The Kill Call

14

Fry felt her determination harden as they drove to Watersaw House, where the Forbes lived. There was no way she was going to stand at her own crime scene and let someone like Ben Cooper tell her she was wrong. He wasn’t even supposed to be here, for heaven’s sake.

Yet Cooper seemed to be unavoidable. Trying to keep him at arm’s length was as impractical as taking precautions against the plague.

‘This Eyam place,’ she said, as they passed the end of the village. ‘The Plague Village. What’s that all about, then? The Black Death as a form of entertainment? I know people are really stuck for things to do in these parts, but celebrating the plague is pretty weird, even for Derbyshire.’

‘I think it’s more a question of celebrating the village’s survival,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s what the story is all about.’

‘If the place was a bit more civilized,’ said Fry, ‘they might not have got the plague in the first place.’

She heard Cooper sigh, and restrained a smile. He wasn’t invulnerable. There were ways to wind him up, too.

‘The plague came from London in a bundle of damp cloth,’ said Cooper. ‘Black rats had introduced the Black Death to England when they came off ships in the docks.’

‘I didn’t know you could catch bubonic plague from rats.’

‘Not from the rats themselves. From their fleas.’

Fry shuddered, and began to regret that she’d mentioned Eyam at all. Rats and fleas were two of the things she hated most in the world.

‘Watersaw,’ said Cooper, when he saw the sign at the entrance to the Forbes’ drive. ‘There’s a Watersaw Rake near here. One of the old opencast workings. Abandoned now, but it would be the nearest one to the crime scene, I think.’

There seemed to be horses everywhere at Watersaw House. As soon as Fry parked her car in the entrance to the stable yard, a huge black horse ran up to the post-and-rail fence and hung its head over to stare at her. She couldn’t squeeze past the car door without brushing reluctantly against its inquisitive muzzle.

‘It looks quite friendly,’ said Cooper.

‘Are you sure?’

The one other thing Fry knew about horses was that they were supposed to like sugar cubes. But who on earth used sugar cubes any more, let alone carried them around in their pockets in case they met a horse?

But she did have a packet of mints in her pocket, and she took it out. The horse nuzzled her jacket, as if searching the rest of her pockets, a quick frisk on suspicion of possession. When she unwrapped a mint and held it out on her palm, the horse went straight for it.

Fry was used to seeing horses, but usually at a safe distance – the mounted unit controlling a crowd at a football match, Up close, she was amazed by the way the animal’s lips unfurled and grasped the mint. She had never realized horses had such prehensile mouths, almost like monkey’s. She supposed it was a characteristic you had to develop when you had no hands to use.

‘You seem to be bonding,’ said Cooper, sounding quite impressed.

‘Animals are all right, as long as they know who’s the boss.’

But then the horse began waggling its ears, and showed its teeth. That was definitely a threat. She backed away, and turned to find the owner of Watersaw House regarding her with scarcely disguised contempt.

Today, Mrs Forbes had removed her riding boots and replaced them with a pair of green wellies. Definite working boots, a crack in the side, mud and straw stuck in the ridges of the soles. They seemed to be at least a size too big, because they flapped as she moved about the yard. To Fry’s surprise, she was also wearing a head scarf. She didn’t think non-Muslim women wore head scarves any more – well, except the Queen, and Tubbs off The League of Gentlemen.

‘Mrs Forbes,’ she said. ‘Detective Sergeant Fry, Edendale Police. I spoke to you on Tuesday morning at the hunt, if you remember.’

‘Oh, yes. What can I do for you?’

‘We’d like you to assist us with our enquiries.’

‘Good heavens, do you people really talk like that?’

Mrs Forbes laughed. Fry bristled.

‘It’s about the death of Mr Patrick Rawson,’ she said. ‘We’re trying to gather as much information as we can about the circumstances of his death. Oh, this is my colleague, Detective Constable Cooper.’

Mrs Forbes examined Cooper with a critical eye, like a buyer weighing up a specimen of bloodstock. Fry wasn’t sure whether she was imagining it, but the woman’s expression actually seemed to soften a little. Mrs Forbes said nothing, but there was definitely a form of private communication going on that Fry wasn’t party to.

‘I see you run a livery stables, Mrs Forbes.’

The woman waved a hand around the yard. ‘Yes, indeed. Twenty-eight stables, eighteen turn-out paddocks, purpose-built boxes, indoor and outdoor maneges… everything you could want. We offer full-time or part-time livery. These girls you see here are some of our DIY-ers.’

