06.The Dead Place

by Stephen Booth

  One of the most worrying things about the tape was that the caller seemed completely calm and under control. His delivery was very deliberate, with no signs of agitation that she could detect. As Hitchens suggested, he sounded convincing. In fact, he would come over well in the witness box.

  …What a chance to record the ticking away of a life, to follow it through to that last, perfect moment, when existence becomes nothing, when the spirit parts with the physical …

  Fry glanced at the courthouse again. Her appearance seemed to have gone well, and the CPS were happy. Barring any major disasters during the rest of the hearing, Micky Ellis would be going down for a few years. It wouldn’t do much good for Denise Clay, who had lain dead in her nightdress with her personal stereo on the bedside table and cigarette burns on the duvet. For her, justice would come too late. Denise was long since buried by now.

  But it didn’t do to personalize things too much. Sometimes, the processes of the law needed victims to take a back seat.

  … We turn away and close our eyes as the gates swing open on a whole new world – the scented, carnal gardens of decomposition. We refuse to admire those flowing juices, the flowering bacteria, the dark, bloated blooms of putrefaction. This is the true nature of death. We should open our eyes and learn.

  Fry’s eyes had started to close, but a few minutes later they came wide open again. She looked at the cassette player in bewilderment. She stopped the tape, rewound it and played it again from the section about Freud and the death instinct. There were a few seconds of silence, then the voice started again, filling the car with its metallic echoes.

  ‘Damn it,’ said Fry. ‘Why did no one tell me there were two calls?’

  And you can see the end for yourself. All you have to do is find the dead place. Here I am at its centre, a cemetery six miles wide. See, there are the black-suited mourners, swarming like ants around a decaying corpse.

  We fill our dead bodies with poison, pump acid through their veins. We pollute the atmosphere with the smoke from their flesh. We let them rot below ground, in coffins bursting with gas or soaked in water like minestrone soup. But true death is clean and perfect. Lay them out in the sun, hang their bones on a gibbet. Let them decompose where the carrion eaters gather. They should decay in the open air until their flesh is gone and their bones are dry as dust. Or, of course, in a sarcophagus. Clean and perfect, and final.

  Yes, you can see it for yourself. You can witness the last moments. Follow the signs at the gibbet and the rock, and you can meet my flesh eater.

  It’s perfectly simple. All you have to do is find the dead place.

  4

  There was a motorbike parked outside the Jarvis house, and several lumps of metal rusting in the paddock. The rain that had been falling all morning made sporadic rattling sounds in the long grass, as if hitting something metallic and hollow, like a car roof.

  Ben Cooper stopped halfway up the path to take a closer look. Yes, the largest lump had been a car once – maybe an old Datsun Sunny, judging from the chocolate brown paintwork. Nearby were the remains of a chest freezer and a pig trailer with a broken chassis. None of them had served any useful purpose for a long time, except as homes for insects and rodents. Tongues of pale bracken were breaking through the floor of the Datsun, and nettles had folded themselves into its wheel arches, clutching the deflated tyres in tangles of spiky leaves. Now that summer was nearly over, the nettles, like everything else, were starting to die.

  Cooper could feel the dampness penetrating the hems of his trousers as he brushed through the grass. Even when it wasn’t raining, it would be permanently wet down here on the lowlying ground at Litton Foot. White bracket fungus flourished wherever it could find an inch of surface soft enough to plant its spores. Layers of it grew from the rubber seal on the lid of the abandoned freezer, and from the crumbling foam insulation behind the dashboard of the car.

  He saw that there were other rusted hulks lying in the paddock, and more of them hidden in brambles growing around a gate that led down to the woods. But it was too wet, and Cooper didn’t feel interested enough to explore.

  A man in jeans and a thick sweater stood watching him from a wooden porch built on to the back of the house. Cooper hoped he hadn’t looked too interested in the wrecked Datsun. The man had the expression of a used car salesman spotting an approaching customer. Predatory, yet ready to turn on the charm. Cooper could feel himself being assessed.

  ‘Mr Jarvis?’ he called.

