Dying to Sin

17

‘Bloody man. He never mentioned to me that his mother was still alive,’ said Fry when Cooper reported on his visit to the Dog Inn.

‘He probably thought she wouldn’t want to talk to you.’

‘Well, why — ? Oh, never mind. It sounds as though you did well, Ben.’

‘Thanks,’ said Cooper, knowing that he hadn’t yet learned how to keep the note of surprise out of his voice on the rare occasion that she said something complimentary to him. ‘It’s a shame Mrs Dain didn’t have any photographs she could show me. I might try to make time to call at the heritage centre and see what they’ve got.’

‘Put it on your list,’ said Fry.

‘What’s next, then?’

Fry smiled. ‘I think I’d like to have a chat with your PC Palfreyman.’

‘Ex-PC.’

‘Whatever. Do you fancy a trip out?’

‘He’ll be absolutely delighted to see us,’ said Cooper.

David Palfreyman emerged from his kitchen to answer the door. Although he was in the house, he was still wearing his floppy hat. When a man wore a hat all the time, it usually meant that he was completely bald. But Cooper knew that Palfreyman still had some hair. Perhaps it was all those years of wearing a helmet that made his head feel naked.

‘Do you live on your own, Mr Palfreyman?’ said Cooper. ‘I never thought to ask you last time.’

‘I’m divorced. You know what it’s like — they can only stand the job for so long.’

‘Of course. It happens a lot.’

Cooper refrained from saying that he thought what police officers’ partners couldn’t stand wasn’t the job, it was coming second to the job. If he ever got married himself, he’d make sure it didn’t happen. Not to the point of divorce, anyway.

‘So no woman in the house, then?’

Palfreyman looked at Fry. ‘Not until now.’

When they were seated in the lounge, Fry stepped in and took over the conversation.

‘Mr Palfreyman, DC Cooper tells me you know pretty much everything and everyone in Rakedale.’

The ex-bobby’s eyes flickered sideways to Cooper. ‘Yes, pretty much. What do you want to know?’

‘We need to know everything about the Sutton brothers at Pity Wood Farm,’ said Fry.

‘Of course you do. I’ve watched the news and read the papers. Two unidentified bodies now, isn’t it? Unless there have been more since the last news bulletin …?’ He raised an enquiring eyebrow at Fry. ‘But, of course, you came here to get information, not to provide it.’

‘You must have visited Pity Wood Farm occasionally when you were on the force.’

‘Yes, a few times. Courtesy calls, that’s all. I don’t suppose you do that any more? No, I thought not. You wait until a crime has been reported before you meet the law-abiding public. And then it’s already too late to form a proper relationship.’

‘We didn’t come here for a critique of modern policing methods,’ said Fry.

Palfreyman sighed. ‘My views are of no interest to you. I understand, Sergeant. I’m just an irrelevant old dinosaur. I can’t possibly know anything about policing now that I’m retired.’

‘Pity Wood Farm …?’ said Fry.

‘I was never called to an incident there. I never heard of any other officers attending an incident either. There were certainly no missing persons reports during my time. None made from the farm, none that led to enquiries at the farm. But you must know that; you’ll have checked.’

‘Of course. But during your courtesy visits, did you meet any of the itinerant workers employed there? Did you have any reason to wonder what had happened to any of them?’

‘You’re presumably thinking of the women? You don’t say so, but it’s obvious. Your theory is that one of the workers was killed during her employment there and buried on the farm. No — two of them?’ Palfreyman’s eyes twinkled. ‘Interesting theory. Two murders, both of which went undetected. And three years apart, if the media have it right.’

‘Approximately,’ said Fry, through audibly gritted teeth.

‘Careful, Sergeant, you’re almost revealing information. Not quite, but it was confirmation.’

Cooper could sense that Fry was likely to stop playing the game soon. She wasn’t long on patience, and Palfreyman was pushing her close to the limit. The ex-bobby wouldn’t like it if he saw her other side.

‘I can’t remember whether you asked me how long ago I retired,’ he said, in a more conciliatory tone. Perhaps he, too, was able to recognize that look in Fry’s eye. ‘I’ll tell you anyway — I hit my thirty just over four years ago. Celebrations all round, kind words from the chief, a bunch of the lads getting pissed at the pub. And then I was out of the door, with my pension in my pocket. And no one ever thought of Dave Palfreyman again. I was history as soon as I handed in my warrant card.’

‘Your point is …?’

‘I wasn’t in the job when your murders happened, Sergeant. If they were murders. Do you have direct evidence?’

