Through Ashford a road ran up to Monsal Head, where the spectacular view of the old railway viaduct crossing the wooded valley of the Wye attracted many motorists to stop. The railway line here had long since been dismantled and was now used as a
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footpath. Across the other side of Monsal Dale was the parish of Brushfield and a plateau scattered with more of the hundreds of disused mine shafts that Uttered the landscape. He was deep
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in White Peak country horo, a land of ulitterincr streams and
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green pastures, where narrow side-valleys had elbowed their way through the prehistoric fossil sea bed to form craggy gorges.
Northwards from Monsal Head he passed opencast limestone workings and turned right towards Foolow and Eyam. After a call at a disused quarry that was used as an unofficial car park for walkers following the Limestone Way, Cooper found himself crossing Eyam Edge and arriving, as he knew he must, on the
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road into Moorhay.
He parked the Toyota at the Old Mill at Quith Holes, persuading himself that this meant he was still pursuing his routine enquiries into car crime at local tourist spots. There were plenty of other cars at the Old Mill, and several families were seated at the tables set out on the grass. A cluster of cottages were set behind the mill on a narrow road protected by ‘private’ no entry signs.
Cooper crossed a small stone bridge near the original ford and took the path that skirted Raven’s Side, wincing at the bruises on his legs and back but glad of the opportunity to loosen up his limbs. He had to consult his OS map, because he hadn’t approached the path from this direction before. But by following his instinct and steering slightly downhill, he soon reached the area where he had walked to with Harry Dickinson four days previously.
Once again, he left the path and crossed the tumble of boulders to the spot at the top of the slope above the stream. There was no sign of the crime scene now, except for a wide, bare patch where the undergrowth had been cut down to the ground and removed to the forensic laboratory.
He peered down on to the stream below. He knew there was nothing he could see that wouldn’t already have been found and identified by the SOCOs. But sometimes he did get feelings that he couldn’t account for. He didn’t talk about these feelings much at E Division. He couldn’t afford to be considered an eccentric. In the police service, you had to fit in; you had to be a team player and follow the rule book. Now, though, he was hoping that some feeling, some small insight, might just strike him at the place where the body of Laura Vernon had been found. Somewhere at the back of his thoughts, indistinct
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and deadened by the remains of his hangover, was an idea that had been suggested to liiin sometime last night. Something to do with dogs. Or was it pigs?
Cooper found his mind tilled with a vivid image. He saw a sharp, black muzzle filled with white teeth that snapped and tore at pale, dead flesh. Behind the fangs were jaws dripping with saliva and a pink tongue that curled and twisted and rolled out a rumbling growl from deep in a fur-covered throat. Fierce red eyes stared madly as the teeth bit and pierced. The white skin darkened and punctured, but there was no blood. He saw the dog finally letting go of its victim and looking up at the dark, contorted shapes of the Witches as it began to howl, its dirt-encrusted claws scrabbling in the earth with frustration. The black dog had come for a soul, and had been thwarted.
But that wasn’t it. Cooper shook his head to clear the image. He knew the black dog was his own. He had carried it around in his mind since childhood, and it was him that it had come to claim, not Laura Vernon.
After several minutes, he was forced to give up and move on, with no great inspirations. He walked back to the path and looked up the hill. He ought to go back to Quith Holes now — back to the car and his routine enquiries. He was off the Vernon case.
But instead he turned and began to walk up the path towards Moorhay, his muscles protesting and the bruises on his ribs throbbing. Out of the trees, the sun beat on his back and neck, and he began to feel a bit light-headed. This was no way to restore himself as a candidate for a sergeant’s job. But something had happened out here on the Baulk. Who had Laura Vernon met here? Had she met him by design or accident? Had she been followed, or had she walked down this path with someone she had spoken to behind the garden at the Mount?
The final results of forensic tests might reveal some of that information. So far they had at least established that the bite mark on the victim’s thigh had been the work of canine teeth. A
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dog, possibly. But it could just as easily have been a fox, coming across the dead body as it lay in the undergrowth attracting maggots. But would forensics reveal the identity of the killer? Cooper didn’t think so.
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When he got to within a hundred yards of Dial Cottage, he almost, bumped into Harry Dickinson, who as standing under a tree in the shade, with his dog at his feet. He stared wordlessly at Cooper, like a man interrupted in his own sitting room.
‘Oh, you.’
‘Aye, me. Like a bad penny.’
‘Not your usual time for walking the dog, is it, Mr Dickinson?’
‘I needed to get the taste of your police station out of my mouth, lad.’
‘So where have you been?’
‘Minding my own business.’
Cooper was hot and sore, and felt himself starting to get angry. But Harry only tilted his head, revealing his unfathomable eyes.
‘Are you going to arrest me again? There are no young lasses
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in these woods, you know — not at diis time of day.’
‘I don’t think it’s a subject to joke about, Mr Dickinson. Do you?’
‘Aye, maybe you’re right, lad. Maybe I’ve had enough enjoyment for one day.’
