Dying to Sin (17 page)

The anthropologist finished with a flourish, closing his laptop and waving his arms in a graphic gesture.

‘To put it plainly, ladies and gentlemen, if you left a body out on a slope to decompose – the head might just roll away.’

Cooper had been considering the anthropologist’s presentation as the rest of the team dispersed and went about their tasks for the day.

‘Diane, do you think we could analyse the chemical content of the bones to get an angle on her origins?’ he said. ‘I’ve heard that it’s possible.’

‘You know we don’t have facilities for anything like that, Ben.’

‘But the FSS might. Or a university somewhere.’

‘It would take months and months. And besides –’

‘– it would cost a lot of money. I know.’

‘Think budgets, Ben. The fact is, this will probably remain an unsolved case.’

‘No. You’re joking.’

‘If there were any leads at all, any sure indication of a cause of death that suggested murder, or even a confirmed ID that we could work with … But, as it is, we have nothing. We could faff around here for months and still have nothing.’

‘We can’t just leave it, with these two women unidentified.’

‘We might have to,’ said Fry.

‘No.’

‘Look, how many cases have you got on your desk at the moment, Ben?’

‘Well …’

‘Five, six? A dozen? Wouldn’t you stand more chance of getting results if you spent your time on some of those? I bet there are people shouting for statements and case files.’

‘Yes, there are. There
always
are. You know that.’

‘Well, then.’

Cooper was silent. He could see that Fry thought she’d won the argument by sheer, unassailable logic. Budgets, and case loads. Who could argue with those? It wouldn’t be prudent to say what he was thinking right now.

Half an hour later, Gavin Murfin was able to spring a surprise on his colleagues in the CID room.

‘By the way,’ he said. ‘I see Derek Sutton had a criminal record. I found him on the PNC.’

Fry sat up with sudden interest. ‘Oh?’

‘Illegal fuel. He was using laundered red diesel.’

‘A typical rural crime.’

Cooper walked over to Murfin’s desk and looked at the file.

‘A prosecution was brought against Derek Sutton by HM Customs and Excise, following a spot check at the cattle market in Ashbourne. A hefty fine. That was an expensive day out for him.’

Red diesel was normally used in farm machinery, and it was illegal to use it in road vehicles, because it wasn’t taxed. To evade detection, the more enterprising removed the red dye, producing what was called laundered diesel. The Customs and Excise checks would show that up. But Sutton had only been charged with use, not with laundering. He must have known of a source somewhere. Probably everyone did.

‘The Hydrocarbon Oil Duties Act,’ said Fry. ‘“
Certain vehicles are exempt from normal fuel
duties as they are primarily used off-road and
normal road use is only incidental
.”’

As always, Cooper was impressed by the efficiency of her mental filing cabinet. He’d almost heard the correct drawer clicking open.

‘Well remembered.’

‘It’s another subsidy for farmers,’ she said. ‘Enshrined in the law, no less. They pay less tax for their fuel than ordinary mortals.’

‘Well, not really. If their farm vehicles never go on the road, they don’t contribute to wear and tear, do they? And they don’t use other facilities on the roads. So why should they be taxed for their maintenance and repair?’

‘You won’t convince me that they don’t go on the roads. I’ve got trapped behind enough farm vehicles to know differently.’

Cooper shrugged. ‘If I recollect the intelligence, Customs have suspected that a diesel-laundering plant might be operating in this area. Do you remember the operation that was closed down in Northern Ireland? It was being run from a converted hay shed at a remote farm.’

‘Like I said, a typical rural crime. These people think they can get away with anything because nobody is watching over them.’

‘You’ve really got it in for farmers at the moment, haven’t you?’ said Cooper. ‘What’s brought this on?’

‘Spending time in Rakedale,’ said Fry. ‘It’s enough to make anyone bitter and twisted.’

Cooper shook his head in despair. Fry was almost a lost cause. He would have to introduce her to Matt some time, and see what happened. The results would be interesting, if nothing else. Two jaundiced personalities clashing head-on. The thought was enough to make him shudder.

Tractors were the main agricultural vehicles to fall under the ‘exempted’ definition of the Act. The duty rate for rebated red diesel was about a tenth of the duty for normal road vehicles. In the Northern Ireland case, twelve large tanks had been used to take dye from red diesel and convert it into white diesel that could be used by motorists. The price difference was about two pounds per gallon, and forty thousand litres of fuel had been contained in storage tanks at that laundering unit on the farm in Northern Ireland. Good money to be made, then.

