Black Dog
By
Stephen Booth

Detective Constable Ben Cooper has known the
villagers all his life, hut his instinctive feelings about
the case are called into question by
the arrival of Diane
Fry, a rutblesslv ambitious DC from another division.
As Ben and Diane take the first steps in a complicated
dance of suspicion, attraction and frustration, they
discover that to understand the past and in a world
where no one is entirely innocent, pain and suffering
can be the only outcome.


'Stephen Booth's Black Dog sinks it's teeth into
you and doesn't let you go. Powerful, atmospheric
and as dark as it's title, it is a serious novel of
character and relationships as well as an
ingeniously plotted and neatly resolved detective
story. A dark star may be born!.
Reginald Hill
r~
Black Dog


stephen booth



BCAi

LONDON NEW YORK SYDNEY TORONTO
This edition published 2000

by BCA

by arranm'iru'nl with Collins Crime
An imprint of I larperCollinsPuWis/iers


CN 8882


This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed
in it are the work of the author's imagination.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living

r	' o

or dead, events or localities
is entirely coincidental.


Copyright © Stephen Booth 2000
The author asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work


All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,

in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior

permission of the publishers. Printed and bound in Great Britain by


Typeset in Perpetua by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Polmont, Stirlingshire

7	o


Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Mackays of Chatham pic, Chatham, Kent
For Leslev
black dog; \. melancholy, depression of spirits; ill humour. In
some country places, when a child is sulking, it is said 'the black
dog is on his back . (Oxford English Dictionary)
1


1 he sudden glare of colours beat painfully on the young
woman's eyes as she burst from the back door of the cottage
and hurled herself into the brightness. She ran with her bare

o

feet slapping on the stone flags and her hair streaming in red
knots from her naked shoulders.

A harsh voice was cut off suddenly when the door slammed
behind her, isolating her from the house. As she sprinted the
length of the garden, she stirred the dust from a flagged path
whose moisture had been sucked out and swallowed by the sun.
A scarlet shrub rose trailed halfway across the path and a thorn
slit the flesh of her arm as she brushed against it, but she hardly
felt the pain.

'Wait!' she called.

But the old wooden garden gate had banged shut on its spring
before she could reach it. She threw herself on to the top of the
dry-stone wall, flinging out an arm to clutch at the sleeve of the
old man on the other side. He was wearing a woollen jacket,
despite the heat, and his arm felt stiff and sinewy under the
cloth. The young woman scrabbled for a firmer grip, feeling
his muscles slide against the bones under her fingers as if she

o	o

had plunged her hand deep into his body.

Harry Dickinson paused, held back only by the hand that
touched his arm, turning his face away from the appeal in his
granddaughter's eyes. The only change in his expression was
a slight tightening in the creases at the sides of his mouth as
his gaze slipped past Helen to the row of stone cottages. The
stone walls and the white-mullioned back windows were at last
starting to cool in the early-evening shade, but the sun still

o	J	o	'

glared low over the slate roofs, bad-tempered and unrelenting.
The pupils of Harry's eyes narrowed to expressionless black
points until he tilted his head sideways to turn the peak of his
cap into the sun.

Helen could smell the impregnated odours of earth and sweat
and animals in the wool, overlaid by the familiar scent of old
tobacco smoke. 'It's no good walking away, you know. You'll
have to face it in the end. You can't run avvav from things

J	O

for ever.'

A loud juddering sound made Harry flinch as it passed across
the valley behind him. For an hour now the noise had been
moving backwards and forwards over the dense woodland that
covered the slope all the way down to the valley bottom. The
sound echoed against the opposite hillside like the beating wings
of an angry bird, battering the gorse and heather and alarming

o J	'	o	o	&

the sheep scattered on the upper slopes.

'We'll understand,' said Helen. 'We're your family. If only
you'd tell us . . .'

The old man's right arm was held out at an unnatural angle,
creasing the sleeve of his jacket into an ugly concertina of fabric.

o	-*	o J

She knew that Harry felt himself being physically tugged towards
the woods along the valley side; his body was tense with the effort
of resisting the pull. But emotionally he was being drawn in two
directions. The conflicting pressures only seemed to strengthen
and toughen him, setting his shoulders rigid and hardening the
line of his jaw. His face held no possibility of turning away from
whatever he had decided to do.

'Granddad? Please.'

The sharp edges of the stone wall were digging into her
thighs through her shorts, and the skin of the palm on her
left hand stung where she had scraped it on the jagged topping
stones. There had been a sudden, desperate rush, a moment
of overwhelming emotion, and now she didn't know what to
say. She felt the impotence of the conventions that surrounded
the communication between one adult and another, even when
they were members of the same family. She shared with her
grandfather an inborn shortage of the words she needed to be
able to express her feelings to those closest to her.

'Grandma is very upset,' said Helen. 'But she'll calm down
in a minute. She's worried about you.'

Helen had never needed many words before, not with Harry.
He had always known exactly what she wanted, had always
responded to the message in her eyes, to the shy, adoring
smile, to the gleam of sun on a wave of flame-coloured hair,
and to a small, trusting hand slipped into his own. She was no
longer that child, and hadn't been for years. A teacher learned a
different way of communicating, a calculated performance that
was all surface gloss and scored no marks for feeling. Harry
still understood, though. He knew what she wanted him to do

o

now. But it was too hard for him, a thing completely against a
lifetime's habit.

Gradually the juddering noise was fading to the edge of
audibility, muffled to a dull rattle by the trees and the folds
of the land. Its temporary absence released the subtler sounds
of the evening -- a current of air stirring the beech trees, a cow
moaning for the bull across the valley, a skylark spilling its song
over the purple heather. Harry cocked an ear, as if listening for
a voice that no one else could hear. It was a voice that deepened
the sadness in his eyes but stiffened his back and tautened the
clench of his fists and his grip on the loop of worn black leather
held in one hand.

'Come back and talk to us. Please?' she said.

Helen had never heard that voice. She had often tried, staring
intently up at her grandfather's face, watching his expression
change, not daring to ask what it was he heard, but straining
her own ears, desperate to catch an elusive echo. Like most
men who had worked underground, Harry spent as much of
his time as he could outside in the open air. As she stood at his
side, Helen had learned to hear the sounds of the woods and the
sky, the tiny movements in the grass, the shifting of the direction
of the wind, the splash of a fish in a stream. But she had never
heard what her grandfather heard. She had grown up to believe
it was something uniquely to do with being a man.

'If you don't want to talk to Grandma, won't you tell me
about it, Granddad?'

And then the noise began to grow steadily louder again,
clattering towards them as it followed the invisible line of the

o

road that meandered along the vallev bottom. It drew nearer

o	J

and nearer across the rocky slopes of Raven's Side, skirting a
sudden eruption of black basalt cliff and veering north once more
towards the village until it was almost overhead. The din was
enough to drown out normal speech. But it was then that Harry
chose to speak, raising his voice defiantly against the clattering
and roaring that beat down on him from the sky.

O	.'

'Noisy bastards,' he said.

The helicopter banked, its blue sides flickering in the fragmented
shadows of its blades. A fipurc could be seen, leaning
forward in the cabin to stare at the ground. The lettering on
his door read 'POLICE'.

'They're looking for that girl that's gone missing,' said Helen,
her voice scattered and blown away by the roar. 'The Mount
girl.'

'Aye, well. Do they have to make so much row about it?'

Harry cleared his throat noisily, sucking the phlegm on to the
top of his tongue. Then he pursed his thin lips and spat into a
clump of yellow ragwort growing by the gate.

As if taking offence, the helicopter moved suddenly away
from the edge of the village, sliding towards a row of tall
conifers that grew in the grounds of a large white house. The
pitch of the noise changed and altered shape as it passed the
house, tracing the outline of the roofs and chimneys like an
echo locator sounding the depths of an ocean trench.

'At least it'll wake that lot up as well.'

'Granddad --'

'There's nowt more to be said. Not just now.'

Helen sighed, her brain crowding with thoughts she couldn't
express and feelings she couldn't communicate. The old man only
grimaced as his arm was stretched at an even sharper angle.

'Have to go, love,' he said. 'Jess'll pull me arm off, else.'

Helen shook her head, but dropped her hand and let him
go. A thin trickle of blood ran down her arm from the scratch
made by the thorn. It glittered thickly on her pink skin, clotting
and drying fast in the warm sun. She watched as her
grandfather set off down the hillside towards the woods at
the foot of the cliffs. Jess, his black Labrador, led the way
along the familiar path, tugging eagerly at the end of her
lead, impatient to be allowed to run free when they reached
the stream.

No, you couldn't run away from things for ever, thought
Helen. But you could always bugger off and walk the dog
tor a bit.


Down on the lower slopes of the hill, Ben Cooper was sweating.
The perspiration ran in streams through the fine hairs on his chest
and formed a sticky sheen on the muscles of his stomach. The
sides and back of his T-shirt were already soaked, and his scalp
prickled uncomfortably.

No breeze had yet found its way through the trees to cool
the lingering heat of the afternoon sun. Each clearing was a
little sun trap, funnelling the heat and raising the temperature
on the ground into the eighties. Even a few feet into the woods
the humidity was enough to make his whole body itch, and tiny
black flies swarmed from under the trees in irritating clouds,
attracted by the smell of his sweat.

Every man in the line was equipped with a wooden pole to
sift through the long grass and push aside the dense swathes
of bracken and brambles. The bruised foliage released a damp,
green smell and Cooper's brown fell boots were stained dark to
an inch above the soles. His pole came out of the undergrowth
thick with burrs, and with small caterpillars and insects clinging
to its length. Every few minutes he had to stop to knock them
off against the ground or on the bole of a tree. All along the
line were the sounds of men doing the same, the thumps and
taps punctuating their muttered complaints and sporadic bursts
of conversation.

Cooper found that walking with his head down made his
neck ache after a while. So when the line stopped for a minute
to allow someone in the centre the time to search a patch of
dense bramble, he took the chance to raise his head and look
up, above the line of the trees. He found himself gazing at the

I '	o	O

side of Win Low across the valley. Up there, on the bare, rocky
outcrops they called the Witches, it would be so much cooler.
There would be a fresh wind easing its way from the west, a
wind that always seemed to come all the way from the Welsh
mountains and across the Cheshire plain.

For the last two hours he had been wishing that he had used
his common sense and brought a hat to keep the sun off his head.
For once, he was jealous of his uniformed colleagues down the
line, with their dark peaked caps pulled over their eyes and their
starburst badges glittering in the sunlight. Being in CID had its
disadvantages sometimes.

o

'Bloody hell, what a waste of effort.'

The PC next to Ben Cooper was from Matlock section, a
middle-aged rural beat manager who had once had aspirations
to join the Operational Support Task Force in Chesterfield. But
the Task Force were deployed further along the hillside, below
the Mount itself, while PC Garnett found himself alongside an
Edendale detective in a makeshift search group which included a
couple of National Park Rangers. Garnett wore his blue overalls
with more comfort than style, and he had been swinging his pole
with such ferocity as he walked that his colleagues had gradually
moved further away to protect their shins.

'You reckon so?'

'Aye, certain,' said Garnett. 'They say the lass has run off
with some boyfriend.'

'I don't know,' said Cooper. 'I've not heard that. It wasn't
in the briefing. lust that she was missing.'

o J	o

'Huh. Missing my arse. Mark my words, she'll be off shagging
some spotty youth somewhere. Fifteen years old, what do you
expect these days?'

'Maybe you're right. We have to go through the motions all
the same.'

'Mind you, if one of my two did it, I'd murder 'em all
right.'

Garnett thrashed at a small elder sapling so hard that the
stem snapped in two, the tender young branches collapsing
to the ground and leaking a tiny trickle of sticky sap. Then
he trod on the broken stem and crushed it into the grass
with his police-issue boot. Cooper hoped that, if there were
any fragile evidence to be found in the woods, he would see it
before Garnett reached it.

Then he looked at the PC and smiled suddenly, recognizing
that the man had no harm in him. He might be a middle-aged
dad whose ambitions were withering as his waistline expanded,
but he had no harm in him at all. Cooper could almost sense
the ordinary little niggles that teemed in Garnett's mind, from
his disappearing hairline to the recurring ache at the base of his
spine and the size of his telephone bill.

'Just be thankful for the overtime,' he said. 'We could all do
with a bit of that.'

'Ah ves, you're right there, lad. Too right. It takes something

^ ' ^	o	'	o	o

like this to get the fingers of those tight-fisted bastards off the
purse strings these days, doesn't it?'
'It's the budget cuts.'

o

'Budgets!' Garnett said the word like a curse, and they both
paused for a moment to listen to its sound, shaking their heads
as if it symbolized the end of everything they had known.

'Accountants, you can keep 'em,' said Garnett. 'We're not
coppers to them any more, just a load of figures on a sheet of
paper. It's all flashy operations and clear-up rates. There's no
room for old-style coppers these days.'

He threw a bitter glance along the hillside towards where
the Task Force squad was beating its way through the scrubland
beyond a row of Lombardy poplars like a set of dark spikes
dropped into the landscape.

'Of course, you'll know all about that, lad. You're different.
A chip off the old block, they reckon. Good for you. Wish you
luck, though.'

7	o

'Yeah, thanks.'

Cooper had only just returned from a fortnight's summer
leave. On his first day back on duty he had been thrown straight
into the search for Laura Vernon, fifteen years old and missing

'	J	o

from home since Saturday night. They were looking for a girl
with short dark hair dyed red, wearing a silver nose stud, five foot
six inches tall, mature for her age. Failing that, they were looking
for her clothes -- black denims, a red short-sleeved cotton T-shirt,
a white sports bra, blue bikini pants, blue ankle socks, a pair of
Reeboks, size-five, slim-fit. Nobody thought it necessary to point out
that if they found her clothes, they were also looking for a body.
'This lass, though. She's miles away, if you ask me,' said
Garnett. 'Run off with the boyfriend. Some yob on a motorbike
from Manchester, maybe. That's what teenage girls get up to
these days. The schools teach them about contraceptives before
they're twelve, so what can you expect? 'Course, the parents
never have a clue. Not parents like this lot, anyway. They don't
know the kids exist half the time.'

Cooper's legs were still aching from the rock climbing he
had done on the sheer, terrifying faces of the Cuillin Hills
of Skye. His friends Oscar and Rakesh were members of the
Edendale Mountain Rescue Team and could never get enough
of the mountains. Just now, though, he could really have done
with a quiet day behind his desk at Division, making a few phone
calls maybe, catching up on what had been happening during the
last fortnight, getting up to date with the gossip. Anything but
clambering up and down another hillside.

O I

But he knew this area well -- he was himself from a village
a few miles down the valley. Most of the men recruited for
the search parties were from the section stations, or even from
out of the division. A few of them were city boys. On the hills
around here they would be falling down old mine shafts in their
dozens without someone to tell them which way was up and
which was down.

And, of course, PC Garnett could well be right. It had

O

happened so often -- youngsters bored with life in the villages
of the Peak District, attracted by the glamour and excitement
of the big cities. And very likely there was a boyfriend, too
-- no doubt someone the parents found unsuitable. According
to the initial reports, the Vernons claimed there had been no
trouble at home, no family rows, no reason at all for Laura
to walk out. But didn't parents always say that? So much could
remain misunderstood among families, or never even suspected.
Especially if they were a family who didn't have the time or the
inclination to talk to each other much.

But there were other factors in this case. Laura had taken no
clothes with her, very little money, no possessions of any kind.
And initial enquiries had brought a sighting of her talking to a
young man on Saturday night, at the edge of the expanse of
hillside scrub and woodland known as the Baulk.

Once he got out on the hill below the village of Moorhay,
Cooper had remembered that he had even been to Laura Vernon's
home once. It was the big white house they called the Mount,
which stood somewhere above the search party, hidden behind
the trees on its own spur of land. It was a former mine owner's
house, big and pretentious, with formally laid out grounds full
of rhododendrons and azaleas, and with a stunning view over the
vallev from the terrace. Cooper had been invited to the Mount
for the eighteenth birthday party of a classmate, a lad everyone
at the old Edendale High School knew had well-off parents even
before they were given the tour of the big house. That hadn't
been the Vernons, but the people before them -- they had been
local people, the family of a man who had inherited a string of
small petrol stations scattered throughout the Peak. The business
had expanded from Edendale and its surrounding villages, beyond
the borders of Derbyshire, in fact, into South Yorkshire and the
fringes of the cities.

o

Eventually, of course, he had sold out to one of the larger companies,
cashed in and moved away to somewhere better. Abroad,
diey said. The South of France and Italy were popular guesses.

The Mount had stood empty then for some time, waiting
out the recession. Photographs of its elegant facade featured
regularly in the adverts of upmarket estate agents in glossy
county magazines. The village people would sit in the doctor's
waiting room, pointing out to each other the multiplicity of
bathrooms, wondering what a utility was and shaking their heads
in astonishment at the number of noughts in the asking price.
Then the Vernons had moved into the Mount. No one knew
where they had come from, or what Mr Vernon did, except
that he was 'in business'. He drove off every day in his Jaguar
XJS in the direction of Sheffield, sometimes staying away from
home for days on end. Was he another one just pausing for a
while in the Peak while he booked his ticket to Tuscany?

'You'll be glad of the extra cash too, though, won't you? Just
been on holiday?' said Garnett.

'Scotland,' said Cooper.

'Bloody hell. Scotland? It's just the Peak District, but with a
bit more water, isn't it? Can't see the point of that, myself. Me,
I want a bit of sun and sand when I go on leave. Not to mention

O

the cheap booze, eh? I like Ibiza. There's loads of English pubs
and casinos and stuff. A few bottles of sangria, a paella, and a go
on the fruit machines. You can't beat it, that's what I say. Besides,
the wile d divorce me it I suggested anything else. She's on about
the Maldives next year. 1 don't even know where it is.'

'Somewhere east of Ibiza, I think,' said Cooper. 'But you'd
like it.'

The line was moving forward again, and Cooper waved away
a cloud of flies from his face. Sun and sand and cheap booze were
far from his mind. Even during his fortnight on Skye, his thoughts
had kept slipping away from the rock face, back to the promotion
interviews that were coming up, now just a few days away. There
would soon be a detective sergeant's job available at E Division.
DS Osborne had been on sick leave for weeks now, and it was
said that he would go the usual way -- early retirement on
health grounds, another pension to be paid for from the creaking
police authority budget. Ben Cooper thought he was the natural
successor to Osborne. Ten years in the force, and five in CID,
and he had more local knowledge than most of the rest of his

o

shift put together. The sergeant's job was what he wanted and
needed. More -- it was what his family wanted. Cooper thought
of his mother, and the desperately hopeful look in her eye when
he came home from work, the question as often unspoken as
asked out loud. He thought about her many times a day, every
time he saw someone ill or old. He thought of her seemingly
endless pain and grief, and the one thing she thought might ease
it. He ached to give her what she longed for, just this once.

O	O	' J

The line of men were deep into die trees again now, the
canopy over them muffling the noise of the police helicopter
that was still moving along the valley, sweeping the woods with
its thermal imaging camera. The sudden transition from glaring
sun to deep shade made it difficult to make out the details of the
undergrowth below the trees. In places there could have been an
entire SAS platoon lying concealed in the chest-high bracken and
willowherb, waiting for some bobby in blue overalls to stumble

into them armed with nothing but a slug-encrusted pole.

o	o	r

A pheasant clattered in alarm and took off somewhere nearby.
From further away, there was another sound. The trees were too
thick to tell which direction it came from, or exactly how far away
it was. But it was the sound of a dog, and it barked just once.


10
t^harlotte Vernon had been in the same position for a quarter of
an hour. Whether it was the effects of the tablets or the alcohol,
or simply the frantic activity of her imagination, throughout the
day she had been alternating between phases of restlessness and
immobility. It was as though she managed to blank out her
thoughts entirely for short periods before being overwhelmed
afresh by surges of terror. The waiting had become an end
in itself.

Now Charlotte stood on the terrace, leaning against the
stone balustrade, watching the helicopter passing overhead. She
followed the movement of the rotor blades as if she hoped to
read a message in their flickering blur. On a table near her

O	O

hand stood a half-drunk glass of Bacardi and an ashtray filled

O	J

with damp and crushed butts, their filters stained with smears
of vermilion.

She had been on the terrace all afternoon, hardly seeming to
notice as the heat of the sun gradually moved away from her
shoulders and dipped behind the house until she stood in shade
and the stone flags around her began to whisper and contract.
She had stirred only when the phone rang behind her in the
house, her muscles tensing, her fingers gripping tighter on the
balustrade for a few seconds each time, as Graham answered it.
She would strain to catch his muttered words, then cover her
ears as if she didn't want to hear them at all.

But all the calls were enquiries from friends. Some were even
business calls, which Graham dealt with in a lowered voice,
glancing towards his wife's back as he turned guiltily away. He
seemed relieved to have an excuse not to look at her as she
posed against the view of the Witches, her head raised to the
sky like a heroine in an Arthurian romance, waiting for news
of a distant battle.

After the latest call, Graham replaced the phone and turned
back towards the windows.


11
'That was Edward Randle from AET,' he said. 'He sends
his thoughts. And he wanted to know whether he and Martina
should still come tomorrow night.'

Graham waited for Charlotte to speak. But he could only
hear the faint buzzing of the fans and the distant bark of a dog
somewhere down in the village.

'I told him of course they should come. We can't put people
off, can we? Life goes on.'

Graham wondered whether she had heard what he said. She
was in some world of her own where Allied Electronics and
other such trivialities didn't exist. Graham moved closer to her,
wondering whether he should offer to touch her. whether it

O

would be what she wanted just now, or whether it would only
make things worse. He couldn't tell.

When he stepped on to the terrace, he could smell the sun
oil on her body. Her bleached hair hung straight on her neck,
falling slightly on to the collar of her wrap. The backs of her
slim, well-tanned legs were visible to the edge of her bikini,

'	o	o	'

her muscles tense and stretched. Graham felt a surge of physical
desire, but tried to suppress it. Maybe tonight his wife would be
restored to her usual receptive mood. Maybe tomorrow.

'Did you hear me, Charlie?'

'I wish we could take the phone off the hook.'

'But then we wouldn't hear . . . if there was news.'

'When they find her, you mean.'

Charlotte's voice was tired now, the strain of the past forty
eight hours taking its toll, though she would be reluctant to
admit it.

'They will find her, won't they, Graham?'

'Of course they will.'

Graham repeated the same reassurance he had been giving for
two days. He put as much sincerity as he could into his voice,
though he doubted his wife really believed him. He certainly
didn't believe it himself.

The helicopter started to turn, its rotors dipping and fading
from sight against the hillside behind it. Charlotte looked dejected
at its disappearance, as if she had failed to decipher the message
because she had not tried hard enough. From the terrace, none of


12
the houses in the village were visible. The only human habitation
in view consisted of a couple of farms high on the opposite
slope, their weathered stone walls blending into the hillside as
if they had ŁTOwn there. No wonder Charlotte hadn't wanted
the helicopter to go away. It was the only sign of life she could
see from the Mount.

'You hear of girls running off and disappearing for ever,' she
iaid. 'To London. Would she go to London, Graham? How
would she get there?'

'She's only fifteen.' he said. 'They would bring her back.'

J	'	*	o

'How would she get there?' she repeated. 'Where would she
get the money? She could have hitched, I suppose. Would she
know how to do that? Why didn't she take any clothes?'

For two days she had asked too many questions that Graham
couldn't answer. He would have liked to tell her that he was
sure Laura could have got no further than Bake well, and that
the police would pick her up before the night was over. He had
tried to tell her, but the words dried up in his throat.

'Don't you want to come in now? It's time to eat.'

'Not just yet,' she said.

'It's starting to go dark. You'll want to change at least.'

'I want to be out here,' she said.

'Charlie '

'As long as they're still looking,' she said. 'I want to be
out here.'

A book had been turned face down on to the table. Very
little of it had been read, but it didn't need to be. Graham
could see from the cover that it was the latest in a best-selling
scries about an American pathologist who was for ever dissecting
dead bodies and catching serial killers. The illustration showed
a barely identifiable part of a naked body, set against a dark
background.

"I can't think of anywhere else that she might have gone,' said
Charlotte. 'I've been trying and trying, racking my brains. But
we've tried everywhere, haven't we, Graham? Can you think of
anywhere else?'

'We've tried them all,' said Graham.

'There's that girl in Marple.'


13
'We've tried there,' said Graham. 'Her parents said she was
in rrance tor the summer.

'Oh yes, I forgot.'

'If she's met up with the wrong sort of people . . .'

'How could she?' said Charlotte quickly. 'We've been so
careful. How could she meet the wrong people?'

'We have to face it, it does happen. Some of her friends . . .
Even if thcv're from the best families, they can go astrav.'

1	,	o

'I suppose so.'

'I've heard there are these rave things. Some of them go on
all weekend, they say.'

Charlotte shuddered. 'That means drugs, doesn't it?'

'We'll have to talk to her about it seriously, when she's
back.'

After the helicopter had moved away to hover somewhere
along the valley, the faint sound of voices could be heard, carried
towards the house on the evening breeze. Graham and Charlotte

o

could see no one because of the heavy tree cover, but both of
them knew, without discussing it, that there were many men
out there on the hillside, calling to each other, searching for
their daughter.

o

'Of course, there were probably friends she didn't tell us
about,' said Graham. 'We have to face up to that. Places she
went that she didn't want us to know about.'

Charlotte shook her head. 'Laura didn't keep secrets from
me,' she said. 'From you, of course. But not from me.'

'If you say so, Charlie.'

A small frown flickered across Charlotte's face at his calm
acceptance. 'Is there something you know, Graham? Something
that you're not telling me?'

'Of course not.'

He was thinking of his last conversation with Laura. It had

o

been late on Thursday night, when she had slipped into his
study and persuaded him to let her have a glass of his whisky.
Her face had been flushed with some other excitement, even
before the whisky had begun to take effect. She had perched
on the edge of his desk and stroked his arm, smiling at him
with that mature, seductive smile she had learned had such an


14
effect on their male visitors. She had dyed her hair again, a
deeper red than ever, almost violet, and her fingernails were
painted a colour so dark it was practically black. Then she had
talked to him, with that knowing look in her eyes and that sly
wink, and told him what she wanted. The following morning,

'	O	O*

lie had sacked Lee Sherratt. The second gardener they had lost
that year.

'No, of course not, Charlie.'

She accepted his word. 'And the boy, Lee?'

Graham said nothing. He closed the abandoned novel, slipping
a soft leather bookmark between the pages. He collected the book
and the half-full glass of Bacardi from the table. The sun had
almost gone from their part of the valley now. But the jagged
shapes of the Witches were bathed in a dull red light that was
streaked with black runnels where the rocky gulleys were in
shadow.

'What about him, Graham? What about the boy?'

He knew Charlotte still thought of Laura as pure and innocent.
It was the way she would think of her daughter for ever. But
Graham had begun to see her with different eyes. And the boy?
The boy had already been punished. Punished for not dancing
to the tune that Laura had played. Lee Sherratt had been too
stubborn to play the game -- but of course, he had been busy
playing other games by then. And so Graham had sacked him.
It was what Laura had wanted.

'The police have spoken to him. He told them he hasn't seen
Laura for days."

'Do you believe that?'

He shrugged. 'Who knows what to believe just now?'

'I want to speak to him. I want to ask him myself. Make him
tell the truth.'

'I don't think that would be a good idea, Charlie. Leave it
to the police.'

'They know about him, don't they?'

'Of course. They've got him on their records anyway. Over
that stolen car.'

'What?'

'You remember. The car that was taken from the car park at


IS
the top of the cliff. It belonged to some German people. Laura
told us about it.'

'Did she?' said Charlotte vaguely.

At last she allowed him to lead her back into the room, where
she began to touch familiar objects -- a cushion, the back of a
chair cover, the piano stool, a series of gilt-framed photographs
in a cabinet. She opened her handbag, touched up her lipstick
and lit another cigarette.

'Who else is supposed to be coming tomorrow night?' she
said.

'The Wingates. Paddy and Frances. And they're bringing some
friends of theirs from Totley. Apparently, they're building up
a big computer business, installing systems in Doncaster and
Rotherham. Paddy says they've got a really good future. They'd
make an ideal account, but I need to get in quickly and make
the contact.'

'I'd better see to the food then.'

'Good girl.'

As she turned towards Graham now, her eyes showed no sign
of any tears. Graham was glad -- she was not a woman given to
tears, and he would not have known how to deal with it. Instead,
she fiddled with the front of her wrap, letting him glimpse her
brown thighs and the gentle slope of her belly above the edge
of her bikini briefs.

'You like Frances, don't you?' she said.

Graham grinned, recognizing the opening. 'Not as much as I like you, Charlie.'

He took a step towards her, but she turned suddenly and
picked up one of the photograph frames from the cabinet and
began to stroke its edges.

'Won't you go and see the Sherratt boy, Graham? To help
get Laura back.'

o

'Leave it for now, Charlie.'
'Why?'

'Because the police will find her.'
'Will they, Graham?'

The photograph frame she was holding was bare and empty.
The picture had been given to the police to enable them to


16
identify Laura when they found her. Graham took the frame
from her and replaced it in the cabinet.
'Of course they will,' he said.


The old woman's burst of anger was over, but her thin hands still
jerked and spasmed on the floral-patterned arms of her chair.
Helen watched her until she was calm, and pulled her cardigan
closer round her shoulders from where it had slipped.

'I'll put the kettle on, Grandma.'

'If you like.'

'Do you want your Special Blend?'

'The bags'11 do. But make sure you put an extra one in the
pot. You know how I like it.'

Helen stood at the narrow window of the kitchen of Dial
Cottage while she waited for the kettle to boil. The electrical

o

appliances that her father had bought for his parents-in-law left
hardly any room in the kitchen to turn round. There was certainly
not enough space for two people between the cooker and the
oversized pine table crammed in lengthwise to the sink.

The table was scattered with cooking equipment, place mats
with scenes of a North Wales seaside resort, sprigs of mint and
thyme tied with bits of string, a jar of marmalade, a jar filled
with wooden ladles and spatulas, a potato peeler with a wooden
handle, a chopping board and half an onion soaking in a bowl of
water. By the back door a pair of Wellington boots and a walking
stick stood on the blue lino, and a dark-green waxed coat with a
corduroy collar hung from the hook where Harry's cap would
normally have been. The coat had been Helen's present to him
on his seventy-fifth birthday.

'He was never like this before,' said her grandmother from
her chair, not needing to raise her voice over the short distance
to the kitchen. 'Never this bad. Now he can't speak without
biting my head off.'

'Have you asked him what's wrong?'

'Asked him? Him? I might as well talk to the wall.'

O

'Perhaps he's ill, Grandma.'

'He had a cold the other week, I suppose.'

Helen could see that her grandmother thought that Harry


17
was just being a bad-tempered old man, that she had done
something to annoy him. But Helen's thoughts were running
on some serious illness troubling him, something he was keeping
to himself, an awful secret he wouldn't want to inflict on his wife
and family.

There were so many possibilities when you were in your late
seventies, when you smoked, when you had spent most of your
working life in a lead mine, when you had fought your v\av
through a vicious war. Her grandmother, Gwen, would not
think of these things. She would believe that Harry had a bad
cold right up to the moment they put him in the ground at St
Edwin's.

'But if he's ill it doesn't stop him going off down there
with Jess, it doesn't stop him going off with those friends of
his, either.'

'No, Grandma.'

Helen put hot water into the teapot and emptied it out again,
dropped three tea bags in and poured on the boiling water from
the electric kettle.

While she waited for the tea to brew, she looked out of the

window, across the back garden towards the valley. The garden

'	to	^	o

itself was bright with beds of petunias and violets, rows of potato
plants with white and yellow flowers, and canes wrapped round
with runner beans. But beyond the garden, the woods that ran
down the valley looked dark and brooding. Helen could see the police helicopter hovering over the tops of the trees half a mile
away. They were still looking. Still hoping.

'They've changed him. He thinks more of his cronies than he
does of me. More than he does of his family.'

'Granddad thinks the world of his family.'

'They've changed him. That Wilford Cutts and the other one,

J	o

Sam Beeley.'

'Them? They're just Granddad's friends. His old workmates.
They're nothing to do with it.'

'It's them that's done it.'

'I'm sure they haven't done anything, Grandma. They're
just his friends from Glory Stone Mine. He's known them
for years.'


18
'Not like now. It was different before, when they were
working. But now they we led him away, tilled his head with
thoughts.'

'I don't know what you mean,' said Helen.

But she had wondered herself, sometimes, about what the
three old men got up to when they were together out on the
hill, or up on Wilford's untidy smallholding with the flock of
hens and the odd little collection of ageing animals. Sometimes
Harry brought home a capful of speckled brown eggs from the
Cuckoo Marans or a bag of potatoes from the disused paddock
that he and Wilford had converted into a huge vegetable patch.
At other times, the three of them just went to the pub, where
Sam Beeley came into his own and bought the drinks.

'Since he's had no work, he's been different,' said Gwen.
'All of them have. It doesn't do for men to be at a loose end.
Not men like them. The devil makes evil work.'

'You're talking nonsense now, Grandma.'

Helen found a carton of long-life milk in the fridge and
dropped a tiny amount into a cup. Then she poured the tea,
making sure it was good and strong.

Her grandmother had kept her old lino on the floor in the
kitchen. She had protested so much when they had laid the new
fitted carpet in the sitting room that her son-in-law, Andrew,
had been forced to give in on this one point. She had said it was
easy to keep clean. For Helen, looking at the blue lino now,
it also seemed to be inseparable from the dark oak panelling
and the bumpy walls and the whitewashed stone lintels over
the doors.

'He thinks more of them than me, anyway. That's what I say.
He's proved it now.'

'Let's forget about it for a bit, Grandma. Enjoy your tea.'

'You're a good girl. You were always his favourite, Helen.

o	&	J	>

Why don't you talk to him?'

'I will try,' promised Helen.

She stood by the old woman's armchair, looking down on
her white hair, so thin she could clearly see the pink scalp. She
wanted to put her arm round her grandmother's shoulders and
hug her, to tell her it would be all right. But she knew that


19
Gwen would be embarrassed, and in any case she wasn't at all
sure that it would be all right. A sudden surge of affection and
frustration made her turn away.

Then she saw her grandfather, a small figure way down
at the bottom of the hillside path, just emerging from the
trees at the foot of Raven's Side. Whether it was something
about the way he moved or the set of his shoulders, she
couldn't say. But she knew immediately that there was something
badlv wrong.

O	J	O

Gwen cocked her head and peered at Helen, sensing the
tension in her silence.
'What is it, dear?'
'Nothing, Grandma.'

o'

Helen unlatched the back door and stood on the whitewashed
step. Suddenly she felt an irrational flood of memories streaming
out of the old cottage behind her like coils of smoke escaping
from a burning house. They were childhood memories,

O	O	J	'

mostly of her grandfather -- memories of him taking her by
the hand as they walked on this same path to look at the
fish jumping in the stream, or to pick daisies for a daisy
chain; of her grandfather proudly sitting her on his knee as
he showed her how he filled his pipe with tobacco and lit it
with the long coloured-paper tapers. Fleeting smells flickered
by her senses, passing in a second, yet each one with enough
emotional power to fill her eyes with instant tears. They were
the remembered smells of pipe smoke and Brylcreem and
boot polish.

Harry had always seemed to be polishing his shoes. He still
did. It was one of those signs that she knew her grandfather by even as he had changed over the years. Without those signs,
she thought, old age might have made him unrecognizable to
the child who had known the strong, indestructible man in
his fifties.

It was in just the same way that, at this moment, she knew
her grandfather only by his walk. It was a slow, purposeful walk,
upright and solemn, the pace of a soldier at a funeral, bearing
the coffin of a dead comrade.

She heard the helicopter turn again and come straight towards


20
her. Two faces stared down at her, expressionless behind their
dark glasses. She felt as though the watching policemen could see
straight into her heart. Their presence was somehow personal
and intimate, and yet for ever too far away.


21
OK, Lake a break.'
The word came down the line from the uniformed sergeant

o

at the opposite end from Ben Cooper. The men in blue overalls
and Wellingtons backed away from the line of search and sat on
the tussocks of rough grass in a half-circle. Someone produced
a flask of tea, someone else a bottle of orange juice.

PC Garnett settled down comfortably, tossing his pole aside,
taking off his cap to reveal receding hair cropped short at the
sides. They said it was the helmets that made so many policemen
start to lose their hair early. Cooper himself was conscious that
one day he would start to see a thinning on either side of his
forehead. Everybody told him that his fine brown hair was just
like his father's, who had never been anything but halfway bald,
as far as he could remember. So far, though, he was still able to
let a lock of hair fall across his forehead as he had always done.
Fashions had tended to pass him by.

Garnett smiled as he mopped his brow with his sleeve and
eased himself into gossip mode. ' So what about this new recruit
in your department, Cooper? The new DC?'

'I've not met him yet. I've only just come back from leave.'

'It's a "her", mate, a "her". Diane Fry, they call her.'

'Right.'

'She's from Birmingham.'

'I've not heard anything about her. I expect she'll be all right.'

'According to Dave Rennie, she's a bit of a hard-faced cow.
Could be a looker, he says, but she doesn't bother. Blonde, but
has her hair cut short. Too tall, too skinny, no make-up, always
wears trousers. A bit of a stroppy bitch.'

'You haven't even met her," protested Cooper.

'Well, you know the type. Probably another lesbian.'

Cooper blew out an exasperated breath. 'That's ridiculous.
You can't go around saying things like that. You don't know
anything about her.'


22
Gannett had the sense to hear the irritation in Cooper's voice
and didn't argue. He idly pulled a clump of dandelions and
shredded the leaves between his fingers. But Cooper couldn't
let the subject rest.

'You know what it's like for the women as well as I do, Garnett -- sonic of them just try too hard. She'll fit in fine after a week or
two, you'll see. They usually do.'

'I dunno about that. I've a feeling you'll not have time to
be her best mate, though, lad. She'll be up and away in
no time.'

'Why? Does she ?o ballooning?'

J	o	o

'Ha, ha.' Garnett ignored the sarcasm, in fact was probably
impervious to it when he had a good subject of gossip. 'She
comes with a bit of a "rep" actually. A potential high-flier, they
reckon. Ambitious.'

'Oh yeah? She'll have to prove herself first.'

'Maybe.'

The clouds of tiny flies were getting thicker as they gathered
around the men's heads, attracted by their sweat and the sweet
smell of the orange juice. The PC looked smug.

'Come on, what do you mean?' said Cooper. 'You don't just
get promotion without showing you're worth it.'

'Get real, mate. She's female. You know -- two tits and a
fanny, always puts the toilet seat down.'

'Yeah, I've noticed that. So what?'

'So what? So what? So the force is short of female officers in
supervisory ranks, especially in CID. Don't you read the reports?
You just watch, old son -- provided she keeps her nose clean
and always smiles nicely at the top brass, Detective Constable
Fry will shoot up that promotion ladder like she's got a rocket
up her arse.'

Cooper was about to protest when the shout went up from
the contact man. 'DC Cooper! Is DC Cooper here? Your boss
wants you. Urgent.'


The instructions from DI Hitchens were terse, and the address
he gave Cooper was in Moorhay, the village visible on the brow
of the hill above the woods. Communities in this area tended


23
I


to gather around the thousand-foot contour, the vallev bottoms

being too narrow.	S

'Check it out. Cooper, and fast. We either (jet to the girl in	?


the next two hours or we lose the whole night. You know what	J

that could mean.'	*

'I'm on my way, sir.'	a

'Take somebody with you. Who've you got?'	f>

Cooper looked back at the group of men lounging on the

grass. His gaze passed across PC Garnett and a couple of other

middle-aged bobbies, the overweight sergeant, two female PCs

O	'	O	o	'

from Matlock and the three rangers.

O

'No CID officers, sir. I'll have to borrow a uniformed PC.'
There was a suggestion of a sigh at the other end of the

oo	o

line.

'Do it then. But get a move on.'

Cooper explained as quickly as he could to the sergeant and
was given a tall, muscular young bobby of about twenty called
Wragg, who perked up at the prospect of some action.

'Follow me as best you can.'

'Don't worry, I'm right with you,' said Wragg, flexing the
muscles in his shoulders.

The path up to Moorhay wound back through the trees to
where a kissing gate gave access through the dry-stone walls
into a field where black and white dairy cattle had recently
been turned back in after milking. The field had been cut for
hay a few weeks before, and the grass was short and springy
underfoot as Ben Cooper ran along the side of the wall, the
heat and sweat prickling on his brow and his legs spasming
with pain as he forced them on. Wragg kept pace with him
easily, but soon dropped his tendency to ask questions when
Cooper didn't respond. He needed all his breath for running.

The cows turned their heads to watch them pass in astonishment,
their jaws working slowly, their eyes growing huge
between twitching ears. Earlier in the afternoon, the search
party had had to wait for the farmer to move the cows to
the milking shed before the line could work its way across the
field. The air had been filled with crude jokes about cow pats.

Cooper passed a stretch of collapsed wall, where a length of


24
electric fence had been erected to keep the cattle awav until
someone skilled in dry-stone walling could be found to repair it.
Before the cows' curiosity could lead them to follow him, Cooper
had already reached the next gate. He skirted another field and
ran up a farm track paved with stones and broken rubble.

The steepness of the slope was increasing steadily now on the
last few hundred yards, until Cooper began to feel as though
!u- \* as back on the Cuillins again. Wragg was dropping further
and further behind, slowing to a walk, using his arms against his
knees to boost himself up the steeper sections.

He was carrying too much upper body weight, thought
Cooper, and hadn't developed the right muscles in his thighs
and calves for hill climbing. Some of the old people who had
lived in these hill villages all their lives would have passed the
voung PC with ease.

o

Finally, Cooper reached the high, dark wall at the corner of
the graveyard at St Edwin's Church. The church seemed to have
been built on a mound, standing well above the village street at

'	tt	o

the front and presenting an elevation from the bottom of the
valley like the rampart of a castle wall. The square Norman tower
stood stark against the sky, tall and strangely out of proportion to
the shortened nave, giving the church the appearance of a fallen
letter 'L'.

The surface of the churchyard was so high that Cooper thought
the bodies buried there must be almost on his eye level, if only
he could see through the stones of the wall and the thick, dark
soil to where the oak caskets lay rotting.

The church was surrounded by mature trees, horse chestnuts
and oaks, and two ancient yews. The damp smell of cut grass
was in the air, and as Cooper passed the churchyard, climbing
now towards the back of a row of stone cottages, a man in a
red check shirt with his sleeves rolled up looked over the wall

at him from the side gate. He was leaning on a big petrol lawn

o	o	o r

mower, pausing between a swathe of smoothly mown grass and a
tussocky area he hadn't yet reached. He gazed at the running man
with a grimace of distaste, as if the evening had been disturbed by
something particularly unpleasant.

At the first of the cottages, a woman was in her garden with

25
I


a watering can, tending the flower beds on the side where they

were in the shade of the cottage wall. She held the watering can	Z

upright in a gloved hand as she watched Cooper trying to catch	*

his breath to ask directions. He found he was gasping in the	I

headv smells of honeysuckle and scented roses freshly dampened	*

with water. Behind him. the lawn mower started up again in the

ft
churchyard, and a small flock of jackdaws rose protesting from »

the chestnuts.

'Dial Cottage?'

The woman stared at him, then shook her head almost imperceptibly,
unwilling to spare him even that effort. She turned her
back ostentatiously, her attention on a miniature rose with the
palest of yellow flowers. On the wall in front of Cooper was a
sign that said: 'No parking. No turning. No hikers'.

Two cottages up, he found an old woman sitting in a garden
chair with a Persian cat on her knee, and he repeated his question.
She pointed up the hill.

'Up to the road, turn left and go past the pub. It's in the row
of cottages on your left. Dial Cottage is one of those with the
green doors."

o

'Thank you.' With a glance at the PC still struggling up the
track, Cooper ran on, glad to have tarmac under his feet at last
as he approached the road.

Moorhay was off the main tourist routes and had little traffic
most of the time, with no more than an occasional car coasting
through towards Ladybower Reservoir or the show caverns in
Castleton. A small pub called the Drover stood across the road,
with two or three cars drawn up on the cobbles in front.
According to the signs, it sold Robinson's beer, one of Ben
Cooper's favourites. Right now, he would have died for a pint,
but he couldn't stop.

He passed a turning called Howe Lane, near a farm entrance
with a wooden-roofed barn and a tractor shed. A sign at the
bottom of the track said that the farmhouse itself provided bed
and breakfast. Trees overhung the road as it wandered away from
the village. In the distance, he glimpsed a shoulder of moor with
a single tree on its summit.

Two hundred yards from the church was a long row of


26
two-storev cottages built of the local millstone grit, with stone
slate roofs and small mullioned windows. They had no front
wardens, but some had stone troughs filled with marigolds and
petunias against their front walls. One or two of the cottages
had plain oak plank doors with no windows. The doors were


nainted a dark green, with lintels of whitewashed stone tilted
r	d '

at uneven angles.

By the time Cooper found which of them was Dial Cottage,
the perspiration was running freely from his forehead and the
back of his neck and soaking into his shirt. His face was red
and he was breathing heavily when he knocked on the door.
He could barely bring himself to speak when it was answered.

'Detective Constable Cooper, Edendale Police.'

The woman who opened the door nodded, not even looking
at the warrant card held in his sticky palm.

'Come in.'

The old oak door thumped shut, shutting out the street,
and Cooper blinked his eyes to readjust them to the gloom.
The woman was about his own age, maybe twenty-seven or
twenty-eight. She was wearing a halter-necked sun top and
shorts, and her pink limbs immediately struck him as totally
out of place in the dark interior, like a chorus girl who had
wandered into a funeral parlour. Her hair shone as if she had
brought a bit of the sun into the cottage with her.

t>	o

They stood in a narrow hallway, made even narrower by a
heavy mahogany sideboard loaded with cut-glass vases and a
fruit bowl, all standing on lace mats. In the middle was a colour
photograph of a large family group, taken at the seaside somewhere.
Recently applied magnolia woodchip wallpaper could not
disguise the unevenness of the walls underneath. An estate agent
would have called it a charming period look.

Cooper stood still for a moment, fighting to get back his
breath, his chest heaving. He wiped the back of his hand
across his brow to stop the trickles of sweat running into
his eyes.

'We had a report at the station,' he gasped. 'A phone
call.'

'It's Ben Cooper, isn't it?'


27
I


'That's right.' He looked at the young woman again, recognition
dawning only slowly, as he found it did when you saw 5
someone out of their familiar surroundings.

'Helen? Helen Milner?'	§

'That's it. I guess I've changed a bit since the sixth form at .5

Edendale High.'	*

& 'It was a few years ago.'	Ł

'Nine wears, I suppose,' she said. 'You've not changed much,
Ben. Anyway, I saw your picture in the paper a while ago. You'd
won a trophy of some sort.'

'The Shooting Trophy, yes. Look, can we --?'

Till take you through.'

'Do you live here then?'

'No, it's my grandparents' house.'

They stepped through into a back room, hardly less gloomy
than the hallway despite a window looking out on to the back
garden. There was a 1950s tiled fireplace in the middle of one
wall, scattered with more photographs and incongruous holiday
mementoes -- a straw donkey, a figure of a Spanish flamenco
dancer, a postcard of Morocco with sneering camels and an
impossibly blue sea. Above the fireplace, a large mirror in a
gilt frame reflected a murky hunting print on the opposite wall,
with red-coated figures on horseback galloping into a shadowy
copse in pursuit of an unseen quarry. Cooper smelled furniture
polish and the musty odour of old clothes or drawers lined with
ancient newspapers.

There were two elderly people in the room -- a woman
wearing a floral-patterned dress and a blue cardigan sitting in
one armchair, and an old man in a pair of corduroy trousers
and a Harris wool sweater facing her in the other chair. They
both sat upright, stiff and alert, their feet drawn under them as
if to put as much distance between themselves as they could.

In front of the empty fireplace stood a two-bar electric fire.
Despite the warmth of the day outside, it gave the impression
of having been recently used. Cooper, though, was glad of the
slight chill in the room, which had begun to dry the sweat on
his face as the two old people turned towards him.

'It's Ben Cooper, Granddad,' said Helen.


28
'Ave, I can see that. Sergeant Cooper's lad.'

Cooper was well used to this greeting, especially from the
older residents around Edendale. For some of them, he was
merely the shadow of his father, whose fame and popularity
seemed eternal.

'Hello, sir. I believe somebody phoned the station.'

Harry didn't answer, and Cooper was starting to form the
idea that the old boy miwht be deaf when hi.s granddaughter

to	&	i>

stepped in.

'It was me, actually,' said Helen. 'Granddad asked me to.'
Harry shrugged, as if to say he couldn't really be bothered

whether she had phoned or not.

'I thought it'd be something you lot would want to know

o	o ^

about, like as not.'

'And your name, sir?'

'Dickinson.'

Cooper waited patiently for the explanation. But it came from
the granddaughter, not from the old man.

'It's in the kitchen,' she said, leading the way through another
door. An almost brand-new washing machine and a fridge-freezer
stood among white-painted wooden cupboards, with an aluminium
sink unit awkwardly fitted into place among them.
Neither of the old people followed them, but watched from
their chairs. The rooms were so small that they were well
within earshot.

'Granddad found this.'

The trainer lay on a pine kitchen table, lumpy and grotesque
among the bundles of dried mint and the brown-glazed cooking
pots. Someone had put a sheet from the Burton Advertiser underneath
it to stop the soil that clung to its rubber sole from getting
r	o	t> o

on to the surface of the table. The trainer lay in the middle of
an advertising feature for a new Cantonese restaurant, its laces
trailing across a photograph of a smiling Chinese woman serving
barbecued spare ribs and bean sprouts. On the opposite page were
columns of birth and death notices, wedding announcements and
twenty-first birthday greetings.

Cooper wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers and took out
a pen. He gently prised open the tongue of the trainer to look


29
I


inside, careful not to disturb the soil that was starting to dry

and crumble away from the crevices in the sole.

'Where did you find this, Mr Dickinson?'	*

'Under Raven's Side.'	If

Cooper knew Raven's Side. It was a wilderness of rocks and	J

holes and tangled vegetation. The search parties had been slowly

J	]m\

making progress towards the cliff all afternoon, as if reluctant
to have to face the task of searching it, with the expectation of
twisted ankles and lacerated fingers.

O

'Can you be more specific?'

The old man looked offended, as if he had been accused
of lying. Cooper began to wonder why he had thought it was
cooler inside the cottage. Despite the open windows, there was
no breath of air in the kitchen. The atmosphere felt stifling,
claustrophobic. The only bit of light seemed to go out of the
room when Helen went to answer a knock at the door.

'There's a big patch of brambles and bracken down there,
above the stream,' said the old man. 'It's where I walk Jess, see.'

Cooper was surprised by a faint scrabbling of claws near his
feet. A black Labrador gazed up at him from under the table,
responding hopefully to the sound of its name. The dog's paws
were grubby, and it was lying on the Eden Valley Times. The sports
section, by the look of it. Edendale FC had lost the opening match
of the season.

'Was there just the trainer? Nothing else?'

'Not that I saw. It was Jess that found it really. She goes after
rabbits and such when she gets down by there.'

'OK,' said Cooper. 'We'll take a look in a minute. You can
show me the exact spot.'

Helen returned, accompanied by an exhausted PC Wragg.

'Is it ... any use?' she asked.

'We'll see.' Cooper took a polythene bag from his back
pocket and carefully slid the trainer into it. 'Would you wait
here for a while, please? A senior officer will probably want to
speak to you.'

Helen nodded and looked at her grandfather, but his expression
didn't alter. His face was stony, like a man resigned to a period
of necessary suffering.

J	o


30
Cooper went back into the road and pulled out his personal
radio to contact Kdendale Divisional HQ, where he knew Dl
Hitchens would be waiting for a report. He held the polythene

bag up to the light, staring at its contents while he waited for

or	o '	o

the message to be relayed.

The trainer was a Reebok, size-five, slim-fit. And the brown
stains on the toe looked ver\ much like blood.


31
1 he E Division Police Headquarters in Edcndale had been new
once, in the 1950s, and had even earned their architect a civic
award. But in the CID room, fifty years of mouldering paperwork
and half-smoked cigarettes and bad food had left their mark on the
walls and their smell in the carpets. The Derbyshire Constabulary
budget had recently stretched sufficiently to decorate the walls,
replace the window frames, and install air conditioning in some
of the offices. They had also replaced the old wooden desks
with modern equivalents more in keeping with the computer
equipment they carried.

DC Diane Fry was reading the bulletins. She had started off by

J	o	J

catching up with the fresh ones for the day, then had continued
casting back over recent weeks. Her intention was to make herself
familiar with all the current enquiries in the division. Although
she had been in Edendale nearly two weeks, she still felt as new
as the white glosswork that for some reason was refusing to dry
properly on the outside wall near the window. All the windows
on this side of the building looked down on Gate C and the back
of the East Stand at Edendale Football Club, a team struggling
in the lower reaches of one of the pyramid leagues.

The priority problem of the moment was car crime at local
tourist spots. From the weary tone of some of the memos Fry
came across, it sounded as though it always was the priority
problem in E Division at this time of year. Many thousands of
visitors were drawn into the Peak District National Park during
the summer, bringing with them what appeared to be their own
crime wave, like the wake trailing behind a huge cruise liner.
These visitors left their cars at remote spots, in makeshift car
parks on rough ground, in abandoned quarries and on roadside
verges. The cars were invariably full of cameras and binoculars
and purses stuffed with cash and credit cards, and God knows
what else. At the same time, travelling criminals from the big
conurbations around Sheffield in the east and Manchester in the


32
I


west were touring the Peak District looking for just such victims.

§A tew minutes with an unattended vehicle and they were away
back to their cities, leaving a trail of distraught visitors and
IN	ruined holidays.

5!	It presented an apparently insoluble problem. It was impossible

	to get the message across to the car owners, since they were

m	a constantly changing flood -- here one day, then moving on

W|	J	o o	J '	o

the next, to be replaced by another group of visitors. It was
impossible for the police to keep surveillance on vulnerable
sites with the resources available; it was feasible only to identify
possible perpetrators and ask neighbouring forces to keep them
under observation. It was called living in hope.

Diane Fry looked across the room at DS Rennie. He was on
the phone, and had been for some time. She couldn't hear what he
was saying, but she was fairly sure he hadn't yet taken a single note
with the ballpoint pen he was chewing. He was thick-shouldered
and thick-necked, a veteran prop forward in the divisional rugby
team, as she had learned from his conversation with one of the
other DCs. She also knew that Rennie's first name was David, and
that he was married with two children in their early teens.

She had soon become aware of his sly sideways appraisal, a
slithering of the eyes towards her when he thought she wasn't
looking. She had observed this in the past to be a common
tentative first manoeuvre towards a junior female colleague,
designed to culminate in an office affair. Many men, of course,
never got past this first sign -- it was more an indication of
hope than intention. But there were others who were more
of a nuisance, and Fry couldn't tell just yet which Rennie was.
It was helpful, though, to have the early warning, so that she
could decide on her own terms when the time was right to put
him down. Affairs with colleagues were not on her agenda.
Not at all.

She could see Rennie was not making the effort to appear
busy, even though there was a DCI somewhere in the building
and liable to appear in the CID room at any moment.

'Sarge?' said Fry, when at last he put the phone down.

Rennie looked round, as if surprised that she was still there.
Then he smiled, contorting his face until it was almost a wink.


33
His tie was something dark green, with a small gold crest, and
his suit was a good cut for his heavy shoulders, but not recently
cleaned. He pulled out a bar of his habitual chewing gum, which
Fry had guessed might mean he was a reformed smoker.

'What can I do for you, Diane?'

"This project group looking at the auto crime figures.'

'Yeah?'

'I wondered if a check had been done on the computer.
Matching up locations and timings. An analysis of MOs. We
could set up a computer model.'

'Ben Cooper usually does that,' said Rennie. 'You'd better
not mess with the computer until you've asked him about it.'

'A computer model could come up with a set of predictions,
suggest target locations. It's worth a try, Sarge.'

'I told you, speak to Ben. They've got him out at Moorhay,
but he should be back in the office later, thank God.'

Fry had already heard Ben Cooper's name several times
during her first week in Edendale. Apparently he was some
paragon of all the virtues who knew everything. DC Cooper
knew the area like the back of his hand, they said. He knew
all the local villains and even their families, they said. He
knew how all the systems in the CID office worked, too. He
knew exactly how to fill in the vast quantities of paperwork
that baffled other detectives. Now, apparently, he was the
only one who knew how to use the computers. But Diane
Fry had an information technology qualification to her name,
and she had done a course on intelligence data analysis at the
National Crime Faculty in Bramshill. At the first opportunity,
she would show them who knew how to use the computers
around here.

For now, though, she decided to try another tack.

'Someone from the NCIS did a paper on this problem a few
months ago. It was mentioned when I was at Bramshill.'

'Really?'

Rennie sounded uninterested.

'The National Criminal Intelligence Service.'

o

'I know what the NCIS is, thanks.'

'I wondered if someone had researched it. I can't see any


34
mention in the paperwork. Maybe the project group have followed
it through?'

'I doubt it.'

'I'll look it up, if you like, Sarge.'

Ronnie looked sour, pulled at his tie, scrabbled about on his
desk for a bit of paper and picked up the phone to dial another
number.

'Shall I, Sarge?'

'Oh, if you like.'

Fry made a note for herself in her notebook and asterisked
it. Then she put the car crime reports aside and picked up
that morning's bulletin on the missing girl, Laura Vernon. She

o	o o '

had already read it once and had memorized its admittedly
sketchy details.

Her memory was excellent for jobs like this. She knew exactly
what the girl had been wearing when last seen, down to the blue
pants and the size-five slim-fit Reeboks. If she was the first officer
to come across any of these items, she knew she would recognize
them straightaway. But she would have to be allocated to the
search first, of course.

All available hands had alreadv been called to the task of finding

J	O

Laura Vernon. All hands, that was, except Detective Constable
Diane Fry and Detective Sergeant David Rennie. Fry was new
to the division, of course, but what had Rennie done wrong?
He was currently in charge of day-to-day crime in E Division,
and Fry constituted his staff. It wasn't a combination that looked
likely to crush any crime waves. At this moment, they weren't
even trying.

Fry got up from her desk and walked over to check the action
file on the Laura Vernon enquiry. Although the enquiry was less
than forty-eight hours old, the file was already getting thick.
The apparatus of a major enquiry was beginning to swing into
operation, even though it hadn't yet been designated a murder
enquiry -- not until a body was found. Teenage girls ran away

from home all the time, of course, and generally turned up a

'	'	o	j	r

few days later, hungry and shamefaced. Laura had money --
her parents estimated there could have been as much as thirty
pounds in her purse; obviously she was not a girl who was kept


35
I


short of cash. But she had taken no clothes and no possessions
with her. That was a significant factor.

And reactions had been quicker in this instance for two other
reasons. One was the fact that a witness report had placed Laura
Vernon talking to an unidentified young man behind her house
shortly before her disappearance. Il had been the last sighting	.*.

of her for nearly two days now.	.«|

The other pressing reason, understated in the action file but
discernible as a thread running through the reports, was the
so far unsolved murder of sixteen-year-old Susan Edson in
neighbouring B Division a few weeks earlier.

Everyone knew that the first two or three days of an enquiry
were vital, if it did turn out to be a case of murder, or other
serious crime. Within the first seventy-two hours the memories
of witnesses were fresh, and the perpetrator had little time to
dispose of evidence or construct an alibi. At the same time,
speedy action also meant they had a better chance of finding
Laura Vcrnon alive.

Fry was interested to see that a name had been offered up
to police as a 'possible' right from the start. A youth called
Lee Sherratt had been named by the parents and had been
interviewed by officers in the initial sweep. He had denied
being the voung man seen talking to Laura, but his alibi was

O	J	O	O

unsupported. Sherratt's record had been pulled from the Police
National Computer -- a few petty crimes, some as a juvenile. It
wasn't much, but it was enough to leave his name at the top of
the file until he could be eliminated.

According to the reports, a uniformed inspector from Operational
Support was now in charge of the search on the ground.

DI Paul Hitchens was CID investigating officer, reporting to

o o	' r	o

Detective Chief Inspector Stewart Tailby. Officers had already
called at every house in the village of Moorhay, since there
weren't all that many. Enquiries had been made with all known
friends and relatives in the area. No sign of Laura Vcrnon, no
leads to her possible whereabouts.

By now the painstaking inch-by-inch search of the surrounding countryside was well under way -- off-duty officers had been
called in, the search dog teams were out and the helicopter


36
was in the air. Peak Park Rangers and Countryside Rangers
were helping the search, and the Mountain Rescue Team was
somewhere up on the tops of the moors above the village.
And, of course, Detective Constable 'Mr Perfect' was also out
at Moorhay in person. Case solved, then.

shee had met DI Hitchens on her first day. He was her CID
boss -- after DS Rennie, anyway, and she had already decided
Rcnnio didn't really count. Hitchcns was younger than the
sergeant, and better educated. So an early promotion; maybe
he was a fast-track graduate, like herself. He would certainly be
destined for higher things, and his voice would be listened to

o	o '

by more senior officers. Fry ached to be out there, on a major
enquiry, at the right hand of DI Hitchens, getting the chance
to impress. She wasn't intending to hang around looking at car
crime statistics for long. A murder enquiry was just the thing.
But it had come too soon, while she was still too new. Hence
her presence in the office with Rennie.

In an hour or two they would have to call off the search for
Laura Vernon anyway. Even in August dusk fell eventually over
the hills, and the lines of men and women would disperse and
wander dispiritedly home. Tomorrow there would be appeals in
the papers and on TV, and civilian volunteers would be queueing
up to swell the numbers of the search parties.

Fry knew she had two choices. She either coasted along and
filled in time until Rennie thought fit to allocate her some tasks;
or she could speak up, take the initiative, start to show what she
was made of. But she held her tongue. Now was not the time --
she needed to be in a stronger position. Meanwhile, DS Rennie

was not worth the effort of trying to impress.

j o	r

Then the door opened and DI Hitchens put his head round.
'Who's here? Oh yes.'

He looked disappointed, like a captain left with the choice
of the players no one wants when the teams are being chosen.
Hitchens was in his shirt sleeves, with his cuffs rolled up a few
inches over strong wrists covered in dark, wiry hair. He was in
his thirties, and seemed to be permanently about to break into
a smile. Fry caught his eye, looked from him to Rennie, who
had barely moved except to shift his foot from his desk.


37
I


Hitchens nodded. 'All right to hold the fort	for a while,

Dave?'	f

'Sir.'	*

Fry jumped up eagerly. 'Where are we going,	sir? Is it the *

missing girl. Laura Vernon?'	i

c? o '	ijg

'What else? Yes, we've had a find called in. We've got a	,,.

O	flg

good man out in the field now checking it out, but it sounds	§

&	®	3Ł.

positive. Can you he ready in two minutes?'

Till be ready.'

When the DI had left, Diane Fry went back to her desk to
clear away the car crime reports. She was careful to turn her
back to Dave Rennie, so that he wouldn't see her smiling.


Edendale sat astride a wide valley in the gap between the two
distinct halves of the Peak District. On one side the gentle
limestone hills and wooded dales of the White Peak rolled away
past Bakewell and Wyedale into B Division and the borders of
Staffordshire. On the other side were the grim, bare gritstone
moors of the sparsely populated Dark Peak, where the high
slopes of Mam Tor and Kinder Scout guarded the remote, silent
reservoirs below Snake Pass.

It was one of only two towns that sat within the boundaries
of the Peak District National Park -- the other being Bakewell,
a few miles to the south, where one of the E Division section
stations was based. Other towns, like Buxton, headquarters of B
Division, had been deliberately excluded from the National Park
when the boundaries were drawn.

At Buxton, as at Matlock and Ashbourne, the boundary took
wide sweeps around the towns and back again. But Edendale
was too deep within the hills to be excluded. It meant that the
restrictive Peak Park planning regulations applied to the town as
much as they did to the face of Mam Tor or to the Blue John
caves of Castleton.

Diane Fry was still learning the geography of the town and
the dale. So far she was familiar only with the immediate area
around the Victorian house on the outskirts of Edendale where
she had rented a first-floor flat, and the streets near the station
-- including the view of the Edendale FC stand. But she was

o


38
aware that, no matter which route you chose out of Edendale,
the only way was up -- over the hills, to the moorland hamlets
or the villages in the next valley.

Fry was a good driver, trained in the West Midlands force
driving school to handle pursuit cars. But DI Hitchens chose to
drive himself as they headed out of the town towards the great
hump of moorland separating Edendalc from the next valley.

'It's just the one shoe/ said Hitchens.

'A trainer?' said Fry. 'Reebok, size-five?'

The DI looked at her, surprised, raising his eyebrow.

'You've been reading up on the Vernon enquiry.'

'Yes, sir.'

'It was always a possibility from the start that something had
happened to her, though you can't tell the parents that. She had
cash with her, but had taken nothing else. We'd already traced
all her friends and contacts. Negative all round. It's inevitable,
I'm afraid, that her body will turn up somewhere.'

'What sort of girl is she?'

'Oh, comes from a well-off family, comfortable background.
Never wanted for anything, I'd say. She attends a private school
called High Carrs, due to take her GCSEs next year. She gets
piano lessons, has a horse that her parents bought that's kept
at some stables just outside Moorhay. She takes part in riding
events sometimes.'

'Show jumping?'

'I suppose so.'

'And is she good at any of those things?'

Hitchens looked at her and nodded approvingly. 'If you believe
the parents, she's perfect at everything. Bound to get a place at
Oxford or Cambridge and do her degree, but might decide to
pursue a career as a concert musician later on. Unless she wins
an Olympic gold medal in the meantime, of course. Her friends
say different.'

'Boys?'

'Of course. What else? Mum and Dad deny it, though. They
say she's too busy with her studies and her horse riding, all that.
But we're tracing the boyfriends, gradually.'

'Rows at home? Anything like that?'


39
'Nothing. At least . . .'

'Not according to the parents, right.'

'Got it.'

Hitchens was smiling again. Fry liked her senior officers to
smile at her, within reason. She watched his hands on the steering
wheel. They were strong hands, with clean and carefully trimmed
fingernails. His nose was a little too large in profile. It was what
they called a Roman nusc. But a man could get away \\ith that
it gave him character. She looked again at his left hand. There
was no wedding ring on his finger. But now she noticed a white
scar that crawled all the way across the middle knuckles of three
of his fingers.

o

'The parents say that Laura had been shopping with her mother
that afternoon,' said Hitchens. 'They'd been to the De Bradelei
Centre at Belper.'

'What's there?'

'Oh -- clothes,' he said vaguely.

'Not Dad?'

The don't suppose it was his sort of thing. Anyway, the females
were buying him a birthday present, so he wouldn't have been
wanted, would he? He stayed at home to catch up on some
work. Graham Vernon runs a financial consultancy business and
says it's going well. They do seem to be pretty well-off.'

'And after they got home?'

J O

'It was about half past five by then. It was still hot, so Laura
changed and went out into the garden for a while. She didn't
come back for her evening meal at half past seven. That's when

the Vernons began to panic.'

o	r

Fry admired the way he had all the details in his mind and
could produce them without effort. Hitchens obviously had the
sort of brain that was much valued in the police service these
days. Many coppers could not have repeated the information
without reading it from their notes.

'Parents alibi each other?'

'Yes.'

'But she was seen talking to a young man before she disapO	^	O	I


peared, wasn't she?'

'Very good, Diane. Yes, we found a lady who was out


40
o!!ectin<7 wild flowers on the ecW of the scrubland at the

i-J	O

top of the Baulk. She's a WI member and is helping to create
the decoration for a well dressing at Great Hucklow. She was
embarrassed about admitting it, can you believe it? She thought
we might arrest her for stealing wild flowers. Her children had
told her it's a crime against the environment. But the well
dressing was obviously important enough to turn her to evil
vvavs. Anyway, she came forward and identified Laura Vcrnon from her photograph as the girl she saw. She couldn't describe
the boy, though. Too far away.'

'And now a trainer.'

'Yes, that's all we've got so far, but it looks hopeful. We've
got Ben Cooper on the spot there -- he was with one of the
search parties. Ben's got good judgement.'

'I'm sure he has.'

'Oh, you've met Cooper, have you? He's only back from
leave today.'

'No, but I've heard the others talk about him.'

'Right.' Hitchens said nothing for a few minutes, negotiating a
crossroads where heavy lorries thundered by at regular intervals,
dusting the roadside verges with a coating of lime. Fry tried to
read his thoughts, wondering if she had said something wrong.
But she was sure of her ability to keep any emotion out of her
voice. She had practised long and hard, and now, she felt, she
only ever sounded positive.

'How's it going then, Diane? Settling into the CID room OK?'

'Fine, sir. Some things are done a bit differently from what

'	to	^

I've been used to, but nothing I haven't been able to pick up

on pretty quickly.'

'That's good. Dave Rennie treating you all right?'

'No problem,' said shee. She noted that she had become 'Diane'

since getting into the car alone with the DI. She liked to keep

a track of these things, in case they had any deeper meaning.

Maybe she could manage without the 'sir' in return, and see if

it struck the right note -- a closeness of colleagues rather than

a senior officer with a junior. But no further.

'Not finding Derbyshire too quiet for you after the West

Midlands?'


41
'It's a nice change,' said Fry. 'But I'm sure E Division has its
own challenges.'

Hitchens laughed. 'The other divisions call it "E for Easy
Street".'

Fry had already been informed by her new colleagues that
Fdendale had been chosen over Bakcwcll or Matlock as E
Division Headquarters for purely alphabetical reasons. It was
one of the oddities of the Derbyshire Constabulary structure
that the territorial divisions were all based in towns that began

o

with the right letter -- A Division in Alfreton, B Division in
Buxton, C Division in Chesterfield and D Division in Derby.

So it was inconceivable that E Division should have been based
in Bakewell or Matlock. It would have been an outrage against

o o

corporate neatness. In fact, if there hadn't already been a town
called Edendale, some PR person in an office at County HQ
would have had to invent one.

'But I was thinking of the social life,' said Hitchens. 'Edendale

o	'

isn't exactly the night spot capital of Europe. A bit tame after
Birmingham, I expect.'

'It depends what you're looking for, I suppose.'

He turned to look towards her, his hands resting casually on
the wheel. 'And what is Diane Fry looking for exactly?'

What indeed? There was only one thing that Fry wanted to
acknowledge to herself. Maybe it wasn't what Hitchens was
expecting to hear. But it was something he ought to know,
now rather than later.

'I want to advance my career,' she said.

'Ah.' He raised his eyebrows, a smile lighting up his face. He
was quite good-looking, and he wore no wedding ring.

'I'm good at my job,' she said. 'I'll be looking for promotion.
That's what's important to me. At the moment.'

'Fair enough. I like your honesty.'

The main road towards Buxton climbed and climbed until it
reached a plateau where the limestone quarries competed with
the moors as background scenery. There was a well-placed pub
here called the Light House, with tremendous views over two

o	'

neighbouring valleys and the hills beyond. Hitchens turned off
the road before they reached the quarries, and they began a gentle


42
rollercoaster ride over smaller vallevs and hills, dipping gradually
towards Wyedale. Farm gates flickered past occasionally, with
black and white signs advertising the names of dairy herds and
stacks of huge round bales of straw or black plastic-wrapped
silage lying in the fields behind stone walls.

'I've seen your record, of course,' said Hitchens. 'It's not
bad.'

Fry nodded. She knew it wasn't bad. It was damn good. Her
exam results had been in the top few per cent all along the line.
Her clear-up rate since her transfer to CID had been outstanding.
She had had a good career lined up in the West Midlands, and they
had been grooming her for big things; anybody could see that.

'It was a pity you had to leave your old force,' said Hitchens.

She said nothing, waiting for the comment that she knew
would have to come.

'But it was understandable. In the circumstances.'

'Yes, sir.'

In the circumstances. That was exactly how Fry herself tried
to think of it now. 'The circumstances'. It was a wonderfully cool
and objective phrase. Circumstances were what other people had,
not something that turned your life upside down, destroyed your
self-esteem and threatened to ruin everything you had ever held
as worthwhile. You couldn't get upset about circumstances. You
could just get on with life and concentrate on more important
things. In the circumstances.

They were driving along a ridge now, with a steep drop on one
side down rock-strewn slopes to a little river. Gradually the view
became more and more obscured by trees. Here and there was a
house set back from the road, not all of them working farms.

o

'No ill effects though?' said Hitchens.

Fry couldn't really blame him for fishing. She had expected it
sooner or later. The subject had been raised at her interview, of
course, and she had answered all the carefully worded questions
with the proper responses, very reasonable and unemotional.
But it was bound to be in the minds of those, like DI Hitchens,
that she had to rely on for her prospects of advancement. It was
just another hurdle she had to get over.

'None at all,' she said. 'It's all behind me now. I don't


43
think about it. I just want to get on with the business in hand.'

'One of the hazards of the job, eh? Goes with the territory?'

'I suppose you might say that, sir.'

He nodded, satisfied. For a brief moment, Fry wondered how
he would react if she did what a tight little angry knot deep inside
her really wanted to do -- screamed, shouted, lashed out with her
fists to wipe the smug smile off his face. She was proud that she
no longer did that; she had learned to keep the knot of anger
tied up tight and secure.

The houses suddenly grew thicker on either side of the road,
though there had been no sign to indicate they were reaching
a village. There was a small school off to the right, some farm
buildings converted into craft workshops and a tiny village post
office and store in an end terrace cottage. The square tower of a
church appeared over the rooftops, surrounded by tall, mature
chestnut trees and sycamores.

They found a cluster of cars and vans parked in a gravel layby.
As soon as Hitchens pulled up, a sweating PC Wragg appeared
at the window of the car. He was clutching a polythene bag
containing a Reebok trainer.

'Wragg? Where's DC Cooper?'

'The old bloke's showing him where he found it, sir.'

'What's he playing at? He should have waited,' said Hitchens.

'The old bloke wouldn't wait. He said it was dominoes night,

o '

and it was now or never.' 'Dominoes night?'

O

Wragg looked embarrassed. 'He really seemed to mean
it,' he said.


The section of footpath looked much the same as any other. It
had a dry bed of dusty soil, embedded with twisted tree roots
that broke through the surface to form steps in the steeper
places. There were oaks and birches clinging to the slopes on
either side, with swathes of dense bracken clustering round
their trunks. A tumble of huge rocks lay half hidden among

O	J	O

the bracken, like the overgrown ruins of a Stone Age temple.
Birds skittered away among the undergrowth, chattering their


44
alarm calls, and there was the constant background hiss of a
fast-running stream.

'Ave, about here,' said Harrv.

'You're sure?'

"I reckon.'

Ben Cooper didn't quite know what to make of Harry
Dickinson. Usually he could read some emotion in people
he came into contact with in this sort of job. They were
often upset, frightened, angry or even completely knocked
for six by shock and distress. These were the ones for whom
violent crime was something new and horrific that had never
touched their lives before. Sometimes there were those who
were nervous, or became unreasonably aggressive. Those were
interesting reactions, too, often the first signs of guilt. He had
learned to pick up those signs in the people he dealt with. He
thought of it as a good detective's instinct.

Harry Dickinson, though, had showed no emotion of any
kind, not when he had been in the cottage with his wife and
granddaughter, and not now when he stood with Cooper at the
spot where he and his dog had found the bloodstained trainer.

During the walk down the path to the foot of Raven's Side,
Harry had marched ahead, silent and stiff, his back pulled straight,
his arms swinging in a steady rhythm. He had not spoken a word
since they had left the cottage, communicating only with a slight
tilt of the head when they reached a turning in the path. It was
as if the old man was shut up tight in a body that had turned to
wood. Cooper would have liked to have got in front of him, to try to read something in the old man's eves.

-	O	J

'You do realize that Laura Vernon might be lying nearby badly

o	J o	J	J

injured, Mr Dickinson?'

'Yes.'
'Or even dead?'

Harry met Cooper's eyes. What was the expression that
passed across them so fleetingly? Amusement? No, mockery.
An impatience with such a waste of words.

'I'm not daft. I know what's what.'

'It's vital that we know the exact spot you found the trainer,
Mr Dickinson.'


45
Harry spat into the grass, narrowed his eyes against the low
sun, like an Indian picking up a trail. He pointed the peak of
his cap to the right.

'Down there? Near the stream?'

'Jess runs down there, by the water,' said Harry.

'What's past those rocks?'

'A wild bit, all overgrown. There's rabbits and such in

'	o

there.'

'Is that where the trainer came from?'
Harry shrugged. 'Take a look for yourself, lad.'
Cooper walked over to the outcrop of rocks. Only their tops
protruded from the grass, and their jagged shapes looked slippery
and treacherous. It was not a place he would choose to walk over,
given the choice of easier walking that lay in other directions. He

o	o	J

could see that sheep must graze here, by the shortness of the
coarse grass. Between the rocks, narrow tracks had been worn,
and there were ancient black pellets drying on the ground.

Trying to stick to the rocks to avoid confusing any traces of
footprints, Cooper clambered over into the thick undergrowth.
The stream rushed over the rocks a few feet to his right, running
low just here below a stretch of smooth, grassy bank. It looked
like an ideal spot for two people to spend an afternoon, secluded
and undisturbed.

He looked back over his shoulder. Harry Dickinson had not
followed him. He stood on a flat section of rock, poised as
if guarding the path, apparently oblivious to what was going
on around him. His fist clenched occasionally, as if he felt
that he ought to have his dog lead in his hand. He looked
completely calm.

Cooper moved further into the undergrowth, his clothes
brushing against the bracken and catching on the straggling
tendrils of brambles. Two or three wasps, disturbed by his
passage, hovered round his head, making irritating darts at his
face and evading his futile slaps at the air. The trees began to close
over him again, creating a dark cave filled with summer flies.

o	'	O

Ahead and about thirty feet below, just across the stream,
he could make out a wide footpath marked with small stones
and with wooden ledges built into the ground as steps. It


46
was almost a motorway of a footpath, cleared of vegetation,
well-used and worn by many feet. Cooper realized that he
had almost reached the Eden Vallev Trail, the path that connected
to the long-distance Pennine Way a little to the north. It was a
favourite with ramblers, who passed this way in their thousands
in die summer.

