The kill call bcadf-9

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Our Michael Clay is fifty-one. He would have been too young in 1968.’

  ‘This was probably his father then, do you think?’

  ‘Could be,’ said Cooper. ‘Then there was the number two observer. Jimmy Hind’s friend, Peter Massey.’

  ‘Your farmer at Rough Side Farm. Go on.’

  ‘At the end of an exercise, the crew had to take down and dismantle all the equipment. The smaller items they took home with them for safe-keeping, but the larger bits of equipment were stored inside the post. When the accident happened, Clay and Massey were lowering the siren down the shaft, and it seems they hadn’t tied a very good knot. Hind was underneath it, waiting to position it at the bottom of the shaft.’

  For a moment, they both studied the photograph of the post crew. Jimmy Hind was identifiable from the newspaper pictures. A slight young man in round, wire-rimmed glasses, with long hair sticking out from under his beret.

  ‘It was reported at the inquest that Clay was a lot bigger and stronger than Massey, so maybe there wasn’t an equal strain on the rope, but they could never be sure exactly what went wrong. Anyway, when it was halfway down, the siren bumped off the side of the shaft, and a knot slipped loose. Hind might have tried to dodge — there was a sort of toilet cubicle just behind him. But he didn’t make it. The siren hit Hind on the head, cracked his skull open. He went down, and the siren broke both his legs when it fell on him.’

  ‘And he was killed outright?’

  ‘Not outright. He lived on for a couple of weeks, before they turned off his life support.’

  ‘How old was Jimmy Hind again?’ asked Fry.

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘All his life ahead of him.’

  Cooper nodded. ‘That’s what the coroner said, too.’

  Fry looked at the printouts Cooper had gathered. She had the impression that he, too, was glad to be back at work. Since they’d both returned from Longstone Moor, their eyes had hardly met — the reports they’d unearthed had taken all their attention. With luck, some of the things they’d talked about today would never be mentioned again.

  ‘You’ve got another inquest there,’ she said.

  ‘I looked up Shirley Outram, too.’

  ‘Pauline’s mother?’

  ‘Yes. Shirley Outram died in 1970. Inquest verdict: took her own life while the balance of her mind was disturbed.’

  ‘Pauline said her mother killed herself. That’s why she was brought up in foster homes.’

  ‘I wonder why she wasn’t actually adopted?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Some children aren’t. They just never find the right home.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘How did Shirley do it?’ asked Fry. ‘A drowning, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. They found her floating in Birch Reservoir.’

  ‘Floating. So she must have been dead a few days. And no one else was involved?’

  ‘Not that was ever shown,’ said Cooper. ‘There was plenty of evidence that she was depressed. The coroner heard witness statements from Shirley Outram’s parents, her GP, and one of her friends.’

  ‘Oh? Which friend?’

  ‘Peter Massey again. He seems to have been close to both Hind and Outram.’

  ‘What did he have to say?’

  ‘According to Massey’s statement, Shirley Outram had been having a bad time after the birth of the child. The child was illegitimate, as you know.’

  ‘Yes, the father was Stuart Clay.’

  ‘That wasn’t mentioned at the inquest,’ said Cooper, frowning. ‘It probably never came out at the time.’

  ‘Well, it was 1968 — that’s the way it was back then.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. It was something that people didn’t talk about. It was still the 1950s, in some ways.’

  Fry tapped the file irritably. ‘That was the trouble with public inquests then, too. In suicide cases, the coroner would fall over backwards to make the whole process more tolerable for the victim’s family. That meant being, well… sparing with the details.’

  ‘They suppressed evidence, you mean?’

  ‘If it was considered potentially distressing for the family, yes.’

  ‘It ought to have been covered in the initial police enquiry, though.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  But Fry didn’t feel entirely convinced of that. The tacit agreement not to talk about things had probably included the police in these parts. She was sure that old-school officers like Cooper’s father would have been perfectly willing to leave embarrassing details out of their reports.