But it wasn’t advisable from the motorist’s point of view. Apart from the risk of prosecution, the acids used in the laundering process would wreck the fuel pumps in diesel engines, so buyers of cheap fuel ran the risk of causing long-term damage to their vehicles.

Much closer to home, Customs and Excise had dipped most of the tanks of people attending a horsey event at Chatsworth a while ago. They were looking for anyone ‘running red’. C&E were wise to dual tanks and every other trick. They would also sample the fuel at the injectors and relied on chemical tracers. The dye could be removed with absorbents, but the tracers couldn’t. And, if they caught you, the fines were big.

A few gallons in the four-by-four, or a few miles on the road to take some cattle to market in the pick-up now and then. They seemed like no big deal. But it would still mean a large fine if you were caught.

Cooper searched for details of the Irish case. From the farm, the raid had also recovered a generator, pumps, and storage equipment. In addition, thirty-seven tonnes of toxic contaminated sludge, the hazardous chemical residue of the laundering process, were cleared from the site, which had livestock and an inhabited farm dwelling nearby. Subsequent warnings had been issued about the damage caused by contamination to arable land and our water and rivers.

For some reason, Cooper was reminded of Raymond Sutton.
Hell burns. Hell burns with an
agony like no other
.

‘Diane,’ he said, ‘there was a Bible on the table in the farmhouse.’

‘Yes?’

‘Could it be released? Raymond Sutton was asking for it.’

‘I can’t see any problem with that. Make sure you record it.’

‘Of course.’

Fry looked at him quizzically. ‘So, are you starting to feel any kinship to these people at Rakedale yet?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I know what you’re like, Ben. Before long, you’ll start feeling sorry for someone, and you’ll end up making promises you can’t keep. It’s a mistake to promise anything to a member of the public, you know. Don’t let them know your sympathies at all. Keep your feelings to yourself.’

‘I know, I know.’

‘You might know the theory, but it’s the practice you find difficult, isn’t it?’

Cooper bit his lip and moved back to his desk. Fry spotted the flier in his out tray, advertising the carol concert by the male voice choir, which would be followed by a children’s party. There were going to be mince pies and mulled wine, and even a visit by Santa.

‘Doing good work for the community again? Very commendable. You’re not going to play Father Christmas yourself are you, Ben?’

‘No, I’ve asked Gavin to do it.’

‘
Gavin?
You’ve asked
Gavin
to be Father Christmas?’

‘He’s about the right shape. He won’t need much padding to fit the costume.’

‘Yes, but won’t the kids be expecting a bit of jollity and a certain amount of ho-ho-ho-ing? Not someone who kicks them out of the way to get at the mince pies?’

‘Actually, Gavin is very good with children. You should see him at home – he makes a great dad. He just puts an act on at work for the sake of his image.’

‘His image? Now I’ve heard everything. DC Murfin has an image.’

Murfin looked unruffled. ‘Hey, Diane, the new choir is always on the look-out for new members. Isn’t that right, Ben?’

‘Well …’

‘You don’t need to have done any public singing before. There are about twenty performances a year, and practice sessions in a church hall at Allestree. You’d do that for a charitable cause, wouldn’t you, Diane?’

Fry looked at his smiling face suspiciously. ‘I thought this was a male voice choir? Surely a requirement for membership would be that you had testicles to drop?’

Murfin grinned more widely. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Spot on.’

Fry’s phone rang – the DI calling her into his office to hear the latest news from the forensics team.

‘It’s really quite odd,’ said Dr Jamieson when Fry joined them. ‘The evidence might almost be called contradictory. I didn’t mention it in the presentation earlier for that very reason. Because I can’t explain it, scientifically.’

‘What do you mean, Doctor?’ asked Hitchens. ‘We’ll need it in simple terms.’

‘Well, we can tell from the pattern of decomposition and the disarticulation of the body that Victim B was dug up and re-buried some time after death.’

‘So the victim was killed somewhere else, then moved to Pity Wood as a permanent place of concealment? That’s pretty much what we expected.’

‘Well, no – that’s not a legitimate conclusion, I’m afraid,’ said Jamieson.