Fry studied the youngsters brushing their horses and sorting out their tack. She could see straight away that these weren’t the kind of kids who hung around in the alleys of housing estates in Edendale, drinking bottles of lager and passing round a joint. These girls smelled of saddle soap and horse manure instead of alcohol and cannabis. Yet there was something elusively similar in their manner, a total absorption in their own world, and a hostile stare for the outsider. And in both cases, as Fry well knew, the outsider meant her.

‘We turn them out and bring them in, but the girls do their own feeding, grooming and mucking out,’ said Mrs Forbes. ‘I like to see young people who aren’t afraid of a bit of hard work, don’t you?’

A younger woman dismounted from a horse and came across the yard to join them, leading her mount by its reins. When she reached them, she took off her helmet and shook her hair free. Mid-twenties, probably. She wore an expensive-looking riding outfit. Nice leather boots. And those beige jodhpurs – they fit her rather well. Fry glanced at Cooper to see if he was noticing.

‘This is my daughter, Alicia,’ said Mrs Forbes. ‘I started the yard about ten years ago, and Alicia has been helping me in the business full time for the past four, ever since she graduated. A BHS-qualified instructor, aren’t you, darling?’

Fry blinked, but then realized the last comment had been addressed to Alicia, not to her or Cooper.

‘And she’s terribly interested in the use of complementary therapies,’ said Mrs Forbes. ‘Essential oils and all that, you know.’

Fry looked at the young girls again, sweating under the weight of rugs and saddles. Feeding, grooming, turning out, bringing in, mucking out… She didn’t know what on earth it all was, but it sounded like an endless amount of work. And for what? For nothing more than the chance to climb on the back of one of these monkey-lipped creatures and prance about the countryside in a pair of fancy leather boots.

‘You appreciate we have to try to establish how Mr Rawson died, Mrs Forbes. You, and other members of the hunt, are potential witnesses. What we need from you is a list of who was present at the location of Tuesday’s meet from about eight a. m.’

‘Inspector Redfearn already asked us for that information.’

‘Yes, he did. But so far as I’m aware -’

‘Alicia?’

The younger woman produced an envelope from the pocket of her body warmer. ‘This is the list you want. The hunt secretary drew it up for you. Names, addresses and phone numbers. The times that each person arrived, and what they were doing between eight o’clock and nine thirty.’

‘You’ll find it’s a very short list, I’m afraid,’ said Mrs Forbes. ‘Largely the hunt servants, plus Alicia and I. And we were all much too busy to notice what was going on half a mile away from the meet, I can assure you.’

Fry could feel herself being pushed on to the back foot, and she didn’t like it.

‘Oh yes, of course,’ she said. ‘I suppose you all just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

She had the satisfaction of seeing a pained reaction. ‘Possibly.’

‘We still need to talk to everyone. One of you might have seen something significant.’

‘You’ll do what you have to do, Sergeant. Personally, I can tell you right now that I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, or anyone who shouldn’t have been there.’ Mrs Forbes smiled. ‘Apart from the antis, of course. But I don’t need to tell you that, surely? Now, if you’ll excuse me…’

The woman walked away towards the stables, and could be heard speaking to the girls. Fry turned her attention to Alicia.

‘You’re a member of the hunt, too?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you were out on Tuesday, I gather?’

‘Of course. We all want to show our support. But we didn’t see anything, really we didn’t.’

As the daughter spoke, she moved a hand to stroke the inside of her horse’s leg, where the skin looked smooth and soft. Fry found the gesture somehow disturbing.

‘I’ve no idea who that man was who died, and I’m sure Mummy hasn’t either,’ said Alicia. ‘We were just trying to get on with our own business, and avoid the antis. You’d be better talking to them, wouldn’t you?’

‘We have talked to them,’ said Fry. ‘But, you see, they weren’t on horseback.’

Alicia looked away. ‘I can’t help you.’

The horse swung around restlessly, pointing its haunches at Fry. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Cooper moving away towards Alicia Forbes. But she was feeling more confident now, and she stood her ground, even when the rear end bumped gently against her.

‘Do you happen to know the bridlepath called Badger’s Way, Miss Forbes?’ Cooper was asking.