  She felt the familiar surge of satisfaction running through her veins now, the feeling of an enquiry that was finally starting to come together.

  ‘Massey and Hind were about the same age,’ she said. ‘And this ROC post was on the Masseys’ land, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So does it still exist? Or was it demolished?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you,’ said Cooper.

  Fry raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Ben.’

  The windscreen wipers on the Toyota were struggling to clear the rain sweeping across Longstone Moor as Cooper drove back towards Rough Side Farm.

  He remembered his assumptions about Birchlow. The natural instinct to distrust the unfamiliar. Politeness on the surface, suspicion underneath. He wouldn’t have endeared himself to these people by asking questions, or by seeming to know too much. His worst crime was probably sticking his nose into something that no one ever talked about.

  The pastures of Rough Side Farm were wet, their acres of deep browns and greens stretching along the hillside. Peter Massey met him near the gate, as if he’d been expecting a visitor. Rain dripped from the peak of his cap, but Massey seemed oblivious. He screwed up his blue eyes to examine Cooper as he got out of the Toyota.

  ‘Mr Massey, I’ve been hearing about Jimmy Hind,’ said Cooper. ‘How he was killed, in the accident.’

  ‘The accident. Oh yes, that.’

  ‘It must have been terrible for you.’

  Massey’s face remained impassive. ‘What would you know?’

  ‘Jimmy Hind was your friend, wasn’t he?’

  The farmer turned away, and Cooper followed him as he walked towards the field gate. Cooper had his leather jacket on, but the rain was wetting his face and hair. It wouldn’t do to go back for a waterproof. That would mean showing weakness.

  ‘You were there, Mr Massey. You must remember it. I bet you remember it very clearly.’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘The siren fell when you were dismantling the equipment. It was an accident.’

  ‘So they say.’

  Cooper had to walk more quickly to get in front of him, to see Massey’s face. The farmer stopped, his way blocked.

  ‘What is it you want?’ he said.

  ‘To hear it from you. How did it happen?’

  Massey’s face contorted then. ‘Jimmy never uttered a word when he saw it falling. None of us did. When something like that happens, when you know it’s inevitable and there’s nothing you can do to stop it, you just freeze. That’s the way we all reacted. Just in those few seconds, you know.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Jimmy wore these thick lenses in his glasses. When he looked up at us, they made his eyes look all distorted and out of proportion. Like smooth stones lying in deep water.’

  He leaned against the dry-stone wall, looking towards the tower of the church at Birchlow, square on the horizon. Cooper had a sudden recollection of the stained-glass window, depicting the death of a saint. He had an image of a pale face, turned up to the sky as the saint died. A calm, wordless appeal, addressed to the clouds.

  ‘I didn’t know for certain,’ said Massey. ‘I didn’t know for certain which one of us failed to tie the knot properly.’

  ‘Tell me about that knot.’

  ‘It was on the rope that we were using to haul the siren out of the shaft. One of the knots came loose, and
that was why the siren fell. I thought it might have been me. But we told it all to the inquest, and they said we weren’t to blame. Well, that’s what they said. The official verdict.’

  ‘And what did Jimmy do? Did he try to avoid it?’

  ‘Not really. He didn’t panic or anything when he saw the siren falling. He was dead calm. Calm as a freshly dropped calf.’

  He took off his cap, a gesture that came close to an expression of emotion. His sandy, Viking hair gleamed briefly in the rain. Then he began to walk on, and Cooper was obliged to follow.

  ‘What was Jimmy Hind like?’ he asked.

  ‘He was a good lad. Clever. And dead keen.’

  ‘Keen on…?’

  ‘The job. The ROC, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know about the ROC and the observation posts.’

  Massey grunted. ‘You know, you couldn’t sign up for the ROC until your fifteenth birthday. But Jimmy was mad on aircraft spotting and modelling, and he joined up the minute he could. It was one of the great things about the ROC — you were among people who talked about planes. There was a monthly magazine that was full of planes, too. So, yes, Jimmy was keen. He was the sort who was desperate to take the master test on a Sunday to get some badges on his uniform. Trouble was, his age. He was only seventeen when he was killed.’