But the spot where he stood was as remote and isolated from
life on the path down there as if it had been on top of Mam
For itself. A passing walker would not have been able to see
Cooper up there among the bracken, even if he had bothered
to look up.

He turned round, wafting his hand across his face against

'	O	o

the flies. He was looking back through the trees and thick

o	o

brambles as if towards the end of a dark tunnel, where the
figure of Harry Dickinson stood framed in a network of grasping
branches. Cooper had to squint against the contrast of a patch
of dazzling light that soaked the hillside in strong colours. The

o o	o

old man stood in the glare of the low sun, with the hot rocks

o	'

shimmering around him like a furnace. The haze of heat rising

o	o

from the ground made his dark outline blur and writhe, as if he
were dancing a slow shimmy. His vast shadow, flung across the
rocks, seemed to wriggle and jerk as its jagged shape fragmented
among the bracken and brambles.

O

The expression in Harry's eyes was unreadable, his face lying
partly in the shade from the peak of his cap. Cooper couldn't
even tell which way he was looking, whether he had turned
away or was staring directly towards him into the trees.

He wanted to grab the old man by the shoulders and shake
him. He wanted to tell him that somebody had disturbed the
spot, and recently. The evidence was right there for anyone

'	J	o	J

to see and to smell. There had been two people, and at least
one of them had been looking for more than just rabbits. The
smell that lingered under the trees was of stale blood, overripe
meat and urine. And the flies had found something even more
attractive than Cooper's sweat to feed on.


47
II


'OK. Secured?'

'Officers at all points,' said Hitchens promptly.

'Scenes?'

'On their way.'

Diane Fry stood behind DI Hitchens and Detective Chief
Inspector Tailby, twenty feet from where the body of the girl
lay. The scene had already been well-organized. Hitchens had
made a big performance of it, posting officers along the track,
calling for information so that he could pass it on to the DCI.
But it had seemed to Fry that everything necessary had already
been done even before Hitchens had arrived.	i

'Scientific support?'	*

'Ditto.'

'Incident room?'

'DI Baxter is i/c.'

Tailby was head and shoulders taller than the inspector, slim
and slightly stooped around the shoulders, as very tall men often
were. His hair was greying at the front but still dark at the back,
and it was left to grow thicker than the cropped heads favoured by
most of his junior colleagues. He was wearing green Wellingtons,
which were not ideal footwear for stumbling over half a mile of
rough ground scattered with rabbit holes and hidden stones. He
was lucky to have reached the scene without a broken ankle. Fry
congratulated herself on her habit of wearing strong, flat-soled
shoes and trousers.

'Photographer?' said Tailby.

'Here, ready.'

'Let him get on with it.'

Fry waited for the DCI to ask about the doctor, but she
looked up and realized that he could already see Dr Inglefield
making his way down the path.

'Finder?' said Tailby.

'Back at the cottage, sir. With DC Cooper.'


48


~- i

S!
'Let's see what the doc savs then.'

The doctor was giving his name to a PC standing halfway
up the path. Tailby waited impatiently while they compared
watches to agree the time, and the PC wrote it down in his
notebook. Most of the other officers who had inevitably begun
to gather round the scene had been sent away to continue their
search, grumbling all the more at the futility of it.

Blue and white tape hung in strands for several yards around
the body, wound round the trunks of trees and a jutting stump
of black rock. From where the detectives stood, all that could
be seen of Laura Vernon was a lower leg. The black fabric of her
jeans contrasted with the glare of a white, naked foot, its toenails
painted blood-red. The rest of the body was hidden in a dense
clump of bracken, and around it there were numerous signs of
trampling. Fry knew that the broken stems and crushed grass
raised the odds in favour of the crime scene examiners producing
the sort of evidence that would lead to a quick arrest. She longed
to get nearer, to get a close look at the body, to see the girl's
face. How had she died? Had she been strangled or battered

O

or what? Nobody was saying. At this stage, nobody wanted to
commit themselves. They simply stood and watched the doctor
do his official business as he nodded at the policemen without
a word and made his way gingerly along a marked-out strip of
ground to the crushed bracken.

They were, of course, assuming the body was that of Laura
Vernon. There seemed little doubt, but it was not considered
a fact until one of her parents had been dragged through the
process of identification.

'No hope of getting the caravan down here,' said Tailby.

'Nowhere near, sir,' agreed Hitchens.

'Is there a farm track nearby? What's over that side of
the trees?'

'Don't know, sir.'

Hitchens and Tailby both turned to look at Fry. Hitchens
frowned when he saw who she was, as if he had been expecting
someone else.

'See if you can find out, Fry,' he said. 'Closest access we can
get for the caravan.'


49
'Yes, sir.'

Fry wondered how she was expected to do this, when there
was no habitation in sight. The village itself was invisible beyond
the huge outcrop of rock. There was a cliff face at her back and
dense woodland stretching in front of her down to the road.

o

She was aware of the tall DCI studying her. He had a thin,
bony face and keen grey eyes with a vigilant air. She had not
encountered him fare to face until now -- he had simply been
a figure passing in the distance once, pointed out to her and
noted as one of the people who mattered. The last thing she
wanted to do was to look useless now, on their first meeting.
First impressions lasted a long time.

'Perhaps you could find somebody who has a bit of local
knowledge,' suggested Tailby.

O '	OO	J

Hitchens said: 'Maybe we'd better ask --'

Then Diane Fry registered the noise that she had been aware
of in the background all the time they had been on the hillside. It
was a juddering and clattering noise, stationary now somewhere
over the trees to the east. The helicopter was holding position
until its crew were given instructions to return to base.

Fry pulled out her radio, and smiled. 'I think I've got a better
idea, sir.'

The DCI understood straightaway. 'Excellent. Get them to
let Scenes and Scientific Support have a location as well for
their vans.'

Dr Inglefield had taken only a few minutes before he was
walking back up the path towards Tailby.

'Well, dead all right,' he said. 'Skull bashed in, I'd say, not to put too fine a point on it. You'll get the technical details from
the PM, of course, but that's about it. Rigor is almost completely
resolved and decomposition has started. Also we have quite a few
maggots hatching in the usual places. Eyes, mouth, nostrils. You
know . . . The pathologist should be able to give you a pretty
good idea of the time of death. Normally I'd say at least twenty
four hours, but in this weather ..." He shrugged expressively.

'Sexually assaulted?' asked Tailby.

'Mmm. Some disturbance of the clothing, certainly. More
than that I couldn't saw.'


50
'I'll take a quick look while we wait for the pathologist,' said
Tailby to Hitchens.

He pulled on plastic gloves and approached to within a few
feet of the body. He would not touch it or anything around it,
would not risk disturbing any of the possible forensic evidence
waiting for the SOCOs. Inglcfield looked at Fry curiously as

O	O	J	J

she pocketed her radio. She had been listening keenly to their
conversation even while she made the call.

'New, are you?' asked Inglefield. 'Sorry about the maggots.'

'New to the area,' said Fry. 'I've seen maggots on a dead body
before. People don't realize how quickly flies will get into the
bodily orifices and lay their eggs, do they, Doctor?'

'In weather like this the little beggars will be there within
minutes of death. The eggs can hatch in another eight hours or
so. How long has the girl been missing?'

'Nearly two days,' said Fry.

'There you are then. Plenty of time. But don't take my
word . . .'

'It's a question for the pathologist, yes.'

'Mrs Van Door will no doubt give your chaps the chapter
and verse. A forensic entomologist will be able to tell you what
larval stage they're going through and all that. That can fix the
time of death pretty well.'

There was the sound of engines beyond the trees, and the
helicopter appeared again, flying low, guiding a small convoy
along the forest track that had been found.

'I'd better go and direct them,' said Fry.

'Somebody was luckier than me,' said the doctor. 'My car's
back up the hill there somewhere. Ah well, no doubt the exercise
will do me good. It's what I tell my patients, anyway.'

Fry shepherded the Home Office pathologist and the Scenes
of Crime team down the hillside. The SOCOs, a man and a
woman, were sweating in their white suits and overshoes as they
lugged their cases with them to the taped-off area and pulled
their hoods over their heads until they looked like aliens. Tailby
was backing away, leaving the way clear for the photographer to
set up his lights against the lengthening shadows that were now


51
falling across the scene. The exact position of the body had to be
recorded with stills camera and video before the pathologist could
cret close enough to examine her maggots. Fry turned awav. She

C*	o	oo

knew that the next stage would involve the pathologist taking the
girl's rectal temperature.

She was in time to catch DI Ilitchcns taking a call on his
cellphone.

'Hitchens here. Yes?'

He listened for a minute, his face slipping from a frown into
anger and frustration.

o

'Get everyone on to it that you can. Yes, yes, I know. But this
is a priority. We're going to look complete idiots. Pull people
in from wherever you need to.'

Hitchens looked round to see where Tailby was, and saw him
walking back up the slope towards them.

'Bastard!' said Hitchens as he pushed the phone into his
pocket.

'Something wrong?' asked shee.

o	o

'A team went to pick up Lee Sherratt, and he's done a
runner.'

Fry winced. It was bad luck to lose your prime suspect just
when you were hoping that everything would click together
easily, that the initial witness statements would tie your man
into the scene and the results of forensic tests would sew the
case up tight. It was bad luck she didn't want to be drawn into,
she thought, as they watched the DCI approach, peeling off his
plastic gloves.

'We need to get that time of death ascertained as close as we

o

can,' said Tailby. 'Then we need the enquiry teams allocated to
doing the house-to-house again, Paul.'

o	o '

'Yes, sir.'

'We need to locate a weapon. Organize the search teams to
get started as soon as Scenes are happy.'

'Yes, sir.'

'What was the call? Have they picked up the youth yet?
Sherratt?'

Hitchens hesitated for the first time.

'No, sir.'


52
'And why not?'

They can't find him. He hasn t been at home since yesterday
afternoon.'

'I do hope you're joking.'

Hitchens shook his head. 'No, sir.'

Tailby scowled, his bushy eyebrows jutting down over cold
grey eyes. 'I don't believe this. We interview the lad on Sunday
when it's a missing person enquiry, and as soon as a bodv turns
up we've lost him.'

'We had no reason --'

'Well, we've got reason enough now. Reason enough down

'	O	O	O

there, don't you think?' said Tailby angrily, gesturing at the spot
where Laura Vernon lay.

'We've got patrols trying all possible locations now. But so
many men were taken up by the search down here --'

'They'd damn well better turn the lad up soon. I want to wrap
this one up quickly, Paul. Otherwise, people will be connecting
it to the Edson case and we'll have all the hysteria about a serial
killer on the loose. We don't want that -- do we, Paul?'

Hitchens turned and looked appealingly at Fry. She kept her
face impassive. If people chose to have bad luck, she wasn't about
to offer to share it with them.

'Right,' said Tailby. 'What's next? Let's see -- what's his
name? The finder?'

'Dickinson,' said Hitchens. 'Harry Dickinson.'


Harry was in the kitchen. He had finally taken off his jacket, and
the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to show white, sinewy
arms. At his wrists there was a clear line like a tidemark between
the pale skin untouched by sun and his brown, weathered
hands, sprinkled with liver spots and something dark and more
ingrained. Harry was at the sink using a small blue plastic-handled
mop to scrub out the teacups and polish the spoons. His face was
as serious as if he were performing brain surgery.

'He always does the washing-up,' said Gwen when the detectives
came to the door. 'He says I don't do it properly.'

'We'd just like a few words, Mrs Dickinson,' said Tailby.
'Further to our enquiries.'


S3
Harry seemed to become aware of them slowly. He put down
the mop and dried his hands carefully on a towel, rolled his sleeves
down over his arms and reached behind the door to put his jacket
back on. Then he walked unhurriedly past them, without a word,
into the dim front room of the cottage, where there was a glimpse
of die road through a gap in white net curtains.

Hitchens and Tailbv followed him and found him sitting

J	O

upright on a hard-backed chair. Ho was facing them like a

to

judge examining the suspects entering the dock. The detectives
found two more chairs pushed close to a mahogany dining table
and set them opposite the old man. Diane Fry slipped quietly
into the room and leaned against die wall near die door with

o

her notebook, while Hitchens and Tailby introduced themselves,

showing dieir warrant cards.

&

'Harry Dickinson?' said Hitchens. The old man nodded. 'This
is Detective Chief Inspector Tailby, Harry. I'm Detective Inspector
Hitchens. From Edendale.'

'Where's die lad?' asked Harry.

'Who?'

'The one who was here before. Sergeant Cooper's lad.'

Tailby looked at Hitchens, raising an eyebrow.

'Ben Cooper is only a detective constable, Harry. This is
a murder enquiry now. You understand that? Detective Chief
Inspector Tailby here is die senior investigating officer who will
be in charge of the enquiry.'

'Oh aye,' said Harry. 'The man in charge.'

'You are aware that we have found a body, Mr Dickinson?'
said Tailby. He spoke loudly and clearly, as if he had decided
that they were dealing widi an idiot.

Harry's eyes travelled slowly from Hitchens to Tailby. At first
he had looked unimpressed, now he looked stubborn.

'The Mount girl, is it?'

"The Vernon family live at die Mount,' explained Hitchens
for Tailby's sake. 'That's the name of die house.'

"The remains haven't yet been formally identified, Mr Dickinson,'
said Tailby. 'Until diey have, we can't commit ourselves to
a positive statement in diat regard. However, it is generally
known diat we have been conducting an extensive search for


54
a fifteen-year-old female by that name for some hours. In
the circumstances there would seem to be a strong degree
of possibility that the remains discovered in the vicinity may
be those of Laura Vernon.'

An old carriage clock in an oak case ticked quietly to itself
on the mantelpiece, providing the only sound in the room as
it counted off the seconds. Fry thought that time seemed to be
passing particularly slowly within the room, as if it was sealed
off from the rest of the world in a time zone of its own, where
normal rules didn't apply.

'You talk like a proper pillock, don't you?' said Harry.

Tailby's jaw muscles tightened, but he restrained himself.

'We'd like to hear from you how you came to find the trainer,
Mr Dickinson.'

'I've told it --'

'Yes, I know you've told it before. Just tell us again, please.'

'I've got other things to do, you know.'

'Yes, I know,' said Tailby coolly. 'It's dominoes night.'

Harry took his pipe from the pocket of his jacket and poked at
the contents of the ceramic bowl. His movements were slow and
relaxed, and his expression was studiously placid. Hitchens began
to stir, but Tailby quelled him with a movement of his hand.

'You'll no doubt understand one day,' said Harry. 'That at my
age you can't go rushing up and down hill twice in one afternoon
and be in any fit state to go out of the house later on, without

J	o	'

having a bit of a kip in between. I don't have the energy for it
any more. There's no fighting it.' He ran a hand across his neatly

J	O	O	J

groomed hair, smoothing down the grey, Brylcreemed strands.
'No matter how many dead bodies you've found.'

'The sooner we get it over with, the sooner we'll be able to
leave you in peace.'

'I can't do anything more than that, not even for some
top-brass copper and all his big words. All this coming and
going and folk clattering about the house -- it wears me out.'

Tailby sighed. 'We'd really like to hear your story in your
own words, Mr Dickinson. Just tell us the story, will you?'

Harry stared at him defiantly. 'The story. Aye, well. Do you
want it with hand gestures or without, this story?'


55
1


To Diane shee there seemed to be something wrong with
the scene, a sort of subtle reversal. It was as though the two

'	o

detectives were waiting to be interviewed by the old man. not	_

IB

the other way round. Hitchens and Tailbv were unsettled, shifting	~

J	'	O

uncomfortably in their hard chairs, not sure what to say to break
the moment. Harry, though, was totally at ease, calm and still,
his feet planted in front of him on a worn patch of carpet. He
had placet] himself with his back to the window, so that he was
outlined against the view of the street, a faint aura forming around
his head and shoulders. Hitchens and Tailbv were looking into

J	O

the light, waiting for the old man to speak again.
'Without, then, is it?'
'Without, if you like, Mr Dickinson.'
'I was out with Jess.'
'Jess?'

'My dog.'

j &

'Of course. You were walking your dog.'
Harry lit a taper, puffed on his pipe. He seemed to be waiting,
to see if Tailby were going to take up the story himself.

'I were walking my dog, like you say. We always go down

O	^	O'	J	*	J	O

that way. I told the lad. Sergeant Cooper's --'

'Sergeant Cooper's lad, yes.'

'Interrupt a lot, don't you?' said Harry. 'Is that a, what you
call it, interview technique?'

Fry thought she detected the ghost of a smile on Tailbv's

J	o	o	j

face. Hitchens, though so genial at the office, did not look

'	C5 '	O	'

like smiling.

'Do go on, Mr Dickinson,' said Tailby.

'We always go down to the foot of Raven's Side. Jess likes to
run by the stream. After the rabbits. Not that she ever catches

any. It's a game, do you follow?'

j	& ~ ^

Harry puffed smoke into the room. It drifted in a small cloud
towards the ceiling, gathering round the glass bowl that hung
on tiny chains below a sixty-watt light bulb. A wide patch of
ceiling paper in the centre of the room was stained yellow
with smoke.

Fry watched the moving cloud, and realized that the old man
must sit every day in this same chair, in this room, to smoke his


56
.^iip What was his wife doina meanwhile7 Warchin" O>r,->n,if ;fin

I ~i	^>	O

.Street or Casualty on the colour television in the next room? And
what did Harry do while he was smoking? There were a few books
on a shelf set into the alcove formed by the chimney breast. The
titles she could make out were The Miners in Crisis and War and trade Unions in Britain, Choose Freedom and I he Ripper and the
Royals. There seemed to be only one novel -- Robert Harris's i-athcrliind. It was lined up with the other books, all regimented
into a neat row between two carved oak bookends. Three or
tour issues of the Guardian were pushed into a magazine rack by
the hearth. But there was no television here, no radio, no stereo.
Once the newspaper had been read, it would leave nothing for
the old man to do. Nothing but to listen to the ticking of the

O	O

clock, and to think.

Fry became aware of Harry's eyes on her. She felt suddenly
as though he could read her thoughts. But she could not read
his in return. His expression was impassive. He had the air of
an aristocrat, forced to suffer an indignity but enduring it with
composure.

'A game, Harry ..." prompted Hitchens. He had less patience
than the DCI. And every time he called the old man 'Harry'
it seemed to stiffen his shoulders a little bit more. Tailby was
politer, more tolerant. Fry liked to observe these things in her
senior officers. If she made enough observations, perhaps she
would be able to analyse them, put them through the computer,
produce the ideal set of character traits for a budding
DCI to aim for.

'Sometimes she fetches things,' said Harry. 'I sit on a rock,
smoke my pipe, watch the stream and the birds. Sometimes
there's otters, after the fish. If you sit still, they don't notice you .'

Tailby was nodding. Maybe he was a keen naturalist. Fry
didn't have much knowledge of wildlife. There hadn't been
a lot of it in Birmingham, apart from the pigeons and the
stray dogs.

'And while I sit, Jess brings me things. Sticks, like. Or a stone,
in her mouth. Sometimes she finds something dead.'

o

Harry paused. It was the first time Fry had seen him hesitate


57
unintentionally. He was thinking back over his last words, as if
surprised by what he had said. Then he shrugged.

'I mean a stoat or a blackbird. A squirrel once. If they're
fresh dead and not been marked too bad, there's a bloke over
at Hathersage will have 'em for his freezer."

'What?'

'He stuffs 'em,' said Harry. 'All legal. He's got a licence and
everything.'

'A taxidermist,' said Hitchens.

Fry could see Tailby frown. Harry puffed on his pipe with
extra vigour, as if he had just won a minor victory.

O	'	J	J

'But today, Mr Dickinson?' said Tailby.

'Ah, today. Today, Jess brought me something else. She went
off, rooting about in the bracken and that. I wasn't paying much
attention, just sitting. Then she came up to me, with something
in her mouth. I couldn't make out what it was at first. But it
was that shoe.'

'Did you see where the dog got it from?'

'No, I told you. She was out of sight. 1 took the shoe off her.
I remembered this lass you lot were looking for, the Mount
girl. It looked the sort of object she would wear, that lass. So
I brought it back. And my granddaughter phoned.'

'You knew Laura Vernon?'

'I reckon I know everybody in the village,' said Harry. 'It
isn't exactly Buxton here, you know. I've seen her all right.'

'When did you last see her, Mr Dickinson?' asked Tailby.

'Ah. Couldn't say that.'

'It might be very important.'

'Mmm?'

'If she was in the habit of going on to the Baulk, where you
walk your dog regularly, Mr Dickinson, you may have seen
her earlier.'

'You may also have seen her killer,' said Hitchens.

'Doubt it,' said Harry. The don't see anyone.'

'Surely --'

'I don't see anyone.'

Harry glared at Hitchens, suddenly aggressive. The DI saw it
and bridled immediately.


58
'This is a murder enquiry, Harry. Don't forget that. We
expect full cooperation.'

The old man pursed his lips. The skin around his mouth
puckered and wrinkled, but his eyes remained hard and cool.
'I reckon I've done my bit. I'm getting a bit fed up of you

^	O	O	I	^

iot now.'

'Tough. We're not messing about here. Harry. We're not

O	O	'	.

slaving games, like von throwing sticks for your dog to fetch.

l,OO-^	O	*	O

This is a serious business, and we need all the answers you can
give us.'

'Have you seen anybody else on the Baulk, Mr Dickinson?'
said Tailby gently.

'If I had,' said Harry, 'I'd remember, wouldn't I?'

Hitchens snorted and stirred angrily in his chair. 'Crap.'

'Hold on, Paul,' said Tailby automatically.

'Right. I'll not have that in my house,' said Harry. 'It's high
time you were off somewhere else, the lot of you, doing some
good.' He pointed the stem of his pipe towards Fry and her
notebook. 'And make sure you take the secretary lass with you.
She's making a mucky mark on my wall.'

'Detective Constable Fry will have to stay to take your
statement.'

'She'll have to wake me up first.'

Tailbv and Hitchens stood up, straightening their backs from

^	1 '	O	O

the hard chairs. The DCI looked too tall for the room. The house
had been built at a time when very few people stood more than
six foot. He must have had to stoop to get through the door,
though Fry hadn't noticed it.

'We may want to speak to you again, Mr Dickinson,' said
Tailby.

'You'd be better off sending that lad next time.'

'I'm afraid you'll have to put up with DI Hitchens and myself.
Sorry and all that, but we expect you to cooperate fully with our
enquiries, however long they may take. Are you sure there isn't
anything else you'd like to say to me just now, Mr Dickinson?'

'Oh yes,' said Harry.

'What's that?'

<BWr °$'


B9
JNIo sooner had the police left than the little cottage was
again full of people. Helen watched from the kitchen as her
mother and father fussed into the back room, flapping round
her grandparents as if they were naughty children who needed
scolding and reassuring at the same time.

o	o

'My goodness, you two, what's been going on? All these
police up here? What have you been doing, Harry?'

Andrew Milner was in a short-sleeved cotton shirt with
a frivolous blue and green pattern, but he still had on the
trousers of the dark-grey suit he wore for the office. He
smelled faintly of soap and a suggestion of whisky fumes.
Helen didn't need to be told that her father had showered
after arriving home from work and had already drunk his first
Glenmorangie of the evening by the time she had phoned. He
wore clip-on sun shades over his glasses, which he had to flip
up as soon as he stepped over the threshold of the cottage. Now
they stood out horizontally from his forehead like extravagant
eyebrows.

Harry looked up at Andrew from his chair, no gesture of
welcome breaking the rigidity of his expression.

'I dare say young Helen's told you what you need to know.'

Margaret Milner was fanning herself with a straw hat. She was

o	o

a large woman and felt the heat badly. Her floral dress swirled
and rustled around her knees and wafted powerful gusts of body
spray throughout the room.

'A dead body. How awful. You poor things.'

'It was a shoe your dad found,' said Gwen, who had not yet
tired of the excitement. 'One of those trainer things. They said
there was a dead girl with it, but your dad didn't see her. Did
you, Harry?'

'It was Jess,' said Harry. 'Jess that found it.'

'But there was . . . Was there blood?'

'So they reckon.'


60
'The young policeman took it away,' said Gwen. 'The first
one, the young one."

'The Cooper lad,' said Harrv.

'Who?'

'Sergeant Cooper's son. The old copper. You remember all
i!ie Fuss, surely?'

'Oh, I know.' Margaret turned to her daughter. 'Didn't you
u'. <\ to kno\\ him very well at school, Helen7 Is that the one?
I remember now. You liked him, didn't you?'

Helen fidgeted, ready to escape back to the kitchen to make
more tea. She loved her parents and her grandparents, but she
was uncomfortable when they were all together. She could communicate
with them one at a time, but when they were gathered
in a family group there was a kind of blanket of incomprehension
that descended between them.

'Yes, Mum, Ben Cooper.'

'You always seemed to get on well. But he never asked you
out, did he? I always thought it was a shame.'

'Mum --'

'I know, I know -- it's nothing to do with me.'

o

'Forget it, Mum. This isn't the time.'

'We've had a body,' said Gwen plaintively, appealing to the
room, as if someone, somewrhere could give her consolation,
even tell her it hadn't happened.

'And it was the Vernons' girl?' said Andrew impatiently. Helen
noticed her father's faint Scottish accent creeping through in the
r's, as it did when he was under stress. 'Did they say it was
definitelv Laura Vernon?'

J

'She had to be identified, they said.' Gwen looked challengingly
towards Harry, letting it be known that she had been listening at
the door when the police had been interviewing him. Harry took
no notice. He was feeling at his pocket, as if all he wanted to do
was pull out his pipe and retire to the front room, to escape to
his sanctuary.

'They reckon it was her all right,' said Harry.

'Poor little thing,' said Margaret. 'She was only a kiddie. Who
would do a thing like that, Helen?'

'She was fifteen. Would you like some tea?'


61
'Fifteen. Just a child. They gave her everything, her mother
and father did. A private school, her own horse. All that money,
just think of it. And look what it comes to.'

'I wonder what Graham Vernon will think,' said Andrew.

'What do you mean, Dad?'

J	'

'Well, it's awkward. You know - just imagine what state he's
in over the girl. And then it has to be my own father-in-law who
finds her.'

'What does that matter to him, for heaven's sake? Their
daughter's dead -- it won't make any difference to them who

O	J

found her.'

'Well, it's just awkward, that's all.'

'Andrew thinks his role is to be Graham Vernon's loyal
lackey,' said Margaret. 'Being involved in the murder of his
daughter rather ruins the image, doesn't it?'

o	o '

'Involved? Well, hardly,' protested Andrew.

'However distantly, of course,' said Margaret, with a smile
of satisfaction. The suppose it's bound to make you feel tainted
by association.'

'Stop it, Margaret.'

'Perhaps it would have been better if Dad had just walked
on and ignored it, and said nothing. Better for you, anyway. I'm
surprised he didn't think of your reputation at the time. It was
very remiss of you, Dad.'

Harry took his empty pipe out and sucked on its stem, looking
from one to the other. Helen thought he was the only one of
them who was enjoying the conversation.

'Anyway, they haven't much of a reputation up there to be
worried about, have they?' said Margaret.

'That's not fair. The Vernons are very well-respected.'

Margaret snorted contemptuously. 'Respected. Not in this
house. What do you say, Dad?'

'Rich buggers. Ignorant rubbish.'

Helen smiled. 'That needed saying too. They've done enough
to this familv. Why should we let something like this affect us?

^	J	o

I'm sorry for their trouble, but it's their trouble, not ours. It's
nothing to do with Granddad. Blow the Vernons. We have to
see that Grandma and Granddad are all right.'

O


62
'Of course we do. Andrew?'

'Well, all right.'

'We're lucky we're a proper family and can stand together,'
said Margaret. 'Not like them up there. That's been their
problem, of course. That's been the cause of all the trouble
in the past. They don't know what a family should be. And that's the cause of this bit of trouble, too, you'll see.'

'We should talk about it,' said Helen. 'We should have talked
about it before.'

'He won't,' said Gwen. 'He won't talk about it to anybody.'

^

'There's no need for it,' said Harry. 'Let it rest.'

Helen stood by his chair and put her hand on his arm.
'Granddad?'

He patted her hand and smiled up at her. 'Believe me, lass,
there's no need.'

She sighed. 'No, we've never talked about anything important,
have we? Not ever, in this family. Except when we were angry
or vipset. And that's not the time to talk. It's not the time to
do anything.'
'Well, I don't know what you mean by that, I'm sure,' said
Margaret. 'I'm as capable as anyone of talking things over without
getting upset about it.'

Margaret's voice was becoming high-pitched. She tossed her
head and fiddled with an earring, glaring at her husband as

o' o	o

if challenging him not to support her. But Andrew turned
away with sagging shoulders and found himself staring into

J	oo o	o

the mournful eyes of Jess, who had crept into the corner of
the room to listen. The dog's ears twitched from side to side

o

as she assessed the sound of their voices, trying to judge the

J O	*	O

mood and looking dejected at what she heard.

'There was no need for you to come here, you know,' said
Harry. 'No need at all. We were managing perfectly well, us
and Helen.'

'We could hardly stay away at a time like this,' said Margaret.
'We're your family, after all.'

Harry stood and walked slowly to the stairs. 'I'll be going
out for a while,' he said.


63
And before anybody could ask him where to, he had disappeared.
They could hear water running and the sound of
a wardrobe door creaking above them through the ancient
floorboards.

'Where is he going?' asked Andrew.

o o

'Not to the pub, surely?' said Margaret. 'Not at a time
like this.'

'Oh, yes,' said Gwcn. 'He'll be going to meet them.'


Half an hour later, Harry had escaped from the cottage and was
settled into an entirely different atmosphere, where he didn't
need to be prompted to tell his story. When he had finished,
it required a moment of quiet contemplation, a few swallows
of beer, a companionable silence to emphasize the seriousness
of the occasion.

'Well, Harry. Police and all.'

'Oh aye, them, all right, Sam. A bucketload of 'em.'
'Making a nuisance of themselves, I suppose?'
'They try, some of them. But they don't bother me.'
The corner of the Drover between the fire and the window
smelled strongly of old men and muddy dogs. The seats of the
wooden settles the men sat on were worn smooth to the shape
of their buttocks, and their boots seemed to ease themselves
into familiar depressions in the dark carpet tiles.

Sam Beeley had rested his stick against the table. Its ivory
handle, shaped like the head of an Alsatian dog, stared at the
beaten brass surface with contempt. Occasionally, Sam stroked
the ivory with a bony hand, fondling the Alsatian's worn ears
in his yellow fingers, or tapping it with a twisted thumbnail on
the corner of the brass. His knees cracked when he moved, and
he shuffled his toes uncomfortably in soft suede shoes as if he
was unable to find a position that did not give him pain. He
was the thinnest of the three men, but his thinness was almost
masked by the multiple layers of clothes that he wore, despite
the warmth of the evening. The emaciation showed most in
his hands and in his face, where the flesh had sunk into his
cheeks and his eye sockets were dark pools where weak blue
eyes flickered.


64
'Bloody coppers,' he said, his voice rough with cigarette
smoke. 'What do you reckon, Wiltord?

'We can do without 'em, Sam.'

'True enough.'

'Oh aye.'

Wilford Cults had removed his cap to reveal a tangle of
white hair around a pale scalp that contrasted sharply with the
ruddy colour of his face. He had an untidv white moustache
and a suggestion of sideburns that might once have been bushy
around his ears. His neck was thick and sinewy and ran into
heavy shoulders that could no longer be called well-muscled,
but sagged forward into his sweater, soft and fleshy. His palms
were stained with grime, and his fingernails were dark against the
side of his beer glass. Dark fibres clung to his corduroy trousers,
which were worn at the knees and stiff at the calves, where they
were tucked into grey woollen socks. He kept his feet pushed
out of sight under the bench, in case the landlord should notice
the caked soil drying on the soles of his boots.

'So it's what they call a murder enquiry then, is it, Harry?
They've worked out what happened to the lass?'

'They didn't say, Wilford.'

'No?'

'No.'

'Bloody coppers.'

Harry was keeping his cap firmly in place. He was the centre
of attention, the man of the moment, but it didn't do to get too
excited. He had put on a clean shirt to walk to the pub, and a tie
with a discreet paisley pattern fastened neatly round his throat.
His feet were thrust out in front of him into the room, where
die wall lights were reflected in his polished toecaps.

Now and then one of the pub's customers would call to
him across the room, and he acknowledged their greetings
with a brief nod, not uncivil, but deliberately reserved. He
stared, tight-lipped, at a group of youths and girls he didn't
recognize, who were laughing noisily at the far end of the bar,
trying to talk above each other and now and then breaking into
bursts of song.

O

By unspoken consent, Sam sat closest to the fire, although


65
it was summer and the grate was empty. Wilford sat furthest
away, with his back to the door, hidden in the shadow of the
alcove. There were two pints of Marston's Bitter and a half of
stout on the table, next to a heap of well-worn dominoes which
had been emptied from their box and left untouched. With the
round of drinks had come a packet of smoky bacon crisps, which
Wilford slid into his pocket.

'And how arc the family bearing up?' said Sam. 'Bit of a shock
for the womenfolk, no doubt.'

Harry shrugged. 'That son-in-law of mine is the worst by a
long chalk,' he said. 'He can't stand it at all. Worried about his precious job with Vernon.'

'He'd crack like a nut, that one. Sorry to say it, Harry. But if
he had anything to hide, if he ever found himself under suspicion.
He'd cough, all right.'

o '	to

The slang expression brought a small smile to Harry's face.
Like Sam, he had heard it used last night in the latest television
police series, set in some drug-ridden area of inner London,
where the detectives were more like criminals than the criminals
themselves.

'Has he?' asked Wilford suddenly.

'Has who what?'

'Has Andrew Milner got anything to hide?'

O	J	O

'You must be joking,' said Harry. 'Our Margaret knows every
hole in his socks. The poor bugger couldn't hide a pimple on
his arse.'

'The police are useless, anyway,' said Sam. "They never know
who to talk to, what questions to ask. If they solve anything, it's
by luck round here.'

Wilford laughed. 'Not like on the telly, Sam.'

'Well, on the telly they always sort it out. That stands to
reason. They're just stories. There wouldn't be much point
putting them on the telly otherwise, would there?'

'I suppose it's a sort of warning to people, like,' said Wilford.
'It's telling them not to commit murders and crimes, because

O	'

they'll get caught, like they always do on the telly.'

'But they don't really get caught,' said Sam. 'Not in real life
they don't. Half of 'em never get found out. And those that do


66
get caught are let off by the judges. They get probation or one
of them other things."

'Community service,' said Harry. He pronounced the words
carefully, as if he had never actually heard them spoken but had
only seen them as an unfamiliar combination of syllables printed
in the court reports of the Bu.\ton Advertiser.

Sam curled his lip. 'Aye. Community service. When was that
r\or a punishment for a crime? Making 'em do a bit of honest
work. It's just like letting them off. It's true, you can get away
with owt these days. Murder, even.'

'But the people who watch the telly don't know that,' said
Wilford. 'Mostly they have no idea. They think it is real life on
the box. The kids today. And the women, of course. They don't
know the difference. They think when there's a crime Inspector
Morse comes out and works it all out in the pub with a pencil
and a bit of paper and the murderer gets banged up.'

'Banged up, aye. For life.'

They lapsed into silence again, staring at each other's drinks,
trying to imagine the reality of spending the rest of their lives in
prison. A life sentence might mean ten, twenty or thirty years
-- it was all the same for a man in his late seventies or eighties.

o

He would never be likely to see the outside again.

'You'd miss the open air something terrible in prison,' said
Sam.

The other two nodded, their heads turning automatically to
the window, where, even in the dusk, the outline of the Witches
could be made out against the southern sky, jagged and black
on the horizon of Win Low. A ripple of unease ran round the
table. Sam shivered and clutched at his stick, rubbing the ivory
as if seeking comfort from its smooth shape. Wilford ran his
hands nervously through his untidy hair and reached for his glass.

J	O	J	O

Even Harry seemed to become more tight-lipped, a shade more
cautious.

'No. You couldn't be doing with that,' he said. 'Not at all.'

The three old men looked sideways at each other, unspoken

messages passing between them in the tentative movements of

their hands and the tilting of their heads. It was a level of

communication they had learned in their working lives, when


67
they had been isolated from the rest of the world in their own
enclosed space, where conversation was unnecessary and at times
impossible. At such moments, they could still cut themselves off
from the world around them, pushing the noise and bustle of
the pub into the distance as effectively as if they had been sitting in oik' of those dark tunnels a mile undcroround, far from th*o	'


surface light.

Sam fumbled a pac kct of ten Fmbassv and a box of matches
from somewhere among his clothing and lit a cigarette, squinting
his pale eyes against the cloud of smoke that hung in the still air,
obscuring his face. Wilford ran his dirt-stained fingers through his
hair, momentarilv revealing an unnaturally white patch of naked

'	J	O	J	1

scalp at the side of his head, where the skin was stretched thin
and tight like paper. Harry fiddled with his unlit pipe, poking
a few dominoes about the table with the stem, separating the
tiles that were face down. He stared at them fixedly, as though	f

hoping to read their numbers through their patterned backs.	I

'There are some that would have a troubled conscience,
though,' suggested Wilford. 'They say that can be as bad as
anything anybody else can do to you.'

'It can drive folks mad,' agreed Sam.

'Like being in your own hell, I reckon. That would be punishment,
all right.'

'Worse than community service, any road.'

'Worse than prison?' asked Harry.

They looked unsure about that. They were picturing a narrow,
confined cell and bars, the knowledge of hundreds of other men
crowded together like ants, allowed out into a yard for an hour
each day. Shut away from the light and the air for ever.

'You'd have to have a conscience to start with, of course,'
said Wilford.

'There aren't many that have one these days,' agreed Sam.

J	J ' o

They both looked at Harry, waiting for his response. But
Harry didn't seem to want to think about it. He got up stiffly,
collected their glasses and walked across the room to the bar.

O

He looked to neither right nor left as he moved through the

o	O

crowd of youngsters, his back upright, like a man entirely apart
from those around him. Drinkers parted automatically to let him


68
through, and the landlord served him without having to be told
the order.

Harry's jacket and tie looked incongruously formal and sober
among the T-shirts and shorts of the other customers. He could
have been an elderlv undertaker who had wandered into a
wedding reception. When he turned his head, the peak of his
cap swung like a knife across a background of pink limbs and
sunburnt faces.

'So the bloke who killed this lass,' said Harry when he returned
to the corner table. 'Do you reckon he'll get away with it?'

'Depends,' said Wilford. 'Depends whether the coppers have
a bit of luck. Perhaps somebody saw something and decides to
tell them about it. Or some bobby asks the right question by
accident. That's the only way it happens.'

'They have their suspicions, no doubt.'

'It doesn't matter what they suspect. They can't do anything
without evidence,' said Wilford confidently.

'Evidence. Aye, that's what they'll want.'

'They'll be desperate for it. Desperate for a bit of evidence.'

'They reckon that Sherratt lad has gone missing,' said Sam.

J	O	o'

'Daft bugger.'

OO

'It'll keep the coppers busy, I suppose, looking for him. He'll
be the number one suspect.'

'Unless they fancy blaming it on one of the family,' said
Wilford. 'That's where they always look first.'

'Aye,' said Sam, brightening suddenly. 'Or the boyfriend.'

'Ah! Which boyfriend?' asked Harry.

'That's the question. With that one, that's the first question
you'd have to ask.'

'And only fifteen,' said Sam.

They shook their heads in despair

'Well, that's the best bit, eh, Harry?'

'Oh aye,' said Harry. 'That's the best bit. When they do all
their enquiring, they'll turn up all sorts. They're bound to find
out about those buggers at the Mount. The Vernons.'

'Maybe when they do . . .'

'. . . they won't be so bothered about finding out who put
the cat among their pigeons.'


69
'Maybe,' said Harry, 'they'd even jrive him a medal.'
The youths at the other end of the pub turned in astonishment
to stare at the three old men in the corner. For once, the
laughter of the old men was even louder and more unnatural
than their own.


Helen stood with her grandmother on the doorstep of the cottage,
watching the lights of the Renault disappear past the bend
by the church. The night was clear and still quite warm, and the
stars glowed in a dark-blue blanket of sky. Only the streetlamps
here and there and the security lights outside the Coach House
and the Old Vicarage created areas that seemed truly dark.

'It was nice to see Sergeant Cooper's son, wasn't it? He's
made a nice-looking young man.'

'Yes, Grandma.'

'Ben, is it?'

'That's right.'

'He's the one you used to bring round to the house after
school sometimes, isn't he, Helen?'

'Only once or twice, Grandma. And that was years ago.'

'I remember, though. I remember how you looked at him.
And then you told me one day that you were going to marry
him when you grew up. I remember that.'

^	O	I

'All little girls get crushes like that. I don't even know

him now.'

'I suppose so. But he has nice eyes. Dark brown.'

They turned back into the house. Helen noticed that Gwen was

reluctant even to look into the kitchen, let alone go near the door,

'	o	'

although the police had long since taken away the bloodstained
trainer and the pages of the Buxton Advertiser with it.

'They'll be up at the Mount now,' said Helen. 'I don't envy
them the job. They have to tell Mr and Mrs Vernon what
they've found.'

Her grandmother looked at the clock, fiddled with her cardigan,
folded and unfolded a small piece of pink tissue from
her sleeve.

'One of them will have to go and identify the body,
you know. 1 suppose he'll be the one who does it. But it


70
will hit her hard, Charlotte Vernon. Don't you think so,
Grandma?

Gwen shook her head, and Helen saw a small tear gather at
the corner of one eye, brightening for a moment the dry skin
of her check.

'I know I should do,' said Gwcn. 'I know I should feel sorry
for them, but I don't. I can't help it, Helen.'

Helen sat on the side of her grandmother's chair and put her
arm around her thin shoulders.

'It's all right, Grandma. It's understandable. There's no need
to upset yourself. What if I make some hot chocolate, then
there might be something you can watch on TV until Granddad
comes back.'

Gwen nodded and sniffed, and found another piece of tissue
that was still intact to wipe her nose. Helen patted her shoulder
and began to move towards the kitchen until her grandmother's
voice stopped her. It sounded harsh and full of fear, and trembling
on the edge of despair.

'What's going to happen to Harry?' she said. 'Oh dear God,
what will they do to Harry?'


71
1 lie murluary assistant drew back ilie plastic sheet from the
face with care. The relatives should never be allowed to see the
injuries on the body, unless it \vas absolutely necessary. In this
case, the lace was bad enough, although it had been cleaned up
as far as possible in the time they had been given. The maggots
had been scooped away and bottled, the eyes cleaned and closed,
the dried blood scraped off for testing. With the hair pushed back,
the injuries to the side of the head were not readily visible.

'Yes,' said Graham Vernon, without hesitation.

'You are identifying the remains as those of your daughter,

j O	J	&

Laura Vernon, sir?' asked DCI Tailby.

'Yes. That's what I said, isn't it?'

'Thank you very much, sir.'

'Is that it?'

'It's a necessary formality which allows the other procedures
to get under way.'

o	J

The assistant was already drawing the sheet back over Laura's

J	O

face, returning her to the anonymity of the recently dead, until
the postmortem examination could be completed.

'Does one of your procedures involve catching my daughter's
murderer, by any chance, Chief Inspector?' said Vernon, without
taking his eyes from the body.

There was no need for Tailby to have been present in person
when Graham Vcrnon identified his daughter's body, but he saw
it as a valuable chance to observe the reactions of relatives. He
watched Vernon now as the man stepped away from the sheeted
mound that had been his daughter. He saw his eves linger with

O	J	O

that familiar horrid fascination on the loose ridges and hollows of
green plastic that concealed the dead girl's face. Vernon's hands
moved constantly, touching his face and his mouth, smoothing
his jacket, rubbing their soft fingers together in a series of
involuntary gestures that could mean nervousness or barely
concealed distress. His face told its own story.


72
Manv parents and bereaved spouses had told Tallin' that at this
point their minds still refused to accept the reality of death. They
«-.mid imagine their loved one sitting up suddenly and laughing
at the joke, the sheet falling away from features restored to life
and health. Was Graham Vernon thinking this now? Did he still
see and hear a living Laura? And, it so, what was she telling him
that made him look so afraid?

There was a (uk- line to tread in these cases. The family of a
victim had to be treated with care and consideration. Yet ninety
per cent of murders were 'domestics', in which a family member
or close friend was responsible. Tailby was no longer moved by
the various symptoms of distress displayed by relatives. It was
a necessary ability in the job he did, this hardening of the
emotions. Sometimes, though, he was forced to acknowledge
that it had weakened him as a person; it was a long time since
he had been able to form a close relationship.

'You appreciate that we will need to talk to you and your

wife again, sir,' he said, when Vernon finallv turned awav.

S ' '	'	j	j

There isn't anything else I can tell you that I haven't already.'
'We need to know as much about Laura's background as we

O

can. We need to interview all her friends and associates again.
We need to identify any links that we haven't yet discovered.
We need to trace her movements on the day she was killed.
There's a lot to be done.'

'Just find Lee Sherratt!' snapped Vernon. 'That's all you need
to do, Chief Inspector.'

'Enquiries arc being made in that respect, sir.'

'And what does that mean, for God's sake?'

The two men walked out through the double doors into the
corridor, attempting to leave behind the stink of antiseptic. Their
footsteps echoed on a tiled floor as Tailby lengthened his stride
to keep up with Vernon, who seemed to want to get away as
quickly as possible.

'We'll find the boy, of course, sir. In time. I remain hopeful.'

Vernon stopped suddenly, so that Tailby couldn't avoid bumping
into him. They ended up almost eye to eye, though the
detective was several inches taller. Vernon stared upwards with


73
a ferocious scowl, his handsome face swollen into a grimace.
His eyes were tired and shot with tiny red veins, and he had
shaved unevenly on one side of his face.

'I seem to remember you saying something like that before,
Chief Inspector. Nearly two davs ago. But that time you were
assuring me that you would find my daughter.'

Tailby waited, not blinking in the face of Graham Vernon's
stare. 'Yes, sir.'

'But somebody else found her first. Didn't they?'

Tailby recalled the painful scene earlier in the evening, when
he had visited the Mount to break the news to the Vernons. He
remembered the way that neither parent had shown any surprise
on seeing him, only despair and resignation.

He also remembered Charlotte Vernon's slow deterioration
into sobbing hysteria, the retreat to a bedroom somewhere,
and Graham Vernon's phone call to their doctor. They had
been both shocked and upset, of course. But they had reacted
entirely separately -- there had not been the smallest gesture of
mutual support in the first moments after the bad news had
been broken.

The two men were through the outside door and at the top
of the mortuary steps when Tailby spoke again. To their right,
through a screen of dark conifers, they could see the lighted
windows of the medical wards of Edendale General Hospital,
a series of modern two-storey brick buildings added to the
rambling Victorian original. The lights looked cheerful and
bright in contrast with the plain facade of the mortuary and
its discreet car park.

'Apart from the fact that he seems to have temporarily
disappeared, there is no firm evidence at this stage to link
Lee Sherratt with the death of your daughter,' said the DCI
reasonably.

'That's your job, surely, Chief Inspector. It's up to you to
find the evidence. I just hope you're going to get on with it
now.'

His voice had grown louder once they were free of the
atmosphere of the mortuary. He had reverted to the brusque
and impatient businessman. It had been interesting to observe


74
the change in him in the presence of his daughter's body. But
the change had been short-lived.

'All we know of Lee Sherratt, sir, is that he was employed
by you as a gardener for the last four months. You gave him
employment after he answered an advertisement in the window
or Moorhay post office. Until then, he seems not to have known
your family at all. His skills appear to have been of a labouring
nature - digging and weeding, using a lawn mower and push
in? a wheelbarrow rather than anything requiring horticultural

O	/	O	1	O

expertise, since he has absolutely no training and no experience
in that field. Am I right?'

'That's all we wanted -- a labourer. My wife has all the
expertise we needed.'

'Indeed. And though he is twenty years old, this was the first
job Sherratt had ever obtained, apart from a short spell as a
warehouse assistant at the Tesco supermarket here in Edendale.
He likes drinking, he admits he has had several casual girlfriends,
and he is known to follow the fortunes of Sheffield Wednesday
FC. It hardly seems much to reach a conclusion from, sir.'

'Look, his father's in prison for receiving stolen goods,' said
Vcrnon. 'And the boy himself was involved in stealing a tourist's
car. What do you make of that?'

'A criminal background, eh? Then why did you employ him,
Mr Vernon?'

Vernon turned away, staring at the police car waiting in the
car park. 'I wanted to give him a chance. I don't believe young
men like that should be hanging around idle with nothing to do

& &	O

but get into trouble. Is that so wrong? Also, he looked like a

O	O	'

strong youth who could cope with the heavy work. All right,
I admit I made a mistake, but how could I have known what
he would turn out to be?'

'His mother says he's just an ordinary young man who likes
girls and beer and football.'

'Crap!' said Vernon. 'Look a bit deeper, Chief Inspector.
You'll find Sherratt is a violent yob who was obsessed with my
daughter. I warned him off, I sacked him. And a few days later
she's found attacked and murdered. Who else are you going to
suspect?'


75
Vernon stalked off and got into the car that was waiting to take
him home to Moorhay. But Stewart Failby stood thoughtfully for
a moment on the mortuary steps, considering the last question.
On reflection, he was glad that Vernon hadn't waited to be given
the answer.


Diane Fry had got a lift back into Edendale with two traffic
officers. She had been sent off dutv for the night, while DCI
Tailby himself had made the journey up to the Mount to ask
the Vernons to identify the body.

As she sat behind the traffic men rustling in their yellow
fluorescent jackets, she began to feel the familiar sensation of
growing despondency as the tension left her and the adrenaline
subsided. Very shortly she would have to walk away from the job
and face up to the bleak reality of her personal life for another
depressing evening.

'Thanks, fellers!' she called as the car dropped her in the
station yard.

The driver waved a hand nonchalantly in her direction, but
his partner turned to look at her as the Rover pulled away.
He eyed her curiously and said something to the driver which
Fry couldn't make out. She dismissed it from her mind as not	1

worth bothering about. She had seen female colleagues rushing 1
like lemmings to destroy their own careers in the force because
they had let totally petty incidents get out of proportion and
fester in their minds.

First she walked up to the CID room. All the lights were on,
and one or two of the computer screens were flickering with
screen savers that looked like all the stars of the galaxy rushing
past the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise. But the place was
devoid of human life, not even a DC on night duty. Fry sat at
her desk and wrote up her notes of the interview with Harry
Dickinson. She knew that Tailby would be demanding them
first thing, before the morning briefing, and she wanted them

O'	O	O'

to be there for him before he had to ask. It would mean another
small credit to her name -- and it would also mean she would
be available immediately for allocation to an enquiry team.
The report didn't take her long. She was a competent typist,


76
and her note-taking was accurate and legible. She hesitated for
only a moment when she reached the end of the interview, but
decided to include the final comment from Harrv Dickinson for
the sake of completeness. As she wrote that Dickinson had told

DCI Tailbv to 'bugger off. she was surprised to find herself

j	oo	'	r

Mulling. She quickly changed the expression to a grimace, then
a frown, looking round the empty office to be sure that no one
wis watching her. It wasn't her stvle to laugh at senior officers
-- she had never joined in the irreverent banter and rude jokes
of the canteen, either here or at West Midlands. She couldn't
understand what there was about Harry Dickinson's comment
that could have made her smile.

She printed out two copies of her notes and dropped one
into the tray on DI Hitchens's desk. Then she walked up to
the incident room, where a DS and a computer operator were
huddled together over a telephone and a screen full of data. They
both ignored her as she cast around for the action file to insert

O

the second copy of her report. She knew that, in the morning,
when the regular day shift came on, the room would be buzzing
with activity. From what she had seen of Tailby, she was sure
he would be fully up to date and reminded of the details of the
day by the time everyone arrived for briefing.

Then, finally, there wras nothing left for her to do. She shut
the incident room door quietly and walked back down through
the almost empty building to the car park.

After she had deactivated the alarm on her black Peugeot,
she stood for a moment, looking at the back wall of the
police station. There was nothing at all to see, but for a
few lighted windows, where shadowy outlines could be made
out occasionally as officers went about their business. Probably

some of them were resentful about being on dutv when they

&	j	j

would rather be at home with their iamilies or out at the pub or
whatever else police officers did in their free time. Fry guessed
that very few of them would resent having to leave the station
and go home. She started the Peugeot and drove too quickly
out of the yard.

In Edendale, as in any other small town, the evening often

'	J	'	o

meant almost deserted streets for long periods, interrupted by


77
straggling groups of young people heading for the pubs between
eight and nine o'clock, and the same groups, stumbling now.

o	'	o	i '	o	'

returning home at half past eleven or looking for buses and taxis
to take them on to night clubs or parties.

Many of the youngsters who littered the streets at night were
not only the worse for drink, but were also plainly underage.
Diane Fry knew enough to turn a blind eye when she passed
them. Fvery police officer would do so, unless some other offence
was being committed -- an assault, a breach of the peace, abusive
language or indecent exposure. Underage drinking could only
be tackled in the pubs themselves, and there were always more
urgent things to do, always other priorities.

Today was Monday, and even the young people were thin on
the ground as Fry drove down Greaves Road towards the town
centre. She circled the roundabout at the end of the pedestrianized
shopping area and automatically looked to her right down
Clappergate. There were lights on in the windows of Boots the
Chemists and McDonald's, where three youths slouched against
the black cast-iron street furniture, eating Chicken McNuggets

'	O	OO

and large fries prior to adding their cartons to the debris already
littering the paving stones.

Most of the shops were shrouded in darkness, abandoning the
town to the pubs and restaurants. Fry had not yet got used to the
mixture of shops in Edendale. By day, there was a small baker's
shop in Clappergate with wicker baskets and an ancient delivery
boy's bicycle strung with onions and a painted milk churn, all
standing outside on the pavement. A few doors down was a
New Age shop rich with the smell of aromatherapy oils and
scented candles and the glint of crystals. In between them lay
SpecSavers and the dry cleaners and a branch of the Derbyshire
Building Society.

Further along, on Hulley Road, a couple in their thirties stood
looking into the darkened window of one of the estate agents

o	o

near the market square. They were probably weighing up the
prices of properties in Catch Wind and Pysenny Banks, the
more picturesque and desirable parts of old Edendale, where
the stone-walled streets were barely wide enough for a car
and the river ran past front gardens filled with lobelias and


78
to

lichen-covered millstones. Diane shee wondered why the couple
had chosen to visit the estate agent's at night. Where were they
aoing, where had they come from? What intimate plans were
they making for themselves, the two of them together?

She had to stop at the lights at the far end of the square. On
her right, running down the hill, were steep cobbled alleys with names like Nimble John's Gate and Nick i'th Tor. Narrow pubs
and tea rooms and craft shops filled the corners of these alleys
like latecomers crowding round the edges of the main shopping
area. Of course, they really were latecomers -- attracted by the
twentieth-century influx of tourists rather than by the traditional
trade of a market town.

Fry had researched her new area, and knew that a fair share of
the Peak District's twenty-two million visitors found their way to
Edendale each year, in one form or another. By day, the market
square was frequently impassable because of the volume of traffic
passing through or seeking parking spaces on the cobbles near
the public toilets and the recycling skips.

A huge Somerfield's lorry rolled slowly across the junction,
heading for the back of the supermarket that had recently opened
on Fargate, replacing a derelict cotton mill. Beyond the junction,
the Castleton Road began to climb past rows of pebble-dashed
semis. On either side, close-packed residential areas spiralled
up the hillsides, houses lining narrow, winding roads that took

i	'	O	'	O

sudden twists and turns to follow the humps and hollows of the
underlying contours. The roads were made even narrower up

^	O	I

there by the cars parked nose to tail at the kerb, except on the
worst of the bends. The bigger houses had made room for short

oo

drives and garages, but the humbler cottages had not been built
for people with cars.

Further out, the houses became newer as they got higher,

'	J O	O

though they were built of the same white stone. On the edge of

O	J	O

town were small council estates where the streets were called
'Closes' and had grass verges. Finally, there was an area where

O	O	J '

the housing petered out in a scattering of smallholdings and

or	o	o

small-scale dairy farms. In some places, it was difficult to see
where town became country, with farm buildings converted into homes and mews-style developments, lying shoulder to shoulder


79
with muddy crewyards, fields full of black and white cows and
pervasive rural smells.

Eventually, the pressure for more housing would force up
the price of the farmland, and the town would continue its
spread. But for now, Edendale was constrained in its hollow
by the barrier of hills.

Turning from Castleton Road into Grosvcnor Avenue, Fry
finallv pulled up at the kerb outside number twelve. The house
had once been solid and prosperous, just one detached Victorian
villa in a tree-lined street. Its front door nestled in mock porticos,
and the tiny bedsitters on the top floor were reached only by
hidden servants' staircases.

Her own flat, on the first floor, consisted of a bedroom,
sitting room, bathroom with shower cubicle and a tiny kitchen
area. The wallpaper was striped in a faded shade of brown, and
the pattern on the carpet was a complicated swirl of washed-out
blues and pinks and yellows, as if designed to hide any substance
spilt on it. Judging by the background smell, there must have
been many things spilt in the flat over the years that she would
not have liked to name. Most of the other occupants of the house
were students at the High Peak College campus on the west side
of town.

Fry made herself cheese on toast and a cup of tea and took a
Muller low-fat yoghurt from a fridge that smelled suspiciously
of rotting fish and onions. No amount of cleaning had removed
the smell, but in any case she intended to keep only a minimum
amount of food in the fridge, preferring to visit the shops as often
as required, glad to take any excuse to be out of the flat. There
was an Asian corner shop a quarter of a mile away where the
young couple behind the counter had seemed pleasant enough.
A friendly greeting over the sliced bread and gold top could be
welcome at times.

After her meal, she spent ten minutes poin? through some

'	1	O	O	O

gentle exercises, winding down from the day as she would after
a practice session at the dojo, flexing her muscles and stretching
her joints and limbs. Then she showered and put on her old
black silk kimono with the Chinese dragon on the back and the

O

Yin and Yang symbols on the breast.


80
Tomorrow, she decided, she would make a point of getting
hold of the Yellow Pages and looking up names and addresses
of local martial arts centres. She would not find an instructor
quite like her old shotokan master in Warley, and she would
have to adapt to new techniques. But she could not let her
skills go rusty. The ability to defend herself had become too
important to her now. Besides, she relished the renewed feeling
of confidence and power that karate had brought her. And it
required total concentration. With shotokan and her job, she
might never have to think about anything else.

Fry didn't spend too much time considering the Laura Vernon
killing. At present, her mind was a blank, awaiting data on
which to base deductions, to make connections. She was looking
forward to the morning, when she expected to be able to take in
a barrage of facts that would be presented at the briefing, to see
lines of enquiry open up like so many doors of opportunity.

For one brief moment, a small niggle entered her mind, a

'	oo	'

passing irritation that might have to be dealt with at some stage.
It concerned DC Ben Cooper. The detective everyone loved; the
man most likely to stand in her way. The picture that entered
her mind was of a six-foot male with broad shoulders and perfect
teeth, smiling complacently. She considered him fleetingly, then
pushed him off the stage with an imaginary hand in the face. There
were no obstacles that couldn't be overcome. There were no
problems, only challenges.

Finally, she switched on the television in the corner to watch
a late-night film before bedtime. It was some sort of old horror

O

film, in black and white. From her place in the old armchair,
she was able to feel under the bed with one hand, her eyes
on the TV. She pulled out a two-pound box of Thornton's
Continental and fed a Viennese truffle into her mouth. On the
screen, a woman walking alone at night turned at the sound of
following footsteps. As a dark shadow fell across her face, she
began to scream and scream.


Five miles away from Grosvenor Avenue, Ben Cooper bumped
his Toyota down the rough track to Bridge End Farm, twisting
the wheel at the familiar points along the way to avoid the


81
worst of the potholes. In places, the track had been repaired
with compacted earth and the odd halt-brick. The first heavy
rain of the winter would wash it all away again when the water
came rushing down from the hillside and turned the narrow
track into a river.

In passing, he noticed a stretch of wall where the topping
stones had fallen away and the wall was beginning to bulge
outwards towards the field. He made a mental note to mention
it as a job he could do for Matt on his next day off.

Cooper was consciously trying to readjust his mind to such
mundane things. But his thoughts were lingering on the Laura
Vernon case. It was going to be an enquiry that he would not
find easy to forget. He was baffled by the old man, Harry
Dickinson. He had seen many reactions among people who
became accidentally involved in incidents of major crime, but
he could not recall such a puzzling mixture of indifference and
secret enjoyment.

Unable to find a ready explanation for the old man's attitude,
he considered the leading suspect, the missing Lee Sherratt. He
did not know Lee, and had never had any dealings with him.
But he did recall his father, Jackie Sherratt, a local smalltime
villain. He was currently serving two wears in Derbv for receiving,

J	O	^	J	O7

but was better known in the Edendale area as an experienced
poacher.

Most of all, though, Cooper's thoughts kept straying back to
the moment he had found the body of the girl. The physical
impressions had stamped themselves on his senses and would
not go away. Even the evening air blowing through the open |
windows of the Toyota could not take away the smell of stale
blood and urine that seemed to linger in the car. Even a Levellers
tape on the stereo could not drown out the buzzing of the flies
that had laid their eggs in Laura Vernon's mouth, or silence the
derisive cry of the ragged-winged crow that had flapped away
from her face. Directly in his field of vision, as if imprinted on
the inside of the windscreen, hung the images of a ravaged eve

'	O	O	O	J

socket and the startling contrast between a strip of bleached
white thigh and a thick coil of black pubic hair. Even at the
moment that he had first seen the body, Cooper had registered


82


ft
the fact that Laura Vernon had dyed the hair on her head a rich,
vermilion red.

It was not his first body by any means. But they didn't get

,'	j	J	O

any better with experience. Certainly not when they were like
this one. He knew that the sight would stay with him for weeks
or months, until something worse came along. Maybe it would
never go awav at all.

o	J

Cooper also knew that he had sensed something wrong in the
cottage at Moorhay where Harry and Gwen Dickinson lived.
Something that the granddaughter, Helen Milner, was aware of
too. It was not anything he could put his finger on; not a cold
fact that he could have included in an interview report; not a
logical conclusion that he could have justified in any way. There
wasn't even any firm impression in his mind that the atmosphere
had anything to do with the finding of Laura Vernon's body. But
something wrong at Dial Cottage there had certainly been. He
was sure he was not mistaken.

The Toyota rattled over a cattle grid and into the yard of Bridge
End Farm. Its tyres splashed through trails of freshly dropped cow
manure left by the herd coming down to the milking shed from

J	o	o

their pasture and back again after afternoon milking. A group of
calves destined for Bakewell Market bellowed at him from a pen
in one of the buildings at the side of the yard. But he ignored
them, slowing instead as he passed the tractor shed to look in at
the big green John Deere and the old grey Fergie, and the row
of implements lined up against the walls. There was no sign of
his brother, although Matt would normally be found tinkering
with a bit of machinery at this time of the evening.

When he reached the front of the house, Cooper's heart
began to sink. His two nieces, Amy and Josie, were sitting
on the wall between the track and the tiny front garden.
They were not playing and not talking to each other, but
sat kicking their heels against the stones and stirring the dust
with the toes of their trainers. They looked up as he parked
the Toyota, and neither smiled a greeting. He could see that
Josie, who was only six, had been crying. Her eyes were red
and her nose had been running, leaving grimy tracks on her
brown cheeks. A comic lay discarded on the wall, and an


83
ice cream had melted into a raspberry-coloured puddle on	JP[

the ground.	31

&	i*

'Hello, girls,' he said.	'" I

'Hi, Uncle Ben.'	fj

Amy looked at him sadlv, with big eves that showed hurt	... I

	* I

but no real comprehension of what was hurting. She glanced	;

apprehensively over her shoulder at the farmhouse. The front	.-.- i

dour stood open, but there was silence from within. A black arid
white cat emerged from the garden, walked to the doorstep and
paused, sniffing the air of the hallway. Then it seemed to change
its mind and trotted quickly away towards the Dutch barn.	,

'Mum's in the kitchen,' said Amy, anticipating the question.
'And where's your dad?'	~

'He had to go up to Burnt Wood straight after milking. To
mend some gates.'

o

'I see.'	|

Cooper smiled at the girls, but got no response. They were	f

totally unlike the two children who would normally have come	\i

running to greet him. But he didn't have to ask them any more

questions to guess why they were so subdued.

In the big kitchen he found his sister-in-law, Kate. She was
moving about from table to stove stiffly, like a woman with
arthritis, or one whose limbs were badly bruised. Her short
fair hair was dishevelled and the sheen of sweat on her forehead
looked as though it was caused by something more than the heat
of the day or the steam from a pan which was simmering on the
hotplate with nothing in it. She. too, had been crying.

1	O	J	O

When she saw him, she let go of the carving knife she was
carrying as if it was a relief to part with it. The kitchen normally

J	O	I	J

smelled of herbs and freshly baked bread, and sometimes of garlic
and olive oil. Tonight, though, it smelled of none of those. The
smell was of disinfectant and several less pleasant odours that
made Cooper's stomach muscles tighten with apprehension.

'What's wrong, Kate?'

His sister-in-law shook her head, sagging against the pine
table, weary with the effort of trying to keep up an appearance
of normality for the girls. Cooper could have told her, even from
his brief glimpse of them outside, that it had not worked.


84
'See for yourself,' she said. 'I can't bear it any more, Ben.'
He put his hand on her shoulder and saw the tears begin to
squeeze from her eyes once more.

'Leave it to me,' he said. 'You look after the girls.'
He went out into the passage that ran through the centre of
the house and looked up the stairs. When he was a child, the
passage and the stairs had been gloomy places. The walls and most
of the woodwork had been covered in some sort of dark-brown
varnish, and the floorboards had been painted black on either
side of narrow strips of carpet. The carpet itself had long since
lost its colour under a layer of dirt which no amount of cleaning
could prevent from being tramped into the house by his father,
his uncle, their children, three does, a number of cats of varying

'	'	O '	J O

habits and even, at times, other animals that had been brought in
from the fields for special attention. Now, though, things were
different. There were deep-pile fitted carpets on the floor and
the walls were painted white. The wood had been stripped to
its original golden pine and there were mirrors and pictures to
catch and emphasize what light there was from the small crescent
shaped windows in the doors at either end of the passage.

Yet he found that the stairs, light and airy and comfortable as
they were, held more terrors for him now than they ever had as
a child. The immediate cause of his fear lay on a step halfway up.
It was a pink, furry carpet slipper, smeared with excrement.

The slipper lay on its side, shocking and obscene in its
ordinariness, its gaudy colour clashing with the carpet. It turned
his stomach as effectively as if it had been a freshly extracted internal organ left dripping on the stairs.

Slowly, he climbed the steps, pausing to pick up the slipper
gingerly between finger and thumb as he would have done a vital

O &	J	O

piece of evidence. On the first landing, he paused outside a door,
cocking his head for a moment to listen to the desperate, high
pitched whimper that came from inside. It was an inhuman noise,
a mumbled keening like an animal in pain, forming no words.
Then Cooper opened the door, pushing it hard as it stuck on
some obstruction on the floor. When he walked into the room,
he entered a scene of devastation worse than any crime scene he
had ever encountered.


85
8


f """*

round by a man walking a Jog.'

There was a warv silence. Diane Fry tried to look efficient
and attentive, with her notebook open on her knee. At the
moment, her hand was moving slowly through an elaborate
series of aimless doodles that might, from a distance, have been
taken for shorthand. A bluebottle buzzed fruitlessly against a
window of the conference room, someone shuffled their feet,
and the metal legs of a chair creaked uneasily.

'Found by a man walking a dog,' repeated the superintendent
dangerously.

Some of the officers in the room looked at the ceiling; others
tilted their plastic coffee cups to their faces, hoping to hide their
expressions from the superintendent's eye. Fry wondered why
bluebottles always chose to ignore open windows in favour of
the determined futility of bashing themselves incessantly against
the closed ones.

'It was some old bloke called Dickinson, sir,' said DS Rennie.
'Apparently he has his own regular route across the Baulk every night.'

J	O

Rennie had not been involved in the search operation. But, like
everyone else in the room, he recognized the time for covering
your back, for limiting the damage, for claiming any shreds of
credit where it could be found. Those responsible for the search
were keeping sensibly silent. So it followed that if you spoke
up, the super would register you as blameless. Rennie watched
for the brief flicker of the blue eyes towards him that said he
had been heard and acknowledged.

'So. A man walking a dog. Some old bloke called Dickinson,
in fact. Thank you for that, Rennie.' The superintendent nodded
and smiled like a sewage worker gifted with an exceptionally keen
sense of smell. 'And here we are, Her Majesty's finest. We had
a helicopter up in the air at God knows how much a minute,
and forty officers on the ground searching those woods for five


86
hours, without turning up so much as a decent used condom.
The police, like the papers used to say, are baffled. And then

--	and then what happens?'

Nobody answered him this time, not even Rennie. Fry found
she had drawn an entire swarm of small blue flies flitting across
her page, their flimsy wings beating fast, but going nowhere.

l o '	^	o	o'oo

'The body,' said Jepson, 'is found by a man walking a dog.' 'Given another day or two --' began DI Hitchens. But it
was unwise -- as duty inspector, Hitchens had been technically
responsible for the search, though he had not been present. The
superintendent cut straight across him.

'Just tell me why,' he said. 'Why is there always a man walking
a dog? You might start to suspect they were put there specifically
to expose the shortcomings of the police force, eh? Lost a body
somewhere in the woods? Don't worry, chief, some old bloke
walking his dog will find it for us. Got no description of the
getaway car used in that armed robbery last night? No problem

--	some insomniac dragging poor old Rover round the streets
is bound to have made a note of the registration number. Got
no positive ID of your suspect to place him at the scene of the
offence? Albert and Fido are sure to have clocked him stashing
the loot while they were wetting a lamppost somewhere. Yes.
Men walking dogs. If only they advertised their services in the Eden Valley Times, we'd save a fortune.'

'Chief, I don't think --' said Hitchens.

'And then,' said Jepson, 'we could disband the entire Derbyshire
Constabulary and replace it with a few dozen blokes walking
their dogs. They'd have the detection rate up in no time.'

Diane Fry relegated Hitchens a few rungs in her mental
hierarchy. She had to make the best impression she could
among all these new faces and stay alert, try to pick up the
names and ranks and figure out who was the most likely to be
influential. Hitchens had started off near the top of the scale as
her DI, but was gradually fading on the rails.

A detective Fry didn't recognize had put his hand up, like the
bright boy in class wanting to get himself noticed. He had already
drawn unwelcome attention to himself by arriving very late for
the briefing, which had always been considered a disciplinary


87
offence in stations Fry had worked at. He had looked hot and
flustered and dishevelled when he came in, as if he had only just
tqi out of bed and he had suffered a prolonged glower from

Ł>	1OO

Jepson. Now all eyes turned to him, welcoming a sacrificial
victim, ama/cd that he was goina to throw himself into the pit

'	O	O	1

voluntarily. He looked to be in his late twenties, bul carried an
air of innocence lackina in those around him. He was tall and

O

slim, and he had messv, light-brown hair That fell untidilv across
his forehead.

'Excuse me, sir, but I don't understand.'

'Oh aye? What don't you understand, lad?'

'Well, we got the dog section out from Ripley to go over
the ground, didn't we? So why didn't the Ripley lot find what
the old bloke's dog found?'

Jepson looked at him sharply, a scathing put-down hovering
on his lips. But he saw the expression on the detective's face,
noticed his cheeks already starting to go a shade of pink. The
superintendent sighed, his irritation suddenly spent.

'I think you'll find the key to that, Cooper,' he said, 'is not
the dog. It's the old bloke.'

Finally, Jepson handed over to DCI Tailby as senior investigating

* J I	*	O	O

officer. Amid muffled sighs of relief and a flood of comforting
conference room jargon, the discussion moved on into safer
areas -- the prioritization of lines of enquiry, the division of
staff into enquiry teams, the allocation of action sheets. But
several days later, Diane Fry was amazed to find that, in among
the detailed anatomical drawings of common winged insects, she
had recorded the superintendent's last words exactly.


'Preliminary report from the pathologist suggests death was
caused by two or three heavy blows to the side of the head
with a hard, smooth object. Task Force will commence a search
for the weapon this morning.'

All eyes in the room were fixed on the photograph of the crime
scene which had been projected on to the screen behind Tailby.
The full-length shot of the body lying in the undergrowth changed
to a closer view of the head. The colour of Laura Vernon's hair
looked garish and unnatural in the photograph, and the dark,
matted bloodstains were not easy to make out. Her red T-shirt
made the accuracy of the colour balance even more doubtful.

'First indications, based on temperature of the bodv and the
stage of development of fly larvae found in the eyes, mouth and
vulva, suggest Laura Vcrnon was killed within a couple of hours
other aide of the first report that she s\as mi«ing -- i.e. eight
o'clock Saturday evening. As you know, we already have one

o	^	'	,

.n-lv report that I aura was seen talking to a vouno; man at about
six-fifteen on a footpath in the scrubland just a few yards from
her own back garden. This is some distance from where she was
found, which was in the wooded area called the Baulk. Therefore
we need to re-trace that final journey. House-to-house teams will
concentrate on recording movements of anyone in and around

the Baulk at about the time. Including, of course, any siahtinas

o'	' J o &

of Laura Vernon herself.'

The picture changed to the lower half of Laura's body. Black
denims were pulled down to her knees, showing the top edge
of a pair of blue pants, and several inches of deathly white flesh
above and below the dark bush of hair.

'As you see, Laura's clothing was disturbed. However, subject
to the full postmortem, which will be carried out later this morning,
the pathologist's initial view is that there is no evidence that
any sexual assault took place, either before or after the victim's
death. There is one possible exception to that.'

Tailby nodded, and the picture changed again, the camera
/coming in to a small area near the top of the dead girl's
right thigh. The assembled officers frowned and peered closer.
A discolouration of the skin could be seen, some sort of bruising,

O*

but bearing an oddly regular shape.

'Mrs Van Door,' said Tailby, 'believes this injury probably
occurred around the time of death.'

The room stirred uneasily. Some of the officers were sweating,

J	O'

and the atmosphere was becoming humid.

The know you're all anxious to get started,' said Tailby, sensing
the restlessness. 'DI Hitchens will give you your action forms

O	J	J

very shortly. Bear with me for a few more minutes.'

The picture disappeared from the wall behind the DCI, and
some in the room breathed a sigh of relief.


89
'First of all, we are urgently enquiring into the whereabouts of
one Lee Sherratt, aged twenty, recently employed as a gardener
at the Mount. Details are in your files. But we also want to
know about any other boyfriends Laura Vernon may have had a
relationship with. Particularly those her parents might not have
been aware of.'

'Are we assuming the family are in the clear, sir?' asked
DS Rennic.

'We never assume, Rennie,' said the DCI with a little smile.
'It makes an "ASS" out of "U" and "ME".'

Rennie paused for a moment, puzzled. Then someone sniggered,
and he realized he had been put down.

'Thank you, sir,' he said.

'Both Graham and Charlotte Vernon will, of course, be
interviewed again. There is also a brother, I believe, away at

O	'	J

university. Otherwise, we are told that Laura Vernon did not
mix much with people in the village of Moorhay. This is what
the parents tell us, at least. If that isn't the case, it will be your
job to find out. Meanwhile, the usual checks on all our known
sex offenders are being carried out. We have DI Armstrong
here from B Division, who will be coordinating that aspect of
the enquiry.'

The chief inspector indicated a female officer to one side of
the room. She was rather overweight and the grey suit she was
wearing didn't fit too well around her shoulders. Her dark hair
was collar-length and cut very straight.

O	J	O

'Some of you may know that DI Armstrong has been working
on the team investigating the death of Susan Edson near Buxton
five weeks ago. Some of this ground has already been covered in
B Division in the last few weeks, so we are avoiding duplication
of effort.'

Some of the officers shifted uneasily and looked sideways at
each other. Tailby seemed to sense it, and responded. 'For public
consumption, there must be no suggestion of a link between
these two cases. I do not want to hear the words "serial killer"
mentioned by any member of this team or see them appearing
in the press.'

He looked to one side, glaring at a civilian wearing a suit,


90
a colourful tie and a pair of large, blue-framed spectacles. Fry
pegged him as one oi die iotxe s press oiiicers, whose job it
was to deflect press attention and distribute as little information
about the case as possible.

'All these lines of enquiry will take time, of course,' said

Tailbv. 'And I don't need to remind yon that the first hours

are
important.'

Diane shee was busv studying DI Armstrong when Ben Cooper
tentatively put his hand up again. Tailby regarded him with
something like pity.

'Yes, Cooper?'

'Harry Dickinson, sir. The gentleman who found the trainer.'

'Ah, the old bloke,' said someone, breaking the tension.

'With the dog,' said someone else.

'Will he be interviewed again, sir?'

Fry wondered for a moment whether Cooper had seen her
transcript of the first interview with Harry Dickinson and was
taking the mickey out of the DCI. But Tailby obviously decided
that it wasn't Cooper's style or intention.

'Harry Dickinson is seventy-eight years old,' he said.

'Yes, sir,' said Cooper. 'But we're not assuming that his age
rules him out. Are we, sir?'

'Of course not,' said Tailby. 'We assume nothing.'

There was a general shuffling of feet and scraping of chair legs.

o	o	Too

Fry watched a female detective turn round to ask Ben Cooper if he
was all right. She looked concerned, but he only nodded, keeping his eyes on the chief inspector. Fry noticed that there was a scuff
mark on Cooper's leather jacket and his tie needed straightening.
He was really untidy, and it made him look disorganized. No
way was he as perfect as everyone said he was.

