Blind to the bones bcadf-4

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Hey!’

  Diane Fry turned at the shout. A man in a yellow fluorescent jacket and a hard hat was standing behind her, holding a roll of blue plastic sheeting.

  ‘What do you want? Are you one of the contractors? I’m afraid

  you’ll have to wait. There’ll be no work on this site today.’M

  ‘No, I work for the National Grid. Tunnel maintenance.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but whatever it is you want, you’re in the wrong place. You’ll have to move away.’

  448

  ‘Well, I’m only doing what I was told. And it was one of your blokes that told me to do it.’

  The man seemed to be about to offer Fry the roll of plastic he was carrying. She backed away.

  ‘Sorry? What are you talking about? Who did you say you are?’

  ‘My name’s Norton. Sandy Norton.’ He clutched the plastic sheeting to his chest again and inclined his head sideways. ‘He knows me. That one over there.’

  Fry followed his gesture. ‘Gavin! There’s a gentleman here says he knows you. Deal with him, will you?’

  ‘Hey up, mate/ said Murfin, walking back across the road. ‘How’s it going down in Tunnel Town? What have you got there?’

  ‘It’s what I found.’

  ‘Found?’

  ‘In the middle tunnel. Under the air shaft. We had a look, like your mate told us we should. This is what we found. I thought you’d want to see it. But say so if you’re not bothered, and I’ll burn it.’

  ‘Let’s see.’

  Norton began to unwrap the plastic. There were several layers, and Fry was beginning to think there was nothing inside it at all, when the contents finally appeared.

  ‘A stick/ she said. ‘Gavin, it looks like one of those sticks the Border Rats use.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  Norton pointed with a grubby finger. ‘And look, at this end -‘

  ‘Don’t touch it!’ said Fry. ‘Have you touched it?’

  ‘I was wearing gloves in the tunnel/ said Norton defensively. ‘And as soon as I saw this, I wrapped it up. Was that the right thing to do?’

  ‘It’ll do fine, thank you.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad about that. It’s blood, isn’t it?’

  ‘It looks like it.’

  ‘It was the other bloke that told me to look, you know. But I couldn’t find him to give it to him. Was he right, then?’

  Fry looked over her shoulder at the black terrace and the smouldering buildings behind it. The grey shapes of a few wood pigeons still flapped in and out of the clouds of smoke. They would have to look for a new home soon. ‘Yes, he was right/ she said.

  449

  41

  Monday

  By the bank holiday Monday, Withens didn’t feel quite so isolated. In fact, the entire world was rushing by only yards away, and it seemed to be coming nearer.

  There were visitors in the village to see the well dressing, and the Quiet Shepherd was doing good trade. But Ben Cooper felt the world was intruding in other ways, too, perhaps more subtly. Walkers following Euroroute E8 all the way from Turkey were ending up in Longdendale. Lorries on trans-Pennine journeys often turned off the A628 to park overnight by the side of the road above Withens, gradually creating their own lay-by by churning up the grass and compacting the ground. Those lorries were from all over the world. Even the acid rain destroying the peat moors might be from anywhere, too - not just Manchester.

  Sitting in his car with his mobile phone pressed to his ear, Cooper reflected that if he drew everything on to a map, it would show the village surrounded, though still isolated. It was cut off by the traffic roaring by to the south, and by the power cables of the National Grid and the proposed new trans-Pennine expresses in the tunnels to the west. Together, they formed a net that Withens would never escape. Perhaps the water company would want to clear the whole valley to preserve the purity of its water. The land might be needed for a lorry park or maintenance sheds for the new rail link. And when that happened what would become of people like the Oxleys?

  1 don’t believe it was Craig Oxley alone who killed Barry Cully,’ said Cooper into his phone. ‘Do you? It’s too convenient.’

  Diane Fry’s voice sounded distant. Not only was she miles away

  451

  in Edendale, but her mind would be on other things, preparing for an important interview. She was always meticulous about planning interviews, making notes on the areas she wanted to make sure she covered with her questions. Nothing was to be missed out.