  ‘Aye. What can I do for you?’

  Before he answered, Cooper moved a bit closer. He had to watch where he was putting his feet to avoid stepping on shards of rusted metal lying in the grass.

  As he got closer, he saw that the porch itself seemed to have been made out of old timber salvaged from a converted chapel or schoolroom. The boards Mr Jarvis was standing on were massive planks of weathered oak, full of knotholes and the heads of six-inch nails embedded in the wood and painted over. Here and there, patches of black paint still showed through a layer of varnish. The whole structure must weigh a ton – no modern pine decking from Homebase for Tom Jarvis.

  ‘Detective Constable Cooper, sir. Edendale CID.’

  Cooper was used to a variety of reactions when he identified himself. He was rarely a welcome visitor, even to someone who’d been the victim of a recent crime. Then, he was often the target of their frustration. But there was no anxiety or surprise from Tom Jarvis, only a slight disappointment that he hadn’t found a customer for the old Datsun after all.

  ‘Did you want something?’ he said.

  ‘Could I ask you a few questions, sir? Nothing to worry about – just routine.’

  ‘Come up on to the porch, then.’

  The deck of the porch was quite a long way off the ground, and Mr Jarvis was looking down on him from a height of about nine feet. Cooper could have scrambled up, but he thought he might lose dignity doing it. Instead, he walked around to the side to reach a set of wide wooden steps that led down to a path into the trees.

  Going up the steps, he felt as though he was mounting a stage. That was something he hadn’t done for a long time, not since he went up to collect his certificates at his school prize-giving. For a moment, Cooper felt as vulnerable as he had when he’d been convinced he was going to trip over the top step and fall flat on his face in front of eight hundred pupils and parents.

  ‘How are you, Mr Jarvis?’ he said.

  ‘Sound. I’m sound.’

  ‘This porch is a solid piece of work, sir. Did you build it yourself?’

  ‘With a bit of help from my sons. Joinery used to be my trade, but this was a challenge. I wanted something that’d last, not some rubbish that would blow down in the first gale.’

  ‘It won’t do that.’

  Jarvis kicked a post reflectively. His boot connected with a dull thud. ‘No, I reckon it won’t.’

  Cooper grasped the rail to help himself up the last step. The wood felt smooth and comfortable, and he saw that it was turned in decorative patterns, like the end of a church pew. It was the sort of smoothness that resulted from the touch of many hands over centuries of use, wherever it had originally come from.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ said Jarvis from the end of the porch. ‘They won’t bother you. They always sleep at this time of day, and it’d take Armageddon to wake ’em up.’

  Puzzled, Cooper looked up. Four huge mongrel dogs lay in a tangled heap on the porch, like a badly made rug. At least, he thought there were four. There could have been another shaggy head or two somewhere in the middle of the heap, without making much difference.

  ‘What are their names?’ he said, knowing it always went down well with the punters to show an interest in their pets.

  Jarvis grimaced at the dogs. ‘Feckless, Pointless, Graceless and Aimless.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Don’t ask me why. It was her idea.’

  ‘Whose?’

  He jerked his head towards the house. ‘H
ers. The wife’s.’

  ‘Well, I don’t need to ask why. Mrs Jarvis must be a fan of Cold Comfort Farm. The Starkadders and Aunt Ada Doom.’

  ‘Aunt who?’

  ‘“Something nasty in the woodshed.”’

  Jarvis shrugged, his expression unreadable. ‘If you say so.’

  Cooper stepped carefully over the dogs. None of them moved, or even opened an eye to look at him. There seemed to be an awful lot of muddy paws and scruffy tails protruding from the heap and sprawling across the oak boards. But Mr Jarvis said there were only four dogs, and Cooper had to believe him.

  ‘Just routine,’ said Jarvis. ‘That’s what you all say, isn’t it? Do they teach you that in police school?’

  Cooper laughed. ‘Yes. But I do mean it for once.’

  Jarvis gave him a brief nod. ‘You’ve time for a brew then, if it’s just routine.’

