Dying to Sin (22 page)

21

That night, Cooper drove out of Edendale until he’d left the streetlamps behind and there was only the reflection of the Toyota’s headlights from the cat’s eyes in the road and from the rain that drifted across the bonnet. He saw few cars on the road and passed even fewer houses – just the occasional farm wrapped in its own little bowl of light.

According to the weather forecast on the BBC, there was no chance of snow this year. It would be a traditional grey Christmas. Fog was the best that Edendale could hope for in the way of seasonal weather. There’d be a blanket of it filling the valley, smothering the sound of Christmas Day traffic, hiding the flickering lights of the council decorations. And killing a few more visitors on the roads, no doubt.

The old people sometimes described the Peak District climate as ‘six months of bad weather, followed by six months of winter’. But those times were past, the years when snow drifts had made the roads impassable and villages were cut off for weeks. Cooper felt a curious sense of loss.

Fry had taken on the task of interviewing Jack Elder herself, allowing Cooper to keep his date. He had no idea what had made her do that, because he didn’t normally expect favours from her. Still, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, as his mother would have said.

Liz Petty lived in Bakewell, the touristy heart of the Peak District. Tonight, she felt like a change, so they opted to eat at the Australian Bar, close to the Bakewell section police station. Here, the Aussie theme had gone beyond the name and the boomerangs in the window, and had spread right through the menu.

While they shared some skinny dips, Liz got a few grumbles off her chest. Cooper had heard most of them before, around the station. Like the other SOCOs, she often complained how frustrating it was to hear police officers say there were ‘no forensics’.

‘Some of them
still
don’t know what the word means,’ she said.

The division had finally got one of the two long-wheelbase four-by-fours that Scenes of Crime had been saying they needed for years, but not the second. And the policy of automatic attendance at burglary scenes had led to some crazy situations, such as SOCOs dusting for fingerprints when the aluminium powder from their last visit to a victim’s home was still visible on the window frame. There was a story doing the rounds about another burglary, where the officer dealing with the incident had entered in the command and control log:
There are no forensic possibilities for
SOCO, but I have to ask them to attend
.

Dipping a deep-fried potato wedge into mayo and garlic, Cooper exercised his listening skills. It wasn’t difficult in Liz’s presence. She never bored him, because she never took herself too seriously. At the end of her whinge, she would gaze at him and burst out laughing. He treasured those moments, when they seemed to be connecting at some level that was beyond any words.

‘We’re still the forgotten department,’ she said. ‘The Cinderellas of the division.’

‘There was only one Cinderella,’ said Cooper. ‘The others were Ugly Sisters.’

And Liz laughed. ‘That describes my colleagues perfectly.’

Liz chose Swagman’s Tucker, while Cooper passed over the Bruce Burgers and hesitated between Bondi Chicken or Dingo Dog. Waiting for him to decide, Liz took a drink of wine and gazed out of the window at Granby Road. She lived just off Fly Hill, only a few minutes’ walk away, in a three-storey terraced cottage she rented from her uncle.

Cooper found himself distracted from the menu by her profile against the lights from the street outside. He would be happy just to sit and look at her for a while, listening to her talk, and forget about the Dingo Dog.

But then he realized how hungry he was, and ordered the Outback Bruce Burger after all.

‘I hear you’re getting a new superintendent,’ said Liz.

‘Yes. She arrives on Tuesday, but she’s already making her presence felt.’

‘Are there going to be changes?’

‘You bet.’

‘One of the guys said he thought Diane Fry might be leaving.’

‘Did he?’

Cooper was completely taken aback. There had been several occasions when he’d thought Fry might head off into the blue. Fry had even hinted at it herself, hankering after a job in Europol, or anywhere more exciting than Edendale. But it was so odd to hear it from someone else. It made the idea sound as though it might be true.

‘Well, she’s ambitious,’ said Liz.

‘She certainly is.’

‘To be honest, I think it would be a good thing if she went, Ben.’

Cooper was silent for a moment, thinking about his Bruce Burger. He’d promised himself not to dwell on work tonight. Not the current enquiry, anyway. You had to escape from those things for a while.

‘There are always changes,’ he said. ‘Life never stays the same. See how different it is since you came to E Division.’