'One more thing I want to emphasize before you go,' said
Tailby, raising his voice over the noise. 'Again, this is in your
files, but keep it to the forefront of your minds, all of you.
DC Cooper has mentioned the trainer found by Mr Dickinson
and his dog, the find which led us to the body a short distance
away. But there is one fact which could be vital to the enquiry.
One thing which could lead to an early conclusion, if we are
thorough with our routines -- and if we get a little bit of luck. I


91
want you to remember, all of you, that Laura Vernon's second
Lrainci ib mining.'


'All right. DC Fry, here, please.'

Fry stepped briskly towards Hitchcns, where he leaned casually
against the wall, dangling a leg over the edge of a desk. He had
a stack of action forms in his hand, and Fry knew she was about
to be allocated to an enquiry team.

'You're the new girl around here, Diane. So we're going to

O	'	O	O

team you up with Ben Cooper for a while. He knows the area
like the back of his hand.'

'So I've heard.'

'Well, we don't want you going and getting lost on the moors,
do we, Fry? We'd have to send the dogs out again.'

Fry tried a smile and hoped it was convincing. 'I'm sure we'll
work well together.'

O

Hitchens studied her. 'You'll get on all right,' he said.

'It's OK.'

'Right. DC Cooper! Where's Ben Cooper gone?'

'He had to take an urgent phone call, sir,' said another

or	' '

detective. 'In the CID room.'

'OK. Well, you two are in charge of house-to-house in
Moorhay,' said Hitchens. 'There will be uniformed teams out
there to assist you. These are the allocated areas. Make sure you
don't miss anybody.'

He held out a photocopied street map divided into three
sections with blue, red and yellow highlighter pens.

'I'll go and introduce myself to DC Cooper,' said Fry. 'If I
can find the CID room.'


Ben Cooper was hunched over a desk, staring at a sea of papers	i
that seemed to have accumulated during his holiday. He wasn't

reading the papers; in fact, he didn't appear to see them at all.	\

His face was completely blank as he listened to the voice at the	I,
other end of the phone.

'I suppose so, if that's what they think,' he said. 'But how	,*;

long for? Yes, I know Kate needs a break, but Matt --'	}

He saw the new DC coming from the far end of the CID room.	*|


.»
92
She moved with a cool deliberateness, not meeting his eye, but
glancing from side to side as she walked past the desks and filing
cabinets, as if searching for evidence of misdemeanours among
her absent colleagues. Cooper half expected to see her stoop to
check for footprints in the carpets, or turn over an envelope to
i-x.imine the address. She had a lean face and short fair hair, and
she was very slim -- slimmer than he had grown up to expect
\vomrn tn be. His mother would have said she was sickening
for something. But she had a certain wiry look that suggested
she was no weakling. No wilting violet, this one.

0	O	'

He had worked out who she was, of course. She was the
one PC Garnett had told him about, the new DC who had
come from the West Midlands with a reputation. Garnett had
been almost right in his description. The only surprise was that
she was actually quite attractive -- though a smile, he thought,
would help to relax her face and do something about the dark
shadows in her eves.

j

'Yes, Matt. Yes, you're right, I know. Two days, then. And
we can talk about it properly on Thursday, OK? It just seems
a long time to wrait.'

The new DC had reached Cooper's desk. She stood looking
at the mess of papers, idly tapping the Moorhay file against her
thigh. He turned away, shielding the phone. He knew it was
obvious that the call was nothing to do with work. She would

o

recognize a personal call when she heard one. She probably
thought he was discussing a girlfriend.

He watched in amazement as she calmly took a seat and
booted up his computer terminal, still without looking at
him.

'Hold on a minute, Matt.'

He saw her start to smile as the computer came to life and
she logged into the database. It allowed her into the first two

oo

screens, but then threw up a dialogue box when she tried to
extract some data.

'You need a password,' said Cooper.

'What's that?' said Matt in his ear.

'Nothing.'

o

'What is it then?' she asked.


93
'I can't just give it out. You need authority.'

'Yeah? I'll rind a way past it then.'

She started tapping keys to get into the terminal settings, looking
for the security program and the password function. A silver
stud glinted in her ear where it wras exposed by a recent trim.

'You'll never get anywhere without knowing the proper
password.'

'Ben, if vou're busy --'

'Yes, look, Matt, I'll have to go,' said Cooper. Till speak to
you tonight.'

J	O
He replaced the phone, and didn't look up for a moment,
as if he was adjusting himself to something, preparing to face
a whole new challenge.

'Damn!'

A 'fatal error' message was frozen on the computer screen.
The terminal had objected to the unauthorized tinkering and
had crashed.

'I did tell you you'd get nowhere without the password,' he
snapped.

'You're my new partner,' said Fry. 'When you're available,
that is.'

Cooper took a deep breath. 'OK. Hi, I'm Ben Cooper. You
must be DC shee.'

He waited for her to say something else. He didn't know her
first name yet.

'My friends call me Diane.'

He nodded cautiously, noting the ambiguity of the message.
'What are we up for?'

'House-to-house with some woodentops.'

'Don't let them hear you call them that.'

Fry shrugged. 'We could get going, if you're ready. I'm only
the new girl, but I understand murder enquiries are usually
considered quite important.'

'All right, I'm ready.'

In the corridor, DI Hitchens called them back.

'I'll be out for another briefing and to take your reports
myself at the end of the morning,' he said. 'There's a pub in
Moorhay, isn't there, Cooper?'


94
'The Drover, sir.'

'MarsLoa's, I seemed to notice when we went through the
village yesterday.'

O '	J

That's right.'

'We'll rendezvous there then -- let's say twelve-thirtv. And
Ben ..."

'Yes, sir?'

'Don't be late, will you?'

'Sorry about that, sir. Family problems.'

'It's not like you. Don't make a habit of it.'

'No, sir.'

'One more thing everybody needs to know. Mr Tailby pointed
out how important these first few hours of an enquiry are. We
all know that. But don't get too carried away when your shift

o	J	J

is finished. There's no more overtime.'

'What?'

'There's no cash in the budget. The top floor think we can
get a result without it.'

'It's crazy,' said Cooper.

Hitchens shrugged. 'That's die way it is. OK, you know what your tasks are. Off you go.'

.	o


Cooper and Fry had reached the car park at the back of the
police station before they hesitated. Fry thought she could read
his thoughts.

O

'My car's over there,' she said. 'The black Peugeot. And I'm
a good driver.'

o

'My Toyota's got four-wheel drive,' said Ben. 'It might be
handy for some of those lanes round Moorhay. And I know
the way.'

Fry shrugged, allowing a small victory. 'OK.'
They found little to say to each other on the drive out of
Edendale. Cooper took a route that Fry didn't know, dodging
down narrow back streets that wound their way across town
past the parish church and Edendale Community School. When
they emerged on the Buxton Road, she realized that he had
managed to bypass all the traffic snarled up on Clappergate
and the other approaches to the town centre. Already, she


95
thought, he was making a point of showing off his famous local

kno\\ ledge.


Cooper could barely keep his eyes off the landscape as he drove.
It was a constant pleasure to him to escape from Edendale into
the surrounding hills, where the changing moods of the scenery
always surprised and delighted him.

Nowhere was the contrast between the White Peak and the
Dark Peak more striking than on the climb southwards out of
Edendale, past the last of the housing developments, past the
sports field and the religious retreat run by the Sisters of Our
Lady. Right at the top of the hill was a pub, the Light House,

j o	r	r '	o	'

with its stunning views across both limestone and millstone

o

grit.

The patchwork of farmland and tree-covered slopes to the
south looked welcoming and approachable lit by the sun, but
was full of hidden depths and unseen corners. It was crisscrossed
by a pattern of white dry-stone walls and it erupted here and
there in steep limestone cliffs or the ripples and pockmarks of
abandoned mine workings. It was, above all, a human landscape,
settled and shaped by people, and still a place where thousands
of years of history might be expected to come to the surface, if
you cared to look.

Behind the car, to the north, the moors of the Dark Peak
looked remote and forbidding, an uncompromising landscape
that was anything but human. The bare faces of hardened
gritstone seemed to absorb the sun instead of reflecting it as
the limestone did. They seemed to stand aloof and brooding,
untouched by humanity and therefore offering a challenge that
many took up, to conquer their peaks. Some succeeded, but
many failed, defeated by the implacability of the dark slopes and
the bad weather that seemed to hover around them.

But appearances could be deceptive. Even the White Peak bore its scars -- the great crude gashes where the limestone
quarries and opencast workings had been blasted and ripped
from its hills.

'What do you think of Edendale, then?' he asked at last, as
they joined a convoy of cars crawling behind a caravan round the


96
bends that climbed towards the summit of the hill. It promised to
Lit another hot day, and their \isort, v\erc down against the sun
already scorching the windscreen and glaring off the tarmac. To
their right, the outskirts of the town were gradually falling away,
the stone slates of the roofs settling among the trees and petering
out along the faint silver ribbon of the River Eden. There was a
camping site in a meadow by the river just outside town, with
rows of blue and green tents like exotic plants blooming in the
morning sun. 'That's what everybody asks me,' said Fry. 'What
do I think of Edendale. Does it matter?'

'I would have thought so,' said Cooper, surprised.

'It's a place to work. It has crime, like any other place, I
suppose. I expect it has a few villains, a lot of sad cases and
a whole mass of boring respectable types in between. It's the
same everywhere.'

'It's a better place to live than Birmingham, surely?'

'Why?'

'Well --' He gestured with one hand off the steering wheel,
indicating the hills and the valley and the river and the patchwork
of fields and dry-stone walls, the tumbling roofs and
spires of the town behind them, and the deep green mass
of the Eden Forest marching up towards the vast reservoirs
on the heights of the gritstone moors. He hardly knew how
to express what he meant, if she couldn't see it for herself.

'In any case, I didn't live in Birmingham,' said Fry. 'I lived
at Warley.'

'Where's that?'

'In the Black Country. Have you heard of it?'

'I once travelled into Birmingham by train. That went through
Wolverhampton. Is that close?'

'Yeah, well, you'd know all about it then.'

They had reached a level stretch of road at the top of the hill,
and Cooper accelerated to follow the stream of cars overtaking
the caravan.

'So if you liked the Black Country, what brought you here,
then?'

Fry grimaced and turned her face away to look at the view


97
across the plateau towards the Wye Valley, where Moorhay
wailed. But Cuoper didn't miss the gesture.

'I suppose everybody asks you that as well.'

"I suppose they do.

'Oh well,' he said. 'Nice to have you on board, anyway,
Diane.'

Fry had charge of the file Hitchens had given them. She pulled
out the map to avoid having to look at Cooper.

'There's only Main Street running through the village, and

J	O	O	O '

a few lanes off it. Some without names that only seem to lead
to farms. And there's a group of houses that seem to be called
Quith Holes. Do you know it?'

'Those cottages at Quith Holes back on to the Baulk,' he said.
'Not far from where Laura Vernon was found. There's the Old
Mill there too. It does teas and bed and breakfast now.'

'Who doesn't round here?7 said Fry as they passed another
farmhouse advertising holiday accommodation.


She had to admit that Ben Cooper was a competent driver. She
felt able to concentrate on absorbing the details from the file
before they arrived at Moorhay. There was a photograph of
Laura Vernon as she had been in life, though her hair was a
different colour from that of the dead girl Fry had seen -- not
quite so virulent a shade of red. The photo had been blown up
from one supplied by the Vernons on the day their daughter had
gone missing. Fry had seen the original picture in the action file,
before the case had become a murder enquiry and had been
removed from the CID room. The full shot had shown young

J	o

Laura in a garden, with a clump of rhododendrons in full bloom
behind her, a glimpse of a stone balustrade and the top of a flight
of steps to one side, and a black and white Border collie asleep on
the grass at her feet. But the enlargement showed only her head
and the top half of her body. The background had been cut out,
removing Laura from her environment as effectively as someone
had removed her from life.

There was a list of the names and addresses of all Laura
Vernon's known contacts in Moorhay and the surrounding area.
It was a pitifully short list for a fifteen-year-old girl. Top of it was


98
Lee Sherratt, aged twenty, of 12, Wye Close, Moorhay. He had
worked as a gardener at the Mount until dismissed from his job
last Thursday by Laura's father, Graham Vernon. Sherratt had
been interviewed when Laura was first reported missing, but had
not been seen since Sunday. Unlike the Vernons, the Sherratts
had not reported their son missing. His name was marked in
red, which meant tracing him was a priority.

Further down the list were Andrew and Margaret Milner and
their daughter Helen. Andrew was also noted as an employee of
Graham Vernon's. As for Helen, Fry remembered her from her
visit to Dial Cottage with Tailby and Hitchens. She had stayed
close to the old man when the police had arrived -- closer than
his own wife, it had seemed. Close relationships within families
always seemed a bit suspect to Diane Fry; she felt she didn't
quite understand them.

She looked up at Cooper, watching his profile as he drove.
She had a sudden urge to tell him to tidy himself up before
they met the public. She wanted to straighten his tie, to push
his hair back from his forehead. That boyish look did absolutely
nothing for her.

o

But she could see that he was completely absorbed with his
own thoughts, his face closed to the outside world. It struck her
that they were not happy thoughts, but she dismissed it as none
of her business and returned to her file.


Ben Cooper was remembering the smell. There had been a stink
in the room worse than anything he had ever smelt on a farm. No
cesspit, no slurry tank, no innards from a freshly gutted rabbit
or pheasant had ever smelt as bad as the entirely human stench
that filled that room. There was excrement daubed across the
wallpaper and on the bedclothes piled on the floor. A pool of
urine was drying into a sticky mass on the carpet near where
other similar puddles had been scrubbed clean with disinfectant,
leaving paler patches like the remnants of some virulent skin
disease. A chair lay on the rug with one leg missing. A curtain
had been torn off its rail, and the pages of books and magazines
were scattered like dead leaves on every surface. A second pink
slipper sat ludicrouslv in a wooden fruit bowl on the chest of


99
drawers, and a thin trickle of blood ran down across the top


drawer, splitting into two forks across the wooden handle, ihc
' r	o

drawers and the wardrobe had been emptied of their contents,
which were heaped at random on the bed.

It was from beneath the heap of clothes that the noise came,
monotonous and inhuman, a low, desperate ".vailing. When he
had moved towards the bed, the mound stirred and the keening
turned to a fearful whimper. Cooper knew that the crisis was
over, for now. But this had been the worst so far, no doubt
about it. The evidence was all around him.

He leaned closer to a coat with an imitation fur collar, but was
careful not to touch the bed, for fear of sparking off a violent
reaction. The coat was drenched in a familiar scent that brought
a painful lump to his throat.

'It's Ben,' he said quietly.

A white hand was visible briefly as it clutched for a sleeve
and the edge of a skirt to pull them closer for concealment. The
fingers withdrew again into the darkness like a crab retreating
into its shell. The whimpering stopped.

'It was the devil,' said a small voice from deep in the pile of
clothes. 'The devil made me do it.'

The mingled odours of stale scent, sweat and excrement and
urine made Cooper feel he was about to be sick. He swallowed
and forced himself to keep his voice steady.

' The devil' s gone away.'

The hand slowly reappeared, and Cooper clasped it in his
fingers, shocked by its icy coldness.

'You can come out now, Mum,' he said. 'The devil's gone
away.'


'Ben?' said Fry.

'Yes?' He jerked back to attention. He looked to Fry as if
he had been asleep and dreaming. Or maybe going through a
familiar nightmare.

o

'Why did you ask about Harry Dickinson during the briefing
this morning?'

o

She was curious why he had drawn attention to himself at the
wrong time, when self-interest had clearly indicated that it was


100
a time to keep quiet and keep his head down for a while. But
ohu cuuldn't ask him that outright.

'The person who finds the body is always a possible suspect,'
he said.

'Oh really? But I thought Dickinson only found the trainer.
It was you who actually found the body.'

'Yes. but you know what I mean.'

'	^

'Anyway, Dickinson is seventy-eight years old. An awkward
old sod, I'll give you that. But a definite pipe-and-slippers man.
He hardly looked strong enough to unzip his own fly, let alone
commit a violent assault on a healthy fifteen-year-old girl.'
'I'm not sure you're right there, Diane.'
'Oh? What are you basing your suspicion on?'
'Nothing really. Just a feeling I had when I was there, in the
cottage. A feeling about that family.'
'A feeling? Oh yeah, right, Ben.'
'I know what you're going to say.'

J	o o	J

'You do? Is that another feeling? Tell you what, do me a
favour -- while we're together as a team, don't involve me in

o	'

any of your feelings. I prefer the facts.'

They lapsed into silence again for the rest of the drive. Fry
mentally dismissed Ben Cooper's talk of feelings. She didn't
believe he could know the facts about relationships in families.
He was what she thought of as the social worker type of police
officer -- the sort who thought there were no villains in the

o

world, only victims, that people who did anything wrong must
necessarily be sick and in need of help. Not only that, but he was
obviously well-settled, popular, uncomplicated, with dozens of
friends and relatives around him, smothering him with comfort
and support until his view of the real world was distorted by
affection.

She didn't think he could possibly know what it was like to
have evil in the family.


101
\Vye Close was in the centre of the little council estate at the
northern end of Moorhay. The houses were built of the same
grey-white stone as the rest of the village, with slate roofs and
unfenced grassed areas that were more roadside verge than
garden. At one side stood a row of old people's bungalows,
separated from the family houses by a low fence that didn't deter
the children from playing on the grass under the windows of the
old people.

There were no more than thirty houses on the estate, and
in many other places, even in Edendale, it wouldn't have been
considered a street, let alone an estate. It had been built on
the top field of one of Moorhay's dairy farms. When the area
had been allocated for housing on the council's local plan, the
increased value of the land had proved too much of a temptation
for the farmer at a time when agriculture was in increasing
financial difficulties. The result was that every house backed on
to pastureland or had a view across rolling slopes to the farm
itself. Some of the residents of the estate worked in the small
factory units on the outskirts of Edendale, or in the dairy ten
miles away. Many didn't work at all. Rural housing might have
been provided, but not rural employment.

Outside number 12, Wye Close stood an unmarked police
Vauxhall. The car, or one like it, had been there since Monday
evening, waiting for the return home of Lee Sherratt. The local
children, at a loose end during the day because the schools were
still on holiday, had invented a new game this morning. They
were acting out the part of burglars, robbers and murderers,
lurking suspiciously in the street, then pretending to see the
police car suddenly and running away round the corner, screaming.
The detective constable on surveillance duty was getting
rapidly fed up of it. The baking heat inside the car was already
enough to make him tired and irritable. The cheeky kids could
be the last straw.


102
A green Ford entered the estate and pulled up at number
t \\elve. When UCi 1 ailby got out and glowered across the
road, the children seemed genuinely frightened for once, perhaps
intimidated by his size and the grey suit he wore. They retreated
behind the fence of the old people's homes and watched to see
what he would do. First he crossed to speak to the detective in the
Vauxhall. who sat up straight and shook his head. Then he strode

'	r	O

to the door of number twelve and banged on the knocker.

'Oh, it's you lot again,' said the big woman who came to
the door. She was wearing sandals and frayed blue jeans and
a billowing pink garment that could only have come from a
maternity-wear shop. Her hair had been pinned up but was
falling back down across a chubby neck, and she smelled of
cigarette smoke. Tailby put her age in the late thirties, fortv

O	J 1	O	'	J

at most.

'Just a few questions, Mrs Sherratt,' he said.

'He's not back.'

'I know. Has he been in touch?'

'No.'

'There are some things I need to ask you.'

Molly Sherratt looked down the road at the children gawping
and nudging each other.

'For God's sake, come in then,' she said.

Tailby ducked to go through the door and picked his way
through a hallway cluttered with bicycles and shoes and piles of
clothes. Mrs Sherratt led him into a tiny kitchen with fitted teak
effect units and a brand-new automatic washer. The remains of
somebody's breakfast still stood on the counter -- an open packet
of cornflakes, half a carton of milk, a knife sticky with butter,
and a toaster sitting amid a sea of blackened breadcrumbs.

'I was just washing up,' said Mrs Sherratt defensively, watching
the detective's instinctive survey of the room.

J

'Carry on. Don't let me interrupt.'

'I don't see that you could be doing anything else.'

'I'll try not to be long,' said Tailby politely.

She turned on a tap and began to squirt washing-up liquid into
a blue plastic bowrl until the suds concealed anything that might
have been in there. Tailby saw that the door of the washing


103
machine stood slightly open, and the interior was packed tight
with dirty clothes. Presumably Mrs Sherratt had been just about
to do the weekly wash as well.

'I've told your lot all I've got to say already,' she said.

'We need to know as much as we can about Lee so that we
can find him. That's the reason for all the questions, I'm afraid.
It is important that we find him.'

'To eliminate him from enquiries. That's what the other
ones said.'

'That's right, Mrs Sherratt.'

o '

She clutched the washing-up liquid bottle to her bosom without
closing the cap, so that a small squirt of sticky green liquid
spurted on to her pink smock. She seemed not to notice.

'Lee hasn't done anything,' she said.

'He worked at the Mount,' said Tailby, 'so he knew Laura
Vernon. And since his whereabouts are unknown . . .'
'I know. I know, that's what the others kept saving. But it

'	'	r j o

means nothing. He often goes off for a day or two. He's a devil
for wandering off for a bit, is Lee. But that doesn't mean he's
done anything wrong, does it?'

'If you could help us find him, Mrs Sherratt, we'll soon be
able to establish that, won't we?'

'Anyway, he didn't work there any more. At that place.

They gave him the push last Thursday. Them Vernons. Unfair,

^ o	r	j	'

it was.'

'Did he resent the fact he had been sacked?'

"Course he did. He was unfairly dismissed. He'd done
nothing wrong.'

In Tailby's experience, nobody's son or daughter had ever
done anything wrong. They were all angels, pure as the driven
snow, every one of them. It was a wonder there was any
crime at all.

'Mr Vernon claims that Lee was pestering his daughter.'

'Rubbish. Lee has a steady girlfriend. They might be getting
married.'

'Might they?'

'That's why he was set on getting a bit of a job, earning some
money. There's nothing round here for the young ones, you


104
know. God knows, them Vernons didn't pav him much, hut at
least he was trying.'

J	O

'I'm sure vou'rc ri^ht. But it doesn't prevent him from havina

CD	i	O

taken a fancy to Laura Vernon, does it?'

Mrs Sherratt sniffed. 'Wei!, if you want the truth, she wasn't
liis type. I don't want to speak ill of the dead and all that, but
he could never bear them stuck-up types, all posh accents and jodhpurs. It was more likelv the other way round. I reckon v/ii
took a fancy to him. He's a good-looking lad, my Lee. 1 bet
that's what it was, and Mr Hoity-Toity Vernon wouldn't like
that, his girl fancying the hired labour.'

'And, if that was the case, you don't think Lee might have
responded?'

'No. Like I say, she wasn't his type.'

'Did he mention Laura Vernon much?'
'Hardly at all. He hardly mentioned any of them much.
'Course, he didn't see much of him, or the girl either, except
in the school holidays. It was mostly her he saw, when he went
up there.'

'You mean Mrs Vernon?'

'That's right. Not that she would do anything but give him his
orders, I suppose. None of them Vernons has ever mixed with
anybody in the village, you know. They think they're better than

..	j	O J	^	J

the rest of us, just because they've got a bit of money to spend
on big houses and flashy cars. Well, it isn't so. Having money
doesn't make you a good person, does it? It doesn't give you any
better morals than the rest of us. Some of us know what's right
and what isn't. If you ask me, them Vernons have forgotten all
about that, with their money.'

Tailby's attention was wandering. His gaze drifted out of the

J	O	O

kitchen window, across a small garden with a few vegetables
struggling to force themselves through the weeds. There was a
rickety garden shed and a small flock of house sparrows fluttering
their wings in a depression in the dust in front of its door. A low
wooden fence separated the garden from the field at the back of
the property. It would present no barrier for anyone to climb
over if they wanted to approach from the field instead of from
the road.


105
'So, as far as you arc awaro, there was no relationship between
Lee and Laura Vernon, apart from the fact that she was the
daughter of his employer?'

'I told you. he didn't like her.'

J	'

'He actually said so?'

'Yes. Yes, I'm sure he did. Stuck-up little madam, he called
her, something like that.'

'Why did he call her that? Did he give any particular reason?'

Mrs Sherratt screwed up her face, which Tailby took to be a
sign that she was thinking. 'It was not Ion? after he had started

o	o	o

working up there that he said it the first time. He'd had a bit
of a run-in with her one day, I think.'

'You are referring to Laura now, aren't you?'

'I said so, didn't I? She was at home from school one day.
It must have been their holidays or something. I don't know.
But he said she was out in the garden, weighing him up, asking
him questions. Lee said he made a joke, and she took exception.
Told him to keep his remarks to himself, sort of thing. He was
a bit put out when he told me about it, and he never liked her
after diat.'

'Was that anything to do with why he was sacked, do
you think?'

'I couldn't say. Because she took against him, you mean, and
told her dad? I don't know. But he hadn't done anything wrong,
I know that.'

'You don't think Lee might have arranged to meet Laura after

o	o

he had been sacked by Mr Vernon?'

'No, I don't. He'd be glad to get away from her, if anything.
He wouldn't have touched her, not in any way.'

'Mrs Shcrratt, where does Lee usually go when he's off
wandering for a day or two?'

'I don't know," she said. 'He doesn't tell me.'

'Not to his girlfriend?'

'I doubt it. But you can ask her, can't you? I gave the other
lot her name and address, to be helpful.'

'Yes, I know,' Tailby sighed. They had already interviewed
the girlfriend in question, along with several others whose names


106
had been suggested by Lee Sherratt's drinking pals. If he reallv
was intending to get married, it hadn't stopped him spreading
himself around half the female population of the valley. But none
of them admitted to knowing where Lee headed for when he

O

went wandering. Here at Wye Close, officers had also already
searched the house, turned over Lee's room, and checked out
that garden shed.

o

'Besides,' said Mrs Sherratt, as if suddenly remembering

'	>	j	&

something. 'That girl at the Mount. She was only fifteen,
wasn't she?'

'Yes, Mrs Sherratt, she was.'

'Well then.'

Leaving the house, Tailby crossed the street to the Vauxhall
again.

'Give it a few minutes, then check that garden shed round
the back again,' he said. 'But don't make a fuss about it. You

o '

never know, the saintly Lee might just have appeared by some
miracle.'


Helen Milner found her grandfather sitting on a boulder on the
path leading up towards Raven's Side. A small cloud of pipe
smoke marked his position. His knees were spread, and his back
was as straight as if he had been sitting on one of the old upright
chairs at the cottage. At his feet was Jess, chewing at a stick.
The dog had stripped the bark to shreds and was splintering
the soft inner flesh of the wood with her teeth, dropping the
fragments on the ground like a scattering of confetti. Jess looked
up cautiously as Helen approached, gave her soulful look and
went back to her stick. Her teeth gleamed white and sharp as
they ripped into the wood.

This was not Harry's usual route for his morning walk. But
below the ridge the reason for the change in routine was obvious.
A white caravan sat in the corner of a field, where it had been
dragged by a Land Rover. It was the furthest spot the caravan
could reach before the woods began and the ground grew steep
and rocky as it plunged towards the valley bottom. Three more
four-wheel-drive vehicles were parked behind it. Further down
the slope, figures in white boiler suits and hoods were moving


107
slowly around in the undergrowth, which had been cut down
and removed in a \\idc circle. Other men and women could be
glimpsed in the trees on either side. Some were on all fours, as
if they were praying to some strange god for guidance in their
bizarre task. Blue plastic tape had been wound round the trees,
and it danced and flickered in the sun, signalling the spot where
Laura Vernon's body had lain.

'If the ground wasn't so dry, they'd never have got that caravan
to that spot,' said Harry, as his granddaughter crouched down
beside him.

'What do they use it for?'

'Making a brew and having their snap in, as far as I can
tell.'

Helen could see a constable in shirt sleeves standing by the field
gate between the caravan and the woods. His face was turned up
to the hill, and now and then he put a hand up to shade his eyes
as he squinted into the sun. He was watching Harry.

'They know you're here,' said Helen.

'And they don't like it either, but there's bugger-all they can
do about it. It's a public footpath, and I'm not anywhere near
their precious tape.'

'Have they said anything?'

'Oh aye, they sent some bugger up to talk to me half an hour
ago. He wanted to know who I was and what I was doing here.

o	o

Then he took my name and wrote it down in a little book. He
knew who I was then, all right. I thought he was going to ask
for my autograph. I've never been so famous. You'd think I was
somebody off telly.'

'Did the policeman ask you to move?'

'He did.'

'And what did you say?'

A gleam of amusement came to Harry's eye. Helen sighed.

'Oh, Granddad. You shouldn't. It doesn't do to upset them.'

'Bugger that. Somebody has to keep them on their toes.'

Looking at her grandfather, Helen wondered whether she had
been right to come. She had been into school for a pre-term staff
meeting, but had been given permission by her head to leave
early. She had made use of the time to make a mad rush across


108
the countryside to check on her grandparents. She had found
(jwen subdued but calm, and Harry missing. Now she had tracked
him down, he did not seem like the Harrv she knew. Fven more
than on the previous day, he gave the impression that in some
way he was enjoying himself. But she knew her grandfather was
not a cruel or callous man. He \\ould not revel in the death of
a young girl. But somehow he saw the event as a challenge of
his own he had to face. Perhaps it would have been bettor if she
hadn't come at all. She did not want to end up in an argument
with him.

'Have you seen the newspapers?' asked Harry.

'Some of them.'

'A lot of rubbish, they print,' he complained. 'Two of them
have spelled my name wrong.'

'.I suppose there'll be more in the local papers.'

'They're not out until later in the week. It might be over
by then.'

'Do you think so, Granddad?'

Harry had his pipe in his mouth, his jaw clamped into a habitual
grimace. Helen couldn't read his expression at all. She wondered
what had happened to the rapport she had always had with him,
the sense of knowing what he was thinking without him having
to saw it out loud. Her understanding of him seemed to have

^	o

died. It was dead since yesterday.

'Maybe it will,' he said. He puffed at his pipe as if giving the
question some thought. 'If the coppers pull their fingers out. Or
even if they don't. Maybe it will be over all the same.'

'It says in the paper they're trying to trace the Sherratt
boy.'

He snorted. 'Much good that youth will do them.'

'He's disappeared. I suppose it looks suspicious.'

'He was never going to last long at the Mount,' said Harry.
'Not him. I can't think what made them take him on.'

'According to Dad, Graham Vernon said he wanted to give
him a chance.'

'Oh aye, him,' said Harry. 'He'd give anything a chance. He'd
give the devil a chance to sing in the chapel choir.'

'It looks as though he might have been wrong this time.'


109
Harry took his pipe from his mouth and tapped it against the
boulder.

'I tell you what, lass. He was wrong, all right. He's been
wrong all his life.'

o

'I know you don't like him ..."
'Like him! If it were left to me


'I know. I know. Don't let's go over it all again, please.' '	o	o ' r

'Well. You're right. It doesn't need saying over again.'
The silence stretched into minutes. Helen had never felt
uncomfortable with silence between them before. Now, though,

'	O

it was different. She had no idea what Harry what thinking. She
moved her shoulders, easing her bra straps where her skin was
tender from spending too long in the sun the day before.

'I think I'll walk Jess on a bit further,' said Harry. 'It'll give
that lad's eyes a rest.'

'Granddad. Don't get into trouble, will you?'

He pulled himself upright, regarding her with dignity. The?
Don't you know me, lass? I'm a match for any of that lot.'

She watched him tug at Jess's lead, flexing his stiff legs
and straightening his jacket. The toecaps of his boots gleamed
so brightly they were dazzling. For a moment, Helen caught
a glimpse of herself, distorted and blackened, turned upside
down on the toes of her grandfather's boots. She had never
known anyone else with such innate dignity and self-control.
If occasionally he said things that shocked people, it was only
because he believed it was right that you should say what you
thought, and because he didn't really care what people thought
of him. His pride in himself made her feel proud of him too,
and she felt her eyes fill as he moved slowly away.

'I'll see you later then,' she said.

'No doubt.'

After a last glance at the police activity down the hill, Helen
walked back to Dial Cottage to see her grandmother. She was
surprised to find her father standing in the hall, hovering between
the doorways to the front and back rooms as if he had forgotten
where he wanted to be. He was dressed for the office, in a dark
suit with a grey pinstripe, a white shirt and a tie in red and grey
diagonal stripes.


110
'Dad?'

'Hello, love. 1 was in the area and just called in to see how
Gwen and Harry were managing after yesterday. We've got to
look after them when they've had such a shock, haven't we?'

'That's right. It was a shock,' said Gwen. She was in her chair
in the hark room, toying with a piece of knitting. It was shaping
up into a long-sleeved cardigan made from bright-pink wool, and
Helen had a horrible feeling she knew who it was intended for.
But at the moment, her grandmother's fingers were moving the
needles without making any impression on the wool, as if she
had to be doing something with her hands.

'Granddad's out there with Jess, watching the police.'
'He's better off out there,' Gwen said. 'At least he's not
under my feet.'

J

'What are the police doing? Have they been here again? Have they been . . . digging or anything?'

J	&& O	y	&

'Digging?' Helen looked at her father in astonishment, won

OO O	'

dering why he didn't come further into the room. There was a
sheen of sweat on his forehead, and she smiled at his old-fashioned
reluctance to go without his suit jacket even in such heat. 'Why
should they be digging, Dad?'

'I don't know. That's the sort of thing they do, isn't it?
Digging people's gardens up, and all that.'

'Looking for what?'

O

'I've no idea.'

Gwen's mouth had fallen open. 'They'd better not try to dig
my garden up. It's taken years to get it like it is.'

'Don't worry, Grandma, they won't do that.'

'Of course not,' said Andrew. The don't know why I said that.
I just wondered what they were doing out there, that's all.'

Helen realized he was hovering in the doorway so that he could

O	J

keep an eye on the view of the street through the front window,
as if there was something going on out there that he didn't want to
miss. He was fidgety and nervous, and she remembered that Laura
Vernon's death would be having an impact at the office too.

'I don't suppose Graham Vernon has been into work today,
Dad?'

'No, no. He phoned to say he would be at home for a few


111
days to look after Charlotte. And to help the police, of course.
He said we could contact him there if we need him. But ill the
meantime I've to carry on as normal. I've got to take over all
his appointments and meetings.'

Andrew looked at his watch as he said this, shooting back a
white cuff containing one of a pair of gold cufflinks that Helen
had bought him. 'I can't stop long,' he said. 'I've got to be back
in Sheffield by twelve for a lunch.'

'I'll have to be going soon too, Grandma.'

o o	'

Gwen dropped her knitting and reached out for Helen's arm.
'I daren't go out, Helen. Will you fetch me some bread and tea
from the shop before you go?'

'Why daren't you go out, Grandma?'

'Why? Can't you imagine what people are saying about us?
They're looking at me if I even go near the windows. That's
why I closed the curtains.'

'Take no notice, Grandma. People will soon forget.'

Helen had noticed the extra activity in Moorhay. There were
more walkers than usually passed through, even in summer.
Many of them were not dressed for walking, but stopped and
peered into the windows of the cottages they passed. The car
park at the Drover was full, and there were cars parked along
the roadside, their roofs shimmering with heat. There were even
two cars in the layby where the Hulley's bus stopped twice a
day. The bus driver would be annoyed when he came.

Andrew began to mop his brow with a white handkerchief as
he cast another glance towards the front window. 'So the police
haven't been back then, eh, Gwen? That's good, isn't it?'

The old woman didn't look convinced as she fumbled for
some money in an old purse. 'I suppose so. And an extra pint
of milk, Helen.'

'I'll get off then, if you're all right, Gwen. Take care of
yourselves, you and Harry, won't you? Bye, Helen.'

Helen said goodbye and watched her father let himself out
of the front door. She wondered, for a moment, where he had
been passing from if he was on his way back to Sheffield.


Helen paused in the street after leaving Dial Cottage. She had


112
recognized a figure further up the road, emerging from one of
iiie houses near the village hall. Ben Cooper was wilh the woman
police officer who had come to the house with the more senior
detectives to talk to Harry. She was carrying a clipboard and
siic looked serious and businesslike.

Helen hesitated, unsure whether she should speak to them,
not knowing whether Ben would want to acknowledge her in
front of his colleague.

"I cannot believe,' Fry was saying, 'the way some of the people
in this village speak to you, Ben. What do they think you are?
Jesus Christ?'

Cooper shrugged. He thought of his first taste of Moorhay
hospitality the day before, when the man mowing the graveyard
had glowered at him with suspicion, and the woman watering her
flower beds had refused to speak to him. They hadn't known who
he was then, hadn't even known he was a police officer. He had
just been some casual stranger in sweaty clothes, running madly
through the heat, his behaviour unconventional, his intentions

o	'	'

dubious. But that was not the picture of the place he would want
to present to a genuine stranger, a real outsider, like Diane Fry.
It was not how villages like Moorhay really were, at heart.

'They just know me, some of them. Or they've heard of me,
at least. It makes a difference. There are some folk who don't
like talking to outsiders much.'

"I suppose you think if I was going round on my own they
wouldn't even give me the time of day.'

'Oh, they'd probably do that,' said Cooper. 'But it'd be the
time in Papua New Guinea.'

'Ha, ha.'

'I'm only joking.'

'Yes, I know. I could practically see you reading the script.
But what gets me is that they all trot out your father's name,
like some mantra. Sergeant Cooper this, and Sergeant Cooper
that. If you're Jesus Christ, who must he be?'

'Just an old-fashioned copper.'

'You'd think he was a member of the family. They all look
at you like a long-lost relative.'


113
Fry saw Helen Milner first. Their eyes met, and Helen turned
away, as il she had decided not to speak to them alter all.

'And here's another one,' said Fry quietly.

Cooper noticed Helen then. Fry glowered at him as he smiled
towards her.

'Did you want to speak to us, Helen?'

'No, no. it's all right. Well, only . . . to saw hello. How are you

'	'	O	J	J	J

getting on? Are you any nearer catching the man you want?'
'We're just the troops on the ground, you know. We don't

get to know the bigger picture in an enquiry until the big chiefs

decide to tell us about it.'

'Oh.' Helen looked a bit disappointed.

'Of course, at this rate, it will be the other way round,' said

Fry. 'We'll all be waiting like a lot of Dr Watsons for Ben here

J	o

to condescend to tell us the answers.'

Helen frowned, puzzled by the tone of the comment. 'Perhaps
I'd better let you get on. I can see you're busy.'

'No, wait,' said Cooper. 'How's Mr Dickinson?'

She thought Ben looked different today. Less formal, a bit

&	^	'

more relaxed, now that they had renewed their acquaintance.
Yesterday he had seemed to see her as a stranger, to be treated
like any other member of the public. But perhaps relaxed wasn't
the right word. He looked less tightly focused, more readily
distracted. His hair was tousled in a way that reminded Helen
powerfully of the younger Ben she had known so well. And
Gwen was right -- his eyes were deep brown. She had almost
forgotten.

'Granddad's fine. A bit, well ..."

'Yes? Is he upset? It's understandable.'

'A bit quiet, that's all I was going to say.'

The.	'	O	O	J

'And your grandmother?'
'It's all a bit much for her to take in.'

'She's taken it worse than your grandfather, I suppose. People
of that generation --'

O

'Don't let Granddad hear you say that.'

'Miss Milner, did you know Laura Vernon?' interrupted
Fry.

'Oh, well, I did meet her once.'


114
'When was that?'

A couple of months ago. It was at a party that the Vernons
wave. A Midsummer Party, they called it. Yes, it was in June.'

'What do you know about Laura?'

'Oh, absolutely nothing. I don't really know her parents either .'

'But you were invited to their party. How was that?'

'My father works for Graham Vernon. I suppose they invited
me out of politeness.'

'Oh, of course. But you met Laura at this party.'

'Yes.'

'What did you make of her?'

'Laura? She was a very pretty girl. Big, dark eyes. Very mature
for her age.'

o

shee waited. 'And?'

j

'I don't know what else to say really.'

'Her looks don't tell us much about her personality, Miss
Milncr.'

'As I say, I didn't really know her.'

'But I'm sure you're a good observer. What do you do for
a living?'

o

'I'm a teacher.'

'Of course. So you're used to assessing children. What did

^	o

you think of Laura Vernon?'

Helen lowered her eyes to avoid the policewoman's direct
stare. 'I suppose I thought she was rather too precocious. She
was a bit brash, a bit pushy. Arrogant, even.'

'Arrogant?'

'Well, she struck me as the sort of girl who had been told
so often how clever and attractive she was that she had come to
believe it and expected everyone to behave accordingly. We see
the type in school sometimes. They can be very disruptive.'

'Thank you. That's very helpful.'

Cooper had his head cocked on one side, watching Helen as
she answered Fry's questions. Helen thought he must see how
disconcerted she was by the abrupt approach.

'Finished?' he asked Fry.

'Ready when you are.'


115
'I might call in and see how your grandparents are for mvself
sometime,' he told Helen.

'Grandma would he pleased,' she said. 'I think she took a
liking to you. It would cheer her up. She remembers you, you know.

Fry was becoming impatient. 'We've got sonic pi upei ties to
call on yet, Ben. We'd better go.'

'Sure.

'And your family, Ben,' said Helen, as he turned away. 'How
are they?'

But it seemed to Helen that Ben Cooper must not have heard
her question as he walked away towards his car. He didn't reply,
didn't even look round, but gave a small gesture, a half-apologetic
wave. It was Diane Fry, following him, who took the trouble to

J '	O	'

turn and look back.


Juliana Van Door gazed down at the naked body and shook her
head at the question.

'No rape. No genital abrasions, no semen traces or any other
bodily fluids. Sorry, Chief Inspector.'

'No sexual intercourse, forced or otherwise?' said Tailby. He
knew it sounded as though he was disappointed, but he didn't
worry about what the pathologist might think of him. She was
experienced enough to know it was only because such traces
would have made his job a lot easier.

After the clothes had been removed, the body had been
photographed and all external signs had been recorded. The
clothes themselves had been set aside for forensic examination.
Now Mrs Van Door was ready for the autopsy itself, the careful
dismantling of the victim's body in search of minute scraps of
information.

Stewart Tailby had attended too many postmortems over the
years. The first ten or twelve had been a cause of humiliation, as
his stomach had revolted at the smell of exposed intestines and
the wet, sucking sound as organs were removed. His tendency
to turn faint and leave the room to vomit had been a source
of hilarity in his first CID posting. Though he had learned, like
everyone else, to mask his feelings and control his stomach, he


116
had never learned to accept in his heart the absolute necessity of
the final horrors and indignities that were inflicted on a victim of
violent crime. The fact that these gruesome acts were perpetrated
in the name of forensic science -- and ultimately, he supposed, in
the name of justice -- made no difference at all.

In the autopsy room, some police officers chose the pretence
of graveside humour. That was not Tailby's style. He retreated
instead behind a facade of silence and detachment, coated in a
thin veneer of formal jargon and easily repcatable, meaningless
phrases. In a way, he could be physically present, yet keep his
feelings aloof from the things that had to be done. Tailby knew
that he was already considered a cold and austere man by his
colleagues and junior officers; some even said he was pompous
and self-important. But it was a small price to pay to maintain
your distance from realities that struck too close to home.

'That's not to say the victim was unfamiliar with sexual
intercourse,' said Mrs Van Door. 'Not at all, not at all.'

'No?'

'I would say the young lady was far from being a virgin, Chief
Inspector. Fifteen years old? Very promiscuous, some of these
young people now.'

'You'd think that the risk of AIDS would make them think
twice, wouldn't you?'

'This one won't be worrying about AIDS, in any case.'

The pathologist was dressed in a green T-shirt and baggy
green trousers, with her mask hanging round her neck ready
for work. With her hair tied back and her face devoid of
make-up and harshly lit by the mortuary lights, the pathologist
still looked striking. It was all down to the bone structure,

o	'

thought Tailby. That, and the thoughtful grey eyes. He had
once, as a young detective, harboured secret dreams about
Juliana Van Door. But time had passed and the feelings had
faded. He had married and been divorced since then. And his
feelings had died completely.

Tailby would have liked to have been able to leave the
postmortem room before the pathologist reached the stage of

opening the body and removing the organs. Before she used

r o	j	e»	o

the stainless-steel saw to cut through the sternum, and before

o	'


117
the electric trepanner sliced off the top of the girl's damaged
skull. He tokl himself That there would be little to learn from
the gory process in this case, except that Laura Vernon had died
in perfect health.

'The bruise on her leg?' he said.

'Ah. Interesting, yes. Not unknown, 1 understand, in sexually
motivated killings. You would be asking yourself why there is

O	O J	J

only this one sign of a possible sexual assault. Was the attacker
interrupted? Yes, interesting.'

'Not a bruise made by a blow, then. A hand gripping the leg?
But I would expect two separate marks, at least.'

'No, no, no,' said Mrs Van Door. 'You misunderstand. If
you look more closely, you will see small punctures where the
flesh is swollen. This is not an injury caused by the bruising of
fingers. I suspect these are teeth marks, Chief Inspector.'

Tailby perked up with sudden interest. 'Someone bit her,' he
said. 'Someone smashed her skull, then bit her on the thigh.'

'Possibly,' said the pathologist. 'Interesting?'

The detective peered more closely at the mark. It looked no
more than a bruise to him.

'Can you be sure?'

'Well, no. I need to obtain the opinion of a forensic odontologist,
of course. I have already contacted the University Dental School
in Sheffield. We can get photographs and impressions, and
excise the area around the bite to preserve it. And then we
can compare the impression with a suspect's dentition. It's up
to you to produce the suspect, of course.'

'It's an odd place for a bite.'

'Yes. They are usually on the breasts in these cases, rather
than on the thigh. In fact, I saw a report recently about a
research project conducted by a forensic odontologist. It was
entirely concerned with how bite marks differ according to the

J	O

shape of the victim's breast, the cup size, the age of the victim
and even the amount of droop in the breast.'

Tailby was intrigued. 'How on earth did he manage all
that?'

'Designed a mechanical set of teeth and recruited twenty
female volunteers -- goodness knows where from.'

O


118
'Students, I suppose,' said Tailbv, reluctantly impressed.
But I'm sure bites on the thigh are not unknown in sexual

O

assaults either. In the absence of any samples for DNA analysis,
Chief Inspector, this is probably the best you could have
hoped for.'

Tailby stared at the pathologist. 'So, let's sec. The attacker
strikes her over the head two or three times. When she is on
the floor he pulls down her jeans and her pants, then bites her
once on the thigh.' It didn't quite ring true somehow, though
he knew there had been far more bizarre and ghoulish cases, far

O

more perverted killers who committed much worse acts on the
bodies of their victims.
'Ah, you would like to indulge in a little mutual speculation,
Chief Inspector?' said the pathologist. 'On that basis then, why
not consider another scenario? A voluntary sexual act. The bite
on the thigh is someone's idea of erotic foreplay.'

'Possible. Then something goes wrong.'

O O	O

'The girl objects to the bite, perhaps.'

'Yes, she pulls away, changes her mind. They argue; he
gets angry.'

'Sexually fuelled frustration. A powerful force.'

'I can buy that,' said Tailby. 'There's no way of telling which
of those it was from the nature of the bite, I suppose?'

'Mmm. A good odontologist may be able to reproduce the
angle of the bite and the depth. He might suggest the position
of the attacker's head at the moment the bite was inflicted."

Tailby looked again at the naked limbs of the fifteen-year-old
girl. Her body was shockingly white except for the areas on her
flank and the left side of her chest, where lividity had set in, the
blood settling to the lowest point of gravity during the time she
had lain dead in the bracken on the Baulk.

The bite mark was situated high on the inside of her right

O	O

thigh, where the living flesh had been at its softest and most

O '	O

vulnerable. The picture suggested by Juliana Van Door of the position of the attacker's head made Tailby feel more uneasy
than anything else he had heard so far.

But the pathologist was fiddling with a table full of gleaming,
sharp instruments, eager to get on with the next stage of the


119
process of reducing Laura Vernon to her component parts.
1 ailbv and his team had to do the same thing, in a way. That

J	O	>

was the essence of victimologv. the process of getting to know
the intimate details of the victim as a means of establishing the
connection to her killer.

'If your scenario is correct/ he said, ''aura's attacker will be
much easier for us to find -- he must have been known to her."

'Presumably, Chief Inspector Yes, it's preferable to a random
attack by someone from outside the area, isn't it?'

'From our point of view, certainly.'

'I hope that I am able to help you then.'

In the clinical atmosphere of the mortuary, Tailby felt able
to voice the fear that he would never talk about much, even to
his own staff. 'That's what I'm always afraid of, you know -- a
case that drags on for months, unsolved, because we can't even
get a lead on a suspect. It's a detective's nightmare.'

'You have in mind, of course, a recent case.'

'The girl in Buxton, yes. There are similarities, aren't there? B
Division's enquiry has been unsuccessful so far, after more than
a month. The view is that the victim was chosen at random by
her attacker. In those circumstances, it was only ever a matter
of time before we had a second victim.'

'It would be a tragic thing,' said Mrs Van Door, flourishing
a scalpel over the chest of the corpse, 'if the poor girl here were
simply to be known as Victim Number Two.'

'It would be even more tragic,' said Tailby, 'if we ended up
with a Victim Number Three.'


120
10


UK, what have- v\c got, any thing,''

'Cars, lots of cars. Most of them unknown. You have to
expect it in an area like this.'

'Tourists,' said Dl Hitchens. 'They always complicate the
issue.'

They were in the tiny beer garden at the back of the Drover,
squashed round a table under a parasol that kept the sun off their
plates of ham and cheese sandwiches and their slimline tonics.
The only other customers outdoors were two workmen eating

J	o

scampi and chips and drinking beer at a far table. Everyone else
had chosen to sit inside the pub, in the cool rooms, or at the
front, where there was a view of the road.

Cooper and Fry had met up with four sweating PCs who had
been working their way down the village, and they were all now

O	J	O	>

clinking ice cubes desperately as they exchanged the pitifully thin
information from their clipboards. DI Hitchens had arrived late,
brazenly downing a whisky and stealing their sandwiches. He

J	O	J	O

looked like the squire visiting his workers, trying to appear
interested in what they had to say but ready to move on to
more important calls on his time at any moment. He pulled
up a chair next to Fry, cool as only a man could be who had
just got ovit of an air-conditioned Ford.

'I've got plenty of hikers,' said Ben Cooper. 'Mostly ones
and twos. But there was a bigger group through round about
the right time. They were seen on the Eden Valley Trail early
Saturday evening.'

J	O

'God, how will we trace them?' asked Hitchens.

'They were young people. They mav have been heading for

J	^	O I	1	j	J	c>

the sleeping barn at Hathersage or one of the youth hostels.'

'OK, we'll check them out. There's going to be an appeal
in the papers and on the telly in the morning. We'll try and
get the hikers mentioned specifically. And the -- what was it --
Eden Valley Trail?'


121
'It's a popular footpath. It runs just under the slope where
Laura Vernon was found. You can see the path quite clearly
from there.'

'OK, thanks, Ben. At least we're in with a chance of finding

'	'	o

a witness or two. Anything else?'
'Only a lot of talk,' said Cooper.
'You're lucky,' said one of the PCs, an aggressive-looking

J '	'	OO	O

bald-headed man whose name was Parkin. 'Most of them just
wanted me off the doorstep.'

'Well, I can understand that,' said PC Wragg. 'They've
probably heard your jokes.'

Wragg was the officer who had accompanied Cooper to Dial
Cottage when Helen Milner had first rung in to report her
grandfather's find. He didn't look any fitter now than he had
the day before, and he was drinking orange juice as if he had a
lot of fluid to replace. Like the other uniformed officers, he had
loosened his clothing as much as he could, but was handicapped
by the entire ironmonger's shop of equipment he wore round
his belt -- kwik-cuffs, side-handle baton, CS spray, and God
knew what else was considered necessary for the job of calling
on members of the public in a quiet Peak District village.

'I've got a new one,' said Parkin. 'There's this prostitute --'

There were general groans. They had all heard Parkin's awful
jokes before.

'Not now, Parkin,' said Hitchens.

Fry was leafing through her notebook. The got one woman. Mrs

J	O	O	O

Davis, Chestnut Lodge. She says she's met Laura Vernon several
times. Apparently Mrs Davis's daughter goes to the same stables
as Laura did, and they got quite friendly. She describes Laura as
a very nice girl.'

J	o

'What does that mean exactly? Nice.'

'The way she spoke about some of the other children she
came across, I think it means that she approved of Laura's
background, sir.'

'Mmm. Did you get her to expand on that?'

'As far as I could. She said Laura was polite and knew how to
behave. She said she was very good with the younger children,
helping to show them what to do when they were learning to


122
ride. Mrs Davis told me a story about Laura looking after a bov
who had fallen off his horse. Apparently, she was the only one
he would let comfort him when he had hurt himself. Mrs Davis
said Laura's mother was a nice woman too.'

Somebody snorted. DI Hitchcns didn't look impressed. 'It
doesn't mean much.'

'But they all seem to know of the Vernons, these people,'
viid Fry. 'Fverv one of them.'

'Yes, and not too charmed by them either, on the whole,'
said Wragg.

oo

'It's that sort of village, though.'

o '	o

'What do you mean, Diane?' asked Hitchens.
'They're close, this lot. They don't like newcomers, people
who don't fit in. I mean, they're not exactly welcoming, are

J	J	O'

they?'

'I don't agree,' said Cooper.

'Well, you wouldn't.'

'It depends on how you approach them, that's all. If you come
to a village like this willing to fit in, they'll accept you. But if

o	O	"	J	1 J

you stay aloof, make it look as though you think you're better
than they are, then they're bound to react against you.'

'And the Vernons are like that, aloof, you reckon, Ben?'

'Sure of it, sir.'

'Hey, what about some sort of conspiracy against the Vernons?
Local vigilantes, like, who get together and knock off Laura
Vernon as a warning? Clear off out of our village, we don't

want you. That sort of thing.'

j	&

'Don't talk rubbish, Parkin.'

'That sounds like something out of the Dark Ages,' said

o	o '

Fry.

'Or The X-Files,' suggested Wragg.

'All right, all right.'

'Any positive reactions to the trainer?' asked Hitchens.

'Nothing.'

O

'Some of the old biddies don't even know what a trainer is.'
'That trainer has to be somewhere.'

'Sir, if it's chummy from Buxton, the one B Division are
after, then he'll probably have taken it home with him as


123
a memento, like they reckon he did with the tights off the
other one.'

'Yes, that's possible, Wragg. But Mr Tailby doesn't believe
we can assume the two cases are linked at this stage.'

'But that means we have to do everything from scratch, when
they might turn out to be the same bloke after all.'

'Have we turned up anything on the known offenders, sir?'
asked Cooper.

'Not yet. It's early days. Dl Armstrong is on to it.'

'Well, she's wasting her time anyway.'

'Thanks for the benefit of your views, Parkin.'

Cooper saw that PC Parkin was watching Diane Fry carefully
for her reactions. Fry only needed to make one ill-considered
comment, let slip one unguarded reaction, and a report on her
behaviour would be circulating round the division very quickly.
A reputation among your colleagues could be made or broken
on first impressions.

Sometimes, he knew, the worst thing of all was to inadvert'	'	o


ently earn yourself some childish nickname, which you could
then never live down, no matter how hard you tried.

'We were lucky that the body was found so quickly really,'
said Hitchens. 'It's given us a head start. Sometimes we're not
so lucky. The old bloke with the dog did us a big favour.'

'Have you been involved in any other enquiries like this, sir?'
asked Fry.

Hitchens told them about a murder enquiry in the late 1980s,
when a teenage boy had gone missing from his foster home in
Eyam. They had set up an incident room right in the centre of
the village, linked to Divisional HQ. Over a period of months
they had gradually spread the search over an area within a
five-mile radius of Eyam. They had used the Mountain Rescue
Team, Search Dog Teams, Cave Rescue Teams, the Peak Park
Ranger Service, Derbyshire Countryside Rangers, even members
of ramblers' clubs and scores of other volunteers. They had put up
Search and Rescue helicopters over the hills. But they had never
found the boy.

'A man walking his dog in just the right place would have
been a godsend then,' he said.

O	'


124
'And there was that one in 1966, do you remember?' said
Parkin, turning to Diane rry.

'I wasn't oven around in 1966,' said Fry. 'Thanks very
much.'

'Eh? Well, it's only, what . . .'

'Thirty-three vcars aao.'

j	.	&

'So it was. Well, it's in the history books anyway.'

'1966' let me guess -- vou're talking about football. The

World Cup? That'd be the only thing you know about, I

suppose.'

'Yeah. They had the trophy nicked, did you know that? The

World Cup itself, the Jules Rimet Trophy. Before the finals.'
'Did somebody leave it in their car or what?'
'And you won't believe this -- but it was found by a dog.

Chucked in a hedge bottom, it was. Wrapped in fish-and

chip paper.'
'The dog?'

o

'The trophy. It was wrapped in fish-and-chip paper.'

'Pickles,' said Cooper.

'No, it was definitely fish and chips.'

'The dog was called Pickles. It got introduced to all the players

o	o	r j

before the final.'

'Surely you don't remember it?' said Fry.

'No, but like Parkin says ..."

'It's in the history books, right. Well, I must be reading the
wrong history books. All that stuff passed me by. I suppose I
must have overlooked it somewhere between the assassination
of President Kennedy and the end of the Vietnam War.'

'Well, probably,' said Parkin, and sneered.

Cooper winced. 'I think I'll just pop to the gents before
we leave.'

It was a relief to get inside the Drover and out of the heat.
The landlord, Kenny Lee, nodded to Cooper from the bar as he
slipped into the toilets. The sudden solitude and the smell of urine
did nothing to help Cooper keep his mind off the previous night.
It had been a very long night, as the farmhouse had filled with
members of the family -- his brother first, then his sister and her
husband arriving from Buxton, and then his uncle and his cousins,

O	'


125
all pitching in to help clear up the mess, to support Kate and look
alter die children, Aniv and josie. Meanwhile, the doctor had
called to sedate his mother, and later the ambulance had arrived
to take her to Edendale General, where it would not be her first
visit to the psychiatric unit. And then the endless discussion had
begun -- a discussion that had crone on until the early hours of the

O	O	^

morning, by which time they were all exhausted and no nearer
to an answer to an insoluble problem.

There was a payphone in the passage near the bar, and Cooper
fished in his pocket for a few coins. He was put through to the
psychiatric unit at the hospital, where the staff were professionally
cautious. All his call established was what he already knew -- that
his mother was still under sedation and not fit to have visitors.
Try again tomorrow, they said.

In the meantime, tonight there might finally be a family
decision. And he knew that there was a chance his mother
would have to be taken away permanently from the home she
had known all her life. It would be the final humiliation in her
descent into schizophrenia.

When he came out of the pub and walked back out into the
beer garden, something made Cooper stop and stand still in the
shade of the side wall. He was standing several yards behind Diane
Fry, and he saw what he might not have seen from his seat across
the table. He saw DI Hitchens's arm on the back of Fry's chair
as he leaned close towards her to speak directly into her ear.
He saw the DI's hand move upwards from the chair to rest for
a moment on her shoulder. Behaving like a courting couple, as
his mother would have said.

And then he saw Fry nod briefly before Hitchens took his
hand away. And Parkin told another poor joke that nobody
laughed at.


The phone was ringing again. It had hardly stopped ringing for
days. Though the answerphone had been left on and she had been
told to take no notice of it, the continual noise was driving Sheila
Kelk mad.

Sheila came to the Mount three days a week to clean, and
Tuesday was one of her days. The fuss about the girl being found


126
murdered had not put her off coming -- far from it, in fact. Mr
and Mrs Vernon would need her, she had told her husband. A
house still needed cleaning. She might he ahle to provide some
other service to poor Mrs Vernon, to be of some comfort to
her. Mrs Vernon might, just might, want to confide in her, to

o ' J	o '

tell her all about what had been going on.

But here she was. going over the sitting room carpet for the

The o o	o	I

second time, wishing the sound of the Dvson would drown out
the constant ringing. She had been here longer than her four
hours already, and no one had so much as spoken to her.

In a temporary silence from the phone, Sheila switched off the
vacuum cleaner, flicking a cloth over a piece of pine furniture that
she had never quite been able to put a name to. She thought of it
as a cross between a sideboard and a writing desk.

o

While she polished, she listened for the noises from upstairs.
From Mrs Vernon's bedroom, of course, there was still no sound.
But the heavy footsteps were still moving directly overhead,
where Sheila knew Laura's room lay. Mr Vernon was still up
there with the policemen. He had not been in a good mood;
he had been angry, in fact. Understandable, of course. But being

rude and refusing even to speak to her was going too far, Sheila

o	r	o o	'

thought.

The phone began to ring again. Four rings before the answering
machine cut in. She couldn't understand why the Vernons were
getting so many phone calls. Back home at Wye Close, the

phone often didn't ring from one week to the next, and then

r	o

it would only be some girl she didn't know, who would try to
sell her double glazing.

o	o

Sheila Kelk was so absorbed in listening to the movements
above, that she didn't notice someone had come into the room
behind her until she heard the voice.

'Working overtime, Mrs Kelk?'

She jumped, her hand going to her mouth as she turned, then
she relaxed as quickly.

'Oh -- it's you.'

'Yes, it's me,' said the young man. His jeans were grubby,
and when he walked across the carpet towards the far door, his
shoes left imprints on the pile. Sheila wanted to complain, but


127
knew it would make no impression on Daniel Vernon. He was
dark and fleshy, like his father, but sullen and quick-tempered
where Graham Vernon was polite and sometimes charming, on
the outside at least. Daniel was wearing a white T-shirt with the

o

name of some rock group on it that Sheila Kelk had never heard
of. The armpits and a patch on his back were soaked with sweat.
She guessed that Daniel had probably walked from the main road
after hitching his way from Devon.

O	J

'Where's my mother?' he asked.

'Taken to her bed and won't get up,' said Sheila.

'And I suppose these apes tramping about the house are
policemen.'

'They're looking at Laura's room.'

'What for, for God's sake? What do they think they'll
find there?'

'They don't tell me, I'm sure,' said Sheila.

When the phone went again, Daniel automatically walked
over and picked it up on the second ring.

'No, this is Daniel Vernon. Who am I speaking to?' He listened
impatiently for a moment. 'Your name means nothing to me, but
I take it you're some sort of associate of my father's? Yes? Then,
in that case, you can fuck off.'

Daniel slammed the phone back down and glared at Sheila.

'Oh, I don't think your father would like you to do that,'
she said, shocked.

He walked towards her angrily, and she backed away from
him, dragging the vacuum cleaner with her so that it remained
in between them, like a lion tamer's chair.

'My father, Mrs Kelk,' said Daniel, his face contorted into a
snarl. 'My father can fuck off as well.'


Tailby was watching Graham Vernon carefully, not asking too
many questions, content to let the silence prompt the other
man to talk.

'We're a very close family,' said Vernon. 'We've stayed very
close to our children. In other families, they start to drift away
when they reach their teens, don't they?'

Tailby nodded, as one father to another, understanding the


128
way it was with teenagers. In his own case, though, they had
clone more than drill -- they had positively stampeded.

'Charlotte and I, we have . . . we had a good relationship
with Laura. We took an interest in what she was doing at
school, in who her friends were, in how she was progressing
with her music and her riding. And she took an interest in what

o

we were doing. Not many families can say they have that sort
of relationship, can they? Laura vised to ask me how business
was. She would ask me about some of the people she had met.
Business contacts, you know. She was so intelligent. She knew
who was important without me telling her. Amazing.'

'She met your business contacts here?' asked Tailby. 'They
visit you at home?'

'Oh yes. I think entertaining is important. We both do,
Charlotte and I. You have to treat your clients right. It's a
question of mixing business with pleasure, if you like. A nice
house, a good meal, a decent bottle of wine or two. A normal,
happy family around. It makes a good impression on clients, I
can tell you. It's the key to long-term success.'

'Of course.' Tailby wondered where a happy family came in
the list of requirements. Somewhere between the Bordeaux and
the beef Wellington?

o

'And your son, Mr Vernon?'

'Daniel? What about him?'

'Is he part of this ... I mean, does he meet your clients
when they visit?'

'Well, he has done, on occasion.' Vernon got up from the
chair and poured himself another whisky. He didn't offer the
policeman one, having already been refused once.

Tailby had noted that there was a drinks cabinet in Vernon's
study as well as in the sitting room, and no doubt another in the
dining room. Not that Vernon himself called this room his study.

O	J

It was an office, and it looked like one -- with a personal computer
and laser printer, a fax machine, a phone and a bookcase full
of presentation folders in tasteful dark blue with gold block
lettering. From the high sash windows there was an excellent

O	o

view of the garden, right down to the avenue of conifers and
the rocky summit of Win Low in the distance.


129
'He's at university, Chief Inspector. Exeter. Studying politics.
Not my idea oi a subject, but there we are. He's a bright boy,
and he'll make a success of something one day, I suppose.'
'He was close to Laura?'

'Oh, very close. They doted on each other.'
'He'll be extremely upset then, by what's happened.'
'He was dreadfully cut up when we told him. He'll take it
very hard indeed.'

Tailby considered this. He wondered if the son would put on a
better show of being cut up than the father was doing. Shock and
grief took people so many different ways, of course. And Graham
Vernon had already had three days in which to go through the
range of emotions expected of a man whose fifteen-year-old
daughter had gone missing and had then been found again,

o	o	o	o

hattered to death. There had been emotions, certainly. Anger
most of all -- but directed almost obsessively in one direction,
towards the boy called Lee Sherratt, who had, it was claimed,
lusted after young Laura. The intelligent, innocent, extremely
attractive Laura. But if there had been genuine grief in Graham
Vernon's heart, then Tailby had missed it.

'It's a little early to be back at university, isn't it?' he said.
'Surely August is still the summer holidays for these students,
isn't it?'

'Of course.' Suddenly, Vernon looked as though he might
be losing patience. 'But there are always things to do before
the term starts proper. Summer schools, revision, settling into
new digs.'

o

Tailby nodded. 'Tell me again about Lee Sherratt.'

'Again? Surely you know enough about him already? I don't
think there's any more I can tell you that will help you to find
him, if you haven't managed it already.'

'We're looking as hard as we can, sir. I'm hopeful we'll locate
the boy soon. But I'd just like to get the alleged circumstances
clear in my mind.'

'The alleged circumstances?' Vernon looked a little red in
the face.

'His relationship with Laura.'

Vernon sighed. 'He's a young man, isn't he? Twenty years


130
old. You know what young men are like. Laura was a very
attractive girl. Very attractive. You could see by the way he
looked at her what he was thinking. I had to get rid of him
in the end. It never occurred to me when I took him on -- I
blame mvself for that.'

'So he looked at Laura.' said Tailbv. 'Anything else?'

'	J	J	O

'Well ... he took any excuse to strip off his shirt when he
worked in the garden. Whenever he knew she was watching
him. I thought of telling him not to, but it would only have
drawn attention to the fact.'

'It's not what I'd call a relationship,' said Tailby.

'It was obvious that he wanted to go further. I don't need
telling about young men like Sherratt, Chief Inspector. I had to
nip it in the bud. I couldn't have him pestering my daughter.'

'Did she say he was pestering her? Did she complain?'

'Well, in a way.'

'	j

'Mmm. Yet from what you say, it sounds as though Laura
was equally interested in the young man.'

'For God's sake, she was only fifteen. That age is ... difficult.
They're easily influenced, in the full flush of adolescent
hormones. Surely you understand that.'

It was obvious to them both that Vernon was floundering.

'So you sacked him.'

'Yes. Last week. I told him we didn't need him any more.
He wasn't very pleased, I can tell you.'

'You tend to deal with these things yourself, do you, sir?
Rather than your wife.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, you're away all day on business. Sometimes you work
long hours, no doubt. You arrive home late in the evenings. But your wife is at home most of the time, I gather. She would have

J	' O

had more contact with a gardener. Yet you would do something
like that yourself, rather than letting your wife do it.'

'Yes.'

"I just thought, it might have been difficult to find the

'	O '	O

opportunity to speak to Sherratt, if you weren't at home
during the day.'

'I made a point of it on this occasion, Chief Inspector.'


131
'I would also have thought it might be difficult for you to get
the chance to observe the boy.

'Observe him? You're losing me.'

'I'm going on your description just now. You described him
looking at your daughter and showing off to her while she
watched. That suggests to me, sir, that you must have spent
some time observing him. Perhaps I should say, observing
them both '

Vernon was pacing towards the windows with his whisky. His
hands were moving again now, touching his lips as if he feared his

mouth miwht react of its own accord. 'I don't know what vou're

&	*

getting at. It's quite natural. Are those men of yours finished up
there yet?'

'Shall we see, sir?' suggested Tailbv.

'	oo	J


Sheila Kelk's gaze passed over Daniel's shoulder to the doorway
from the main hall. The tall policeman stood there, smiling
politely, raising a slightly quizzical eyebrow. She wasn't sure
how long he had been standing there.

o	o

Daniel turned and stared at him. 'And who exactly are
you?'

'Detective Chief Inspector Tailby, Edendale CID. Here with
Mr Vernon's permission, of course.'

'Oh, sure.'

There were more footsteps in the hall behind Tailby.

'Daniel?' Graham Vernon looked tired rather than impatient
now, the conflicting pressures starting to wear him down. He
looked from Tailby to his son. 'We didn't expect you quite
so soon.'

'Mr Daniel Vernon, is it? I'd like to have a chat with you
sometime, sir, when it's convenient.'

Sheila looked at Daniel and received a glare so venomous that
her mouth shut suddenly, and she began to drag the Dvson

J '	o	O	^

towards the dining room, awav from the scene of confrontation.

O	'	,'

'Of course, Chief Inspector.' The young man walked towards
the policeman, staring up at him with an expression of undisguised
fury. T'm absolutely dying to tell you a few things you
may not know about my parents.'


132
11


Where to next, then?' said Cooper.

'What's up with you? Eaten too much cheese at lunch?'

'I'm fine. Where to next?'

'Thorpe Farm,' said Fry, consulting the map.

'That's one of the smallholdings. There's another one at the
end of the same lane. Bents Farm. We'd better make sure we
don't miss it out.'

Cooper had to wait while two women on horseback passed
them, the horses walking slowly and elegantly, their muscled
hindquarters shining with good health. The riders nodded a
greeting and looked down into the car to study them, as if
motorists were unusual in Moorhay. Someone appeared at the
door of the bar at the Drover, wedged it open and propped a
blackboard outside. From the tiny shop and post office came the
sound of laughter.

o

Across the road, a workman was playing a transistor radio as
he repointed the wall of a cottage. An old lady emerged from the
open doorway to speak to him on his ladder, probably asking him
if he wanted a cup of tea. She saw the Toyota and said something
else to the workman, who turned round to look. Cooper had
already visited the old lady, who had seemed to know more
about everyone in the village than was good for her. But she
had known nothing about Laura Vernon. Nothing at all.

o	o

It seemed to Cooper that there was more life about the
village of Moorhay today than ever before when he had been
there previously. It was as if the murder of Laura Vernon had
given it a new vitality, had brought its inhabitants together in the
face of adversity. Or maybe it had just given them something to
talk about.

He turned the Toyota confidently into a rutted lane overshadowed by trees, with a tall border of grass growing up the
middle that brushed along the underside of the car. The trees
were mostly beech, with some huge horse chestnuts creating


133
a dense canopy overhead. In the autumn, the children of the
village would be drawn to this track with their sticks and stones
to knock down the conkers.

'Who lives out here, then?' said Fry. 'I suppose it's your Auntie
Alice or something, is it? It's bound to be someone who greets
you like the prodigal son. Some second cousin or other. Have
your mother and father got big families? Inbreeding affects the
brain, you know.'

'I don't know these places,' said Cooper.

Within a few yards of leaving the road the track took a turn
and they were reduced to a crawl to protect the suspension.
Already they might as well have been miles from the village.
The trees completely cut off their view of houses that were
only a couple of hundred yards away. It was a very old patch
of woodland they were driving through, and Cooper could see

J	O	O '	I

it was not managed, as a woodland should be to remain healthv.

O	'	J

Many dead branches and boughs brought down by winter gales
lay rotting among the remaining beeches. They were covered

J	o	O	O	J

in lichen and clumps of white fungi, and the bracken and ferns
were chest-high. Parts of the stone wall in front of the wood had

o

collapsed, and a makeshift post and wire fence used to block the
gaps had long since given up the battle. A handsome cock pheasant
walking along the edge of the wood paused with one foot in the
air, its claws frozen in surprise. The greens, reds and golds of its
plumage were vibrant and iridescent, and for a moment Cooper
wanted to stop the car and reach out for the bird. But it suddenly
burst into a run and dodged and weaved its way back into the
dense undergrowth, its tail extended straight out behind it.

The pheasant had started a train of thought for Cooper about
poachers, and he turned towards Fry to mention it. But he
realized that she hadn't even noticed the bird.

'There are no signs,' she complained, frowning out of the
window, as if the A A had failed her.

'There don't need to be,' said Cooper. 'Everyone in Moorhay
will know that Thorpe and Bents Farms are this way.' And though
the thought inspired by the bird stayed with him, he decided to
keep it to himself for a while.

Soon the trees gave way to a view up the slope of the hill. The


134
land here was largely rough grass. It was divided by stone walls,
then divided again by strands of electrified fencing. A hundred
yards up the slope was a jumble of makeshift buildings -- wooden
hen huts and sheds, a row of breezeblock pig sties. Two old
railway carriages stood rotting in the corner of one paddock,
and an ex-Army Nissen hut with an arched corrugated-iron roof
stretched the full width of one field.

A rich smell drifted through the open windows of the car --
mud and soiled straw, and the odours of animals of all kinds.
Somewhere there was certainly a fully operating dung heap.
There seemed to be poultry everywhere -- in the fields, on
the track, perched on the roofs of the buildings. There were
red hens and speckled grey hens, a variety of ducks and a
dozen large white geese which immediately waddled towards
the car, honkin? an aggressive warning at the intruders. Their

'	o	oo	o

noise started dogs barking somewhere in the midst of the shanty
town, and a goat could be heard bleating from one of the sheds
as Cooper drove up to a gate across the track.

He waited for Fry to get out and open the gate. This was,
after all, the usual practice for the passenger on a gated road.
But he saw she needed coaching.

o

'Would you open the gate for me?' he said.
'Are those things safe?'

'What, the geese? You just have to show them you're not
frightened of them.'
'Thanks a lot.'
Fry struggled with the wooden gate, which was tied to its

J	OO	O

post with a length of baling twine and at the other end hung
on only by its top hinge. But at last the car was through.

'Are you sure anybody actually lives up here?' said Fry.
'Where's the farmhouse?'

'Well, though they're called farms, these places, they're
really just bits left over from the days of the old cottagers,
when everyone had their own plot of land, with a cow and a
pig. They're the bits that the bigger farms haven't swallowed
up yet, and the developers haven't got round to buying up for
housing. There'll be a cottage somewhere. They'll know we're
here, with all this noise.'


135
Cooper pulled up against the back wall of the Nissen hut.
There was a rickety garage next to it, where a white Japanese
pick-up truck was parked with a metal grille across the back.
Enormous clumps of brambles grew over a wall which ran up
to a range of low stone buildings that seemed to be growing out
of the hillside.

'Do you want to take this one?' he said. 'I'll drive on up to
Bents Farm and pick you up a^ain on the way back down.'

'Fine.'

Fry got out and hesitated, looking at the threatening geese.

'Take no notice. Remember, you're not frightened of them,'

' j	o

said Cooper as the Toyota bumped away.


Fry took a deep breath and began to walk up the slope towards
the cluster of buildings. The geese immediately fell into formation
behind her, hissing and honking and darting at her ankles with

'	O	O	O

their long beaks. One of them pulled itself up to its full height
and beat its wings angrily.

Fry fixed her gaze on the buildings ahead. They looked

J	O	o	J

neglected and badly in need of repair. There were slates missing
from the roofs and a gable wall of one of the outbuildings had
bulged and slipped into an unnatural shape like something out
of a Salvador Dali painting.

After a few steps, she realized she was walking on an uneven
flagged path, the stone flags almost invisible under creeping
dandelions and thistles. A trickle of water ran on to the path
from a broken drainage pipe protruding from a stone wall. Where
the water gathered on the dusty ground it was stained red, as if

O	JO

it had run through rusted iron.

Fry cursed out loud as she tripped over the edge of a
sunken flag. Behind her trooped the geese, still honking in
outrage at being ignored. They made a strange procession as
they approached the buildings.

'Not exactly on undercover operations, then?' said a voice.

An old man was leaning on a fork on the other side of the

o

wall. He was standing in a paddock that had been converted into
a large vegetable patch. His red-checked work shirt was open at
his chest to reveal wiry grey hairs, and his sleeves were rolled


136
up over plump arms. Ancient trousers that had onre been brown
were barely held together at the waist and sagged alarmingly over

J	O	OO	O J

his crotch. They were pushed awkwardly into black Wellingtons.
His face was red, and there were irregular bald patches on his
scalp that were turning dangerously pink.

In the corner of the paddock was a small lean-to building like
an old outside privv, with an adjoining fuel store converted to a
tool shed. On a wooden chair in front of the door sat a second
old man. He had a stick propped in tront of him, wedged between
his knees, with its end dug into a patch of earth. His cuffs were
rolled back over his long, thin wrists, and he had a sharp knife
in one hand, with which he was trimming cabbages.

'Do you gentlemen live here?' asked Fry

'Gentlemen, is it?' said the man with the fork. 'Are you a
gentleman, Sam?'

O	'

The thin one laughed, flicking the knife so that it caught
the sun, its blade sticky with liquid from the stems of the
cabbages.

O

'Are you the owner, sir?' shee asked the first old man, raising

J	*	'	O

her voice above the continuing noise of the geese.