‘You’re not my DI,’ said Fry.

‘No.’

‘Well, stop talking to me as if you are.’

Palfreyman inclined his head. ‘I apologize. Sergeant.’

An uneasy silence developed. Cooper shifted uncomfortably in his chair, desperately wanting to say something to break the silence, but afraid of wrecking Fry’s strategy. Presuming she had a strategy. But she could keep silent as long as she needed to, and it was Palfreyman who broke the mood.

‘You went to see the Brindleys over at Shaw Farm yesterday, didn’t you?’ he said.

‘Very observant. You know them?’

Palfreyman nodded. ‘Yes, I know them. Alex and Jo. They have two teenage kids, Chrissie and Evan. The parents are kind of snobbish, academically speaking.’

‘They’re a bit fussy who their children mix with?’

‘Fussy? Any kid who wants to visit their house has to take an entrance exam. Stand-offish, the Brindleys are. Stuck up. You probably noticed.’

Fry didn’t smile. ‘You seem to know a lot more about them than they do about you.’

Palfreyman shrugged. ‘That’s the way it is. That’s the way I like it, if the truth be known.’

‘They’re not local people, are they? I mean, they haven’t been in Rakedale very long?’

‘I know what you mean.’ Palfreyman eased himself into his armchair, like an old dog settled into its basket. ‘Well, they’ve lived in the village since they were married. And the oldest kid, Evan, is eighteen. So they must have been here twenty years or so. Not very long, as Rakedale goes.’

‘Twenty years?’

‘As a family, that is.’

He looked at her expectantly, inviting her to ask the next question. No, that wasn’t what she was getting from his expression. He was challenging her. Challenging her to ask the right questions, if she wanted the answers.

‘One of them was here in the village before they married?’ she said. ‘Alex or Jo?’

‘Jo. She was Joanne Stubbs before she married. And that house they live in is hers — she inherited it from an aunt. She was only a lass when she first came to Rakedale, hardly into her twenties. I remember it well. Bit of a hippy, she was. All crystals and meditation. God knows where she picked that stuff up from. It certainly wasn’t from her aunt, or any of the other Stubbs family round here. They were all chapel-goers.’

‘So Jo actually is a village person. She said she wasn’t.’

‘Well, she’s right,’ said Palfreyman. ‘Joanne Stubbs has never fitted in, and never will. She knows that perfectly well.’

Fry was trying to play along with the ex-PC’s game. ‘There’s some kind of history here. What has Jo done to upset the village?’

‘Well, when she first came to Rakedale, some of the local people thought she was a bit strange. They didn’t really take to her tarot cards and joss sticks, all that rubbish. Not to mention the stuff she kept trying to force on to people if she thought they showed signs of being ill. Herbal remedies, she called them. Me, I reckon they were mostly based on cannabis, but I never took any action on that suspicion. I never knew anyone accept her remedies, or it might have been different. I suppose you think I was wrong in that?’

Neither Cooper nor Fry reacted. He looked slightly disappointed, but went back to his story.

‘And there were all those cats she had, as well. Too many cats to be natural. A woman living out there on her own? You can imagine what the gossips were saying about her.’

‘Only too well,’ said Cooper.

‘Anyway, one day she came home from doing her shopping in Bakewell, and her house had been broken into. It looked as though nothing had been stolen. But she thought the intruders must still be in the house, because she could hear noises somewhere. Not voices exactly. She described what she called surreptitious bumps and whisperings, scraping sounds and scratches. Sensibly, she called the police and got herself back outside the house to wait. When the FOAs went upstairs, they found three crows flapping about in her bedroom.’

Cooper shivered. He knew what that meant. It was the old warning against witches. Until now, he thought it had died out in the eighteenth century. Someone in Rakedale had a long, long memory to remember that custom. And an even deeper well of superstition to consider putting it into practice.

‘What did you do?’ he asked. ‘I mean, I take it you were one of those officers responding to the emergency call?’

‘Aye. And a young lad who turned up from Edendale to assist. He was a bit wet behind the ears, but he had a bit of sense. He knew enough to leave everything to me.’

‘Like a good young copper.’

‘Like some, anyway,’ said Palfreyman, giving him a sly look.

‘And so …?’

‘We got rid of the crows without much damage. Just a few splodges of shit on the carpet, and she soon got that cleaned up. Then we checked over the house to see it was secure, and we left. Called it in as a false alarm. Listed as NFA.’

‘No further action?’

