The Kill Call

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Aye.’

  Cooper showed his warrant card, giving the old man time to scrutinize it carefully. Not so long ago, there had been several incidents of a thief posing as a police officer to gain access to properties just like this, with the intention of rifling the drawers for some OAP’s life savings as soon as their backs were turned.

  ‘You reported hearing a disturbance on Tuesday morning. Is that right, sir?’

  ‘Yes, that was me. Responsible citizen, I am.’

  The old man laughed, and let Cooper into the bungalow, pointing the way through to a small sitting room. He waved his visitor ahead, and very slowly followed him into the room. He didn’t support himself on a stick or a frame, but moved as if he had all the time in the world, and no one was going to hurry him. Cooper was reminded of a giant Galapagos turtle he’d seen on a natural history programme, determinedly placing one foot in front of the other.

  The sitting room was filled with too much furniture, and scattered with framed photographs of smiling family members. Biscuit crumbs lay on the carpet. Cooper could feel them crunching softly under his boots. Near the armchair he was given, the crumbs were thicker. He felt as though he ought to offer to do a bit of vacuuming while he was here.

  ‘Early in the morning, it was,’ said Mr Wakeley. ‘Folk having a row.’

  Cooper felt a surge of interest. It was a small thing, and it might be irrelevant. But every detail should be followed up.

  ‘You heard people arguing? What time exactly, can you say?’

  The old man glanced automatically at a handsome grandfather clock that stood in one corner. The clock dominated the room, completely out of proportion to the size of the bungalow. Cooper guessed it must have been brought from a former home, a house with larger rooms and higher ceilings, where all the rest of the furniture was heavy and dark. But the clock ticked away steadily, a deep thunk of a pendulum echoing gently inside the mahogany case.

  ‘Eight thirty, or a bit later. I couldn’t be more exact than that.’

  ‘You were here, in your bungalow? Were people arguing outside in the street?’

  Wakeley shook his head. ‘No, I went for a walk. I don’t sleep too well these days, tend to wake up about five o’clock in the morning. There’s not much else to do at that time, I can tell you. No one to talk to, nothing on the telly worth watching. And who wants to sit around with nothing but their own thoughts for company at that time of the morning?’

  Not me, thought Cooper. No one was at their best at that time. He decided it might be more fruitful to let the old man talk, rather than trying too hard to pry out the details.

  ‘So you went out when, Mr Wakeley?’

  ‘About seven thirty. I used to go out earlier, at first light – cock crow, if they actually allowed anyone to have a cockerel around here. I can’t manage it now.’

  ‘Was there anyone around?’

  ‘Not a soul to be seen on the estate, a few cars moving about the village – commuters, I suppose, off to their jobs in Sheffield.’

  Cooper looked at the old man. He had probably been quite a fit person once, perhaps even athletic. But now he was the giant tortoise. It would take him half an hour just to get to the end of his street.

  ‘And where did you walk to, sir?’

  Wakeley laughed again, a dry chortle that suggested to Cooper he was making the old man’s day, probably his week. He was starting to think that he’d been given the duff job, the visit to the old fogey who just wanted a bit of attention and someone to talk to for a few minutes. There were plenty of them around.

  ‘I only got as far as the bench at the corner of the lane,’ he said. ‘That’s my limit these days. I used to hike up Longstone Edge without batting an eyelid, but they seem to have made it a lot higher and a lot steeper these days. I blame the government.’

  ‘Was it raining at that time?’

  ‘A bit. But a drop of rain never did anyone any harm.’

  Cooper nodded. It was what he’d expected. Mr Wakeley was one of that tough breed who had almost died out, even in Derbyshire.

  ‘So these people you heard …?’

  ‘Up on the moor,’ said Wakeley. ‘They must have been a good two miles away. Funny how sounds travels at that time of the morning, when no one’s about. If you get the right sort of weather conditions, you can hear a dog bark at Birchlow.’

  ‘I see.’