The hint of bitterness in the old man’s voice made Cooper’s ears prick up. Evidence of emotion was rare enough from Harry. There was an air of finality in his words too, a feeling of something coming towards an end. He’d had enough — but enough of what?
‘They had Jess in a cage at that police station,’ said Harry. ‘Shut up in a cage with a lot of mongrels and strays. What has she ever done wrong to anybody? Tell me that.’
Cooper felt a strange sensation coming over him, a powerful physical surge that sent a shiver of excitement up his spine. His eyes were drawn down to the ground, where Jess, the black Labrador, was lying on the grass at Harry’s feet. Her lolling pink tongue was the only splash of colour in a tangle of black fur.
‘Right,’ he said, catching his breath. ‘Yes, that’s right.’
Harry looked at him sharply, suddenly suspicious at the silence. Cooper shook himself and stared back at the old man, beginning to smile for the first time in days.
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Gwcn Dickinson saw Ben Cooper coming up the path. She had been watching for Harry from the kitchen window. Her face was drawn, and her eves were red from lack of sleep and too many tears.
Cooper remembered that she, too, had been questioned in an interview room at tdendale, to be informed that her husband was a suspected rapist. Suddenly, he felt sick at the thought of hat was done to people like Gwen innocent people who happened merely to find themselves on the sidelines of a major enquiry as unwilling witnesses, possessors of some snippet of information the police were determined to get hold of, while the foundations of their lives were being pulled apart in front of their eyes. For Gwen, he knew, life with Harry would never be the same.
‘What did he saw?’ asked Gwen, when he reached the back
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door of the cottage. She clutched at his sleeve as if expecting him to put everything right. ‘I saw you speak to Harry.’
‘He didn’t say anything. I’m sorry.’
Cooper didn’t know what he was apologizing for. But he knew he had disappointed Gwen by the way her face fell and she turned to go back inside, shuffling her feet i
n a pair of old
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slippers decorated with pink roses.
‘Come in. Helen’s here.’
‘Oh no, it’s all right. I don’t want to intrude.’
He began to back away, out into the sunlight. But Helen herself appeared in the kitchen at the sound of his voice. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and had a polishing cloth in her hand. Her red hair was tied back in a ribbon.
‘Come in, Ben. Don’t stay out there, please.’
‘Helen’s been doing a bit of cleaning for me,’ said Gwen. ‘I can’t seem to be bothered with it any more.’
As the old woman shuffled through into the sitting room and settled herself with a sigh into an armchair, Helen turned troubled eyes on Cooper.
‘None of this was because of me, you know,’ he said.
‘I know. I’m sorry, Ben.’
‘I’m off the enquiry anyway. They don’t need me now.’
Helen laid a hand on his arm, sensing his pain. ‘I’m really
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worried about Granddad now. I think he’s planning something. That’s why he’s kept out of the way ever since he came back from die police station. Because he’s worried I might be able to tell what he’s thinking; he kr.ows that I can understand him.
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We’re too close, you see. I think that’s the reason he’s been behaving so strangely. He’s trying to keep me and Grandma at arm’s-length, so we can’t guess what he’s up to. But he’s certainly up to something. Can you help us, Ben?’
‘Hasn’t he said anything to you at all?’
‘There was just one thing he said, when he first came back. It worried me even more. He said, “It was meant for Vernon.”’
The sound of the phone was loud and jarring in the little cottage. Gwen jumped with alarm, but stayed in her chair, gripping the arms, her eyes turning pleadingly towards Helen. Her granddaughter went to answer it, and Cooper watched Helen’s face change as she listened, turning pale under her tan. It was obvious there was more bad news.
Helen turned slowly back to Gwen and Cooper as she replaced the phone. But she couldn’t meet Cooper’s eyes. ‘That was Mum,” she said. ‘The police have been and taken Dad in for questioning.’
DCI Tailby smiled wolfishly at Andrew Milner, noting the nervousness in his posture and his gestures and the sheen of sweat that had broken out on his forehead. A cup of tea stood going cold on the interview room table in front of him, untouched and beginning to form a scum on its muddy surface.
‘Mr Milner, your daughter Helen has told us about the parties at the Mount.’
‘Oh,’ said Andrew, his face crumpling immediately.
‘She has described an incident with Graham Vernon. Your boss, Mr Milner.’
‘Yes.’
‘You know all about that incident, don’t you? I refer to the occasion when Mr Vernon lured your daughter to one of the bedrooms. From the description, it might well be considered an attempted rape.’
‘Yes, Helen told me. She was very upset.’
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‘And how did you react when you heard about it, Mr Milner?’ ‘Naturally. I was shocked and angry. I’ve always had a good
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relationship with Graham. I knew he had those parties, of course. Him and Charlotte. They got something out of them,
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that I could never hope to understand. Different lives, Chief Inspector. Different from mine, anyway.’
‘You knew what these parties were like? But you didn’t stop Helen going when she was invited?’
‘Stop her? How could I?’ Andrew spread his hands, appealing for sense. ‘She’s an adult. She takes no notice of me.’
‘You didn’t even warn her?’