  ‘No, sir. Thank you.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  ‘Actually, it’s about the human remains that were found at the edge of your property,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Bloody hell, that was weeks ago. Have you found out who the poor bugger was?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Some dropout, I reckon,’ said Jarvis.

  Cooper smiled at the old-fashioned term. It was what his grandfather had called anyone with long hair, an expression he’d picked up in the sixties and never stopped using.

  ‘Why do you say that, sir?’

  ‘Well, it was a skeleton. That person must have been there for years. Yet nobody missed them.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Cooper produced the photographs he’d been given by Suzi Lee. ‘This is a facial reconstruction. Does it remind you of anyone you might have seen around this area at any time?’

  ‘The dead person?’ said Jarvis, making no attempt to reach for the pictures.

  ‘Yes, sir. We’ve had them done by a forensic artist, so the likeness won’t be exact. We’re hoping it might jog someone’s memory.’

  Rather reluctantly, Jarvis took the photos. He frowned at the appearance of the face, perhaps noticing the inhuman aspects of it first before focusing on the features that might be recogniz able.

  ‘A woman,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir. We know that much, at least. She was white, aged between forty and forty-five, five feet seven inches tall. The hair and eyes may not be quite right.’

  Jarvis was silent, staring fixedly at the photos. Cooper waited patiently, conscious of a trickle of dampness in his collar and a pool of water forming at his feet as the rain ran off his clothes on to the porch.

  ‘Do they ring any bells, sir?’ he asked.

  But Jarvis shook his head. ‘Strange to think she was lying dead as a doornail just down there. It makes me feel a bit peculiar.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘She doesn’t look like a dropout, though.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Cooper. ‘She doesn’t.’

  Jarvis handed the photos back. ‘I never thought it would be a woman. No bugger told me that.’

  ‘While I’m here, would you mind if I had a look at the site where the remains were found?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘If you like. There isn’t much to see.’

  As Cooper turned, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. One of the dogs was loping across the grass towards the woods. Matted lumps of hair bounced on its sides, and legs flew in all directions as its tongue sprayed saliva into the air. The dog had a curious gait – it ran almost sideways, with one shoulder pointing in the direction it was going, but its head turned to the side, like a circus clown grinning to the audience. Cooper had no idea which of the dogs it was, but he knew which name would fit perfectly.

  ‘Yes, that’s Graceless,’ said Jarvis. ‘The only bitch in the bunch. Lovely nature, she has. Ugly as sin, though.’

  ‘Yes, I can see.’

  Graceless seemed to be the only one of the dogs with enough energy to reach the woods. Feckless, Pointless and Aimless lay on the porch and watched her with weary, patronizing expressions. One of them yawned deeply and dropped his head back to the floor with a thump, rolling his eyes at the two men.

  ‘They’re hoping it’ll be dinner time soon,’ said Jarvis. ‘Idle buggers, they are. I don’t know why I give them house room.’

  ‘Are they any good as guard dogs?’

  Jarvis snorted. ‘Guard dogs? Well, if I could train them to sleep in the right places, they might trip somebody up in the dark. But that’s about the strength of it.’

  ‘Still, they’re big enough,’ said Cooper. ‘The sight of them alone might deter burglars.’

  ‘Aye, happen so.’

  But Jarvis didn’t seem convinced. Perhaps living at the damp end of the valley for so long had given him an eternally sceptical view of life. The outlook was always rain at Litton Foot. He would probably react the same way if Cooper told him the sun would break through one day. Aye, happen so.

  Jarvis descended the steps and headed down the path, not looking to see if Cooper was following.

  ‘Graceless, now, she really likes people,’ he said. ‘Whenever somebody new comes to the house, she always wants to …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, she likes to sniff their trousers, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Their trousers?’

  ‘If you know what I mean.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Not everybody likes it,’ said Jarvis.

  ‘No, I can imagine.’

  ‘But she’s only being friendly. I’m wasting my time trying to stop her. She’s a big lass, and if she wants to go somewhere, she goes. She doesn’t mean any harm by it, but some folk get the wrong idea when they see her coming.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She hates it,’ said Jarvis, with that jerk of his head again.