  The old man grinned at him, showing a set of fine white teeth that must have come courtesy of the NHS dental service.

  ‘Nothing wrong with my hearing,’ he said. ‘You young ’uns expect old folk to be deaf as well as daft, I suppose. But my ears are as sharp as yours. Maybe sharper. I never damaged my ear drums with loud music, you see. Children now, they stick those little ear plugs in their ears and walk around with music blasting all day. Now, they’ll be deaf as posts by the time they’re sixty.’

  ‘If you could just –’

  ‘Oh, aye. I’m getting round to it. I have to take my time these days, as you can see.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I was just sitting on the bench, being quiet, waiting for the birds to start singing with the light coming up. And there were at least two people, shouting. A man and a woman. They went at it pretty good, too. No doubt they thought no one else was about to hear them.’

  ‘Could you hear what they were arguing about?’

  ‘I might have good hearing, but I’m not bionic.’

  ‘No, of course. So where exactly were they? Could you –’ Cooper had been about to ask the old man to take him to the bench in question and point out the location, but he realized that it would take all afternoon. There were other jobs waiting for him to do. Shame – Mr Wakeley would have enjoyed it. ‘If I showed you a map, could you estimate their position?’

  ‘I’ll have a go.’

  Cooper fetched his OS map from the car and spread it out on Mr Wakeley’s table.

  ‘You would have been around here?’

  ‘Yes, the old silk road, that is. The pack horses used to go that way, to get up over the moor. No cars on that road early in the morning.’

  ‘So the people you heard would be where?’

  ‘Whereabouts is Birchlow on here?’

  ‘Here.’ Cooper placed a finger on the map.

  ‘One of these fields, then. Back of the church, near where those trees are.’

  The contour lines on the map showed that the location Mr Wakeley had indicated was on the northern slope of the moor. Because of the lie of the landscape, anyone who had been up and about in Birchlow might not have heard the argument. But there would be direct line of sight to the bench on the old silk road where the old man had been sitting. Clear air, except for the rain that had been falling.

  ‘Do you know Birchlow?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Birchlow? Aye, there’s a lot of history in Birchlow. Some amount of dry rattle there, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Skeletons in the cupboard, Mr Wakeley?’

  ‘More than skeletons. If you shake the cupboard too much, half the village will fall out. But you don’t want old gossip.’

  The old man chuckled, and coughed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Cooper, wondering whether Mr Wakeley didn’t have quite so much toughness, after all.

  ‘I will be, when I’m dead.’

  Cooper smiled. The old man and his clock seemed to be running at different speeds. The clock still ticked away at a regular pace, but Mr Wakeley had slowed down, as if his internal spring was unwinding and losing its tension, no longer able to push his body around at the old rate. He was gradually slipping out of real time.

  And one thing was certain. He wasn’t going to find out who had been having that argument in the early hours of the morning by standing here in the sitting room at 6 Laurel Close. He would have to follow the trail closer to Birchlow.

  Standing in the residents’ lounge of the Birch Hall Country Hotel, Fry was impressed by a series of oak bookcases lining the wall. While sh
e waited, she peered through the glass to study the contents. Shelves were full of volumes that were clearly more for display, and creating the right ambience, than for reading. Bound volumes of Punch, a complete set of Sir Walter Scott, Who Was Who 1951–1960. Their dark bindings formed an impenetrable wall behind the glass.

  She’d obtained a copy of Patrick Rawson’s account from the head receptionist, who had expected Mr Rawson to be staying at the hotel until the weekend. It wasn’t unknown for guests to miss sleeping in their room for a night, but there was always the chance that something regrettable had happened. From the response to her news, Fry wasn’t sure whether the hotel would be sorry to have lost a guest, or relieved that they had a scan of his credit card to settle the bill.

  A quick search of Patrick Rawson’s room had been unfruitful. Clothes, yes. Toiletries, of course. But anything that could provide useful information must have been back home, or in his car. She would have to make sure the room was kept locked until a proper search could be conducted.