He meant changes in her department. Before Liz’s time, there had been a period when there were only two SOCOs in the division for eighteen months. But their performance was measured on volume crime, and no account was taken of serious crime and road traffic collision work. If Liz had grumbles, she ought to have heard the level of whining in Scenes of Crime for those few months.

But Liz took his comment quite differently, and went slightly pink. She changed the subject as their food arrived.

‘Speaking of Cinderella, wasn’t the pantomime great the other night?’

‘Great.’

‘I know it’s all a bit naff, Ben. But if you take it in the right spirit, it’s good fun.’

‘Of course. It was great. I enjoyed it. Really.’

Liz laughed again, because she knew he was lying.

‘And you’re still coming with me to the baptism service tomorrow, aren’t you?’

‘Of course. I’ll be there, with my suit on and everything.’

And, although he’d promised himself he wouldn’t, Cooper found himself thinking about work. He was mentally trying to fit the residents of Rakedale into a pantomime cast. Some of them were chasing the magic genie of the lamp, while others stood around in the street cracking bad jokes, and the Emperor Ping Pong refused to let his daughter marry a poor washerwoman’s son.

Cooper had a feeling he’d met Wishy Washy and Widow Twankey. Maybe even Inspector Chu. But where was the evil Abanazar?

Jack Elder dragged his fingers through his beard, staring in disbelief at the walls of the interview room and at the triple-deck tape recorder as the tapes started to turn, waiting for his answers to Fry’s questions. He’d been waiting an hour already, while checks were made on him. It wasn’t long, but it was enough for anyone to get nervous about what was going to happen next.

‘Mr Elder, we have information that you’ve been offering supplies of cheap diesel. Would you like to tell us where you’ve obtained that diesel from?’

‘Oh, that? Well, that’s just a bit of business, you know. I work for this little haulage company as a driver. I’m a farmworker really, but you make a living any way you can round here these days, and haulage is a good business to be in, if you get your HGV licence. And I’ve got this mate, you see –’

‘Name?’

‘You what?’

‘The name of your friend?’

‘Now, I can’t do that. You don’t shop a mate, do you?’

‘Well, I can understand that. But it would only be a problem if you were doing something illegal together, Mr Elder. Is that the case?’

‘Well, I …’ He stumbled, unsure now of what the right answer was.

‘Where did this cheap diesel come from, sir?’

‘My mate, see, he works for the same haulage company, at the depot. The company has its own diesel tanks, to keep the wagons fuelled up.’

‘So this is diesel you and your friend steal from your employer?’

‘No, well … I don’t ask him how he gets hold of it, I just assume it’s legitimate, you know. Surplus to requirements, or something.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘I help him to sell it, that’s all,’ said Elder earnestly. ‘He gives me a cut on sales. A bit of commission, if you like. Just to supplement my wages.’

Fry felt unreasonably disappointed that Elder was only admitting to the diesel being stolen.

‘You see, the thing is, Mr Elder, we checked your record on the Police National Computer, and we discovered that you have a conviction for the use of illegal fuel.’

‘Ah, well.’

‘And that wasn’t stolen fuel, but laundered red diesel.’

‘That was just a one-off, you know. I thought I’d get away with it, just using it once, but the Excise turned up in the wrong place and they caught me out. I held my hand up for it and got a fine.’

‘It’s quite a common offence in these parts, it seems,’ said Fry.

‘I wouldn’t know about that.’

‘Red diesel is sold to farmers and people like them for use in off-road vehicles. Tractors and so on. As a farmworker by trade, I expect you know lots of farmers.’

‘Yes, I do. But –’

‘Tell me, Mr Elder, isn’t it the truth that the diesel you’re helping your friend to sell isn’t from the haulage firm at all, but red diesel that is being laundered somewhere for sale to motorists?’

‘I can’t answer that.’

‘There’s a huge mark-up, I believe. Plenty of commission on sales, if there’s a sizeable operation going on somewhere. We need you to tell us where that laundering operation is, Mr Elder.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Have you ever been to Pity Wood Farm, sir?’

‘Oh – Pity Wood?’