‘Not officially. Well, there aren’t many folk who have the know-how and the wherewithal to catch a set of crows, not to mention the nerve to turn them loose in someone’s house. I called and had a few words. It never happened again.’

‘But didn’t Mrs Brindley want to report the break-in?’

‘Look, you have to understand something about the eighties,’ said Palfreyman. ‘We were allowed to use our discretion then, and no one asked any questions, provided you got the job done. It meant we did things you would never dare do. You’d be too afraid of getting your arse kicked and losing your pension.’ He glanced sideways at Fry. ‘Or not getting that promotion you want so badly, eh?’

‘All right, it was different back then. We get the message.’

‘Well, just don’t judge me on your own terms. In those days, we always knew who needed a quiet word in the ear, and who needed something a bit more … robust.’

‘You’re living in a dream world,’ said Cooper. ‘Those days have been over a long time. You joined the force in — when was it, 1972?’

‘That’s right. The blokes who taught me the job were old school. But they’d all gone by the time I retired.’

‘That old-fashioned coppering had already disappeared in the eighties. My dad complained about it often enough.’

Palfreyman smiled slyly. ‘Oh, aye — your dad. Sergeant Joe Cooper. Did you think I didn’t know who you were? Joe Cooper was my shift supervisor for a while.’

Cooper felt the anger rising, and knew he was changing colour, the red flush rising uncontrollably into his cheeks.

‘He would never have tolerated a copper like you on his shift,’ he said.

Palfreyman smirked. ‘That’s what you think.’

Fry put her hand on Cooper’s arm. ‘Ben,’ she said, warningly. She was probably just in time.

Palfreyman shook his head. ‘Anyway, Joanne wanted to go on living there, didn’t she? It wouldn’t have done her any good with the neighbours to kick off a burglary enquiry. Someone might have been arrested and charged, and she’d never have lived easy in Rakedale after that. As it was, she was left alone with her cats and her herbs, thanks to me. Nobody talked to her much, of course. But if you’ve seen some of the characters round here, you’d reckon that was a blessing.’

‘But she’s been here more than twenty years now.’

‘Aye. She’s married and she has children, and they’re all considered respectable enough. Alex Brindley seems to have done very well for himself. But don’t think that means people forget.’

‘Mr Farnham, now — he seems quite a different individual.’

‘You’ve talked to Tom Farnham as well, eh?’

‘Yes.’

For a moment, Palfreyman weighed her up, as if taking her seriously for the first time.

‘I hope you know how to tell when someone is lying, Sergeant,’ he said.

‘Of course. We’re trained these days.’

Palfreyman rolled his eyes. ‘Psychology seminars? Body-language recognition techniques? I thought so. Well, we didn’t need training. In my day, any good copper learned to develop an instinct for when someone was telling the truth.’ He slapped his stomach. ‘My gut always told me when I was hearing a lie. It was never wrong.’

‘If your instinct was never proved wrong, it was only because you were allowed to hide your mistakes,’ said Fry.

Palfreyman tried to laugh, but couldn’t get the right shape to his mouth.

‘What do you know? You know nothing. You don’t belong to this part of the world, and you don’t belong in the job, if the truth be known. I bet you were a graduate entrant — am I right?’

‘I’m not ashamed of that.’

Cooper watched Fry and Palfreyman as they faced each other across the room, with the light from the window falling on them both equally. Fry looked slight and brittle, perched on the edge of her chair in an attitude that was both tense and belligerent. In contrast, PC Palfreyman was enormous — twice Fry’s size at least, but soft and heavy, his weight crushing the sofa in a more passively hostile manner.

From where he sat, Cooper could see the outside world going on beyond them: birds flicking across the sky, lorries moving slowly up the hill into Rakedale. He was struck by how different these two were, the former village bobby and the ambitious DS. Not only physically different, but psychologically and technically, and in the way they’d been trained. Well, different in every way he could think of, in fact. Watching them was like seeing the past and future facing each other across a green rug and an IKEA coffee table.

There was no question that policing had changed. It had been transformed in the few years since Palfreyman retired, and it was changing still. There weren’t any beat bobbies any more. In fact, there weren’t any beats, except under a different name. In Derbyshire, they were called Safer Neighbourhood police teams — a combination of police officers, special constables, PCSOs and local authority wardens, even some Neighbourhood Watch volunteers.

Meanwhile, just across the border, Nottinghamshire had become the first force in the UK to have armed officers on routine patrol. In parts of Nottingham, officers were issued with Walther P99 pistols, just like the one James Bond used, and had Heckler and Koch semi-automatic carbines in their patrol cars for back-up.