‘Yes, I’ve ridden there a few times. But everyone uses it – it’s good to be able to get away from traffic for a while.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘There have been several incidents of reckless driving near horse riders in this area. Perhaps you know.’

‘Any motorists identified are being warned,’ said Cooper. ‘They could face prosecution for driving without due care and attention.’

Fry watched, feeling suddenly like a spare part, as Alicia Forbes looked Cooper up and down. She’d experienced this moment so often.

‘Do you have any animals yourself?’ she asked him.

‘Just a cat,’ he admitted, patting the horse’s neck.

‘Oh.’ Then she looked at his hand. ‘And you’re not wearing a wedding ring.’

‘No.’

‘I just wondered – I know not all men wear them, even when they’re married.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘So… are you? Married?’

‘No.’

‘You must be, what… thirty by now? Isn’t it time to settle down?’

‘Well, it’s not quite so simple.’

‘Mmm. I suppose not. Still – a single man, living alone with a cat. It could give the wrong impression.’

Just then, a powerful odour filled the yard. Not just the pervasive background smell, but something much more pungent and immediate.

‘Diane, watch out,’ said Cooper.

But he was too late. Fry felt the soft impact of warm, steaming lumps of fresh horse manure splattering on to her trousers and covering her shoes. For a second, she was so shocked that she couldn’t move. And the plops just kept coming. How did one animal manage to produce so much at one go?

As if by magic, Mrs Forbes herself had re-appeared to witness the moment.

‘Oh, I’m so terribly sorry,’ she said. ‘It appears you were standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘These hunting people,’ said Fry angrily as she got back into the Peugeot. ‘Honestly, talking to them is like flogging a dead -’

She stopped, realizing the stupidity of what she’d been about to say. As she started up the engine, Cooper got into the passenger seat. Fastening his seat belt, he wafted a hand in an exaggerated gesture.

‘Diane,’ he said, ‘I hope you don’t mind if I open the window? Only, it’s a bit -’

‘Yes,’ said Fry. ‘I know.’

Back at the office, Cooper found a place to hang his damp coat and fetched himself a coffee from the vending machine. Hardly coffee, really – but it was hot.

He stood for a moment watching Irvine and Hurst busy at work in the CID room. He was remembering again his first ever visit to Eyam, with the school party. He recalled that he’d brought back a souvenir from the village museum. Cooper smiled when he pictured it. His mother had hated the thing, and didn’t even want it in the house. She paid no attention to his explanation. Eyam was most famous as the Plague Village, right? So what else would you choose as a suitable souvenir to commemorate the Black Death? It was obvious, really. A black, plastic rat, with red eyes and a long, scaly tail.

The young Cooper had thought it was a fine example of Rattus rattus, the Black Rat – now one of the rarest mammals in the UK, thanks to its more successful cousin, the brown rat. The souvenir rat even came with its own information leaflet, explaining that this was the little beast that had spread from Asia to Europe in the Middle Ages, bringing its little gift of the bubonic plague. In dark corners of barns and warehouses it could be active at all hours, and ate almost anything it could find, its family groups organized on a hierarchical basis, dominated by one strong individual. They carried not only the plague, but typhus, rabies, salmonella, hantavirus, Weil’s disease… oh, and trichinosis, the pork roundworm. Thank God the natural mortality rate of rats was ninety per cent.

Cooper recalled very clearly standing outside the Plague Cottage that first time, reading the names of the dead on the plaque. It was all very well for people like Diane Fry to scoff at Eyam’s fame as the Plague Village, to laugh at the idea of souvenir rats and tableaux of people in night shirts with their necks covered in bubos. But for him, there was one fact which had made the whole story different, and much more personal. According to the well-documented history of Eyam’s plague year, the very first family to fall victim to the Black Death had been Coopers.

Fry had been only a few minutes late for her appointment to see Detective Superintendent Branagh. Yet when she entered the superintendent’s office, she felt a bit like the naughty child sent to see the head teacher for breaking wind in class.

The superintendent’s office was on the upper floor of Divisional HQ, looking down on Gate C and the back of the East Stand at Edendale Football Club. That view seemed to have become a status symbol among the senior management team. It was also one of the few offices with air conditioning, but it wasn’t in use today, and the room was a bit too warm. Branagh sniffed as she entered, like a disapproving matron.

