Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

‘Who else have you spoken to?’ she said eagerly, when Cooper told her the purpose of his visit.

‘Oh, Mr Palfreyman. Mr Farnham.’

‘Tom Farnham? Did you ask him about his wife?’

‘He’s a widower, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, but you know what they say — a widower by choice.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, it’s only gossip, I suppose. It’s just what people were saying at the time.’

‘Are you suggesting that Mr Farnham killed his wife?’

‘Not me. It’s what I heard, that’s all.’

‘He was never charged with anything. The inquest verdict was accidental death.’

‘Well, they never found any evidence. It doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her, does it? The perfect murder is the one they can’t prove you committed.’

‘It’s a point of view,’ said Cooper.

Privately, he wanted to agree with Mrs Dain. There were plenty of cases where the police believed they knew the perpetrators of crimes, but were never able to prove their guilt in court. It was a mistake to believe that their aim was to achieve justice. Most effort was concentrated on putting together a strong enough case for a prosecution. Without sufficient evidence, and without a rigid adherence to procedures in gathering and presenting it, the concept of justice became academic. It was an interpretation of the criminal justice system that wasn’t normally shared with members of the public.

‘I know how easily these rumours get around,’ said Cooper. ‘But it’s unwise to repeat them, Mrs Dain.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t repeat it to anybody else,’ said the old lady hastily. ‘But I thought it would be all right in your case. I mean — you know what it’s like, don’t you?’

When the kitchen door opened again, Cooper caught the sound and smell of sizzling onion rings. He was starting to feel hungry. Cutlery rattled and a girl emerged from the kitchen and went into the bar with two plates of food. Proper countryside portions, too — the plates were laden. Cooper inhaled as the onion rings passed by.

‘It would be about five years ago. Your husband was the licensee then.’

‘His name was over the door. But I ran the pub.’

Cooper smiled. ‘Yes, that’s what I heard.’

‘You heard right.’

‘At that time, there were some itinerant workers employed at Pity Wood Farm.’

‘Pity Wood? The Suttons?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was a shame about those boys. I knew them when they were young men. They were a few years older than me, of course, but as a girl I took quite an interest in them. I always thought Derek was rather dashing. He was the one I fancied, anyway.’

She looked at Cooper with a hint of a twinkle, and he knew she’d been won over.

‘And Raymond?’ he asked.

‘Raymond wasn’t too bad, but he was a bit dour — especially later on, when he got all Bible and black suit.’

‘You mean when he took to religion?’

‘Aye. That was a bit of a shock. He thought we all ought to be as miserable as he was, told us we were going to Hell for enjoying ourselves. We never saw him in the pub after that, of course. Derek had to come in on his own. Sometimes he had a mite too much to drink. I couldn’t blame him, if all he had to go home to was that brother of his. But I bet there were a few rows at home over his drinking.’

Cooper thought of his early image of Raymond and Derek Sutton sitting in their armchairs in silence. He had barely known their names then, but they’d been clear in his mind already.

‘I’m not so sure about that.’

‘And then, of course …’ Mrs Dain began to struggle out of her chair, and Cooper leaned forward to offer a hand to help her up. ‘There are some photographs here somewhere. I keep them in the drawer.’

‘Photographs of the Suttons?’

Mrs Dain pulled out a set of photographic envelopes and began to sort through them very slowly, pausing occasionally, as if for private recollection.

‘Have you found anything?’ said Cooper.

The old lady looked offended to be hurried, or perhaps Cooper had said something wrong. Whatever the reason, she changed her mind.

‘No. Now that I recall, I gave some photos to the new heritage centre for their exhibition.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘I’m sure there was a photograph of the brothers. Decent lads. I was never quite sure about their mother, though. I always had a suspicion she was of the Old Religion.’

For a moment, the faint murmur of conversation from the bar and the clatter of cutlery from the kitchen were the only sounds. In the little sitting room, there was silence. Cooper sat quite still, holding himself in, hoping the old lady would explain. From the way she said ‘Old Religion’, he could tell the words had capital letters. But if he was too impatient again, or said the wrong thing, he knew he would never find out what she meant. She would become one of Fry’s ‘Three Monkeys’ in an instant.

So he waited. But instead of explaining, Mrs Dain slid the photographs back in the drawer with an air of finality, and picked up her cigarette from the ashtray. She put it to her lips, sucked, blew, coughed, and had to sit down suddenly.

‘The Old Religion,’ said Cooper. ‘What do you mean by that?’

But it was no good. The moment had drifted by.

‘It’s all in the past,’ said Mrs Dain. ‘Beatrice Sutton is long dead. Things like that don’t exist any more, so there’s no point in talking about it.’

‘I’d be interested to hear — ’

‘There’s no point,’ said the old lady firmly, ‘in talking about it.’

Cooper raised the palms of his hands in a placatory gesture. He didn’t want to antagonize her, not when he’d been doing so well. Mrs Dain had accepted him into her world, and he’d made good progress with her. She would tell him the rest of it when she was ready.

Fry took delivery of a small envelope that had been left for her at the front desk in West Street. It was a grubby white envelope, with her name scrawled on it in felt-tipped pen and her rank spelled wrongly.

She pulled on a pair of gloves before she opened it. You couldn’t be too careful. She was pretty sure it wasn’t a letter bomb, but there were plenty of people who might think of sending her other unpleasant items by way of greeting.

But inside the envelope she found only one thing — a small, cheap crucifix with part of the base chipped away.

Fry let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

‘Thank you, Nikolai,’ she said.

Cooper took the opportunity to take a toilet break, and discovered that the toilets at the Dog Inn were reached through a series of winding stone passages that seemed to lead almost into the next village.

When he returned to the bar, it was as if Ned Dain had been given some kind of signal by his mother, or maybe it was just the fact that she’d agreed to speak with Cooper for so long that had given the official seal of approval. Whatever the reason, Dain sidled up to him before he left the pub and whispered in a conspiratorial manner.

‘I thought you ought to know, there was a foreigner in here last night, asking questions.’

Cooper stopped. ‘Oh? What sort of questions?’

‘He wanted to know what all the police activity was. What was going on up at that old farm? He wasn’t very subtle about it. His English wasn’t too good, but we could see what he was after. Nosing about, wanting the gossip.’

‘Could you get an idea of his nationality?’

Dain shook his head and flapped the moisture out of a bar cloth. ‘Not really. He looked like you or me. Not totally dark or anything, I mean. Not that kind of foreigner. He sounded like some of those blokes that have been doing the building work at Pity Wood.’