'Hang on a minute,' he said. 'Let me turn the siren off.'
He thrust his fork deep into the ground with a heave of his
shoulder, and walked to the wall. Then he picked up two clumps
of weeds with balls of dry earth sticking to their roots. He hurled
them one after the other at the geese, shouting at the top of
his voice.

shee thought the sounds he was making could easilv be some

O	O	y

local dialect descended directly from the Ancient Scandinavian
of the Viking invaders. But probably they were just noises. The
geese, at least, understood him, and turner! and waddled away
back down the track to wait for the next intruder. Without
the geese, it was quieter, but not silent. There was a continual
background clucking and muttering of poultry, a dog

O	O	O	1	J '	O

barking, the grunting of a pig. And, not far away, the yelling
of the goat.

'I'm Wilford Cutts. This is my place. Over there's my
pal Sam.'

Sam waved the knife again and slashed at another stem. It


137
severed in one clean blow, and the trimmed cabbage was dropped
into a bucket.

'Sam Beeley,' he called.

'Are you police? I suppose you're asking about that lass,' said
Wilford. 'The Mount girl.'

'Laura Vernon, yes.'

'I saw the lass about sometimes, I suppose. Is that what you
want to know?'

'Were you in the vicinity of the Baulk on Saturday night or
Sunday morning?'

'Ah. Sam'll have to tell you what I did Saturday night. I can't
rightly remember.'

'I'm sorry?'

'I'm quite fond of a drink, you see. At my age, it only takes
a couple of pints and the old brain goes a bit. Do you know
what I mean? Ah, probably not.'

'Where do you go drinking?'

'Where? There's only one place round here, lass. The Drover.
As for Sunday morning, well, I'm always here. All this lot to see
to, you know. It takes a while.'

'Feeding the animals.'

'That's it.'

'Do you live here alone, Mr Cutts?'

'Alone? Well, you'd hardly call it that, would you?' he said,
turning to look across the jumble of buildings, where any sort
of animal could have been lurking for all Fry knew.

She turned at the sound of an engine, and saw a battered blue
Transit van struggling up the track. As it reached the gateway, a
bent little man in a tweed jacket and a cloth cap got out of the
driver's seat to wrestle with the gate. He, too, took no notice
of the geese.

o

'I'll have to leave you to it for a bit,' said Wilford. 'I've got a customer.'

He walked off, waving to the driver of the van until they had
manoeuvred the vehicle against the end of one of the wooden

o

hen huts. Both men went into the hut with bundles of sacks
from the van.

'Stop and have a chat, lass,' said Sam. 'It'll make a change.


138
Wilford can get to be a bit of a boring old bugger after
a while.'

'Have you known Mr Cutts for long?' she asked.

'As long as I can remember. Mind you, my memory's not
what it was, so he could be a complete stranger.'

Sam began to laugh, his chest wheezing painfully and his false
teeth clicking. Fry winced as he raised a thin hand to straighten
his cap and the blade of the knife came dangerously close to
his eyes.

'My family came down from Yorkshire when I was very small,'
he said, when a fit of coughing had passed. 'We went to live at

Evam. My old dad went to work in the lead mines, and I followed

j	/	j

him down there, as lads did in those days. Wilford was the son of
one of my dad's mates. We worked on the picking table together
with a few other lads, then moved on to be jig operators. That's
the way it went in those days, you knowr. You moved in small
circles, just a few families and people that you knew. None of
this wandering about that everyone seems to do now.'

Fry's attention strayed around the smallholding, her eves wide
in amazement at the ramshackle constructions and makeshift
fencing. She was wondering whether the way the animals were
kept was strictly legal. She made a mental note to look up the
appropriate regulations when she got back to the station.

'You've been friends an awfully long time then,' she said
vaguelv.

O	J

'Sixty years, or a bit more. It was before the war, when
we met.'

'That'd be the Second World War, I suppose.'

Sam peered at her to see if she was making fun of him, but
seemed to realize that she was not even born until nearly thirty
years after the war was over.

'Aye, I suppose there have been a few other wars since then,'
he conceded. 'We joined up together as well, for a bit. Royal
Engineers, of course. They were right glad to get miners. They
welcomed us with open arms. We went over to France on D-Day
and stayed there till the end.' He chuckled. 'It brings back a few
memories still, does that.'

'Really?'


139
'French tarts,' said Sam.

'What?'

The old man chortled. 'That's what 1 remember mostly now.
All the rest of it has pretty well gone, all the bad bits. But I
remember the tarts in France. We were a long way behind the

O	V

Front, of course. Rebuilding bridges, that sort of thing. Those
French towns and villages were full of girls. And they were right

O	O	J	O

glad to sec a few Tommies, I can tell you. We had a high old time.
Me and Harry, that was. Wilford didn't approve, of course.'

'Harry?'

'Harry Dickinson,' said Sam. 'You might have heard of him.
Here's your mate.'

Fry turned and saw Cooper's Toyota coming back down the
track, turning in by the Nissen hut. He parked behind the Transit
and leaned out of the window.

'There was no one at home up the lane,' he said.

'You're Sergeant Cooper's lad, aren't you?' said Sam.

'Jesus,' said Fry.

T'm sorry, I don't think 1 know you, sir.'

'Sam Beeley.'

The goat's bellow was suddenly deafeningly near.

'She's out again,' said Sam. 'I'll have to tell Wilford.'

O	'

'What's the matter with it?' asked Fry. Ts it ill?'

'In season,' said Sam, as if they were talking about a vegetable
that was sometimes unavailable.

'Will she be going to the billy, then?' asked Cooper.

'She's off tonight. A bloke up Bamford way is taking her. He
has a billy of his own.'

There was a clattering of hooves and a brown and white

O	'

head topped by a pair of horns appeared briefly over the
roof of the outhouse before the goat dropped nimbly into
the paddock and skittered off into the deep grass at the far
end.

'Bugger,' said Sam. 'She'll eat all the cabbages before we can
cut them.'

'Do you want a hand to catch her?' suggested Cooper, getting
out of the Toyota.

'No, no. We'd never get near her. Wilford will fetch her

'	O


140
back -- she comes to him. She's only a goatling, and she's a hit
wild. He calls her Jenny.'

'Mr Beelev was telling me about when he first met Mr Cutts,'
said shee, anxious that the interview was drifting far awav from

.	o

her. ' 1 heir fathers knew each other and they worked together,

is iliat riiTht-''

&

'Of course, we all had jobs to go into then,' said Sam. 'Local
jobs. There were always jobs in the mines then, or the quarries.
It's different for the young ones round here now, I suppose. The
lad here will tell you that.'

Fry noticed that Sam didn't doubt for a moment that she was
from out of the area and knew nothing about it, while Ben Cooper
would understand. Since she had been in Moorhay, she felt as
though her lack of local origins had been pushed into her face,
quite unconsciously and without malice, but very effectively. She
had been treated politely by people at every property they had
visited, but none of them had looked at her with the unspoken

recognition and sense of mutual understanding with which they

&	&	j

had looked at Ben Cooper when they realized who he was.
'It's been different round here for a long time now, Mr

O	'

Beeley,' said Cooper.

'I suppose it has, lad. I suppose it has. But, like I told you,
my memory's not that good. I remember the war, but not much
since, if you know what I mean.'

From the hut where Wilford and his visitor had disappeared,
a great cacophony of cackling and screeching erupted,
accompanied by the flapping of scores of wings.

'What are they doing in there?' asked shee.

J	O	-

'That bloke with the van is buying some of Wilford's birds,
see,' said Sam, as if it was perfectly obvious. 'Wilford left them
inside today, those young Marans. But they're a bit active. It's
better if you can move them at night -- they don't give you as

J	&	>	O	J

much trouble then.'

'It sounds horrendous.'

'They're good layers, them Marans,' said Sam.

O	,

'Mr Beelev, did you know Laura Vernon?'

j ' j

'I know the family. Comcrs-in, aren't they? Half the village

J	'	^	O

seem to be comers-in these davs. They've only been there a vear


141
or two, at the Mount. They walked in the pub one niaht, you

know, when they first arrived. Eh. you should have seen their

'	^	' /

faces. They never thought they'd be mixing with the hoi polloi
like us. But they couldn't walk straight out again, so they had
to sit there and drink their gin and tonics like a right pair of
southern pillocks.'

'They're from Nottingham, I believe.'

'Aye.'

Sam shifted his feet in the dry earth. One of them seemed to
stick and move suddenly sideways, as if he had lost control of it
through cramp. His shoe clanged against the side of an enamel
bowl half full of water, left there for the geese, presumably.

'Mr Beeley, we're asking everybody what they might have
seen in the area of the Baulk at about the time Laura Vernon
was killed,' said Fry.

'Oh, you want my alibi, eh?'

'No, that wasn't what I asked for, sir.'

Sam chuckled. 'Only I don't go in much for running after
young girls these days. It's my legs, you see. Got them both
bust once, in the mine. They mended, but they were never
right after that. Now that I'm getting older, they don't work

O	O	O	'	J

too well at all.'

'Were you in the area on Saturday night?' asked Fry. 'Or
Sunday morning?'

'What's that accent?' asked Sam, cocking his head and

'	O

scratching his ear with the knife. 'You Welsh, or what?'

O

'I'm from the Black Country.'

'Eh?'

'Birmingham,' snapped Fry.

'Ah. I've never been there. Wouldn't want to, either.'

'Saturday night, Mr Beeley?'

'Saturday night? Well, I'd be in the Drover till about eleven
o'clock, with Wilford. It was a bit busy that night. Tourists,
you know, in the summer. B & B people. A lot of
cars about too.' He shook his head sadly. 'I don't live far
from the pub. I can just about walk that far. And we do
tend to have a few drinks on a Saturday. No driving to do,
you know.'


142
There were tourists in the pub. Strangers to the village,
then.'

'Full of them,' said Sam.

Willord and the van driver emerged from the hut, tupping

o	oo o

at several bulging sacks, A cloud of dark feathers drifted out of
the hut behind them, settling on their shoulders and sticking in

'	o	o

their hair. From the sacks came a steady complaint of trapped
birds and an occasional rustle of feathers. The two men were
sweating and dishevelled and breathing hard. Wilford was very
red in the face and giving a series of faint, gasping laughs. The

O	O	' O 1	O	O

little man from the van looked wild-eyed, even frightened by
his experience in the hut.

'Sunday morning,' said Sam. 'Well, I don't get up too early
these days. But I was dressed by about half past ten, when my
son came to collect me. That's Davey. Him and his wife always
take me for Sunday dinner at their place in Edendale.'

'Do you come up here much to help Mr Cutts?' asked
Cooper.

'I'm not much use to him really. But I have to find something

to fill my time.'

j

'Does he have any other help?'

'A lad or two, that he pays a few bob for the heavy work.
And Harry comes up here too, to help.'

'Harry Dickinson again?'

'Yes, that Harry. You'll know him,' he said to Cooper.

The sacks thudded one after another into the back of the
Transit, and the driver clambered in and began to coast back
down the track. No money seemed to have changed hands
between the two men.

'Give us a hand here, Sam,' called Wilford. 'We've got one
that's badly. Broke its legs on the wire, I reckon.'

'Goat's out again, Wilford.'

'She'll wait.'

Sam limped over towards the hut, and Wilford tossed him a
hen that had been hanging upside down from his hand, its wings

oof	'	o

outspread, its beak gaping and panting. Fry had never seen a hen
so close before, and was startled to see the thin red sliver of flesh
that protruded from its beak, like the darting tongue of a snake.


143
The bird had soiled itself, and the soft feathers round its anus
were stained yellow. Fry swallowed, swearing never to eat an
egg again.

'Sam's a dab hand at this,' said Wilford cheerfully. 'He doesn't
look to have much strength in his wrists, does he? But it's all in

o

the technique, see.'

'It's just practice and a bit of a knack,' said Sam, taking a
firm grip on the bird. He tucked its body under his armpit,
folding its wings closed and pressing it tight against his side.
Then he closed the fingers of his right hand around the hen's
scrawny neck and pushed his thumb hard into its throat. He
twisted and pulled suddenly. There was a faint crack and the
bird's eyes went dull. The wings beat desperately, their dying
strength defeating Sam Beeley's efforts to hold it still as they
flapped wildly, releasing a spray of pinion feathers that drifted
on to his trousers and boots. The bird's legs kicked frantically
and its tail lifted to eject another spurt of yellow. Then its claws
relaxed and hung downwards, pointing limply at the ground with
pitiful finality.

'You've killed it,' said Fry, astonished.

The two old men laughed, and she was amazed to see Cooper
smiling too.

'It's called putting them out of their misery,' said Sam. 'If
you do it right, and do it quick, they feel no pain.'

'It's disgusting,' said Fry. 'It's revolting.'

'I suppose,' said Sam, holding out the limp bird towards her,
'that you won't want to take it home for your tea then.'

Fry took a step back as a dribble of saliva ran out of the bird's
gaping beak and dripped into the dust. Its scaly legs looked cold
and reptilian where they were gripped in Sam's bony fingers.

'No?'

'Never mind. I'll take it in for Connie,' said Wilford.

Cooper and Fry got back into the car. Fry wound up her
window to keep out the musty smell of dried poultry droppings


drifting from the door of the shed. The two old men stood Watch
fe

ing them turn round, and Sam gave them a small, cheerful wave.
When they reached the bottom of the track, another van was
turning in.


144
12


A.nd now the good news,' said DC1 Tailby.

Tired heads perked up all around the incident room. Most
of the officers were finishing the daytime shift, winding down
from the hectic first full day of a murder enquiry. Others were
taking over for the evening, beginning their stint by getting up
to date at the evening briefing.

O	O

Ben Cooper and Diane Fry sat together, reluctant, despite
themselves, to break the professional bond that had formed
between them by being paired up as a team. Fry still looked
alert, her eyes fixed on Tailby, her notebook open on her knee.
Cooper was weary, almost dazed, as if things weren't connecting
for him properly. But he felt the tension within him increasing as
the day came to a close. He couldn't stop his mind drifting away
from the job towards a clamouring swarm of formless anxieties
about his mother -- sudden, stabbing fears about the immediate
future, mingled with piercingly clear little memories of how she
had once been, before her illness, in the not so distant past. He
knew he would have difficulty tonight in making the transition
from work to home. Wasn't the one supposed to be an escape
from the other?

As Tailby began to speak, Cooper looked down at Fry's pen,
which was already starting to move across her notebook. He was
surprised to see the page half covered in drawings of spiders with
black, hairy bodies and long legs, their shapes etched deep into
the paper with heavily scrawled ballpoint pen.

'Make sure you all read the reports,' Tailby was saying. 'But
I'll sum up the main points. Late this afternoon a witness came
forward. A gentleman by the name of Gary Edwards. Mr Edwards
is a bird-watcher. On Saturday evening, he was positioned on the
top of Raven's Side on the north of the valley at Moorhay. He
was, it seems, watching for pied flycatchers, which are a rare
species known to breed in this area. Mr Edwards had travelled
from Leicester purely on the chance of seeing a pied flycatcher,


145
so that he could tick it off on a list of British species. I'm told
this activity is called twitching.'

Cooper saw some of the officers smiling, but he knew Tailby
wasn't joking. It was very rare that he did. The DCI looked up
at them over his reading glasses, then back down again at the

o o	'	o

report in his hands.

'Mr Edwards thought the oak and birch woodland near the
stream was a likely site. At one stage, though, he says he was
watching a pair of merlins nesting on the cliff face below
him. While he was doing this, his attention was taken by a
bird flying towards the woodland, which he felt might be the
said pied flycatcher. He followed the flight of this bird with his
binoculars.'

In Cooper's hands was a summary of interviews conducted
with Graham and Charlotte Vernon, and with Molly Sherratt, as
well as with the bird-watcher. Some of the details were marked
as new information, and would be followed up with actions the
next dav. There were also reports of the attempts made by DI
Hitchens's team to trace Lee Sherratt, without success. From
the tone of the summary, Cooper was left in no doubt that
Sherratt was considered the obvious suspect. All they had to
do, it was inferred, was to find Sherratt and let the forensic
evidence establish his guilt. The rest was all for show.

'It should be stated at this point,' said Tailby, 'that Mr Edwards
was equipped with a pair of Zeiss roof-prism-type binoculars with
a magnification of x 10 and a 45 mm diameter object lens. A
powerful bit of kit. He says he trained these binoculars on the
area of woodland into which the bird had disappeared, and he
waited to see if there was any further movement. There was.
But it wasn't a bird.'

Tailby paused, like an actor savouring the effect, trying to get
his timing just right.

'Mr Edwards further states that he followed a movement in
the undergrowth of something black, only to find the head of
a dog appearing in his view. Due to the small field of vision
of binoculars of that power, he took them away from his face and with unaided vision saw a man with a dog. We
believe from Mr Edwards's statement that this was near the


146
spot where Laura Vernon was found. The time: approximately
seven-riiteen.'

There was a little stir of excitement. The bird-watcher had
been in position within an hour of the incident, on a good
vantage point, with a powerful pair of binoculars. Who could
ask for anvthin? better? What more had the twitcher seen?

J	O

Cooper observed that Fry had been scribbling notes rapidly,
turning over the page with the spiders and turning again. Now
she was sitting bolt upright, alert and eager. He could see that
she was getting ready to take the first opportunity to put in a
question, to make sure she was noticed.

'Unfortunately for us,' said Tailby, 'Mr Edwards then completely
lost interest in the area of woodland. He reasoned that
the human and canine presence would disturb the bird population.
Particularly the pied flycatcher, which is of a somewhat
secretive and sensitive nature, apparently. His attention returned
to the merlins. Mr Edwards then remained on Raven's Side
until nine-thirty approximately, but he saw nothing further of
interest to us.'

Fry stirred. 'Over two hours, sir? What was he doing all
that time?'

'Yes. DC Fry, isn't it? That is a question that was put to him,
Fry. He states that he was waiting for dusk on the chance of
observing little owls hunting.'

'Tell him to get a life,' said someone from the back.

O

'I don't need to point out that this could be an absolutely
vital witness,' said Tailby, ignoring the interruption.

Ben Cooper raised a hand. 'The man with the dog, sir. Are
we thinking it was Harry Dickinson? According to Dickinson's
statement, he walks in that area regularly.'

'Unfortunately, Mr Edwards wasn't able to give us a description.
He was too far away, and did not study the man through
his binoculars.'

There were general sighs of disappointment.

'More interested in pied flycatchers than people,' said the
same voice.

'However, Mr Dickinson will be spoken to again today,' said
Tailby. 'In the initial interview he was not asked about Saturday


147
evening. It may be that he was on the Baulk at that time and he
saw something usciui. Mr Dickinson wiii he among the actions

o	fr

for the morning.'

'It would be a bit of a coincidence, wouldn't it, sir?'

'How so. Cooper?

'The mean, Dickinson beincr in the area at the time Laura Vernon

O

was killed and maybe seeing the murderer. And two days later
being in the same area and finding the trainer which led us to
her body. That's what we're saying here, isn't it? A bit of a
coincidence, surely.'

'What would be your interpretation, Cooper?'
'I think we ought to press Harry Dickinson harder.'
Tailby frowned. 'At the moment we are not considering him
as a suspect, merely a potentially useful witness.'
'But if-'
'Now,' said Tailbv, turning awav, 'we have to look at the

'	j	O	J '

immediate family. Obviously, we need to bear in mind the
possibility of a family row of some kind. The parents have to
be under suspicion.' Tailby waited for somebody to ask him
why. No one did. But he told them anyway. 'Murders occur
mostly within families. The statistics tell us this.'

All the faces in the room continued to look at him expectantly.

'For that reason, we will be looking more closely at the

'	O	J

Vernons. Particularly the relationship between Laura Vernon
and her father. I have spoken to Graham Vernon myself, and
I have to tell you I'm not happy in that respect.'

'Haven't we got a TV appeal lined up with him, sir?'
'Yes, with both parents, in fact. That's scheduled for the
morning. We will, of course, be watching them closely during
the appeal.'

Cooper saw Fry nodding calmly, as if it was perfectly normal to
suspect parents of murdering their own daughter. He wondered
what cases she had worked on in the past to feel like that, or
whether it was as a result of experiences in her own family.
The thought made him feel very sad. His own family had been
a totally happy one, and he thought the destruction of a family
was the worst thing that could happen to anyone.


148
'And then there's the brother,' Tailby was saying. 'Daniel
Vcrnon. Nineteen years old and a studeni al L-xeler University.
We're led to believe that he was away in Exeter at the time that
Laura went missing, and has only now arrived back in Moorhay.
But we checked, and his term doesn't start for another two
weeks. So what has he been doing? I need his movements tracing
-- when did he leave and how did he get back? From a brief look
at him earlier this afternoon, I'd say he was a pretty angry young
man. On the other hand, you don't need me to tell you that
the victim's family must be treated with care. I don't want any
complaints about officers being heavy-handed or insensitive.'

The DCI paused to allow this to sink in, then turned to
gesture at an impressive aerial photograph of Moorhay, taken by
the helicopter crew and blown up to enable the probable route
of Laura Vernon's last journey to be superimposed on to it.

'Meanwhile, I intend to begin a full search of the Vernons'
garden,' he said. 'This is in view of the possibility that Laura
may have met someone there shortly before she was killed.
Remember the sighting of her talking to a young man earlier in
the evening. We need to find evidence to establish the identity
of that young man. It is, however, a very large garden.'

The officers in the incident room could see that there were
extensive lawns and flower beds in the Vernons' garden, along
with two greenhouses and a small summerhouse, as well as
plenty of odd corners near the back, where a gate led out on
to the hillside path.

The area of pale scrub where Laura had last been seen was
clearly visible between the back wall of the garden and the
vast expanse of dark woodland. The long shadows of a line
of conifers fell across the patchy gorse of the scrubland like the
bars of a cage.

'We are also following up Laura's other contacts. DI Hitchens's
team is gradually piecing together her background. We believe
she had at least one regular boyfriend, according to what her
classmates tell us. The parents deny this, but we all know
parents, don't we? They're the last people to find out. The
youth's name is Simeon. That's with an "e". We don't have a
surname yet, and apparently he doesn't attend the same school


149
as Laura Vernon did. DS Morgan is confident of tracing him,
though. Yes, Luke.''

'Absolutely.'

'As you know, DI Armstrong is working on the known

j	'	O	O

offenders list and possible links to the Susan Edson case in B
Division. There arc some similarities on the surface. The age
and sex of the victim, obviously. But note the fact that an item
of clothing is missing in both instances -- in Laura Vernon's case,

O	O

a Reebok trainer. In the Edson case, a pair of tights. It is likely
these are now in the possession of the attacker or attackers.
Please be aware of this. But we follow up all possible lines of
enquiry. We are not assuming a definite link at this stage. But
I confess to a certain concern in that respect.'

The murmurs of agreement sounded like the low rumble of
a lorry outside, or the muttering of a disappointed crowd in

the stand across the road when Edendale FC had lost again.

&

Ben Cooper felt something equally distant and unidentifiable
grumbling deep in his mind -- a dark, hovering anxiety that
growled and whined and threatened to emerge from where it
was lurking and rip the certainties out from under him. But
it was something that was impossible to pin down among the
other worries that swirled about in there, all the other things

'	O

he hardly dared to think about.

'Also, no murder weapon has yet been identified,' said Tailby.
'The nature of the injuries suggests a hard, solid object. Scientific
Support are still at the scene and will continue the search, and
I remain hopeful. Two sets of prints have been taken from
the trainer, but they match only with the victim's own prints
and those of Mr Dickinson, who was printed for comparisons.
However, as you will see, we do have a very promising piece
of forensic evidence. I refer to the suspected bite mark on the
victim's thigh. The services of a forensic odontologist have been
obtained, with the intention of obtaining a cast of the bite which
can be matched to the teeth of a perpetrator.'

Around the room, officers could be seen whispering to each
other as they asked what an odontologist was.

'Obviously,' said the DCI, 'a priority remains Lee Sherratt.
Sadly, we've drawn a blank on his whereabouts so far. His


ISO
mother states she doesn't know where he is and hasn't seen
him since Sunday aiternoon. He is, she says, "a bit prone to
wandering off". Whatever that means. We would very much
like to interview Lee Sherratt in connection with the killing of
Laura Vernon. All officers are being issued with his photograph.
Keep your eyes open.'

Ben Cooper jerked to attention. His mind had been drifting
away again. It was almost as though DC1 Tailby's last words had
been addressed directly to him. Yes, he needed to keep his eyes
open. If he didn't, the dark thing that lurked and whined might
jump out at him before he could see it.


Charlotte Vernon lay on the sofa in the sitting room at the Mount.
She was wearing nothing but a black satin print wrap, but her
hair was washed and brushed and she had made up her face and
painted her toenails. Though Graham would normally enjoy the
sight of his wife's body, today he felt waves of growing irritation
that she had not yet taken the trouble to get dressed. Somehow,
her nakedness seemed emblematic of the stripping away of an
important veneer from their lives, a lowering of standards that he
feared could symbolize the gradual disintegration of the family.

'He can't do this,' said Graham. 'We can't let him.'

'And how do you intend to stop him?' asked Charlotte. 'He
hasn't felt the need to listen to you for years.'

'I thought . . . You could speak to him, couldn't you,
Charlie?'

'He might listen to me,' she agreed.

'Well then. Catch him before he goes out.'

o

'I didn't say I would do it.'

'Why on earth not?'

Charlotte considered, reaching for the glass that never seemed

'	O	O

to be far away these days.

'It would help him to get it off his chest.'

'It might help him, but it wouldn't do me any good!'

'Or the business?'

'Well, obviously. I can't afford things like this, this sort of damage to my reputation. You know, Charlie, it's critical.'

'And what about me?'


151
'Sorrv?'

'Would it be good for me? That's what I'm wondering. Would
it change you, Graham? Would it change things between us? To
get it all out into the open, I wonder?'

'Charlie -- do you want things to change?'

^	o	o

'I don't know.'

'For God's sake, what do you want? I turned a blind eye to
what you were doing, didn't 11'

'A blind eye? Is that what you call it?'

'Well? Didn't I?'

'Yes, 1 suppose you did. And you thought that was what I
wanted, did you? Really?'

Graham sighed with exasperation. The never will understand
you.'

Charlotte was back on the cigarettes and Bacardi with a
vengeance, having come out of the artificially calm state induced
by the doctor's sedatives. Everywhere in the house there were
ashtrays filled with butts, which were only emptied three times
a week when Sheila Kelk came to clean. Graham hoped that Mrs
Kelk hadn't been frightened off by Daniel. But then, on second
thoughts, she was far too nosey to stay away just now.

He looked at his wife's hair and glimpsed the darkness at the
roots. She looked tired, despite the amount of sleeping she had
done under sedation. When she looked at him now, it was with
open hostility and distrust. The death of their daughter had come
between them like a wedge.

'Has anybody been here while I was out of the way?' she
asked.

'What do you mean?'

'Has anyone been to the house?'
'Policemen. You know they want to search the garden? A
fingertip search, they call it. God knows what they expect to
find there.'

'Apart from those policemen. Apart from Daniel. Has anybody
been that I didn't see?'

'Mrs Kelk, of course.'

'Not Frances Wingate.'

'No, Charlie.'


152
'Not Edward Randle.'

'No. I told them all not to come. All our friends. It's what
you said you wanted. I asked them to stav awav until you felt
like seeing people.'

'So Frances hasn't been.'

'I've told you.'

'And no one else.'

'No.'

Charlotte lit another cigarette, pouting her lips to suck on it
and narrowing her eyes.

'I don't know why I ever trusted you,' she said.

'Why do we have to do this now, Charlie?'

'While I've been lying there,' she said, 'I've been thinking.
You're not completely unconscious, you know, when you're
sedated. Your mind keeps working. And without any distractions, you seem to see things more clearly. All the memories came back

J	O	J

to me. All the memories of Laura.'

She walked to the cabinet, and her groping fingers found the
empty frame again among the photographs.

'When will they let us have the photo of her back?'

'I'll ask,' said Graham.

'I need to get back whatever I can of her.'

O

'I understand.'

Charlotte turned towards him, tears glittering in her eves,

O	O	*	'

anger twisting her mouth into an ugly shape.

'I blame you, you know, Graham. Do you realize that? When
I think about . . . everything. All this. I've lost my little girl,

^	O	^	O	'

and now they're taking away my memories of her. How could

J	O	J	*

you let it happen?'

Graham moved to put his arms round her when he saw the
tears, but she pushed him away roughly.

'Keep away from me. How can you think about it at a time
like this? You're an animal.'

'I wasn't, Charlie. I wasn't.'

'Laura told me everything,' she insisted desperately. 'She
didn't keep secrets from me.'

The phone was ringing. Graham moved to answer, then
changed his mind and left it. The answering machine switched


153
in. It would be another client, anxiously wondering what was
happening. When wuuld Graham be back in operation? When
could they expect him to be at their beck and call again? He didn't
resent them. Their businesses had to go on. even if Vernon's

o	'

didn't. Graham thought for a moment of passing everything

o	r	o	j o

on to Andrew Milner, letting him take all the responsibility
permanently. But he dismissed the thought as soon as it came.
He would be back in harness soon enough -- surely it wouldn't
take the police too long to sort things out, to come up with
someone they could charge. As long as he could stop Daniel
from stirring up trouble.

'We have to hold together somehow, Charlie. Will you talk
to Daniel?'

She raised her head, dabbing at her eyes. They both listened
for the sounds of their son, heavy-footed on the stairs, getting
ready to go out. But she answered with another question.

'There isn't anything that I don't know, is there, Graham?'

'What do you mean?'

'About Laura. 1 need to know exactly what happened, and
why. Are there things that you're keeping from me?'

Graham saw that something important depended on his
answer. Should he tell the truth, or was it a lie that his wife
wanted to hear? He thought of the sort of information that
Tailby and his team might already be collecting -- details that
could shatter even Charlotte's illusions about their daughter.
The direction of Tailby's questions about Lee Sherratt, and even
about Daniel, had made that possibility clear. And who would
Charlotte blame for that? She said she no longer trusted him. But

o

what she thought of him might mean the difference now between
holding together and everything falling apart. The truth or a lie?
A crucial decision, but to hesitate would be fatal.

'They haven't told me anything,' he said.

Charlotte finished drying her eyes, pushed back her hair and
stubbed out her cigarette in the nearest ashtray among a pile of
old stubs.

'I'll catch Danny now, shall I?'

'Good girl,' said Graham.


154
Cooper tapped Fry on the shoulder as the meeting broke up.
'Arc you in a rush to get home?'

'Well ... no.'

'I wondered if you fancied a game of squash. I could do with
a game to wind down, and you said you were into sport.'

Fry considered for a moment. Ben Cooper was not her ideal
choice of a companion, for squash or anything else. On the other
hand, it would he vastly preferable to another early night in front of
the wobbly old TV with her own thoughts. Besides, she was confident
she could beat him. That thought made her mind up for her.

'Can we get a game at short notice?' she asked.

o	o

'I can,' said Cooper, grinning. 'Just let me make one phone
call. We'll get a court at the rugby club on a Tuesday night,
no problem.'

'Fine, then. Oh, I'll need to call at the flat to get my racquet
and kit.'

'I've got mine in the car, but I'll follow you home and we
can go together. OK?'

'All right, yes. Thanks.'

'It seems strange to be going off duty with the enquiry at this stage, though. No money for overtime. Can you believe it?'

'They think they've got it sewn up, once Lee Sherratt's in
custody.'

'That's what I think, too. They're relying totally on forensic
evidence. It seems to be some sort of holy grail these days.'

'Forensics don't lie, Ben. Only people lie.'

'And it costs too much to keep a manpower-intensive enquiry
going for days and weeks on end. I know, I've heard all that.'

'It's true. We have to live in the real world.'

'It worries me that the only suggestion of any motivation for

J	oo	/

Lee Sherratt is what the girl's father savs about him. That's not

O	J

enough, surely.'

'Enough for Mr Tailby to build a case on, providing the
torensics back him up.'

Cooper shook his head. 'It doesn't feel right.'

'Feel right? That again.'

o	o

'OK, point taken.'

'Feelings don't come into it.'


155
'At one time,' said Cooper, 'it was money that didn't come
into it.

'That sounds to me like your famous father speaking.' She
saw Cooper flush, and knew she was right. 'A proper Dixon of
Dock Green, isn't he, your dad? Why don't you explain to him

*	' j	J	J	\

one day that it's not the 1950s any more? Things have moved on
in the last fifty years. If he walked down the street in his
uniform in a lot of places in this country today, he'd get his
head kicked in before he could say, "Evening all".'

Cooper went completely rigid, and his face suffused with
blood. He breathed deeply two or three times before he managed
to get himself under control. His hands were shaking as he pushed
the papers he was holding into a file.

'I'll see you down in the car park,' he said, in a voice thick
with emotion.


As he walked away, Fry immediately began to regret agreeing
to play squash with him. It had only been some sudden burst
of comradeship, all too easy to give in to in the police service.
There was always a feeling that it was 'us against them' in the
closed environment of a police station. But then she shrugged,
knowing that it would only be for one evening. She would have
no problem keeping Ben Cooper at arm's-length.

'All right, Diane?' asked DI Hitchens, approaching her from
behind and standing close to her shoulder.

'I'm fine.'

'What are you doing when you go off duty?'

'I'm playing squash with Ben Cooper. Apparently.'

'Really? Good luck then.'

'And I'm going to thrash him too.'

'Are you? So you're a squash expert as well, then?'

'Not really, just averagely good. But I'm fit, and I'll have
him begging for mercy on that court. Old Ben looks like a real
softy to me.'

'Ben? I don't think so. He's a bit of a chip off the old block
really. Soft on the surface, but tough as old boots underneath,
like his dad.'

'So you're a fan of Sergeant Cooper's too, are you, sir?'


156
'We all are in this station. How could we be anything else?'
'And what exactly has he done to earn this adulation?'
'If you want to know about Sergeant Joe Cooper,' said
Hitchens, 'I suggest you stop off downstairs in reception for
a few minutes. You'll find his memorial on the wall near the
(rout counter. It's about tvvo years since he was killed.'


157

13

(Cooper screwed up his face, bared his teeth and let the power
surge through his muscles. He glared at the ball, swung back his

O	O	O	'	O

arm and released a ferocious serve that flew off the front wall
like a rocket and hit the back corner so fast that Fry hardly had
time to move.

'Thirteen-three.'

They changed sides of the court, passing each other near
the 'The. Cooper refused to meet Fry's eye. He was completely
absorbed in his game, as he had been since the start. His concentration
was total, and Fry felt she might as well have been a
robot set up for him to aim at. As they passed, she smelled the
sweat on his body like the sweet resin of a damaged pine tree.

'Your serve's incredible.'

Cooper nodded briefly, lining up the ball with his left side
turned to the front wall. He waited a few seconds for Fry to get in
position, then, with a grunt, unleashed a cannonball that bounced
straight at his opponent's face, making her instinctively want to
get out of the way, rather than try to hit it back. Returning
Cooper's serve was proving a futile exercise anyway.

'Fourteen-three. Game point.'

Fry had given up trying to make conversation during the
game. Her comments brought no response, other than another
crushing serve. Those that she managed to return resulted in an
exhausting rally, during which she ran herself ragged backwards

O	J	O	OC?

and forwards across the court, while Ben Cooper kept control
of the 'The'. He would thrash the ball time and again against the

O	O

front wall, now just above the tin, now curving high into the air
over her racquet. She could see that her arms and legs had turned
lobster-red with the exertion, and the perspiration was trickling
past her sweat band to run down the sides of her face and soaking
into the elastic of her sports bra between her breasts.

Cooper served again, and she managed to get her racquet
under the ball, lobbing it towards the near corner. He darted

O


158


I
I
i
across court and collected the shot with ease, ready to bounce
his return to the far side. Fry stretched to reach it, ducking
low and hitting the ball straight and hard back along the side
wall. Glad to have made a return, she spun round, almost off
balance, in an effort to get back to the 'The', and collided with
Cooper on his way to return the shot. Their racquets clashed
and their hot limbs tangled sweatily for a moment before they
could separate themselves. shee breathed hard and rubbed her
knee where she had knocked it against some part of Cooper's
body that felt like rock.

'Obstruction,' he said.

She nodded. 'OK. Game, then.'

'And match. Unless you want to play three out of five.'

'Oh no. I think I'd be safer conceding.'

o

'Whatever.'

Cooper collected the ball. For the first time, a small smile
touched his lips.
'I win, then. Thanks for the game.'

'I'd say it was a pleasure, Ben, except that you play like a
machine.'

'I take that as a compliment from you.'

'I'm absolutely wrecked.'

Cooper shrugged. 'You tried hard.'

At another time, Fry might have found his tone a bit patronizing
and reacted quite differently. But just now she was
in placatory mood. She tucked her racquet under her arm and
held out a hand.

'Shake, then.'

Cooper looked at her, surprised, but shook automatically. His
hand felt as hot as her own, and their perspiration mingled in their
palms as their swollen fingers fumbled clumsily at each other. Fry
held on to his hand when he tried to pull it away again.

'Ben -- I'm sorry,' she said.

'What for? Playing so badly?'

'For the things I said about your father today. I didn't
know.'

The know you didn't,' he said. She felt the muscles in his forearm
tense. The beginnings of a smile had vanished again, and his face

c>	o	o


159
was set, revealing no emotion. She saw a trickle of sweat run
through his fair eyebrows and into his eyes. He blinked away
the moisture, breaking her stare, and she let his hand go.

'DI Hitchens told me tonight. He sent me to look at the plaque
in reception at the station. Your father was killed arresting a
mugger, wasn't he? He was a hero.'

Cooper seemed to study the squash ball, turning it over in his
hand to find the coloured spot and squeezing against the warm
air trapped inside.

'It wasn't the mugger who killed him. A gang of youths were
standing around outside a pub, and they joined in to try to get
the mugger free. It was them who killed him. There were too

OO

many of them. They got him on the ground and kicked him
to death.'

'And what happened to them?'

'Nothing much,' he said. He pulled a handkerchief from the
pocket of his shorts to wipe his eyes and his forehead. 'Oh, they
found out who they were, all right. There was a big enough
outcry about it in Edendale. But there were seven or eight of
them, all telling different stories when it came to court, with
die usual set of defence solicitors looking for the get-outs. It
could never be proved which ones actually kicked my father in
the head. I mostly remember that it came down to a debate about
the bloodstains on their boots. Their argument was that they just
got splashed because they were standing too close.' He paused,
his eyes distant and full of remembered anger and pain. 'Three
of them got two years for manslaughter, the others were put on
probation for affray. First-time offenders, you see. Of course,
they were all drunk too. But that's a mitigating circumstance, isn't it, as far as the courts are concerned? An excuse.'

'I really didn't know, Ben.'

'Do you think I would have asked you to play squash tonight
if I thought you knew? I'm not that desperate for company.' He
ran the handkerchief round the back of his neck. 'I'm not sure
it was a good idea to play in this weather anyway.'

'You should have said something about your father. Why
didn't you tell me?'

Cooper looked down at his feet.


160
'If you really want to know, I get fed up of hearing about
it. It's been constantly rammed down my throat for two years
now. I have to look at that bloody plaque every time I walk
through reception. Do you know there's even a little brass plate
screwed on to one of the benches in Clappergate? That's so that
the Edendale public don't forget either. I've got so that I avoid
walking down that part of Clappergate. I go round by another
street to avoid seeing it. And then all those people who remember
him. Thousands of them. Even those who'd never heard of him
before he died, they knew all about him by the time the papers
had finished with the story.'

'Like in Moorhay --'

'Yeah. Like in Moorhay. "It's Sergeant Cooper's lad." "Aren't
you Sergeant Cooper's son?" It hurts every time. Every time I
hear somebody say it, it's like they're twisting a knife in an old
wound to keep it fresh. My father's death devastated my life.
And people are never going to let me forget it. Sometimes I
think that if one more person calls me Sergeant Cooper's lad,
it's going to be too much. I'm going to go berserk.'

o o	o o	o

He squeezed the squash ball in his fist, bounced it off the
floor and smacked it almost casually against the back wall with
his racquet, so that it flew high into the air and dropped back
into his hand.

'Were you working in E Division when it happened?'
'I was already in CID. In fact, at that very moment I'd just
arrested a burglar, a typical bit of Edendale lowlife. I heard the
shout on the radio while I was sitting in the car with him. It's

o

not a moment I'm likely to forget.'

'And it didn't put you off the police service?'

He looked surprised.

'Of course not. Quite the opposite. It made me more determined.'

'Determined? You've got ambitions?'

'I have. In fact, there's a sergeant's job coming vacant soon,'
he said. 'I'm up for it.'

'Good luck, then,' said Fry. 'You must have a good chance.'

'Oh, I don't know any more,' he said doubtfully. 'I thought
I had, but . . .'


161
'Of course you have.' She glared at him, irritated by the sudden
slump in his shoulders. He had talked about his lather with anger
and passion, but he had changed in a few seconds, and now he
had the air of defeat.

'You reckon?'

'You seem to be very highly regarded. Everybody knows you
round the division. Not to mention the general public.'

'Oh veah, the public,' he said dismissivelv.

'If they had a vote on it, you'd be mayor by now.'

'Yeah? Well, we all know how much we can trust them.'

But Fry had done her apologies now and was getting fed up
with his reluctance to shake off whatever was making him so
moody and morose. She watched him bounce the ball again

J	o

and swing his racquet at it, hitting a slow lob that curled back
towards them.

'You know, it must be really nice to have so many friends,'
she said, 'and such a close family too.'

^

He took his eye off the ball, puzzled by the change in
her voice.

'I don't suppose you'll ever move away from here, will you,
Ben? You'll marry somebody, maybe some old sdhoolfriend, and
you'll settle down here, buy a bungalow, have kids, get a dog,

J	^	O	'	' O	O*

the whole bit.'

'Sure,' he said. 'It sounds great.'

'I can't think of anything worse,' she said, and smashed the

j	O	7	'

ball into the ceiling lights.


Charlotte Vernon had found Daniel in Laura's room. On the
dresser was a pile of letters that had been tied neatly in a
pink ribbon. Charlotte had seen the letters before, but had
not touched them. She had not touched anything of Laura's
yet. It seemed too much of an acknowledgement that she had
gone for ever.

'I wrote to tell her that I would be home last weekend,' said
Daniel. 'She wanted to talk to me, she said.'

'What about?'

'I don't know. It sounded serious. I told her I would be home
for the weekend. But I wasn't. I didn't come home.'


162
'You always wrote to her far more than you wrote to
us, Danny.'
'To you? You never needed letters -- you always had your
own concerns. But Laura needed contact with the outside world.
She felt she was a prisoner here.'

'Nonsense.'

'Is it?'

Daniel turned over another letter and ran his eves briefly
over his own scrawl. His mother walked to the window and fiddled with the curtains as she peered down into the garden,
squinting against the sunlight reflecting from the summerhouse.
She moved a porcelain teddy bear back into its proper place on
the window ledge, from where it had been left by the police.
It was a Royal Crown Derby paperweight with elaborate Imari
designs on its waistcoat and paws, a gift to Laura from Graham
after a business trip. Charlotte averted her eyes from the room
and turned to stare at her son, studying his absorption until she
became impatient.

'What exactly are you looking for, Danny? Evidence of your
own guilt?'

Daniel went red. 'I certainly don't need to look for yours.
Yours or Dad's. It's been pushed in my face for long enough.'

'Don't talk like that.'

Charlotte had been upset herself by the fact that her son had
failed to return to his home, even for a day or two, between
the doubtful attractions of a holiday spent in Cornwall with his
friends and the peculiar sense of obligation that drew him back
to university so long before the start of term. She didn't know
the reason he stayed away. Now she pulled a face at the streaks
of dirt on Daniel's jeans, the scuffs on his shoes and the powerful
smell of stale sweat. He looked tired, his fleshy face shadowed
with dark lines and a day's growth of stubble. He reminded her
so strongly of his father as he had once been, nineteen years ago,

O J	'	J	O '

before success and money had superimposed a veneer of courtesy
and sophistication. Graham, too, had been a man whose passions
were barely kept in check.

'There's one missing,' said Daniel suddenly.

'What?'


163
I


'A letter. I wrote to Laura from Newquay last month. But
it's not there; there's a gap. Where is it.' She always kept them	a

together.'	*

'The police have been through them,' said Charlotte uncer	f|

tainly. 'I suppose they might have taken one.'	*

'What the hell for?'	*

'I don't know. It depends what was in it, doesn't it?'	^

'Are they allowed to do that?'
'I suppose your father will have given them permission. You'll
have to ask him. I don't know what they were looking for.'

Daniel put the letters down. He tied them together again with
the ribbon, securing it carefully and neatly despite the trembling
in his hands.

'It's bloody obvious what they were looking for.'

As he headed for the door, Charlotte caught his arm. She
could tell he hadn't washed today, perhaps for more than one
day. The back of his neck was grubby and the collar of his T-shirt
was stained. She longed to propel him physically to the bathroom
and demand his filthy clothes for the wash, as she would once
have done when he was a year or two younger.

But Charlotte knew her son had passed well beyond her
control. What he did in Exeter was a mvstery to her. He no
longer told her about his course, about his friends or where he
lived. She could no longer understand the angry, disapproving
young man he had become.

'Danny,' she said. 'Don't condemn us so much. There's no
need to stir up old arguments that aren't relevant to all this.

1	O

Let the police find out what happened to Laura. The rest of
us have to go on living together without her.' She watched his

o	o o

sullen expression and saw his face was closed against her. She
felt his muscles tense to pull away from her, to shake off the
last physical link between them. 'Your father --'

But it was the wrong thing to say. Daniel knocked her hand
from his arm. 'How can I not condemn you? You and my father
are responsible for what happened to Laura. You're responsible
for what she became.'

He paused in the doorway of Laura's room, his face suffused
with rage and contempt as he looked back at Charlotte. 'And


164
you, Mum, you couldn't even see what it was that she'd

turned into.'


The three old men were crammed into the front of Wilford's
white pick-up as it wound its way down from Eyam Moor towards
the Hope Valley. They had avoided the main routes, leaving them
to the tourists. But when they reached the A625 they would meet
the evening traffic coming back from Castleton.

They huddled among empty feed sacks and neglected tools.
The floor of the cab was littered with crumpled newspapers, an
old bone, a plastic bucket and a small sack containing a dead

"I	C»

rabbit. Sam was squeezed uncomfortably between the other
two, shifting his bony knees to find room for his stick under
the dashboard and wincing at every bump they hit. Wilford was
driving, his cap pulled low on his head to stop his hair blowing
about in the breeze from the open window. He drove with sudden
twists of the steering wheel and sharp stabs on the brake as they
approached each bend. Harry, on the outside, looked as though
he was sitting in a limousine. His hands were spread on his knees,
and his head moved slowly from side to side as he studied the
passing scenery.

In the back of the pick-up, riding in the open on a bed of hessian sacks, was the brown and white goat. It was tethered
securely to the backboard of the cab with a short length of chain
so that it could not reach the sides. Every now and then it turned its head and bellowed at a startled cyclist.

The snaking twists of the road slowed a lumbering quarry
lorry ahead of the pick-up. All around them were the familiar
tucks and folds of the hills and the strange, unpredictable rolls of
the landscape that concealed the history of the ancient lead mining
industry. There were overgrown hollows and mounds running
across one field, indicating the line of a rake vein. Here and
there stood an isolated shaft, walled off for safety. Many years
ago, two bodies had been pulled out of one of these shafts in a
notorious murder case.

'Even with all their scientific tests,' said Harry, 'the coppers
still go round asking a lot of questions.'

"Course they do,' said Wilford.


165
'But it's like in the song,' said Sam.

'What's dial?'

Sam begin to sing quietly in a cracked, off-key voice. The
tune was just recognisable as one familiar to them all -- 'OF
Man River' from the musical Showboat. After a moment, the
other two joined in with the song, timeless and punctuating
their singing with laughter.

o o	o

'Don't say nothing,' said Sam firmly, when they had finished.


Just outside Bamford, Wilford drove the pick-up into an untidy
farmyard and sounded his horn. Two half-bred Alsatians ran out
of a kennel until they hit the end of their chains and barked and
snarled at the wheels of the vehicle. A man of about forty with
wild hair and a vast bushy beard came out of the house and
wandered towards them.

Wilford greeted him as 'Scrubby'.

'You brought the young nanny then?' he said.

The goat screamed hysterically from the back of the pickup.
The noise was so loud in the yard that the dogs stopped barking,
stunned into silence.

'Aye, happen that'll be her now,' said Wilford.

'Bugger's been giving directions all the way here,' said Harry.
'It's worse than having the wife in the car.'

'You've not brought any dogs, have you?' said Scrubby. 'Only
it upsets them two over there.'

'Not in here,' said Wilford.

The three old men climbed carefully out of the cab, creaking
as they straightened their legs. Harry put his arm round Sam
and helped him down the step until he could support himself
with his stick.

'Bloody hell, what's that?' asked Sam as a ripe, musky stench
slithered across the yard and grabbed the back of his nostrils. 'It
smells like someone's been sick and set fire to it.'

'Ah, that's the billy,' said Scrubby. 'He's in breeding condition
a bit early this year. I reckon the young 'un can smell him
all right.'

A rapid smacking sound was coming from the back of the
pick-up. The goat was wagging her tail so fast it was beating a


166
tune on the metal sides. She was straining at her tether until the

O

collar bit into her neck deep enough to choke her. She yelled
again when she saw Wilford.

'Are you going to mate her now? Can we watch?' asked
Sam.

"Course you can. I don't even charge for tickets.'

The goat tugged them over to a low stone building, not much
bigger than a pig sty, with an enclosed vard on two sides. The
building seemed to be the source of the smell. The three old
men bent to peer through a small opening into the gloom of the
shed. They could make out something large and hairy moving
restlessly inside, pawing at the gate with its hooves and rubbing
its head on the walls.

'Bloody hell,' said Sam. 'He's got a pair of bollocks on him
as big as your prize turnips, Wilford.'

The goat looked suddenly as though she might change her
mind and go home.

o

'Come on, Jenny,' said Wilford gently.

Together, they pushed the goat into the yard and Scrubby
drew back a bolt on the door. They let out a concerted breath
as the billy emerged steaming and snorting. He was twice the

J	o '	o	o

size of the young goat, with a powerful chest and a dense, matted
coat. He had thick, twisted slabs of horn curling on to the back
of his head like gnarled tree roots, and along his spine the hair
was going thin, revealing grey patches of flaky skin, tough and
wrinkled like the hide of an elephant. The two goats began
to circle together, sniffing excitedly at each other's rear ends.
The billy's top lip curled back to expose his bare upper gum
in a grotesque, leering grin as he savoured the scent of sexual
promise.

Scrubby was looking curiously at Harry, scratching at his beard
and tugging at an old bit of baling twine lashed round the gate of
the enclosure.

The heard you're the bloke who found that lass that was murdered
over your way.'

'Aye, news travels well round here.'

'It's a bit of a funny do that, isn't it?'

'Bloody hilarious,' said Harry.


167
'I saw her picture in the paper. Bashing her head in is about
the last thing most young blokes would wanl to do with her.
'Oh aye?'

'Don't you think so?'

'She was only fifteen,' said Wilford, without looking round.
Scrubbv seemed to recocmize something in the tone of the

j	O	O

reply.

'I suppose so,' he said.

In the enclosure, the billy was trying repeatedly to manoeuvre
himself into a position to mount Jenny from behind, but the
goatling was getting frisky. She was lighter on her feet than
the billy, and every time he approached her she skipped away,
turning to face him, then trotting off again, her tail wagging
provocatively. The billy was growling from the back of his throat
with his mouth hanging open, producing a deep moan like a wild
animal in pain. He kicked at Jenny with his front hooves, smearing

dirty marks on her flanks. As he got more frustrated, he began to

y	&	'	o

gobble excitedly. His tongue flopped out of his mouth and saliva
flew. The feet of the two goats were churning up the surface of

o	o 1

the enclosure, and dust coated the white hair on their legs. In

'	o

avoiding the billy, Jenny tripped, stumbled to her knees, got up
and skipped away again.

'It doesn't look like she's cooperating,' said Scrubby.

Sam nodded. 'Playing hard to get.'

'She's only a young 'un,' said Wilford. 'She doesn't know
what's happening.'

'She has to stand still, though.'

Scrubby reluctantly climbed over the fence into the enclosure.
The billy growled at him, then returned his attentions to
the nanny.

Next time the young goat came within reach, Scrubby grabbed
her by the neck and pulled her towards him. He twisted her collar
until he had her in a stranglehold, with her face turned up towards
him and her eyes rolling in alarm. She was panting by now, her
nostrils pink and flaring and her sides heaving.

'You have to do this sometimes with the young 'uns,' said
Scrubby. 'They get the hang of it after the first time. The old
chap there knows what he's about, though.'


168
The billy glared at him once, then took a few short steps and
launched himself on to the young goat, digging his hooves hard
into her sides and throwing the weight of his hairv bodv on to
her back. Scrubby hung on grimly, tightening the nanny's collar
so that she couldn't escape. She began to moan and whimper,
and her breath came in short gasps. The billv balanced himself on
her bony pelvis and thrust into her. The young goat's back legs
buckled, and she began to collapse under his weight. Srrubbv
hauled her forcibly upwards to keep her oil the ground. The
billy thrust three more times in rapid succession, then tossed
back his head and gradually slid off. It was over.

Scrubby eased his grip on the goatling's collar, and she began
to cough spasmodically. Her legs were trembling and a string of
white semen dripped from the bare patch of skin on the underside
of her tail.

There was silence for a moment, except for the painful
coughing of the goat.

fo o	o

'She didn't enjoy that much,' remarked Wilford in a strange
voice.

'She's just immature, that's all.'

'Is that it, then?'

Jenny crouched and a stream of pale yellow urine hit the dirt.
The billy stepped forward to sniff at the stream, then began to
lap at it eagerly with his long tongue. The old men screwed up
their faces and shuffled uneasilv.

'I'll just hang on to her for a bit, while he gets his breath,'
said Scrubby. 'Then he can have another go.'

j	O


The three men were quiet in the pick-up on the journey back to
Moorhay. The visit to Bamford seemed to have subdued them.

'Reckon she'll be all right?' said Wilford, as they climbed the
hill out of the Hope Valley.

'He looked as though he knows his animals,' said Sam.

O

'It seems hard on them, when thev're so young. She was a

*	J	J	O

bit innocent.'

'Innocent?' said Harry. 'She was screaming for it all the way
there, wasn't she?'

The others nodded uncomfortably, and Sam gave a painful


169
cough. He looked exhausted by the drive, and had lost his
willingness to make a joke. Wilford stared grimly through the
windscreen until Harry spoke again as they breasted the rise
that looked down on to their own valley.

'I think/ said Harry, 'I might tell them a bit of what I know,
after all.'

Sam and Wilford nodded again. After that, nobody spoke all
the way home. And nobodv sang.

-	.	o


170
14


Den Cooper and Diane Fry emerged from their showers clamp
and tingling, and drank a fruit juice in the rugby club bar before
heading back to Edendale, Cooper had seen a glimpse of Frv's
flat in Grosvenor Road, and he thought he knew why she had
been so easy to persuade with an excuse not to go home. But
she could not know his own reason, and so far she had shown
no curiosity. She did, however, want to talk about work, to go

J	'	'	O

over the day's results.

'God, that Moorhay place,' she said. 'Is everyone round here
as stroppy and awkward as that? The Dickinson man was the
worst. Unhelpful or what?'

'He's an old man,' said Cooper. 'An old man who'd had a
shock. How do you expect him to be? Most people around here
are friendly and helpful, anyway.'

'That I remain to be convinced of.'

Her view of Harry Dickinson struck Cooper as superficial. His
own feelings had been quite different. He thought of the moment
when he had found the body of Laura Vernon, of Harry standing
like a black mark against the sun-drenched hillside. Stroppy and
unhelpful? Maybe. Deeply disturbed and afraid, definitely.

'Anyway,' said Fry, 'hold on a minute. That wasn't what you
said at the briefing this afternoon. You wanted Dickinson to be
pressed harder.'

That's different.'

'Yeah? An old man who'd had a shock. So what do you
want to press him harder for? That sounds suspiciously like
gratuitous harassment to me, pal. Where's the caring, sharing
Ben Cooper here? Come off it, you think he was unhelpful too,
don't you?'

'I think he knows something he's not saying,' admitted
Cooper.

'And that's not the same thing?'

'Maybe Mr Tailby and Mr Hitchens didn't ask the right


171
questions,' he said thoughtfully. 'Maybe it's not to do with
Laura Vernon at all. I don't know.'

'Well, you could always ask your girlfriend, I suppose,'
said Fry.

'Who?'

'You know -- the granddaughter, Helen Milner. Got the hots

O	O

for you, hasn't she? She was following you around Moorhay like
a lost dog.'

'Rubbish.'

Fry shrugged. 'I stand by the evidence, your honour.'

Cooper refused to rise to the bait.

'What did you make of the other two, then --Harry Dickinson's
friends?'

'My God, don't remind me. That place was like something
medieval. When I left West Midlands, they kept telling me
that the countryside was primitive. Now I know it's true. That dead hen . . . How Wilford Cutts's wife can put up with that,
I don't know. No doubt she would have had to cook it in a stew
tonight.'

'And chop off its head and legs and pluck it, and take out its
innards,' said Cooper. 'That's women's work. So they say.'

'Not this woman. I'd make him stuff his dead hen where it
hurts most.'

Cooper sniffed his orange juice suspiciously, worried by the
distinctly metallic tang.

'You know,' he said, 'I don't think this enquiry will get any
further until Lee Sherratt is traced.'

'He's a fair bet.'

Cooper shook his head. 'I'm not sure. We're just accepting
Graham Vernon's word as gospel and hoping the evidence will
turn up somehow. It's lazy thinking.'

'OK then, Sherlock. You obviously know better than Mr
Tailby and Mr Hitchens put together. What's your theory,
then?'

'You don't want to hear about my gut feelings, I suppose.'

'You're right, I don't. I asked for a theory. Something that
relies on a few facts.'


172
'I suppose von play it by the b')ok always. Do you iiewr
follow a hunch, use your instincts?'
'By the book,' said fry. 'So you get voursclf into a difficult situation. The first thing you

J	O	j	O .'

do is call in, then sit back and wait for the back-up to arrive?'
'Well, usually,' said Fry. 'That is the sensible course.'
'The safest for you, certainly. Would you never break the

rule?"

She thought about it. 'OK, there are times when you might

O	'	^	fa

have to take the initiative.'

'Eureka.'

'I'll let you know when that happens. All right?'

'Sure. Send me a fax.'

A couple of rugby players walked past on their way out from
the bar, smelling strongly of beer. They slapped Ben Cooper on
the shoulder and ruffled his hair as they made jokes about making

>	-*	O

sure his balls were warmed up. They smirked across the table at
Fry without speaking to her.

Fry was rapidly losing interest in Ben Cooper. Other police
officers' private lives were a serious turn-off, she found. Just
occasionally, there was someone she felt she needed to know
more about. But there was no way Ben Cooper could be one
of them.

'What do you know about DI Armstrong?' she asked him,
when the rugby players had gone.

'Not much. I worked with her briefly when she was a DS, but
B Division poached her from us. She seemed to get promoted
pretty quickly. I can't say she's dazzled anybody with her results
since she was moved up to DI.'

The suppose you're going to tell me she got the job because
she's a woman.'

'No, but ... Well.'

'And maybe she did. So what? Makes a change, doesn't it?'

J	O '

'Not to me, it doesn't.'

Fry drained her glass and slapped it on the table. 'I think it's
about time we left. There's just no atmosphere in here.'

By the time they left the club, it was dark. Cooper pressed
his key fob and the Toyota flashed its lights for him in the car


173
park. The skeletal shapes of the white rugby posts were visible
standing guard over the black, deserted pitches.

o o	*

'Do you actually play rugby, then?' asked Fry as they got
into the car.

'No, I could never see the attraction in it,' he said.

'Oh? I thought team sports were a boys' thing.'

'I don't know about that.'

'Especially in the force. They like team bonding and all that,
don't they?'

Cooper shrugged. 'I've managed to keep out of it so far. I
prefer the individual sports. But I am in the Derbyshire Police
Male Voice Choir.'

'You are kidding.'

O

'No. it's good fun. We do a few concerts -- for the old folks

'	o

mostly, that kind of thing, especially around Christmas time.
The old dears love it. It's good PR.'

'Do you sing soprano?'

'Tenor.'


A couple of miles down the road towards Edendale, Cooper
turned the Toyota off on to a side road and headed back out
of the valley.

'Where are you going?' asked Fry.

y o o	j

'I've had an idea,' he said. 'Something that came to me when
we were talking about DI Armstrong.'

'What exactly do you mean?' said Fry, with a warning note

J	J	J '	O

in her voice.

'You remember I said she was "poached" by B Division?'

'Are you still harping on that?'

'No, no, you don't understand. I was thinking about poaching.'

'Come again?'

'Just up here there's a big estate, the Colishaw Estate. That's
an "estate" as in a large area of privately owned land. Not a
housing estate.'

o

'I think I've got that, thanks.'

'The Colishaw Estate runs shoots. That means they breed a lot
of pheasants. There are deer on the estate too. Not to mention
rabbits and hare and partridge.'


174
'Is this a nature lesson? If so, could we possibly do it tomorrow?'

'Obviously, it's a big target for poachers,' said Cooper
patiently.

'Right.'

'The professional gangs used to be a big problem, but they
don't bother so much any more. There's no money in it now.
Rut the local men still get down there.'

o

'Chasing the pheasants and rabbits.'

'You don't exactly chase them.'

Cooper pulled the Toyota on to the verge near a patch of
woodland, where signs warned 'Private Property'. There was
little traffic on the road, and the night was totally black but
for the stars in a clear sky. The Toyota's sidelights illuminated

J	J	O

a wall and a length of barbed wire.

'There's an old hut down there,' he said, pointing into the
wood. 'It's always been a favourite for poachers to lie up in.
It's well away from where the keepers patrol, even when they
bother. Jackie Sherratt was a notorious poacher. He used to use
it all the time. He must often have taken his son Lee there. As
part of his training.'

'Sherratt? Hold on. You think ?'

'It's possible. I think Lee could have chosen the hut to lie up
in. No one will have thought of checking this out. It's too distant
from Moorhay. But a lad like Lee wouldn't think anything of

J	Jo

moving this far.'

o

'Don't tell me -- you want to check it out?'

'Yes.'

'Right here and now?'

'Why not?'

'Are you crazy? It's the middle of the night!'

'I'm going down anyway,' said Cooper. 'You can wait here
if you like.'

He got out of the car, pulling a sturdy torch from the glove
compartment.

'We can't do this.'

'I can,' said Cooper. 'You'll obviously have to go by the book,
won't you?'


175
He climbed over the wall and began to walk into the wood,
finding the start of a narrow path that had been invisible from
the road.

'Hold on, for God's sake,' said Fry, slamming her door.

He smiled and keyed the electronic locks.

'Can't be too careful.'

They set off close together, sharing the light of the torch.
Cooper had always felt a part of the world he worked in,
especially when he was out working in the open. But Diane
Fry, he thought, would be for ever a stranger to it. He was
alert for any sounds in the wood, but she seemed completely
absorbed in herself, as if the darkness meant not only that she
couldn't see, but also that she could neither hear nor smell
what was around her, nor even feel the nature of the ground
underfoot. Cooper was listening hard. Any countryman knew
that the sounds that animals made could tell you whether there
was a human presence in the area.

At that moment, he could hear the echo of a faint screech
deep in the wood, a fleeting sound like the scratching of a nail
on glass, or chalk across a blackboard, but with a plaintive falling
note at the end.

'Little owl.'

'Eh?' said Fry.

'Little owl.'

'What are you talking about? Is it Cowboys and Indians? You
Big Chief Little Owl, me squaw?'

'I'm talking about the bird. Can't you hear it?'

'No.'

They both listened for a moment.

'It's gone now,' said Cooper.

Fry seemed genuinely reluctant to go into the woods in the
dark. He was surprised by her behaviour. Afraid of the dark?
Surely not Diane Fry; not Macho Woman.

'Are you nervous?' he asked.

'Of course not.'

'We could leave it until tomorrow, if you like. I could suggest
it at the morning briefing, and see if anyone can be bothered to
put out an action for it. We're not getting overtime for this,


176
after all. It doesn't make good business sense, does it? If you

want to look at it like that.'

'Since we're here, let's just do it, then we can go home.'
'On the other hand, if he is down there, he'll probably have

moved on somewhere else by tomorrow.'
'Can you just shut up and get on with it?'


Diane shee found the darkness disturbing. The deeper they moved

J	O	I	J

into the wood, the more she wished that she had brought a torch

O

of her own, that she had refused to go along with the idea, that

'	O	O	'

she had stayed in the car after all. Or better still, that she had
never stupidly agreed to play squash with a jerk like Ben Cooper.
She had known it had been a mistake from the start. She should
never have let herself get involved, not even for one evening.
And now it had ended up like this. With a stupid escapade that
she could see no way of getting herself out of.

In front of her. Cooper was walking with an exaggerated

'	r	o	oo

carefulness, lifting his feet high in front of him before placing
them cautiously back on the ground. He pointed the torch
downwards, shielding its light with his hand so that it would
not be visible in the distance. At one point he stopped to rest
against a tree. When he straightened up again, Fry felt him
stagger as if he was drunk. She grabbed his arm to support
him, but felt no resistance in his muscles. Peering into his face

'	o

by the dim light, she saw that his cheeks were drawn, and his
eyelids were heavy.

'You're exhausted,' she said. 'You can't go on with this.
We'll have to turn back.'

'Not now,' said Cooper. 'I'll be all right.'

He shook himself vigorously and they set off again. Soon,
a darker area of blackness began to form up ahead. Cooper
switched off the torch and signalled her closer so that he could
whisper into her ear. His breath felt warm on her cheek, which
was starting to feel a faint chill in the night air.

'That's the hut. You stay here while I take a look through
the window at the side there. Don't make a sound.'

Fry began to protest, but he hushed her. Then he was gone,
creeping through the trees towards the side of the hut. Soon his


177
shape had vanished into the gloom, and she found herself on her
own. Immediately, she felt the sweat break out on her forehead.
She cursed silently, knowing what was about to come.


As soon as she was alone, the darkness began to close in around
her. It moved suddenly on her from every side, dropping like
a heavy blanket, pressing against her body and smothering her
with its warm, stickv embrace. Its weight drove the breath from
her lungs and pinioned her limbs, draining the strength from
her muscles. Her eyes stretched wide, and her ears strained for
noises in the woods as she felt her heart stumble and flutter,
gripped with the old, familiar fear.

Around her, the night murmured and fluttered with unseen
things, hundreds of tiny shiftings and stirrings that seemed to

o '		o	o

edge continually nearer, inch by inch, clear but unidentifiable.
Next, her skin began to crawl with imagined sensations. It was
as if she had stood in a seething nest of tiny ants that ran all over
her body in their thousands, scurrying backwards and forwards,
scuttling in and out of her intimate crevices, tickling her flesh with

O	'	o

their tiny feet and antennae. Her flesh squirmed and writhed as
an icy chill seeped into her bones.

She had always known the old memories were still powerful
and raw, ready to rise up and grab at her hands and face from
the darkness, throwing her thoughts into turmoil and her body
into immobility. Desperately, she tried to count the number of
dark forms that loomed around her, mere smudges of silhouettes

'	o

that crept ever nearer, reaching out to nuzzle her neck with their
teeth and squeeze the air from her throat.

And then she seemed to hear a voice in the darkness. A familiar
voice, coarse and slurring in a Birmingham accent. 'It's a copper,'
it said. Taunting laughter moving in the shadows. The same dark,
stained pillars of menace all around, whichever way she turned.
'A copper. She's a copper.'


The light fell on her face, blinding her. She knew there was a
person behind the light, but she couldn't make out his eyes. She
tensed automatically, her hands closing into fists, the first two
knuckles protruding, with her thumbs locked over her fingers,


178
and her legs moving to take her balance. Concentrate. Pour the
adrenaline into the muscles. Get ready to strike.

'Are you OK?'

A concerned voice, northern vowels. Whispering. Unthreatening.
Fry let the muscles relax slowly, coming back to an awareness of
the woods, to the fact she was in Derbyshire, many miles from
Birmingham. The reality of the horror was months behind her,
and only the wounds in her mind were still raw and terrible
where they were exposed to the cold wind of memory. She
took a breath, felt her lungs trembling and ragged.

Cooper leaned towards her face, so they were only a few
inches apart. 'Are you OK, Diane?'

Instinctively, she reached out a hand to touch him, like a child
seeking affection, a protective embrace. She felt his solidity and
his reassuring warmth, and closed her eyes to grasp at the elusive
sensations of tenderness and affection. The feeling of another
human body so close was unfamiliar. It was a long time since
she had wanted someone to hold her and comfort her, a lifetime
since there had been someone to wipe away the tears that she
now felt gathering in the corners of her eyes.

o	o	J

'What's wrong?'

o

Fry pulled back her hand, blinked her eyes, drew herself
upright. Control and concentration, that's what she needed.
She breathed deeply, filling her lungs, forcing her heartbeat to
slow down. Control and concentration.

'I'm fine, Ben. What did you see?'

'He's in there, all right. He's got a candle lit, and I could
see his face in a sort of half-profile.'

'You're sure?'

'It's definitely him.'

'What do we do now?'

'Are you joking? We nick him.'

Fry sighed. 'All right. Let's nick him then.'

Cooper put his hand on her arm, and gave it a squeeze. She
bit her lip at the friendly gesture, and firmly shook him off.

'There's just the one door, and there's no lock on it,' he said.
'We'll go in fast, one either side of him, take him by surprise.
I'll do the words. OK?'


179
'Fine by me.'

They approached the door, paused to look at each other.
Cooper nodded, flicked the catch and kicked the door backwards
on its hinges. He was in the hut fast, moving to his right, allowing
Fry space to get alongside him.

A young man was bending over a wooden table against the
far side of the hut. A candle threw a fitful light on his face and
cast his shadow on the opposite wall. I here was an old chair
and a small cupboard in the room, and even a worn carpet on
the floor. But the hut smelled of earth and mouldy bread.

Cooper began to reach for his warrant card, which was deep
inside the inner pocket of his jacket.

'Lee Sherratt? I'm a police officer.'

Sherratt turned round, slowly and deliberately, and only then
did Cooper see the gun. It came up in his hands as they lifted
from the table, the barrel swinging outwards and upwards,
with Sherratt's fingers turning white where they gripped the
stock, one index finger creeping towards the trigger guard, a
blackened fingernail touching the steel of the trigger, applying
the first pressure . . .

Cooper stood numbed with surprise, his right hand pushed
into his pocket, immobile. His mind had come to a halt, no
instincts sprang up to tell him what to do. The last thing he

1	O 1	O

had been expecting was that he would die here, in the poacher's
hut, on a threadbare carpet gritty with soil and fragments of
stale food.

Then Diane Fry came into view. She was moving at twice the
speed of Sherratt. Her left foot lashed out in a straight-legged
sideways kick that impacted with Sherratt's wrist and knocked the
rifle out of his hands towards the wall of the hut. Even before the
gun had landed, she regained her footing, shifted her balance and
was striking a closed-fist rising blow to his solar plexus. Sherratt
folded backwards into the table, then collapsed face down on to
the floor and vomited on the carpet. Fry stepped back to avoid
the mess.

'You don't have to say anything unless you wish to do so,
but what you say may be given in evidence,' she said.

'Shit,' said Cooper.


180
Fry dug into her pockets and pulled out her kwik-cuft's and
her mobile phone.

'I suppose 1 could have called in first and waited for the
back-up,' she said. 'But, like I said, there arc times.'


181
15


out where are they, sir?'

'We don't know exactly. Somewhere on the Pennine Way,
we think.'

'But that's two hundred and fifty miles long.'

'And there are twenty-two of them, apparently,' said DCI
Tailby. 'And they've all got to be interviewed. Paul?'

DI Hitchens wras sitting next to Tailby at the head of the
briefing room. He seemed to be moving into a central position
again in the Vernon enquiry.

'The hikers seen on the Eden Valley Trail are all students
from Newcastle on a week's walking holiday. Apparently, they
stayed overnight on Saturday at the camping barn at Hathersage,
intending to reach the start of the Pennine Way via Barber Booth
sometime on Sunday. But nearly four days have elapsed, and we
estimate they will be somewhere in West or North Yorkshire
by now. The local police are trying to locate them for us.'

Tailby nodded. 'DI Hitchens is in charge of this line of enquiry.
When the students are located, he will travel to Yorkshire to
interview them, accompanied by DC Fry.'

There was a faint trickle of comment, quickly hushed. Ben
Cooper saw the DI look round and grin at Fry.

'Mr and Mrs Vernon are coming in today to film their
television appeal, which will be broadcast later,' said Tailby.
'We are, of course, hopeful of some results from the public.'
He smiled to himself as he said it -- a small, self-mocking smile,

'	o	'

as he thought of the phone calls that would certainly pour in
from the cranks and the eccentrics, the over-zealous and the
neurotic, the well-intentioned but mistaken, and the sad, sad
cases desperate for a bit of attention. From among the hundreds

there might, though, be one or two calls that would provide

t? '	o '	r

vital help.

The DCI looked down at his checklist. 'Have we anything on
Daniel Vernon vet? Who's on that?'


182
A burly DC leaning against the side wall raised a hand in
acknowledgement.

'Yes, Weenink?'

'I checked with his faculty at Exeter University. Vernon is
about to start the second year of the political science course.
It's social dialectics this term, apparently. I always thought that
was a sort of sexual disease.' Weenink waited for the expected
laughs, smirking as he thrust his hands into his pockets and
slouched more casually. 'Term doesn't start for another two
weeks, but the new intake, the first years, arrive before that
to register and find their way about, get fixed up with digs, all
that sort of thing.'

'But Daniel Vernon is a second-year student,' said Tailby
impatiently.

'He's a buddy,' responded Weenink.

'What?'

'Some of the established students turn up early to give advice
to the newcomers. Some of the kids turn up at university on
their own and they've never been away from home before. The
older ones befriend them. They call them buddies.'

'You found this out from the faculty?'

'From the Students' Union. Vernon checked in there on
Saturday morning and worked over the weekend meeting new
students. The Union president remembers him being called away
sometime Monday night.'

'And he arrived home on Tuesday? How? Has he a car? Did
he use the train?'

Weenink shrugged. 'Don't know, sir.'

'I'd like you to concentrate on pinning his movements down
precisely,' said Tailby. The need to know whether we can eliminate
Daniel Vernon from the enquiry. Laura Vernon was seen talking
to a young man in the garden at the Mount just before she
disappeared on Saturday night. That could just as easily have
been Daniel as any boyfriend, unless he has a solid alibi for
the period.' He waited for Weenink to nod his understanding.
'Meanwhile, as you all know, we have Lee Sherratt in custody,
thanks to a bit of initiative last night by DCs Cooper and Fry.'

The DCI said the word 'initiative' as if he wasn't entirely


183
sure it was something he approved of It was, after all, contrary
to current philosophies. Policework was now a team activity, a
question of routine legvvork and good communication, compar
ing and correlating, inputting vast amounts of data and seeing
what came out of the computer or what matched up at the
torensics lab. Unplanned night-time arrests in remote spots by
off-duty detectives did not fit the plan.

Cooper was still smarting from an early-morning dressing
down by Hitchens for his total disregard of proper procedures,
for not letting anyone know what he was doing, and for his
criminal foolishness in putting himself and a fellow officer at
risk. Words like 'rash', 'irresponsible' and 'foolhardy' had been
used, and in his heart Ben Cooper could not deny that they were
justified. But Lee Sherratt was in custody.

The DCI was still talking. 'There was an initial interview with
Sherratt last night, and the tapes are already transcribed. He will
be interviewed again this morning by myself.'

Cooper put his hand up. Tailby's eyes swivelled towards him.

'Let me guess, Cooper, you're going to ask about Harry
Dickinson.'

'Yes, sir.'

Tailbv shuffled some papers.

'He was unavailable last night, but there's an action allocated

o

this morning to ask him about the bird-watcher's sighting on

o	o	o

Saturday night.'

J	O

'We ought to press him,' said Cooper. 'He hasn't been
cooperating so far.'

'We shouldn't be wasting too much time on him,' protested
Hitchens. 'He's just an awkward old sod.'

'With respect, sir, I think it was more than that. He was
upset about something.'

'Upset? Bloody rude, more like.'

'No, there was something else.' Cooper shook his head.

Tailby frowned. 'Justify it, lad. Where's your evidence?'

'I can't really explain what it was, sir, but I could feel it. It's
. . . well, it's just a feeling.'

'Ah. For a moment there, Cooper, I thought you were going
to say it was feminine intuition.'


184
Several of the officers began to fitter, and Cooper flushed.
'We could check Mr Dickinson's movements out more care


fullv. lust in case.' j j

Tailby nodded. 'All right, that sounds thorough. Do you want
to action this yourself, Cooper?'

'Of course.'

As Tailby finished the briefing, Hitchens got up and came
u\er to I-ry.

'Off to sunny Yorkshire then, Diane. Call home and pack an
overnight bag for when we get the call. These students can be
elusive, so it might not be until tonight.'

Cooper waited until Hitchens had moved away.

'You should be in on the interviews with Sherratt,' he said.
'It was your arrest.'

'It doesn't matter,' said Fry. But Cooper could see that it
did. He wasn't comfortable, either, with the idea of her being
away with Dl Hitchens. But it was her own business, of course.
Nothing to do with him. If she wanted to take the opportunity
of sleeping her way to the top, let her get on with it.

Tn the hut there, with Lee Sherratt . . .'he said.

'Yes, Ben?' She turned to him, ready to brush aside the
thanks.

'That was a lucky blow. He walked right into it. But a
side-handed strike would have been better.'

'Oh really? You know that, do you?'

T'm a shotokan brown belt,' he said.