And that was before September eleventh and July seventh, and all the other landmark dates of terrorism. Cooper found the development worrying, an ominous sign for the future of policing in this country. But he couldn’t ally himself with the Palfreymans of the world, either.

‘Yes, I do have the training to spot a liar,’ said Fry as they walked back down Palfreyman’s drive to the car.

‘I’m sure you do, Diane,’ said Cooper.

‘I know all the indications to watch for.’

‘You don’t need to tell me. You know David Palfreyman was just trying to wind you up back there, don’t you?’

‘Bastard.’

Cooper looked across the road. ‘Hold on a minute, Diane. I won’t be long.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘There’s a Range Rover parked at the Brindleys’ house. Is it theirs?’

‘Yes, I think it’s Mr Brindley’s. Why?’

‘It’s a TD model.’

‘So? You’re not that interested in cars, Ben.’

‘Do you know what TD stands for, Diane? It means Turbo Diesel. I want to ask Mr Brindley if he’s ever been offered cheap illegal fuel.’

When Cooper came back, Fry was sitting in the car, still fuming.

‘They’re called the Ten Signs,’ she said. ‘Lack of eye contact, a change in the pitch of the voice, clearing the throat. And then there’s the body language — tapping the foot, fidgeting with the hands, blinking too much.’

Cooper got behind the wheel. ‘Turning the head or body away, changing the subject, attempting to deflect questions using humour or sarcasm.’

Fry looked at him. ‘Have you done the same course?’

‘Er, I sort of picked it up on the job,’ he said, trying not to sound too much like Palfreyman.

‘What did Mr Brindley say?’

‘He’d never even heard of illegal diesel.’

Fry watched the landscape going by as Cooper drove over the plateau towards Edendale. On the highest points, the drizzle and mist became almost indistinguishable from low cloud, and Cooper had to put the headlights on. Spray from passing lorries made visibility even worse.

‘Ten Signs,’ said Fry. ‘Put all those techniques together, and only a really good actor can get away with an undetected lie. And PC David Palfreyman is not that good an actor.’

Back at the office, they found DCI Kessen in the CID room with Hitchens. He had put in an appearance from his other major enquiry and was catching up on progress.

Kessen studied Fry as she entered the room.

‘Ah, DS Fry, glad you could join us.’

Fry seemed to go stiff and awkward, as if she’d been caught out doing something she shouldn’t. But that wasn’t the case, was it? She’d been following a reasonable line of enquiry that might have produced some useful information. Cooper wanted to speak up in her defence, but no one would have appreciated that, least of all Fry.

‘Your DI has brought me up to speed on the Rakedale enquiry. You did a good job recovering the crucifix from the grave site.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Hitchens held up the evidence bag containing the cross. ‘Examination reveals scratch marks on the back, near where the arms and the upright meet. They’re probably initials, Diane. We think they look like an “N” and possibly an “H”.’

‘The owner’s initials?’

‘Could be. They do match a set of initials from the list of employees at Pity Wood, but unfortunately that doesn’t help us to make an identification. Not yet, anyway.’

‘But it might do,’ said Fry.

‘Let’s hope so.’

Kessen nodded. ‘Yes, that’s very helpful. As I said, a good piece of work. However, DS Fry, we’ve agreed your energies would be best employed from this point on exploring the missing persons angle. It’s being neglected at the moment.’

‘Missing persons? But, sir, I think I could be more productive pursuing some other lines — ’

‘No, DS Fry, I think I’d prefer you to concentrate on the missing persons check.’

Fry hesitated too long before she responded, and Kessen registered it.

‘Of course, sir.’

Cooper looked across at her, but she refused to meet his eye. Was it just coincidence that he’d been thinking only yesterday about the DCI’s apparent even-handedness? Was that why he’d noticed this little incident? Or was it that Kessen’s attitude had changed since the arrival of a new superintendent over his head?

Cooper didn’t know how to interpret what he’d witnessed, but he was sure that Diane would be filing the incident away in that very efficient mental filing cabinet she carried around inside her head. He pictured it as the equivalent of one of those old-fashioned green cabinets, heavy and fire-proof, with drawers that slid out on strong, steel hinges.

For a moment, he wondered what was written in his own file — the one pushed to the back of the bottom drawer, slightly dog-eared and crushed out of shape by the more important information in front of it. Nothing he’d want to read about himself, probably.