‘No? But you just said –’

‘I said the body was dug up and re-buried. But we found no samples of soil or vegetation that might be considered inconsistent with the site where the body was found. Normally, you see, we’d expect to sift out some clues about the original burial site – traces of a different soil type, for example. Variations in chemical composition, vegetable fibres that don’t belong.’

‘I understand,’ said Hitchens.

The anthropologist threw up his hands in frustration. ‘But there’s nothing in this case. Absolutely nothing. On the contrary, the remains of Victim B showed every sign of never having been moved, at least from a geological and botanical point of view.’

‘The builders unearthed the skeleton and covered it over again,’ pointed out Fry. ‘They were worried about delaying the building work.’

‘No, no. This didn’t happen recently.’

Hitchens frowned. ‘Doctor, I thought I was following you at first, but now you’ve lost me. What are you trying to say exactly?’

‘Inspector, I’m saying that some time ago your victim was dug up and re-interred, but never actually moved. On the second occasion, the body was re-buried in exactly the same spot.’

16

In Cooper’s copy of the forensic anthropologist’s report, the dead woman had been assigned a reference number. This was her biological identity, all that was officially known about the person she’d once been. A Caucasian female aged twenty to twenty-five years, about five feet three inches tall, with dark brown hair. The condition of her teeth was the only peculiarity. There might be useful dental records, if she’d ever called on a dentist in the UK.

‘Diane, we’re going to have to talk to the neighbours in Rakedale again, aren’t we?’

‘The Three Wise Monkeys, you mean? They not only heard, saw and spoke no evil, they couldn’t believe anyone else would either.’

‘That’s touching.’

‘Touching? I asked one woman whether she’d ever invited the Suttons round when she was having her garden parties and barbecues in the summer. Do you know what she said? “That lot? They never accepted invitations, except to funerals.”’

‘We really need to dig out their memories, Diane.’

‘Well, we’d better requisition an excavator. That place isn’t a village – just a series of stone walls. Literally and metaphorically. They clammed up like traps as soon as they knew we were from the police. And I mean every one of them, young and old. Mr Brindley was right. I don’t know how news of our arrival got around so fast – they must use thought transference. Does that come with in-breeding?’

Cooper didn’t answer. It was true that there was only a narrow range of names on the electoral register for Rakedale, the same ones cropping up several times over. Blands, Tinsleys and Dains seemed to be everywhere.

‘Anyway, they probably know each other inside out,’ said Fry. ‘But these people we’re asking about were itinerant workers. They were passing through, not planning to settle down and raise families. I don’t suppose there were any women for them to marry, anyway. Not in this place.’

Cooper nodded thoughtfully. ‘So they would probably never mix in, never visit anyone, and never join anything.’

‘Not if they were familiar with village life. These men would know only too well that they were incomers – and always would be, for as long as they were likely to stay here.’

‘Well, there’s one part of village life I can almost guarantee they took part in,’ said Cooper. ‘I bet they went to the pub.’

‘Do you mean the Dog Inn? The pub at the end of the universe?’

‘It’s the only place to go.’

‘All right,’ conceded Fry. ‘But
you
can try it this time. When I went in there, I felt as though I was in a scene from
Deliverance
.’

Following the minimal success of house-to-house on Friday morning, someone had decided to try parking the mobile police office in Rakedale for a few days, to encourage people to come forward with information. Intelligence-led policing at its finest.

When Cooper arrived, he waved to a couple of officers who sat in lonely isolation in a corner of the Dog Inn car park, watching customers come and go to the pub. They looked miserable and could hardly raise the enthusiasm to wave back. Rakedale did that to you.

Some of the pub’s exterior decorations had blown off in the wind, and the hanging baskets were definitely not at their best. Rendering was coming away where the down spouts met the wall. Here, too, the porch had been added later. Cooper wondered whether people in this area had become less tough over the years, less able to withstand the Pennine gales without those little stone extensions to deflect the weather. He didn’t think the weather had got worse over the centuries, but maybe these buildings let in the wind more as they grew ancient and their stones cracked and separated.

Yes, the Dog Inn was unprepossessing, even for a non-tourist village like Rakedale. Closed at lunchtimes during the week, of course – and not too sure whether it really wanted to be open at other times, either. Catering for the public was all a bit too much trouble, even for the front door, which scraped reluctantly against the raised edge of a flagstone when Cooper tried to push it open.

