Black dog bcadf-1

by Stephen Booth

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  of death, Rvit even today the inside temperature was enough to make him shiver as he left the sun behind.

  Gwen Dickinson boiled the electric kettle and heated a teapot. She opened a cupboard and emptied half a packet of digestive biscuits on to a plate.

  ‘I’m sorry they’re not chocolate ones,’ she said. ‘Young men like chocolate biscuits.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘Is Harry in trouble?’ she asked, turning to Cooper and looking him directly in the face.

  Cooper shook his head. ‘He’s an important witness,’ he said.

  ‘Because he found the shoe.’

  ‘The trainer, yes. But we have reason to think he may also have been on the Baulk at the time that Laura Vernon was killed.’

  Gwen stared at him, clutching the plate of biscuits. The kettle boiled unnoticed behind her, releasing a cloud of steam around her head, until it switched itself off.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘He might have seen something,’ explained Cooper. ‘Or someone.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  She gazed absently at the kettle and at the plate in her hand. She put the biscuits down, switched the kettle back on, poured the boiling water into the teapot and picked the plate back up.

  ‘Won’t you sit down?’ she said. ‘Take one of the armchairs

  .’

  ‘Let me carry the tray,’ said Cooper, noticing the unsteadiness of her hands.

  ‘Has somebody said they saw him?’ asked Gwen, when they were seated opposite each other on either side of a small glass topped coffee table. ‘Did they see Harry?’

  ‘Yes. At least, we think it might have been Harry. On the Baulk.’

  ‘But he goes there every day,’ she said, looking more comfortable. ‘To walk Jess. Every day.’

  ‘Does he go at regular times? That’s normal for a responsible dog owner, isn’t it? A regular routine.’

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  ‘Yes, regular. Nine o’clock in the morning, after his breakfast, and six o clock at night.

  ‘He doesn’t vary?’

  ‘Regular.’

  ‘And on Saturday night?’

  ‘The same. Six o’clock. He sits down for his meal when he comes back. He says it gives him an appetite.’

  Cooper nodded, waiting while Gwen poured his tea. Her legs below the hem of her dress looked painfully swollen, and the lower sleeves of her blue cardigan were stuffed with bits of tissue, ready for the next onset of tears.

  ‘Did your husband mention seeing anybody when he was out that night?’

  ‘Do you mean the Mount girl?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Anybody.’

  ‘No,’ said Gwen. ‘He never said anything like that.’ She paused for a moment, and offered Cooper a biscuit. ‘You don’t know Harry very well, do you?’

  ‘No, I’ve only met him briefly.’

  ‘Well, you see, he wouldn’t say if he had, anyway. He’s like that.’

  ‘He wouldn’t tell you if he met somebody while he was walking the dog?’ ‘No, he wouldn’t see any reason to.’

  ‘But since then? Since he’s known that Laura Vernon was killed down there? If he remembered seeing somebody, might he not mention it?’

  ‘Not to me,’ said Gwen simply.

  ‘I see. Did your husband go out again later, Mrs Dickinson? After his meal?’

  ‘He usually goes down to the Drover,’ she said.

  ‘And that night, did he go out as usual?’

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  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  ‘What time would that be?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ said Gwen.

  ‘After seven o’clock?’

  ‘Oh yes, he wouldn’t have finished his tea before that.’

  ‘After eight o’clock then?’

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  ‘I can’t really say. It might have been.’

  Cooper heard the aggressive tone in his own voice and hesitated, seeing Gwen begin to tremble. He felt sorrv for her and

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  didn’t want to increase her distress. She was only one of those innocent people who got caught up in something they didn’t understand. He thought of his own mother, lor whom things had got too much. He didn’t want to be even partly responsible for pushing someone else towards the edge.

  ‘Just a few more questions, Mrs Dickinson, then I’ll leave you in peace. I know it must be difficult for you.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Those other men frightened me, but I don’t mind if it’s you.’