  ‘Why was his age a problem? He was old enough to join, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I just said, you could join when you were fifteen. No, it wasn’t that.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘We used to have post meetings every week. Ours were on a Wednesday evening, seven thirty until nine thirty. In the summer, we met at the post, but during the winter we went to the pub.’

  ‘The Bird in Hand?’

  ‘Of course. It was the only one in the village, even then.’

  ‘And Jimmy wasn’t old enough.’

  ‘The landlord wouldn’t let him in until he was eighteen.’

  ‘So he missed some meetings.’

  ‘He hated that. But there was another problem.’

  Massey speeded up his pace, as if to leave Cooper behind. Cooper slithered on the wet grass as he tried to keep up.

  ‘Mr Massey?’

  ‘Shirley,’ he said.

  Cooper thought he’d misheard. ‘What?’

  ‘It was Shirley. Shirley Outram.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘The problem.’

  Cooper ran and put his hand on the next gate to prevent him opening the latch.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Massey. Please.’

  Massey looked at him, with a searching gaze. Cooper seemed to pass some kind of test, because Massey dropped his hand.

  ‘Shirley was our only female observer. Yes, we just had the one in our section, and that was quite an innovation at the time, I can tell you. Somehow, she managed to make the uniform look good. A tight mini-skirt and kinky boots. I don’t know how she got away with it. Most of the observers were middle-aged men, you see, and she was a real breath of fresh air. There was quite a social life in the Corps — as well as the pub, there were parties, dances, and so on. You can imagine she was in demand.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that was something else Jimmy was mad keen on — Shirley Outram.’ Massey sighed. ‘It could get pretty tedious on a long exercise. We took radios down, cards, dominoes. But a lot of the time, we just sat around and chatted. You found out a lot about people, sitting down there all night. When you’re frozen solid at two o’clock in the morning on an all-night exercise, on the graveyard shift, it makes a difference who you’re stuck down there with.’

  ‘You had Jimmy. And you had Leslie Clay.’

  He nodded. ‘Les Clay worked in the engine shed at Rowsley until it shut in ’66. He was made redundant in the October, transferred to Bakewell as a porter and got made redundant again five months later, when the line closed. Dr Beeching — there’s a man whose name lives on.’

  Cooper recalled that there was a little woodland station not far from here, at Great Longstone. The last stop before the crossing of Monsal Dale viaduct. Now the station was passed only by walkers and cyclists.

  ‘What age are you?’ asked Massey. ‘I suppose you think this was all a different century?’

  ‘Well, strictly speaking, sir…’

  Massey laughed sourly. ‘Yes, all right. The twentieth century, damn it. Consigned to the history books now.’

  ‘I heard about the closures,’ said Cooper.

  ‘The 1968 reorganization came as a jolt. We thought the ROC was safe. It ought to have gone on for ever. But we were called to a special meeting at Group HQ in Coventry, and we went like lambs to the slaughter. The commandant got up and read out a list of posts that would close. Alpha One, Bravo Two… we were devastated. There was a lot of antagonism and bad feeling. They asked the older ones to retire, said they couldn’t go up and down the shaft any more. Some they wanted to transfer to other posts miles away, but that wasn’t the same at all.’

  Cooper was glad to see they were walking back towards the house now. His hair was sticking to his head, and the water was running down his neck.

  ‘Do you know Michael Clay, Mr Massey?’ he asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Les Clay’s son.’

  Massey shook his head. ‘I’ve heard his name mentioned. I never met him.’

  Cooper watched him for a moment. It sounded like the truth. And Peter Massey just didn’t seem like a man who could tell a lie so convincingly.

  ‘What about Patrick Rawson? Do you know him?’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Michael Clay’s business partner.’

  ‘Wasn’t that the man who died up the way there? You asked me about him before.’