‘Well, I hoped that everything would be all right. I didn’t expect Graham would try … something like that … with Helen, with my daughter. I thought it would be all right, you see. In any case, she wanted to go. I couldn’t have stopped her. I thought it would be all right.’
‘But it wasn’t all right.’
He slumped. ‘No.’
‘Did you speak to Mr Vernon about it afterwards?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Well… that I was upset about what Helen had told me. That she had complained he had assaulted her. Sexually, you know.’
‘And his response?’
Andrew twisted his hands, appealing to Tailby with his eyes for sympathy. He was reliving the moment, just as Tailby wanted him to do. In the end, Andrew sighed deeply and sagged a little further into his chair.
‘He just laughed at me,’ he said.
‘He thought assaulting your daughter was a joke?’
Andrew nodded. ‘Apparently. He said those sort of games were expected at their parties. “Games”, he called it. And then he said something like: “Never mind, she’s a big girl
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now”. I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I felt so stupid. He made me feel as though I was the one who didn’t know how to behave properly. He can always make me feel like that.’
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‘Some fathers would have known exactly what to do.’ commented Hitchens.
‘I suppose I’m not that sort of father. Not that sort of a man. I have never seen violence as an answer.’
‘Violence. Ah yes. Was that what I meant?’
‘Wasn’t it?’ asked Andrew, surprised. He looked confused now and somehow accusing, as if the detective had pulled a trick on him.
‘And, of course, Mr Vernon is probably three or four inches taller than you, a stone or two heavier, younger and fitter. It was better to show discretion, in the circumstances. Very wise.’ Andrew inclined his head, accepting the point without objection.
‘You could have reported it to us. You could have resigned,’ said Tailby. ‘Yet to choose to go on working for this man …”
‘Chief Inspector, I can’t afford to throw away my job. There are too few for a man of my age and background. I’ve got a wife, a mortgage. Things have gone badly for me in the past. I can’t have it happen to me again. I need that job at Vernon’s. Resign? No.’
Tailby eyed the man, suppressing a surge of pity, keeping his face impassive. ‘Let me ask you about Mrs Charlotte Vernon, then.’
‘Charlotte?’
‘Mrs Vernon has named you as one of her lovers.’
Andrew’s mouth dropped open, and he shook his head vehemently. ‘Oh no.’
‘Are you saying she’s lying?’
‘I was never that.’
‘Never? Why would she lie about it, Mr Milner?’
The don’t know.’
‘But you had been to one of the Vernons’ parties yourself, hadn’t you?’
‘Well, yes. But I wouldn’t take part in … anything like that.’
Tailby was silent for a few moments. Andrew Milner hung his head, waiting for the next question with the air of a man expecting the inevitable.
‘Where were you on Saturday night, Mr Milner?’
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Andrew looked puzzled. ‘I gave a statement days ago,” he said defensively.
‘Ah yes.’ Tailby consulted his notes. ‘You had been to a meeting with some clients in Leeds. A bit unusual on a Saturday?’
‘Not at all. We’ve been very busy. If the clients work on a Saturday, then we do too.’
‘And you state that you were tired and stopped for a rest on the way home.’
‘At Woolley Services on the Ml. I’d had a long day. I dozed for the best part of an hour, I think. It’s not safe to drive when
you’re tired.’
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‘Of course. And you state that you were then held up in traffic on the Ml.’
‘And getting through Sheffield from the motorway, yes. There had been an accident somewhere, I think. And the usual roadworks, you know.’
Tailby slapped the file with his hand. ‘Of course there were roadworks. The
re always are roadworks. The rest of it is quite impossible to substantiate.’
The can’t help that.’
‘So,’ said the DCI, ‘let’s go back to your relationship with Mr Vernon, then. You can’t afford to resign, and you can’t afford to upset the boss too much. Is that it? So you just grin and bear it when the man assaults your daughter. You accept the humiliation.’
‘I’m afraid that’s what I did.’
Tailby stood up. He towered over Andrew Milner, and Andrew cringed as the detective’s expression changed to anger.
‘No, I don’t think so, Mr Milner. I don’t think you did just accept it, did you?’
‘What do you mean?’
The think that the humiliation rankled. I think it ate away inside you — the anger and the humiliation, the self-disgust. The shame that you hadn’t been man enough to respond in the way that so many fathers would. You already hated Graham Vernon for his condescension, for the way he treated you like a servant. But now your hatred festered and you wanted to strike back. I think you saw a way of doing that in what must have seemed the
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most appropriate manner — through his own daughter. Revenge — wasn’t that it, Mr Milner? Vengeance for your humiliation, for Helen’s ordeal and your own impotence. Tit for tat. Laura Vernon was an obvious target of your anger.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I think you do. Where did you really go on Saturday night, Mr Milner?’
The silence grew, with Tailby leaning down towards Andrew, glaring at him as he waited for an answer. The tapes whirred uninterrupted, waiting for the next person to speak. Andrew Milner did nothing for a long time. Then his face seemed to convulse and collapse. His hands clutched at each other, and tears began to ooze down his cheeks.
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