  He smiled, touched by the old woman’s faith, but not sure whether he could live up to it.

  ‘I wonder whether Mr Dickinson would have taken his dog with him when he went out the second time? When he went to the pub?’

  ‘Jess? Oh yes, he doesn’t go anywhere without her.’ Gwen took a deep breath. ‘Are they saying he met the Mount girl down there?’

  He was surprised at the question, and wondered why it had come into Gwen Dickinson’s mind. He deliberately avoided an answer.

  ‘You keep calling her the Mount girl, Mrs Dickinson. But her name’s Vernon.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. The Mount is where she lives, isn’t it?’

  She nodded her head towards the window. But all that could be seen was the garden, the edge of the trees, and the sunlit

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  hillside beyond.

  ‘Do you know Mr and Mrs Vernon, then?’

  ‘They’re comers-in.’

  ‘Is that yes or no?’

  Gwen threw out her hands. Cooper knew the meaning of that gesture. It indicated that you could never really know comers-in, not in the proper sense. You might say hello to them in the street or in the shop, let them buy you a drink at the pub, or even share a pew with them at St Edwin’s these days. But you wouldn’t ever know them — not like you knew

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  the people who had always lived in the village, whose parent and grandparents and great-grandparents you knew, and whose grandparents had known your great-grandparents. Many of them might well have been first or second cousins to each other. Those were the people you knew.

  ‘We were never introduced, said Gwen. ‘ They weren’t known round here. Not really.’ She peered anxiously at him to be sure he understood.

  ‘Of course.’

  Yes, you only really knew people when you knew everything about them. You needed to know it all — from the exact moment they had been conceived in the long grass at the back of the village hall to the first word they had spoken, and the contents of their fifth-form school reports. You needed to know what size of shoes they wore, how much money they owed the credit card company, when their last bout of chickenpox had been, and which foot had the ingrowing toenail. You had to know who their first sexual encounter had been with, what brand of condom they had used, and whether the experience had been satisfactory. Now that was knowing somebody.

  ‘But I have seen them,’ admitted Gwen. ‘The Mount lot.’

  ‘What about the girl? Laura?’

  ‘She never went to school in the village — she was already too old when they came. She didn’t even go to the big school in Edendale. Private, she was. That place out at Wardworth, what do they call it?’

  ‘High Carrs.’

  ‘That’s right. They always took her out by car every morning and back in the afternoon. At weekends they were always away out somewhere, shopping in Sheffield and the like. Riding lessons and I don’t know what. She never had anything to do with any of the other girls in the village, nor any of the boys either, though plenty would have liked to know her better, I don’t doubt. They kept her shut up in that place, or well away from here. So she was never really part of the village then, was she? Not her, nor that brother of hers either. They couldn’t be, not like that.’

  ‘And how well do you think your husband knew Laura?’

  Gwen flared up suddenly, her lip lifting to reveal her false
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  teeth in something that was almost a snarl. Cooper bit off too large a piece of biscuit and nearly choked.

  ‘Are you sure you’ve been listening?’

  ‘Of course I have.’

  ‘Didn’t I say he never tells me anything? How would I know if he knew her? She’s never been here, she’s never been to the cottage. So how would I know?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and meant it. ‘I’ll have to ask him myself, of course.’

  ‘You think he’ll tell jou anything?’

  ‘It’s in his own interests. It won’t help to be uncooperative with us.’

  ‘Try telling him that. I wish you luck with it.’

  She relaxed into her chair, calming down again as quickly as she had flared. She looked up at him coyly, as if ashamed at her show of temper.

  ‘I heard he had a bit of a disagreement with my bosses,’ said Cooper, probing gently at something that was intriguing him.

  ‘And thought he was very clever doing it,’ Gwen said. She sighed and put down her cup half drunk. ‘He always was contrary. A stubborn man. Ever since I’ve known him, he’s been like that. When I was a girl, it was one of the things I liked about him. I thought it was a man’s pride then. Now … Well, like I say,

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  he’s stubborn. A right awkward old bugger, Harry Dickinson. Everybody knows that.’