  There’s no evidence otherwise, Ben,’ she said. ‘The rest of the Oxleys are saying nothing at all.’

  ‘And they won’t, no matter how often they’re interviewed. I think Ryan only spoke up because he’s been terrified by the AntiSocial Behaviour Order. He knew that if anyone else got into trouble, the whole family would be out of Waterloo Terrace. So he decided it was safer to break ranks and blame Craig, who is safely dead and out of the way already. But I’m convinced the Oxleys do things together, not alone.’

  ‘And that’s your theory, Ben?’

  ‘And the story is right here, in the collective memory of the Oxleys, and it always will be. We just have no way of getting access to it. Not in a way that we could present to a judge and jury.’

  Cooper watched a group of people passing along the road in their black rag coats and their hats and sunglasses. They were some of the dancers and musicians arriving from Hey Bridge for the May Day performance of the Border Rats.

  ‘You mean all that Border Rats nonsense?’ said Fry. The Crown Prosecution Service would love us if we presented them with that lot as key witnesses.’

  Because of the crowds and the displays in the village, Cooper had been obliged to park his car on the roadside below the village, on the other side of the church. Somebody driving too fast into Withens had hit a carrion crow that had been feeding on the squashed remains of a rabbit. Its tattered black shape lay half in a pothole on the verge.

  Cooper stared at the remains of the crow, its pinions fluttering in the slipstream of a passing car.

  ‘Nature turned out not to be on their side, didn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  The Oxleys.’

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish, Ben,’ said Fry.

  Cooper didn’t bother to defend himself. He was watching the movement of the loose scree on the opposite slope as it slid a little bit nearer to Withens. It might take time, but nature never did give up the war.

  452

  ‘I was thinking about Craig Oxley on the way here,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure what the point is of sending young people into custody. Not in the present system. They just come out worse at the end of it.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘If there’s one group in the prison system who could actually be helped, surely it’s young people. If anybody really cared about them, their lives could be turned round at that age. They could be given education, at least. I mean proper education - not training for a future as a car thief or a mobile-phone bandit.’

  There aren’t all that many cases like his, Ben/

  ‘No. The system probably considers Craig Oxley to be one of its successes. He won’t be clogging up the courts again, will he? He won’t be taking up valuable police time any more.’

  ‘There’s no point in talking to you when you’re in this mood, Ben/ said Fry. ‘Go home and get some sleep, see if you can get a dose of reality. Or a sense of proportion at least. You’ll have got over it in the morning. And don’t forget, we’ve got a meeting to re-schedule. We still need to have that talk about your future/

  ‘You’re kidding/

  ‘Not at all/

  ‘Give me a break, Diane/

  ‘We can’t keep putting it off/

  ‘But you’ll be busy/

  ‘Not too busy for you, Ben/

  There was a pause while Cooper tried to picture the expression on her face. Sometimes phones just weren’t good enough for communication.

&nbs
p; ‘You said you’d be in Withens later on?’ said Fry. ‘You want to see this Border Rats thing through to the end, don’t you?’

  That’s right. You’re still coming, aren’t you?’

  ‘Unfortunately. I have to see the Renshaws one last time. I promised them I’d keep them informed personally about progress on the enquiry. I wish I didn’t have to come to Withens ever again. It isn’t going to be easy this afternoon/

  ‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘Not easy at all/

  The picture in the Withens well dressing depicted the sainthood of St Asaph. The legend, picked out in blue hydrangea petals and buttercups, explained that 1 May was his patronal day. The makers of the well dressing had used chrysanthemums and maize, sweetcorn and

  453

  rice, some of it coloured with icing-sugar dyes. Everything had to be natural.

  Ben Cooper saw Eric Oxley holding a plastic watering can. He was spraying the picture with water to make sure it didn’t dry out. Already, the background of the picture was starting to crumble away a little, the fluorspar trickling to the bottom of the frame, like fine gravel.