‘Pity Wood Farm. It was the home of the Sutton family until recently. I’m sure you know it. Have you ever been there?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ said Elder, dropping his gaze to the table and fiddling with his beard.

‘Are you quite sure?’

‘Sure.’

‘Only, we do have a witness who says he’s seen you going in and out of the farm in your lorry many times.’

‘Well, he’s lying,’ said Elder. ‘Whoever he is, he’s lying. I know the Suttons, of course I do. But I only ever met them in the pub. I was never at that farm.’

‘You know your answer is being recorded, Mr Elder?’

‘Yes. Well, I mean … I think I should have a solicitor.’

‘You’ll get one,’ said Fry. ‘But it might take some time. It’s nearly Christmas, you know.’

An officer knocked on the door. Fry paused the interview and went out. He passed her a message.

‘Oh, interesting.’

She went back in, and found Elder watching her hopefully in a vain expectation that she might be coming back to tell him it was all a big mistake and he could leave.

‘On quite another matter, Mr Elder,’ she said, ‘do you know a place called Godfrey’s Rough?’

Elder looked confused by the change in the direction of questioning.

‘Where?’

‘Godfrey’s Rough picnic site. I believe it’s a well-known dogging area.’

‘Sorry?’ Elder cocked his head as if he had misheard and thought his ear might have suddenly become blocked. ‘Did you say “dogging”? Are you talking about people walking their dogs? But they do that everywhere.’

‘Walking their dogs? Hardly.’

Elder looked even more puzzled.

‘It’s one of those modern expressions, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Something to do with the internet? Or mountain bikes. Or those skateboarding things. They have their own languages, the young people. I can’t understand a word they’re saying sometimes.’

‘The fact is, Mr Elder, couples park up in some of these out-of-the-way places at night for the purpose of having sex in their cars.’

‘Oh, is that all?’ said Elder.

‘Not quite. Sometimes there are people there who watch them doing it.’

‘Those are peeping toms,’ said Elder. ‘Voyeurs, you might call them. Well, that’s not new. We’ve always had them. We had sex in my day, too, you know – just not so much of it, and more discreet. In those days, peeping toms had a hard job of it, so to speak.’

Elder smiled. Fry felt that familiar frustration of trying to get through to people who seemed to talk a different language from her own. Most of all, she hated those secret little smiles and nods of understanding that sometimes passed between Ben Cooper and people like this Elder. It was as if the fact they were born within a few miles of each other gave them some hidden means of communication that no one else could ever learn. She was glad she’d let Cooper go.

‘You don’t understand, Mr Elder,’ she said. ‘This is watching by arrangement. It’s part of the thrill, apparently.’

Elder’s eyes popped. ‘They want folk watching them while they’re doing it?’ He considered the prospect, didn’t find it appealing, and shook his head. ‘No, I can’t see it. I’d call it perverted. But I suppose things are different now. Is that really what they get up to at night?’

‘And not just at night either. Lunchtimes, even. During their breaks from work. Sometimes it’s at a date and time fixed up in advance. Sometimes they just go along to a well-known dogging spot like Godfrey’s Rough and see what turns up. The people who do the watching are the ones called doggers.’

Elder was quiet, trying to imagine the scene in the woods.

‘I suppose this is shocking you, Mr Elder?’

‘It’s a new idea, that’s all. And it’s a bit too late for me to learn, maybe?’

‘I think not, sir.’

‘Happen they’re not doing any harm, anyway,’ said Elder. ‘Have you thought of that?’

‘The point is,’ said Fry, ‘things can sometimes go wrong. Doggers have been known to fall out with each other. People try to join in when they’re not wanted … Well, you can imagine. It’s fraught with dangers.’

Elder nodded slowly. ‘That’s bound to happen,’ he said. ‘Folks are always the same. But these’ll be city folks, no doubt. Students and such.’

‘Some of the keenest doggers,’ said Fry, ‘are lorry drivers.’

‘Eh?’

‘Lorry drivers. Truckers. They have favourite places where they like to park up for the night. I suppose they get bored just watching the telly in the back of the cab and eating microwaved chips. So they get together sometimes, have a few cans of beer, and go dogging. A bunch of big, hairy truckers can be a bit intimidating, and not quite what people are expecting. Things can get out of hand.’