  From the way the old woman spoke, it seemed to Cooper that it was the stubbornness that was still, really, the thing that she liked most about Harry. Now that the physical attraction had gone and the romance had long since settled into a numb familiarity, there was still a quality in her husband that could make her voice soften and her pale eyes shift out of focus, as if she were looking beyond the walls of the cottage to the shadows of a happier past. Their marriage might not be happy, but surely something else had taken the place of happiness — a sort of stability, a necessary balance. The old couple were like two of those ancient rocks propped against each other on Raven’s Side — jagged and weathered, their hard surfaces

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  gouging into each other, but worn to each other’s shape by the

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  years. But if one of those rocks should crumble, there was no|[

  future lor the other.f

  ‘Of course, he thinks more of those pals of his than he does of

  me, these days,’ said Gwen. ‘Sam Beeley and Wilford Cults.”}|

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ said Cooper.:| ‘That’s what Helen savs as well. But I’m not sure. Not at

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  ‘He’s known them a long time, hasn’t he?’ ‘

  ‘For ever. From when they were young lads together. Before he met me. When you get married, you think you’ll be the most important thing in the other person’s life. But Harry never let me come between him and his pals.’

  For a moment, Gwen’s voice hardened again, her eyes focused

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  on Cooper as if he had reminded her of the present.

  ‘They worked together, you know, in the mines,’ she said. ‘And they joined up together. They were young men then. Served in the same regiment and came back from the war closer than ever. Then they went back to the mines — but the war had killed the lead mining like it killed all those men. It

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  was the other things that they mined by then, not the lead.’

  ‘Fluorspar and limestone.’

  Lead had been mined in the area since Roman times. Cooper knew that it was still produced in the last remaining local mines, but only as a by-product to the other minerals that were demanded by modern industries. Limestone aggregate dug out of the mines and quarries in the area found its way into everything from aspirin to tile adhesive, from washing powder to concrete. And there were other things too — barytes, zinc blende and calcite; and the unique ornamental fluorspar they called Blue John Stone. The supply of minerals beneath the Peak District seemed endless. But nobody wanted the lead any more.

  ‘They must have been retired a few years now.’

  ‘Oh yes. But it hasn’t stopped them spending all their time together. Sam Beeley’s wife only died a couple of years back, but Wilford Cutts now — his Doris has been gone a long time.’

  ‘Mrs Cutts is dead?’

  ‘Pneumonia it was, poor soul. Since Mrs Beeley died, they’ve been worse than ever, the three of them. Up at the smallholding

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  all dav. and in the Drover all night. It’s obvious that I don’t count at all.’

  Then like a chance to be with other men, to talk about the things that don’t interest women much.’

  Gwen looked sharply at him, and he felt as though she was seeing straight through him.

  ‘Oh? And do you do much of that yourself, then, lad?’

  ‘Er …’

  She waved a hand, sparing him a reply. ‘Never mind. I can see what sort of lad you are.’

  ‘Mrs Dickinson, I do think your husband may know something he’s not telling us.’

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  Gwen laughed suddenly. Her hands danced on the front of her green cardigan, blue veins shimmying beneath the skin like worms exposed to the light.

  ‘If he didn’t, it’d be the first time in his life!’ she said. ‘I told you — he’s the closest old bugger you ever met. And nobody knows better than me.’

  ‘Has he really never confided in you, Mrs Dickinson?’

  ‘Dafthead. That’s what I’m telling you, isn’t it? If you want to know who he tells things to, try them other two. They’re the ones he spends all his time with. No use asking me what he knows, I’m the last one he’d tell.’

  Cooper emptied his cup and dusted the crumbs off his fingers.

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  ‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Dickinson.’