Fry gave a chilly smile. 'Well, hey, that's great. I've been
looking for a dojo round here. I'm falling behind in my training.
Can you suggest somewhere?'

'Come along with me. I can get you in at my club. Maybe

O	O	J	J

we can have a friendly bout. It'll be a bit of practice for
you.'

'In case I have to pull you out of the shit again, do you
mean?'

Cooper grinned. 'It's always worth learning a bit more, getting
your techniques right. Will you come along? When you get back
from Yorkshire?'

She stared at him -- an appraising stare, as if she were weighing


185
up an opponent, measuring his capabilities, judging how murh
of a threat to her he could be.

'Do you know, I'd really love to do that, Ben. And I'll keep
you to that bout, don't you worry.'


Lee Sherratt sat sullenly 111 an interview room, staring at the two
cassette recorders and twin video cameras. His skin was faintly
swarthy, as if he had a fading suntan or hadn't washed for a long

J '	O	to

time. His hair was black, and the stubble on his cheeks made
his complexion look even darker. His eyes wandered around
the room, looking at anything rather than the detectives facing

'	o	J	to	o

him. He was a well-built youth, but at the moment his muscular
shoulders were held high, betraying his tension.

Tailby knew it wasn't Sherratt's first experience of being
interviewed in a police station. There were minor offences on
his record -- juvenile car crime, but no violence, not even a
drunk-and-disorderly. Yet Graham Vernon had called him a
violent yob. Of course, there was the gun.

DI Hitchens started the tapes and checked the cameras were
running. 'Interview commenced nine-fifteen a.m., Wednesday
twenty-fifth August. Present are Detective Inspector Hitchens . . .'

'Detective Chief Inspector Tailby ..."

Hitchens nodded at the two men across the table.

'Lee Sherratt.'

'And John Nunn.'

Somehow the duty solicitor looked more uncomfortable than
Sherratt did. Probably he was not used to being involved in
a murder enquiry. But Lee Sherratt had no solicitor of his
own, and right now he had the sense to know he needed

'	o

one.

Hitchens was leading, after consultation with Tailby. He
had a transcript in front of him of the initial interview conducted
the previous night, without the benefit of a solicitor.

'Lee, a few hours ago you told us that you had no intimate
relationship with Laura Vernon.'

Sherratt nodded, staring at the table.

'For the tape, please.'


186
That's right.'

'If you wouldn't describe your relationship with Laura as
intimate, how would you describe it?'

Sherratt looked uncertainly at the solicitor and back at
Hitchens. 'We didn't have a relationship. Not what you mean.'
You knew her, didn't you, Leer''

'Well, yeah. She lived there, at the Mount.'

'So you must have had a relationship with her.'

'Not really.'

Hitchens sighed. 'Would you say your relationship with Laura
Vernon was one of friendship?'

'No, she wasn't friendly.'

'But you weren't complete strangers. You had met several
times. You knew her name, she knew yours. You had spoken
to each other.'

"Course I'd met her.'

'So how would you describe that relationship, if it wasn't
friendly?'

The youth frowned, struggling for the right sort of word to
offer. He looked at his solicitor again, but Mr Nunn had no
words to suggest. Sherratt rubbed his cheek with a broad hand,
scraping the stubble.

'She was a stuck-up little cow,' he said at last. Mr Nunn
jerked as if he had been kicked awake and looked at the cassette
recorder.

'Perhaps my client might like to reconsider that remark,' he
said.

'Certainly,' said Hitchens generously. It wasn't an answer to
his question anyway. 'Let's try another question. Why did you
hate her, Lee?'

Mr Nunn shook his head. 'No comment,' said Sherratt proudly,
relieved to have been given a clear signal at last.

'Did you like her?'

'Detective Inspector, this line of questioning --'

'I'm merely trying to establish the nature of the relationship
between Mr Sherratt and the victim,' said Hitchens genially.
'Shall we agree, Lee, that if you thought Laura was a "stuck-up
little cow", then you didn't like her very much?'


187
'No, I didn't like her,' said Sherratt. His eyes fell again, and
his chair creaked as he shifted his bulk.

'Right. But did you fancy her?'

'No comment.'

'Come on, Lee, she was an attractive girl. Mature for her
acre, they saw. Sexv, even. You must have noticed. Didn't you

Ł> '	./	J	j '	j

fancy her? I'm sure other lads would have done.'

'She wasn't my type,' said Sherratt, with a smirk.

'Ah. I see.'

Hitchens turned over a few sheets of paper. They were
interview reports. He read a few paragraphs, taking his time
as the tapes whirred.

'According to Mr Graham Vernon,' he said at last. 'That's
Laura's father, Lee, your former employer. According to Mr
Vernon, you had been pestering his daughter. Trying to chat her
up, he says. Ogling her. Spying on her in the house. Following
her around. And, he says, you tried every chance you had to
touch her. And that your attentions were unwelcome.'

'It's not true,' said Sherratt, before Mr Nunn could decide
whether to shake his head.

'Why would Mr Vernon say things like that if they weren't
true?' asked Hitchens, raising his eyebrows.

'He's weird,' said Sherratt dismissively, as if it needed no
further explanation. His eyes began to roam around again. He
studied the clock on the side wall as if wondering how long he
had to last out.

'Weird, how?'

'Well

'Weird because he didn't like you pestering Laura?'

'No comment.'

'Did it make you angry that he thought you weren't good
enough for his daughter?'

'No comment.'

'You were just the gardener after all, Lee. A servant. And

not a very good gardener, by all accounts.'

y o	o	' j

There was a flash of anger in Sherratt's face now as he glared

o	o

at Hitchens. 'I worked hard,' he said sullenly. 'I'm as good as
them. Why shouldn't I be?'


188
'Did Laura look down on you too?'

'You what?'

'Did she treat you like a servant. Lee?'

'She was a stuck-up little cow.' Sherratt looked defiantly at
his solicitor. He was starting to get more confident now. Tailby
saw the change in his manner and tapped Hilchens's leg. It was
time for him to come in, to change tack.

'Some of these stuck-up cows like a bit of roucrh, don't

i	to '

they, Lee? They're desperate to get it from a proper man,
aren't they?'

Sherratt turned round to face Tailby, a knowing leer slipping
on to his face before he could think of controlling it. Nunn

o

coughed and shook his head several times.

o

'I bet you're the man to give it to them, aren't you, Lee?'

'Chief Inspector, I don't think that is a relevant question.'

'Did you have sex with Laura Vernon?'

"I didn't,' said Sherratt.

'Just a bit of heavy petting, then.'

'No.'

'So how would you describe your relationship?'

Sherratt leaned across the table. The veins stood out in his
neck as his chin jutted forward. 'I told him already. We didn't
have one.'

'But you met Laura when her parents didn't know about it,
didn't you?"

'No.'

'So her parents did know about it?'

'What? No, I never met her.'

'But you've already said, Lee, that you met her during the
course of your job at the Mount.'

'Well . . . yes.'

Even the solicitor was looking confused now. Tailby leaned
forward.

'Now we've cleared that up, would you like to clarify your
other statement?'

'What was that?'

'You've told us that you didn't have sex with Laura Vernon.
Would you like to change that statement?'


189
'No. I didn't do it with her. I told you.'
'Lee, when you were taken into custody last night you agreed
to provide samples for forensic examination and DNA testing.'
The dark eyes wavered nervously. 'Yes.'
'Do you understand what a DNA test is? Do you understand

J	J

that this will enable us to match those samples we took with
evidence found at the scene?'

'I wasn't at no scene.'

'For example,' said Tailby, 'I mean the used condom we
found in the greenhouse in the garden at the Mount.'

o	o

Sherratt blinked and his face went a shade of yellow under
the dark colour. His solicitor shook his head.

Tailby merely smiled, his eyes colder than ever. 'A used
condom contains semen. A good source of a DNA sample.
Will we find that it's yours, Lee?'


Cooper called first at Dial Cottage. Before he could knock, the
front door was opened by Helen Milner. She was looking over
her shoulder, calling to her grandmother.

'I'm off now!'

She was taken aback when she saw him standing on the step.
She was back in her shorts and a sleeveless cotton top, and
her limbs seemed to glow in the brightness pouring through
the doorway from the street.

'Oh, hello, Ben.'

'How are you?'

'Fine. Have you come to see me?'

'Your grandparents, actually.'

Was that a flash of disappointment that passed across her face?
Intrigued, Cooper studied her expression. But it quickly became
a friendly smile.

'Grandma is in. She'll be pleased to see you.'

'Hold on. Do you have to rush off?'

'I've got a few things to do. But -- well, they're not desperate.'
Faced with Helen again, Cooper found himself searching for
what it was he wanted to say to her.

'I'm sorry it had to be like this when we met again.'

J	&


190
'It's your job, I suppose.' she said.

The local postman was working his way down the road in his
van, stopping every few yards to deliver his handfuls of mail. The
radio in his van was tuned to Peak FM, and every time he opened
the driver's door, the village was treated to a blast of relentlessly
lively pop music. But the chances were that the messages he was
delivering were not so bright or so cheerful as the music.

Helen had unlocked the door of her red Fiesta, which stood
at the kerb near the cottage. Cooper leaned on the roof of the
car, trying not to flinch as the hot metal burned his arm through
his shirt.

'It's a good job. But it can get in the way sometimes.'

'How do you mean, Ben?'

'It comes between you and other people.'

Helen nodded. 'Everybody sees you as a policeman first and
foremost, I suppose.'

'All the time. But you didn't, did you?'

'What?'

'On Monday. When I came here, to Dial Cottage. You saw
me first as Ben Cooper.'

Helen laughed. 'No. I saw you as the teenager I remembered
at Edendale High. I would barely have recognized you if it hadn't
been for the photograph in the paper the other week.'

'But you said I hadn't changed much,' he protested.

'It's what you say, isn't it?' Helen studied him. 'Yes, I suppose
at first it didn't occur to me you were the police, Ben. I just
remembered you as you were.'

Cooper smiled. 'It brought memories back for me, too,' he
said.

The post van coasted past them and pulled into the kerb in
front of the Fiesta. The postman emerged in a burst of Abba and
stared at them curiously as he passed. But he had no letters to
deliver to Dial Cottage.

Helen wound down the windows of her car, trying to let
out the stifling air. Cooper straightened, sensing he would be
unable to keep her any longer.

'So aren't you a policeman all the time, then?' she said. 'What
are you like when you're just being Ben Cooper?'


191
'You'll have to find out one dav, won't you?'

'Maybe I will.'

Helen turned awav and walked back to the door of Dial

J

Cottage. Cooper watched her red hair swinging on her bare
shoulders and admired the movement of her calves. He met her
eyes hastily when she glanced over her shoulder as she pushed
open the door.

'Grandma! You've got a visitor.' she called.

o	'

Gwen appeared in the passage, her face lighting up at the

sight of Ben Cooper standing next to Helen. She was wearing

o	r	o	o

an apron, and her hands, which she was trying to wipe on a
towel as she came to the door, were covered in flour. She
patted Cooper's arm.

'Come in, and I'll put the kettle on again. Won't you stay
for a bit, Helen?'

'Sorry, must go.'

Gwen stood on the step waving and smiling conspiratorially
at Helen as she walked to her car. Cooper waited hopefully
while Helen started the engine and fastened her seat belt. He
was rewarded with a quick glance and a flash of her smile. The
warmth that spread over his skin was due to more than the sun
and the hot pavements.

He was roused by Gwen Dickinson tugging his arm. 'Are you
coming in then, or are you going to stand out here gawping
all day?'

Cooper was embarrassed by her knowing twinkle and tried
to slip back into his professional role. 'Is your husband not at
home, Mrs Dickinson?'

'No, he's not in,' she said. 'He'll be up at Wilford Cults's
place, if you want him. He's always there, or at the pub.'

'Perhaps I could have a few words with you, since I'm
here.'

'As long as you sit down for a bit and have a cup of
tea.'

Cooper followed her into the kitchen, feeling again the cool

r	'	o o

ness of the cottage, with its thick stone walls to keep out the
heat. On Monday, he had thought the chill was partly due to
the circumstances, the sensation he had had of the close presence


192
of death, Rvit even today the inside temperature was enough to
make him shiver as he left the sun behind.

Gwen Dickinson boiled the electric kettle and heated a teapot.
She opened a cupboard and emptied half a packet of digestive
biscuits on to a plate.

'I'm sorry they're not chocolate ones,' she said. 'Young men
like chocolate biscuits.'

'That's all right.'

'Is Harry in trouble?' she asked, turning to Cooper and looking
him directly in the face.

Cooper shook his head. 'He's an important witness,' he
said.

'Because he found the shoe.'

'The trainer, yes. But we have reason to think he may also have
been on the Baulk at the time that Laura Vernon was killed.'

Gwen stared at him, clutching the plate of biscuits. The kettle
boiled unnoticed behind her, releasing a cloud of steam around
her head, until it switched itself off.

'What does that mean?'

'He might have seen something,' explained Cooper. 'Or
someone.'

'Oh, I see.'

She gazed absently at the kettle and at the plate in her hand.
She put the biscuits down, switched the kettle back on, poured
the boiling water into the teapot and picked the plate back up.

'Won't you sit down?' she said. 'Take one of the armchairs
.'

'Let me carry the tray,' said Cooper, noticing the unsteadiness
of her hands.

'Has somebody said they saw him?' asked Gwen, when they
were seated opposite each other on either side of a small glass
topped coffee table. 'Did they see Harry?'

'Yes. At least, we think it might have been Harry. On
the Baulk.'

'But he goes there every day,' she said, looking more comfortable.
'To walk Jess. Every day.'

'Does he go at regular times? That's normal for a responsible
dog owner, isn't it? A regular routine.'


193
'Yes, regular. Nine o'clock in the morning, after his breakfast,
and six o clock at night.

'He doesn't vary?'

'Regular.'

'And on Saturday night?'

'The same. Six o'clock. He sits down for his meal when he
comes back. He says it gives him an appetite.'

Cooper nodded, waiting while Gwen poured his tea. Her
legs below the hem of her dress looked painfully swollen, and
the lower sleeves of her blue cardigan were stuffed with bits of
tissue, ready for the next onset of tears.

'Did your husband mention seeing anybody when he was out
that night?'

'Do you mean the Mount girl?'

'Not necessarily. Anybody.'

'No,' said Gwen. 'He never said anything like that.' She paused
for a moment, and offered Cooper a biscuit. 'You don't know
Harry very well, do you?'

'No, I've only met him briefly.'

'Well, you see, he wouldn't say if he had, anyway. He's
like that.'

'He wouldn't tell you if he met somebody while he was
walking the dog?'
'No, he wouldn't see any reason to.'

'But since then? Since he's known that Laura Vernon was
killed down there? If he remembered seeing somebody, might
he not mention it?'

'Not to me,' said Gwen simply.

'I see. Did your husband go out again later, Mrs Dickinson?
After his meal?'

'He usually goes down to the Drover,' she said.

'And that night, did he go out as usual?'

o '	o

'Yes, I'm sure.'

'What time would that be?'

'I can't remember,' said Gwen.

'After seven o'clock?'

'Oh yes, he wouldn't have finished his tea before that.'

'After eight o'clock then?'


194
'I can't really say. It might have been.'

Cooper heard the aggressive tone in his own voice and hesitated,
seeing Gwen begin to tremble. He felt sorrv for her and

1	fe	o	^

didn't want to increase her distress. She was only one of those
innocent people who got caught up in something they didn't
understand. He thought of his own mother, lor whom things
had got too much. He didn't want to be even partly responsible
for pushing someone else towards the edge.

'Just a few more questions, Mrs Dickinson, then I'll leave
you in peace. I know it must be difficult for you.'

'It's all right,' she said. 'Those other men frightened me, but
I don't mind if it's you.'

He smiled, touched by the old woman's faith, but not sure
whether he could live up to it.

'I wonder whether Mr Dickinson would have taken his dog
with him when he went out the second time? When he went
to the pub?'

'Jess? Oh yes, he doesn't go anywhere without her.' Gwen
took a deep breath. 'Are they saying he met the Mount girl
down there?'

He was surprised at the question, and wondered why it had
come into Gwen Dickinson's mind. He deliberately avoided
an answer.

'You keep calling her the Mount girl, Mrs Dickinson. But her
name's Vernon.'

'Yes, I know that. The Mount is where she lives, isn't it?'

She nodded her head towards the window. But all that could
be seen was the garden, the edge of the trees, and the sunlit

o	'	o	'

hillside beyond.

'Do you know Mr and Mrs Vernon, then?'

'They're comers-in.'

'Is that yes or no?'

Gwen threw out her hands. Cooper knew the meaning of
that gesture. It indicated that you could never really know
comers-in, not in the proper sense. You might say hello to
them in the street or in the shop, let them buy you a drink
at the pub, or even share a pew with them at St Edwin's these
days. But you wouldn't ever know them -- not like you knew


195

"S

the people who had always lived in the village, whose parent
and grandparents and great-grandparents you knew, and whose
grandparents had known your great-grandparents. Many of them
might well have been first or second cousins to each other. Those
were the people you knew.

'We were never introduced, said Gwen. ' They weren't known round here. Not really.' She peered anxiously at him to be sure
he understood.

'Of course.'

Yes, you only really knew people when you knew everything
about them. You needed to know it all -- from the exact moment
they had been conceived in the long grass at the back of the village
hall to the first word they had spoken, and the contents of their
fifth-form school reports. You needed to know what size of shoes
they wore, how much money they owed the credit card company,
when their last bout of chickenpox had been, and which foot had
the ingrowing toenail. You had to know who their first sexual
encounter had been with, what brand of condom they had used,
and whether the experience had been satisfactory. Now that was knowing somebody.

'But I have seen them,' admitted Gwen. 'The Mount lot.'

'What about the girl? Laura?'

'She never went to school in the village -- she was already
too old when they came. She didn't even go to the big school in
Edendale. Private, she was. That place out at Wardworth, what
do they call it?'

'High Carrs.'

'That's right. They always took her out by car every morning
and back in the afternoon. At weekends they were always away
out somewhere, shopping in Sheffield and the like. Riding lessons
and I don't know what. She never had anything to do with any of
the other girls in the village, nor any of the boys either, though
plenty would have liked to know her better, I don't doubt. They
kept her shut up in that place, or well away from here. So she
was never really part of the village then, was she? Not her, nor
that brother of hers either. They couldn't be, not like that.'

'And how well do you think your husband knew Laura?'

Gwen flared up suddenly, her lip lifting to reveal her false


196
teeth in something that was almost a snarl. Cooper bit off too
large a piece of biscuit and nearly choked.

'Are you sure you've been listening?'

'Of course I have.'

'Didn't I say he never tells me anything? How would I know
if he knew her? She's never been here, she's never been to the
cottage. So how would I know?'

'I'm sorry,' he said, and meant it. 'I'll have to ask him myself,
of course.'

'You think he'll tell jou anything?'

'It's in his own interests. It won't help to be uncooperative
with us.'

'Try telling him that. I wish you luck with it.'

She relaxed into her chair, calming down again as quickly as
she had flared. She looked up at him coyly, as if ashamed at her
show of temper.

'I heard he had a bit of a disagreement with my bosses,' said
Cooper, probing gently at something that was intriguing him.

'And thought he was very clever doing it,' Gwen said. She
sighed and put down her cup half drunk. 'He always was contrary.
A stubborn man. Ever since I've known him, he's been like that.
When I was a girl, it was one of the things I liked about him.
I thought it was a man's pride then. Now . . . Well, like I say,

O	1	'	J '

he's stubborn. A right awkward old bugger, Harry Dickinson.
Everybody knows that.'

From the way the old woman spoke, it seemed to Cooper
that it was the stubbornness that was still, really, the thing that
she liked most about Harry. Now that the physical attraction
had gone and the romance had long since settled into a numb
familiarity, there was still a quality in her husband that could
make her voice soften and her pale eyes shift out of focus,
as if she were looking beyond the walls of the cottage to the
shadows of a happier past. Their marriage might not be happy,
but surely something else had taken the place of happiness --
a sort of stability, a necessary balance. The old couple were
like two of those ancient rocks propped against each other
on Raven's Side -- jagged and weathered, their hard surfaces

J OO

gouging into each other, but worn to each other's shape by the


197
years. But if one of those rocks should crumble, there was no	|[

future lor the other.	f

'Of course, he thinks more of those pals of his than he does of	*

me, these days,' said Gwen. 'Sam Beeley and Wilford Cults."	}|

'I'm sure that's not true,' said Cooper.	:|
'That's what Helen savs as well. But I'm not sure. Not at

ll '	'	*

all.	I j

'He's known them a long time, hasn't he?'	* '

'For ever. From when they were young lads together. Before
he met me. When you get married, you think you'll be the most
important thing in the other person's life. But Harry never let
me come between him and his pals.'

For a moment, Gwen's voice hardened again, her eyes focused

'	o '	J

on Cooper as if he had reminded her of the present.

'They worked together, you know, in the mines,' she said.
'And they joined up together. They were young men then.
Served in the same regiment and came back from the war
closer than ever. Then they went back to the mines -- but the
war had killed the lead mining like it killed all those men. It

o

was the other things that they mined by then, not the lead.'

'Fluorspar and limestone.'

Lead had been mined in the area since Roman times. Cooper
knew that it was still produced in the last remaining local
mines, but only as a by-product to the other minerals that
were demanded by modern industries. Limestone aggregate dug
out of the mines and quarries in the area found its way into
everything from aspirin to tile adhesive, from washing powder to
concrete. And there were other things too -- barytes, zinc blende
and calcite; and the unique ornamental fluorspar they called Blue
John Stone. The supply of minerals beneath the Peak District
seemed endless. But nobody wanted the lead any more.

'They must have been retired a few years now.'

'Oh yes. But it hasn't stopped them spending all their time
together. Sam Beeley's wife only died a couple of years back, but
Wilford Cutts now -- his Doris has been gone a long time.'

'Mrs Cutts is dead?'

'Pneumonia it was, poor soul. Since Mrs Beeley died, they've
been worse than ever, the three of them. Up at the smallholding


198
all dav. and in the Drover all night. It's obvious that I don't
count at all.'

Then like a chance to be with other men, to talk about the
things that don't interest women much.'

Gwen looked sharply at him, and he felt as though she was
seeing straight through him.

'Oh? And do you do much of that yourself, then, lad?'

'Er . . .'

She waved a hand, sparing him a reply. 'Never mind. I can
see what sort of lad you are.'

'Mrs Dickinson, I do think your husband may know something
he's not telling us.'

o

Gwen laughed suddenly. Her hands danced on the front of
her green cardigan, blue veins shimmying beneath the skin like
worms exposed to the light.

'If he didn't, it'd be the first time in his life!' she said. 'I told
you -- he's the closest old bugger you ever met. And nobody
knows better than me.'

'Has he really never confided in you, Mrs Dickinson?'

'Dafthead. That's what I'm telling you, isn't it? If you want
to know who he tells things to, try them other two. They're
the ones he spends all his time with. No use asking me what
he knows, I'm the last one he'd tell.'

Cooper emptied his cup and dusted the crumbs off his
fingers.

o

'Thank you for the tea, Mrs Dickinson.'

'You won't mind the things I say, will you? I'm just a silly
old woman sometimes.'

'You've been very helpful.'

'You're a nice lad. Will you come back again tomorrow? Come

J	O

a bit earlier, when Helen's here. She's been talking about you,
you know.'

Cooper hesitated. The invitation was tempting. There was
a part of him that felt there was a chance here to introduce
something pleasant into his life for a change. And he knew that
chances, if not taken, had a habit of never coming round again.

'	'	o	o

Then he thought of all the responsibilities that weighed on him.
He was in the middle of a murder enquiry, for heaven's sake.


199
Not to mention the crisis at home, and, above all, his mother
in need of all the love and support he could give.

Tm sorry, I can't promise that. There's such a lot to do at
the moment.'

'I suppose so. But she'll be sorry not to see you.'
'You think I might find your husband at Thorpe Farm?'
'Sure to. Him and less went out hours ago.'

J	o
'I'll pop up and see if I ran find him, then. And don't \vorrv
-- it's only routine.'

Gwen escorted him to the door of the cottage. Then she put
her hand on his sleeve.

'You can't make me give evidence against him, can you?'
she asked.

'Why would we want to do that, Mrs Dickinson?'

She shook her head wearily. 'Oh, I know. It's only routine.
I know.'

And Ben Cooper didn't know the answer to his question
either.


200
16


1 he smell of the smoke was acrid and strong, like burning
rubber. But it was nowhere near as strong as the other smell,

o	'

which lav like an evil fog on the ramshackle buildings and overgrown
paddocks of rough grass. It was the sweet, sickly stink of
advanced decomposition, the odour of organic matter rotted to
the point of putrefaction and the escape of fermenting gases.

Cooper had found the three old men by using his nose. They
were building a vast compost heap, well out of sight of the
track to the house at Thorpe Farm. From a seat on a bale of
straw, Sam Beeley was supervising the operation, while Harry
Dickinson and Wilford Cutts had their jackets off and their sleeves
rolled up on their white arms as they wielded two forks. Two
young men were mucking out a nearby breezeblock building,
producing a constant trail of wheelbarrow loads of dark, wet,
strawy manure. It arrived in the barrows steaming and black,
like enormous Christmas puddings. A few yards away, a pile
of dry bedding was smouldering viciously, creating a blanket
of thick grey smoke that drifted away from the buildings and
dispersed in the bracken on the hillside. Its smell couldn't mask
the stench of the fresh manure piling up in heaps on the ground.
The smell was overpowering.

Wilford saw Cooper approaching and pointed at him with his
fork, stabbing the air.

'	o

'Look what's coming! Here's trouble, you lot.'

'Nay, he's a hero, that lad,' said Sam. 'He's just come from
arresting the number one suspect. Solved the case, he has.'

'On his own?'

'With one hand behind his back, probably.'

'Happen he's come to volunteer,' said Harry leaning on his
fork. His shirt was open at the collar, and there was a distinct
line where the tan of his neck met the bleached white skin of a
throat and chest that hadn't seen the sun for years. He looked
like parts of two totally different men stuck together. Cooper


201
thought stupidlv of Frankenstein's monster, the creature with a
head sewn crudely on to someone else's body.

'Ah grab a spare wheelbarrow then,' said Sam. 'Unless you

* O	1	-

know anything about making compost.'

'All you do is pile it up and it rots down again,' said Cooper,
determined to stay on friendly terms. 'Is that right?'
'Oh no, not at all.'

'Not at all,' echoed Wilford. 'There's an art to compost. It
needs nurturing, like a child.'

One of the young men came past with another load of manure.
Cooper stepped back as a lump of evil-smelling muck slipped off
the barrow. He could see it consisted of wet, soiled straw and
partly decomposed animal droppings in indistinguishable clumps.
As soon as the manure had landed, small brown flies appeared
from nowhere and settled on it, probing into the mess with
their noses.

'This is good stuff,' said Wilford. 'Take a whiff of that lot.'
'You use it on your vegetable patch, I suppose'.'
'Vegetables now, they need a particular sort of compost.'
'Blood and bone. That's what you want for vegetables.'

J	O

said Harry.

Sam cackled. 'Blood and bone. Blood and bone,' he said.
'Oh aye.'

There were dogs barking from a shed in the background and
hens clucking. But the smallholding was quieter than Cooper
remembered it from his previous visit with Diane Fry. There
was a strange stillness about the scene in front of him, as if the

o	'

old men were posed around some bizarre work of art they had
created for the National Gallery.

'There's plenty of nitrogen in blood,' said Wilford. 'Phosphorus
in bone. Nowt like it for your brassicas.'

Another barrowload of manure was tipped on to the heap.
Wilford and Harry forked it over, and Harry walked up the
slope and trod up and down the heap in his black wellies.

'I'd like to speak to you, Mr Dickinson, please,' said Cooper,
staring up at him.

The compost heap had reached a height of about four feet.
Harry loomed high above Cooper, a strange scarecrow figure


202
marching up and down on the compost like a sentry on guard
duty. Cooper had to shade his eyes against the sun to look up
at the old man.

'In a minute,' said Harry.

Wilford passed him up two diick wooden stakes about six feet
long. Harry chose a spot carefully and drove die first stake deep
into the compost. It plunged into the heap with a squelch and
a burst of putrid odour. Then he heaved his weight on to the
end of the stake until it stopped moving, with the last couple
of feet still protruding.

'You've got to give it a bit of air,' explained Wilford as Harry
drove in the second stake.

The youth with the barrow came past again and gave Cooper
a sideways look and a conspiratorial grin. He had very short fair
hair and a ring in his right ear. He was about the same height as
the detective, and had well-developed muscles in his arms and
shoulders. He was wearing torn jeans and was stripped to the
waist. His torso was oily with sweat from the exertion and the
steamy heat inside the building. A few yards away, the other
youth was throwing some branches and armfuls of straw on to
die fire to keep it going. The straw caught, and flames instantly
leaped into the air.

Closer to, the vast compost heat was shimmering and steaming,
widi clouds of dung flies swirling through the haze seeking
out the choicest, smelliest patches. Cooper covered his mouth
and nose, feeling slightly sick. He was used to farmyard smells,
but this was a special creation in itself.

'Mr Dickinson, I really need to talk to you.'

'It won't smell when it's ready, you know,' said Sam.

'Now, please,' snapped Cooper, starting to lose his temper.

The three old men made an elaborate show of being impressed
by his authoritative tone. Harry stood to attention in his wellies
and saluted slowly. Wilford hoisted his fork over his shoulder
like a rifle. Sam got up from his bucket and peered at Cooper over the top of the compost, grinning slyly.

'You'll get on all right, lad,' he said. 'You could be Chief
Constable one day. All you have to do is get rid of all the other
people ahead of you first.'


203
The old men laughed, and Cooper scowled. The heat was
really starting to get to him. He felt drained of energy and
irritable. He was relieved when Harry picked his way carefully
down the side of the compost to join him.

'I'm about finished here now,' said Harry. 'If you hang on
while 1 fetch Jess, you can give me a lift home and talk all
you like.'

'Fine,' said Cooper, pleased at the chance to get away from
the smallholding.

'Blood and bone,' called Sam, as Cooper began to walk back
across the field. But Wilford followed him and caught up with
him by the gate.

'You'll be questioning Harry again,' he said. 'That's what they
call it, isn't it? Questioning.'

7	^-	o

The aroma of the compost clung to Wilford's clothes and skin
and hair, and small clumps of it dropped from his boots as he
moved. He was breathing a bit too fast, with his chest heaving
and his face strained.

'I'm on the Laura Vernon enquiry, as you know, sir.'
'Those Vernons. They're not all they're cracked up to be,
you know.'

J

'What do you mean, sir?'

'They've got a lot of money and they reckon to be posh, but
they're not. They've been bad for this village.'

'People like that will always be resented.'

'Oh aye, but everybody knows . . .'

'Knows what?'

Wilford shrugged and lifted his cap, running his hand through
his hair. The uneven white patch that had refused to catch the
sun stood out on his freckled scalp.

'It doesn't matter, I suppose. You'll be asking more questions
about the girl.'

'Of course we are. That's what we've been doing all week.

o

If you know anything --'

'No, no. But it's true, though, isn't it?' He looked at Cooper
to seek reassurance. 'A sin will always catch you out. Like we
used to say in the mines, it'll always come to day.'

Cooper didn't know what to say to that. But Wilford wasn't


204
expecting a reply in any case. They passed several of the makeshift
buildings along the track and came to the stone-built shed where
the nanny goat had been on Tuesday when it had escaped.

'The goat's gone quiet,' remarked Cooper.

'Aye. Quiet enough.'
j	^	O

He poked his head round the corner of the goat's shed, but
it was empty. There was no sign of the animal in the paddock
either. Harry had disappeared behind another shed in a wire
enclosure, and emerged with the black Labrador on a leather
lead in one hand and a plastic carrier bag in the other.

r	o

When they reached the Toyota, Harry sat on a wall and

took off his dung-covered Wellingtons and a pair of thick socks,

o	or

exposing thin white feet. He took a pair of clean shoes and socks
from the carrier bag and put them on.

'I'm not over-fond of the job, you understand,' he said. 'But
it's only natural stuff, manure. The missus'll moan, though,
when I get in.'

When Harry got into the passenger seat of the hot car,
Cooper realized exactly why Gwen Dickinson was likely to
complain.


Andrew Milner drove up the gravel drive of the Mount and
parked in front of the mock pillars, close to Graham Vernon's
Jaguar. He looked enviously at the sleek blue car, conscious of
its importance as a symbol of the difference in status between
himself and his employer. Andrew merited only a three-year-old
Ford Mondeo, like any ordinary salesman.

He picked up a document case from the passenger seat, took
a deep breath and walked towards the front door. There was a
closed-circuit TV camera high on the front wall, pointing down
towards where he stood. Andrew kept his face turned away from
its lens as he approached the steps. The sun reflecting from the
white walls of the house created a protective barrier of heat and
glare that he had to fight his way through.

'Excuse me. Mr Milner?'

Andrew looked around, startled. He found a dark, intense
young man staring at him from the other side of the Jaguar. He
looked dirty and unkempt, and for a moment Andrew thought


205
he must have been trying to steal Graham Vernon's car, until
he recognized him.

'Oh. It's Daniel, isn't it?'

'We met once, didn't we?'

'Yes. Look, I'm sorry about, you know --'

'It's not your fault. You work for my father, but you're not
like him, are you?' Daniel walked round the Jaguar. He was
carrying a bunch of keys with a remote control device for the

- o	*

door locks and alarm. 'I was going to borrow Dad's car, but

o o	'

I've changed my mind. I think I'd rather walk.'

Andrew watched in astonishment as Daniel tossed the keys
into a stone urn standing by the front steps. They vanished into

O j	I	j

the roots of a small shrub.

'I thought somebody around here ought to say sorry to you,'
said Daniel.

'To me?'

The young man came closer. 'Sorry that you got involved.
You and your family. I don't suppose my parents would ever
mention it. They don't care, you see. They don't see the effect
on anyone except themselves.'

Andrew didn't know what to say. He clutched his document
case closer, searching his reserve of social small talk for a reply.
'You're studying at university, aren't you?'

Daniel laughed, then looked away, as if suddenly losing
interest. 'I'm at Exeter, doing political science. A different
world.'

'Such a dreadful thing to happen,' said Andrew, exhausting
his stock of phrases.

When the young man spoke again, it was as if he was
addressing the blue Jaguar, as if he had forgotten that Andrew
Milner was there.

'They had already rung me at Exeter as soon as Laura disappeared,
you know. But I just thought she'd gone off with this
bloke, the boyfriend, Simeon Holmes. It was bound to happen
sooner or later, I thought. I intended to come back home, but

'	o	'

only after Mum and Dad had got over the shock of finding out
their daughter was a secret nympho.'
'I see.'


206
'I should have come back straightaway Shouldn't I? Don't
you think so?'

'It's not for me to judge. Really --'

'No, not for anybody to judge but me,' said Daniel bitterly.
'Sorry to have bothered you.'

He set off to walk down the drive, his hands thrust into the
pockets of his jeans and his shoulders hunched angrily. Andrew
watched him until the young man stopped a few yards away and
turned back to shout in derision.

'Don't just stand there, go on in! I'm sure you'll find my
mother available!'

Andrew shook his head, bewildered, but went on up the steps
to ring the bell. Charlotte Vernon answered the door, looking

o	o

smart in a cashmere sweater and cream slacks. She stared at
Andrew for a moment, then broke into astonished laughter that
carried a hint of hysteria.

'You! What on earth are you doing here?'

Andrew flushed, pulling nervously at his tie. His forehead
was creased in permanent anxiety. 'I'm sorry, Charlotte. I've
got some papers that I need Graham to sign.'

'Oh, really? Important papers?'

He waved a hand helplessly, hardly daring to look at her,
conscious of the sweat running down inside his collar. He

o

suddenly remembered the car keys in the urn outside, and
wondered how he could mention them.

'Lost for words?' said Charlotte. 'You'd better come in, I
suppose. But it'll have to be quick.'

'I'm sorry. Are you going out?'

'We've got our big moment of fame.'

'I beg your pardon?'

She stood close to him, touching his arm, widening her eyes
instinctively as she enjoyed his embarrassment.

'Graham and I are doing a television appeal. The police seem
to think it will do some good.'

'Oh, I see.'

Andrew clutched his document case closer to him, so that it
covered his groin like a protective talisman. His eyes roved round
the hallway, looking towards the doors as if hoping for rescue.


207
He tried to sidle gradually towards where he knew Graham's
office lay.

'I'm sure Graham will be wonderful on TV, aren't you?'

'Oh yes. He's very articulate.'

'Articulate. That's good. Yes. he talks very well, doesn't he?

o	'	J	'

Very convincing. But what do you think, Andrew?'

He found himself almost squashed against the wall, close to

an antique inlaid cabinet he had always admired. His hand slid

across its lid as he groped for support, leaving a sweaty palm

print on its polished surface.

'About what happened to Laura, you mean?'

'Yes - that, Andrew.'

'They've taken Lee Sherratt in for questioning, haven't they?'

Charlotte laughed. It was a deep, throaty laugh, roughened

with cigarette smoke and tinged with hysteria. Then she stopped

laughing suddenly and tightened her grip on the sleeve of

his jacket.

'Is that the best you can do? Is that what you're relying on?

It won't be enough, believe me.'

o '

Andrew Milner felt her eyes leave his face and move away,
staring over his shoulder. He turned his head and saw Graham

O

Vernon watching from the door of his study, a sardonic smile
on his face. Andrew became horribly aware of Charlotte's body
pressed close against him, her breast squeezing into his arm, her
pelvis thrust against his hip.

'Did you want to see me, Andrew?' asked Graham. 'Or is
Charlotte looking after you?'


Once in his own home, cleaned up and seated in his chair in the
front room with his pipe, Harry looked much more approachable than he had among his friends. He had a copy of that morning's

O	i J	O

Buxton Advertiser on the table by his chair. On the front page was a
colour picture of the well-dressing ceremony at Great Hucklow.
This year the villagers had created a picture from flowers on the
theme of the millennium -- Two Thousand Years Since the Birth
of Christ. According to the story, the team had worked through
the night to finish the display for the opening ceremony.

'It says here the police are assessing the result of forensic


208
tests,' said Harry, tapping a storv at the bottom of the page.
'And they expect to make an arrest soon. Is that right?'

'I suppose it must be.'

'Detective Chief Inspector Stewart Tailby, who is leading the
enquiry, said: "I remain hopeful." Is that just a lot of rubbish,
or what?'

'I want to ask you about Saturday night,' said Cooper.

'Oh aye? Any particular Saturday?'

'Last Saturday night. The night we believe Laura Vernon
was killed.'

'That Saturday. Well, let's see. It was warm.'

Cooper had read the transcript of the initial interview with
Harry Dickinson, and he was determined not to let Harry divert
him from his questions.

'Tell me what you did that evening, Mr Dickinson.'

'From when?'

'Let's say, six o'clock.'

'Took the dog for a walk,' said Harry straightaway. 'Six
o'clock regular. Jess likes her routine. We go down the path
on to the Baulk. Under the cliff on Raven's Side, that's her
favourite spot.'

'Do you always go there?'

Harrv sucked on his pipe. 'Sometimes I vary it a bit. If I'm
feeling a bit rebellious, like.'

O

'But that night you walked towards Raven's Side?'

That's right.'

'Go on then. What did you do while you were out?'

'Do? Not much. The usual. Smoked a pipe. Let Jess off the lead
for a run, and to do her business. Sat for a bit. Walked back.'

'Who did you see while you were walking your dog?'

'Oh, just the usual bunch of murderers,' said Harry.

By the old man's chair was a little mahogany cabinet, well
polished and worn with age. On the upper level was a shelf with
a pipe rack, a leather tobacco pouch and the other paraphernalia
of a pipe smoker. Below it was the door of a small cupboard. A
tin of black shoe polish, a cloth and a shoe brush stood on the
floor in front of it. Cooper glanced at Harry's gleaming shoes
and looked back up to meet his eyes again.


209
'It was a serious question, Mr Dickinson.'

'Ah, but you made an assumption. You assumed that I saw
someone. Are you trying to trick me, or what? Because it won't
work, I'll tell you that.'

'No tricks, Mr Dickinson.'

Try silence, thought Cooper. The use of silence is a powerful
tool. It puts the interviewee under pressure to speak. So he
waited, expecting Harry to claim that he had seen no one. But
Harry puffed at his pipe, staring into the distance, shifting to a
more comfortable position on his chair. The only sound in the
room was the ticking of the carriage clock. Outside, a van went
by. The babble of the television came from the next room, where
Gwen was watching a quiz show. Cooper started getting restless.

Harry looked as content and self-contained as if he were still

j

sitting on the Baulk with his dog at his feet, gazing at the outline

O	C?	O	O

of the Witches, thinking perfectly calm thoughts of his own.

'Did you see anyone?' said Cooper at last.

'Some hikers,' said Harry, 'now that you ask.'

'Did they see you?'

The doubt it. They were down by the stream. Young folk,
they were, larking about. The young ones don't notice much,
do they?'

'How long were you out?'

'Half an hour, until I came back here. Gwen had my tea ready,
and I fed Jess.'

'And later in the evening?'

The went out again, to the Drover. About half past seven. I
met Sam and Wilford, and we had a few pints. Lots of folk
there know me. Ask Kenny Lee. That's what they call an alibi,
isn't it?'

'Did you go straight there?'

'Why shouldn't I?'

'You didn't take a long way round -- via the Baulk, for
instance?'

'Why should I do that? I'd already been once.'

'Did you take the dog?'

'Jess was with me. But Kenny makes you put the dogs out the
back when you're in the pub. He says they upset the tourists.'


210
Cooper wondered whether Harry would get round to asking
him the purpose of the questions. He decided he wouldn't.

'We have a witness who saw someone answering your description
at about seven-fifteen, in the area where Laura Vcrnon's
body was found.' The description had been vague enough, so
he wasn't actually being misleading.

'Have you now?' said Harry. 'That's handy then. That'll help you no end.'

'But you've just told me that you were back here in the house
at about six-thirty, Mr Dickinson. Is that right?'

'Aye, that's right. My tea was ready.'

'And you said you didn't go out again until seven-thirty. So,
according to you, you were here in the house at seven-fifteen.
Is that right?'

'Yes.'

'You can't have been in both places at once.'

Harry shrugged. 'That's your problem, I reckon.'

'What about Sunday?' asked Cooper, desperate for a change
in the conversation.

'What about it?'

'Did you go out on the Baulk with your dog that day?'

J	O	J	O	>

'Nine o'clock in the morning and six o'clock at night. ReguO	O	O


lar.'

'On the same path? To Raven's Side?'
'Yes.'

'And on Monday morning the same?'

j	&

'Nine o'clock.'

'It's a bit odd then, isn't it, that you didn't find that trainer
before Monday night? When you had already made four visits
to the area. One about the time Laura Vernon was killed, and
three afterwards. Without seeing a thing?'

O	O

Harry tapped his pipe into the fireplace, stared at the empty
grate, and looked up at Cooper. He narrowed his eyes and set
his jaw. Cooper thought he was in for another uncomfortable
spell of silence.

'I was going to talk to Vernon,' said Harry suddenly.

'What?' Cooper was taken by surprise, both at the information
and the fact that Harry had actually volunteered it


211
without having to have it dragged out of him with red-hot
pincers.

'On Saturday night. I thought I saw Graham Vcrnon while I

,'	O	O

was out with Jess. I was going to talk to him.'

1	o o

'Why was that, sir?'

'I had burnt-thing 1 wanted to discuss with him. Personal.'

'What about?'

'Personal.'

'How well do you know Mr Vernon?'

'I don't. I've never met him.'

'So why did you want to speak to him?'

'I've said it twice. I'm not intending to say it again.'

'I could insist, Mr Dickinson. I could ask you down to the
station to help with enquiries, and we'll conduct a formal
interview and ask you to make another statement.'

'I'm making a statement,' said Harry. 'It was personal. That's
a statement."

'But you do see that if it was anything to do with Mr Vernon's
daughter --'

o

'I can tell you that. It wasn't.'

'To do with your own family perhaps?'

Harry smiled benevolently, as if at a clever student. 'Happen
so, lad.'

'Where did you meet Mr Vernon?'

'Assumptions again.'

'Sorry?'

'I said I wanted to talk to him. But I couldn't find him. He'd
disappeared again.'

Cooper's mind was setting off on a different track now. He
saw Harry Dickinson out wandering on the Baulk at the same
time as both Laura Vernon and her father, not to mention
whoever had killed Laura. And he pictured the bird-watcher,
Gary Edwards, who had been in a wonderful vantage point,
but had only seen one of them. And then he realized that,
if Harry had met Graham Vernon while he was out, then
their conversation would surely have meant that Harry would
have been later back at the cottage than usual. But would
it have kept him out until after seven-fifteen? Gwen would


212
have to he lying too. But then she would, wouldn't she, to
protect Harry?

'Next question then,' said Harry.

Cooper decided he was getting into deep water. 'No more
questions for now, Mr Dickinson.'

'No?' Harry looked suddenly disappointed. He pursed his
lips and cocked his head on one side. 'That's a poor do. I
was hoping for a proper grilling. An interrogation. You know,
like Cracker.'

'Sorry?'

'That fat bloke that used to be on the telly.'

'Robbie Coltrane, you mean. He played a criminal psychologist.'

'Aye. He always used to give 'em a proper grilling. Shouting
and swearing at 'em and all. Threatening to thump "em if they
didn't tell the truth.' Harry squinted at Cooper critically. 'Aye
well. You're not him, though. Are you, lad?'

'No, Mr Dickinson, I'm not Cracker. I'm not Inspector
Morse either.'

Cooper got up to go, shoving his notebook in his pocket.
'Somebody will want to talk to you again, probably, Mr
Dickinson.'

'Fair enough. You'll no doubt find me without any trouble.'

'Thanks for your time then.'

Cooper reached the door and looked out at the village, struck
by the contrast between the bright sunlight hitting the street and
the cool, shady corners and heavy furniture of the room behind
him. Passing through the door of Dial Cottage was like stepping
out of the entrance to a deep cave. In ancestral memory, caves
must have represented security. But there was always danger
too. There was always the possibility that a dangerous wild beast
might be lurking in that cave. Cooper turned to say goodbye to
the old man and found the sharp blue eyes fixed mockingly on
his face.

'No. And you're not even Miss Marple,' said Harry.


213
17


IJCI Tailbv's office was one of the few rooms in the Edcndalc

J

Divisional HQ with air conditioning. In the past couple of weeks,
there had hecn a lot of excuses for meetings that had to take place
in the DCI's office and nowhere else. Ben Cooper, though, was
sure his visit that afternoon was justified by something besides
the unbearable temperature.

'Very interesting,' said Tailby when he had finished summarizing
his interviews at Dial Cottage. 'But do you feel you pressed him
hard enough, Cooper?'

Cooper remembered what he had said during the morning
meeting, and wondered if the DCI was making fun of him. He
was glad he had decided not to mention any of what had taken
place at Thorpe Farm before he had managed to get Harry
into the car.

'He's a bit of an awkward character, sir.'

'I know. Perhaps we'll have to bring him in and interview
him under caution. That would upset his apple cart, eh?'

'Possibly.'

'So what do you make of it, Cooper? Do you believe him?'

'Well, yes, sir, funnily enough.'

'Mmm?'

'Well, I believe what he said, because of the things that he
didn't say, if you follow me.'

'I don't think I do, Cooper.'

'Well, it seems to me that he neatly avoided telling a lie.
Where there were things he didn't want to tell me, he just
avoided it. Because of that, I think everything he said was true.
1 think it's probably against his principles to he.'

'Are there still people around like that? I may be a cynical
old detective chief inspector, but I thought that idea went out
with George Washington.'

'It's old-fashioned, I know, but there are still people round
here who were brought up like that. My feeling is that Harry


214
Dickinson is one of them. That's a good reason why he savs no
more than necessary. The less you say, the less temptation there
is to lie.'

'Tell the truth or say nowt.'

'That's it, sir. Exactly."

'That's what my old shift sergeant told me many years ago
when I was a new recruit,' said Tailbv. 'But it was a long time

1	J	O

ago. Things change, Cooper.'

'Not everything changes, sir. With respect.'

Tailby ran a hand vigorously through his hair, as if trying to
mix the grey at the front with the darker hair at the back to
create something that looked less like a session with the Grecian
2000 that had gone badly wrong. His face was even gaunter than
usual, and he looked tired.

'All right. So has the bird-watcher got his times wrong? Was it

o	o	o

earlier than he thought when he saw Dickinson and his dog?'

O	o

'It's possible. You can lose track of time when you're up on
the hills. It can be very deceptive.'

'We'll have to check with him.' Tailby shuffled a file of
reports. 'Damn it, there's no mention of whether he had a
watch on, or whether it was usually accurate. A bit of a sketchy
interview altogether, in fact. Who did that?' He grimaced. 'Oh
yes, DS Rennie.'

Unconsciously copying the DCI's gesture, Cooper raised a
hand to push a lock of hair back from his forehead and found
some of the strands stuck to his skin by sweat.

'I can't reconcile the idea of all those people we're interested
in being on the Baulk at the same time,' he said. 'Laura, Harry
Dickinson, Graham Vernon. And a fourth person -- the killer?
It seems like too much of a coincidence.'

'We can't let Dickinson get away with refusing to say why
he wanted to talk to Graham Vernon,' said Tailby.

'Can we show that his reasons are relevant to the enquiry?'

Tailby considered it. 'The whole question of Dickinson and
Vernon being out on the Baulk at that time is very relevant.'

'The bigger question is -- what was Vernon doing?' said
Cooper.

'The Vernon family have got some more questions to answer,


215
I'm afraid. There's clearly something not right about their
account oi events just before Laura vanished. Yet they were
very convincing during the appeal this morning. Graham Vernon
will come over very well on TV.'

Ben Cooper felt distinctly unimpressed by the thought of
Vernon's television persona. In his own experience, anything
that was said for the sake of the TV cameras was even less likely
to approach the truth than the normal tangle of fabrications and
evasions he had to deal with every working day. Lies told under
a bright gloss of lights and cameras were lies just the same.

He watched Tailby fiddle with the knot of his tie like a man
worried about his appearance, and he knew the DCI felt die
same way.

'What about Daniel Vernon?' asked Cooper.

'Oh, there are several reliable witnesses to place him in
Exeter at the critical times. Seems he's a member of some
left-wing group with social consciences. I can't imagine where
he got ideas like those from. A shame, that, too -- I had a feeling
about young Daniel. In the end, 1 let DC Weenink call round
at the Mount to ask him about his transport arrangements. It
emerges that his father had offered to pay for his rail fare or
even to drive down to Devon and collect him when Laura turned
up dead on Monday. But Daniel preferred to hitchhike, and it
took him all night and half the next morning. We traced the

o	o

driver of a cattle transporter who dropped him at Junction 28
on the Ml in the early hours.'

'Interesting.'

'People aren't so willing to pick up scruffy youths by the side
of the road as they were in my day.'

'I didn't mean --'

The know what you meant, Cooper. And I agree. But it can
wait for a while.'

Cooper wondered whether this was the signal for him to leave.
But the DCI seemed to be in an amenable mood, so he decided to
press on.

'How is Lee Sherratt shaping up, sir?'

'He's denying everything. Says he had no relationship with
Laura Vernon at all, that he hardly knew her, in fact. But the


216
used condom shook him, all right. The DNA will pin him down
on that. All we have to do is wait tor the results.'

'Suggesting he had been indulging in some outdoors sex? But
it won't prove the sex was with Laura Vernon.'

'It'll be enough to put him under pressure. But we have

another alternative anvwav. DS Morgan has traced the boy

j j	^>	}

friend.'

'Ah.'

'A lad by the name of Simeon Holmes. Aged seventeen. He
lives on the Devonshire Estate in Edendale. Do you know it?'

Cooper knew it well. He had patrolled the beat there as a
young bobby, watching out for stolen cars being raced round
the streets or gadiering information on local drug dealers who

o	o	o

operated from the sprawl of prefabricated concrete houses mistakenly
slung up in the 1960s.

The Devonshire Estate occupied low-lying land in the valley
bottom which had once been wetlands and water meadows
until they had been hastily drained for the housing scheme.
For thirty-five years the damp had gradually been creeping
back into the foundations of the houses, staining the walls
with mould and rotting the doors and windows. Many of
the houses had become virtually uninhabitable, with fungus
growing through the floorboards and water pouring through
the roofs. But there was almost nowhere else for the poor of
Edendale to go. It was the closest thing the vallev had to an

o	o	^

inner-city area.

'How does he come to be Laura Vernon's boyfriend? He
sounds like entirely the wrong type.'

'He's not someone her parents would approve of, I don't
suppose,' said Tailby. 'Rides a motorbike for a start. He says he
met Laura here in town one lunchtime when they should both
have been at school. In fact, he says she initiated the relationship,
and had been skipping school ever since to meet him in various
convenient spots.'

'Bunking off.'

'Is that what they call it these days? 1 thought it was bonking,
not blinking.'

'Missing school, sir, not the other thing.'


217
'Oh. Well, by all accounts they were doing the other thing
as well. Holmes says she told him she was sixteen.'

'They always say that.'

'It's bloody difficult, though, isn't it? I certainly couldn't tell
you whether one of these girls out there was fifteen or sixteen.
Sometimes they look every bit of eighteen and turn out to be
twelve. The GPS wouldn't entertain a prosecution for statutory
rape anvwav. Not at seventeen.'

'There are certainly plenty of leads, then, sir.'

Tailby sighed. 'Too many. A positive over-abundance of
suspects. I'd much prefer to narrow it down to one at an
early stage. But at least it avoids the talk of a link with the
Edson case.'

'Were there any reports of motorbikes in Moorhay from the
house-to-house?' asked Cooper.

'Several. They're being sifted out from the computer. Holmes
is coming in shortly to be interviewed. Perhaps we ought to have a
look at him ourselves, you and I. We could leave Harry Dickinson
and the Vernons until later. This lad seems to be more than happy
to talk. What do you say, Cooper?'

'I'd like to do that, sir. Thank you.'

Then the phone rang, and Tailby took a call from downstairs.
He nodded with the beginnings of a small smile.

o	o

'Change of plan,' he said. 'DI Hitchens can tackle Holmes

o	r '

instead. If you pop downstairs, you'll find Mr Daniel Vernon
waiting. Apparently he has a few things he wants to tell us.'


One of the twin tape decks had developed a faint, irritating
squeak. Diane Fry thought it could almost have been designed
to do that deliberately, to unnerve an interviewee. But today it
was likely to unnerve the interviewers first.

'We go to the arcades at lunchtime from school, see. Sometimes
we stay all afternoon. Nobody bothers about us.'

Simeon Holmes was still dressed in the bottom half of his
black biking leathers, but had taken off the jacket as a gesture
towards the stifling atmosphere of the interview room. He was
wearing a black Manic Street Preachers T-shirt that revealed

O

smooth, well-developed arms and shoulders, and there were


218
small blue tattoos at the base of his neck on either side. His
hair was cropped close on top, but had been left to grow long at
the back. He had a gold earring in one ear and a small birthmark

O	o

near one eyebrow. Diane Fry remembered that DS Morgan had
described Holmes as the sort of muscular lout that some girls
liked. And he had a 500 cc motorbike as well.
'But you're a pupil at Edendale Community School,' said
Hitchens with barely concealed amazement.

'That's right, mate.'

'How can you take all afternoon off from school?'

'We get study periods, see? It means we can do what we
like, with no lessons to go to.'

'Do what you like? Do anything but study, I suppose.'

Holmes shrugged. 'Everybody does it.'

'I see.'

Hitchens exchanged glances with Fry, who raised her eyebrows.
It was no surprise to her what lads like Simeon Holmes
got up to.

'You told Detective Sergeant Morgan that you met Laura
Vernon at one of the amusement arcades in Dale Street.'

'Tommy's Amusements, yeah. I was playing one of those
computer fight games, you know? Tommy's has the best games,
and I was knocking up a high score. There were a few of us in
there, maybe six or seven of us.'

'Fellow sixth formers?'

'Some of them.'

'And?'

'Well, one of my mates, who was near the front window,
shouted to me that there was this tart messing with my bike
outside. So I went out, and there she was sitting on the saddle
waggling the handlebars. A bloody cheek, it was, to be honest.
If it'd been a bloke doing that, I'd have decked him. I don't like
people messing with my bike. But it was this tart, Laura.'

Fry's nose twitched. There was a curious smell in the interview
room which had been getting stronger during the past few minutes.
It was warm and stuffy in the small room, but the smell was
something more than just the sour odour of stale male sweat.

'You didn't know Laura before that?' she asked.


219
'Never set eyes on her belore.'
'You're sure?'

'I would've remembered, luv, believe me. I don't forget a
good-looking tart.'

to	to

Holmes grinned at Diane Fry, who remained impassive, much
as she would have liked to have 'decked' him. She had never
much liked being called 'luv' by youths like Simeon Holmes.

'She was an attractive girl, wasn't she?' said Hitchens.

'Yeah. She was.'

Was that a slight flinching? Fry had seen before the people who
seemed almost unperturbed by the death of someone they knew
well, until they were referred to in that awful past tense. The
fact of their death seemed to come home in one tiny word.

'So why was she on your motorbike?' asked Hitchens.

'She was just looking, she said. A lot of birds like bikes, you
know. They find 'em dead sexy. They can't wait to get their
legs astride one.'

o

'Is that why you ride one?"

Holmes grinned again. 'Not really. But it helps, you know?'

'So are you saying she was interested in the bike, not in you?'
asked Fry.

Holmes looked at her, ignoring her frown as the grin stayed
on his face. 'Give over. Well, you might have thought so at first
-- she was pretending to play it a bit cool, like. But all I had to
do was give a bit of chat, you know, and we got talking straight

o	' j	'	o	o	to

off. She came in the arcade to watch me play. Yeah, and later
on one of the other lads in there, who knew her -- he told me
she'd been asking about me a couple of days before. She wanted
to know who I was, what my name was, you know. So she'd
obviously fancied me. The bike thing was just a bit of a ploy.'
He turned towards Hitchens again. 'Birds do that sort of stuff,

o	'

you know?'

'Yes, I know,' said Hitchens. For a moment. Fry thought the

'	'	' J	to

DI was going to give Holmes a matey wink. If he did, she was
going to have to walk out.

to o

'Birds like her especially,' said Holmes.

'Like what?'

'Well, she was from the posh school, you know. High Carrs.


220
The lads there aren't supposed 10 be douii 111 tov.a during school
hours, not even the sixth formers. But she'd sneaked out. She
was like that, Laura. Didn't give a toss about school really.'

'	o	J

'She was a bright girl, though, from what we hear.'

'Sure. Dead bright. She could have sailed through her GCSEs,
I reckon, but she couldn't be bothered with all the studying. She
was more into music. I reckon her parents put her right off
school. It happens, you know. Some parents push their kids too
hard and they go totally the other way. It's a shame really.'

'Teenage rebellion, eh?'

'Yeah, right. Did it yourself, eh, mate? Well, maybe Laura
would have come out of it, if she'd pot the chance.'

'	o

'Yes, Simeon. But you didn't exactly encourage her to go
back to school, did you?'

'Well, no. We hit it off pretty well, you see, from the
beginning. She started coming down to the arcades regular. I
was a bit surprised, to be honest -- she was a bit too upmarket
for me, if you know what I mean. Not my usual type. But she
was dead keen. Yeah, dead keen. And I didn't say no. Well, you
don't, do you?'

The curious smell was definitelv coming from Holmes. Fry

J	O	J

discounted the sweet smell of alcohol, the rank bite of cigarette

'	O

smoke. No drugs she had ever come across smelled quite like
that. Perhaps it was something to do with the motorbike leathers.
Some kind of oil used to soften up the leather maybe, which was
now being evaporated by the heat and humidity in the interview
room. But to produce that sort of stink it would have to have
been something like rancid pig fat.

'Didn't Laura get into trouble at school for breaking the rules?'
she asked.

'Dunno. She never said. She wouldn't have given a toss
anyway.'

'But her parents might have.'

Holmes shrugged. 'She didn't talk about them much.'

'Basically, you would say that Laura instigated the relationship?'
asked Hitchens.

'What? Oh, yeah. She started it, all right. Dead keen, like 1
said.'


221
'Had she had other boyfriends?'

'Sure. She was no Liltle misj. Innocent. Don I go getting
that idea.'

Fry leaned forward to put her next question.

'When did you start having sex with her, Simeon?'

Holmes looked from Hitrhcns to shee, the worry that had been
behind the grin coming to the surface now.

o	o

'Look, this is about who killed her, right? That's what you
lot are bothered about. I mean, you're not going to come on
heavy about the age thing, are you?'

'What do you mean, Simeon?'

'Well, she told me she was sixteen, you know, but . . .'

'You knew she was younger, didn't you?'

Holmes looked at Hitchens appealingly. 'You're not interested
in that, are you? It isn't important now, is it? Now
she's dead.'

'That's what I think too,' said Hitchens.

'Right. Well, I didn't want you thinking I was making excuses,
like. But, to be honest, she was gasping for it, big time. Couldn't
wait to get my trousers off. Being frank, like.'

'Oh really?'

'Well, it's right. She wanted to do it all the time. We used to
go into the park, or we'd get on the bike and drive out somewhere
into the country. Up on the hills. She liked that.'

'So you had sex often?'

'All the time -- well, every time we met, if we had long enough.

'	J	'	O	O

And sometimes when we didn't have long enough, too, if you
know what I mean. Yeah.'

Fry thought if Holmes grinned again she would have to slap
the cuffs on him and read him his rights on a charge of offensive

o	o

behaviour.

'Was she a virgin before she met you?' she asked.

'No way.'

'Are you sure?'

'Well, look, for one thing you can tell when you do it the
first time, you know. By how they react and other things.' He
hesitated, looking sideways at Fry. 'Anyway, she knew what it
was all about, all right. In any case, the lad that she'd asked


222
about me, he'd already had her himself. He told me about her.
Reckoned there had been others too.

'Plenty of boyfriends, then.'

'Yeah. She was dead keen on the blokes.'

'Were there other boyfriends while you were seeing her,
perhaps?'

'Dunno really. Could have been, I suppose. She never mentioned
to me if she had.'

'It wouldn't be unusual, for the sort of girl you seem to
be describing. She might even do it deliberately, to make you
jealous.'

'I'm not the jealous type,' said Holmes. Then his smile shrank
and faded, and he looked at Fry again. 'Oh yeah, I see what you're
getting at. You've got an idea that I got jealous of some other
bloke and bashed her, right? Well, you can forget that right off.
She was OK, Laura, good fun. But things like that don't last,
you know? We all move on. It's what I would have expected,
for either her or me to find someone else and it'd be over. A
good few weeks together, and that's it. It wasn't a problem. I
didn't see her as much in the holidays anyway -- she couldn't
get away from the parents, you know.'

'We have a witness who saw Laura talking to a young man
on the path behind the Mount shortly before she was killed on
Saturday night,' said Hitchens.

'It wasn't me, mate. I've already told the other bloke where
I was. I was at Matlock Bath with about fifty other bikers.'

'Yes, so you said.' Officers were already busy checking out the
names and places Holmes had given to DS Morgan. Depending
on what they came back with, the youth might have to be sent
home for now.

Fry would be pleased to get out of the interview room
soon to get some fresh air, because the smell was becoming
overpowering. She noticed Hitchens pull out a handkerchief as
if to wipe his nose, but keeping it there a long time.

'Besides,' said Holmes, 'I've never been near her place. Did
someone say it was me they saw?'

'Not specifically,' said Hitchens.

'There you are then.'


223
Holmos was relaxincr now shee ha tor] tn soe him rolaxincr. Mo

o	o

might start to grin again. 'When you had sex with Laura,' she
said, 'did you like to bite her?'

He stared at her with distaste. 'Get lost,' he said.

'You refuse to answer?'

'It's none of your business.'

'Would you be willing to let us take a mould of your teeth?'
asked Hitchcns.

'What the hell for?'

'To help eliminate you from our enquiries, Simeon. If you
didn't harm Laura Vernon, then you have absolutely nothing to

worry about.'

j

Simeon Holmes wasn't quite so stupid as he pretended. Fry
could see him figuring it out. A question about his sexual
techniques, and a request for a mould from his teeth. They
hadn't exactly been subtle with their questions. Because of his
casual manner, Holmes might be easy to underestimate. But he
had a choice now. He could work out that a mould might prove

o i

his guilt, if he was guilty. But if he was innocent, it might also
clear him and get the police off his back. Fry and Hitchens both
waited patiently to see which way he would jump.

'OK,' he said. 'No problem.'

Hitchens's face fell in disappointment. But before he could
say anything else, there was a knock on the door and DS Rennie
stuck his head into the room. He did a quick double take at the
fetid atmosphere and his face screwed up in disgust. Hitchens
announced a break in the interview, switched off the tapes, and
went out into the corridor to speak to Rennie.

Left alone with Simeon Holmes, Fry was able to study him
afresh. The young man met her eyes directly. But a layer of
affectation seemed to have dropped away from him in the last
few minutes, the final shreds of some assumed role dissipating
as DI Hitchens left the room. Fry couldn't quite figure
out what it was. She didn't think he had been lying during
the interview. And yet . . . How old was Holmes? Seventeen?

'You must be in the sixth form at the Community School
now, Simeon,' she said.


224
Holmes raised his eyebrows, saying nothing, but looking
meaningfully at the motionless tape machines.

'Just asking,' she said.

He grinned slowly -- that annoying, self-satisfied grin he had.
But still nothing.

'Only I was thinking,' said Fry. 'that I bet vou've got a bit

^	O'	- '	,'	O

more brain than most of your mates.'

'Dead right.'

'And I bet you do quite well at school when you turn
your mind to it. What are your best subjects? Let me guess

--	mechanical engineering? Car maintenance, perhaps?'

Holmes sneered. 'Chemistry and biology, actually. I take my

j	oy'	i	^

A levels next year.'

Intrigued, Fry found herself looking at a new Simeon Holmes,
one who even sounded quite different.

'Not much use for stripping a bike, surely?' she said.

The guarded look began to fall back across the youth's face. Fry
could almost see the transformation taking place in his features as
he reverted to his role with a dismissive snort.

'Perhaps you were thinking of going on to university,' she
said. Then she held herself quite still, tingling with satisfaction,
as she saw the beginnings of a blush seep into Simeon's neck
and across his cheeks. She had found something that embarrassed

O

him. Something that he wouldn't want to talk about with his

O

biker mates.

'With good grades in chemistry and biology you could study

--	what? Medicine?'

His mouth opened, moving compulsively. Deep in his eyes
there was a small spurt of pain and distress, as if Fry had struck
close to the most vulnerable part of his anatomy. She hurried
to press home her advantage.

'Is that it? Would you like to be a doctor one day, Simeon?'

But the spell was broken as DI Hitchens opened the door just

in time to hear the last two sentences. His face contorted at the

thought that he might go along to his local surgery and find this

O	O	O	O	O J

youth was his new GP. Then he nodded Diane Fry out of the
room, leaving Simeon Holmes starting to grin again in the midst
of his peculiar smell.


225
'We can hand this one back to Morgan,' said Hitchens.

'They've found those liikers. We're oft to West Yorkshire,
Diane.'


Ben Cooper had not seen Daniel Vernon before. He wasn't
impressed at first sijjht, but had learned not to judge people
younger than himself too quickly. It was a mistake to dismiss
someone because they did not dress as you did or behave in
quite the same way. Daniel Vernon was a student. That probably
meant he went to all-night raves and took cannabis and Ecstasy.
He probably took a different girl home every night and lay in
bed all day. He probably thought nothing of stealing traffic signs
from the roadside, beer glasses and ashtrays from pubs. But in
a few years he would be a respectable, well-off member of the
community demanding better protection from the police.

Daniel looked as though he had drunk too much cheap beer
in the Students' Union. He was dressed in a grubby white T-shirt
with the name of an American university written across the front.
The T-shirt smelled of sweat.

Cooper took Daniel up to an interview room, where Tailby
was waiting. They hardly needed to ask any questions before
Daniel had begun to talk. He was eager to get something off
his chest, and it quickly became clear what it was.

The find it astonishing,' said Tailby a few minutes later, 'that
you should be so eager to come in here and tell me such things
about your parents.'

'It's true,' said Daniel. 'I couldn't give a toss what they do
among themselves or with their tacky friends. But they were
blind to what it was doing to Laura. She thought it was OK,
all that. She wanted to try things out for herself. She got a taste
for sex when she was about thirteen. She told me all about it,
though she would never listen to my advice. Mum, she never
suspected, even now. Dad --' He shrugged. 'Who knows?'

'You tried to talk some sense into her, didn't you, Daniel?'

'I tried. But it was a waste of time.'

'We found your letters, you know.'

'Yes, I know you did. You took the one I wrote to her after
she'd told me about Simeon Holmes.'


226
'Yes, Holmes,' said Tailby. 'Do you know him?'

'No. But it was the way Laura talked about him that made
me write to her like that. It sounded more serious this time.
She wasn't just playing any more. My big worry was that she
would let someone like him get her pregnant. I wanted to be
sure she was still taking the pills she got from the doctor. She
told me she was.'

Daniel looked up at Tailby with a question

'She wasn't pregnant,' said the DCI, though he refrained from
explaining how they knew. Or rather, how the pathologist knew.
There was such a thing as too much information. 'But why have
you decided to tell us all this now, Daniel?'

'I don't doubt that my father has been telling you things about
Lee Sherratt and Laura. I won't have you believing them. Laura
wasn't interested in Sherratt, or him in her.'

'But your mother ..."

'My mother had the hots for him. She likes them young. And
he was quite willing. My father knew, of course. He knew what
was going on. He always knows.'

o o	J

'You're saying that your mother was actually having an affair
with her gardener?'

o

'Sounds very D. H. Lawrence put like that, doesn't it?'

'Does it?'

'But Lee Sherratt is just a youth from the village who saw
the chance of getting his end away with an older woman. He
isn't exactly a Mellors.'

Tailby wasn't sure what he was talking about. 'Your father
believes Sherratt may have killed your sister.'

'If he did,' said Daniel. 'If he did kill her -- it was my
father's fault.'

'Ah. How do you make that out?'

'He let it go on,' he said. 'Until it had gone too far. He
enjoyed it.'

'What?'

'Oh yes.'

Daniel pulled at his T-shirt, which was sticking to his sides
where the sweat was beginning to dry. He fidgeted in his chair,

O	O	J	O

his jeans squeaking on the leather. He looked from Tailby to


227
Cooper, the expression in his eyes shifting and changing. When
ho spuke again, his \uice had altered. It \\as quiet, less aggressive,
with an adolescent edge to it that spoke of an inner pain he could
no longer conceal.

'One day,' he said. 'I came across my father in his room. I
wanted to speak to him about something I needed for university,
just before I went away. I knocked on the door, but he must not
have heard me. It turned out he was otherwise engaged.'

Daniel gave him a small, ironic smile. Tailby didn't react.
His face was expressionless, but for one eyebrow lifted slightly
-- indicating a mild interest only. It spurred Daniel on more
than a probing question would have done.

'He was standing at the windows. He was using binoculars,
looking at something in the garden. At first I thought he was
watching birds. I was surprised, I didn't know he had taken up
a hobbv. He was never a man for hobbies, except golf -- and
even that is a business tool.'

'Go on.'

'I was about to ask him what species he had seen. There have
been woodpeckers in the garden sometimes. Then he heard me
come in, and when he turned towards me I saw him. I mean . . .
I saw his face. He was startled, and angry at being interrupted.
But most of all, he looked guilty. He asked me what I wanted.
I wanted to know what he was looking at, but he wouldn't say.
He started to bluster about trying out the binoculars before he
loaned them to a friend. But as I stood there, looking out of
the window, I saw my mother.'

The young man was silent for several seconds, until Tailby
thought he had finished. The DCI began to frown, frustrated at
the seeming pointlessness of the story. But Daniel had more to
tell.

'She was with Lee Sherratt. In the summerhouse down there.
He was naked from the waist up, as he often was, and he was
grinning. My mother had been wearing a red silk shirt, with the
ends tied at the front in a sort of loose bow. When I saw her,
she was just putting it back on. It was the first time I had seen
my mother's breasts.'

The silence grew in the interview room. Somewhere in the


228
station someone started whistling. A telephone rang half a dozen
times before it was answered. Tailby dared not move in his seat
for fear of breaking the moment.

'But that wasn't the worst,' said Daniel. 'The most sickening
thing of all was my father. When I came into the room and he

o	J

turned away from the window, I noticed two things straightaway.
The first was the binoculars round his neck. The second was his
erection.'

The young man was staring at the desk, as if interested in the
ballpoint pens and a scatter of paperclips. Tailby remembered
Graham Vernon's desk in his study. There had been a framed
print propped against a table lamp, a photograph of a wedding
couple, taken in the 1970s by the look of the bridegroom's hairstyle
and the lapels of his suit. Graham Vernon was recognizable
by his salesman's smile, and the sincerity of his direct gaze at
the camera. But allowing for the changes in fashion, in his youth
Graham Vernon had looked very much like this young man in
front of them now.

'It was sticking out at the front of his trousers like a monstrous

O

growth,' said Daniel. 'It was unreal. At first I couldn't figure out
what it was, you know. I thought he had something in his pocket.
But he never carries anything in his pockets because it spoils the
cut of his suit. Then I realized. The fact is, it turned him on
to watch my mother having sex with the gardener. That's my

1	o	&	J

father, Chief Inspector.' His voice cracked. 'That's the bastard
I call my father.'

Tailby nodded slowly. He had spent too long in the police
service to be shocked by other people's sexual activities. They
were merely facts to be noted now, data to be filed away as
possible motives, to be assessed for their relevance to other
details in the mass of information that was pouring into the
incident room. The life and background of Laura Vernon were
being pieced together, bit by bit, like a badly designed jigsaw.
Everything that cast light on her circumstances was important.
But how much could be trusted of what was said by an angry,
bitter young man who hated his father and had just had his sister
murdered?


229
18


The blue police tape still fluttered from the trees, A PC still
stood guard further up the path. But die Scenes of Crime officers
and forensic scientists had pone. They had other things to do now

o	^	o

-- the scene of a suspected arson to attend in Matlock, a serious
assault case at Glossop, a linked scries of aggravated burglaries
in Edendale.

'It's too hot. It affects my brain. I can't think straight out
here.'

Ben Cooper found himself back on the baking hillside again,
standing with DCI Tailby at the murder scene.

'So what was the weapon?' asked Tailby. 'A bough of a tree,
a lump of wood? But there are no traces of bark in the head
wounds, and Mrs Van Door says there would be. Besides, the
injuries were made by something hard and smooth, not rough.
So. A stone? Quite possibly. But no sign of it. You wouldn't
take a thing like that away with you, would you, Cooper?'

Cooper was not too surprised to be asked his opinion by
the DCI. He had worked under him before and had seen
the contrast between the ease with which Tailby talked to
individual officers, even a humble DC, and the awful stilted
pomposity which seemed to overwhelm him when he had to
deal with members of the public. The standard police jargon
flowed unthinkingly from his lips when he had to address
someone who was neither suspect nor fellow detective. There
was no room in his vocabulary for normal conversation with
ordinary, innocent citizens. It was as if they had to be held
at arm's-length, kept behind a barrier of meaningless formality.
Despite his experience in criminal investigations, Tailby's
career was seriously handicapped by his lack of public relations
ability. In time, he would probably be shunted to an administrative
post, where he could compile reports and write memos
in as pompous a style as he liked. Cooper thought it would be


230
a loss. But everyone had their fatal flaws -- sometimes they were
just less obvious.

'If it was a rock, and you had your wits about you, sir, all
you'd have to do would be to toss it into the stream."

They walked a few yards to look down into the gulley where
the Eden Valley Trail footpath ran. The bed of the shallow stream
was littered with handy-sized stones. There were hundreds of
them. Thousands of them. And all of them constantly bcina

.	O

washed clean in front of their eyes by the cool, rushing water.
'Let's see if the Vernons are in,' said Tailby wearily.


Graham Vernon looked flushed, and his face was puffy, even
before he started to get angry. Looking at the drinks cabinet,
Cooper guessed that the man had been turning to the alcohol
too much to help him cope with the situation.

'I can't imagine why you're giving any credibility to this lurid
picture of my daughter, Chief Inspector. You can't seriously
be taking notice of what the boy Lee Sherratt has been telling
you?'

Predictably, Tailby was responding to Vernon's indignation
by retreating into aloofness. They were like two well-groomed
cats gradually throwing their veneer of civilization aside as they
raised their fur and puffed their bodies up to make themselves
look bigger than they really were.

'Both Mr Sherratt and Mr Holmes have made statements, Mr
Vernon. And naturally we are taking the information which has
emerged from those statements into account in our enquiries.'

'Who the hell is Mr Holmes?'

'Simeon Holmes was Laura's boyfriend.'

Vernon began to splutter. 'Her what?'

'Does it surprise you that Laura had a boyfriend?'

'Surprise me? You're talking rubbish, man. Laura had no time
for boyfriends. She spent her time studying during the week.
She worked hard. At weekends she had her music lessons. She
practised the piano for hours. On Sundays she would go riding --
we kept her horse at the stables on Buxton Road. She was always
either out hacking or we'd take her to a gymkhana somewhere.
When she wasn't doing those, she was at the stables anyway.


231
She was like a lot of fifteen-year-old girls, Chief Inspector --
she was more interested in horses lh<m uovs. And thank Gud
for that. Fifteen is too young to be having boyfriends."

'Nevertheless '

'Who is this Holmes, anyway? Someone she knew at school, I suppose. I would have preferred to send her to a single-sex
school, but it would have meant her boarding somewhere.

'	O

My wite wanted to have Laura living at home. A mistake, it
seems now.'

Tailby ignored the turning down of Vernon's mouth, pressing
on to prevent the man slipping into grief or self-pity.

