. And an extra pint of milk, Helen.’