Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

‘Well … that’s not something I want to hear anyone saying publicly. But it does mean we can let the anthropologist and forensics team do their thing for a while yet, and the mince pies might not have to go cold.’

There were a scattering of half-hearted cheers, but the relief was palpable.

Hitchens acknowledged the reaction with a slight smile. ‘Meanwhile, a few basic procedures are in order, to make sure we’ve covered the ground. If we do have to open a murder enquiry later on, I don’t want to hear that we missed vital evidence in the early stages because someone was in too much of a hurry to do their Christmas shopping. Understood?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘For a start, we need information on all these workmen — anyone who’s been on site. Names and addresses, dates of birth — you know the drill. Then we can run them through the PNC if necessary.’

‘What about their status?’ asked Fry.

‘Status?’

‘I was thinking that some of them might have residency or immigration issues. You know how difficult it is to get information when they’re worried about being arrested or deported.’

‘I thought someone told me they were all Polish?’ said Hitchens. ‘Poles don’t have residency or immigration issues — they’re members of the EU, so they can come and go when they like, and they don’t need work permits either.’

Murfin raised a hand, enjoying being the man with the answers for once. ‘Apparently, most of these blokes work for an agency, which sends them wherever the work is. It means they don’t have a settled address, sir. They live in digs, bed and breakfasts, caravans, whatever is available. They say it’s worth their while — they get about twice the minimum wage, enough to send money home, if their families aren’t in this country.’

Fry glanced across at the little huddle of builders in their safety boots and yellow hard hats. ‘We’re only assuming they’re all Polish. The foreman is, but we haven’t checked the rest out yet, so we might get some surprises.’

‘Don’t tell me we’re going to have to find translators,’ said Hitchens. ‘At Christmas? Their statements alone could take weeks to process.’

‘Well, maybe we don’t need them.’

‘No. You’re right, DS Fry. Let’s prioritize, shall we? We’re dealing with the foreman and the lad who actually found the body. What’s his name?’

‘Jamie Ward.’

‘Jamie Ward, right. The rest can wait, as long as we know where to find them. Meanwhile, we need everything we can get on the family who lived here. Two brothers, Raymond and Derek Sutton, and anyone associated with them. I’ll be speaking to the surviving brother myself this afternoon, when we establish which care home he’s in. There’s a village over that way somewhere, called Rakedale. We’ll be starting house-to-house there tomorrow morning. Everyone OK with that?’

There were murmurs of agreement and a general shuffling. Everyone was now anxious to get finished and go home.

Cooper fell into step with Fry as the impromptu meeting broke up. Their feet squelched as they walked back towards their vehicles from the outer cordon.

‘What do you think, Diane? Are we going to have to interview all the builders?’

‘I hope not.’

The crew working on the conversion of Pity Wood Farm had created their own access, widening an old field entrance and laying down a gravel roadway to reach the back of the farm. The area they’d been working in was getting very muddy, and Scenes of Crime had managed to lay a series of duckboards to reach the site of the grave, which would protect evidence better than their temporary bridge. Anyone who stepped off those duckboards was getting splattered with mud. One or two of the more carelessly parked vehicles might have to be towed out at the end of the day.

Cooper could see Liz Petty talking to two of her SOCO colleagues. They were probably awaiting the arrival of the Northern Area Scientific Support Officer, who was based at C Division headquarters in Chesterfield.

He badly wanted to acknowledge Liz, but they’d agreed to keep their relationship low profile when they were at work. Not secret, exactly — it would never be a secret in E Division. But they both felt it was important to be professional, and not to give anyone cause for complaint.

When he saw the front of the farm, Cooper realized why the builders had gone in the back way. The main access must already have been an ocean of mud when they arrived. It looked as though the previous owners had allowed their cattle free rein. The ground was seriously poached, right up to the walls of the farmhouse. The lane from the gate past the barn would be almost impassable on foot, unless you were wearing waders.

Cooper shook his head. No one would have allowed that to happen unless they no longer cared about the farm, or had no stake in its future.

He pulled his Toyota over towards the wall and leaned on the topping stones for a while. He could see that someone had been into Pity Wood this way, and quite recently. Tyre tracks ran through the mud, where a vehicle had churned deep, wet ruts. The tracks didn’t run all the way up to the house, but stopped near the barn. If he looked a bit more closely at the ruts, then asked around to find out when cattle were last in here, he could probably have a good stab at how long it was since the vehicle had come and gone.

But it didn’t matter, did it? This crime wasn’t recent enough.

Cooper felt sure they’d be looking into the past to find the information they needed, studying that little time capsule of a kitchen, not the cement-covered building site. The answers would lie in the lives of the people who’d abandoned Pity Wood Farm to its fate.

At The Oaks residential care home in Edendale, Raymond Sutton was sitting in the big lounge — the one with a view of the fields at the back, where he got an occasional glimpse of cattle grazing in the distance. Holsteins, but it was better than nothing. The TV was on, of course. Some of the old girls watched it all the time, though they didn’t always know what they were seeing. Most of the stuff that was on during the day was rubbish — brainless quiz shows, old films, kiddies’ cartoons. He’d never been one for sitting indoors watching the telly. Raymond liked the news, though. Just because you were old and getting a bit stiff in the joints, it didn’t mean you should let your brain cells die.

He saw a car enter the gateway from the road and head up the drive. Thanks to his new hearing aid, he could hear the tyres crunch on the gravel. There were many sounds that he’d missed when his hearing started to fail, but the noise of cars wasn’t one of them. His home at Pity Wood had been far enough off the road to save him from traffic.

He didn’t recognize this particular car. Red, which was unusual these days. Everyone seemed to go for grey or silver, which made it difficult to distinguish between them. He could see it was a four-wheel drive, too. Japanese — Mitsubishi, Toyota? One of those makes. He might have known the difference once, but it didn’t matter that much any more.

Four-wheel drive, though, and very muddy around the wheel arches and the bottom of the doors. Somebody who knew the countryside, then. He wondered which of the residents they were visiting.

One of the carers came into the room. The one called Elaine. Young, dark-haired, one of the nicer ones. She was always gentle with him when she had to get him out of bed or into the bath. A little bit of kindness could make his last days more tolerable.

‘Raymond,’ she said. ‘Are you feeling up to visitors? There are some people here asking to see you. They’re from the police.’

Cooper felt he could probably have done a better job interviewing Raymond Sutton on his own. But DI Hitchens was in charge of the investigation for now, so he was within his rights to do whatever he wanted. Some might say that the Senior Investigating Officer should be back at the office co-ordinating the enquiry and allocating resources, but what did he know? He was just a DC.