'According to Mr Holmes, Laura hated school. She used to
play truant to meet him in Edcndale. Or indeed to meet other
young men, it would seem. Were you aware of that, sir?'

'No, I was not.'

'Perhaps your wife would know more about that side of your
daughter's life, sir.'

'I'd rather you didn't ask my wife questions like that,' said
Vernon. 'She is just starting to come to terms with all this, Chief
Inspector. Don't knock her back, please.'

'Mrs Vernon seemed to cope very well in front of the television
cameras this morning. I thought that went very well, sir.'

'Clutching at straws.'

o

Ben Cooper stood in the background, watching Vernon carefully.
The man had a square, heavy jaw and a face like an unfit
boxer's. It suited his aggressive manner, but went oddly with the
atmosphere of the study. It was a large, high-ceilinged room with
heavy pieces of furniture and a vast oak desk. A Turkish rug was
thrown over a fitted oatmeal Berber in front of an arched brick
fireplace and a cast-iron log basket on the hearth.

'I know nothing of any boyfriends. Where does this Holmes
live? Is he a friend of Lee Sherratt's? Have you thought of
that?'

'I don't think that's very likely, Mr Vernon.'
'Well, you'd better be sure, hadn't you, Chief Inspector?'
'Lee Sherratt, of course,' said Tailby calmly, 'is telling a similar
story to that of Mr Holmes. Except that he insists that he had no
relationship with Laura.'


232
'Lies and more lies. Something for you to sort out, eh? You'd
!>e better employed proving wliich of them killed Laura instead
of asking me these ludicrous questions. I've told you what sort
of girl Laura was. She was my daughter. Don't you think I

o	J	O	J

would know?'

'You might know,' said Tailbv, as if to himself. 'But would you tell me, I wonder?"

'What do you mean?'

'i mean that 1 have to doubt what you say to me in view of
the things that your own son tells me. Things that suggest you
have been lying to us, Mr Vernon.'

There was a silence in the study. Somewhere far away in
the house, a vacuum cleaner started up. A telephone rang
three times, then stopped. Tailby waited until Graham Vernon
slumped and looked pained, as if an ulcer had suddenly flared
in his stomach.

'Daniel. What has he been telling you?'

O J

Tailby smiled grimly and asked Ben Cooper to read his notes
of the interview with Daniel. Cooper read them in as steady a
voice as he could manage, trying to put no particular inflection
on the sections where the young man had become angry or upset.
Vernon listened in silence until he had finished. By the end, his
head was bowed and he couldn't meet their eyes. When Tailby
spoke, he sounded almost sorry for the man.

'Now, Mr Vernon. Shall we start from the beginning? What
would you like to tell me about Lee Sherratt?'

j


The mood in the briefing room was subdued. Though they had
followed up all the available leads, many officers felt that they
still didn't seem to be getting anywhere. It was the start of a
feeling that the enquiry might be running out of steam. Cooper
recognized it, and knew that Tailby would too. It was the
DCI's job, as Senior Investigating Officer, to keep the troops
motivated.

'OK,' said Tailby. 'We have traced and interviewed both Lee
Shcrratt and the boyfriend, Simeon Holmes. But to eliminate
one or both from the enquiry, we still need evidence, and that's
what I'm not getting. Forensics have given us very little so far. I


233
remain hopeful of the bite mark, but we're still waiting on the
odontologist in Sheffield. We're told tomorrow for a preliminary
report on the bite -- but comparisons with the moulds that
Sherratt and Holmes have provided will take longer.'

Ben Cooper looked around the incident room, but saw no
sign of Diane shee, or of DI Hitchcns. He concluded that the

O	J

party of hikers had been located, and that the two of them

wore already somewhere to the north, following a lead that he

^	o

himself had reported from Moorhay.

'Holmes's story of Laura Vernon being sexually experienced
is backed up by the postmortem findings,' said Tailby. 'Also by
her own brother's statement. So if Holmes is right about the
victim's sexual inclinations, can Lee Sherratt be believed when
he says he had nothing to do with her? As Holmes stated in his
interview, "You don't say no, do you?"'

Tailby shuffled his papers. There was a diminishing number
of officers in the incident room tonight. It looked as though

O	O

the enquiry was already starting to be scaled down. Most of
the TIE actions had been completed. Many of the individuals
peripherally involved had been discounted. Traced, Interviewed
and Eliminated.

Now, though, the leads that were being followed up were

'	o '	o	r

more focused. A shortlist of individual subjects were being

targeted. Mr Tailby had sifted his priorities and chosen his lines
of enquiry. He had to feel fairly confident of the avenues that
were worth pursuing. There was an underlying belief that the
forensic scientists would produce the evidence that would seal
the case.

'We also have the rest of Daniel Vernon's story,' said Tailby,
'which may be totally irrelevant. But if he is telling the truth, then
it indicates that Sherratt is lying. And we might ask ourselves -- if
Sherratt was willing to conduct an affair with the mother, why
not with the daughter? We remain to be convinced on that. Until

o

Holmes's alibi is satisfactorily checked out, we have to consider
that either of these youths could have been the one seen talking
to Laura earlier that evening. On the other hand, it could have

o	'

been someone else entirely. So we're struggling without the
physical evidence. There's a weapon out there somewhere, but


234
there's also a second trainer belonging to Laura Vernon. Both
are crucial, but the trainer is going to be easier to identity.'

O	o	J

The DCI paused and tried to look at each officer individually.
Some of them met his eye, but others were busy reading notes
or staring at the photographs and maps on the wall.

'So here's what we do,' he said. 'We go round the houses in

'	o

Moorhay again. With all the publicity and activity in the village,
no one's going to want to hang on to evidence like that -- and
I'm reckoning it will have been disposed of in the area. So we
check out streams, ponds, ditches. And we look for signs of
recent digging or burning. That would be the most obvious
way to dispose of something like a trainer. Burying or burning.
Someone must have been doing that in the last few days.'

Tailby pinned another blown-up photo on the wall behind
him. 'This is Holmes. We're asking questions about both him
and Sherratt now. But don't overlook other possibilities, of
course.'

Ben Cooper sat up with a sudden lurch of excitement when he
saw the photo of Simeon Holmes. He had seen him already, and
in Moorhay too. Not only that, but at the time, the youth had
been digging. And a friend with him had been burning something.
Cooper hesitated for a moment. It seemed bizarre -- but he knew
he had to speak now, not later.

'I've seen him, sir,' he said. 'Earlier today. In fact, he must have
come straight from the smallholding to be interviewed here.'

All eyes turned on Cooper. Hesitantly, he told them about
the vast compost heap that had been taking shape at Thorpe
Farm that morning. He told them about seeing Simeon Holmes

o	o

himself tipping barrowload after barrowload of fresh manure on
to the heap, and about the old men carefully covering it over
and treading it down. He told them about the unidentified
youth with his small bonfire, and about what could have been
a deliberately distracting conversation as he himself had stood
in front of the heap.

As he spoke, he could sense the officers in the room pulling
faces and drawing away from him as though they could actually
smell the manure on his clothes.

When he had finished his story, he waited for a reaction. He

235
was thinking of the words repeated hv Sam Beeley and Wilford
Cutts -- 'blood and bone', they had said. And again: 'blood
and bone'.

Tailby stared at him, and groaned.

'Oh Jesus,' he said. 'We're going to have to dig it up.'


A hastilv assembled team arrived at Thorpe Farm an hour later
in a variety of vehicles, which parked on the track between
the jumble of outbuildings. A Task Force sergeant in a boiler
suit and Wellington boots walked up to the house, where he
found Wilford Cutts and Sam Beeley waiting outside, astonished
at their sudden arrival. He served the search warrant on
Wilford.

'You want to search my house?' said Wilford. 'What for?'

'Not the house,' said the sergeant. 'The outside property.'

'Outside ?'

'Starting with the field over there."

Officers were gathering on the track, fastening their boiler
suits and pulling on Wellingtons and gloves as spades and forks
were issued from a van.

'You're never going to dig my field up,' said Wilford.

C5O	O	J	I '

Sam waved his stick and started laughing as he saw where the
policemen were heading.

'Look at their faces,' he said. 'They're not digging the field
up, they're going to dig up the muck heap.'

The sergeant's expression told them he was right.

'What do you think you'll find?' called Wilford, but the
sergeant walked away without answering.

A Scenes of Crime officer was raking through the remains of
the fire and bagging the ashes as Tailby and Cooper came up
from their car to the field. The two old men were standing
by the top gate to watch the operation, and Cooper could feel
their eyes on him as they approached.

'It was built by craftsmen, that heap,' said Wilford accusingly.
'Your bloody coppers are going to ruin it.'

'Some of them buggers look as though they've never used a
fork in their lives,' said Sam, gazing in wonder at the boiler

O	O

suited diggers.


236
'Mr Cutts, I believe you had a young man by the name of
Simeon Holmes working here earlier today, said iailby.

'Oh aye,' said Wilford. 'Young Simeon and his mate. Good
lads, they are. Hard workers. They mucked out the pig shed
for us.'

'And helped von build the compost heap there,'

'Well, they did the heavy work, the harrowing and that.'

'	J	J	'	o

'What's in the compost heap, Mr Cutts?'

'Here now," said Sarn. 'We told your lad there exactly what
was put in it. Didn't we, Wilford?'

'We explained it very carefully, as I recall.'

Sam's attention drifted back down the field. He couldn't
believe what he saw. 'Some of them's shifting it, and some
of them's just standing looking at it. What do they think it's
going to do? Dance the hokey cokey?'

'And there was some burning, I believe? What were you
burning, Mr Cutts?'

o'

'Some old straw. Some dead branches. General rubbish.'

'Did you allow Simeon Holmes to put any extra items on to
the fire or into the compost heap?'

'You what?'

'The other lad looked after the fire, in between harrowing,'
said Sam.

'And who was he?'

'Name of Doc, that's all. A mate of young Simeon's.'

'A nickname?'

'I suppose so. Never seen him before.'

'How did they happen to be working for you, Mr Cutts?'

'Harry sent 'em up. I needed a bit of labour, and he said his
great-nephew was a willing lad.'

'His great-nephew! This is to do with Harry Dickinson again?'

'They're good lads, those two. You leave 'em alone.'

The do believe,' said Sam, staring at the activities around the

'	'	o

compost heap, 'that those blokes of yours are actually counting
the turds.'

Cooper trailed after the disgruntled DCI as he strode off
back towards the bottom of the field. The compost had begun
fermenting as soon as the heap had been constructed, and steam


237
could be seen rising in several places. The surface of the heap
was alive with thousands of the reddish-brown dung flies. They
rose in shimmering clouds when they were disturbed, only to
settle again on the exposed patches of manure as work began
on shifting the entire heap to one side.

The digging was hot and sweaty work, and the policemen
could feel the pervasive smell of the manure infiltrating their
boiler suits and being absorbed into the perspiration on their
bodies. It was worst for the men working on top of the heap,
where the heat rising from the compost itself made them feel
as though they were slaving in the heart of a blast furnace, or
stoking the boiler of a vast steam engine. They stopped for
frequent rests, their places being taken by other officers who
had been moving the manure aside, turning and separating it as they did so to make sure no evidence went unobserved.

As the digging went on, the smell got steadily worse and

oo o	&	J

Cooper became more unpopular. Many venomous glances came
his way as the top of the compost heap shrank and nothing more
incriminating appeared than a tangle of blue baling twine or a
rotted apple core.

Then a fork hit a solid object. Immediately, an officer dropped
to his knees and used his gloved hands to dig into the stinking
debris. Someone spread a plastic sheet on the ground, and the
next few inches of manure were carefully transferred to the
sheet, in case the material had to be packed up and sent to
the forensic laboratory. The SOCO, who had finished with the
fire, knelt alongside the officer, oblivious to the muck staining
his knees and the swarms of flies that hovered around their
sweating foreheads.

Finally, as a large clump of manure was scraped away, something
white appeared among the dark fibres. It had been pierced by a tine of the policeman's fork, and now a burst of exposed
muscle and tendon appeared like a bullet hole in the middle of
the bare, white flesh.


238
IT


19




rry switched channels on the TV in her room until she landed
on a news programme. She watched an item about a sex scandal
involving a government minister, heard about a breakdown in

o o	'

talks in Northern Ireland, and listened to news of a long-running
war in some African country where thousands of people had
already died in an inexplicable tribal conflict. It was all very
predictable.

She lay sprawled on her hard bed, nibbling one of the complimentary
biscuits from a cellophane-wrapped packet on the
bedside table. She had kicked off her shoes and taken off her
sweaty clothes, and was wearing her black kimono over her
underwear. She was wishing she had been able to find the time
to call in at a shop in Skipton for some chocolate.

Then a shot of the woods at Moorhay came on the screen. It
looked as though the camera had been positioned on Raven's Side,
where the bird-watcher, Gary Edwards, had stood. It focused
in on the site where Laura Vernon had been found, but all
that could be seen was the police tape. Then a reporter with
a microphone appeared with a brief summary of the enquiry, and
the scene switched to a shot of Edendale Police HQ, followed
by a crowded room full of lights and microphones. At a table
sat DCI Tailby, a police press officer and Graham and Charlotte
Vernon. The familiar photo of Laura appeared in a corner of the
screen. They were about to broadcast the appeal recorded that
morning.

Several minutes were given over to coverage of the Vernon
enquiry. To be of real interest to the media, Fry knew that
these days murders had to involve children or teenage girls, or
possibly young mothers. But it also seemed to make a difference
what part of the country they happened in. Somehow it seemed
to strike at the heart of English middle-class conceptions for
a murder to take place on their own rural doorstep. If Laura
Vernon had died on wasteland in a run-down area of London or


239
Birmingham, it would not have been seized on so eagerly. But
this was a murder in scenic, sleepy Moorhay, and the tabloid
newspapers had been full of it all week. Where Diane Fry had
come from, there were murders for the papers to report every
day. Some weren't given a high profile, even locally. And there
were other crimes that hardly seemed worth mentioning. Like
rape, for example.

After a few words of introduction from Tailbv, it was Graham
Vernon who was doing the talking. Fry knew that the film clip
would be recorded and played back over and over again at
Edendale, where they would be looking for little giveaways
in the Vernons' performance, for discrepancies between the
account they gave on screen and the statements they had given
the police.

It was accepted practice to encourage the relatives in such
cases to tell their story under the glare of the lights and cameras,
knowing their words were being heard by millions of viewers. It
put a pressure on them in a way that could no longer be legally
done in the privacy of an interview room.

But Vernon looked well in control. He appealed in a steady
voice for anyone who had seen Laura on the night in question,
or who knew anything about her death, to come forward and
assist police. He encouraged people to consider whether they had
noticed anything strange about the behaviour of their husbands,
sons or boyfriends. Any bit of information, however trivial it
might seem, could prove useful to the police. He sounded as
though he had been coached in the phrases by Tailby himself.

Then Vernon changed to a slower, more intimate tone as he

O

talked about Laura. He called her 'our little girl' and described
her as a bright, clever teenager who had had her whole life to
look forward to, but had been brutally struck down. He talked
of how well she had been doing at school, and described her

O

love of music and her passion for horses. He told the watching
millions that Laura had been due to take part in a horse show
today. But her horse, Paddy, was still in his stable, wondering
where she was. As an actor, he was only second rate. But that

'	j

was how some people coped with these things.

Finally, the microphone was presented to Charlotte Vernon.


240
Her eyes were dry and staring, and Fry wondered if she was
still on some form of medication. She didn't say much, but at

J	'

least she sounded sincere.

'We're pleading with everybody: just help the police to catch
whoever did this to Laura.' And she stared directly into the
cameras, gaunt and grief-stricken, while her husband put an
arm round her shoulders to support her. It was the image that
would appear in all the newspapers tomorrow.

The news programme drifted off into a weather forecast --
more sun tomorrow and no cloud until the evening. Fry reflected
on the past few hours, the frustrating, time-consuming interviews
with the student hikers. One after another they had been dragged
reluctantly from their tents to the little office at the camp site
near Malham. None of them had seen a thing -- a fact which Fry

o	^

thought could have been established quite easily by a couple of
North Yorkshire bobbies.

She wondered whose idea it had been for the two of them to
travel all this way from Derbyshire, with the necessity of staying
overnight in the little hotel in Skipton. Someone had felt sure
the hikers would have seen something useful -- or they had said
they did. And why a detective inspector, who should have been
heading one of the enquiry teams? A sergeant would have been
quite adequate, or even two DCs.

Of course, it must have been Paul Hitchens's idea. She had
left him in the bar, fuelling up on beer and whisky, enjoying the
freedom of being away from the office. He had looked sour when
she had taken only one glass of white wine and had refused further
drinks, pleading tiredness. Late-night boozing in a Yorkshire pub
was not her style.

Meanwhile, no doubt, the main part of the enquiry was getting
along fine without her back at Edendale. She wondered what Ben
Cooper was doing right now. Bubbling with brilliant insights and
unerring flashes of instinct, probably. Like last night. It had been
the most stupid thing she had ever seen, to go trailing through
the woods in the dark and bursting in on a suspect without
proper back-up, or even calling in to tell control where they
were. If that's where instinct and intuition led you, then you
could keep it as far as she was concerned. She could not forget


241
the moment that she had seen the gun in Lee Sherratt's hands.
Then her instinct had taken over. But that was a ditfereut kind
of instinct -- a physical reaction, an essential defence mechanism
honed by months of training.

In this case, though, she knew she had reacted not in self
defence, but out of a gut-wrenching fear of seeing Ben Cooper
injured. She knew it was terror that had made her strike the
second, unnecessary, blow. Once she had disarmed Sherratt, he
could have been arrested easily. But she had struck again out of

J	o

fear and an?er. Her old instructor would have been furious with

o

her. It showed lack of discipline.

Fry wondered whether she had apologized to Cooper properly
for the comments she had made about his father. He had seemed
withdrawn and moody afterwards. The escapade in the wood
could well have been his way of proving something -- in which
case, had it been partly her fault that it had happened? Sighing
in exasperation, she put it out of her mind. People were too
complicated when they started having feelings. Why couldn't
they all just get on with the job in hand?

Another old film was starting. Some romantic comedy from
the 1950s with James Stewart. She switched off the TV and lay
back on the bed. For a while she lay listening to the footsteps
and other small sounds in the hotel corridor. She was wondering
whether Paul Hitchens would come to her room.


'Sound asleep.'

Ben Cooper had just come from saying good night to his
nieces. Matt and Kate were watching television, curled up on
the sofa together, a picture of domestic contentment. Life had
to go on, after all.

o	'

But the sight gave Cooper no comfort; it only made him feel
worse. Since Monday he had been finding it difficult just to walk
up and down the stairs at the farmhouse, remembering the things
he had seen.

He and Matt had spent an hour at the hospital, though their
mother was still asleep. They had been warned she would be
under heavy sedation for at least two days. She would not be
awake and able to communicate with them until tomorrow. Yet


242
the two brothers had still wanted to sit by her bed, looking at her
tace, watching her movements, and discussing, in quiet voices,
their hopes and fears for the future. Matt said that the house
and the phone had been busy for two days with members of the
family calling to ask how Isabel was and offer their help. The
Coopers were a large, close family, and nothing brought them
together more effectively than a crisis. The same had happened
two years ago, when the brothers and their sister, Claire, had
never been alone after their father had been killed.

The death of their father had been a sudden, shattering blow.
The illness of their mother had been a slow, lingering torture.
Cooper's mind drifted away again, seeking memories of the
times when they had all been together. It had only been two
years ago, but it seemed like a century. It was called changing

J	O '	J	to to

circumstances.

This time, though, he could not understand why he was
finding little solace from the constant presence of his family.
Their closeness seemed to create a weight of expectation which
he no longer felt capable of fulfilling. They all thought he was
a clever, popular policeman and never doubted for a moment
that he was destined for great things. It was a burden that he
could no longer live up to.

Suddenly it seemed to him as though everything in his life
was going wrong, one thing after another. The solid planks

o to	o'	o	i

he depended on were being kicked away; his hopes were being
trampled on remorselessly, one by one. Why had the crisis with
his mother coincided with the arrival at Edendale of Diane Fry?
He couldn't get out of his mind the idea that the two things

to	o

were connected. They were a joint assault on his private and
professional life, and he didn't know how to cope with the
effects they were having on his feelings, his moods and his

/	O	O *

judgement.

He had to admit that he had made a mistake in ignoring
procedures to go after Lee Sherratt, and it had nearly ended
in disaster -- though he told himself that if Fry had not been
with him, he would have done things differently. And then,
out of the blue, he had found himself thinking about Helen
Milner; he had been thinking about her ever since they had


243
met for the first time in years during his visit to Dial Cottage
on Monday.

In quiet moments since then he had speculated about the
possibility that he had found someone he had enough in common
with to think they could share a life together, someone outside the
family. He had pictured himself introducing Helen to his mother,
and knowing that she would approve. It was one of the two things
that she wanted most -- for Ben to find someone to marry; the
other was her confident belief that he would make sergeant, like
his father. Only that morning, he had been presented with an
opportunity to renew the relationship they had once developed.
But he had let the opportunity pass, and he had done it because
of the job.

On top of that had come the humiliating fiasco with the
compost heap at Thorpe Farm. He could imagine what was
being said about him at the station. Within a few hours it

O

would be the subject of gossip for every police officer in E
Division, probably the whole county. The mountain he had to
climb to be worthy of his father's memory was getting higher
and higher. At this moment, it looked like Mount Everest.

'You've just missed the appeal by the Vernons,' said Matt.

'Yeah? What was it like?'

'Stagey,' said Kate.

O J '

Cooper nodded. He slumped into an armchair and stared at
the TV screen without seeing it. His mind was a whirl of anxieties.

O

He wondered how he was going to face going back into work
tomorrow. And how he was going to face the visit to the hospital
in the afternoon, which he had arranged to take time off for --
the visit when his mother would be out of sedation. He didn't
realize that Kate was speaking to him for several seconds.

'Sorry, what did you say?'

'Are you all right, Ben?'

'Yes, I'm fine.'

'I was asking if you were in for the night now. I'll make some
supper for later, if you are.'

He couldn't admit that he found the idea of staying in the
farmhouse for any length of time unbearable. There was a
constant urge to go up the stairs and open the door of his


244
mother's room, knowing she wouldn't he there. An ur<;e to
relive the worst moments of her illness as if it was some penance
he had to go through.

'Er. no. I thought I might go out for a drink. Do you fancy

'	O	O	O	J	J

coming. Matt?'

O'

He didn't fail to see the quick squeeze that Kate gave to his
brother's arm, which communicated her feelings sufficiently.

'No, thanks, Ben. I'll stay in tonight. I'm getting up early in
the morning to shoot some of those rabbits in the south field.
Maybe tomorrow, eh?'

'Fine.'

Cooper got in the car and drove automatically towards
Edendale. There were a handful of pubs in town which he
went to regularly. But on the outskirts of town, when he saw
the familiar landscape of stone gables and slate roofs spread out
before him in the dusk, he changed his mind. He turned the

'	O

Toyota into a side road and went over the hill into Moorhay.

The village looked peaceful once more. There were no tourists
to be seen on the street, and no noticeable police activity, only a
line of green wheelie bins along the roadside. The residents had
retreated again behind their doors, some of them clutching their

O	'	O

individual secrets, he was sure.

He drew up a few yards short of Dial Cottage and sat

r	j	o

in the car for a while watching the doorway. It might have been the confusing light of the growing dusk, or the stress
of his experiences during the day, or just his secret hopes
acting on his senses. But he felt as though he could see Helen

o	o

Milner emerging from the door of the cottage, just as she

O O	O * J

had done that morning -- a warm, living glow against the

o	'	o O	O

inner darkness. He remembered that fleeting expression of
disappointment when she realized she was not the one he
had come to see. He remembered Gwen Dickinson's words
- 'She's been talking about you, you know.' Could that be
true? Had Helen been thinking of him, as he had thought

o	'	o

about her?

Cooper repeated to himself the last few sentences that had
been spoken between them. 'So aren't you a policeman all the
time?' she had asked. 'What are you like when you're just being


245
^ssjtit i Will.

He turned the words over in his mind, assessing the tone of
voice she had used, trying to recall the exact expression on her
face, the precise movement of her head as she turned away,
seeking the subtle meanings. There would be a day, he promised
himself. Definitely there would be a day, one when he wasn't
being a policeman. But not just now.

He started the Toyota and drove a hundred yards further along
the road to pull up on the cobbles outside the Drover. Inside,
the pub was busy for a Wednesday night. But in their usual
corner were the three old men -- Harry Dickinson, Wilford
Cutts and Sam Beeley. Their heads turned as he came in and
their eyes followed him to the bar. As he was ordering, he heard
a comment from one of them produce a cackle of laughter. He
felt his jaw clench, and the blood start to flow into his cheeks,
but controlled himself with an effort. He was not going to let
the old men wind him up.

The landlord, Kenny Lee, tried to make conversation, but
sniffed and turned away when he was ignored. Having paid for
his pint of Robinson's, Cooper walked over towards the table
in the corner. The three old men watched him come, their eyes
expectant, but their mouths tight shut. Harry stood up from
his chair.

'Looking for me?'

'Not particularly. I just called in for a drink.'

Harry looked disappointed, and sat down again. Cooper
looked round for a seat and found a worn wooden stool.
He could feel them following his movements as he pulled
the stool up to the table, sat down and took a long draught
of his beer.

'That's good stuff,' he said. 'I thought it would be. But I

O	'	o

couldn't try it while 1 was on duty.'

The old men nodded cautiously. Sam coughed and offered
him a cigarette, which Cooper refused politely.

'Not many tourists in tonight, then?'

'It's Wednesday,' said Sam.

He sensed the unspoken messages passing between the three


246
fnen in the flicking of their eyes and the tapping of their bony
fingers on the table. They were like a group of poker plavers
about to take the shirt off the back of a stranger in town. But
Cooper wasn't interested in what they weren't telling him. Not
just now.

He let a silence develop, waiting for the old men to break
it. Normally they would probably sit together for hours without
saving a word, if there was nothing much to say. But he was a
uuest at their table, and they were the hosts. He was nankins

&	*'	ir»

on their courtesy.

'How's it going, then?' asked Wilford at last.

'What's that?'

'You know what, lad. The murder case.'

'It's not,' said Cooper, and lifted his glass to his face again.

'Eh?'

'You've got suspects,' said Sam. 'You'll be questioning them.
There'll be bright lights, the good copper and the bad copper.
Wearing 'em down.'

o

Cooper shook his head. 'We can't do much of that these days.
It's all the new regulations. They've got rights.'
'Rights?'
'Unless we've got enough evidence to charge them, we have

o	o	o	'

to let them go.'

o

'And haven't you? Got evidence?' asked Wilford.

'Not enough. Not by a long way.'

'That's a shame.'

'It's very discouraging. Sometimes you feel like giving up.'

Harry had said nothing so far. His eyes were fixed on Cooper
as he spoke, watching his lips, studying his face as if trying to
see behind his words.

'It wasn't our fault about the pigs, lad.'

'No, I know it wasn't.'

'Did you get in trouble?' asked Wilford.

Cooper shrugged. 'I'll be very unpopular for a bit.'

'It wasn't our fault/ echoed Sam.

'We told you about the blood and bone.'

'The heap rots 'em down, as long as they're not too big.
Otherwise the knackerman charges you for taking 'em away.'


247
'And you don't want to be paying the knackerman when you
can dispose of 'em natural, like,' said Sam

They weren't big enough lor porkers yet, I suppose,' said
Cooper.

'No, no. Nowhere near. You couldn't have sold 'em.'

'Funny thing about pigs, though,' said VVilford. 'Their skin

j	c>	r o	o '

is a lot like ours.'

'It certainly gave those police mates of yours a fair turn,' said
Sam, starting to smile again.

'They thought they'd found a dead body or two,' said Cooper.
'For a while.'

'Bloody hell, that doctor woman wasn't very pleased when
she got there.'

'The pathologist. That was a mistake.'

'I've never heard language like it,' said Wilford.

o o	'

'Not from a doctor.'
'And a woman too.'

'Do you know they get sunburnt, just like us?" asked Wilford.
'Pigs, I mean. You can't leave 'em out in hot sun. Those two

o '

had been inside, you see, out of the sun. That's why their skin
was so clean.'

'And white.'

'Aye. Middle Whites, they were. Some folk like the old
breeds, but the Whites grow better.'

Cooper closed his eyes, feeling the conversation running away
from him already. Bizarrely, a memory popped into his mind of
the slippery fish he used to try to catch by hand as a boy in the
streams around Edendale. He knew they were there, lurking in
the shady corners, and he could almost get his hands on them in
the water. But it needed only a couple of wriggles and they were
out of his grasp, every time. He suddenly felt utterly depressed,
and wondered what on earth he had hoped to achieve by corning
here tonight. He was totally in the wrong place. But he had no
idea what the right place for him was just now.

He drained his glass and stood up wearily.

'Off already?' asked Sam. 'Company not suit you?'

'I'm wasting my time,' said Cooper, as he walked away
towards the door.


248
Outside, the sky was still light and the evening was warm. He
stood ioi a moment, breathing in the motionless air and looking

'	o	o

up at the shape of Raven's Side, looming above the village. He
remembered then that there was one place where he always felt
he belonged.

The door to the pub had been propped open lo let out the
heat, and he didn't hear anybody come up behind him. But he
recognized the slow voice that spoke in his ear.

'If you ask the right questions, you'll find out what you want
to know.'

'Oh yes? I'm not sure about that, Mr Dickinson. At the
moment, it all seems pretty futile.'

Harry looked at him with sudden understanding. 'Fed up?'

'You might say that.'

'Ah. I reckon you've got the black dog, lad.'

'What?'

'That's what we used to say to the young 'uns when they
were sulking or had a fit of temper. "The black dog's on your
back," we'd say. That's what's up with you, I reckon.'

Sulking? It was a long time since he had been accused of
sulking. As if he was some temperamental adolescent.

'Yes, I've heard of it, thanks.'

'Don't mention it, lad.'

Now the old man had explained the expression, Cooper
remembered that he had heard it before. He could hear a
faint echo of his own mother's voice chiding him for having
the black dog. It was one of those mysterious expressions from
childhood that you only half understood at the time. The black
dog. Words with a frisson of meaning that had always worked on
his imagination. Looking back, he had a feeling that the young Ben
Cooper had pictured some huge, terrifying beast coming down
from the moors, with red eyes and slavering jaws. The memory
was confused now with the stories his Grandma Cooper had told,
of the legendary Black Shuck and the Barguest -- giant hounds
with glowing eyes that waylaid unfortunate travellers on certain
roads at night and took them straight to hell.

'The black dog's on your back', they said. It wasn't a very
nice image. Once the picture had been planted in his mind, it had


249
been difficult to get rid of. It had cropped up in his nightmares,
waking him with snapping jaws and ferocious eyes. As a child,
he would have done anything to get rid of that black dog from his
back. Usually, his mother could help him do it. She could always
cheer him up, and chivvy him out of a depressed mood.

Now, though, when the tables were turned, he was helpless
to remove an immense black dog from his mother's back.

Harry looked at him sharply, suspicious at the silence. Cooper
shook himself and stared back at the old man.

'Well, I've got to go now, Mr Dickinson. Maybe I'll see
you again.'

'I don't doubt, lad.'


A few minutes later, Cooper was sitting on Raven's Side, looking
across the dusk-filled valley towards Win Low.

He liked the names of the hills in this part of the Peak,
with their resonances of the Danish invaders who had occupied
Derbyshire for several decades. He had been taught at school
that the Raven had been the symbol of Odin, the chief of the

>	'

Viking gods. And the Danes had not been alone in investing the
hills with supernatural powers.

On the far side of the valley, the last rays of the setting

j '	J	O

sun lit the western flanks of the Witches in blood-red streaks,
highlighting them in melodramatic three-dimensional relief. At
any moment, they might launch themselves into the air on their
broomsticks. No wonder the ancient inhabitants of the valley
had been in awe of them. The rocky gritstone outcrops were
a brooding and malevolent presence at the best of times, their
shapes black and ominous on the sunniest day. It would be easy
for superstitious villagers to blame them for all sorts of evils and
misfortunes.

Cooper was sitting close to where Gary Edwards must have
stood with his binoculars on the night that Laura Vernon had
been killed. The view extended from the back gardens of
the cottages in Moorhay in one direction to the roof of the
Old Mill at Quith Holes in the other, and down over the
sweeping woodland to the meandering road far below in the
valley bottom. The stream was invisible from here, and the


250
trees were thick in the area where Laura's hodv had been
found.

The last shreds of the evening light were playing tricks in
the deeper patches of woodland, distorting the shadows and
deadening the colours until the greens and browns merged into
each other in a mesh of dark patches tinged with violet. The light
was slanting almost vertically down from the hill, flattening out
the perspective and reducing the woods to a two-dimensional
landscape where colour meant nothing.

Cooper looked again at the summit of Win Low and the
Witches. There was an ancient pack horse road crossing the
tor, below the shadow of the twisted rocks. But it would be
a brave traveller who went that way at night. It was all too
easy to imagine the black hounds of the legends prowling up
there on the dark ridge, waiting to pounce.

And once the black dogs of hell were on your back, you could
never shake them off.


251
20


Oh God,' «aid Superintendent Jcpson. 'We'll never hear the

end of it. This is the sort of thing the division will never live

&

down. It'll be in the local press, the national tabloids, we'll
make the joke item on the TV news. And for certain it'll be
in the Police Review. We'll be the laughing stock of every force

o o	J

in the country. I can hear the jokes about us now. It'll go on

J	-1	O

for years. Years!'

The superintendent had DCI Tailby and DI Hitchens in his
office before the morning briefing. They had faced the difficult
task of explaining to the divisional commander why a dozen
officers had been employed to dig up a giant compost heap,
and why the pathologist had then been called to examine two
dead pigs.

'We could probably find something we could charge Cutts
with,' said Hitchens. 'To justify the exercise, so to speak.'

'No, no, no. That would only make it worse. Let's just play
it down and hope it passes over after a day or two. Has the
press office been briefed?'

The did it last night,' said Tailby. 'They've got bare details,
but after that they have to refer enquiries to me. I'll stonewall
them.'

'All right, Stewart, but I can't understand how it happened.'

'Ben Cooper had one of his inspirations,' said Hitchens.

'Ah, young Cooper. We had that business with the Sherratt
arrest too.'

'It could have been a disaster if DC Fry hadn't been there.'

'If Cooper had got himself shot . . .' Jepson shuddered. 'It
would be a total public relations catastrophe. Nobody's forgotten
what happened to his father.'

'We can't afford that sort of incident, no matter how you
look at it,' agreed Tailby.

Jcpson turned to Hitchens. 'You keep your ear to the ground
regarding the staff in your department, don't you, Paul?'


252
'I try to, sir.'

'You know we ii have to be making the decision on DS
Osborne's replacement very soon. He signs off tor good at the
beginning of next month. DC Cooper was one we had in mind
for the job, wasn't he?'

'He was top of the shortlist,' said Hitchens.

'What's your view on that now?'

'Franklv, he appears to be a touch emotionally unstable. He
was very moody yesterday. All over something and nothing, as
far as I can gather.'

o

'This new DC, though. Fry . . .'

'She's got better qualifications than Cooper. And she seems
very stable, despite her past history.'

Jepson nodded seriously. 'Ah, the business in the West Midlands.
Of course.'

'A very nasty business,' said Tailby. 'But she's fine now, isn't
she? Paul?'

'A bit of a cold fish, but solid as a rock, sir. Totally in control,
I'd say. Very professional. No ill effects, she says.'

'You've actually discussed it with her?' asked Jepson.

'Yes, sir.'

'Good man. That's excellent management. Good relations
with the staff.'

'According to her record, she had the standard counselling.

o	'	o

There's a note that she packed the sessions in, though, after
she split up with a boyfriend. Seems he couldn't handle it, but
she could.'

The suppose that sort of experience can actually make someone
a stronger person,' suggested Tailby.

'Ah, that's right. Baptism of fire and all that. Add Diane
Fry's name to the shortlist. Let's see how she shapes up in the
interviews.'

'Ben Cooper, though . . . He'd be a popular choice, sir.'

'Mmm. Emotionally unstable, Paul says. I don't like the sound
of that. Cooper's a bit too immature yet for a supervisory post, I
think. It's a pity, though. A local lad, wonderful local knowledge.
Dedicated, hard-working, bright.'

'It's not enough,' said Hitchens.

o '


253
Jcpson sighed. 'You're probably right. Do I take it we're
agreed DC Cooper is not an option to replace Osborne?' He
waited while the others nodded. 'In that case, it'd better be
done quickly. I'll see him this morning during the briefing and
break the news. I'll jolly him along a bit, try to soften the blow.
Suggest a bit of lateral development.'

The three men sat for a moment, calmly assessing a job
well done. Jepson stirred and sat upright, signalling a change
of subject.

'What's the progress on the Vernon enquiry, then? Stewart?'

'We don't need to expend extra resources at this stage, sir. I
expect forensic results today. They could wrap the enquiry up,
I think.'

'You've got two possibles, haven't you?'

'I'm confident forensics will tie in either Lee Sherratt or
the bovfriend, Simeon Holmes,' said Tailby. 'That will be the
breakthrough we need. We could be making an arrest soon.'

'That sounds like a good press release,' said Jepson hopefully.
'If we can get that out to the media today, they might forget
about the pigs.'

'I remain hopeful,' said Tailby.


Harrv Dickinson was wearing his black-framed bifocals, which

j	O	'

made his eyes look distorted and out of proportion, like smooth
stones lying in deep water.

'And I tell you what, lass. If you see that young copper again,
you can tell him if his mates are going to try to blame the Sherratt
boy, they're wasting their time.'

Helen Milner had done some shopping for her grandmother
the night before at Somerfield's in Edendale. Things were much
cheaper there than in the little village shop. Normally Gwen
would be willing to catch the Hulley's bus from the stop near
the pub for the journey into town for the sake of the money she
would save from her pension. But this week she had refused to
do the journey, worrying about what the other women would
say to her on the bus, believing that the shop assistants would
talk about her behind her back, that the checkout girls would
refuse to serve her. Nothing Helen could say would persuade


254
her she was imagining things. At times, she could be just as
stubborn as Harry.

'He was the gardener at the Mount, but Graham Vernon
sacked him,' she said.

'Lee Sherratt? He was never a gardener. He can hump a
wheelbarrow, but he knows nothing.'

'They say he had a fancy for Laura.'

'That's as maybe. It means nowt.'

Helen slotted tins of peas and new potatoes into the kitchen
cupboards, glancing sideways out of the window, where she
could see Gwen pottering in the garden, carefully deadheading
roses with a pair of secateurs. She looked frail and unsteady on
her feet, her skin translucent in the morning light angling from
above Win Low.

'Have you talked to Grandma yet?'

Harry was deep in his morning paper. Unlike many of the
men his age, who preferred the sports coverage and sensational
headlines of the tabloids, Harry took the Guardian. He said he
liked to know what was really going on in the world. 'All this

J o o

stuff about TV celebrities and royal hangers-on. That means
nowt to me,' he would say.

'What should I talk to her about, then?'

'She's upset.'

'When isn't she? The woman's got neurotic in her old age.'

o	O

'Granddad, she's very worried. She thinks you're in trouble
with the police. You have to reassure her. She won't listen to
anyone else.'

'Ah, they're all talking about me, aren't they?' said
Harry.

'They'll talk. But nobody believes you're involved.'

'Why not, then?' he demanded.

Helen waved her hand, stumped for an explanation when
challenged. 'Well '

'Aye, I know. It's because I'm old. You're just like them
coppers. They haven't questioned me, you know. Not properly,
not like they ought to have done, seeing as I found the body.
They think I can't have done it, you see. Because I'm old. Well,
they're wrong, and you're wrong too.'


255
'Don't be silly, Granddad. We know you didn't do it,
Obviously.'

'Oh ave. Obviously.'

s	j

'Grandma knows. And Mum and Dad and me, we know
that you've done nothing wrong. We would know -- we're
your family.'

'And that's it? just the tew of you and no more?'

Helen felt a chill at his dismissive tone. 'Your family has
always meant a lot to you. You know it has.'

Harry sighed and folded his paper.

'Well, hasn't it?'

'Of course it has, lass. But there are other things as strong
as family. Stronger even. Women can't see it, because they're
made different -- family, that's everything for them. But there

J '	Jo

are other things. Friendship. When you've had a bloke at your
back that you trust with your life, and he trusts you the same,
that's different. That's a bond you can't break, not for anybody.
You get so as you would do anything not to betray that trust,

o	J	Jo	J	'

lass. Anything.'

Harrv was looking Helen in the face, a look deep in his eye

j	o	'	r	J

that was almost appealing, asking for her help. And she did want
to help him, but she didn't know how to. She waited for Harry
to explain what he meant.

But he stared at the front page of the newspaper, where a picture of Central African refugees with desperate eyes stared
back at him.

'You'd kill to help that sort of friend," he said.


Ben Cooper sighted along the barrels, shifted his grip on the
wooden stock and breathed in the scent of the gun oil as his
fingers felt gently for the trigger. The shotgun fitted snugly
into his shoulder, and the weight of the double barrels swung
smoothly as he turned his body to test their balance. With that
effortless movement came an eagerness to see the target in his
sights, a desire for the kick and cough of the cartridge. He
was ready.

'Pull!'"

The trap snapped and a clay flashed across his line of vision. As

256
if of th<"'r own Accord, the barrels swung up and to the right to
follow its trajectory, and his finger squeezed. The clay shattered
into fragmcnts tnat curved towards the ground.

'Pull!'

The second clay flickered overhead. Cooper carefully increased
the pressure on the trigger, timing the extra squeeze as the target's
line steadied and the clay shattered like the first.

'What do you think of it, Ben?'

'Nice,' he said, lowering the shotgun and breaking it open.
He laid the gun across the bonnet of the Land Rover, and his
brother walked across from the trap gun they used for practising.
Matt was six years older than Ben, with the barrel chest and
well-muscled shoulders and torso of a working farmer. He had
the same fine light-brown hair and chose to hide his receding
hairline under a green tractor driver's cap with a long peak like
a baseball cap and the words 'John Deere' on the front.

'Those were two good shots, Ben. Who were you picturing
when you hit the clays?'

'What?'

'From the expression on your face, you had someone you
really hate in your sights. Did it help to let it out?'

'Yes, a bit.'

Matt studied his younger brother. 'It's really getting you
down, isn't it? We don't often see you like this. We will get
Mum sorted out, you know. Wait till you see her this afternoon
-- I bet she'll be more like her old self, and you'll feel a whole
lot better about it.'

'Maybe, Matt. But it isn't only that.'

'Oh. Woman trouble, by any chance? Not Helen Milner, is
it?'

Cooper stared at his brother in amazement. 'What makes you
say that?'

'It's obvious you must have bumped into her on this Vernon
case. I put two and two together when I read about it in the
paper. Her dad works for Graham Vernon, doesn't he? And the
old man, Harry Dickinson -- that would be her grandfather, right?

'	j	o	7 o

If you've been hanging around there, I guessed you must have
renewed old acquaintances.'


257
Matt grinned as his brother looked at him, lost for words.
'What do you reckon, then? Should I have been a detective?'

'I don't know how you worked all that out.'

'Mmm. Helen Milncr, eh? I always thought she had a bit of
a thing about you, little brother, a few years back.'

'All water under the bridge. She's different now. You should
see her.'

'Oh, but I have seen her. She's a teacher at Amy and Josic's
school now. We talked to her at a parents' evening not so long
ago. I hate to give away my secrets, but that's how I know about
her dad and all that. We talked for quite a long while, actually.
Some of it was about old times, some about the Vernons too.'

'Well then. You know what she looks like. She's probably
got half a dozen blokes she's sleeping with. Why should she
bother with me?'

'Do I detect a hint of bitterness? Is it a case of a heifer in
heat and too many bulls to choose from?'

'People aren't like cattle, Matt.'

'It'd be better if they were sometimes. Come to think of it,
it's a pity you can't put raddle on people like you do on rams,
then you'd know straightaway who was tupping who.'

Matt looked at his brother expectantly, raising his eyebrows,
but saw he hadn't even raised a smile.

'But there's more still, isn't there? Problems at work, is it?'

'Yeah, you're right. I've made a couple of bad cock-ups in
the last few days.'

'They'll understand you're under a lot of stress, though,
won't they?"

Cooper fished the keys of the Toyota out of his pocket and
looked at his watch. It was past the time he should have been
setting off for Edendale to start his shift. But the chance to try
Matt's new shotgun had been too much of a temptation.

'You've told your bosses about Mum, haven't you?'

'No, I didn't think they needed to know.'

'But you have got time off this morning to go to the hospital?'

'I just told them I had a doctor's appointment.'

'Bloody hell. They probably think you're going to see a


258
psychiatrist or something, the way you've been these last few
days.'

'I'd rather keep the police force out of Mum's life, that's
all.'

"I see. Things arc a bit bad, then.'

Cooper sighed. 'Let's put it this way -- I'd much rather stay
here shooting rabbits with you, Matt, than go into the office this

mornincr.'

t>

Matt walked back with his brother to his car, parked in
the crewyard. 'I take it the Vernon case isn't sorted out
yet, then?'

'It feels as though it's running into the ground, Matt. We
always dash round like mad at the beginning, of course. We
collect masses of information, do dozens of witness interviews,
house-to-house surveys and TIE enquiries, getting background
detail. God, there's so much in the computer after the first
few days. Usually you get some clear lines of enquiry opening
up that you can follow. But sometimes every one seems to be
a blind alley and you get nowhere. Once a murder enquiry
stalls, you can be looking at months and months before you
get a result. If ever.'

'And this is one of those, is it, Ben?'

Cooper paused with his hand on the car door. 'I don't know,
Matt. Maybe it's just me. But don't you ever get the feeling that
you've been banging your head against a brick wall and didn't
realize it?'

'It's a tragedy about the young girl. There's a bloke somewhere
who shouldn't be running round loose.'

o

'That's what keeps us going, I suppose."

He got into the driver's seat and lowered the windows. The
interior of the car was already warm, though the morning had
hardly begun.

Matt rested a brawny forearm on the door. 'Still, the Vernons
are no example to anybody, are they?'

'They're not my idea of good company.'

'More than that,' said Matt. They create trouble for themselves,
with what they get up to. Those orgies and things up
there. I'm all for a bit of fun, but that's just sick.'


259
Cooper looked at his brother, frowning, wondering what on
earth he was talking about.

'Oh, I sec. Well, if you don't believe me,' said Matt, 'you
just ask Helen Milner.'


8v the lime Cooper reached the outskirts of Edendale, he knew
he was going to be late for the second time in a week. Another
black mark. But he found he didn't really care. There was a dull
pain throbbing at the front of his head, just behind his eyes, like
the warning of an approaching thunderstorm.

At eight o'clock in the morning it seemed as though every
few yards along the road there was someone clutching a dog
lead. Their pets were nose down in every clump of grass,
stopping to examine every lamppost and tree. It would be a
rash murderer who tried to hide a body in this neighbourhood.
The search parties were out permanently.

The first person he saw on the second floor of Divisional HQ
was Diane Fry. She was heading for the briefing room with three
other DCs. They were laughing at something, and Cooper began
to flush immediately, not doubting that it was him they were
laughing at. Fry, though, saw him corning and stopped to let
him catch up.

'You're late again, Ben. You'll be up on a charge if you're
not careful.'

'Doesn't matter,' he said. 'Have a good trip to Yorkshire?'

'Not particularly. I'd rather have been here.'

'Waste of time, then?'

'Yes, as a matter of fact. There was no need for anyone to
go, let alone two of us.'

Cooper sneered before he could stop himself. 'What a surprise.
Still, I suppose you had a good time together.'

Fry's nostrils flared. 'I don't know what you're getting at,
but I'll ignore it just this once.'

He inclined his head, his shoulders slumping. 'Sorry, Diane.
I shouldn't have said that.'

'Are you all right, Ben? You've got some funny ideas, but
you've managed to restrain yourself from the snide comments
so far.'


260
'Yeah. I'm fine. It's this endless heat, it's wearing me out.'

'Only I've been hearing something about some pigs . . .'

'Yeah, veah, don't tell me.'

He saw Fry studying him. Her eyes travelled from his dull eyes
to his hastily combed hair and down to his badly shaved cheeks, his
crumpled shirt. lie was suddenly aware of the smell of stale sweat
from his body, and the way his hand shook when he rubbed his
temples where the pain was beginning to throb again.

'Ben -- what I said about your father. I did apologize. If there's
anything else I can say . . .'

'I told you then -- if one more person calls me Sergeant
Cooper's lad ... Just let me forget it, can't you?'

Fry stood back, shocked by the venom in his voice. 'Fine.
Oh, and there's a message for you. The superintendent wanted
to see you straightaway, as soon as you got in.'

'What about the briefing?'

'Straightaway. That was the message. Trouble, is it?'

'Bound to be.'

'Hey, you haven't forgotten our date tonight, have you?'

'What?'

'You're taking me to your dojo. I'm looking forward to
that challenge bout. You're going to teach me a few things,
remember?'


The walls of the superintendent's office were lined with photographs,
some of them going back many years. The faces of stiff,
upright men with high collars and large moustaches seem to glare
at Ben Cooper, judging him. It was as if they were saying that
he did not come up to their standards. That was certainly the
message that Superintendent Jepson was trying to put across.

'So basically, I'm saying it's just not your turn this time,
Cooper. Be patient, and your turn will come, I'm sure. Give
it a bit more time, and we'll look at things in a fresh light.
There's always hope in the future. Think about a bit of lateral
development.'

Jepson studied the DC for his reaction. Hitchens was right -- Cooper did look a little stressed and nervy. The dark patches
under his eyes made him look older than twenty-eight, and he


261
didn't seem to have shaved properly this morning. His hands
were shaking slightly, even belore he had been told the news
that he would not he on the shortlist for the OS's job. Jepson
wondered whether Ben Cooper had a drink problem. He would
have to ask DI Hitchcns.

'Does it come as a shock to you, Cooper?'

"I suppose I had wondered about it, sir. 1 had a psychological
assessment done, you see.'

'And what did it say in your psychological assessment report,
Cooper?'

'It said I'm not assertive enough, sir. Too inclined to interiorize
and empathize in inappropriate circumstances.'

'Mmm. And do you know what that means?'

'Not a clue, sir.'

'It means you're too bloody nice, Cooper.'

'I see.'

'And we can't have nice cops, can we? Not any more. Oh
aye, we've every other kind of police now, Cooper. They've all
got their place in the modern service. We've got black cops,
women cops, gay cops, even psychic cops.'

Cooper took the last to be a reference to a story that had
appeared in the local paper about a section officer who was a
prominent member of the Spiritualist Church and had recently
confessed to clairvoyant tendencies.

'Nothing can surprise me now,' said Jepson. 'Next we'll have
transvestite cops, you'll see. Some bugger in Vice Squad will turn
up in a skirt one day, and then it'll be anything goes. We'll have
midget cops, zombie cops, blue-skinned cops from the Planet
Zog. Who knows? Maybe we'll have genetically manipulated
PCs with muscles like King Kong and brains like turnips. No,
scrub that, we've got those already. But God forbid we should
discriminate against any of them, Cooper. The one thing that won't be tolerated is a prejudiced cop.'

'Yes, sir,' said Cooper, and tried a tentative smile, assuming
Jepson was trying to cheer him up.

The superintendent looked at him suspiciously. He liked
his junior officers to laugh at his jokes, but only when he
was actually joking. 'I suppose you think there's no reason


262
why we shouldn't have nice cops, don't you, Cooper? No
reason at all.'

'No, sir. Just not as a sergeant, perhaps?'

'Well, who wants to be a bloodv sergeant? It's the dosj's arse

1	J	O	O

of a job, believe me.'

They both listened for a moment, trying to catch the echoes
of the insincerity from the plasterboard walls. Jepson tapped his
hands on his desk to break the moment, glaring at Cooper until
he was forced to speak.

'Anyway, sir, I'm not as bothered as all that. I don't really
resent it or anything.'

'Bollocks. If I were you, Cooper, I'd be totally pissed off.
You're just trying to be nice about it. There's your trouble,
you see,' he said with an air of triumph.

'I don't suppose I'll ever learn, sir.'

'My advice is, go and shoot a few of those pigeons or whatever
it is you do, get it out of your system. Have a few drinks. You'll
soon forget about it.'

Cooper dipped his head in acknowledgement as Jepson pursed
his lips seriously for his final comment. 'But no emotional outbursts,
eh?'

He stared past the superintendent's head. There was a large
framed photograph on the wall, with dozens of solemn men
sitting or standing in long rows. They were the entire uniformed
strength of Edendale section, pictured during a visit to the station
by some member of the royal family in the 1980s. Cooper
remembered the occasion and the photograph well. On the
second row, among the other sergeants, was his father.

'I understand, sir. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter
at all.'


The doctor had explained that Isabel Cooper was on a powerful
anti-psychotic drug. He had spelled out the name of the drug,
and Cooper had written it down carefully. Chlorpromazine. It
blocked the activity of dopamine and caused changes in the nervous
system. These could mean side-effects, said the doctor.

As Cooper sat by her bedside, it seemed to him that his mother
couldn't stop moving her lips and tongue or the muscles of her


263
face She was permanently grimacing, rolling her tongue in her
cheeks like someone frantically trying to remove stray bits oi
food from her gums. Underneath the bedclothes, her legs were
in constant movement, flexing and convulsing endlessly like the
limbs of a long-distance cyclist.

The doctor had been eager to point out to Ben and Matt th.it
the drugs they were using were not curative. They could not
cure schi/ophrenia, they could only relieve the most distressing
symptoms. And those symptoms seemed unending in the mouth
of the doctor -- thought disturbance, paranoia, hallucinations,
delusions, loss of self-care, social withdrawal, severe anxiety,
agitation. The condition could only get worse. But occasionally,
just occasionally, they could expect remissions, when Mrs
Cooper would almost be her normal self. The doctor seemed
to think they would find this reassuring.

'I'm being a terrible nuisance to everyone,' said Isabel, gazing
with old eyes from the bed.

'No, Mum. Of course you're not. Don't worry about it.'

'Is that Ben?'

'Yes, Mum. I'm here.'

He had been sitting there for nearly forty minutes already
talking to his mother. Matt had been with him for the first
half-hour, but had gone outside for a while. He needed some
fresh air, he said.

'You're a good boy. I'm not well, am I?'

'You'll be fine, Mum.'

She turned her head, grinning and winking helplessly as she
reached a hand towards him. There was a dribble of saliva on
the neck of her nightdress. A small vase of white gypsophila
stood on the bedside cabinet, the same colour as the sheets; the
same colour as her skin. Cooper was sweating in the heat of the
hospital room, but his mother's hand felt cold and clammy.

'You're just like your dad,' she said. 'Such a good-looking
young man.'

He smiled at her and pressed her hand, guessing what was
coming, dreading the need for an answer, not knowing what he
could possibly say.

'Are you married yet, Ben?'


264
'No, Mum. You know I'm not.'

You'll find a nice giri soon. I'd like to see you married and
have children.'
'Don't worry.'
He knew the words were meaningless. But in all his vocabulary

there didn't seem to he any words that would carrv a meaning

j	j	&

they could both understand and draw comfort from.

Isabel's shoulders twitched and her legs jerked and squirmed,
rustling under the hospital sheet like restless animals. Her tongue

O	1	O

protruded over her lips as she blinked around the room with a
puzzled expression. Then she focused on her son. She sought
his face eagerly, her eyes desperate and pleading. She was
sending out a mute appeal, begging him for some small drop
of consolation.

'Just like your dad,' she said.

He waited. His muscles were frozen and his brain empty of
thoughts. He was a mesmerized rabbit waiting for the fatal bite.
His lungs hurt from holding his breath. He knew he would not
be able to refuse the plea in her eyes.

'Have they made you a sergeant yet, Ben?'

'Yes, Mum,' he said, though it broke his heart to lie.


265
21


It was the first time Diane Fry had visited the Mount. She was
not impressed by the mock porticos and the triple garage and
the wrought-iron gates. She found the whole thing tasteless, a
white box that was out of place set against the scenery of the
valley behind it and the rows of stone cottages a few yards
down the road. It could have been plonked down here from
a suburb of Birmingham. Edgbaston or Bournville, perhaps. It
gave no impression of being part of the landscape.

She had been allocated the task of talking to Charlotte
Vernon, following DCI Tailby's interview with her husband
and son. Charlotte had been saying little so far, and attention

J o	'

had not been concentrated on her. But now there were other
questions that needed to be asked, particularly questions about
Lee Sherratt. The boy was still Mr Tailby's favoured option,
though Fry could see he had always kept in mind a second
line of enquiry centred on the family. It was possible Charlotte

Vernon might hold the key, one way or the other.

&	^ '	}

Fry was shown in by Daniel. He seemed subdued and sullen,
rather than the angry young man she had read about in the
reports. But when she told him what she wanted, he took her
through the house without a word or a backwards glance, finding
no necessity for politeness. It was a pity his alibi had checked out
so thoroughly.

Charlotte Vernon had been described by the officers who had
seen her as an attractive woman; some had said very attractive.
Fry had expected to find a rich man's spoilt wife, with nothing
to do all day but look after her appearance, keeping her body
in perfect condition, her hair expensively styled, her cosmetics
flawless. But she found a woman in her late thirties, tired and
resigned. The cosmetics were certainly there, and might have
fooled a man. But Fry recognized that they had been applied
without conviction.

Charlotte was wearing cream slacks and a silk shirt. She looked


266
elegant -- but then any woman wearing so many hundreds of
pounds worth of clothes on her back ought to look stylish. Fry
had come prepared to feel sympathy for the woman, who had
just lost her daughter. She was willing to put the son's story to
the hack of her mind, to listen to Charlotte's version of events.
But there was something in the tilt of the woman's head as she

o

lit a cigarette and settled herself into an armchair: something in

o	>	o

the curl of her lips as she looked her up and down critically. In
the end, Fry did not get a chance to show sympathy, as Charlotte
Vernon opened the interview aggressively.

'Don't bother to treat me with kid gloves. I'm all right
now.'

'There are a few questions, Mrs Vernon.'

'Yes, I've been expecting you. Dan's been to see you, of
course. I couldn't stop him. The poor boy -- he gets so mixed
up about sex. Some men take a long time to mature, don't they?
I think Clan has got a bad case of delayed puberty.'

'Your son has made a statement about your relationship with
Lee Sherratt, Mrs Vernon.'

'You mean he found out I was having it off with the gardener,
don't you, dear?'

Fry stared at her without expression. They were in a room
full of beautiful old furniture with clear, tidy surfaces. There were
three or four large watercolours on the wall, and an expanse
of woodblock floor led towards French windows and a flagged

OO

terrace with stone balustrades. Fry would have liked to explore

the bathroom and the kitchen, to examine the whirlpool bath,

the automatic oven, the fitted wardrobes, the self-defrosting

fridge and the digital microwave.

'Is that the way it was, Mrs Vernon?'

'Certainly. Oh, only a couple of times, but we both enjoyed

it. He was unsubtle, but enthusiastic. And an excellent body.
It's so good for morale at my age when you can still make the

young men come running.'

'Did you initiate the relationship?'

The suppose I seduced him, yes. It didn't take much doing.'
'When did your husband find out what was going on?'
Charlotte shrugged. 'I don't really know. Does it matter?'


267
'I would have thought so.'

'Why is that?'

'Presumably he objected.'

'You presume wrong, dear. He gets a turn-on from it, old
Graham. That's convenient for both of us, really. It means
I'm free to take what lovers 1 like without any complications.
Graham, of course, is quite free to do the same as far as I'm
concerned.'

'But he did object, didn't he? He sacked Sherratt from his
job.'

'True.' Charlotte blew a slow smoke ring which hovered in
the air between them. 'But didn't Graham tell you that was
because of Laura.'

'And was it?'

'If that's what Graham says, it must have been, mustn't
it?'

'Were you aware yourself of Lee Sherratt's attitude to your
daughter? In view of your own relationship with him?'

'Do I call you Detective Constable?'

'If you like.'

'Detective Constable, I don't know what you imagine I did
with Sherratt in the summerhouse, but we certainly didn't
indulge in conversation about my daughter.'

'But do you think --?'

'He was more than occupied with me, dear. I can be demanding
when I'm aroused.'

'And why bother with the lamb when you can have the old
ewe, eh?'

Charlotte bared her perfect teeth in a snarl, then changed her

r	'	o

mind and turned the snarl into a mirthless laugh.

o

'Very good, dear. I wouldn't have thought you were so good

j O	O	J	O

with the farming metaphors.'

Fry was disappointed that she could not crack the woman's

facade. If only she could get through the provocative, brittle

exterior, she might expose a soft, vulnerable core that would

yield something to the probing.

'Did you know about Laura's boyfriend, Simeon Holmes?'
'No, I didn't.' Charlotte sighed. 'Until your people managed


268
to track him down. I suppose there's no doubt they had a thing
together?

'None at all.'

'She was obviously a bit of a chip off the old block, wasn't
she? She kept her bit on the side quiet, though. Laura usually
told me her secrets, but not that one.'

'Perhaps she thought you would consider him unsuitable.
He's from one of the council estates in Edendale, rides a
motorbike.'

'Unsuitable? Not me.'

'Really?'

'Well, I was shagging the gardener, dear.'

Fry gritted her teeth. Charlotte stubbed out her cigarette and

J O	O

began to stir restlessly. The ashtray was already full of stubs,
and the air was pungent with stale smoke that mingled with an
expensive scent.

'I hope I'm not shocking you,' said Charlotte. 'I know some
of you people can be very puritanical. But Graham and I have
always had that sort of marriage. It is rather an accepted thing
among our circle of friends.'

'You mentioned other lovers, Mrs Vernon. I need to ask you
for some names.'

'Really? How many years would you like me to go back?'

'Just the last few months, shall we say?'

'Are our police looking at jealousy as a motive then? How
original.'

O

'Names?'

'All right. There have been one or two of my husband's
business colleagues. Just the odd occasion, you know. Nothing
heavy.'

She gave Fry three names, only one of which meant anything.

'Andrew Milner?'

'He works for Graham.'

'I know who he is.'

Fry stared at the woman, wondering if she was really the
distraught mother who had appeared in previous reports. Perhaps
she was on some drug that the doctor had given her. But she


269
cmild think of nothing that would completely change a woman's

personality to this. Charlotte studied her expression and laughed

her cold laugh again.

'Oh yes, I'm not too fussy when I'm in the mood.'

'And have you been in the mood much since Laura was killed?

Does the thought of your daughter being attacked and murdered

make you feel randy?'

Charlotte's iace seemed to blur and quiver, and her eves

swelled alarmingly. Her limbs trembled and her shoulders

o J

slumped into an unnatural position. It was as if the woman
had disintegrated suddenly into a broken doll.

'I go to that place every night, you know,' she said.

'What place?' asked Fry, startled at the unexpected change.

'I go at night, when no one's around. Graham hates it. I take
flowers for her.'

'You go where?'

O

'That place down there. The place where Laura died.' She
looked up pleadingly. 'I take her roses and carnations from the
garden. Are they the right things to take?'


Back at E Division, Ben Cooper made his way wearily up to the
incident room, where just two computer operators were at their
terminals and the office manager, DI Baxter, was stacking away
some files. Cooper checked through the action sheets, but could
find nothing allocated to him.

o

'I'm back on duty now, sir.'

'Nothing for you, Cooper,' said Baxter. 'Some of the teams
are being reallocated. Your DI wants you back in the CID room.
You've to report to DS Rennie.'

'Oh, shit.'

'Sorry, son.'

Baxter seemed about to reprimand Cooper for his outburst,
conscious of the computer operator's eyes on him. But he looked
at Cooper's face and changed his mind, not being one to kick a
man when he was obviously down.

'Mr Tailby thinks forensics --'

'Yeah, I know. Thanks.'

Cooper stamped back downstairs. A DC was on the phone in


270
the CID room and Rennie was holding a report in the air, staring
at it with an expression of admiration. He noticed Cooper come
in and waved a hand casually.

'Ben. Welcome back to the real world.'

Cooper kicked the chair away from his desk and thumped the
pile of paper that had been sitting there since Monday.

'What's all this stuff?'

'Hey, calm down. We don't want any prima donna tantrums
just because you're not with the big boys on the murder enquiries
any more.'

'Yeah, right. Car crime. They want something doing about
car crime, yeah? So what's new?'

'This is,' said Rennie, waving the report. 'Here, take a
look.'

The report landed on Cooper's desk. It bore the heading of
die National Criminal Intelligence Service. 'What's this?'

'New ideas on detecting car crime. It's good stuff. The super
is very impressed. It was the new lass's idea.'

'Not Diane Fry?'

'That's her. Not bad for a lass, I reckon.'

'And where is she? Is she already out working on this?"

J	o

'Not her,' said Rennie. 'She's still on the Vernon enquiry.'


Fry phoned Vernon Finance, but was put through to a particularly
unhelpful and protective secretary who told her that Andrew
Milner was out of the office all afternoon. She eventually
persuaded the secretary to give her his mobile number, and ate a
tuna sandwich while she dialled. When he answered, Milner was
clearly on the road somewhere. There was heavy traffic noise in
die background, and he was shouting, as people did when they
were using the hands-free adaptor in a car.

'Who did you say you were? Hold on, I'm just turning on
to the AS7.'
When she got it through to him who she was, he went very
quiet for a moment. Perhaps it was just the signal being broken
up by the high ridges of Stanage Edge and the Hallam Moors.

'Give me a second, and I'll pull into a layby,' he said.

Fry talked to Andrew Milner for several minutes, trying to


271
catch the tone of the man's replies against the thundering
slipstream of passing lorries and the intermittent fading of his
cellphone signal. She thought he sounded nervous and defensive,
but he stuck to a firm line on the suggestion of any relationship
with his employer's wife. It was ridiculous, it was nonsense.
Charlotte Vernon obviously wasn't well.

Eventually, Fry let him go when he pleaded that he was late for
an important meeting. She felt sure that he was hiding something,
but couldn't pin down what it was. She needed some more
information before she could know the right questions to ask.
Time to talk to Andrew Milner's wife.


The Milners lived in a brick pre-war semi on one of the hills
overlooking the centre of Edendalc. The front door was set

o

into an arched porch, with a round opaque window made up
of shaped pieces of coloured glass.

All the cars parked in the street had pink stickers taped to
their windscreens, and notices on the lampposts warned that
parking was by resident's permit only. But Fry found room for
her Peugeot on a small drive in front of a car port. By the corner
of the house she noticed an old brick chimney pot that had been
planted with red geraniums.

Margaret Milner took her into a lounge dominated by leaded

O	o	J

bay windows draped in net and a wheel-shaped chandelier
supporting electric candles. A display cabinet contained limited
edition figurines, miniature cottages and commemorative plates.

O	'	O	1

'Andrew's at work, of course,' said Margaret. 'He's been very
busy since what happened to Laura Vernon. But Graham says
he'll be back at the office next Monday. Apparently Charlotte is
feeling better now. But people don't really come to terms with
these things properly until after the funeral, I find.'

'Have you been in touch with the Vernons yourself?'

Margaret hesitated. 'I've tried to ring Charlotte, but nobody
ever answers the phone. You just get the answering machine.'

'I've just come from the Mount myself,' said Fry.

'Oh?' Margaret didn't seem to know what else to say. She
was wearing a long skirt and strappy shoes with flat soles,
and she had a light sweater tied round her shoulders. She


272
looked hot and uncomfortable, but then so did everybody in
this weather.

'I've been talking to Mrs Vernon.'

'Is she -- how is she taking it all?'

'Not quite in the way you might expect.'

'Oh?' said Margaret again.

Fry walked across to the bay windows and peered through
the net at the front garden. Close up, she could sec that the
geraniums were wilting and turning brown, and their petals had
formed a dark-red pool around the base of the chimney pot.

'What sort of relationship would you say your husband has
with the Vernons?' she asked.

'He works for Graham. It's a good job and Andrew works
hard.' Margaret sat down, straightening her skirt, perching
uneasily on the edge of an armchair. She looked at Fry anxiously,
worried by the fact that she insisted on remaining standing by
the window, despite the hint. 'He was out of work for a while,
you know. It made him appreciate having a secure job.'

'Just a relationship between employer and employee, then?
Or something more?'

'Well, I don't really know what you mean,' said Margaret.
'They work very closely together. You have to have a fairly
close personal relationship, I suppose.'

'A personal relationship? Friends, then? Do you socialize with
the Vernons? Have you visited their house?'

'Yes, we have. Once or twice. Graham is very hospitable.'

Fry watched her closely, noting the shift in the gaze, the

j	J '	O	O

involuntary movements of the hands that fidgeted constantly, as
if seeking something to pat back into place, something that could
be put right with a quick shake and a smoothing of the palms.

'And Charlotte Vernon?' said Fry. 'Is she equally hospitable?'

'Would you like a cup of tea?' asked Margaret with a note
of desperation.

'No, thank you.'

'I'll make one, I think.'

'If you like.'

Fry followed her into the kitchen, making Margaret Milner


273
even more nervous as she slouched against the oak-effect units
and got in the way of the fridge door being opened. Margaret
stared at her over the top of the door with a plastic bottle of
skimmed milk in her hand.

'What exactly is it that you want?'

'A bit of help, that's all,' said Pry. Tin trying to till in a
few details.'

Cold air from the open fridge was filling the space between
them, chilling Fry's skin and condensing on the steel surfaces.
Margaret seemed reluctant to reach for the handle to close it,
afraid to reach too near to Fry in case she touched her and was
contaminated by something that could not be killed by Jeyes
Fluid and bleach.

'I don't know what details I can give you. I really don't.'

Margaret actually walked away, leaving the fridge ajar, to
switch on the kettle. When Fry slammed the door, Margaret
jerked as if she had been shot, slopping water on to the
work surface.

'Would you know where to find Mr Milner just now, if you
needed to?'

Margaret glanced automatically at the clock. 'His office would
be able to tell you where he is. He has to drive around a lot.
Meetings with clients, you know. He's so busy. He may not be
home until late again tonight.'

Home late and she never knew where he was? Fry wondered
whether Andrew Milner really was as busy as he told his wife.
She wouldn't accept that anything was impossible.

'Maybe there are times when you don't know where your
husband is, but Graham Vernon does know.'

'Of course.'

'And sometimes, perhaps, it's Charlotte Vernon who knows
where he is?'

For a moment, Margaret did nothing but stare at the simmering
kettle as if it had muttered a rude word. Then she opened her
mouth and eyes wide and began to flap her fingers. 'Oh no,
what do you mean?'

'I think it's fairly straightforward. Mrs Vernon was quite open
about it.'


274
'Was she implvinej something about Andrew? It's quite ridiculous,
isn't it? She's obviously not well. She must have been
affected very badly for her to make up things like that.'

'You don't think it's true?'

'True? What nonsense! Andrew? Nonsense!'

'You realize that the wife is often the last to know?'

'Oh, but really . . . Andrew?' She laughed suddenly, foolishly.
'It's just not possible.'

'OK.' The kettle began to boil, but was ignored. A small
cloud of steam drifted across the kitchen, but dissipated before
it could warm Fry's chilled hands. 'One last detail, Mrs Milner.
Are you related to a boy called Simeon Holmes?'

'Simeon is my cousin Alison's son. They live on the Devonshire
Estate.'

'Were you aware that he was Laura Vernon's boyfriend?'

Margaret wrung her hands and stared out of the bay window.
'Not until Alison told me last night. She said he had to go to the
police station.'

'Something else you didn't know, then?'

'No, no,' cried Margaret. 'Not Andrew. It's impossible!'

Fry trod in the slithery skin of geranium petals as she left
the house. Though still scarlet on the surface, they were black
and rotting underneath. Impossible? The only thing that was
impossible was the idea that she might have been willing to sit
and take tea with Margaret Milner among her miniature cottages
and net curtains.

While she turned the Peugeot round, Fry thought of one more
place to try. This one would be a pleasure, she thought, as she
remembered the way Helen Milner had looked at Ben Cooper
in the street at Moorhay.


Helen took a phone call from her mother as soon as Diane Fry
had left the house in Edendale, and she had to spend some
minutes placating her. When she had finally hung up, Helen
rang her grandparents' number. She knew they didn't use the
telephone much, and had only been persuaded to have it put in
for emergencies, with Andrew paying the rental. When it rang,
she could picture the two old people looking at the phone in


275
alarm, reluctant to answer it. Eventually. Harrv would get up
slowly and take hold of the handset, answering the telephone
being a man's job.

'Granddad, it's Helen.'

'Helen, what's up, love?'

'It's the police, Granddad. They've been asking questions
about Dad.'

'Have they no\\ ? lhat pillock with the big words, or the nasty
piece of work that was with him?'

'Neither.'

'Was it ?'

'No, it was the woman. Detective Constable Fry.'

'Her? She's nothing but a bit of a lass.'

'Even so . . .'

Harry paused, considering. 'Aye, you're right. Best to know.'


Diane Fry found Helen Milner's cottage to be one of four tiny
homes created out of a barn conversion.

The barn had a wavy roof and there was a clutter of old
farm buildings at the back that no one had yet found a way of
using. Inside, the walls were of undressed stone, with casement

O

windows and pitch-covered beams. Most of the furniture was
second-hand stripped pine, with wicker chairs and a rush mat
on the kitchen floor.

Helen greeted her without any indication of surprise, and Fry
guessed that the phone lines had been busy during her journey
across Edendale. She expected this third member of the Milner
family to be as unforthcoming as the others, to tell the same
story of shock and ignorance, to use the same, familiar words
of outraged innocence.

But she was amazed how long the visit lasted. And she was
fascinated and enlightened by the story that Helen Milner had
to tell her over the instant coffee in the hand-thrown pottery
mugs. By the second coffee, Fry had almost forgotten what she
had come for.


276
22


The three old men had met at Moorhay post office, where they
had collected their pensions. The post office had been busy, not
just with the regular Thursday pension queue, but with hikers
emptying the cold drinks cabinet and the little freezer where the
choc ices and the strawberry-flavoured iced lollies were kept.
There was barely room inside the shop to manoeuvre round the
displays of postcards of Ladybower Reservoir and Chatsworth
House. Bulging rucksacks were piled outside while their owners
flicked through the guidebooks and the sets of National Park
place mats.

Soon the hikers would be moving on through the village to
the tea rooms and craft centre at the Old Mill, or the picnic
site at Quith Holes; then they would head for the Eden Valley
Trail, aiming to reach the Limestone Way to the south or the
Pennine Way to the north. Within half an hour, they would
have forgotten Moorhay.

Harry Dickinson had picked a small frozen chicken out of the
freezer for Gwen. It was solid and heavy in his hand, and the frost
bit painfully into his palm, numbing his fingers. But queueing at
the counter to pay for it, he found himself marooned in a sea
of young people, who bumped against him and elbowed him
carelessly in the ribs. They seemed regardless of his presence,
as if he was just another obstacle that had come between their
grasping hands and the next Diet Coke.

A small vein began to throb in Harry's temple as a girl pushed
in front of him in the queue. She was wearing a crop top that
left her midriff bare and striped leggings that made her hips and
backside look enormous. Her dyed blonde hair exploded from the
top of her head like badly baled straw, and when she opened her
mouth to call to her friends, he saw a silver stud thrust through

'	O

her tongue.

Jostling for position, she trod hard on Harry's toes with her
Doc Marten's, and when he looked down there were dirty scuff


277
marks and indentations in the shiny leather of his boots. If she had
apologized, he would never have said anything. But sho turned
awav without even seeing him. She might as well have trodden
on a piece of litter that she could wipe off later.

Harry tapped the girl on the shoulder, and she stared up at
him incredulously. Her lip turned hack in a sneer, revealing
a grey wad of chewing gum squashed between her teeth. He
noticed there was a stud through her bare navel that matched
the one in her tongue.

'Haven't you been taught any manners?' he said.

She looked at him as if he was speaking a different language.

'What's up with you, granddad?'

Her accent was local, and Harry thought he might actually have
seen her around the village before. It made no difference.

o

'If you shove in front of me and tread on my feet, you might
at least apologize.'
'I've as much right to be in here as you.'
'As much. But not more. You'll have to learn, lass.'
'Oh, get lost,' she said. She pushed her chewing gum forward
through her teeth so that it smeared across her lips. Then she
wriggled out her tongue and dragged it all back into her mouth

oo	o	oo

again, staring insolently at Harry. But she quickly lost interest
in him and turned away as the queue moved forward.

Harry hefted the solid weight of the frozen chicken in his left
hand, staring at the back of the girl's head. The tight breast of
the chicken was smooth and hard, and coated in a thick layer of
ice. He grasped the legs of the bird and let it begin to swing.

The girl screamed and cannoned forward into a youth in front
of her in the queue. Everyone in the post office turned to look as
she snarled and cursed at the old man. She was rubbing the place
on her back where the biting cold of the chicken had touched
her warm, naked flesh like a branding iron.

'Sorry,' said Harry.


Outside the shop, by the swinging Wall's ice cream sign, Sam
Beeley slipped on a discarded Coke can and hit the pavement
with a painful thump, his ivory-headed stick clattering into the
gutter. There was a flutter of consternation until two tall young


278
men with Australian accents helped him to his feet and picked
up his stick. Three girls who had leaned their hired mountain
bikes against the shop window made a great fuss of asking the
old man if he was all right and dusting him down, eyeing the

o	o	7 J o

Australians. They all circled round Sam in a kaleidoscope of
colourful shirts and brown limbs, like butterflies momentarily
attracted to a dry, leafless plant before passing on to seek new
scents elsewhere.

Finally, they left him to Harry and Wilford, who assured them
he only lived a few yards away. Though supported by his friends,
Sam didn't get very far before he had to stop and rest on a wall,
gasping with the pain from his legs. He lit a cigarette and squinted
at the churchyard across the road, where the gravestones gleamed
white in the sunlight.

o

'You'll be carrying me over yonder soon,' he said, without

J	O	J	'

self-pity.

'We're all heading that way,' said Wilford.