  When her phone rang, she found that it was Gavin Murfin, calling with the first solid information on Patrick Rawson.

  ‘Has he a record?’ she asked. ‘Anything on the PNC?’

  ‘A bit of juvenile vandalism,’ said Murfin. ‘Keying cars, mostly – with a special fondness for the more expensive motors.’

  ‘Oh, early anarchist tendencies, then.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind. I was kidding.’

  She could imagine Murfin staring at the phone in amazement. Diane Fry kidding? Cracking a joke? It was almost unheard of. She sighed ruefully.

  ‘Now we have Patrick Rawson’s mobile phone numbers, we can get hold of a record of his calls.’

  ‘Did you say “numbers”?’

  ‘Yes. His wife says he had one phone for personal calls, and another one for business. Sounds like he was the sort of person you’d really hate to be on a train with, listening to him taking two calls at once. I gave both the numbers to Becky.’

  ‘Right.’ Murfin seemed to turn away from the phone for a moment. ‘I think she’s on to it. So when we get the records for Mr Two Phones, what are we looking for?’

  ‘Local numbers, in or out. He must have been in touch with someone up here, both after he arrived and in the days before he came.’

  ‘Got it,’ said Murfin. ‘By the way, we’ve got initial forensics on the Mitsubishi. No prints except Rawson’s and his wife’s.’

  ‘A shame, but no surprise.’

  ‘He did leave a paper trail all over the Eden Valley, though, by using his credit card for everything. Hotel bill, restaurant, petrol station … So we know where he slept, where he ate dinner, and which way he was heading. If we hadn’t found him already, we’d have a head start.’

  ‘There’s a lesson in that, Gavin. If you don’t want to be found, pay cash.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind when I decide to do a runner.’

  12

  Cooper drove back into the centre of Eyam. Of course, most of the village seemed to have slipped out of real time. The seventeenth century was so powerfully present that he wouldn’t have been too surprised to see the Reverend Mompesson striding down the path from the church in his black robes, Bible in hand, filled with unselfish determination to protect his flock. Or what remained of it.

  Cooper remembered from his school visit a couple of plague tableaux in the museum. One represented the last days of John Daniel, plague victim number ninety-two. Number ninety-two? A sentence from a TV series had run irreverently through Cooper’s head – ‘I am not a number.’ The bubos were clear and livid on John Daniel’s neck, illuminated by a candle burning at the head of his bed.

  But the exhibit that had impressed him most was the long list of all the plague victims. Among all the Thorpes, Syddalls, Rowes and Thornleys were the names of two boys, the sons of a widow who had taken in a journeyman tailor as her lodger. It was a delivery of cloth from London for the tailor that had brought the plague to Eyam. The two sons had been dead within a month.

  He looked at his list. Two more calls to make in Eyam, following up reports of a disturbance during the night. His instinct was to suspect drunks. The timing was surely too early to be related to the death of Patrick Rawson. But Fry was right to give them to him – everything had to be checked at this stage. Next week could be too late.

  A horse was being walked through the village, clacking slowly past the Mechanics Institute. A pallet of cured Danish ham stood outside the butcher’s shop, and stone dust rose from a new housing development. One day, excavation work for new foundations would unearth some of the old plague victims’ graves in Eyam. If it hadn’t happened already.

  A display of postcards outside a shop caught Cooper’s eye. He felt in his pocket for some change, and bought a card with a picture of the Plague Cottage, showing the names listed on the plaque at the gate.

  Then he made his way back past Eyam Hall to reach the car park on Hawkhill Road, near the museum. He stopped for a moment to admire the way the honey-coloured stone of the houses blended with the foliage on the hillside. Just occasionally, the handiwork of man and nature seemed to fit perfectly together, complementing each other, creating a very satisfying harmony. It was a rare thing. But it happened more often in the Peak District than in other parts of the world. And it was good to get the chance to just stop and stare now and then.

  An elderly lady with mobility problems was waiting to cross the road. Before Cooper could move to help her, someone came out of the shop and gave her an arm to lean on. Two cars had stopped, and one of the drivers even waved.