  ‘Your wife? Well, it must be a bit embarrassing when you have visitors.’

  ‘What visitors?’

  ‘Business not good, sir?’

  Jarvis gave him a sour look and wiped the moisture from his hands on the legs of his jeans.

  It had been dry on the porch, but now Cooper was glad he’d put on his jacket before he left the car. It was the one he’d taken to the Black Mountains with him for the weekend, so the pockets were full of all kinds of odds and ends, but it kept him dry as he waded through the long grass in the rain.

  Litton Foot lay deep in Ravensdale, above Cressbrook village. Ash woods hung above the stream here, deep and dank. Ivy had wrapped itself around the tall, slender trunks of the trees, spiralling high into the canopy, seeking a bit of sun. Everything at ground level was covered in moss so thick that it was difficult to tell what was stone, what was wood, and what was something else slowly rotting in the damp air.

  Just downstream, he knew there were two rows of cottages built for the workers at Cressbrook Mill, but they weren’t visible from here. Stepping stones crossed the water down there to help climbers reach the limestone pitches on Ravenscliffe Crags. On the wet margins of the stream grew clumps of a plant that Cooper didn’t recognize – something like a ten-foot-high cow parsley with purple stems and spotted leaf stalks, furred with tiny spines.

  ‘There’s a footpath at the bottom of your land, isn’t there, sir?’ he said.

  ‘It isn’t the footpath that’s the problem,’ said Jarvis. ‘That’s been there for centuries, as far as I know. It’s this new law they brought in. This … what is it? … right to roam. Some folk think it gives them the right to go traipsing all over the shop. There was a bunch of them came right down through the paddock and tried to walk across the weir. I don’t mind admitting, I were fair chuffed when one of them fell in the stream. She were near to drowning, judging by her noise.’

  Finally, they reached the patch of ground that had been dug out around the remains of the unidentified woman. Blue-and-white police tape still clung to the trunks of nearby trees, some of it trailing on the ground now in sodden strands, one loose end rattling sporadically in th
e breeze. Cooper couldn’t tell now how wide an area the search had covered.

  He hadn’t brought any of the scene photos with him, but could remember them well enough to picture the position of the skeleton. The skull had been at the far end of the excavation, close to the roots of an ash tree; the arms had been slightly bent at the elbow, so that the fleshless hands rested somewhere in the pelvic region, while the legs were laid out straight and close together, with the feet near to where he was standing now.

  Cooper looked up through the canopy of trees to locate the sun. The cloud cover wasn’t heavy, and a gleam of brightness was visible, despite the rain. Higher up, on the moors, he could always orient himself if he could see the sun. But down here, among the winding dales and shelving banks of woodland, it was easy to lose his sense of direction.

  Most of the available sunlight seemed to be coming from beyond the trees to his left. Since it was morning, that should be approximately southeast. Cooper patted the pockets of his jacket. Somewhere here, he was sure … ah, yes. He pulled out a small Silva compass and swivelled it until he’d oriented the needle to the north. He looked at the grave again. Head there, feet here. He nodded. But it probably meant nothing.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Jarvis.

  Cooper had almost forgotten him. The man had been so silent and so still that he might as well have merged into the trees. He was standing under the boughs of an oak, with water dripping on to his sweater. He hadn’t bothered to put on a coat before they came down to the stream. In a few more minutes, he’d be as wet as the ground he was standing on.

  ‘Nothing important, sir,’ said Cooper. ‘Just checking some details.’

  ‘Routine?’

  Jarvis said the word as if it summed up everything that was wrong with the world. This was a world that wouldn’t leave him alone to sit in peace on his porch with his dogs.

  ‘What’s on the other side of these woods?’ asked Cooper, pointing across the stream to the east.

  ‘It’s part of the Alder Hall estate.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘It’s not exactly Chatsworth – though they say it belongs to the Duke again now. The house has been empty for the last two years, anyway. This stream is the estate boundary.’