Till not race you. It'll happen soon enough.'

'You have to accept the fact,' said Harry, 'that when you get
to our age, death is always just around the corner.'

'Do you remember that time in the mine, when I nearly got
killed," said Sam.

'That was a good few years ago.'

Sam looked down at his legs. 'Aye, but it left me a me

o	J '

mento.'

The three men were silent, staring at the houses opposite,
not seeing the cars that went past, or the young hikers who had
to step off the pavement to get round them.

It had been over twenty years since the accident had happened
at Glory Stone Mine. They had been in a six-foot-wide
worked-out vein, nearly a hundred feet high. The face sloped
upwards in a bank of calcite like scree, with a miner drilling at
the top, fifty feet up, silhouetted against the speck of his light.
The sloping face was dimly lit, and the air was smoky from the
blasting, with the roof nothing but a dusky darkness way beyond
the reach of the lights. It was a vast and misty cavern of greys
and blacks, thick with the acrid stink of explosives and dust.

Sam had been the miner at the top of the face. He had been


279
in his fifties then, an experienced man who had spent most of
his working lite in the mines. When his drill spill the brittle
rock and the face had opened under his feet, his body had been
thrown instantly backwards, his arms and legs tumbling among
their own thrashing shadows until he hit tho foot of the slope and
had been buried by an avalanche of calcite. Wilford had found
Harry in the darkness, and together they had dug Sam out with
their hare hands and dragged him to safetv. They hadn't realized
his legs were broken until he started to scream.

'If the pain got too much,' said Wilford, to nobody in particular.
'Would you think of doing away with yourself?'

Sam looked thoughtful. 'Aye, I suppose so.'

Harry nodded. 'If there was nothing left for you. No hope.
I reckon you'd have to.'

'Depends on what you believe in, though,' said Wilford.
'Doesn't it?'

'How do you mean?'

j

'Some folk don't believe it's right to do away with yourself.'

'Ah, religion.' Sam smiled.

'Well, it's a sin, suicide,' said Wilford. 'Isn't it, Harry?'

Then Harry lit his pipe. The others waited, sensing an impending
judgement or decision. They knew Harry did his best thinking
when his pipe was lit.

'It seems to me,' he said. 'There's different sorts of sin. Sin
isn't the same as evil. God would forgive you a sin.'

They nodded. It sounded right and reasonable. None of
them had got through almost eight decades without committing
the odd sin.

'It'd take a bit of courage, though. There aren't any easy
ways.'

'There's sleeping pills.'

Harry cleared his throat contemptuously. 'That's a woman's
way out, Sam.'

'You could throw yourself off somewhere high. Raven's Side
cliff,' suggested Wilford.

'Messy. And you wouldn't necessarily kill yourself.'

They shuddered. 'You wouldn't want that.'


280
'I can't stand heights anyway. They make me dizzv.'

'That's a point.'

'There's hanging,' said Harrv. 'If you know how to tie a
knot right.'

'And you have to get the drop just right, else.'

Wilford pursed his lips, ran his fingers through his white hair,
'Else what?'

'You don't die quick, you strangle yourself. Slowly.'

'I've read somewhere that blokes pretend to hang themselves,'
said Sam. 'They almost hang themselves, but not quite. For a bit
of fun, like.'

'Bloody hell, why would they do that?'

'Sex,' said Sam solemnly. 'They say it gives you a bloody
great hard-on.'

'Ah. Well, that'd be a novelty, all right.'

'You never know. It might be worth it, for once.'

'There was a bloke in the paper,' said Sam. 'Seventy-four years
old, he was. He had fastened his nipples and his testicles up to
electrical terminals. They called it an autocratic experiment.'

'Aye? What happened?'

'He had the charge too strong. It killed him. Blew his balls

e>	o

off, for all I know.'

'Old age doesn't stop you wanting it. It just stops you doing
it properly,' said Harry.

They nodded wisely, watching the three young girls from the
post office cycle past, long legs whirling as their spinning spokes
flickered in the sun.

'That lass in the shop,' said Sam. 'The one with the big bum
and the bolt through her tongue. That was Sheila Kelk's girl,
from Wye Close.'

'Oh aye?' said Harry, uninterested.

'They live near the Sherratts.'

The council dustbin wagon rumbled and hissed somewhere
on Howe Lane. The wheelie bins still stood on the pavement
waiting for it, painted with white numbers or the names of
houses. Inside the bins was the accumulated debris that could
tell the whole story of people's lives.

'You could do it with a car,' said Wilford. 'They do that all


281
the time round here. Blokes from Sheffield and that. They drive
out somewhere on the hills where no one 11 rind them and gas
themselves with the exhaust.'

'You're right, Wilford. They do. Bloody nuisance, they are,
littering the place.'

'I haven't had a car for years,' said Sam. 'So that's a waste
of time.'

He pushed himself to his feet, leaning painfullv on his ivorv
headed stick as Harry supported his elbow. They only had a few
more yards to go to Sam's house, but it might as well have been
miles away.

'But I've got a car,' said Wilford.

o	'


Cooper waited until Rennie and the other DC were out of the
office before he phoned Helen Milner. Despite the events of the
day, his brother's comments had been preying on his mind, and
they had re-emerged as soon as he sat at his desk. He needed to

J	o

know what Helen was holding back.

She sounded cautious when she answered, but surprised him
by how readily she began to tell him about the parties at the
Mount, as if she had already rehearsed what she would say.

'They go to the Vernons for the food, plenty of alcohol and
plenty of sex,' she said. 'A bit of soft drugs too, probably. There
was no pretence about it. Everyone seemed to know what to
expect when they went to the Mount. All except me, that is.'

'Are we talking a bit of old-fashioned wife swapping?'

'I guess so. Graham and Charlotte Vernon certainly seemed
to swap with anyone who was available. It became their hobby,
I think. Some people take up trainspotting or line dancing,' she
said sourly.

Her description of the sexual activities which the guests
expected went a long way towards justifying Matt's reference
to orgies, as far as Cooper was concerned. There had been no
old people at the Mount parties, only those of the Vernons' age
or younger. Graham, it seemed, chose most of the guests personally;
some came by recommendation from friends. Listening
to Helen's account, though, it struck Cooper that the parties
weren't just a bit of fun for Graham Vernon. They also helped


282
his business. All the guests were clients or potential clients, and
attendance at the parties tied them together in what V ernoii
would no doubt have called a mutually beneficial relationship. It
put a whole new slant on the idea of corporate entertainment.
'Oh yes, it was business as well as pleasure,' said Helen
when he suggested it. 'He probably claims back the VAT on

OO	'	>

the booze.'

'Was Laura Vernon at these parties?'

'Yes, but only at the beginning. They made sure they had
her there on show when people arrived. But before the action
started, they packed her off to the home of some pony-club
friend in Edendale, where they let her stay the night. Out of
sight, out of mind, as Grandma would say.'

'We know she was sexually experienced. Do you think she
might have got involved with any of her father's friends?'

o	o	J

'One of the perks for daddy's best clients? Maybe. It sounds
about right.'

O

Helen sounded very bitter, but it was more than just distaste
at the casual treatment of a teenage girl. You didn't have to be
a police officer to know that far worse exploitation was an all
too familiar story these days. Cooper thought about his nieces,
Josie and Amy, and clenched his fists. He dreaded to think what
he would do if anyone came near those two.

'She enjoyed every minute of the attention while she was
there,' said Helen. 'But my feeling was that it was mostly a
performance for daddy. She was daddy's girl, all right. Though
Charlotte Vernon would tell you differently, I think. Charlotte
thought Laura was as good as gold, and really believed that she
had no idea what went on at those parties. I'm sure that provided
an extra spice for Laura. The excitement of living dangerously,
enjoying a big secret.'

Cooper wondered what she based this judgement on, but had
too many other questions piling up in his mind to go down a
side track.

'Daddy's girl?'

'You can take that how you like. Imagine the worst, if you
want. As far as I'm concerned, Graham Vernon is capable of
anything.'


283
'You really dislike him, don't you?'

'Dislike him? Hate him, you mean.'

He frowned. He thought that the word 'hate' didn't sit too
comfortably in Helen's mouth.

'And you, Helen?' he asked cautiously. 'How did you get
involved in these parties?'

'I was invited because 1 had met Graham Vcriion at my parents'
house a few weeks before.'

'I suppose he took a fancy to you.'

She sighed. 'I can't believe how naive I was. Dad really didn't

o	>

want me to go, but he wouldn't say why. I thought it would be
exciting, you see. A bit more glamorous than the staff room of a
primary school, anyway. When I arrived it all seemed good fun
at first. Everybody was very friendly. Attentive, even.' There
was a strange vibration of the phone, as if she were shuddering
at the recollection. 'I had a bit too much to drink, but everybody
else was the same. I sobered up pretty quickly when Graham
Vernon got me in one of the bedrooms.'

Ben Cooper thought at first he must have misheard her.
Helen's last words didn't seem to conjure up a rational picture
in his mind. The picture he had was completely wrong.
Completely.

'Hold on. Are you telling me --?'

But Helen wasn't listening. She was absorbed in her own
memories. 'He's a big man, you know. He was far too strong

o	' ^	o

for me. Before I knew what was happening, he had pushed me
down among the expensive coats on the bed, and his whole
weight was on top of me so I could barely breathe. He was
laughing all the time, as if it was some sort of joke that I was
struggling. I can remember now the smell of the wine on his
breath, the feel of his fingers digging into my arms, the sight
of his face so close to mine that I had to shut my eyes . . .'

Cooper waited in silence. He wanted to ask her to stop now,
to tell her that he had enough information, that there were times
when you could know too much. But her words continued to
spill down the phone line, cold and fast, like a stream loosened
from its winter ice.

'The worst thing was that somehow I couldn't force myself


284
to shout for help. It was because I was in his house, Ben. I was
too embarrassed to cry out or scream. Too embarrassed! It
sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Totally pathetic. I didn't want to
make a fuss.'

Finally, there was a crack in Helen's voice, a single, painful
fla\v that betrayed the truth behind the unemotional delivery.
Cooper had never felt so helpless, never so lacking in the right
things to saw.

The think about all those women who have ever been raped,'
said Helen, 'and who have then had to explain in court why they
didn't fight back or shout for help. I never understood it before
that night, Ben. I understand it now.'

Cooper remembered reading a report of a court case, the trial
of a notorious American serial killer who had been convicted of
the brutal rape and murder of several women. Sentencing the
killer to the electric chair, the judge had made a famous comment:
'The male sexual urge has a strength out of all proportion to any
useful purpose that it serves.' But for some people, it did serve
a purpose. The purpose of domination.

'I was saved in the end, when somebody started knocking
on the bedroom door. There seemed to be a group of them
out there, and something was causing them great hilarity. Of
course, I was convinced that it was me they were all laughing
at. Stupid, isn't it? And when Graham Vernon finally let me
go, I had to walk past them downstairs as if nothing had
happened. I couldn't bear the thought of all those people
looking at me, seeing the state I was in, all messed up, with
my best dress crumpled and my hair all over the place. That
was all I could think about at the time. But they wouldn't have
cared what I'd been doing, would they? Because they were all
the same as him. Graham Vernon. Don't ask me why I hate
him, Ben.'

Cooper wished he could reach out and touch her, to reassure
her that everything was OK. But maybe it wouldn't have been
the right thing to do, even if he had actually been there with
her, instead of on the end of an impersonal phone line.

'Thanks for telling me, Helen,' he said, knowing it sounded
totally inadequate.


285
'As a matter of fact, it helps to tell somebody. And you're
not difficult to talk to, Ben.'

'I'm glad.'

She paused. 'Ben --'

'Yes?'

'Do you go off duty sometime?'

'Of course. Tonight.' He hesitated, a fateful hesitation. 'But
- well, I've got something that I have to do.'
'I see.'

He hadn't forgotten his promise to Diane Fry, and he hated
to let people down. But there were times when, no matter what
you did, no matter how you tried, there was always someone
that you were letting down. And it was usually yourself.


286
23


1 he Way of the Eagle Martial Arts Centre was tucked away

J	O	J

in the basement of a former textile warehouse in Stone Bottom,
at the end of Bargate. The ground floor of the warehouse was
occupied by a computer software company, and above it, on
three more floors, were craft workshops, creative designers, a
small-scale publisher of countryside books and an employment
agency. The steps down to the dojo were always bathed in the
smell of freshly baked bread from the ventilators in the back
wall of the baker's in Hollowgate.

Diane Fry followed Ben Cooper's Toyota as it turned off
Bargate and bounced down the carefully relaid stone setts
between a corner pub and three-storey terraced houses whose
front doors were reached by short flights of steps lined with
iron railings. On the left, a steep alley ran back up towards the
Market Square and Edendale's main shopping streets.

The daytime car park for the craftspeople and office workers
was closed by a barrier, but a small patch of derelict land had
been partially cleared next to the old warehouse. They parked
their cars in the middle of an area of mud-filled potholes fringed
by broken bricks and shoulder-high thistles. There were several
other vehicles there already, and the sound of dull thumps and
hoarse screams filtered through the steel grilles of windows set
near ground level.

The buildings were clustered so close together in Stone Bottom
that they seemed grotesquely out of proportion from the
ground as they leaned towards each other, dark and shadowy
against the sky, set with long, blank rows of tiny windows. The
slamming of their car doors echoed loudly against the walls and
reverberated down the stone setts to the narrow bridge over the

o

River Eden.

Fry collected her sports bag from her boot and joined Cooper
at the door. Though the baker's had stopped work for the
evening, they could still smell the warm, yeasty scent of the


287
bread lingering around the basement steps and in the dark corners
between the buildings.

'That's making me feel hungry. I haven't had anything since
lunchtime, and I only managed to grab a sandwich between

'	>	o	o

interviews.'

Cooper shrugged. He had been at the hospital at lunchtime
and he hadn't eaten any lunch at all. In fact, he hadn't even
thought about food. The hunger that was gnawing at his bcllv
now wasn't caused by the smell of baking, but by the need to
prove that there was something he could do right. Something
he could do better than Diane Fry.

'What have you been doing todav then, Diane?'

J	& j	'

'I interviewed Charlotte Vernon this morning. You wouldn't
believe that woman, Ben. She tried to put on an act for me.
Wanted me to believe that she was some sort of hard-faced,
sex-mad bitch who didn't care about anything, let alone her
daughter. Anybody could have seen through it. The woman
is broken up inside. But why would someone put on an act
like that?'

He paused, regarding Fry curiously. 'I could think of several
reasons.'

'Such as?'

'She may feel she has to play the part that's expected of her.
People do that all the time. They try to live up to an image
they've created for themselves, or meet the expectations that
other people have of them, as if they have no real personality
of their own. Or she may have been diverting your attention
from something else. On the other hand, it could have been a

o	'

double-bluff. She may have been hiding the truth by pushing it
in your face so hard that you would refuse to accept it.'

'Amazing, Ben. You make people sound really complicated.
In my experience, their motivations are usually very simple
and boring.'

'Motivations like ambition and greed? The old favourites? They
can certainly make people ruthless and selfish, can't they?'

Fry bridled at his tone of voice, though she didn't know what
he was getting at. 'And sex, of course,' she said.

'Oh yes, let's not forget sex.' Cooper collected two locker


288
keys and signed Fry into the visitors' book, stabbing the page with
the point or the pen. 'But sex isn't so simple either, is it?'

'For some of us it's very simple, I can assure you. But not
for the Vernons and Milners, apparently.'

Cooper paused to greet another dojo member passing through
towards the changing rooms. He was a tall young man, a fellow
brown-belt student. All the students and instructors here knew
Ben Cooper -- he often thought of them as a second familv,
united by a common attitude and purpose. The chief instructor,
the sensei, was the closest thing he had to a father now.

'Why do you include the Milners?' he asked.

'Oh yes. Charlotte Vernon named Andrew Milner as one of
her many lovers. He and his wife have denied it. But his daughter
had some very interesting things to say. Did you know Simeon
Holmes is her cousin?'

'You've talked to Helen Milner today?'

'That's right. What's the matter?'

o

Cooper had his mobile phone in his bag, since it wasn't safe
to leave it in the car. And his memory was quite good enough
to remember Helen's phone number.

'You go ahead, Diane,' he said. T've told Sensei Hughes you're
coming. You go and get warmed up. I've got a phone call to
make first. I may be a few minutes.'

Fry looked surprised. 'Well, OK. Whatever.'


The atmosphere in the changing room was the familiar one of
sweat and soap. At one side were three rows of metal lockers
for members' valuables. A thick makiwara practice punching board
had been left against the wall by the door.

Cooper started to get undressed while he listened to the
phone ringing. With one hand he unbuttoned his shirt and

r	o o

began to unroll his gi, the loose white suit that was obligatory
in the training hall. It was tied up in his brown cloth belt,
the mark of a successful fourth-grade student, just one level
below the various tiers of clans, the black-belt masters. The
ringing went on for so long that he nearly pressed the button
to stop the call.
'Hello?'


289
'Helen?'

'Ben? What a surprise -- twice in one day. You only just
caught me, I was about to go out.'

'Oh. Anywhere interesting?'

She laughed. 'Parent-Teacher Association darts night, would
you believe? We take a team round local pubs and clubs to raise
money for the school.'

'I never knew you could play darts."

'I can't. I think I'm supposed to be the comic turn.'

'I won't keep you. There's something else I wanted to ask
you. About the Vernons.'

'Yes?'

'These parties you described at the Mount. You said your
father knew about them?'

'Oh yes, he'd been there himself. Vernon thought it was a huge
joke, inviting him and Mum along. Dad was totally shocked. He
really freaked out over it when he got home. He said it was the
most embarrassing night of his life, the biggest insult he could
imagine, all that sort of stuff. Yes, I thought you might ask about
that. It was the cause of what happened afterwards, really.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, I'm sure that was the reason Graham Vernon invited
me later. It was aimed at Dad, of course. To annoy him even
more. I think that was the worst thing of all. He was taunting
Dad through me.'

'But your father let you go?'

'He didn't dare say anything. Vernon invited me in front of
him, don't forget. Poor Dad. He was always such a coward. It
may have been the biggest insult he could imagine, but still he
couldn't make a stand over it.'

'Did you tell your father what happened when you went to
the Mount?'

'Oh yes. I told them both. I was angry, you see. So it all
came out.'

'What did he do?'

'Do? He protested to Graham Vernon.'

'Protested? Is that all?'

'A mild protest, no doubt. He's never been allowed to forget


290
that. Not by my mother, or by rny grandparents. Certainly not by
Granddad, who despises him for it. He thinks Dad's a complete
wimp. So the poor man has been taunted with it ever since. I feel very sorry for him.'

'Are you saying that he simply didn't want to jeopardize his job
by falling out with Vernon -- even over something like that?'

'Of course. You obviously don't realize, Ben, but it's terrible
what the fear of losing a job can do to a man of that age. Dad
thinks if Vernon sacks him, he'll never work again. And that's

*	O

all he lives for, his job. None of us would want him to become
another suicide statistic. It happens to so many men now. When
they lose their jobs, they lose their self-respect, and there's
nothing left.'

'And your grandfather? What did he say?' asked Cooper. 'He
doesn't seem to me to be the sort of man who would be content
with a mild protest.'

'No, not Granddad. He was furious. He said that he would
have killed Graham Vernon, if he'd been there.'

Her voice faded then, and he could picture the sudden concern
in her eyes as she remembered who she was talking to and what
he was. For a few minutes, she had forgotten he was a policeman
and had thought of him only as Ben Cooper, as a friend. A warm
flood of gratitude ran through him.

'I know, I know,' he said. 'It's just an expression. Just
something that people say. It doesn't mean they really will
kill anybody.'

'Oh no,' said Helen faintly. 'I think he would have done it.'

Cooper listened to Helen's breathing at the other end of the
line. The sound reminded him of the afternoon at Moorhay, when
he had stood so near her in the narrow hallway of Dial Cottage.
He remembered being able to feel the heat from her body, and
being aware of the way her breasts lifted and moved beneath

O	J

her halter top as she had turned to close the front door.

'Apparently Cousin Simeon had been seeing Laura Vernon,'

she said. 'I didn't know that.'

'It meant he was bound to come into the enquiry.'

'Of course. We don't see a lot of his parents, you know.' Helen

paused, and her tone softened and became more hesitant. 'It was


291
kind of you to visit Grandma yesterday, Ben. I didn't reallv think
you would do it. But 1 remember now that you were always very
thoughtful. You were never quite like the other hoys I knew.'

Cooper felt himself blushing. 'To be honest, I was there
looking for your grandfather.'

'Oh. You were on duty then. She didn't say that.'

'Yes.'

'Does that mean you've been questiunino Grandma?'

i	&

'Not . . . exactly.'

Helen sounded desperately disappointed in him. He cast
around for something to say that would make things better.
He needed to know exactly where he stood with Helen. What
Matt had said had left him confused. Could there possibly be
a bit of light at the end of the dark tunnel, a light that Helen

o	'	o

could provide? He needed that gleam of hope, and he needed
it now. But in his present state of mind, the subtleties of the
situation were beyond his grasp. He had only two options -- ring
off now, or take the bull by the horns.

Before he could make the decision, the door of the changing
room banged open and the tall brown-belt student came in from
the hall, sweating and grinning.

'	o	o	o

'Hey, Ben, I thought that friend of yours was just a novice.
You never said she was so good.'

'What?'

'Sensei Hughes is very impressed.'

'Ben -- are you still there?'

'Yeah -- sorry, Helen, I'm on a mobile. Just a second.'

Cooper eased the door open and peered through the big
windows into the training hall. There was some kind of distorting
effect of the glass that magnified the scene in the hall,
exaggerating the size of the figures moving around there. He
could see Diane Fry in her gi, going through her kata sequences,
the formal exercises used to limber the body up for action. She
performed a downward block, the cat stance, straddle stance and
rising block. Every movement was poised and perfectly balanced,
the result of well-trained muscles flowing with precision and
power, like an animal's. Around her waist, she was wearing the
black belt of the top-grade karatekas.


292
'A fourth clan too,' said the student over his shoulder 'She's
terrific, Ben. Where did you find her?'
'Helen '
'Was there something else, Ben? Only I'm on my way out,

O	>	^	J	J	'

remember?'

'I was wondering,' he said, 'if you'd like to meet up sometime,
perhaps go for a drink or a meal. What do you think?'

Helen seemed to consider the suggestion, but answered with
another question.

'You think Granddad was involved in Laura Vernon's death,
don't you?'

Cooper felt a flush of embarrassment creeping up his neck,
and was glad that she couldn't see him.

o

'We have to follow up all the possibilities.'

The katas were beautiful when performed correctly. A work
of art in themselves. And Fry was performing them perfectly.
Knife hand, hook punch, elbow strike, finger jab. Front kick,
side kick, back kick, crescent kick. Getting faster and more fluid

'	'	O

as the body loosened up. Every turn of the wrist was tightly
controlled, every jab of a sharp heel executed with flawless
technique and timing. Not an animal at all. A machine.

'But most of the other policemen would leave him alone,
Ben,' said Helen. 'They don't think he's worth bothering with.
The pressure to keep questioning him comes from you.'

'What makes you say that?'

'The woman detective -- she told me it was you.'

Roundhouse, spearhand, hammer strike and stamping kick.
A twisting hand to the groin, a chop to the throat. Diane Fry
executed practice strikes at all the vulnerable points of the body -- face, neck, solar plexus, spinal column and kidneys. Every
blow was fast and hard, and perfectly focused. And every one
of them lethal.

'She had no right to say that.' No right? That was a ludicrous
understatement. It was against all codes of behaviour. And she

o

couldn't have ruined his chances with Helen more effectively
if she had been trying. But then a hard knot of anger twisted
in his stomach as it occurred to him that perhaps she had been trying.


293
'It's true, though, isn't it, Ben? I can tell it is from your
voice.

'Helen, I just know that there's something wrong. Something
that involves your grandfather.'

'Is there? How can you know?'

But Cooper shook his head, unable to answer He was watching
Fry, and he was flushing an even deeper red, though now the
embarrassment was giving way to an intense rage.

'Let me know when it is that you stop being a policeman,
Ben,' said Helen. 'In the meantime, I think it would be better if I
said "no" to your suggestion, don't you? In the circumstances.'

Circumstances. What a word, he thought. So often used in
a pretentious and meaningless way. Yet all of life could be
reduced to that one word. Difficult circumstances. The wrong
circumstances. Killed by circumstances.

Around Diane Fry an admiring half-circle of dojo members
had gathered, Cooper's fellow students, his second family. Sensei Hughes stood watching her, applauding when she had
finished her kata. She bowed at the waist, stretched on her toes,
breathing deeply, invigorating her muscles, letting the power
spread diroughout her body. She was ready for the next thing,
ready for her kumite, her sparring bout. Ready to humiliate Ben
Cooper in front of his friends.

The tall student looked on in amazement as Ben Cooper tossed
down the phone, spun on his heel and lashed out with a clenched
fist at the practice punching board, denting the soft wood. His
scream was not the one taught at the Way of the Eagle dojo, but it came from the soul.


Helen had listened very carefully to Ben Cooper's voice as he
ended the call. She could tell he was trying to sound calm, like
a man who hadn't just been rejected and hurt. But he had never
been able to conceal his feelings very well.

Sensing his suffering, she felt all the more sorry for having
caused it. She felt sorry because of what he had said about Harry.
And because she knew that Ben was right.


294
Fry had been chatting to Sensei Hughes for ten minutes before it
occurred to her to wonder what had happened to Ben Cooper.
The sensei sent one of the students to look in the changing room,
but Cooper had already left.

Fry shrugged, baffled. 'He was making a phone call, so perhaps
he was called away.'

'Something urgent. Life in the police force can be very
unpredictable. We understand that,' said Hughes.

She was getting on well with the instructors and the other
students, who all wanted to know where she had been trained.
The sensei offered to include her in the next grading night, when
he felt she could rise to fifth clan grade. At the end of the session,
she went with a group of students to the pub on the corner, the
Millstone Inn, where they ate lasagne and chips and talked about
competitive sport of all kinds.

Only when she had got outside in the street and paused to
say goodbye on the corner of Bargate did the tall brown-belt
student tap Fry on the shoulder and mention Ben Cooper's
behaviour. He was a serious-minded young man, and felt that

J	e>	'

what he had seen in the changing room demonstrated a lack of
the self-discipline and the positive attitude taught by the dojo. He had known Ben for two years, and he was worried.

Suddenly Fry grew frightened. Through her mind ran a series
of scenes from the last few days. There were a series of flickering
images of Ben Cooper, first as the capable, self-possessed
detective whose reputed success and popularity had been rammed
down her throat until the sound of his name infuriated her.

But gradually the picture changed, and Cooper turned into
the morose, nervous, unpredictable man who had walked out
of the dojo in an angry and violent state of mind. She knew that
she had played her part in his deterioration; indeed, she had to
acknowledge that she had done it deliberately. She had seen him
as a challenge.

o

'Do you know where he might go? A pub somewhere?'
The student shrugged. 'There are a lot of pubs he knows
around Edendale. But his training's too important to him, so

he doesn't drink a lot.'


295
After four or five pints, Cooper was beginning to feel that nothing
mattered. After seven pints and a couple of whisky chasers, the black
dogs appeared from every corner of the pub, prowling and snarling,
waiting for him to turn his back on them, for the chance to pounce.
He had eaten nothing all day, and the beer sloshing in his
stomach made his head dip and swell. His hands and neck were
flushed with the effects of the alcohol, his hands trembled and
his lips were turnim' numb. Now the whiskv was burning its \\av

I	O	j	<-	*

through his system, stimulating his muscles and making him feel
as though he could pull down walls.

The pub wasn't one of his regular haunts. He couldn't
remember having been in it for years. As a result, though,

O	J	o '

he had not been recognized as he sat on his own, steadily
deadening his thoughts and stupefying his feelings. Most people
who saw his scowl and his unsteady hands would have left him
alone with his personal black dog.

But nearby were a group of youths who were becoming rowdy
and belligerent as the evening went on and they, too, became fuelled
by alcohol. In one of those ways that Cooper had never understood,
they had spotted him as a policeman. Their voices grew loud in
derision when he failed to react to the mocking exchanges.

'Pork on the menu tonight?' they shouted to the bar staff.

o	J

'Nice bit of bacon? Kill a pig for me, love.'

'Oink, oink. I wondered what the smell was.'

'Look at his snout in that beer.'

'Oi, pig, got an old sow at home?'

'Oink, oink.'

The youths thought they were hilarious. Ben Cooper had
heard it all before, ever since he was a young bobby on the
beat, walking round the Edendale housing estates or patrolling
the town centre on a Saturday night. Never before, though, had
he felt such a powerful, swelling anger that threatened to burst
out of him at one more provocation. Charged up by the whisky,
he felt that he would actually welcome an outburst of violence.
It would be a blessed release.

The youths, getting no response to their pig jokes, had
switched tactics.

'Is that a truncheon in your pocket, or do you fancy me?'


296
'Ooh, put the handcuffs on me. I've been a naughty how.'

'Nah, he's not interested. The pigs are all too busy finding
out who did for that tart at Moorhay. I don't think.'

'What, Laura Vernon? Her?'

One of the youths guffawed and made an obscene gesture.

'Laura Vernon? She'd fuck with anything, that one. Young
blokes, old blokes, her own dad.'

'She'd even fuck with animals.'

They thought this was totally hilarious. 'Yeah, even pigs.
Get it? Pig?'

One youth pushed his face closer to Cooper, leaning provocatively
across his glass-strewn table, leering in sweaty proximity.
He had a ring through his left nostril and small, pitted scars
round his mouth.

'Don't you get it, then? Pig?'

Then he made his mistake. His face creased and his eyes
narrowed as he peered at Cooper again, recognition dawning
slowly.

'Hey, just a minute, aren't you that Sergeant Cooper's --'

The empty glass was in Cooper's hand before he knew it, and
he was on his feet, clutching at the youth's shirt front with his
other hand. A chair went over, and the swinging glass smashed
on the edge of the table. The youth's friends threw themselves

O	J

forward, grabbing at Cooper's arms, bringing up their knees,
snarling and spitting with ferocity as they reacted like a pack to
a sudden threat.

Ben Cooper faced them, boiling with rage, a lethal crown of
broken glass grasped tightly in his fist.


Becky Kclk was fourteen. She lived on Wye Close, almost next
door to Lee Sherratt. She went to the same school as Simeon
Holmes. She had heard all about the girls that had been attacked,
the one at Buxton and the one right here in Moorhay, that girl
at the Mount. It had never occurred to her until now that she
could be the next victim.

The policeman still guarding the murder scene found her by
her screams. She was in a hollow behind a screen of brambles,
not far from the path that led on to the Baulk. Her pants had


297
been removed and her striped leggings were torn. Her crop
top and bra were disturbed, and there were grass stains on
her shoulders and the imprint of a tree root in the small of
her back. 'I've been raped,' she said.

The PC pulled out his radio immediately, scanning the area
lor signs of the assailant.

O

'How long since?'

o

'Just no\v.'

'Did you recognize him?'

'It was the old man,' she said.

'What old man?'

Becky Kelk knew where the old man lived, though she didn't
know his name. She pointed unerringly up the hill towards the
village, where Dial Cottage stood in the middle of its terraced
row, its roof picked out by the last of the evening light.


They found Harry Dickinson waiting patiently in his front room.
He was dressed in his best Sunday suit, his thin hair slicked back,
a blue tie knotted carefully at his throat. The toecaps of his shoes
were gleaming, and the Guardian was folded neatly on the table.
He sat solemn and stiff in his hard-backed chair, his expression
that of a man in a hospital waiting room, expecting the inevitable
bad news.

When Gwen let the police into the front room, he showed
no surprise, and no emotion. He merely knocked out his pipe
and laid it on the rack on the mahogany cabinet. He picked
up his cap, smoothed the knees of his trouser legs and stood
up slowly.

'You didn't take long. I'll give you that.'


298
24


Hey, hev, that's enough of that!'

J	J '	O

The burly landlord was wading his way in between them, a
shaggy-haired Alsatian snarling at his heels and snapping at any
available leg. Cooper pushed the youth roughly away and put
the glass back on the table. They stood around in a panting
group, shaking and trembling as the adrenaline continued to
pump through their veins.

'You lot -- out!' said the landlord. 'You're banned.'

'Bloody hell. We were just messing. It wasn't anything serious,'
said the leading youth.

'I don't care what it was. I won't have it in here. This is a
respectable pub.'

'What about him, then? PC Plod here.'

'I've told you -- out. Now!'

The three of them trooped out sullenly, grumbling loudly
and slamming the door behind them. The landlord and his dog
watched them with similar glowers on their faces until they had
gone. The normal noises of the bar gradually resumed, couples
leaning towards each other in open-mouthed excitement. The
juke box had been playing an old Rolling Stones hit for the past
few minutes. 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction'. A barmaid came out
with a pan and brush to sweep up the broken glass.

'Sorry,' said Cooper.

'I don't know you, lad, but I take it you're with the police.'

'Yeah.'

'You ought to know better, then.'

O	'

Cooper slumped back into his chair, feeling suddenly weak in
the legs. The landlord looked down at him, assessing him with
a professional eye, weighing up exactly how drunk he was.

'I'll get someone to fetch you a coffee. Then you'd better
go home.'

'No, thanks. One more whisky, then I'll go.'

'Have sense.'


299
'I'll he all right.'

'You're not driving, are you?'

O	J

'Of course not.'

'I suppose that'll be all right then. But that's it. No more.'


Diane Fry had done things in the right order. She had phoned
Ben Cooper's home first. She'd spoken to his brother, Matt, who
sounded equally worried when she told him she was trying to
find Ben. Then she dialled his mobile, but got no reply. That
meant a tour of two dozen pubs. It was one way of getting to
know the town better.

It was lucky that Cooper's red Toyota was distinctive. She
spotted it eventually in a pub car park behind the bus station,
where the stink of diesel fumes from the green TransPeak buses
mingled with the smell of new plastic and burnt oil from the
factory units on the Edenside Industrial Estate.

The Unicorn was near the corner of two streets of terraced
houses, some of which had their ground floors converted into
shops -- motor spares, insurance, a Chinese takeaway. The
corner property had been demolished at some time, and the
site had become a car park for the pub. There was no lighting
at the end of the street or on the brick walls of the pub, and the
glare from the bus station two hundred yards away only made
the darkness blacker. But Fry saw the Toyota gleam suddenly
in her headlights as she turned into the street and pulled up
outside the takeaway.

j

It was one of those bars where everyone turned to look at
you when you walked in. At least, they did if you were a woman
on your own. Even the landlord gave Fry a hard stare as she
scanned the room to find Cooper at his table in the corner. His
face looked bloated and his eyes were half closed as he nursed
the remains of a single whisky. She could see straightaway that
he was hopelessly drunk.

'Ben?'

He looked up blearily as she stood over him. 'What the hell
do you want?'

She ignored the aggressive tone in his voice. 'What do you
think you're doing, Ben?'


300
'Getting pissed. What has it got to do with you?'

'Are you mad? Are you intending to make a complete idiot
of yourself?'

'Probably. So what?'

There were too many people close enough to overhear. She
,^at down, leaning across the table to deliver her message eye to
eye. 'You're a police officer. Don't you realize, if this gets back
to Division, you'll get your arse kicked all the \\ay back to the
beat. Bang goes the promotion, Ben.'

'Oh yeah? It's damn well gone bang already. So why should
1 bother? Anyway, it's what you want, isn't it?'

'What are you talking about?'

'Oh, I can't be bothered talking to you. Just get lost and
leave me alone, will you?'

She tugged at his sleeve. 'Come on, Ben, let's get out of this
place. I'll drive you home.'

But he reacted violently, jerking his arm away, almost knocking
over his whisky. 'I'm not going anywhere with you, bitch.'

Now she began to feel angry. 'I'm not going to put up
with this, Ben. Are you going to come, or have I got to drag
you out?'

'Leave me alone!'

He was on his feet, stumbling against the table, oblivious to
the stares of the other customers. The landlord was coming out

O

from behind the bar again to speak to him.

'I don't want you anywhere near me, Fry,' he said, with as
much dignity as he could manage. 'Just stay away. All right?'

Fry gritted her teeth and restrained herself from slapping his
flushed face as he drained the last of his whisky and staggered
out of the pub into the night. She knew she ought to go after
him and remove his car keys -- forcibly, if necessary -- to prevent
him from trying to drive home in his present state. But another
part of her wanted to let him go and get stuffed.

'Are you a friend of his?' It was the landlord, leaning over
her shoulder.

'Sort of.'

'Well, take my advice -- he shouldn't be wandering about out
there in that state.'


301
'I'm not his nursemaid. It might seem like it, but I'm not.'
'Listen, take him home, or let us call him a taxi or something.
But he shouldn't be out there on his own, I'm telling you.'
'OK, OK.'
She walked out of the Unicorn and stood in the lighted

o

doorway, staring out at die dark street, conscious of the eyes
on her back. The streetlights ended just below the pub, and the
other side of the car park was in complete darkness. An alley ran
along the edge of the car park. It wound its way between two
high brick walls towards the back entrance to the bus station.

'Ben!'

There was no answer. She crossed to the car park, where
Cooper's Toyota stood empty and locked.

She glanced back down the street towards her own car, but

o	'

there was no sign of a figure staggering between the streetlights,
no one slumped outside the darkened window of the Chinese
takeaway or the insurance brokers.

'Where the hell '

Then she heard the noise. Taunting laughter moving in the
shadows. The sound of stumbling feet, animal grunts and stifled
cries. A confused thudding and thumping, echoing dully from
a wall somewhere. A chill ran across her neck as she stared
into the blackness of the alley. She ran to the corner of the
car park, peering into the gloom. Shapes were moving in the
darkness, coming together and moving apart again, convulsing
and thrashing their arms and legs as if involved in a primitive
dance. She could distinguish four figures. Three of them had
blurred features -- collars turned up over their faces, caps pulled
low on their foreheads. They struck and kicked at the fourth
figure, one after the other, mechanical and brutal, aiming to
hurt. The fourth figure was Ben Cooper.

'Ben!'

Three faces turned towards her; the fourth slumped against
the wall, oblivious to her presence, waiting for the blow that
would bring him to the floor, ready for the boots to go in.

Fry began to move forward, then paused and froze, thinking
furiously. She had two choices. What she ought to do was to
announce herself as a police officer, call for assistance, attempt


302
to make an arrest before Ben Cooper was too badlv injured, if
she could. But to do so would make Cooper's behaviour a matter
of public record. He deserved a chance. Maybe no more than
one chance. But a chance.

She did have a second option. It was dangerous, but if she was
going to do it, she had to do it now. She ran into the alleyway,
feeling the energy already pouring into her limbs, drawing in
the deep breaths that expanded her lungs and quickened her
muscles. The three youths turned towards her, astonished at
her charge.

'Who's that?'

'It's a woman.'

'She must be another copper.'

'A copper!'

She could smell them in the darkness, see their shapes moving
towards her through the shadows. Her brain began to flood with
memories. It was the same old film that had run and rerun
through her mind constantly, no sooner reaching its climactic
end than it would start all over again. She felt hot and dirty,
and suddenly hurting. A great rage came over her, swamping
her resistance, and she badly needed something to hit out at.

The youths were grinning, even as they breathed hard through
their flared nostrils and gaping mouths. They weren't taking her
seriously, even though she was now within reach. One of them
turned away to give a final kick at Cooper's battered body. Fry
reacted. She hit him in the kidneys with a jumping lunge punch,
swept his legs from under him and broke his nose with a vicious
knifehand strike.

With a startled shout, a second youth came at her from the left.
But he had hesitated too long, and she diverted his swinging fist

O'	S> O

with an upper forearm block. She swivelled, cracked his kneecap
with a side-snap kick and knocked him out with an elbow strike
to the jaw.

Then an arm closed round her throat as she was grabbed from
behind. The third youth was strong and much taller and heavier
than she was. The impact of his body forced her up against the
wall, trapping her arms and banging her forehead on the bricks.
When she was firmly pinned, her attacker shifted his grip and


303
began to squeeze her throat. A miasma of beer fumes filled her
nose and his breath pressed hot on the back of her neck. The
feel of his body pushed up against hers and the smell of his
sweat-soaked hands in front of her face brought back all the
remembered terrors, all the black nightmares that had haunted
her for over a year, die demons That gibbered and shrieked at

J	'	O

the back of her brain every time she closed her eyes or found
herself in the dark.

Now panic drove her to excess. She took a deep breath through
her nose before folding suddenly forward at the waist, kicking
backwards into his groin with her heel and driving her elbow
hard into his solar plexus. He grunted in pain, and his grip
loosened. She spun round, using a full rising block to break
his grip completely. As he stumbled backwards, she aimed
a spearhand strike at his exposed throat, releasing the kiai shout from her diaphragm as the technique focused on the
soft target.

o

From the moment she launched the final blow, she knew that
it would be fatal.


Harry hadn't expected them to take his clothes away. It was
years since he had stripped naked in front of strangers. Standing
in the tiny surgery in E Division Headquarters, he watched
in bafflement as each item he removed was carefully bagged,
labelled and sealed. First they took his cap, his suit jacket and
his trousers. Then his beautifully polished shoes and his socks.
They took his shirt and even his tie. They examined each piece
of clothing meticulously, feeling into the pockets and the seams
with their latex-gloved hands.

o

The surgery smelled powerfully of disinfectant, with a faint
underlying taint of old vomit. Despite the warmth, the old man
shivered as his white, shrunken thighs and sinewy arms were
exposed to the harsh glare of the strip lighting. The hair on his
legs was grey and coarse, and there were bare white patches on
his calves where the skin was as smooth as a baby's, waxy and
pallid, as if it had never seen the sun.

With each layer that was stripped away, Harry retreated
a little bit more into an inner remoteness. A detached calm


304
descended over him like a series of veils that concealed his
inner self, preserving and even heightening his dignity. He
stared fixedly ahead, ignoring the Scenes of Crime officer and
the detective who took and examined and folded his clothes. He
remained completely silent, his thin lips clamped shut, uttering
no protest. The detective logged every item, writing carefully
on the labels as if pricing up a pile of second-hand clothes that
Harrv was donating for a charity shop.

.	O	^	1

Finally they made him take off his vest and his underpants.
They seemed particularly interested in his Y-fronts, turning them
inside out and closely inspecting the folds of the front flap for
stains before sealing them away with the rest of his clothes.

When Harry was completely naked, they gave him a white
waxed paper overall that felt icy cold against his bare skin and
rustled as he moved. The sleeves barely covered his wrists, and
the collar left his white neck and throat exposed.

They explained to him again that he was a suspect in an
allegation of rape. They asked him if he was sure that he
agreed to provide samples for analysis, which would help to
eliminate him from enquiries. He agreed, not following the
meaning of their phrases, thinking they were talking about his
clothes, which already sat in a stack of plastic bags ready for the
forensic laboratory.

But worse was to come.

'Have you any ailments?' asked Dr Inglefield, pulling on his
disposable gloves.

Harry stared at him. 'I've had my check-up. I go to my own
doctor, thanks all the same.'

The need to know if you have any ailments. Any skin conditions
-- psoriasis, eczema, herpes? Do you suffer from diabetes or
haemophilia? Any sexually transmitted diseases? Hepatitis? Are
you HIV-positive?'

'I'm fit,' said Harry gruffly.

'Are you under medication at all? Who is your GP? And you're
sure you have no ailments? Nothing at all? It would be unusual in
a man of your age ..."

Harry shook his head.

'Very well, then. Visual examination first.'


305
'What's all this in aid of? I thought you'd just want to ask
your questions.'

'That comes later.'

They made Harry sit down while the doctor examined his
head. His thin hair was combed through to obtain loose hairs,
which went into small plastic bags. Then a couple of hairs were
plucked out, the doctor scrutinizing them against the light to
make sure the roots were still attached before dropping them
into another bag. The DC attached more exhibit labels for the
doctor to sign.
Harry waited stoically, giving them no further response, his
face grave and dignified as if he was sitting in church waiting for
a tedious sermon to be over. After a while, his manner began
to affect the detective and the doctor, and they became nervous
and silent as they went about their business.

Dr Inglefield produced a set of swabs like large cotton
buds, which he scraped over Harry's open palms and between
his fingers.

'Open the suit, please.'

'What's this for?'

'I need more hair samples.'

Harry didn't move.

'Pubic hair. Mr Dickinson?'

Very slowly, Harry stood up and unfastened the front of the
paper suit. The doctor bent to examine his shrunken genitals.
Again he produced the comb. He had to pull it through Harry's
pubic hair several times before he was satisfied. Then, with his
gloved fingers, he plucked a grey hair. Harry flinched -- the first
involuntary movement he had made since he had entered the
surgery.

Another swab appeared. The old man stared into the distance
as the doctor took hold of his penis and swabbed round
the glans.

'I'm going to take a sample of blood now.'

A syringeful of blood was removed from Harry's arm and
split into two small plastic jars -- one for DNA testing and
one for blood-grouping comparison. The detective collected the
packages together and stored them in a fridge until they were


306
able to go to the forensic lab. Now there was just one more
sample left to collect. The doctor presented a small bowl.

'Spit into this for me please, Mr Dickinson.'

But that was one sample that Harry had no trouble in
providing.


Afterwards, Diane Fry couldn't stop trembling from a mixture
of rage and fear. She looked down at her hands in horror, appalled
at what they had done. Where was the control? Where was the
discipline? Where was the high-minded motivation? She needed
reassurance, but all she had was Ben Cooper, comatose in the
passenger seat of her Peugeot.

The most difficult part of the job had been getting Ben to
the car and away. He would just have to pick up his Toyota
tomorrow, when he was sober and a bit more mobile.

She had no idea where he lived, and could see no alternative
to taking him home with her. The very last thing she wanted was
to have anyone in her bare, soulless flat, let alone Ben Cooper.
But what else could she do?

Cooper sat with his head lolling, a trickle of blood running
down the side of his head on to his neck. A large bruise was
forming over one eye, and his lips were split and swollen. Fry had
never seen anyone look such a mess. She prayed that he wouldn't
throw up in her car. On the way up Castle ton Road she damned
him to hell and back for getting her into this situation.

o	to

The only consolation she had was that she managed to divert
her final blow at the last moment. But the strike to the side of
the third youth's neck had been sufficient to lay him out on the
floor of the alley with the other two.

She became aware of the Suzanne Vega tape on the cassette
player. It had come on automatically with the ignition, but it
sounded too depressing.

Impatiently, she flicked out the tape and replaced it with
Tanita Tikaram, turning the volume up loud so that it beat
against the car windows. The album was 'Ancient Heart', and
Fry listened to Tikaram start to sing a familiar track. It had a line
that always continued to run through her mind long afterwards: 'Now Your Conscience is Clear'. She glanced at Cooper, saw his eyes


307
flickering half-open, as if the music was getting through to him.
But his pupils were unfocused, and he stared straight ahead tor
a moment, seeing nothing, as the noise thumped around him.
Then his head drooped again.

When they reached Grosvenor Road, Fry shook Cooper and
managed to rouse him enough to negotiate the front door and
the stairs partly under his own steam, though he needed her arm
wound tight around his chest. She could feel his heart heating
under her hand through a tear in his shirt, and the sweet smell

O

of beer on his breath made a heady blend with his distinctive
male odour. It was a scent she had not smelled so closely for
a long time.

o

She took him straight to the bedroom and dumped him on the
bed, disentangling his rubbery limbs from around her body. Then
she began to pull off his clothes -- his scuffed shoes, his jacket and
his torn shirt, pulling and tugging violently at his jeans until they
turned inside out and came away from his feet. Then she brought
a bowl of warm water and a cloth and bathed the blood from his
forehead and cleaned the weeping grazes on his back and legs.
She noticed that his body was taut with lean muscle, and she
guessed the injuries starting to appear on his chest and sides
would prove to be nothing worse than bruises in the morning.
No bones broken. Then, as she worked on a cut on his thigh,
Fry became aware of the growing bulge that stirred in the front

J	o	o	o

of his briefs. Cooper was getting an erection.

She looked up at his face. He had stirred and was regarding
her with a bitter, aggressive stare through half-closed eyes. His
face was red and his hair fell wildly across his forehead. At first
she didn't think he even recognized who she was. Then his eyes
came momentarily into focus and fixed on her face.

'Fry? What have you got that I haven't got? Why don't you
ever get so that you can't take all the shit any more? Are your
tits made of steel, or what?'

She jerked away to the edge of the bed as if he had slapped
her. She turned her back on him, clenching her fists and gritting
her teeth, attempting to control her anger at the taunt. The
blood flushed through her face and neck and into her throat at
the ingratitude. Her palms itched to reach out and hold on to


308
something, to prove the unfairness of the jibe. He was totally
wrong. She was not a passionless bitch, not some machine with
no feelings. He was so, so wrong.

o	o

She was conscious of Cooper's bare, lean body only inches
away, and tensely aware of the dark, curling hair spreading down
his abdomen towards his tautly swelling erection.

^	o

Till show you steel tits,' she said. She pulled her blouse roughly
over her head and reached round to unhook her bra, in the same
moment turning back towards him and leaning over his naked

o	o

chest. Then she stopped. Her breasts were swinging free, her

rr	o o	'

nipples beginning to harden with excitement as they brushed
gently against his hot skin. The expression on her face changed
and darkened with anger. She grabbed him by the shoulders and
shook him violently. His head lolled forward, his cheek bouncing
into the soft flesh of her breasts. Ben Cooper was unconscious
and snoring.

'Bastard!'

Finally she went back to the sitting room, her mind repeating
what he had said, over and over. Steel tits. What had he meant?
She undressed, did her exercises automatically and without
enthusiasm, pulled a rug over her and lay down on the sofa.
Her body was weary, but her mind was whirling endlessly.
She tried to read a book, but found the pages were a blur.
She discarded the book, turned over restlessly and eventually
put out the light. She pressed her face into her pillow, hugged
her steel tits to herself, and wept.


309
25


The old man sat upright on the plastic chair in the interview
room, staring at DC1 Taiiby and DC Fry with frozen dignity,
as if he were the only one present who knew how to behave
properly.


'Interview commenced at 1430 Friday twenty-seventh August. Those
present are Detective Chief Inspector Taiiby . . .'

'Detective Constable Fry . . .'

Taiiby nodded at Harry. 'Could you identify yourself Jor the tape,
please, sir.'

'My name's Harold Dickinson.'

'You're entitled to have a solicitor present, Mr Dickinson. Do you
hare your own, or would you like the duty solicitor?'

Till not need one of them.'

'Areyou quite sure?'

Harry ignored the question, waiting for the next one. Tape or not, he
seemed to say, there were times when speaking was a waste of breath.

'Have you been given food and sufficient rest?' asked Taiiby formally.
'Have you been given the opportunity to make a phone call?'

'Where's my dog?'

'He's being looked after, Mr Dickinson,' said Fry.

'She's a she, not a he,' he said, with open contempt.

Taiiby glared back across the table. 'We have to ask you some more
questions, Mr Dickinson.'

Harry stared at him impassively. Somehow he made his waxed paper
suit look as if it had come from a rack at Marks and Spencers. The
disposable plimsolls they had given him looked almost as if they had
been polished overnight.

'Well. You can ask,' he said.


They interviewed Harry at intervals throughout the day, making
sure he was fed at the correct times, ensuring he got the proper
rests, asking him repeatedly if he wanted a solicitor.


310
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act obliged them to make
sure he understood questions, was not distressed or fatigued or
under the influence of any substance that affected his level of
awareness, and that he was offered refreshment and allowed
access to toilet facilities.

They alternated their teams of interviewers, aiming to break
his story by changing direction and the type of question they
asked. This also allowed the officers to spend time on the tedious
job of listening to their recordings on earphones and transcribing
them on to Record of Interview sheets. They analysed their

j	J

results in between sessions and considered the next strategy.
Besides, the interviewers needed a rest, too, after an hour with
Harry Dickinson.


'Look, Harry, we all know that old men sometimes Jeel randy too.
Your sexual urges don't disappear altogether, do they? Eh, Harry? Not
like some people think. I suppose the young girls still get you excited,
don't they?'

DI Hitchens was leaning across the table, staring into Harry's face. He
was watching jot a crack in the impassiveJacade, probing and pushing for
a reaction.

'It's just not a nice thought, is it, that your old granddad might
be lusting after the young women like he always used to when he was
young? Best to pretend it doesn't happen, eh? Sweep it under the carpet
and keep quiet. What you don't know about doesn't hurt. But we know
better, don't we, Harry?'

Harry said nothing, secure in his superior experience, looking at
Hitchens as if he were a simpleton.

'Because sometimes it goes too Jar, doesn't it? Sometimes you just
can't control yourself. Can you, Harry?'

The old man raised an eyebrow dismissively, suggesting that he knew
more than a thing or two about control.


All the interviewers had been trained to use the proper interviewing
techniques. Open questions were the key to the GEM AC
procedure -- Greeting, Explanation, Mutual Activity, Closure.
The aim was to create spiral questions -- open questions such
as who, what, why, when, where and how, followed by probing


311
of the answers. The theory was that if someone was inventing a
story, 11 was almost impossible lo mauiLaiu a lie under detailed
probing.

As for closed questions, which invited only a single-word
rcplv -- they were too much of a temptation for someone
like Harrv.


'We have the statement of a .Mr dary Edwards, a bird-watcher, who
saw a person answering your description passing along the path near
the place where Laura Vernon's body wasjbund. A person accompanied
by a dog. Was that you, Mr Dickinson?'

Diane Fry looked up expectantly as Harry opened his mouth to speak.
He was starting to look relaxed and calm, yet still somehow alooj from
what was going on around him in the claustrophobic interview room.
Ironically, he seemed immune Jrom the stresses the interviewers were
suffering. They knew that they would shortly have to allow him another
rest break without having made any progress at all.

'Observant chap, was he, this bird-watcher? Did he describe the colour
of my eyes, and all?'

'It was an old man that Mr Edwards saw.'

'Do we all look alike then?' said Harry, with an infuriating smile.


'Idle and foolish remarks will be disregarded', the rule book

o	'

said. But the interviewers found themselves seizing eagerly on
every remark that Harry Dickinson let drop, no matter how
idle or foolish. At least it was a reaction, something more than
that same stony, contemptuous stare.

Harry had the air of a man patiently enduring an outrageous
impertinence. He allowed them no emotional feedback, only the
unspoken promise of a sober and abiding enmity.


'Is that the policy you use towards your wife, Harry? What they don't
know about doesn't hurt. Women will think the worst of you, no matter
what you tell them. So you might as well tell them nothing. Isn't that
right? They're happier with their own imaginings anyway. Isn't that
right, Harry?'

The one thing Harry wanted was his pipe, but he wouldn't give them
the pleasure of being able to refuse him. He looked from Hitchens to


312
fry with a blank, slightly puzzled expression, as if wondering how they
came lo be in his room.

'Or does Gwen knew all about your activities, Harry? Perhaps she'll
want to tell us all about it. Because we've got her here, Harry. She's
in another interview room now. mat do you think of that?'

'Who's going to feed my dog?' said Harry.


Ben Cooper was in the CID room, handling the routine crime
reported overnight. His head was thumping as if someone was
driving a pneumatic drill through his brain. His mouth was dry
and tasted foul, and his body ached all over. He had told DS
Rennie that the injury to his head was the result of an accident
on the farm. For half an hour he had been forced to submit to
a barrage of sheep-shagging jokes, while his stomach churned

O	1	OO O J	'

and he fought the bile that constantly threatened to rise up in
his throat.

He had woken this morning with no idea where he was. A

O

strange bed in a strange flat, and no recollection how he had
got there, apart from the clue of a thundering hangover and a
body stiffened solid with bruises, as he discovered when he tried
to move.

But there had been a note scribbled on the back of an old
envelope on the bedside table. 'Have been called into the office.
I suggest you call in sick. Whatever you do, I don't want to know
about it.' In his groggy state, it had taken several minutes before
he had been able to work out who the 'DF' was who had signed
the note.

Then a few grey, fragmented memories had started to trickle
into his brain. The visit to the do jo he remembered; then the
phone call to Helen Milner and how Diane Fry had shafted him,
how she had planned to humiliate him. It was so obvious now
that she had deliberately ruined his chances with Helen and had
planned to make him look small in front of his friends at the
Jo/o. She had not mentioned that she was a fourth clan black belt
when he had boasted of his skill and invited her to a bout. She
had lied to him, and when he realized what she had planned,
he had walked out in a blazing fury.

Vaguely he remembered the pub near the bus station. It was


313
the third pub he had been in, but he knew something had
happened there, from that point on, though, the memories
disintegrated completely. Had there been something to do
with pigs? Yes, he thought there probably had. Which didn't
go anywhere near explaining how he had ended up in Diane
Fry's bed and what had caused his injuries. Had she beaten
him up? It didn't seem beyond the bounds of possibility. She
had kicked him in the teeth in every other way she could find.

Even sitting in the office when he eventually dragged himself
into work, Cooper found the memories he needed still eluded
him. All that he could think of were his black dogs -- the series
of disasters that had knocked the legs from under him, coming
one after another.

Then he thought of his mother lying in hospital, and he
groaned. How could he have forgotten about her and done
something so stupid? He thought of his meeting with Superintendent
Jepson and swore vehemently. No doubt that was Diane
Fry's work as well -- she had got in thick with DI Hitchens and
used a bit of influence on him. No doubt it had been while they
were away in Yorkshire overnight together. Very cosy. That was
something he certainly couldn't compete with.

Then Cooper remembered lying to his mother and winced
with shame. He remembered Helen Milner rejecting him, and

felt despair. He was worth nothing to anybody. And now he had

r	o	j ^

made a fool of himself at the very least last night, got horribly
drunk and done God knew what else besides. He might as well

o

go home now to the farm and throw himself in the slurry pit.
There was nothing but those evil black dogs running through
his mind, snapping and growling. Black dogs and pigs.

Among the morning's crimes was a report of three youths
suffering minor injuries in a late-night brawl in Edendale. A
falling-out among drunks was presumed. The youths themselves
weren't talking and had been sent home. There were other more

o

pressing matters -- a list of burglaries and car thefts, a ram raid
at a building society.

And, as he had discovered from DS Rennie, there had been
an alleged rape at Moorhay, for which Harry Dickinson had been
arrested. Cooper shook his head and poked around in the drawer


314
of his desk for some painkillers, but found none. Nothing was
right this morning. Just nothing.

Later in the morning, Diane Fry herself appeared in the CID
room. Cooper kept his eyes down, not knowing what to say to
her. What did you say to a woman whose bed you had woken
up in without a clue about what happened between you during
the previous few hours? The only possible approach was to let
her speak first -- if she wanted to.

But she made him wait in agony for several minutes, moving

o J	'	o

papers around on her own desk, making notes, taking a phone
call. Eventually she drifted over towards where he sat. He
was aware of her presence, but didn't look up, willing her
to speak first.

'You look like shit.'

'Thanks. I feel it.'

Fry walked on past his desk. Cooper sat in a daze for a while
longer, until she came back, clutching a handful of reports.

'You want some paracetamol or something?'

'I'll be all right.'

'Just don't throw up all over the desk, will you? I can't stand
the smell of sick.'

'I'm fine. Really.'

'Right.'

Even in his befuddled state, he sensed Fry hesitating, hovering
behind him like a baleful matron. She gave off no aura of guilt,
only a mood of simmering anger, tinged with reluctant concern.
Cooper began to reconsider the possible scenarios of the night
before. There were still huge blanks in his memory and there
was no way he could make the stuff about pigs fit anywhere. But
suddenly he knew for certain that he had done something awful,
something totally stupid. So what was it that he was expected
to say? Maybe it was 'sorry'. But how could you apologize for
what you couldn't remember doing?

'Thanks, anyway,' he said feebly. 'Thanks, Diane, for --
whatever.'

She sighed heavily, put down her papers and wedged herself
on to his desk. Cooper winced at the movement and her sudden
proximity.


315
'I don't know if you're in a fit state to talk about it. But you
know we've got Harry Dickinson in?' she said.

'Yeah.' Cooper glanced up at her. She was looking at him
with a mixture of pity and scorn. It seemed like an improvement.
'What has he said?'

She snorted. 'Damn-all. He's more worried about his blasted
dog.'

o

'So whcrc's this girl who says he attacked her?'

'Rape suite. They're interviewing her now.'

'And do Mr Tailby and Mr Hitchens think they're going to
break Harry Dickinson and get him to confess?'

Fry looked thoughtful as she pulled up a chair next to his desk.
She absently pushed some of his files aside to create a few inches
of surface to lean on.

'It's a funny thing, that, actually. When the lads picked him
up, they said he acted as though he was expecting them. "You
were quick", that's all he said. But now I keep getting the feeling
that he's puzzled by what we're asking him. It's like we've been
putting totally the wrong questions to him all along, and he can't
understand why.'

'A feeling, Diane?'

'Yeah. So?'

'Nothing.'

Cooper was busy scribbling on a piece of paper with his ballpoint
pen. The fog in his head was clearing gradually, revealing
ragged patches of light. This was better than paracetamol for
making your brain work.

'What are you doing, Ben?'

'I think you could be right about the questions you were
asking. lust take a look at that. There's got to be a link.'

o J	o

He had sketched a rough diagram. It showed lines running
between members of the Vernon and Milner families. Old Harry
Dickinson was there, connected to Laura Vernon by the finding
of the body; his son-in-law Andrew was linked to Graham Vernon
through business; Helen Milner connected to Graham through
the incident at the party; there was Helen's cousin Simeon, who
had been Laura's boyfriend and had been helping Harry and his
friends at the smallholding; and then there was Harry again, a


316
wavery line running from him to Graham Vernon, representing
the proposed meeting, purpose unknown.

Fry pointed at Harry's name.

'Strictly speaking, he didn't ..."

'. . . find the body, 1 know. He only found the trainer.'

'And that wasn't really him, it was his dog.'

'But die meeting he talked about with Vernon is bound to leave
a question mark. What iras he up to? Besides, the bird-watcher
saw him.'

'Maybe. Maybe not.'

'Harry Dickinson is involved. No doubt about it.'

'A feeling?'

'No. A certainty.'

He looked cautiously at Fry. Magically, the tension between
them seemed to have dispersed as soon as they had begun to talk
about the Vernon case. She had needed someone to talk to, and
she had been drawn towards him despite the contempt which
still lingered in her eyes. Whatever had happened between them,
perhaps it could eventually be forgiven, or at least set aside so
that they could get on with the job. One day, he might even
manage to remember what it was that had happened.

'All right. So let's assume Harry's involved. Consider the
possibility, then, that he's covering up for somebody. Who
might that be?'

o

'Not Graham Vernon, anyway.'

'No love lost there, certainly.'

'It has to be family,' said Cooper.

'Families stick together, don't they? They close ranks against

outsiders when there's trouble.'
'It's what families are for.'
'Simeon Holmes, then. His great-nephew.'
'Harry would protect him for the sake of the family.'
'Family loyalty. They say it's a powerful motivation.'
'But he says he was with about thirty other bikers at Matlock

Bath, nearly twenty miles away,' said Cooper. 'Has anybody

managed to break that alibi?'

o

'Have you tried being a police officer asking for information
from bikers about one of their own?'


317
His head was beginning to thump again. For a few minutes,
he had almost forgotten the pain.

'There's another thing, though, Diane. I think you ought to
talk to the bird-watcher again. Gary Edwards.'

'Him? Why?'

'There's something not right about his statement.'

'That's true. Dave Rcnnie took that statement. Mr Tailby said
himself it wasn't up to scratch. Rennie never pushed Edwards on
the time.'

'So has he been seen again already?'

O	J

Fry frowned. 'No. I don't think so. It would have been put

through as an action, but probably got allocated a low priority

when Sherratt was pulled in.'

'And then just got filed somewhere in the system.'

'And after they started pulling people off the enquiry ..."

'Yeah, like me, for instance. Talk to him yourself, Diane.

Will you?'

'You think he can positively tie in Harry? His description is

too vague, you know.'

'You've got to press him on it. There's something. I just know

there is. You've got to do it.'

o

There was a moment's silence, broken only by Fry's intake
of breath. 'Who do you think you are, Ben?'

Cooper looked up, startled by the tone of her voice. For a
while, he had forgotten all the things that he had to worry about,
all the reasons he had to hate Diane Fry. Now she was glaring at
him, making it clearer than ever that the feeling was mutual.

'	O	O

'I only came in here to tell you what was happening because I
thought you'd be interested. But the fact is, you're off this case.
You've got plenty of other things you should be concentrating
on. And there are several other reasons why I don't think I
should have to listen to you telling me what I've got to do.
So who do you think you are?'

Cooper felt the full flush of his anger coming back to him.
He had never found anybody so infuriating as he did Diane Fry.
How was it she was able to provoke him into saying things that
he would never dream of saying to anyone else?

'Just at this moment I don't know who the hell I am.


318
Sometimes I feel as though I'm not anybody really. As though
1 in just rehearsing lor a role that my family want me to play.
Learning to be just like my father.'

'Oh yes? At least you've got a family,' she said.

'What do you mean?'

j

'Never mind. It doesn't matter.' She pulled abruptly away
from his desk, glancing around with distaste at the mess.

'Are you going to let me down, then?' he asked.

She didn't answer, but changed the subject. 'I've got some
other news for you. Lee Sherratt has been bailed.'

'What?'

'He claims he had no intention of using the gun. He says you
startled him, and he had it in his hands at the time. Cleaning
it. And it was only an air rifle anyway. You don't even need
a licence for one of those. OK, he admits he was poaching --
but what's that? A few quid in fines?'

Fry was beginning to move away, back towards the interview
rooms and another spell with Harry Dickinson.

'What about Laura Vernon?' asked Cooper.

'What about her? We can't tie Sherratt in with Laura Vernon.
Mr Tailby's done his best.'

'Is he not hopeful?'

'There's no evidence. Sure, the semen in the used condom
was his -- but we have Charlotte Vernon's statement that she had
sex with him more than once. And it might have been Sherratt
seen talking to Laura at six-fifteen that night. In fact, I'm damn
sure it was. But unless he admits it, there's no evidence of that,
either. And Sherratt knows it perfectly well.'

'But there's the bite mark. Have they taken an impression of
his teeth for comparison?'

'Yes, but it was a waste of time. The report came back from
the forensic odontologist at Sheffield. Mr Tailby is furious that
it took so long for a result like that to come through.'

'Like what?'

'Ben -- that bite mark is the wrong shape. Not only were the
teeth not Lee Sherratt's -- they weren't even human.'


'So what do you imagine will happen to your dog, Mr Dickinson?'


319
'What do you mean?'

Diane fry thrust her chiujorward aggressively. 'ljyour dog attacked
and bit Laura Vernon, it could be considered an aggravated offence under
section three oj the Dangerous Dogs Act.'

7 don't understand.'

'A court could make an order to have your dog destroyed. Put
down,' she said.

'You'd better put me down first.'

'It's a possibility, though,' said Hitchens, interested in Harry's
reaction. 'If the dog was responsible for the attack which led to Laura's
death, it would be more than likely. What's the wording, Diane?'

'The Act refers to "a dog that injures any person while dangerously
out of control in a public place".'

'You can't tell they're a dog's teeth,' said Harry.

'Oh, yes, we can. We have experts on those sort of things these days,
Harry. Experts with very expensive bits of equipment. Such as scanning
electron microscopes and electronic image enhancers. They can tell.'

'Aye?'

'Do you want to hear a bit of what one of these experts says? I've
got it here.' Hitchens pulled out the report from the odontologist. He
deliberately skipped the bit about the bite mark being of insufficient
depth to assess by normal methods, which was why the expensive
equipment had had to be used. 'Here we are. The odontologist says:
"It should be noted that human bite marks have a unique oval form, and
most of the times there is found a 'suck mark' in the middle of the oval
injury. Most human bites exhibit markings from several of the six upper
front teeth or lower teeth, sometimes both. Canine bite marks, however,
have an angular shape, like a diamond, compared to the human bite
mark, which is more curved. Following electronic image enhancement,
the pattern injuries caused by canine teeth are clearly distinguishable
under the electron microscope."'

Hitchens looked up. 'In other words, they were canine teeth, Harry.
Laura Vernon was bitten by a dog. We think it was your dog.'

Harry stared into the distance. The detectives waited, instinctively
recognizing the time to be silent.

'What if I told you that I killed the lass, and she was bitten after
she was dead? Would that do?'

Fry felt a surge of excitement and astonishment. After all the


320
stonewalling that-the old man had done, could it really be so simple?
But DI Hitchens was more cautious. He had heard too many statements
that sounded like confessions in the heightened atmosphere of the interview
room, but which failed to hold up in the cold light of a court hearing. And
Harry's remark hadn't even been a statement; it had been a question.

'You'd have to convince usjirst, Harry. Do you want to tell us what
really happened now?'

But Fry interrupted. She had a different question, which she couldn't
wait to ask.

'Would you really sacrifice yourselfJbr a dog?'

Harry turned his steady gaze on her. It was clear from the pain in his
eyes that his tough exterior had been cracked at last. An intense emotion
was breaking through the restraint, a passion that could no longer be
controlled by close-mouthed pride.

'You wouldn't understand,' he said. 'It's obvious to a blind man,
you've not got an ounce of love in you.'


321
26


It's only a do?.' said shee.

o'	^

Ben Cooper turned away. 'Well, maybe.'

'What did he mean, Ben? What he said in the interview.'

'He was just trying to wind you up, Diane. Take no notice
of him.'

He regarded her with concern, worried that she seemed
unduly disturbed by Harry Dickinson's jibe. He had been in
the middle of a call to a motorist whose car had been stolen
the previous night when Fry had stormed back into the CID
room, anxious to talk about the interview. Cooper had barely
had time to finish the call before she had been repeating the
conversation word for word.

'But it's only a dog.'

'Let's go down to the canteen,' he said.

o	'

It was obvious there was something about the old man that
was totally foreign to her. Cooper thought he could almost get
on Harry's wavelength sometimes. Almost, but not quite. It was
still not possible to predict what he might do next. But to Diane
Fry, he seemed to be some kind of alien.

A few minutes later, they were sitting at a table on their
own, clutching two mugs of coffee, ignoring the noise from a
group of uniformed officers nearby.

'They've had to release him, of course,' said Fry, calming as
the caffeine reached her bloodstream. 'No charge.'

'Go on, surprise me.'

'By the time they got round to interviewing the alleged victim
in the rape suite, she admitted she'd made the story up. She'd
let her boyfriend go all the way without protection, and when it proved a bit disappointing she suddenly remembered things
like pregnancy and AIDS. Not to mention irate parents.'

'She panicked?'

'Yes, inspired by half-digested sex-education lessons and a
vivid imagination. And with all the stories that have been


322
in the papers, the first thing that occurred to her was to
shout rape.

'Not the first time that's happened.'

Fry shrugged. 'We all know there are more false rape allegations
than there are actual rapes. The boyfriend's fifteen, by
the way.'

'But why did she claim it was Harry?'

'Apparently the two of them had some sort of encounter in
the village shop earlier in the day. Harry must have come out of
it best, because she hadn't forgotten it. And she'd heard all the
talk in the village, so she reckoned she'd be believed. Anyway, she
said he was a miserable old bugger and he deserved anything that

OO	J	O

happened to him. Funny how their minds work sometimes.'
'And what was it she said, exactly, when the PC found her?'
'As I recall, her words were: "It was the old man."'
Cooper nodded, not surprised. 'It was the old man.' He
thought of the old lead miners' saying, their hushed stories about
the spirit they called 't'owd mon', who lurked in the unlit shafts
of the mines. 'The old man' was blamed for everything that

J	o

went wrong in the mine, from unexplained sounds in the dark
to unproductive veins and fatal accidents. But he was also its
guardian, a collective spirit of long-dead miners and of the mine
itself. What the girl had said was an echo of the myth. 'It was
the old man, the old man.' An ancient mantra of superstition.

'She'll be on the False or Persistent Rape Allegation file now.
Silly little cow. They've sent her home too, with a "morning
after" pill. A WPC went to talk to her parents. Let them sort
her out, if they can.'

'What about Harry?' asked Cooper.

'What about him?'

'Was he all right?'

'Him? He'll be all right. Tough as old boots, if you ask me.
And too proud by half as well. What are you worrying about
him for?'

'It's not a pleasant experience, being pulled in as a rape
suspect.'

Fry shrugged. 'Tough.'

'Did anybody explain it to Gwen?'


323
'He can explain it himself, can't he?'

1 don t lliink he will, said Cooper thought!ully. 1 don t dunk
he'll be making any excuses.'

'Like 1 said, too damn proud.'

'It's not just that. I think he wants as much attention as he
ran got. According to one of the team who went to pick him
up, he seemed to be expecting them. He was waiting for them
to arrive. He said: "It didn't take you long." Now why would
he say that?'

Fry set down her coffee cup thoughtfully. 'You're thinking
about your link, aren't you, Ben? Have you still got that
diagram?'

o

'Yes.'

He put the diagram on the table, straightening out the creases
to show the connecting lines.

'I drew it for Mr Tailby after we sent Dickinson back to his
cell,' said Fry.

'Did you? And?'

'I told him what you said. That the old man would protect
someone for the sake of the family. But who might that be?
That's the question. And Mr Tailby agreed with you on that.'

Cooper waited tensely, watching her face.

'But he definitely doesn't think it's Simeon Holmes,' she
said.

He sighed, his shoulders slumped. 'That's what I was afraid
of,' he said.

He finished his coffee, and contemplated going back to detect
in? car crime.

o

'Diane, do me a favour, though?'

She nearly said 'another one", but held her tongue. 'What's
that?'

'Talk to the bird-watcher again.'

She sighed. 'You've got an obsession about him.'

Cooper found the words hard to say, but knew he had to say
them. For some reason, it was important enough.

'Please, Diane.'


324
The atmosphere at the Mount had passed through every mood and
emotion that Graham Vernon could think of, with the exception
of the good ones.

For several days, Charlotte had succeeded in working her
way up towrards a brittle pitch of nonchalance that had shattered
dramatically after the visit by the woman detective the day before.
Now there was barely a word or a response to be had from her.
All day she had clutched to her chest the photograph of Laura
which had finally been returned by the police.

As for Daniel, once the shouting was over, an uneasy peace
seemed to have descended. This morning, Graham had even

o'

begun to feel that he and his son might actually understand
each a bit better after this business was done with. But when
would it be done with?

'What the hell are they doing now?' said Daniel.

'God knows,' said Graham. 'They don't tell me what they're
thinking.'

O

They were missing the village gossip that Sheila Kelk would
normally have been delighted to pass on to Charlotte. The only
other person that might have known what had been happening
was Andrew Milner -- but there was no way Graham was going
to ask his employee for information of that kind.

Fadier and son stood together by the French windows in
begrudging unity. Graham was glad that Daniel had at least
cleaned himself up. His hair had been washed, and somehow he
had found fresh clothes in the house. Even the kitchen had been
cleaned recently, and Graham was sure that Charlotte hadn't
done it. He was surprised, really, that his son was still in the
house. And he watched Daniel for clues to his reasoning, fearing
another rebellious gesture he would fail to understand.

o

But Daniel was staring into the garden, his eyes following the
methodical movements of the dark shapes in the conifers that
grew by the bottom wall.

'What are they looking for, Dad?'

'I just don't know,' said Graham.

They watched the police team assemble for a few minutes on
the lawn, brushing the soil off their knees as they discussed their
next move. Then the officers dispersed again. They pulled on


325
their gloves and approached the densely planted bushes on the
eastern border of the property, gradually getting nearer the gate
that led on to the Baulk. And they started looking again.


That afternoon, Cooper left Edendale to visit a family from East
Anglia who were holidaying in a cottage near Bakcwell. Their

o	^ o	o

Mitsubishi had been taken from the roadside near one of the
show caves at Castleton, full of the usual items -- a camera,
binoculars, mobile phone, a wallet and cheque book locked in
the glove compartment. They were fortunate that their insurance
allowed them to get a hire car to finish their holiday, but he had
a feeling they wouldn't be coming back to Derbyshire again.
However, one of the family thought they might have caught a
glimpse of the thieves near their car as they had headed for the
cave. It was a very small clue in a hopeless task.

From Bakewell, he drove up the A6 as far as Ashfordin-the
Water. There were clumps and wisps of yellow straw lying all
along the roadside, swirling in the blasts of air from passing traffic
and settling to the ground again like broken shreds of sunlight.

The schools were still on holiday for another week, and the
main roads throughout the Peak District were choked with cars
and caravans. If the hot weather held a bit longer, the tourist
honey pots would be at a standstill again at the weekend, with
thousands of people sweltering in narrow, gridlocked lanes
surrounded by the stench of exhaust fumes and hot tarmac.

In Ashford, the streets were lined with cars and the bridge over
the weir was packed with people watching the ducks paddling in
the shallow water or the families picnicking on the grassy banks.
There was a small car park behind the church in the middle of
the village, but it was overlooked by houses and relatively safe.
Cooper drove on.

Through Ashford a road ran up to Monsal Head, where the
spectacular view of the old railway viaduct crossing the wooded
valley of the Wye attracted many motorists to stop. The railway
line here had long since been dismantled and was now used as a

o

footpath. Across the other side of Monsal Dale was the parish
of Brushfield and a plateau scattered with more of the hundreds
of disused mine shafts that Uttered the landscape. He was deep


326
in White Peak country horo, a land of ulitterincr streams and

O	o

green pastures, where narrow side-valleys had elbowed their way
through the prehistoric fossil sea bed to form craggy gorges.

Northwards from Monsal Head he passed opencast limestone
workings and turned right towards Foolow and Eyam. After a
call at a disused quarry that was used as an unofficial car park
for walkers following the Limestone Way, Cooper found himself
crossing Eyam Edge and arriving, as he knew he must, on the

O	J	O	O'	'

road into Moorhay.

He parked the Toyota at the Old Mill at Quith Holes,
persuading himself that this meant he was still pursuing his
routine enquiries into car crime at local tourist spots. There
were plenty of other cars at the Old Mill, and several families
were seated at the tables set out on the grass. A cluster of
cottages were set behind the mill on a narrow road protected
by 'private' no entry signs.