  ‘You won’t mind the things I say, will you? I’m just a silly old woman sometimes.’

  ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

  ‘You’re a nice lad. Will you come back again tomorrow? Come

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  a bit earlier, when Helen’s here. She’s been talking about you, you know.’

  Cooper hesitated. The invitation was tempting. There was a part of him that felt there was a chance here to introduce something pleasant into his life for a change. And he knew that chances, if not taken, had a habit of never coming round again.

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  Then he thought of all the responsibilities that weighed on him. He was in the middle of a murder enquiry, for heaven’s sake.

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  Not to mention the crisis at home, and, above all, his mother in need of all the love and support he could give.

  Tm sorry, I can’t promise that. There’s such a lot to do at the moment.’

  ‘I suppose so. But she’ll be sorry not to see you.’ ‘You think I might find your husband at Thorpe Farm?’ ‘Sure to. Him and less went out hours ago.’

  Jo ‘I’ll pop up and see if I ran find him, then. And don’t vorrv — it’s only routine.’

  Gwen escorted him to the door of the cottage. Then she put her hand on his sleeve.

  ‘You can’t make me give evidence against him, can you?’ she asked.

  ‘Why would we want to do that, Mrs Dickinson?’

  She shook her head wearily. ‘Oh, I know. It’s only routine. I know.’

  And Ben Cooper didn’t know the answer to his question either.

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  1 he smell of the smoke was acrid and strong, like burning rubber. But it was nowhere near as strong as the other smell,

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  which lav like an evil fog on the ramshackle buildings and overgrown paddocks of rough grass. It was the sweet, sickly stink of advanced decomposition, the odour of organic matter rotted to the point of putrefaction and the escape of fermenting gases.

  Cooper had found the three old men by using his nose. They were building a vast compost heap, well out of s
ight of the track to the house at Thorpe Farm. From a seat on a bale of straw, Sam Beeley was supervising the operation, while Harry Dickinson and Wilford Cutts had their jackets off and their sleeves rolled up on their white arms as they wielded two forks. Two young men were mucking out a nearby breezeblock building, producing a constant trail of wheelbarrow loads of dark, wet, strawy manure. It arrived in the barrows steaming and black, like enormous Christmas puddings. A few yards away, a pile of dry bedding was smouldering viciously, creating a blanket of thick grey smoke that drifted away from the buildings and dispersed in the bracken on the hillside. Its smell couldn’t mask the stench of the fresh manure piling up in heaps on the ground. The smell was overpowering.

  Wilford saw Cooper approaching and pointed at him with his fork, stabbing the air.

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  ‘Look what’s coming! Here’s trouble, you lot.’

  ‘Nay, he’s a hero, that lad,’ said Sam. ‘He’s just come from arresting the number one suspect. Solved the case, he has.’

  ‘On his own?’

  ‘With one hand behind his back, probably.’

  ‘Happen he’s come to volunteer,’ said Harry leaning on his fork. His shirt was open at the collar, and there was a distinct line where the tan of his neck met the bleached white skin of a throat and chest that hadn’t seen the sun for years. He looked like parts of two totally different men stuck together. Cooper

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  thought stupidlv of Frankenstein’s monster, the creature with a head sewn crudely on to someone else’s body.

  ‘Ah grab a spare wheelbarrow then,’ said Sam. ‘Unless you

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  know anything about making compost.’

  ‘All you do is pile it up and it rots down again,’ said Cooper, determined to stay on friendly terms. ‘Is that right?’ ‘Oh no, not at all.’

  ‘Not at all,’ echoed Wilford. ‘There’s an art to compost. It needs nurturing, like a child.’

  One of the young men came past with another load of manure. Cooper stepped back as a lump of evil-smelling muck slipped off the barrow. He could see it consisted of wet, soiled straw and partly decomposed animal droppings in indistinguishable clumps. As soon as the manure had landed, small brown flies appeared from nowhere and settled on it, probing into the mess with their noses.