Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

‘One of them was here in the village before they married?’ she said. ‘Alex or Jo?’

‘Jo. She was Joanne Stubbs before she married. And that house they live in is hers — she inherited it from an aunt. She was only a lass when she first came to Rakedale, hardly into her twenties. I remember it well. Bit of a hippy, she was. All crystals and meditation. God knows where she picked that stuff up from. It certainly wasn’t from her aunt, or any of the other Stubbs family round here. They were all chapel-goers.’

‘So Jo actually is a village person. She said she wasn’t.’

‘Well, she’s right,’ said Palfreyman. ‘Joanne Stubbs has never fitted in, and never will. She knows that perfectly well.’

Fry was trying to play along with the ex-PC’s game. ‘There’s some kind of history here. What has Jo done to upset the village?’

‘Well, when she first came to Rakedale, some of the local people thought she was a bit strange. They didn’t really take to her tarot cards and joss sticks, all that rubbish. Not to mention the stuff she kept trying to force on to people if she thought they showed signs of being ill. Herbal remedies, she called them. Me, I reckon they were mostly based on cannabis, but I never took any action on that suspicion. I never knew anyone accept her remedies, or it might have been different. I suppose you think I was wrong in that?’

Neither Cooper nor Fry reacted. He looked slightly disappointed, but went back to his story.

‘And there were all those cats she had, as well. Too many cats to be natural. A woman living out there on her own? You can imagine what the gossips were saying about her.’

‘Only too well,’ said Cooper.

‘Anyway, one day she came home from doing her shopping in Bakewell, and her house had been broken into. It looked as though nothing had been stolen. But she thought the intruders must still be in the house, because she could hear noises somewhere. Not voices exactly. She described what she called surreptitious bumps and whisperings, scraping sounds and scratches. Sensibly, she called the police and got herself back outside the house to wait. When the FOAs went upstairs, they found three crows flapping about in her bedroom.’

Cooper shivered. He knew what that meant. It was the old warning against witches. Until now, he thought it had died out in the eighteenth century. Someone in Rakedale had a long, long memory to remember that custom. And an even deeper well of superstition to consider putting it into practice.

‘What did you do?’ he asked. ‘I mean, I take it you were one of those officers responding to the emergency call?’

‘Aye. And a young lad who turned up from Edendale to assist. He was a bit wet behind the ears, but he had a bit of sense. He knew enough to leave everything to me.’

‘Like a good young copper.’

‘Like some, anyway,’ said Palfreyman, giving him a sly look.

‘And so …?’

‘We got rid of the crows without much damage. Just a few splodges of shit on the carpet, and she soon got that cleaned up. Then we checked over the house to see it was secure, and we left. Called it in as a false alarm. Listed as NFA.’

‘No further action?’

‘Not officially. Well, there aren’t many folk who have the know-how and the wherewithal to catch a set of crows, not to mention the nerve to turn them loose in someone’s house. I called and had a few words. It never happened again.’

‘But didn’t Mrs Brindley want to report the break-in?’

‘Look, you have to understand something about the eighties,’ said Palfreyman. ‘We were allowed to use our discretion then, and no one asked any questions, provided you got the job done. It meant we did things you would never dare do. You’d be too afraid of getting your arse kicked and losing your pension.’ He glanced sideways at Fry. ‘Or not getting that promotion you want so badly, eh?’

‘All right, it was different back then. We get the message.’

‘Well, just don’t judge me on your own terms. In those days, we always knew who needed a quiet word in the ear, and who needed something a bit more … robust.’

‘You’re living in a dream world,’ said Cooper. ‘Those days have been over a long time. You joined the force in — when was it, 1972?’

‘That’s right. The blokes who taught me the job were old school. But they’d all gone by the time I retired.’

‘That old-fashioned coppering had already disappeared in the eighties. My dad complained about it often enough.’

Palfreyman smiled slyly. ‘Oh, aye — your dad. Sergeant Joe Cooper. Did you think I didn’t know who you were? Joe Cooper was my shift supervisor for a while.’

Cooper felt the anger rising, and knew he was changing colour, the red flush rising uncontrollably into his cheeks.

‘He would never have tolerated a copper like you on his shift,’ he said.

Palfreyman smirked. ‘That’s what you think.’

Fry put her hand on Cooper’s arm. ‘Ben,’ she said, warningly. She was probably just in time.

Palfreyman shook his head. ‘Anyway, Joanne wanted to go on living there, didn’t she? It wouldn’t have done her any good with the neighbours to kick off a burglary enquiry. Someone might have been arrested and charged, and she’d never have lived easy in Rakedale after that. As it was, she was left alone with her cats and her herbs, thanks to me. Nobody talked to her much, of course. But if you’ve seen some of the characters round here, you’d reckon that was a blessing.’

‘But she’s been here more than twenty years now.’

‘Aye. She’s married and she has children, and they’re all considered respectable enough. Alex Brindley seems to have done very well for himself. But don’t think that means people forget.’

‘Mr Farnham, now — he seems quite a different individual.’

‘You’ve talked to Tom Farnham as well, eh?’

‘Yes.’

For a moment, Palfreyman weighed her up, as if taking her seriously for the first time.

‘I hope you know how to tell when someone is lying, Sergeant,’ he said.

‘Of course. We’re trained these days.’

Palfreyman rolled his eyes. ‘Psychology seminars? Body-language recognition techniques? I thought so. Well, we didn’t need training. In my day, any good copper learned to develop an instinct for when someone was telling the truth.’ He slapped his stomach. ‘My gut always told me when I was hearing a lie. It was never wrong.’

‘If your instinct was never proved wrong, it was only because you were allowed to hide your mistakes,’ said Fry.

Palfreyman tried to laugh, but couldn’t get the right shape to his mouth.

‘What do you know? You know nothing. You don’t belong to this part of the world, and you don’t belong in the job, if the truth be known. I bet you were a graduate entrant — am I right?’

‘I’m not ashamed of that.’

Cooper watched Fry and Palfreyman as they faced each other across the room, with the light from the window falling on them both equally. Fry looked slight and brittle, perched on the edge of her chair in an attitude that was both tense and belligerent. In contrast, PC Palfreyman was enormous — twice Fry’s size at least, but soft and heavy, his weight crushing the sofa in a more passively hostile manner.

From where he sat, Cooper could see the outside world going on beyond them: birds flicking across the sky, lorries moving slowly up the hill into Rakedale. He was struck by how different these two were, the former village bobby and the ambitious DS. Not only physically different, but psychologically and technically, and in the way they’d been trained. Well, different in every way he could think of, in fact. Watching them was like seeing the past and future facing each other across a green rug and an IKEA coffee table.