Strands of tinsel glittered over his head as he passed through the door into the bar, expecting one of those silences that descended whenever a stranger walked into the saloon in a Western film. In here, Fry would have been pretty much a woman with two heads. He bet everyone had stared at her, but no one would have been willing to catch her eye. There were some situations where her approach didn’t necessarily work.

The men in the bar were quiet as Cooper walked in. He greeted the sheepdog, which was the only one to acknowledge him, and went to the bar. At least there was a nice open fire, which was useful while he observed the customary wait. At his feet was a brick step up to the bar, and a bowl of water for customers’ dogs.

Cooper always looked at the beer pumps in a pub – they could tell you so much about the customers. Real ale or keg, lager or Guinness? Here, they had Black Sheep, Ruddles, and Baboushka spiced ale from one of the Derbyshire breweries, Thornbridge. There was also M & B Mild, a drink that was definitely out of fashion in the trendy bars back in town.

‘Cooper, did you say?’ asked Ned Dain.

‘Yes, DC Cooper, from Edendale.’

‘And you work with that woman sergeant that came in the other day?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was your dad a bobby?’

‘Yes, he was.’

‘OK, I get it now.’

Dain laughed as he moved along the bar to serve a customer. It was a slightly disturbing laugh that he had, a sound like the deep, wet gurgle from one of his own beer pumps.

‘Oh, and tell that sergeant from me there’s no Billy,’ called Dain. In the corner, a man with a beard laughed.

‘Billy?’ said Cooper.

‘Just our joke. There never was any such person as Billy Sutton.’

Puzzled, Cooper opened his mouth to put another question, but the landlord interrupted him.

‘You ought to talk to the old lady,’ said Dain. ‘My mother. She’ll remember the stuff you want to ask about.’

‘How do you know what I want to ask about?’ said Cooper.

‘Talk to the old lady,’ repeated Dain. ‘You’ll find her through there. And shut the door behind you.’

The old lady seemed to have her own sitting room off the kitchen, where she could supervise what was going on through the open door without taking her eyes off the TV for too long. Cooper entered her lair respectfully, conscious that he was being studied critically. The first impression he made might be crucial, the one factor that could make Mrs Dain decide whether to open up to him or keep her mouth firmly shut, the way so many people in Rakedale were doing.

When he introduced himself and told her what he had come to talk to her about, he could see her bending her head forward to listen closely to his words. He suspected she was not just hearing what he said, but listening to his accent, judging whether he was local, assessing from his manner whether he was worth talking to.

To his surprise, she lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke. So the door to the bar was kept closed for Health and Safety reasons. No one would realize that there was a free passage of air into the kitchen.

‘Who else have you spoken to?’ she said eagerly, when Cooper told her the purpose of his visit.

‘Oh, Mr Palfreyman. Mr Farnham.’

‘Tom Farnham? Did you ask him about his wife?’

‘He’s a widower, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, but you know what they say – a widower by choice.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, it’s only gossip, I suppose. It’s just what people were saying at the time.’

‘Are you suggesting that Mr Farnham killed his wife?’

‘Not me. It’s what I heard, that’s all.’

‘He was never charged with anything. The inquest verdict was accidental death.’

‘Well, they never found any evidence. It doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her, does it? The perfect murder is the one they can’t prove you committed.’

‘It’s a point of view,’ said Cooper.

Privately, he wanted to agree with Mrs Dain. There were plenty of cases where the police believed they knew the perpetrators of crimes, but were never able to prove their guilt in court. It was a mistake to believe that their aim was to achieve justice. Most effort was concentrated on putting together a strong enough case for a prosecution. Without sufficient evidence, and without a rigid adherence to procedures in gathering and presenting it, the concept of justice became academic. It was an interpretation of the criminal justice system that wasn’t normally shared with members of the public.

‘I know how easily these rumours get around,’ said Cooper. ‘But it’s unwise to repeat them, Mrs Dain.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t repeat it to anybody else,’ said the old lady hastily. ‘But I thought it would be all right in your case. I mean – you know what it’s like, don’t you?’

When the kitchen door opened again, Cooper caught the sound and smell of sizzling onion rings. He was starting to feel hungry. Cutlery rattled and a girl emerged from the kitchen and went into the bar with two plates of food. Proper countryside portions, too – the plates were laden. Cooper inhaled as the onion rings passed by.