  ‘So I did.’

  Cooper showed him the photograph of Rawson. But Massey shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen him.’

  ‘You’ve never done anything with the old bunker.’

  ‘It was lucky there was no aircraft recognition post here. Some of them were snapped up by mobile telephone people, so they could put masts up. This one wasn’t of interest to anybody, so they just gave the site back to the landowner.’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘Yes. It’s been abandoned since 1968, you know. It always flooded badly, and my dad said it was too dangerous to go down. So we locked it up and let the cows graze over it. When we had cows, that is.’ Massey gave him an odd look, curiously hopeful, almost plaintive. ‘Why? Did you want to have a look what it’s like inside an ROC post?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Cooper. ‘I’ve seen one.’

  ‘And you’re sure that Mr Massey was telling the truth when he said he’d never met Michael Clay?’ asked Fry when he phoned her.

  ‘Yes. I’m certain of it. He never batted an eyelid. Besides…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, if there’s a family feud involved here, I’m just not seeing it, Diane. Les Clay and Peter Massey were the two men who might have been considered responsible for Jimmy Hind’s death in 1968. But Clay died years ago, leaving Massey as the last man standing, so to speak. And Jimmy Hind doesn’t have any family still around to worry about it.’

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean. There’s no logic in it. No logic that would make Michael Clay either an obvious target as a victim, or a man looking for revenge either. Neither scenario fits.’

  ‘And yet…’ said Cooper. ‘There’s still something I’m missing.’

  ‘So what next?’ asked Fry.

  Now it was Cooper’s turn to look at his watch. ‘I’ve got to get myself a new cat.’

  Cooper had never actually had to choose a cat for himself before. There had been plenty of them around the farm over the years, of course, but they’d just sort of appeared under their own initiative, and the main problem had been controlling their numbers.

  At Welbeck Street, he’d inherited Randy with the flat, courtesy of Mrs Shelley, who encouraged strays without any favour or distinction. Judging from Randy’s battered looks, th
ere certainly hadn’t been any selection process based on cuteness, or the potential for posing as a cover model for calendars and birthday cards.

  There were all kinds of animals at the Fox Lane Sanctuary — dogs and cats, of course, a few horses and donkeys, even a pig and a couple of sheep. He was surprised to find an injured owl in an aviary, its feathers ruffled miserably, a broken wing hanging at an unnatural angle. It was a tawny, just like the one he’d heard calling again last night. It had woken him in the early hours of the morning with its hunting cry, a sound that would strike fear into some helpless prey.

  Cooper stopped in front of a loose box, eyeing an old horse who stared straight back at him unblinkingly.

  ‘Hello. What’s your name?’

  He glanced aside to look at a notice on the wall next to the loose box. It said: ‘ This horse has been ill-treated. Watch her — she bites.’

  Cooper had been warned just in time. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an enormous set of teeth flashing towards him. He jerked his head back instinctively. What had happened to the animal in the past that it would lunge at a complete stranger the moment his attention was distracted?

  Ah, well. That wasn’t what he was here for. He made his way to the cattery, which was at the back of the sanctuary: a couple of low buildings with concrete walkways.

  When he got there, Cooper hesitated. So how, exactly, did you go about choosing a cat? How on earth did you make a judgement when you were faced with rows and rows of felines in mesh cages? All of them were animals who’d been abandoned or mistreated in some way. All of them deserving of a good home.

  It wasn’t like buying a car, when you could look at the mileage, check under the bonnet, sit in the driving seat and try out the controls. He hadn’t even thought about what colour of cat he’d like, which was the first question that Claire had asked him when he told her. Did it matter whether it was a tabby, a tortoiseshell or a ginger tom? It was the personality that mattered, the question of whether you were compatible. And you wouldn’t discover that with a cat until you’d worked on the relationship for a while.

  So standing here in the animal rescue centre, being asked to make a choice, seemed suddenly too daunting. It was an impossible challenge, surely?