  Cooper realized he was having difficulty remembering that he wasn’t on leave any more, because he’d offered to do some jobs for Diane Fry. Get back on duty, Cooper.

  Fry had to pass through Eyam to reach Longstone Moor. On the main street, she saw Cooper, his mind clearly somewhere else as usual.

  She watched as an old biddy with a stick started to totter across the road, taking her own good time, holding up the traffic for no good reason. Cooper seemed to be about to move towards her. Perhaps he was going to arrest her for obstruction. But someone else got there before him, and the whole performance creaked painfully on before cars were able to begin moving again.

  Fry sighed as she turned off the main street towards Longstone Moor. She couldn’t even send him home, because he wasn’t actually supposed to be on duty. And anyway, you took what resources you could get. No point in complaining.

  She changed the CD as she drove through a steep-sided dale. Alison Moyet’s The Turn came to hand, and she slipped it into the CD player. A solitary guitar, then the familiar bluesy voice singing ‘One More Time’. Perfect.

  Birchlow was an amorphous cluster of gritstone cottages, laid out according to no visible plan. An organic village, then, thought Cooper. A settlement now barely interesting enough to attract a single tourist, unless they were lost. It had nothing to offer in competition with the attractions of areas to the south and west. Unlike Eyam, it had even escaped the effects of the plague.

  Cooper knew tiny villages like this. They were dominated by the older generations, the younger population having moved away to find work, or to live in the cities. Few youngsters had any interest in scraping a living from the land. In Birchlow, the natural instinct would be to distrust the unfamiliar. He could expect politeness on the surface, suspicion underneath. Not to mention a tendency for people to conceal the fact that they were capable of any human feelings.

  His other visits in Eyam had proved fruitless, as he’d suspected. But the system had flagged the calls up, and his boots were the ones on the ground right now in this area. If what Mr Wakeley had told him had any significance at all, he would find the answer here in Birchlow somewhere.

  He dialled Fry’s number to let her know his location.

  ‘It’s close enough to your scene,’ he said. ‘Could be significant.’

  ‘Yes, it’s worth following up. But don’t knock yourself out, Ben.’r />
  ‘I’m here, so I’ll do the best I can.’

  ‘As you always do, right?’

  Cooper passed a small church, which had one spectacular stained-glass window catching the light. A depiction of a saint, dying in great sanctity, with a quiver of arrows through his throat. Bright yellow daffodils grew in the cottage gardens, contrasting with a red pillar box, and a line of dark grey wheelie bins standing at the roadside, waiting for the refuse collectors. Milk bottles had been left out for the milkman, the way everyone had once done it.

  There was a village pub in Birchlow, the Bird in Hand. But no shops. And no post office, of course. There was just a small car park behind the village hall, with a phone box and a parish notice board, and several cars parked up between the stone walls.

  Looking for the farm whose land ran up the back of the churchyard, Cooper reflected that there were some characteristics that didn’t endear you to people in villages like this. Being openly inquisitive was one. Knowing too much was another. Unfortunately, a police detective was likely to fall into both categories.

  When he came to a sign for Rough Side Farm, he knew he was in the right place. Eyam was clearly visible from here, spread out on the opposite hillside. Some of the land here looked to be good pasture, so good that it ought to be supporting a dairy herd. But who wanted to run a dairy farm when prices for milk were so poor, and the bull calves worthless for meat?

  Cooper found the farmer lurking in his workshop, surrounded by tractor parts and bits of oily machinery. He introduced himself, and learned the farmer’s name was Peter Massey. He was a man in his late fifties, but lean and fit-looking, the way that the older generations of farmers often were. Physically, he was probably fitter than a lot of men half his age who did nothing but watch football and drink beer. He could certainly give Matt Cooper a fifty-yard start. No doubt all those hours spent out on the moors had done that for him. In a city, a man like Massey would probably credit his physical condition to tai chi or pilates.