  ‘A pity Derek Alton won’t be here to bless the well dressing,’ said Cooper, standing behind Eric’s shoulder. ‘But at least you can use the church. We’ve finished with the graveyard now.’

  Eric turned round, sending a spray of water on to Cooper’s trousers. But he was already damp from the steady drizzle, so it didn’t matter.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear Mr Alton will recover fully, after he’s had all the shotgun pellets removed from his side. He’ll be in a state of shock for a while though, I think. In fact, he had two bad shocks. I don’t know which was worse.’

  ‘Everyone knows you don’t disturb that end of the graveyard,’ said Eric. ‘It’s where the railwaymen are buried.’

  ‘The ones who died of cholera?’

  ‘That’s right. Who would go digging up the ground there?’

  ‘The Reverend Alton would, obviously.’

  ‘Daft bugger.’

  Cooper shook his head. ‘If it hadn’t been him, it would have been somebody else. A stranger. Even a foreigner.’

  But Eric just stared at him. Cooper supposed this superstitious fear of ‘disturbing’ the cholera had somehow been inherited from the ancestors who had lived in the shanty town and had good reason to fear the disease. Where better to hide a dead body than among so many others? But the Oxleys’ decision had been based on the belief that the tradition of leaving that part of the graveyard undisturbed would continue indefinitely. They hadn’t seen that things were changing. They hadn’t understood that change was inevitable. And that was always a mistake. Always.

  ‘At least you’ve still got your traditions,’ said Cooper.

  ‘What, the Border Rats? It won’t last much longer/ said Eric.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, these grandsons of mine won’t keep it up without me and their dad to make them do it. The tradition will pass on to the folk from Hey Bridge, and other places. And they’ll make of it whatever they want. It won’t ever be the same again.’

  454

  Eric Oxley picked up his hat and his stick, and shook his head. ‘Times change/ he said. ‘And our time is nearly over.’

  In the car park, a crowd had gathered in the rain to watch the morning performance by the Border Rats. Though the musicians from Hey Bridge were doing their best, the dancers lacked the energy and enthusiasm of their earlier display in Edendale.

  Cooper could see that they were approaching the final dance, the ritual killing of the rat. Did the aggressive banging of the sticks on the ground really represent the tunnel workers killing rats? Was it a celebration of the murder of Nathan Pidcock? Was there any difference?

  The men who began the ritual might have known its meaning, but by the third, fourth and fifth generation, the story had changed. It meant whatever it had to mean for those performing it.

  His neighbour, Peggy Check, had made a good point. Somebody was being symbolically killed in this ritual. It might be Nathan Pidcock, the carrier who had caused the cholera outbreak through his greed. But the target of the sticks might also be more recent, the victim of a murder committed by a close-knit group who would never talk. And no witnesses except, perhaps, for one frightened boy. The postmortem on the skeletalized remains found in the churchyard had revealed several broken bones. Barry Cully had been beaten to death and his body concealed in a shallow grave among the other dead of Withens. The scene of his murder had burned to ashes.

  The Border Rats’ performance might be an old tradition. But the story they told could be much more recent. Could it be the story of Barry Cully’s murder?

  He waited, listening to the chant and the screaming, watching the dancers approach the climax of their performance. The rat fell and was symbolically beaten with the sticks. Then he got up, and the Border Rats took the sporadic applause from the damp crowd.

  Was he any the wiser? No. But it had been a nice theory.

  Cooper began to walk back across the road, passing in front of the church. He didn’t give a second glance to Ruby Wallwin, who had been asked by Marion Oxley to put the finishing touches to the Withens well dressing. She was clutching a handful of the most delicate petals of all, which she had collected only that morning. She had shuffled down to the bank of the stream in her bedroom slippers, her joints still stiff because she had only just

  455

  got out of bed, but knowing that the petals had to be perfectly fresh. They were white dog roses, pure and gleaming, still damp from the rainfall overnight.