Cooper crossed a small stone bridge near the original ford and
took the path that skirted Raven's Side, wincing at the bruises on
his legs and back but glad of the opportunity to loosen up his limbs.
He had to consult his OS map, because he hadn't approached the
path from this direction before. But by following his instinct and
steering slightly downhill, he soon reached the area where he had
walked to with Harry Dickinson four days previously.

Once again, he left the path and crossed the tumble of boulders
to the spot at the top of the slope above the stream. There was
no sign of the crime scene now, except for a wide, bare patch
where the undergrowth had been cut down to the ground and
removed to the forensic laboratory.

He peered down on to the stream below. He knew there
was nothing he could see that wouldn't already have been found
and identified by the SOCOs. But sometimes he did get feelings
that he couldn't account for. He didn't talk about these feelings
much at E Division. He couldn't afford to be considered an
eccentric. In the police service, you had to fit in; you had to
be a team player and follow the rule book. Now, though, he
was hoping that some feeling, some small insight, might just
strike him at the place where the body of Laura Vernon had
been found. Somewhere at the back of his thoughts, indistinct


327
and deadened by the remains of his hangover, was an idea that
had been suggested to liiin sometime last night. Something to
do with dogs. Or was it pigs?

Cooper found his mind tilled with a vivid image. He saw a
sharp, black muzzle filled with white teeth that snapped and
tore at pale, dead flesh. Behind the fangs were jaws dripping
with saliva and a pink tongue that curled and twisted and rolled
out a rumbling growl from deep in a fur-covered throat. Fierce
red eyes stared madly as the teeth bit and pierced. The white
skin darkened and punctured, but there was no blood. He saw
the dog finally letting go of its victim and looking up at the
dark, contorted shapes of the Witches as it began to howl, its
dirt-encrusted claws scrabbling in the earth with frustration. The
black dog had come for a soul, and had been thwarted.

But that wasn't it. Cooper shook his head to clear the image.
He knew the black dog was his own. He had carried it around
in his mind since childhood, and it was him that it had come to
claim, not Laura Vernon.

After several minutes, he was forced to give up and move on,
with no great inspirations. He walked back to the path and looked
up the hill. He ought to go back to Quith Holes now -- back to
the car and his routine enquiries. He was off the Vernon case.

But instead he turned and began to walk up the path towards
Moorhay, his muscles protesting and the bruises on his ribs
throbbing. Out of the trees, the sun beat on his back and neck,
and he began to feel a bit light-headed. This was no way to
restore himself as a candidate for a sergeant's job. But something
had happened out here on the Baulk. Who had Laura Vernon
met here? Had she met him by design or accident? Had she been
followed, or had she walked down this path with someone she
had spoken to behind the garden at the Mount?

The final results of forensic tests might reveal some of that
information. So far they had at least established that the bite
mark on the victim's thigh had been the work of canine teeth. A

O

dog, possibly. But it could just as easily have been a fox, coming
across the dead body as it lay in the undergrowth attracting
maggots. But would forensics reveal the identity of the killer?
Cooper didn't think so.


328


When he got to within a hundred yards of Dial Cottage, he
almost, bumped into Harry Dickinson, who \\as standing under
a tree in the shade, with his dog at his feet. He stared wordlessly
at Cooper, like a man interrupted in his own sitting room.

'Oh, you.'

'Aye, me. Like a bad penny.'

'Not your usual time for walking the dog, is it, Mr Dickinson?'

'I needed to get the taste of your police station out of my
mouth, lad.'

'So where have you been?'

'Minding my own business.'

Cooper was hot and sore, and felt himself starting to get
angry. But Harry only tilted his head, revealing his unfathomable
eyes.

'Are you going to arrest me again? There are no young lasses

J	o o	o	*	o

in these woods, you know -- not at diis time of day.'

'I don't think it's a subject to joke about, Mr Dickinson.
Do you?'

'Aye, maybe you're right, lad. Maybe I've had enough enjoyment
for one day.'

The hint of bitterness in the old man's voice made Cooper's
ears prick up. Evidence of emotion was rare enough from
Harry. There was an air of finality in his words too, a feeling
of something coming towards an end. He'd had enough -- but
enough of what?

'They had Jess in a cage at that police station,' said Harry.
'Shut up in a cage with a lot of mongrels and strays. What has
she ever done wrong to anybody? Tell me that.'

Cooper felt a strange sensation coming over him, a powerful
physical surge that sent a shiver of excitement up his spine. His
eyes were drawn down to the ground, where Jess, the black
Labrador, was lying on the grass at Harry's feet. Her lolling pink
tongue was the only splash of colour in a tangle of black fur.

'Right,' he said, catching his breath. 'Yes, that's right.'

Harry looked at him sharply, suddenly suspicious at the silence.
Cooper shook himself and stared back at the old man, beginning
to smile for the first time in days.


329


Gwcn Dickinson saw Ben Cooper coming up the path. She had
been watching for Harry from the kitchen window. Her face
was drawn, and her eves were red from lack of sleep and too
many tears.

Cooper remembered that she, too, had been questioned in an
interview room at tdendale, to be informed that her husband
was a suspected rapist. Suddenly, he felt sick at the thought of
\\hat was done to people like Gwen innocent people who
happened merely to find themselves on the sidelines of a major
enquiry as unwilling witnesses, possessors of some snippet of
information the police were determined to get hold of, while
the foundations of their lives were being pulled apart in front
of their eyes. For Gwen, he knew, life with Harry would never
be the same.

'What did he saw?' asked Gwen, when he reached the back

J	'

door of the cottage. She clutched at his sleeve as if expecting
him to put everything right. 'I saw you speak to Harry.'

'He didn't say anything. I'm sorry.'

Cooper didn't know what he was apologizing for. But he
knew he had disappointed Gwen by the way her face fell and
she turned to go back inside, shuffling her feet in a pair of old

O	O	I

slippers decorated with pink roses.

'Come in. Helen's here.'

'Oh no, it's all right. I don't want to intrude.'

He began to back away, out into the sunlight. But Helen
herself appeared in the kitchen at the sound of his voice. She
was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and had a polishing cloth in her
hand. Her red hair was tied back in a ribbon.

'Come in, Ben. Don't stay out there, please.'

'Helen's been doing a bit of cleaning for me,' said Gwen. 'I
can't seem to be bothered with it any more.'

As the old woman shuffled through into the sitting room
and settled herself with a sigh into an armchair, Helen turned
troubled eyes on Cooper.

'None of this was because of me, you know,' he said.

'I know. I'm sorry, Ben.'

'I'm off the enquiry anyway. They don't need me now.'

Helen laid a hand on his arm, sensing his pain. 'I'm really


330


worried about Granddad now. I think he's planning something.
That's why he's kept out of the way ever since he came back
from die police station. Because he's worried I might be able
to tell what he's thinking; he kr.ows that I can understand him.

o'

We're too close, you see. I think that's the reason he's been
behaving so strangely. He's trying to keep me and Grandma
at arm's-length, so we can't guess what he's up to. But he's
certainly up to something. Can you help us, Ben?'

'Hasn't he said anything to you at all?'

'There was just one thing he said, when he first came back. It
worried me even more. He said, "It was meant for Vernon."'

The sound of the phone was loud and jarring in the little
cottage. Gwen jumped with alarm, but stayed in her chair,
gripping the arms, her eyes turning pleadingly towards Helen.
Her granddaughter went to answer it, and Cooper watched
Helen's face change as she listened, turning pale under her tan.
It was obvious there was more bad news.

Helen turned slowly back to Gwen and Cooper as she replaced
the phone. But she couldn't meet Cooper's eyes. 'That was
Mum," she said. 'The police have been and taken Dad in for
questioning.'


DCI Tailby smiled wolfishly at Andrew Milner, noting the nervousness
in his posture and his gestures and the sheen of sweat
that had broken out on his forehead. A cup of tea stood going
cold on the interview room table in front of him, untouched and
beginning to form a scum on its muddy surface.

'Mr Milner, your daughter Helen has told us about the parties
at the Mount.'

'Oh,' said Andrew, his face crumpling immediately.

'She has described an incident with Graham Vernon. Your
boss, Mr Milner.'

'Yes.'

'You know all about that incident, don't you? I refer to the
occasion when Mr Vernon lured your daughter to one of the
bedrooms. From the description, it might well be considered an
attempted rape.'

'Yes, Helen told me. She was very upset.'


331


'And how did you react when you heard about it, Mr
Milner?'
'Naturally. I was shocked and angry. I've always had a good

-	o ^	^	o

relationship with Graham. I knew he had those parties, of
course. Him and Charlotte. They got something out of them,

J o	o

that I could never hope to understand. Different lives, Chief
Inspector. Different from mine, anyway.'

'You knew what these parties were like? But you didn't stop
Helen going when she was invited?'

'Stop her? How could I?' Andrew spread his hands, appealing
for sense. 'She's an adult. She takes no notice of me.'

'You didn't even warn her?'

'Well, I hoped that everything would be all right. I didn't
expect Graham would try ... something like that . . . with
Helen, with my daughter. I thought it would be all right, you
see. In any case, she wanted to go. I couldn't have stopped her.
I thought it would be all right.'

'But it wasn't all right.'

He slumped. 'No.'

'Did you speak to Mr Vernon about it afterwards?'

'Yes, I did.'

'What did you say?'

'Well. . . that I was upset about what Helen had told me. That
she had complained he had assaulted her. Sexually, you know.'

'And his response?'

Andrew twisted his hands, appealing to Tailby with his eyes
for sympathy. He was reliving the moment, just as Tailby wanted
him to do. In the end, Andrew sighed deeply and sagged a little
further into his chair.

'He just laughed at me,' he said.

'He thought assaulting your daughter was a joke?'

Andrew nodded. 'Apparently. He said those sort of games
were expected at their parties. "Games", he called it. And
then he said something like: "Never mind, she's a big girl

o	'	o o

now". I didn't know what to say or what to do. I felt so
stupid. He made me feel as though I was the one who didn't
know how to behave properly. He can always make me feel
like that.'


332


'Some fathers would have known exactly what to do.' commented
Hitchens.

'I suppose I'm not that sort of father. Not that sort of a man.
I have never seen violence as an answer.'

'Violence. Ah yes. Was that what I meant?'

'Wasn't it?' asked Andrew, surprised. He looked confused
now and somehow accusing, as if the detective had pulled a
trick on him.

'And, of course, Mr Vernon is probably three or four inches
taller than you, a stone or two heavier, younger and fitter. It was
better to show discretion, in the circumstances. Very wise.'
Andrew inclined his head, accepting the point without objection.

'You could have reported it to us. You could have resigned,'
said Tailby. 'Yet to choose to go on working for this man ..."

'Chief Inspector, I can't afford to throw away my job. There
are too few for a man of my age and background. I've got a
wife, a mortgage. Things have gone badly for me in the past.
I can't have it happen to me again. I need that job at Vernon's.
Resign? No.'

Tailby eyed the man, suppressing a surge of pity, keeping
his face impassive. 'Let me ask you about Mrs Charlotte
Vernon, then.'

'Charlotte?'

'Mrs Vernon has named you as one of her lovers.'

Andrew's mouth dropped open, and he shook his head vehemently.
'Oh no.'

'Are you saying she's lying?'

'I was never that.'

'Never? Why would she lie about it, Mr Milner?'

The don't know.'

'But you had been to one of the Vernons' parties yourself,
hadn't you?'

'Well, yes. But I wouldn't take part in ... anything like
that.'

Tailby was silent for a few moments. Andrew Milner hung
his head, waiting for the next question with the air of a man
expecting the inevitable.

'Where were you on Saturday night, Mr Milner?'


333


Andrew looked puzzled. 'I gave a statement days ago," he
said defensively.

'Ah yes.' Tailby consulted his notes. 'You had been to a meeting
with some clients in Leeds. A bit unusual on a Saturday?'

'Not at all. We've been very busy. If the clients work on a
Saturday, then we do too.'

'And you state that you were tired and stopped for a rest on
the way home.'

'At Woolley Services on the Ml. I'd had a long day. I dozed
for the best part of an hour, I think. It's not safe to drive when

you're tired.'

j

'Of course. And you state that you were then held up in
traffic on the Ml.'

'And getting through Sheffield from the motorway, yes.
There had been an accident somewhere, I think. And the usual
roadworks, you know.'

Tailby slapped the file with his hand. 'Of course there were
roadworks. There always are roadworks. The rest of it is quite
impossible to substantiate.'

The can't help that.'

'So,' said the DCI, 'let's go back to your relationship with
Mr Vernon, then. You can't afford to resign, and you can't
afford to upset the boss too much. Is that it? So you just grin
and bear it when the man assaults your daughter. You accept
the humiliation.'

'I'm afraid that's what I did.'

Tailby stood up. He towered over Andrew Milner, and
Andrew cringed as the detective's expression changed to anger.

'No, I don't think so, Mr Milner. I don't think you did just
accept it, did you?'

'What do you mean?'

The think that the humiliation rankled. I think it ate away inside
you -- the anger and the humiliation, the self-disgust. The shame
that you hadn't been man enough to respond in the way that
so many fathers would. You already hated Graham Vernon for
his condescension, for the way he treated you like a servant.
But now your hatred festered and you wanted to strike back. I
think you saw a way of doing that in what must have seemed the


334


most appropriate manner -- through his own daughter. Revenge -- wasn't that it, Mr Milner? Vengeance for your humiliation,
for Helen's ordeal and your own impotence. Tit for tat. Laura
Vernon was an obvious target of your anger.'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'I think you do. Where did you really go on Saturday night,
Mr Milner?'

The silence grew, with Tailby leaning down towards Andrew,
glaring at him as he waited for an answer. The tapes whirred
uninterrupted, waiting for the next person to speak. Andrew
Milner did nothing for a long time. Then his face seemed to
convulse and collapse. His hands clutched at each other, and
tears began to ooze down his cheeks.


335


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337

1 m - '- **ŁŁ?,,?Ł«VpJtt"1"'^
Looking at Cooper's face now, she knew that this was what
it was really all about for her. This was why she had let him
persuade her into this mad expedition, this spell of unauthorized
surveillance. It was the sheer strength of his conviction, the
intensity of his belief in himself. All he had done was put a few
facts together with a whole load of half-baked ideas, instincts

o

and feelings that were entirely his own, and as a result he was
filled with a pure, heartfelt certainty that he was right. She
could see that Ben Cooper was a man who believed strongly in
things; he had faith, he had genuine passion. It was ridiculously
attractive.

'Ben -- you've made this mistake once already. You're not
even on the case any more. You should back off now, or you'll
regret it.'

'And what exactly have I got left to lose?' he snapped.

'Shh. You'll let everybody down there know we're here.'

'I promise you I'm right.'

'OK, OK.'

Immediately below their position was a patch of woodland
clinging to the side of the hill. It was full of the quiet noises
of creatures settling down for the night or stirring, ready for
their evening's hunting. The woods petered out fifty yards
away, where the millstone grit erupted from the hillside and
the ground became bare and rocky. At their backs were the
'tors' themselves -- gritstone outcrops sculpted by geological
forces and the weather into strange, twisted shapes. Their names
owed a lot to the dark imagination of the rural Peak dwellers --
the Horse Stone, the Poached Egg Stone, the Mad Woman.

But I'm the mad woman, thought Fry. I'm mad for even
being here.


Cooper knew he had to handle her carefully. She was like a coiled
spring -- one wrong word and she would walk off and leave him.
But it was difficult to avoid the wrong word with Diane Fry.
Besides, there were so many things he wanted to ask her, away
from the office. Number one on his list was what had happened
between her and DI Hitchens on their trip to Yorkshire. But it
might be wise to save that one for later.


338


'Is Mr Tailby still hopeful of Andrew Milner?' he asked,
steering the way into a saier subject.

'Your diagram encouraged him. That and the lack of evidence

o	o

against Simeon Holmes. If Harry Dickinson was protecting somebody,
it has to be Milner.'

'Yeah. Harry doesn't think much of Milncr, but he'd
protect him for the sake of his daughter. For the sake of
the family.'

'Family loyalty. As you say, a powerful motivation.'

'Yes, it fits,' said Cooper sadly.

'Milner had been pushed to the limit by Graham Vernon.
Maybe he finally cracked and took revenge.'

'Not only was he pushed to the limit by Vernon, but he was
also reminded of his failure by his own family. Harry in particular
taunted him with his weakness. If Harrv found out what had

j

happened, he would have felt guilty -- partly responsible, in
fact. He would try to make amends. I can see that.'

Cooper cast his mind back to his first visit to Dial Cottage.
He remembered the bloodstained trainer standing on the kitchen
table on a copy of the Buxton Advertiser, the atmosphere of
tension lying on the cramped rooms like a thick blanket. He
remembered the old lady, distressed by something beyond the
innocent discovery of a missing girl's trainer.

'I wonder if that was what the row was about,' he said. 'And,
if so, who was on which side?'

Fry frowned, but let it pass. 'Anyway, Milner's account of
his whereabouts was crap from the start.'

'Really?'

'There was no possibility of tracing anyone who could remember
him. He could have been anywhere at that time.'

'But he can't be placed at the scene either.'

'The DCI thinks he's worth pursuing. And that one is no
Harry Dickinson, either. Mr Tailby will have been running rings
round him back at Division.'

Cooper was silent for a moment, lying quite still to ease the
pain in his chest.

'Andrew Milner isn't in the frame,' he said.

'But you just said it fits!'


339


'Of course it does. It fits the facts, anvwav. But he can't have
killed Laura Vernon.'

'Why not?'

He shrugged. 'He just can't, that's all.'

'You're nuts, do you know that? You're a sandwich short of
a picnic.'

They didn't speak to each other for a few minutes. They lay
listening to the noises in the woods. A small flock of jackdaws

D	J

appeared and circled the face of a neighbouring crag. Their harsh,
metallic cries drowned out all other noises coming up from the
valley until the birds gradually settled on to their roost.

The minutes passed without incident. The three old men were
still gathered around the white pick-up in front of the house.
In another half-hour the light would have gone completely. Fry
passed the binoculars back to Cooper. Then she eased over on
to her side and dug a hand into the pocket of her jacket. She
pulled out a bag of coloured sweets.

The read somewhere you should have something with you when
you're on the hills. For the energy.'

Cooper took a sweet and sucked it thoughtfully. He looked
at her with a faintly puzzled expression. She seemed to feel his
eyes on her and turned away, pretending to study something in
the woods. Beyond the valley, a jet airliner was leaving a faint
trace across the sky towards Manchester.

'Diane --' he said tentatively.

'Yeah?'

'What happened to your family?'

Fry remained staring straight ahead. A tendon twitched in
her neck as her jaw tightened. She showed no other sign that
she had heard him.

He studied her profile, trying to tune in to what she was
thinking, to get a glimpse of how she was feeling. But her face
was stony and expressionless, her eyes fixed on something that
might have been deep in the wood, or even beyond it.

A blackbird scratching in the old leaves beneath the trees
whistled and chattered to itself. A partridge wound up its rusty
spring somewhere down the hillside. They followed the sound
of a car travelling up out of Moorhay towards Edendale.


340


'You don't have to tell me if you don't want to,' he said
gently.

She turned her head then. Her lips had narrowed to a hard
line, but her eyes had returned from their invisible horizon to
seek out his own.

'I just can't believe you sometimes, Ben.'

'I'm that amazing, eh?'

o'

'What sort of time is this to decide you want to discuss my
private life?'

'I thought you might like to talk while we wait.'

'Would it surprise you to learn that all I'd like to do at this
particular moment is punch you on the nose?'

'Oh, I shouldn't do that. My screaming would give our position
away.'

'Right.'

They stayed unmoving for five minutes more. The blackbird

J	J	t?

chattered amongst the old leaves on the woodland floor. A

o

squirrel rustled the branches as it leaped from one tree to
the next. A large, pale moth appeared, fluttering in front of
Fry's nose until she waved it away. A tawny owl hooted from
the slopes of the Baulk. Finally, she gave a deep sigh.

'I was taken into care by Social Services when I was nine.
They said my parents had been abusing my sister, who was
eleven. They said it was both my parents. We were fostered
after that, but we kept moving on to different places. So many
different places that I can't remember them. It was years before
I realized that we didn't stay anywhere long because of my sister.
She was big trouble wherever we went. Nobody could keep her
under control. But I worshipped her, and I refused to be split
up from her.'

'What about you?'

'What about me? Do you mean was I abused too? I can't
remember.'

'Was it ?'

7 can't remember.'

The blackbird flapped away through the undergrowth, cackling
its alarm call. The squirrel froze on an oak branch, its body
upright, its head alert for danger. Cooper and Fry automatically


341


ducked their heads and hugged the ground more closely. Gradually,
the normal sounds oi the lullbide returned. J he squirrel relaxed
and moved on.

'So what happened to your parents?'

'For God's sake. I've no idea. And I don't want to know.
All right?'

'And your sister?'

Fry hesitated. When she spoke, her voice had lost its hard
edge. Her eyes had drifted away, back to the images floating
somewhere in a darkness that only she could see. 'I haven't seen
her since she was sixteen. She disappeared from our foster home
and never came back.'

Her voice died, and Cooper thought she had told him all she
was ever going to say. But then came a whisper, full of anger
and unresolved pain.

'Of course, she was already using heroin by then.'


A skein of geese passed slowly overhead in a straggly V shape.
They honked hoarsely to each other, communicating their presence,
binding themselves together as a living unit that moved as
a single creature. A combine harvester was working late lower
down the valley. Its headlights were on, and the clatter of its
blades was clear and sharp on the air as it flattened a field of
barley. A cloud of dust marked the combine's position, golden
specks glittering in the fading light.

Fry tried to persuade her memories to fly away with the geese,
to fall into shreds beneath the combine's blade, to disappear in a
cloud of dust. But in the dark valley of her mind, the nightmares
roosted permanently; the harvest never came.

'Diane '

'What now?'

'I guess you must have taken me home last night.'

'Who else?'

'Well . . . thanks.'

'Think nothing of it. But don't expect the same favour
too often. It wasn't exactly the most fun I've ever had in
one night.'

'Right.'


342


He surked the last of Vii^ <wcct and polished the lenses of the	i,

binoculars on his sleeve.	"I

'There's just one other thing, Diane. Most of last night is a	(it

complete blur. But there is something I can sort of remember.	ir

Something 1 wanted to ask you about. I can't get it out of	''

j .	'	1«

my mind.	L

Fry went completely rigid, her arm and leg muscles locked	'"

tight as if she had multiple cramp. Her stomach tied itself into
a painful knot, and she turned her face away, praying that he
couldn't see her blush. How could she have hoped that he
wouldn't remember that excruciatingly embarrassing moment?

O J	O

She had no idea what she was going to say to him. Her mind

O	O	J

was a total blank.
'Diane -- ?'

She barely managed a grunt of acknowledgement, but it was

i '	i	:liĄ

enough to encourage him to continue.	"a

'I remember some music you were playing in the car on the	'&

way back to your flat. I guess it sort of stuck in my mind while	pj

I was drunk, and I can't get rid of it again. I just wondered what	||

it was, that's all.'	];"

Fry laughed out loud with relief. 'That's ridiculous!'

'Some woman singer. I'm more into the Waterboys and the
Levellers. But that tape sounded all right.'

'It was Tanita Tikaram. It's called "Ancient Heart."'

'Thanks.'

Till lend you the cassette, if you like. You can make a
copy of it.'

'That's great --'

A bleeping sound came from Fry's jacket pocket. 'Oh shit.'

'What have you brought that thing for?'

Fry pulled out her pager and switched off the sound as she read
the phone number. 'It's somebody I've been trying to get hold of
all day,' she said. 'He's just tried to ring me back at last.'

^ 7	J	O

'Important?'

'The bird-watcher -- Gary Edwards.'
'Ah. You remembered.'

'Do you still think it's important? Should I go back to the car
and phone him, then?'


343


Cooper hesitated for a moment. 'Yes, you should.'
She straightened herself up and scrambled over the rocks
towards the car park that lay a few hundred yards below them
at the Old Mill. 'See you in a few minutes, then.'
'Yeah/


Damn, thought Cooper. And just as he was getting round to
asking her about Hitchens.

He swung up the binoculars again. He had to peer hard now to
make out the figures by the white pick-up. They seemed to have
been gathered over a piece of paper, consulting together, nodding
their heads, as if they were doing a crossword or something.

A few minutes after Diane Fry had left, he saw two of the dim

J

shapes begin to move away from the house. He realized they were
heading back down the track leading from the smallholding. The
tiiird stayed behind, leaning against the pickup.

Cooper followed the two figures as they passed dirough the
first gate on foot and continued along the track towards the road.
When they turned and crossed the road towards the squeeze stile
that led to the path on to the Baulk, he knew he would have to
follow them.

He looked at his watch. Nearly eight o'clock. Who else had
mentioned eight o'clock? He flicked through his mental notes,

o	o	'

and remembered Fry's account of her interview with Charlotte
Vernon. It was this time, every night, that Charlotte visited the
spot on the Baulk where her daughter's body was found.


'So let's just go back over it again, Mr Edwards, shall we?' said
Fry. 'You were standing near the cairn on Raven's Side when
you saw an old man with a black dog walk past the end of the
footpath below.'

'No.'

'What do you mean "no"? That's what you said in your
statement.'

'No, I didn't. Where've you got that from?'

Fry stared through the windscreen at the car park and the
lighted windows on the front of the Old Mill. She was still

o

unsure what it was she hoped to establish by speaking to the


344


bird-watcher. Gary Edwards had already insisted that he would
stick by his estimate of the time he had seen the old man. His
watch was accurate, and he was sure of the time. He always
recorded the exact time of a sighting, he said.

o	o'

Now, though, she did seem to have touched on something.
She consulted her notes, taken from his earlier statement.

'I've got it right here, Mr Edwards -- the statement that you
signed. Let me read part of it to you. Your statement reads:
"I saw the head of a dog through my binoculars. It appeared
through some undergrowth. It was close to the ground, sniffing
at a fallen branch. It was black."'

'Right.'

'You go on: "Then I saw there was a man with the dog. He

o	o

was an old man, wearing a cap. He passed out of my vision to
the left, walking, not running. I took the binoculars away from
my eyes and I saw the man and the dog move away into the
trees. This was near the stream that runs by the footpath called
the Eden Valley Trail."'

'Well '

'So the dog was a black dog.'

'No, that's not what I said.'

'It's here. You've signed it. "It was black", you said.'

'You're not listening. Like the other bloke -- he didn't listen
either.'

'Detective Sergeant Rennie?'

'Yes, him. He just wrote what he wanted to, didn't he? But
listen. I only saw the dog's head through the binoculars. The head was black.'
'So?'

'So maybe the rest of the dog wasn't. Get it? I couldn't tell
when I took the binoculars away, see? I could only make out the
rest of the thing then, when it came out into the open. But the
light was funny by that time. It was late on, and the sun was so
low. You lose the definition of the colours.'

'OK, I know what you mean. But as far as you could tell,
the dog was black, yes?'

'No. Well ... I reckon it was probably black and white.'

'Why? You've just said --'


345


'Well, they usually are, that type of dog. When you see
them on the telly -- they're mostly black, with some white.
They reckon it's good camouflage, so the sheep can't see them
on the hillside.'

'What are you talking about?'

'One Man and His r>fg. It was a sheepdog type of thing, with
a shaggy coat. A Border collie, they call it.'

'A Labrador, surelv. A black Labrador you saw.'

'I'm telling you, I'm telling you. Will you write it down
properly, for God's sake? I know a Labrador from a collie,
see? And this was a Border collie. A black and white collie.
Definite.'

Fry sighed. 'We'd better see you and take another statement
in the morning, hadn't we, Mr Edwards?'

o'	'

'Whatever you like. But we'll have to make it quick. There's
been a pair of snipe sighted on Stanton Moor.'

As she finished the call to Edwards, a memory came back to
Diane Fry, and she almost dropped the phone. The memory was
of a photograph of Laura Vernon. It was the original photograph,
the one from which her face had been enlarged for use in the
murder enquiry. Fry had seen it only once. She had sneaked a
look in the file when the girl was still officially just a missing
person. It had been a photo of Laura taken in the garden at
the Mount, at a time when she was laughing and happy in the
sunshine. And at her feet in the picture had been a dog. A black
and white Border collie.


Stewart Tailby called DI Hitchens into his office. It was late,

j	j

but they were both too senior to qualify for overtime payments.

The two men were tired and tense. They were awaiting the

J	O

results of fingerprint examination on a find made earlier in the
evening. They hardly dared to say it to each other, but they knew
the results could be crucial. Tailby had openly pinned his hopes on
forensics so often during this enquiry that it seemed like tempting
fate even to voice the hope that a set of prints other than Laura
Vernon's would be found on the second trainer. That second
trainer they had spent so many expensive man-hours looking


346


for. The trainer which had now been found hv searchers, where
it lay in the roots of a hedge inside the back wall of the garden

J	O	O

at the Mount.

Meanwhile, a tearful Andrew Milner had been sent home for
the night, with the warning that they might want to talk to him
again tomorrow -- and the friendly advice that he should talk to
his wife.

'So Margaret Milner was right that he hadn't been Charlotte
Vernon's lover,' said Tailby.

'But she didn't know about the secretary.'

'Mmm. Has it occurred to you, though, that Graham Vernon
might well have known about the affair?'

O

Hitchens snapped his fingers. 'Of course. The hold he had
over Milner wasn't just to do with his fear of losing his job. He
knew Milner's dirty secret.'

'And he certainly made the most of it. The result was that
Andrew Milner felt unable to act even when Vernon made a
move on his own daughter.'

'Are we discounting Milner, then?'

'No. There's enough hate there. Hate for Graham Vernon.

O	'

but self-disgust too. It has to be directed somewhere.'

Tailby leaned wearily on his desk, his shoulders stooped. The
air conditioning was still running, and his office was turning cold
as the evening temperature dropped. 'No, I'd like to eliminate
Milner, but we can't. Not without confirmation of his movements
that night. Poor sod. He couldn't even switch his story and claim
he was with the mistress.'

Tailby glowered at Hitchens's raised eyebrow, realizing the
DI was amused either at his use of the old-fashioned term
or his sympathy for the suspect. Perhaps both. Maybe he was
getting too old for the job if his junior officers were laughing
at him, thought Tailby. Maybe he ought to take that job in the
Corporate Development Department at County Headquarters in
Ripley. They needed a chief inspector to take charge of Process
Development. Whatever that was.

'We have no case against Andrew Milner,' said Hitchens.

The know that, damn it.'

'Of the other names on the list, Simeon Holmes is in the clear.


347


So


He was nearly twenty miles away at the time, and his storv is
well supported.'

'Bikers,' said Tailby.

'This lot weren't exactly Hell's Angels, sir. You'd be surprised
at the types who gather at Matlock Bath in their best leathers on a
weekend. Some of them that we talked to were married couples
with kids. Some were in their fifties.'

Tailby decided he disliked Paul Hitchens. It was his youth
and his condescending smile. He would probably go far. In
fact, he would probably be DCI very soon. What did Process
Development mean exactly? He recalled that the three other
CIs in Corporate had sections called Strategic Planning, Policy
Development and Quality Assurance. Not much help.

Hitchens was counting on his fingers, like a primary school
teacher. 'We know Lee Sherratt could have been there. He
couWhave been the youth seen talking to Laura, but he's sensibly
keeping mum. Without forensics, we'll not pin that one down.
Nobody saw him who can identify him.'

'OK. Take the father, Graham Vernon.'

'Yes. sir.' Hitchens held up another finger. It looked danger

'	F	O	O

ously like an insulting gesture to a senior officer. 'Graham Vernon was seen and identified. By Harry Dickinson. But, of course, Mr
Vernon went out to look for Laura when she didn't come back to
the house for dinner. Perfectly natural. An innocent explanation.
He looked around for a while, perhaps called her name a few
times, then got worried when he couldn't find her, went back

O	'

to die house and phoned us. Just what we would expect from
a concerned father.'

Tailby's expression must have betrayed his feelings about
Graham Vernon. 'I know you didn't like him, sir. But we can't
act on feelings, can we? We need evidence.'

O '

Hitchens was reallv warmin? up now. 'Teaching your grand

;	or	o j	o

mother to suck eggs' was an expression that sprang to the DCI's
mind. He wanted to stop Hitchens, to take back control of the
conversation, but he felt powerless to halt the flow. His words
had an air of inevitability.

'Harry Dickinson.'

'Yes, Harry Dickinson. He was definitely there.' Hitchens


348


looked at his fingers. He seemed to have lost count. He \vas
already holding up five fingers and was trying to find a sixth.
'But was he there at the right time? Nobody can tell us so for
definite. There's no firm identification of him, not even from
the bird-watcher.'

'He did find die body, Paul.'

'Well, strictly speaking --'

'Yes, I know!'

Tailby knew he was losing his grip on the situation. He
shouldn't lose his temper. But how could he stand this waiting?
What were the fingerprint people doing down there? Of course,
he knew the difficulties of lifting latent prints from a leather
surface, and it could take hours. They were praying that the
suspect had handled the leather upper of the trainer, and that
his hands had been sweaty. They were praying that he hadn't
handled the trainer by its laces, or by the cloth interior. They
were praying he was someone they knew.

If they lifted a suspect print, the enquiry was back on track
and they could start making comparisons for identification. If
they lifted no prints, they had hit another brick wall.

'We may have to start pulling in every youth in the Eden
Valley for elimination,' said Hitchens, with an air of too much
satisfaction.

'We might as well pull in all the foxes in those woods and
identify the one that took a bite out of Laura Vernon's leg. That's
about as useful as forensics have been to us so far.'

'It could have been a fox,' said Hitchens. 'Or it could have
been a dog.'

o

'Oh yes,' said Tailby. 'That's about the best we can do. It
could have been a bloody dog.'


But did the Vernons have a dog? Jesus, had nobody found that	A

out? As Diane Fry punched the buttons of her phone again, she	||

wondered how something so obvious could have been missed.	i|

Had everybody been fixated on Harry Dickinson? She banged the	!|!

dashboard of the car irritably. No answer from the Vernons.	j|

What was she going to do now? She could, of course, try to	If

O	O	'	'	J	«l

get hold of Mr Tailby or DI Hitchens and ask them what to do.	||


I
349	I


But what would Ben have suggested? The ansv, er came to her

oo

as if he had been there next to her: Sheila Kelk, the Vernons'
cleaner. Her address was on file back at the office. It only took

j

a call to the duty operator in the incident room to get the phone
number of the house at Wve Close.

Mrs Kelk sounded terrified when Fry told her who she was,
as if the council house she was speaking from might be full of
guiltv secrets.

O	^

'I just want to ask you something, Mrs Kelk. Do the Vernons
have a dog?'

o

'Oh, no. Mrs Vernon doesn't like them.'

'But there's a photograph in the sitting room at the Mount
showing Laura with a black and white collie. So they must have
had one when that picture was taken?'

'No, I think that was the gardener's. Laura always loved
animals. Dogs and horses and that. I think she did mention that
dog to me once, when I was dusting round the knick-knacks on
the cabinet. She told me its name too, but I can't remember
what it was.'

'It belonged to the gardener? So that's Lee Sherratt's dog in

O	O	O

the photograph?'

'No, no, not him. What, Lee Sherratt? He was never really

what you'd call a gardener anyway. Or one for keeping animals

either, I should think. He'd rather shoot 'em than look after 'em.

No, it was the one before him. That photo must have been taken

a year ago, I'd say.'

'Who was that, Mrs Kelk? Who did the dog belong to?'
'The old gardener. I'm sorry, it was before my time at the

Mount, you see. I don't know his name. But Laura said it

was an old man that used to come. A strange old man from

O

the village.'


350


28


L)iane Fry drove up to the smallholding, this time having no
trouble with the gates or the geese, which seemed to be notable
by their absence. The stream of rusty water From the broken
pipe had dried up, and an air of unnatural silence hung about
the buildings.

Her headlights caught the white pick-up, which had been
parked near a small wooden shed. She parked in front of it
and got out. Its doors were unlocked and the keys were in
the ignition. Then she saw Sam Beeley. He was alone, leaning
against a wall by the vehicle, almost invisible in the gloom. His
expression was vague and sad and full of suffering, and his eyes
were fixed somewhere in the distance. He seemed so preoccupied
that he hardly noticed Fry's arrival until she was standing right in
front of him.

'On your own, Mr Beeley? Where are your friends?'

He looked at her vaguely. 'Harry and Wilford? They've left
me to it."

Sam looked shockingly pale, despite the strong sun that had
been baking the area for weeks. The veins showed through in his
neck and along the line of his jaw amongst sparse grey stubble.
His skin hung in loose folds from his cheeks and there were
dark-blue shadows under his eyes.

'Are you all right, Mr Beeley?'

'Right as I'll ever be.'

Fry turned and looked up towards the crags of Raven's Side,
where she had lain with Ben Cooper half an hour before, looking
down on Thorpe Farm. There had been no sign of him there
when she had returned from the car park up the steep path. No
indication of where he had gone, no attempt to leave a message.
It was typically infuriating behaviour -- just what she had come
to expect from him.

'Have you seen Detective Constable Cooper tonight? You
remember Ben Cooper?'


351


'Eh? Sergeant Cooper's lad? I remember him.' A ghost of a
smile touched Sam's pale lips at the memory of the compost
heap fiasco.

'Have you seen him? Has he been here?'

Sam looked at her blankly, shaking his head in incomprehension.

'And where have Mr Dickinson and Mr Cutts gone?'

o

He looked as though answering her would be too much effort.

She wanted to get hold oi his jacket and shake him until he

responded, but thought he looked so frail that he would fall

apart in her hands.

'Mr Beeley, I need to know. Where have they gone?'

Sam rallied momentarily, as if the tone of her voice had pierced

his lethargy. He moved a hand feebly, not quite completing the

gesture. 'Out on the Baulk.'

o

The old man sagged again. He was clutching his ivory
headed stick as if his life depended on it, and his bony hands
were tense and white at the knuckles where they gripped the
Alsatian's head.

Fry thought of her first visit to the smallholding. 'He doesn't
look like he's got strong wrists, but it's all in the technique,' Wilford
Cutts had said. She had seen those same hands break the neck
of a large bird with one twist. She thought of the three old men,
and she thought of Harrv Dickinson covering up for someone

o	/	or

involved in the death of Laura Vernon. Did it have to be family?

She looked again at Sam, seeing him afresh. He looked like a

o	'	O

defeated man; a man who had been in pain for years and was
in agony right now, suffering in front of her eyes. But was his
pain entirely physical?

'Can I have a look at your stick, Mr Beeley?'

'My stick? I've had it a long time.'

'May I?'

She held out her hand, and Sam hesitantly gave her the

'	J O

stick. It felt heavy and solid and was well-made, so that it
balanced properly and swung easily in the hand. The handle
shaped like the head of an Alsatian was worn smooth and shiny
by Sam Beeley's hands. The back of the dog's head formed a
hard, rounded ball of ivory, easily capable of crushing a skull


352


if wielded with enough force. Or, of course, with (he right
technique.

She examined the handle closely. There were no traces she
could see. But then it could have been cleaned. And in six days
of use, any visible traces of blood or tissue could easily have
been rubbed off on to the parchment-thin palms of its owner's
hands. The forensics lab, though, would soon settle it one way
or another.

'I have to ask you to come with me to the station to answer
some questions,' said Fry.

Sam nodded wearily. 'I'll need to use my stick.'

'I'm afraid you'll have to manage without it for a while.'

'I can't walk without my stick,' he insisted,

Sam was trembling even more than usual. He looked as though
he needed an ambulance rather than a trip to the station. Fry
hesitated, conscious of the mistakes that had dogged the enquiry
so far. The last thing she needed was a sick old man suffering
a collapse in police custody.

As her brain ticked over, she found herself looking past Sam
into the doorway of the shed. The interior was pitch black, but
her eye was attracted by a quiet movement in the darkness. There
was something in there that was blacker than the surrounding
shadows, something with eyes that turned to watch her as she

brought her mobile phone from the Peugeot. She needed advice

or	o

on this one. Someone else could make the decision on whether
to pull an apparently helpless old man in for questioning.

She got through to the duty officer in the incident room again,

o	o	J	o '

giving details of her location and asking for the whereabouts of
Tailby and Hitchens. But the officer had news. And what he had
to tell her made her forget about Sam Beelev for now.

O	J

Fry asked a few questions and requested whatever backup
was available at this time of night. Then she ended the call and
dialled again, this time trying Ben Cooper's number. She needed

O	'	J O	1

to tell him this bit of news. It was something he had to know

o

before he encountered Harry Dickinson again.

According to the duty officer, a second search had been
ordered that afternoon in the area of scrubland at the back
of the Vernons' garden, this time seeking evidence of Andrew


353


Milner's presence in the vicinity. The search had spread, almost
by accident, into die garden itself. And there, at the bottom of a
well-trimmed privet hedge, Laura Vernon's second trainer had
been found late in the afternoon.

The man in the incident room was eager to talk. It was a lonely job in the evening, and nobodv ever took the trouble to

7 '	t>'	J

discuss the enquiry with him.

'It caused a bit of excitement round here, I can tell you,' he
said with relish. 'It went straight to the lab, and they found two
clear sets of prints on the trainer. I thought Mr Tailby was going
to hit the roof. Especially as the garden had been searched once
already. But that's the way it always goes, isn't it?'

Fry held her breath, staring blindly at Sam Beeley and the
shed behind him.

She heard that a fingerprint officer had worked late in the
evening to lift the prints off the second trainer and compare
them to those on the matching half of the pair. On the first
trainer, they had found only Laura's own prints -- identified by
taking fingerprints from the body -- and those of Harry Dickinson,
who had carried the trainer back to Dial Cottage. Now the new

o

fingerprint report had come through, and it showed that the two
sets of prints were identical. It meant that Harry Dickinson had
handled both trainers. But only one of them had been found
with the body. Who else could possibly have touched the other
one, except Laura Vernon's killer?

Ben Cooper's phone rang and rang unanswered. Fry knew,
of course, that he had left his phone in his car. But still she
let it ring. Echoing in her mind was that one sentence he had
used that had trapped her into being here tonight, in this crazy
situation. 'Are you going to let me down?' he had said.

While she waited, biting her lip, she found her eyes growing
accustomed to the darkness in the doorway behind Sam. And
now she could see, all too clearly, what was in the shed.


For a while, Ben Cooper was able to keep the two figures in
sight from a safe vantage point among the rocks on Raven's Side.
Gradually, he worked his way down the steep hillside, using the
cover of the rocky outcrops and the first of the trees on the lower


354


slopes. The two old men weren't moving quickly. They looked as
though they were out for a Sunday stroll, ambling along the path
close together, almost shoulder to shoulder, apparently deep in
conversation.

Cooper was glad of their absorption in each other as he
scrambled down a stretch of open ground, stumbling on invisible
rabbit holes and stubbing his toe on half-buried stones. Before
he had reached ground level, Harry and Wilford had vanished
around a bend in the path. He remembered a second path which
ran at a diagonal across the face of the cliff and emerged on to

o	o

the main path heading towards the Baulk. He found it quickly
and broke into a run, lifting his feet high off the ground and
letting them fall as softly as he could, afraid of unseen hazards
that might trip him, but desperate to gain distance on the two
old men. The surrounding trees grew tall and dense, and a thick,
muffled silence gradually descended around him, cutting him off
from the world that had existed higher up on the tors.

As he ran, Cooper thought of Diane Fry's interview with
Charlotte Vernon. If she really did visit the Baulk every night
to contemplate the place of her daughter's death, then Harry
Dickinson would surely know it. There seemed to be very little
that went on in this area that Harry wasn't aware of. No doubt
he had seen Charlotte picking her way along the path with her
bunches of flowers, just as he had spotted her husband out on
the Baulk. Cooper wondered what Harry's real intention had
been when he set off to try to meet Graham Vernon the night
that Laura had died. And he wondered whether Harry now
meant to follow up that intention with Vernon's wife instead.
There was no doubt in Cooper's mind that danger lurked in the
woods tonight.

For once, Harry was without his dog, Jess. But he was
accompanied by Wilford Cutts instead. Probably there was	|i

little to choose between them for loyalty.	i.|

Cooper reached the main path, breathing hard, and turned	I

westwards towards the Baulk. Down below him now, on his	|

right, was the stream and the Eden Valley Trail that ran along	|'|

side it. Faintly, through the covering of trees, he could hear	if

i'	t>	&	>	j

the whispering of the water. A barn owl called -- an eerie,	|


I'
355	«


long-drawn-out hunting cry that echoed across the valley and was
enough to make him sliivcr, even though he knew what it was.

He wondered what luck Diane Fry might have had with the
bird-watcher, and wished that he had her alongside him now. A
fox barked somewhere ahead. Perhaps even the same fox that had
sunk its teeth into the cooling flesh of Laura Vernon's thigh.

A couple of minutes passed as Cooper walked as fast as he
dared, squinting ahead into the gloom, hoping he hadn't lost
the two men. But eventually, as he rounded a bend by the
disintegrated remains of a stone building, he came to a sudden
halt at a glimpse of movement up ahead. He stood into the side
of the path under an overhanging elder bough, and watched the

1	*	O O	O

old men. They were standing at a point where the path diverged.
Again they were very close together, merging into one dark,
indistinct figure, as if they were holding each other, embracing
like lovers. Then they turned, striding down the right-hand path
without looking back. The path dipped in a gentle slope into a
patch of denser trees and then towards ground that grew rocky
and steep and was broken into deep ravines.

Cooper had to go more slowly as he found himself walking
over the rocks. By the time he reached the first ravine, the old
men had vanished into the night as if they had been erased out
of existence.

He stood back off the path in the trees and waited. There was
nothing else he could do. He wondered what Diane Fry would
have done when she found him gone. Surely she would have the
sense this time to call in and get some support. She wouldn't
make the same mistake again. No way. She wouldn't make the

O	J

mistake of following him into trouble.


As soon as she entered the woods, Fry knew that it would
happen again. Though she had brought a torch this time, the
narrow pool of light it cast at her feet seemed only to emphasize
the blackness outside its reach, to make her isolation total and
threatening. From among the trees, the eager darkness had
begun to sidle in towards her, oozing round her body in swift,
oily movements, and pressing in close with its nauseous and
suffocating familiarity.


356


The night was full of tinv, whispering movements. They were

O	j '	L	O	J

like the soft seething on the surface of a bowl of maggots. They
made her want to scratch her skin, where the small hairs were
tense and moving. Then the invisible ants began to swarm across
her body, nipping and biting as they went, their thousands of tiny
insect feet scuttling over her arms and legs, itching her skin and

o	o '	c>

burrowing under her breasts and into the moist warmth between

o

her thighs, until she wanted to scream with revulsion.

O *

She needed desperately to reach out and touch something
solid for reassurance, yet could not move her hand for fear
of what her fingers might encounter. Somehow she managed
to keep putting one foot in front of the other, automatically,
like a robot programmed for a single action. Every step she
took made her afraid. Every movement wras like a leap into a
void, a step into the midst of unseen horrors.

She knew that she wouldn't be able to stop the shadows
bringing back the memories that she had pushed deep into

the recesses of her mind. They were memories that were too

j

powerful and greedy to be buried completely, too vivid to be
erased, too deeply etched into her soul to be forgotten. They
merely wallowed and writhed in the depths, waiting for the
chance to reemerge.

o

As she walked, she turned her head from side to side, watching
the dimly seen trees for movement. They were like rows of
solid bodies standing threateningly around, surrounding her and

O	O J	O

closing in. She was alone among a dozen of them, two dozen,

o	o	'

maybe more. Other bodies could be sensed, further back in
the darkness, watching, laughing, waiting eagerly for what they
knew would happen next. Voices murmured and coughed. 'It's
a copper,' the voices said. 'She's a copper.'

The memories churned and bubbled. There were movements
that crept and rustled closer; there were brief, fragmented
glimpses of figures carved into severed segments by the streetlights;
the sickly reek of booze and violence. And then she seemed

O	'	J

to hear that one particular voice -- that rough, slurring Brummie
voice that slithered out of the darkness. 'How do you like this, copper?' The same taunting laughter moving in the shadows.
The same dark, menacing shapes all around, whichever way


3S7


she turned. A hand in the small of her back, and a leg outstretched
to trip. Then she was falling, flailing forward into
the darkness. Hands grabbing her, pinching and pulling and
slapping. Her arms trapped by unseen fingers that gripped her
tightly, painful and shocking in their violence. Her own voice,
unnaturally high-pitched and stained with terror, was trying to cry out, but failing.

J	O

Nothing could stop the flood of remembered sensations now.
The smell of a sweat-soaked palm over her mouth, her head
banging on the ground as she thrashed helplessly from side to
side. Her clothes pulled and torn, the shock of feeling parts of
her body exposed to the cruel air. 'How do you like this, copper?'
And then came the groping and the prodding and the squeezing,
and the hot, intruding fingers. And, perfectly clear on the night
air, the sound of a zip. Another laugh, a mumble, an excited
gasp. And finally the penetration. The ripping agony, and the
scream that was smothered by the hand over her face, and the
desperate fighting to force breath into her lungs. 'How do you
like this, copper? How do you like this, copper?' Animal noises
and more laughter, and a warm wetness spurting and trickling
inside her before the final withdrawal. The relief of the lifting
of a weight from her body, as one dark shape moved away and
she thought it was over.

But then it happened again.

And again.

o


Blindly, she continued walking, insensible to her surroundings,
all her efforts directed towards controlling the reactions of her
body. She tried to focus her thoughts on Ben Cooper, somewhere
ahead in the woods, unaware of the danger he was in. 'Are you
going to let me down?' he'd said.

Finally, she found herself stepping out into a clearing, immediately
feeling the difference in the ground underfoot. She became
aware of a sound -- a real sound, belonging to here and now, a
sound that needed explanation.

Her memory was still forcing unwanted pictures in front of
her eyes as she turned to identify the noise, seeking its source
among the menacing shadows. She found that a large tree stood

O	o	o


358


near her shoulder, tall and thirklv shrouded in foliage, its cruv-.ii
dimly visible against the pale sky. Its leaves whispered and rustled
like a vast colony of small creatures roosting directly above her
head. She thought of thousands of tiny bats, scraping their thin,
papery wings against their bodies as they prepared to drop in
fluttering swarms on to her shoulders. There was nothing worse
than something you could only hear, but not see.

There was a sudden loud creaking as the wind caught the
weight of a branch, and a louder crackling among the leaves. She

o	'	o	o

caught the unmistakable smell of urine and faeces, drifting closer.
And then there was a heavier movement among the branches as
something swung towards her, lumbering out of die dark.

O	O	'	O


Three hundred yards away, Ben Cooper had picked up the trail
again as one of the old men re-appeared on the path. He heard
the man coming before he saw him, could sense his breathing

o	'	o

and hear a barely audible muttering.

J	O

After switching to the left-hand fork, the figure walked on
for several hundred yards before suddenly striking off the path
into the depths of the trees. Cooper found it difficult even to
locate the exact spot where he had disappeared. Once in among
the trees, he was lost. There was no hope of seeing anyone who
might be lurking among the straggling clumps of brambles and
the trunks of the old oaks and beeches that grew thickly here.
Faintly, on the air, he caught a familiar tang of pipe smoke. But
he finally had to admit that he had lost the old man he had been
following.

o

Then Cooper lifted his head in despair as a high-pitched scream
shattered the silence of the woods.


359


29


Uial Cottage was almost in darkness. The only light behind the
curtains of the sitting room was a flickering pattern of shifting
colours, a light that died against the window before it reached
the garden or the blackness beyond.

Two torches shone on to the flagged path, throwing the shadows
of shrub roses across the flower beds like skeletal fingers reaching
towards the house. In the background was the sound of another
siren approaching Moorhay from the Edendale road. The flashing
blue lights of an ambulance were reflected off the night sky.

O	O	J

Ben Cooper and Diane Fry knew the ambulance would not
be needed. Fry still had a clear picture in her mind of the old
man hanging from a branch ten feet above the ground, the toes
of his black work boots pointing to the earth, his head lolling
to one side in a last mocking gesture. When she had moved
reluctantly closer to the swinging body, she had seen that his
right hand was clenched tight around an old leather dog lead.

She was aware that she had screamed when the wind had swung

o

the dark, rustling shape towards her head and the dangling feet
had bumped in her face. Then Ben Cooper had been there,
cannoning into her at full tilt in answer to her cry. And somehow

O	J

she had recognized him instantly, an instinctive response to his
scent or the sound of his breath, so that she reacted not by
attacking him as she would a stranger rushing at her from the
darkness, but by clinging to him desperately, finding at last the
reassuring solidity that her body craved.

Then finally, together, they had cut the body down. Cooper
had climbed up to the branch and sawed through the nylon rope
with his penknife. The old man had clearly been dead long before
they got him to the ground. It had been a neat, clean job, with
the knot of the noose tied properly and positioned below the
angle of the jaw, with plenty of height to the drop. His neck
had been snapped cleanly.


360


Ben Cooper hesitated ,is they reached the old \\oodcn gate
at the bottom of the garden, wondering if the same thought
was in both their minds. But he didn't want to be die iirst
to say it.

'So Sam Beeley had the dog,' he said instead.

'The Border collie, yes. Kept well out of sight in a shed at
Thorpe Farm.'

They had waited only while the machinery of an official

j	^	^

response to a sudden death had swung into action. The first
area patrol car had already arrived with two uniformed officers
following Fry's call to the incident room. An ambulance had been
summoned, closely followed by the police surgeon to officially
certify death. They had all been obliged to step carefully round
the small heap of roses and carnations tied up with ribbons,
slowly fading and shrivelling on the ground, marking the spot
where Laura Vernon died.

Then Cooper and Fry had walked together up the path towards
Moorhay. Cooper was following the route for the third time that
week. But this time he was conscious of Diane Fry close at his
side, her hand unsteady now as she pointed her torch towards
the row of cottages.

Cooper knew that she had taken control at some point. It had
been immediately after they had discovered the body, immediately
after that spontaneous embrace, when her fear had seemed
to empty itself into his arms like a dam bursting, relieving some
unimaginable pressure. She had naturally taken command of the
scene then, issuing instructions clearly and professionally, like
someone born to the role.

And then he had discovered that she had already been to
Thorpe Farm and spoken to Sam Beeley, and had already found
the dog. She had already phoned in to the incident room, and
she had organized the back-up. Everything done just right. The
credit would be all hers.

But it was almost too perfect. Almost as if the reason she had
agreed to come with him tonight was not to support him, but
just to seek that moment when she typed her own name on the
report that cleared up the Vernon enquiry.

'Who's going to do it?' she asked.


361


Cooper nodded, relieved that she had said it first.

'I will, if you like '

They walked up the path. From inside the cottage came the
dull, distorted sounds of artificial laughter. Cooper knocked. It
was late, and the noise sounded too loud. When Gwen Dickinson
answered the door, the sound from inside the cottage increased
and it became clear that she had been watchinp television.

O

'Mrs Dickinson, when did you last see Harry?' asked Cooper.

'You'd better come in,' she said.

She took them through the sitting room, where a talk show
was on the TV, into the front room of the cottage. Here, in
the semi-darkness, the same smell of pipe smoke lingered that
Cooper had noticed in the woods.

The knew there was something going on.' said Gwen.

O O	O	'

'We've found a body,' said Cooper. 'Hanging from a tree on
the Baulk.'

'Oh my goodness.' Gwen clutched at her bosom as if her
heart would stop with the shock. She fumbled her way to an
armchair behind her and sat down heavily. She stared across the
room at the opposite chair.

'You know who it is, of course,' said Cooper. But he wasn't
speaking to Gwen.

'Of course I do,' said Harry. His pipe was in his mouth and
his head was resting upright on the antimacassar of his chair. But
in the half-light of a single lamp in the corner, his stare was
derisive. 'He always knew to do the right thing, did Wilford.'

Jess lay at Harry's feet, her black coat gleaming, one eye turned
apprehensively towards the visitors, sensing the atmosphere.

'Are you saying he committed suicide?'

'Obviously,' said Harry.

'And why would he do that, Mr Dickinson?'

'Because he killed that girl. The Mount lass. It was the only
way out. He couldn't have faced prison, you see. Not being kept
in a cell, out of the daylight. He couldn't have stood that.'

'He killed Laura Vernon. And you, Mr Dickinson -- you helped
him all along?'

'It's what you do, for a friend.'

Cooper perched on the edge of a hard chair. The Labrador


362


stirred and lifted her head to studv shee as she moved rest! ess! v
across the room. A low growl began in the dog's throat, but Harry
silenced her with a sound that was barely a hiss of breath.

'Do you want to tell us about it?' asked Cooper.

Harrv was silent for a moment, looking from one to the other.

*	o

He seemed not to be considering his words, but weighing up what
effect they would have.

'I saw Wilford on the Baulk that night, that Saturday,' he
said. 'He was upset, and he told me what had happened. I said
1 would help him, of course.'

'So you delayed things.'

'Aye, I left it for a bit before I found the body. And 1 hid
the other shoe thing.'

Harry looked down to the side of his chair, where the small
mahogany cabinet stood. The shoe polish, cloth and brush were
no longer on the floor in front of it, but had been tidied away,
presumably in the little cupboard. Cooper remembered that he
had thought them incongruous and untidy in that well-ordered
room when he had seen them there on Wednesday. He realized
they had not been put away then because there was no room
in the cupboard. The space had been taken up by a size-five
Reebok trainer.

'I chucked it in the garden of the Mount on Wednesday night.
It was supposed to make you think it might have been Vernon
who did it himself.' He sighed. 'It doesn't always work like it
does on the telly, though. It took you a long time to find it.
And that other lass had stuck her oar in by then.' He laughed
sardonically. 'That was a right turn-up for the books.'

'You mean Becky Kelk. The girl who claimed you'd attacked
her.'

'Nasty bit of work, she is. Never been taught how to behave,
if you ask me. Still -- I suppose I ought to look on it as a
compliment.'

'Mr Dickinson,' said Cooper, 'the officers who came to your
house said you seemed to be expecting them.'

'I was,' said Harry. 'But not about that, you understand. It
had come to my mind about fingerprints. The ones on that shoe
would be mine. I knew you'd be coming for me again as soon as


363


you found it. But I didn't expert all that other business. I thought
you'd be asking about the shoe.'

'Instead, Becky Kelk made a false allegation against you, and
you were treated as a rape suspect.'

'It was a bit of an education, all right.'

'And you went through all that for Wilford Cutts?' asked
Fry. 'Even though you knew he'd killed Laura Vcrnon?'

Harry nodded. 'Aye, because he was a mate.' Then he turned
to stare directly at Fry. 'Besides, the girl was evil.'

Cooper heard Harry's voice stumble into anger when he
mentioned Laura Vernon. It happened every time, in every
case he had ever seen. Every time that the life of a victim was
turned over, they were revealed as a person of many facets in
the eyes of those who had known them. Like Charlotte Vernon,

J	'

some saw glittering diamond surfaces, precious and unflawed.
Others, like Harrv Dickinson, saw only base lead.

'	j	j

Cooper became aware of Gwen in the background, a faded
shape against the dark wall. Her eyes were fixed and unblinking,
and her expression made him flinch with its intensity.

'How did it happen?' he asked Harry.

'Wilford used to work at the Mount, you know. He created
that garden up there. It was his skill. Not like young Lee Sherratt.

or	j o

He was never a gardener. He can hump a wheelbarrow, but he
knows nothing about gardening. But Wilford found out what
was going on up there, you see. Those orgies and things. He
said it was wickedness, and he gave 'em a piece of his mind.
So Vernon sacked him.'

'Was this before your granddaughter went to a party there?'

'Yes, it was,' said Harry. He looked at Cooper closely. 'If you

know about that, lad, you'll understand why I didn't disagree

'	' >	>	o

with him about those Vernons. Did Helen tell you about that?'

'Yes.'

'She likes you. Will you be seeing each other? When this lot
is over? You'd suit each other, I reckon.'

Fry shifted impatiently and gave Cooper a signal with her
eyes. Keep quiet, it said. Don't encourage him to wander off
the subject. Obey instructions.

'Stick to the subject of Laura Vernon, Mr Dickinson,' she said.


364


'Aye well, Wilford kept his worst words for the lass. He
called her all sorts. But she was as hard-faced as they come. It
only provoked her to worse. You wouldn't believe a young lass
could be as foul-mouthed as that. She mocked Wilford. She saw
him as a challenge, that's what it was. She told him he was the
only man who had been to die Mount that she hadn't had sex

with. Can you believe that? A lass of fifteen?1 His eves hardened

j	j

to black buttons. 'But that was the way she was brought up.'

They waited while he sucked violently on his pipe, watching
the cloud of smoke rise and drift towards the yellowed ceiling.

'Then she met Wilford on the Baulk that day. And she mocked
him again, worse than ever. She offered herself to him there and
then, pulling down her clothes, taunting him like the little whore
she was. And then she reached out and touched him ..." Harry
seemed to have trouble swallowing, shifting the stem of his pipe
in his mouth with a faint crunch. 'Wilford had these bursts of
temper, you see. It was because of a thing that happened to
him in the war. Did you know he was shot in the head? It did
something to part of his brain, and now and then he got these
rages. It was the right thing, you see. Wilford always did the
right thing.'

'The right tiling?' Gwen had been keeping quiet, but now she
turned on her husband.

'That's what I said.'

'But he killed that little girl, didn't he? Murdered her. Beat
her to death down there in the woods. How can you talk about
the right thing?'

Harry was silent for several moments, staring out of the
window into the darkness, as if he was seeing the hills, as if he

'	o	'

was listening for the skylark and the distant rumble of blasting
in the quarry. Perhaps he was tasting in his imagination the air
and the earth, rolling on his tongue the lingering memories of
an underground world, stifling and dark, where the only things
you could ever trust were your own two hands and the man
standing at your back.

'It's no good. You won't ever understand,' he said.

Gwen's face crumpled into tears, and the detectives stood in
the middle of the room, embarrassed.


365


'What happened during the war?' asked Cooper.

'Was it something to do with the French tarts7' suggested

O	O&

Fry, and Cooper raised his eyebrows.

'Aye, those French girls,' said Harry. 'Did Sam tell you?
It's not something I've ever told Gwen. I never told her much
about the war. Women only worry -- they get everything out
of proportion '

He nodded wisely at them. 'We were lucky, me and Sam. But
Wilford wasn't so luckv. He was always a bit too upright. Didn't
approve, you know. But there was this lad he thought the world
of--he was looking after him, like. And one day they came across
this French lass standing in an alley. She wasn't very old, and she
gave them the come-on, hot and hard. Wilford didn't want to
know, of course, but the lad was excited. He went into this dark
little house, and Wilford had to tag along, trying to talk him out
of it all the way. The lad almost changed his mind, but the lass

-'	o	'

grabbed him and stuck his hand down her drawers. Well --'

o

Harry sucked his pipe, remembering.

'There were two Jerry soldiers hiding in that house, waiting
for the girl to tempt a Tommy in. They bayoneted the lad. When
Wilford walked through the door, the lad's guts were already
spilled on the floor. Wilford had his bren gun ready, and he
shot the Jerries. Then he shot the girl. But he got a Jerry bullet
lodged in his skull, and they sent him home. He was never quite
right after that, the old lad. His brain never healed somehow.
You could never quite tell when he'd have these rages. He had
one at the Mount, by all accounts. No wonder Vernon sacked
him. And sometimes he'd get them with the animals, though it
broke his heart to hurt them.'

Fry drew her breath in sharply. Cooper looked at her, sharing
the memory. He saw a cloud of dark feathers drifting out of a hut,
settling on Wilford Cutts's shoulders and sticking in his hair. He
remembered the van driver looking wild-eyed and frightened by
whatever had happened inside the hut. And he remembered the
hen dangling from Wilford's hand, its wings broken, its eyes
glazed with pain, waiting to be put out of its suffering.

Harry continued, unaware of their exchange of glances. 'When
the Vernon child tormented him, he couldn't put up with it. It


366


reminded him of France and the lad who left his <nits uii die flout

O

oi that house. She was like that French tart all over again. Evil.

o

So he picked up a stone . . .' Harry's eyes tocused on Fry, as it
seeing her for the first time and wondering why she was there.
'It was just a moment's mistake, you see. You can't forget sixty
years of friendship for that,'

'Friendship?'

'Aye. Friendship.'

Harry studied Diane Fry. On her first visit to the cottage, he
had ignored her as completely as he had during the interviews
at die police station. Now, though, he was looking at her in a
different way, as if he sensed a change in her. He looked from
Fry to Ben Cooper, assessing them both curiously.

'You knew, didn't you, lad?'

Cooper nodded. 'It was die pigs, of course.'

Fry looked at him in amazement. 'The ones in the compost
heap? Come on. The pigs were a joke.'

'No. It was after I had diat bit of bother in the pub, you
remember --? Anyway, one of diose youths in the pub said
something about pigs. And it stuck in my brain. Like diat music
you were playing in die car. Tanita Tikaram? They're about die
only two things I can remember.'

The old man was nodding at Cooper like a proud fadier,
encouraging him to do his stuff.

'What die hell have die pigs got to do with it?' asked Fry.

'Well, it suddenly dawned on me what was going on at die
smallholding. They were helping Wilford get rid of all die
animals. He didn't want to leave them behind. He couldn't
just abandon them, because he cared about diem too much.
They were his family, if you like. Apart from the pigs, every
last one of diem went during die course of a week.'

'Honestly?'

'You remember the hens, when we went to Thorpe Farm
that first time? He sold all of diem. When I went up a couple
of days later, die goat had gone too. And there were no
geese. I should have figured it out dien, but I didn't. It was
die pigs that really clinched it. You can't just sell swill-fed
pigs, you see. You've got to get movement permits from


367


the Ministry of Agriculture before they can leave the premises.'

'Because of Swine Vesicular Disease,' put in Harry.

'But there wasn't time to do that, was there? He had to get
rid of them quickly, and there was only one way he could think
of. That was to have them humanely killed and bury them in the
compost heap.'

'So everything went? All that menagerie."

to	O

'Everything. The place is deserted now. All that's left of

^	O	1

Wilford's family is the dog.'

Harry nodded. 'We kept her out of the way after we heard
about the bird-watching bloke. You nearly saw her once, in the
pub, but she was out the back with jess. You see, Wilford needed
time, that's all. That's what I was doing for him -- buying him
time. We couldn't let him get arrested. He knew what he had
to do, but he needed more time. We helped him do it, me and
Sam. Like you say, there's just the dog now.'

'So he took all his family with him. As a matter of interest,
Diane,' said Cooper, 'what gave you the idea that Wilford Cutts
was married?'

'I don't know,' she frowned. 'Wasn't he?'

'His wife died years ago.'

'Oh well, I don't suppose it's important. I just remember
wondering how on earth Connie managed to put up with him
and his friends. He spoke about her once, when I was there.
Perhaps he'd just forgotten she was dead.'

'His wife was called Doris,' said Cooper.

Harry nodded. 'Maybe you're almost Inspector Morse, after
all.'

'You also did your best to throw suspicion on Graham
Vernon. Did you really see him on the Baulk that night? Or
was that a lie?'

'No, lad, no lie. He was there, all right. He was out looking
for the girl, I reckon. No doubt he had an idea in his mind of
what she would be up to. The mother hadn't a clue, of course.
She always thought the lass was some sort of angel.'

The old man curled his lip contemptuously. 'Aye, Vernon
was there, all right. I would have had a few words to say to him


368


too. if I'd got near him. You know \\Iiat about, lad, if Helen's
told you. You don't need to ask me what I would have said to
the man. But he saw me coming, and he cleared off sharpish. I
wasn't complaining. It kept him out of the way. And it did no
harm for you lot to be asking him your questions, did it?'

'And then you even tried to attract suspicion to yourself.'

Harry shrugged. 'It didn't matter if you thought I had killed
the girl anyway.'

'Didn't matter?'

'Well, I was innocent, wasn't I? I knew Wilford would prove
it, in the end. He did the right thing, you see. He always said
he would.'

'But what you put yourself through,' said Cooper. 'It must
have been appalling.'

Harry shrugged. 'It's what you do. For a friend.'

But Fry wasn't satisfied. She was still angry. She stepped
forward, and the old man looked up at her from his chair as
they faced each other across a short stretch of carpet. 'You've
caused a lot of trouble for us, Mr Dickinson,' she said. 'Do you
realize you've just admitted to committing several offences?'

'If you say so.'

'Mr Dickinson, you've deliberately misled the police. You've
concealed evidence of a very serious crime. And that's only for
starters. At the moment, there's no proof that Wilford Cutts's
death was suicide. There may be more serious allegations to
follow, depending on the results of forensic examination.'

'Sam has the suicide note,' said Harry. 'If that's what you
need. It was all done properly.'

'I see.'

Concern clouded Harry's impassive face. 'Somebody ought
to go and see Sam. He's not well.'

o

'Detective Constable Cooper is just about to do that,' said
Fry.

Cooper looked at her, and their eyes met for a long minute.
There was everything in their stare, all the pent-up resentment
and jealousy, all the disdain for each other's views and methods,
their lifestyles and backgrounds, all the memories of the things
that had passed between them, all the pain of intimacy and


369


betraval. Cooper could sense that she was also asking him to
trust her.

'Ben, please.'

She said it as if it was a request. But now the words had a note
of authority, naturally assumed, as of a right. She expected him to
obey. This was her case, she seemed to say. And she was right, of
course. Diane Fry had done everything properly; she had called
in, she had sent for back-up, she had secured the scene. As for Ben
Cooper, he was officially off the enquiry. He shouldn't even be
here. So how could he possibly expect to take any of the credit?

He nodded and went towards the front door, looking for a
passing patrol car to flag down for a lift to Thorpe Farm. As he
left the room, he heard Fry begin the litany.

'Harold Dickinson, I am arresting you on a charge of attempting
to pervert the course of justice. You do not have to say
anything, but it may harm your defence . . .'


Sam Beeley looked relieved when the police car came up the
track to the smallholding. He was holding an envelope, sealed
and addressed 'To Whom It May Concern'. Cooper realized that
he and Fry had actually watched the three old men composing
the letter on the bonnet of the pick-up, but had thought they
were doing a crossword puzzle.

He looked closely at Sam. 'We'll take you to a doctor, Mr
Beeley. It's all over.'

Sam waved his stick weakly. 'Someone has to look after
the dog.'

'Oh yes.'

Cooper went to the shed and opened the lower door. A black
and white Border collie emerged from the darkness, coming
eagerly to sniff his legs and lick his hand, gazing up hopefully
into his eyes. He guessed that she knew her master had gone.
Dogs always did seem to know these things. The bonds of trust
and affection they forged with people were so powerful that
they could only be broken by death.

He reached down to stroke the animal's head, an inadequate
gesture of consolation.

O

'We'll look after you, Connie,' he said.


370


30


rV few evenings later, Diane Fry left her flat and drove her black
Peugeot out of Edendale. She headed southwards towards the
limestone plateau, skirting Durham Edge and Camphill, where
the flying club was. She gazed up at the gliders launching
themselves into the air, soaring on the thermals rising from

'	o	o

the valleys and slipping sideways in the warm breezes stroking

J	1 I o	J	o

the tops of the hills. She felt as though she could take off like
one of those gliders and fly over the countryside that was now
becoming her own. No matter what view she got from up there,
she wouldn't have been able to see her future any more clearly
than she did now. Everything was working out fine.

She found Bridge End Farm and crawled down the track to
park in the farmyard. She could see Ben Cooper standing by a
field gate in the shadow of a barn. He was talking to an older,
more heavily built man who had the same colour hair and the
same open, boyish look to his face. This must be Matt, the
brother who was the farmer. The two men were comparing
the guns they held over their arms, and there was a dog on the
ground at their feet.

Fry took the cassette from her glove compartment and slipped
it into her pocket. Tanita Tikaram's 'Ancient Heart'. He had asked
about it, and said he liked it. Maybe, just maybe, it would help to
bring back some more memories.

o

Cooper turned as she got out of the car. His face was a picture
of amazement.

'Diane -- is something wrong?'

'No, Ben. It's a social call.'

'I see.' He seemed suddenly flustered and looked at his
brother. 'This is Matt, by the way. Matt -- Diane Fry. A
colleague.'

'Nice to meet you,' said Matt, with a smile and a strange
sideways look at his brother. 'Sorry I can't stop to chat, though.
There's a lot of work to do. I'll see you later, Ben.'


371


'Our mother's home,' said Cooper, as if it explained evervthiag.
But it meant nothing, try had never known his mother
was away.

They stood and looked at each other in front of the barn. She
had worked out what she was going to say, but now the words
didn't seem to spring so easily to her lips. She was suddenly lull
of doubt. There was something about die way he had introduced
her to his brother as 'a colleague' that didn't sound right. In the
end, it was Cooper who broke the uneasy silence.

'How was your meeting with the superintendent?' he asked.
'A pat on the back, was it?'

She took a breath, clutching the cassette case in her pocket
for luck. 'Actually, he's asked me if I'll put in for the sergeant's
job when they interview again next month,' she said. 'I thought
I ought to tell you myself.'

Before she could read his expression, Cooper had turned away
to put his shotgun in the Land Rover, where he locked it into a
steel box. Though she couldn't see his face, she could tell that
his shoulders were rigid and arched with tension.

A tractor engine coughed into life in the field beyond the
barn. A sudden clattering of machinery sent a flock of rooks

O	J

spiralling into the air, where they wheeled against the distant
silhouettes of the Camphill gliders. The hoarse, mocking calls
of the birds drew echoes from the barns and the cattle sheds,
and the noise multiplied and swelled until it seemed to fill the
entire farmyard.

'I'm very pleased for you,' said Cooper, with his back still
turned. 'I'm sure you'll make a very good detective sergeant,
Diane. Always in control. Always doing the right thing. You'll
get on fast. You'll shoot up that promotion ladder.' He slammed
the Land Rover door too hard. 'Like you've got a rocket up
your arse.'

Fry winced. She had rarely heard him swear. Only once before
had he spoken to her in that tone. It had been in the bar of the
Unicorn, when he had been consumed with drunken rage. He
had called her a bitch then, but somehow she had persuaded
herself it was only the beer speaking.

Now she felt the conversation was drifting away from her


372


badly. This was not the way it was supposed to have been.
Desperately, she cast round for something to say and finally
nodded towards the dog.

o

'Is she taking to it well?'

'Connie? Yes, she's a natural. Very loval.'

'A good companion, I suppose.'

Cooper patted the head of the Border collie, who looked up
at him adoringly. 'Connie's more than a companion,' he said
pointedly. 'A friend.'

Fry turned at a sound behind her. Another car had pulled into
the yard, one that she vaguely recognized. The door opened and
a woman got out of the driver's seat, but hesitated and remained
standing by the car, waiting for Ben. It was Helen Milner. Fry
felt a chill run under her skin and seep into her arms, even as
a flush started in her neck, and she knew she had made a fool
of herself.

'Well. It looks as though your other friend's come for you,
Ben. Better not keep her waiting.'

Cooper turned angrily at the sneer in her voice, but controlled
himself with a visible effort, remembering the superintendent's
warning about emotional outbursts. He strode a few paces
across the yard towards Helen's car before he stopped and
faced Fry again. By now he was calm, and his words were
chosen with care.

'You may not understand this. But we all need friends sometimes,
Diane.'

Then he turned and left her standing in the shadow of the
barn. Fry found she had been squeezing the cassette in her
pocket so tightly that its sharp edges were digging into the
palm of her hand, and the pain was making her eyes water.
She spoke then, but in a voice so quiet that Cooper could not
possibly have heard.

'So they tell me, Ben,' she said. And she watched him
walk away.


A kestrel hung in a hot up-current of air, searching for moving
prey among the limestone crags high in the daleside. In this
valley, most of the lower fields had been turned to rye-grass


373


leys and silage pasture. But halfway up the hill towards Great
Hucklow there was still a single meadow full of wild flowers,
ox-eye daisies and marjoram, their colours contrasting with the
uniform green of the pastures.

They had almost reached the meadow when Ben Cooper
asked Helen to pull into a gateway. She looked at him curiously,
wondering what could have gone wrong. But she turned
off the engine and wound down the window, and lor a tew
moments they watched a glider that was slipping silently across
the valley, tilting its wings against the sun before disappearing
over Durham Edge.

They were on their way to have lunch together at the Light
House, because it had seemed like the natural diing to do. But
for Cooper, it was more than that. He felt as diough he was
on the point of emerging from the darkness into another world,
a moment to be tasted and savoured. As Helen leaned out of
the car window to track the movement of the glider, her hair
caught the sunlight and turned it into an elusive, coppery haze
that he could have watched for ever.

But finally, his eyes were drawn back down the valley, where
Bridge End Farm lay half in the shadow of the hill against a curtain
of wych-elm woods. He could see the windows of the cool,
dark rooms, where his mother lay asleep, dreaming drug-assisted
dreams, escaping from a strangely altered reality. He could see,
at the back of the house, his brother's tractor trailing a cloud of
dust as it dragged a disc harrow across the top field. And he
could just make out Diane Fry's black Peugeot as it began to
crawl up the track to the road, hesitating at every pothole as if
nervous of falling in. The face of the driver was invisible behind

O

the reflection from the windscreen.

Then the echo of a bark drifted up the hillside. In the farmyard,
waiting patiently by the gate, lay die Border collie that
had once belonged to Wilford Cutts. The dog turned its head
into the shade to follow the tyres of the Peugeot, and the wiry
texture of its fur softened and faded for a moment, darkening

O

its outline against the dusty ground. But then the collie stirred
again and looked up the hill, as if sensing Cooper's presence.
Now the white patches on its face and flanks sparkled and


374


shimmered as they picked up die glare of die sun from the
limestone walls.

For Ben Cooper, it was all perfectly clear. From here, in this
light, at this moment in his life, there was no way that he could
make a mistake. He could see no black dog.


375


r