Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

‘We’ve had a bit of an issue with Raymond this afternoon,’ said the care assistant, Elaine, when she let him in. ‘He got a bit upset.’

‘What was wrong?’

‘It’s difficult to say. We have a couple of care workers here who are from Lithuania. They’re nice girls, but Raymond doesn’t like it when they speak to him. I think it’s because he doesn’t understand them properly. It must be awful not to understand what’s going on.’

‘I feel like that myself sometimes.’

‘He’s all right now, anyway. He soon calms down.’

‘Does Mr Sutton have any old photo albums, do you know?’ asked Cooper. ‘Photos from his time at the farm?’

‘Not that I know of. Only women keep photo albums, don’t they? I can’t see Raymond sitting around in the evening sticking pictures of family weddings and christenings into an album.’

Now that he looked at Raymond Sutton more closely in the light, Cooper could see that the old man’s skin was dry, and faintly yellow. He was reminded of the kitchen at Pity Wood Farm, the tint of the walls and the smoky stains on the ceiling. Mr Sutton would have fitted into the Yellow Room naturally, almost as if he’d decorated it in his own image.

Perhaps some kind of liver problem had caused this unhealthy colour. He made a note to ask one of the staff about Mr Sutton’s physical health. Heartless as it might seem, no investigation team wanted their chief witness dying before he could provide a full statement.

Chief witness? Raymond Sutton might yet turn out to be the principal suspect. All the more reason to be concerned about his health.

‘Do you remember me, sir? I’m Detective Constable Cooper, from Edendale Police. I came to see you the other day, with my inspector.’

‘I don’t get many visitors, lad,’ said Sutton. ‘How would I forget?’

Cooper mentally crossed his fingers that Mr Sutton was having a good spell. If he believed he couldn’t forget, that was a positive sign, wasn’t it?

‘Don’t you have any family left, Mr Sutton?’

‘Some cousins in Stoke. They might get my money when I go, but they won’t get the farm, will they?’

‘No, you’ve already sold the farm.’

Cooper sat alongside him.

‘Your brother died, didn’t he? Derek?’

‘Aye. He’s gone over, has Derek.’

‘That was before you sold the farm, Mr Sutton.’

The old man nodded slowly. ‘We could see he was tappy already by then.’

‘Tappy?’ repeated Cooper.

‘Approaching his end.’

Cooper searched his memory for the word, and came up with an image of a wounded animal going to ground in the woods to die.

‘Sir, did anyone else die at the farm? Women?’

‘Women?’

‘Did some women die?’

Sutton looked at him closely. ‘Are you a Christian?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘A proper Christian?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He genuinely felt it was true. But Cooper hoped he wouldn’t be asked when he last went to church on a Sunday. Like many people he knew, he’d got out of the habit. Weddings, funerals and christenings — that was about it these days. His mother had been the one keen on church attendance, so he and Matt and Claire had always gone to St Aidan’s regularly as children. Sunday school, too. Bible stories and choir practice, Whit walks and visits by the Church Army with their free badges. But he suspected that had been as much because it was the respectable thing to do, rather than on account of any particular devoutness on his mother’s part.

It was probably that factor that led him to be a bit facetious sometimes when other people’s beliefs seemed to be just too extreme.

‘So you know that Hell burns,’ said Sutton. ‘Hell burns with an agony like no other.’

‘Yes, sir. And there’s no butter in Hell.’

Sutton stared at him, failing to smile at the joke, failing even to get the allusion. Cooper immediately wished he could take the words back. He felt embarrassed, realizing that Raymond Sutton might never have been the type for reading books, except one. Certainly not shamefully disrespectful parodies like Cold Comfort Farm .

Still, his brain kept throwing up images from the Gibbons book. The preacher, Amos Starkadder, hectoring the Church of the Quivering Brethren — ‘ Ye’re all damned! ’ And Brother Ambleforth, whose job was to lead the quivering, conducting the congregation with a poker to put them all in mind of hellfire.

Cooper wondered irreverently whether Raymond Sutton might get into the role on Christmas Day, if asked to pull a cracker by one of the female residents. ‘ Hush, woman … Tempt me not wi’ motters and paper caps. Hell is paved wi’ such .’

‘So you’re like me, and you don’t believe in evil spirits?’ asked Sutton suddenly.

‘What? Ghosts, you mean?’

‘Not ghosts so much. More of … well, perhaps a presence in the atmosphere of the house.’

‘I’m not sure. Perhaps, in certain circumstances.’

‘When something dreadful has happened.’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you been to the old house?’

‘Yes, Mr Sutton.’

‘I always swore I wouldn’t take anything away from the place. I wanted it all burned, destroyed. I wanted someone to come in with a bulldozer and a big bloody skip, and cart it all off. It was cursed.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Sutton looked at him, working his mouth nervously. ‘There was one thing, though. There was the good book. Our family Bible.’

‘I saw it,’ said Cooper.

The old man gripped his arm. ‘Is it still there?’

‘Do you want me to see if I can get it for you?’

‘Yes.’ His grip relaxed, to Cooper’s relief. ‘Can you do that?’

‘I’ll have to ask my supervisor. But I’m sure it’s still safe.’

‘Thank you. You’re a good lad, coming to see me.’

‘Mr Sutton, I need to ask you about any employees you had on the farm in the last four years.’

‘Employees?’

‘You had a poultry production business. Do you remember the birds?’

Cooper noticed his voice rising, the way people’s voices did when they were talking to someone who was deaf or stupid, or foreign. Was Raymond Sutton deaf? There was no sign of a hearing aid, but that proved nothing. Small items like hearing aids and spectacles went missing very easily in residential care homes. False teeth too, sometimes.

‘We raised poultry, yes. We had thousands in the big sheds,’ said Sutton. ‘Did you want to buy some birds? You’re too late. We got rid of them. All the lot.’

‘No, I want to ask you about your employees. Can you remember the names of anyone who worked for you at the farm during that time? During the last four years?’

Sutton hummed quietly. It occurred to Cooper that he might not actually know what year it was now, so the question might be meaningless.

‘I brought the farm records book,’ he said. ‘It might bring back memories. See if you can think of a few names to go with these initials, look.’

Sutton glanced at the book for a moment, and sighed. ‘The service round here is terrible. I’d kill for a cup of tea.’

As he signed himself out at the door a few minutes later, Elaine smiled at him.

‘Was Raymond a bit better?’

‘Yes, a bit. I was trying to jog his memory.’

‘It works sometimes. He’s a bit unpredictable. It depends how tired he is.’

Cooper looked at the collection of old ladies on their chairs in front of the TV set.

‘Some of the residents will be going home to their families for Christmas, I suppose?’ he asked her.

‘Yes, some. But not all.’

‘Are a few of them too ill to leave?’

‘Yes, and then there are those who don’t have families. Well, not families who want to see them at Christmas, anyway.’