  Mrs Wallwin had never got chance to talk to the vicar, and it was too late now. But she thought it was probably for the best anyway that she hadn’t said anything. The Oxleys were starting to accept her now, and it wouldn’t do for them to think she was passing on the things she overheard them shouting at each other when they forgot she was there.

  Ruby Wallwin bent to the bottom corner of the picture, where a group of black figures had been created from tiny alder cones and roasted coffee beans. She wasn’t sure of the meaning of the picture. But she knew that the white rose petals she lay at the feet of the black figures looked very much like bones.

  Diane Fry was sitting in an interview room at West Street with DI Paul Kitchens. She stared at the man across the table, hoping they weren’t going to have a repeat of the silence she had endured during the last interview she’d conducted here.

  ‘The stick that was found in the railway tunnel has Neil Granger’s blood on it/ she said. ‘Not to mention traces of his cerebrospinal fluid, and fragments of bone embedded in the wood.’

  She looked up, but got no reaction.

  ‘At the other end of the stick, we have some fingerprints. As it happens, these are prints that we already had on record.’

  That was lucky, wasn’t it?’ said Kitchens, with a smile. ‘Sometimes, we do get a bit of luck.’

  Fry nodded. ‘Detective Inspector Kitchens is right. We collected these particular fingerprints very recently.’

  There was no response, but she hadn’t asked a question yet. Fry stared at the man opposite her, and he met her gaze calmly. She was a little unnerved by his appearance - his paleness, the blackness of his hair and the dark stubble on his cheeks.

  ‘We took these prints for elimination purposes/ she said. ‘The same prints were on the bronze bust we found, and on a small brass box/

  He actually nodded then, as if encouraging her to continue.

  They were also elsewhere in your brother’s house/ she said.

  And Philip Granger smiled at the mention of his brother.

  42

  Driving on the A628 towards the Flouch crossroads, Ben Cooper found the treacly expanses of Black Hill and Withens Moor opening up all around him. When he looked down into the valley, he could see the rain drifting across the face of the hills in sheets, like mist.

  He had already passed the sites of two of the villages that had been on this ro
ad, the communities that Tracy Udall had said were removed by the water companies. Woodhead and Crowden at least had a few isolated houses left to show where they had been. But now the map said that he was approaching Saltersbrook.

  Cooper looked down the hill from the road. There was a stony track leading down into a small valley, where a brook fed into the River Etherow and on down to the reservoirs. At the bottom of the track, he could see a tiny stone bridge over the stream. It looked like a packhorse bridge - presumably for the traders who had once brought salt on their packhorses from Cheshire to the cities in Yorkshire. This must have been the original salters’ way, which the village of Saltersbrook had been named after. But now, there was nothing here.

  Deep banks of bracken grew on the slopes at the sides of the brook, masking some of the ground where Saltersbrook had once stood. All that remained of the village were the foundations of a few houses and the ruins of the village inn. Fireplaces were still visible in collapsed rooms where the inn had stood on rising ground beyond the bridge. The climb to it from the bridge was very steep, and the track had been cobbled to provide a secure grip for the hoofs of the packhorses. The fallen stones of the inn were overgrown now with nettles and rough grass. At the moment, they were being grazed by a few sheep.

  457

  Apart from the traffic on the A628, there was nothing else human in the landscape, except for the turbines of the wind farm to the north-east. He noticed that two of the turbines were motionless. And when he turned a bend, he suddenly had a clear view across the expanse of moor to the wind farm. There were several vehicles parked there.

  Cooper pulled into the side of the road, careful not to drive too far on to the soft verge, where his wheels would surely sink into the peat. Clustered at the base of the turbines, he could see a couple of Land Rovers, a minibus, even a small mobile crane. There were people working at the wind farm, presumably a maintenance crew. How long had they been working there, without him being aware of them? Who might they have seen going to and from Withens from their unique vantage point?