After her visit to Mrs Forbes this afternoon, the first thing that struck Fry as she sat down was that Superintendent Branagh would make a good Master of the Hounds. She had a sudden image of Branagh, whip in hand, boots polished, riding britches specially tailored to accommodate her hips. The perfect companion for Lord Somebody or Other, whose portrait was in the National Gallery.

The superintendent flicked a file open impatiently, with no time to spare for the social niceties, making it plain that Fry had kept her waiting.

‘As you know, DS Fry,’ she said, ‘I’ve been reviewing the files of all CID staff in this division. Some of the Personal Development Reviews make interesting reading. Very interesting.’

‘I’m sure they’ve all been done properly, ma’am.’

‘Indeed. I’ll be talking to you about your team in due course. But, in the first instance, I’ve been looking at your record, and your case histories, DS Fry,’ she said. ‘Would you accept that there have been some weaknesses in certain areas of your development during your time with E Division?’

‘Well… I suppose I still have some experience to gain in a supervisory role.’

Branagh was watching her, waiting for more. But Fry wasn’t about to give it to her. Why hand her superintendent ammunition by criticizing her own performance? It was an old managerial trick.

‘Well, the fact is,’ said Branagh, ‘that you haven’t really been getting results. At least, not the sort of results I would have hoped for from you, if I’d been here during the past couple of years. Would you agree with that assessment, DS Fry?’

No choice here. If Fry denied it, she would be forced to quote examples to support her argument. And right now, nothing came to mind.

‘I suppose so, ma’am.’

Branagh nodded. ‘I’m glad you agree. It’s a shame, because your early reports suggest that you were once considered a potential high-flier.’

Fry’s heart gave a lurch of shock. That was a real punch below the belt. All this time, she’d been considering herself a high-flier, on the surface at least. Deep down, she must have known that she wasn’t, not any more. Still a Detective Sergeant at the age of thirty? For heaven’s sake. It must have been obvious to everyone around her that she’d lost ground. She had been too busy with other concerns, taken up by so many distractions that she hadn’t been focusing on the job. Not the way she should have done.

When had it all started to go wrong? Not when she first transferred to Derbyshire. Well, not immediately, anyway. She’d been given the promotion almost straight away. But maybe that had been on the strength of her previous record. Somewhere, somehow, she had then taken her eye off the ball, had let her career get stagnant. She’d been drifting with the current, when she ought to have been swimming for land.

Damn it, Branagh was right. DS Diane Fry’s career had been ruined. In this stinking backwater, she had become soft and lazy. She’d gone native. Jesus, if she wasn’t careful, she could even end up like Ben Cooper.

Detective Superintendent Branagh was still talking, listing entries from her Personal Development Reviews. Targets and assessments, the occasions when guidance had been given, one instance when words of advice had been issued following a complaint of rudeness from a member of the public.

But Fry wasn’t really listening. She was recalling her first week on the job in Derbyshire, meeting her DI, and Hitchens asking her what she was aiming to achieve. ‘ I’m good at my job,’ she’d said. ‘ I’ll be looking for promotion. That’s what’s important to me.’

And, of course, she’d soon become aware of the talk around the station. Everyone said the force was short of female officers in supervisory ranks, especially in CID. Provided she kept her nose clean and smiled nicely at the top brass, she would shoot up the promotion ladder without trying. And there had been a quick promotion, too – the step up to Detective Sergeant, which hadn’t been popular with everyone.

But what had she done since then? Her brain searched for an answer that she could give Superintendent Branagh, some wonderful achievement that she could point to. But her mind was still coming up blank. That was the effect of shock tactics.

By a stroke of luck, the superintendent took her silence for absorption in some other subject than the one at hand.

‘We can resume this conversation at another time,’ she said. ‘I appreciate that you’re busy with the suspicious death case.’

‘Yes, ma’am. That’s true.’

‘Very well, then. We’ll resume tomorrow. That will give you a chance to think about what we’ve said so far.’

Reluctantly, Fry got up to leave. Then Branagh sniffed.

‘What is that smell?’

Fry became aware of the aroma that she must have been carrying around with her all afternoon on her jacket, and on her hands. And maybe on her shoes, if she’d been really unlucky. She’d better check in a minute, as soon as she got out of the room – but not while Branagh was watching her.

‘Horses, ma’am,’ she said. ‘It’s the smell of horses.’

‘I see,’ said Superintendent Branagh. She said it in the tone of someone who didn’t see at all, but considered it hardly worthwhile demanding an explanation.