Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

‘The builders unearthed the skeleton and covered it over again,’ pointed out Fry. ‘They were worried about delaying the building work.’

‘No, no. This didn’t happen recently.’

Hitchens frowned. ‘Doctor, I thought I was following you at first, but now you’ve lost me. What are you trying to say exactly?’

‘Inspector, I’m saying that some time ago your victim was dug up and re-interred, but never actually moved. On the second occasion, the body was re-buried in exactly the same spot.’

In Cooper’s copy of the forensic anthropologist’s report, the dead woman had been assigned a reference number. This was her biological identity, all that was officially known about the person she’d once been. A Caucasian female aged twenty to twenty-five years, about five feet three inches tall, with dark brown hair. The condition of her teeth was the only peculiarity. There might be useful dental records, if she’d ever called on a dentist in the UK.

‘Diane, we’re going to have to talk to the neighbours in Rakedale again, aren’t we?’

‘The Three Wise Monkeys, you mean? They not only heard, saw and spoke no evil, they couldn’t believe anyone else would either.’

‘That’s touching.’

‘Touching? I asked one woman whether she’d ever invited the Suttons round when she was having her garden parties and barbecues in the summer. Do you know what she said? “That lot? They never accepted invitations, except to funerals.”’

‘We really need to dig out their memories, Diane.’

‘Well, we’d better requisition an excavator. That place isn’t a village — just a series of stone walls. Literally and metaphorically. They clammed up like traps as soon as they knew we were from the police. And I mean every one of them, young and old. Mr Brindley was right. I don’t know how news of our arrival got around so fast — they must use thought transference. Does that come with in-breeding?’

Cooper didn’t answer. It was true that there was only a narrow range of names on the electoral register for Rakedale, the same ones cropping up several times over. Blands, Tinsleys and Dains seemed to be everywhere.

‘Anyway, they probably know each other inside out,’ said Fry. ‘But these people we’re asking about were itinerant workers. They were passing through, not planning to settle down and raise families. I don’t suppose there were any women for them to marry, anyway. Not in this place.’

Cooper nodded thoughtfully. ‘So they would probably never mix in, never visit anyone, and never join anything.’

‘Not if they were familiar with village life. These men would know only too well that they were incomers — and always would be, for as long as they were likely to stay here.’

‘Well, there’s one part of village life I can almost guarantee they took part in,’ said Cooper. ‘I bet they went to the pub.’

‘Do you mean the Dog Inn? The pub at the end of the universe?’

‘It’s the only place to go.’

‘All right,’ conceded Fry. ‘But you can try it this time. When I went in there, I felt as though I was in a scene from Deliverance .’

Following the minimal success of house-to-house on Friday morning, someone had decided to try parking the mobile police office in Rakedale for a few days, to encourage people to come forward with information. Intelligence-led policing at its finest.

When Cooper arrived, he waved to a couple of officers who sat in lonely isolation in a corner of the Dog Inn car park, watching customers come and go to the pub. They looked miserable and could hardly raise the enthusiasm to wave back. Rakedale did that to you.

Some of the pub’s exterior decorations had blown off in the wind, and the hanging baskets were definitely not at their best. Rendering was coming away where the down spouts met the wall. Here, too, the porch had been added later. Cooper wondered whether people in this area had become less tough over the years, less able to withstand the Pennine gales without those little stone extensions to deflect the weather. He didn’t think the weather had got worse over the centuries, but maybe these buildings let in the wind more as they grew ancient and their stones cracked and separated.

Yes, the Dog Inn was unprepossessing, even for a non-tourist village like Rakedale. Closed at lunchtimes during the week, of course — and not too sure whether it really wanted to be open at other times, either. Catering for the public was all a bit too much trouble, even for the front door, which scraped reluctantly against the raised edge of a flagstone when Cooper tried to push it open.

Strands of tinsel glittered over his head as he passed through the door into the bar, expecting one of those silences that descended whenever a stranger walked into the saloon in a Western film. In here, Fry would have been pretty much a woman with two heads. He bet everyone had stared at her, but no one would have been willing to catch her eye. There were some situations where her approach didn’t necessarily work.

The men in the bar were quiet as Cooper walked in. He greeted the sheepdog, which was the only one to acknowledge him, and went to the bar. At least there was a nice open fire, which was useful while he observed the customary wait. At his feet was a brick step up to the bar, and a bowl of water for customers’ dogs.

Cooper always looked at the beer pumps in a pub — they could tell you so much about the customers. Real ale or keg, lager or Guinness? Here, they had Black Sheep, Ruddles, and Baboushka spiced ale from one of the Derbyshire breweries, Thornbridge. There was also M amp; B Mild, a drink that was definitely out of fashion in the trendy bars back in town.

‘Cooper, did you say?’ asked Ned Dain.

‘Yes, DC Cooper, from Edendale.’

‘And you work with that woman sergeant that came in the other day?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was your dad a bobby?’

‘Yes, he was.’

‘OK, I get it now.’

Dain laughed as he moved along the bar to serve a customer. It was a slightly disturbing laugh that he had, a sound like the deep, wet gurgle from one of his own beer pumps.

‘Oh, and tell that sergeant from me there’s no Billy,’ called Dain. In the corner, a man with a beard laughed.

‘Billy?’ said Cooper.

‘Just our joke. There never was any such person as Billy Sutton.’

Puzzled, Cooper opened his mouth to put another question, but the landlord interrupted him.

‘You ought to talk to the old lady,’ said Dain. ‘My mother. She’ll remember the stuff you want to ask about.’

‘How do you know what I want to ask about?’ said Cooper.

‘Talk to the old lady,’ repeated Dain. ‘You’ll find her through there. And shut the door behind you.’

The old lady seemed to have her own sitting room off the kitchen, where she could supervise what was going on through the open door without taking her eyes off the TV for too long. Cooper entered her lair respectfully, conscious that he was being studied critically. The first impression he made might be crucial, the one factor that could make Mrs Dain decide whether to open up to him or keep her mouth firmly shut, the way so many people in Rakedale were doing.

When he introduced himself and told her what he had come to talk to her about, he could see her bending her head forward to listen closely to his words. He suspected she was not just hearing what he said, but listening to his accent, judging whether he was local, assessing from his manner whether he was worth talking to.

To his surprise, she lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke. So the door to the bar was kept closed for Health and Safety reasons. No one would realize that there was a free passage of air into the kitchen.