‘It would be about five years ago. Your husband was the licensee then.’

‘His name was over the door. But I ran the pub.’

Cooper smiled. ‘Yes, that’s what I heard.’

‘You heard right.’

‘At that time, there were some itinerant workers employed at Pity Wood Farm.’

‘Pity Wood? The Suttons?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was a shame about those boys. I knew them when they were young men. They were a few years older than me, of course, but as a girl I took quite an interest in them. I always thought Derek was rather dashing. He was the one I fancied, anyway.’

She looked at Cooper with a hint of a twinkle, and he knew she’d been won over.

‘And Raymond?’ he asked.

‘Raymond wasn’t too bad, but he was a bit dour – especially later on, when he got all Bible and black suit.’

‘You mean when he took to religion?’

‘Aye. That was a bit of a shock. He thought we all ought to be as miserable as he was, told us we were going to Hell for enjoying ourselves. We never saw him in the pub after that, of course. Derek had to come in on his own. Sometimes he had a mite too much to drink. I couldn’t blame him, if all he had to go home to was that brother of his. But I bet there were a few rows at home over his drinking.’

Cooper thought of his early image of Raymond and Derek Sutton sitting in their armchairs in silence. He had barely known their names then, but they’d been clear in his mind already.

‘I’m not so sure about that.’

‘And then, of course …’ Mrs Dain began to struggle out of her chair, and Cooper leaned forward to offer a hand to help her up. ‘There are some photographs here somewhere. I keep them in the drawer.’

‘Photographs of the Suttons?’

Mrs Dain pulled out a set of photographic envelopes and began to sort through them very slowly, pausing occasionally, as if for private recollection.

‘Have you found anything?’ said Cooper.

The old lady looked offended to be hurried, or perhaps Cooper had said something wrong. Whatever the reason, she changed her mind.

‘No. Now that I recall, I gave some photos to the new heritage centre for their exhibition.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘I’m sure there was a photograph of the brothers. Decent lads. I was never quite sure about their mother, though. I always had a suspicion she was of the Old Religion.’

For a moment, the faint murmur of conversation from the bar and the clatter of cutlery from the kitchen were the only sounds. In the little sitting room, there was silence. Cooper sat quite still, holding himself in, hoping the old lady would explain. From the way she said ‘Old Religion’, he could tell the words had capital letters. But if he was too impatient again, or said the wrong thing, he knew he would never find out what she meant. She would become one of Fry’s ‘Three Monkeys’ in an instant.

So he waited. But instead of explaining, Mrs Dain slid the photographs back in the drawer with an air of finality, and picked up her cigarette from the ashtray. She put it to her lips, sucked, blew, coughed, and had to sit down suddenly.

‘The Old Religion,’ said Cooper. ‘What do you mean by that?’

But it was no good. The moment had drifted by.

‘It’s all in the past,’ said Mrs Dain. ‘Beatrice Sutton is long dead. Things like that don’t exist any more, so there’s no point in talking about it.’

‘I’d be interested to hear –’

‘There’s no point,’ said the old lady firmly, ‘in talking about it.’

Cooper raised the palms of his hands in a placatory gesture. He didn’t want to antagonize her, not when he’d been doing so well. Mrs Dain had accepted him into her world, and he’d made good progress with her. She would tell him the rest of it when she was ready.

Fry took delivery of a small envelope that had been left for her at the front desk in West Street. It was a grubby white envelope, with her name scrawled on it in felt-tipped pen and her rank spelled wrongly.

She pulled on a pair of gloves before she opened it. You couldn’t be too careful. She was pretty sure it wasn’t a letter bomb, but there were plenty of people who might think of sending her other unpleasant items by way of greeting.

But inside the envelope she found only one thing – a small, cheap crucifix with part of the base chipped away.

Fry let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

‘Thank you, Nikolai,’ she said.

Cooper took the opportunity to take a toilet break, and discovered that the toilets at the Dog Inn were reached through a series of winding stone passages that seemed to lead almost into the next village.

When he returned to the bar, it was as if Ned Dain had been given some kind of signal by his mother, or maybe it was just the fact that she’d agreed to speak with Cooper for so long that had given the official seal of approval. Whatever the reason, Dain sidled up to him before he left the pub and whispered in a conspiratorial manner.

‘I thought you ought to know, there was a foreigner in here last night, asking questions.’