Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

Fry jumped as if she’d been shot. ‘What the hell are you talking about, Ben?’

‘The landlord of the Dog Inn said something about a Billy. At first, I thought he might have meant another brother, or a son. But there’s no indication of a William Sutton. So this must be him.’

She had never seen him so animated. He was running around the office like an excited puppy, yapping at anyone who would listen. But what was he yapping about?

‘Ben, slow down. Explain yourself properly.’

Cooper looked hot and breathless, as if he’d been running. ‘It’s like Dickie of Tunstead, you see. There’s a place called Tunstead Farm, up in the north of the county near Chapel-en-le-Frith. Now, that one is quite famous. There’s some doubt whether it’s male or female, but locally it’s always been known as Dickie. A previous owner of the farm was murdered in his bed in an ownership dispute — ’

He paused to take a breath, and Fry held up a hand like a traffic officer, speaking louder to drown him out.

‘Ben, stop.’

‘The Suttons must have managed to keep this one quiet, though,’ he said. ‘It was known about locally, but everyone seems to have been reluctant to discuss it. Superstition, of course. Careless talk, the Scottish play, all that sort of stuff.’

‘For God’s sake, will you just stop? Stop!’

‘Screaming Billy was supposed to …’ Cooper finally ground to a halt and looked at her in amazement. ‘Why are you shouting at me, Diane?’

Fry took his arm. ‘Ben, sit down and shut up for a minute. Take a few deep breaths.’

He opened his mouth to speak, but she snarled at him, and he closed it again quickly. He sat down.

‘All right, that’s better,’ she said.

‘Can I speak yet?’

‘Just collect your thoughts first. I’m getting the impression you have something to tell me that you think is important. But so far you haven’t managed a word of sense. Not a word.’

‘Oh. Are you sure?’

‘There was somebody called Billy, and somebody called Dickie, and one of them was screaming. That’s all I got. The rest of it was gibberish.’

Cooper wiped a hand across his forehead. ‘I’d better start again.’

‘I’ll fetch you some water. And I suggest when you do start again, you start from the beginning.’

When Fry came back from the cooler with a cup of water, Cooper was looking much calmer, but he was still fidgeting in his seat, impatient to pass on his information.

Fry found she couldn’t stay irritated with him, after witnessing his burst of enthusiasm. It took years off him, made him seem like that eager young DC she’d encountered when she first arrived in Edendale. That had been her initial impression of him. He’d changed a lot since then. The mark of what life had thrown at him, she supposed.

For just one second, a disorientating second, Fry felt the two of them might actually have something in common. But it was so little that they shared. Far too little.

Fry watched him take a drink of water. ‘All right, go ahead.’

‘I’d better explain Dickie of Tunstead first,’ said Cooper. ‘I suppose you’ve never heard of him.’

‘You suppose right.’ Fry pulled up her chair. ‘I’m sitting comfortably.’

‘Tunstead Farm is in a village called Tunstead Milton near Chapel-en-le-Frith, over in B Division. Local legend says that an owner of the farm was murdered in his bed during an ownership dispute with a cousin who’d taken the place over while the real owner was away fighting in the wars.’

‘And this was a very recent event, I suppose? Like, seventeenth century or something?’

‘Sixteenth.’

‘Of course.’

‘But the point is, they still have his skull. His head was preserved and kept at the farm. It’s what’s known as a “screaming skull”. You’ve never heard of them?’

‘No again,’ said Fry. ‘But you’re starting to interest me now.’

‘Dickie of Tunstead is quite celebrated. He’s been written about often. These days, no one is sure whether it’s a male or female skull, but locally it’s always been known as Dickie, so that’s the name it goes under still. There are others around the country, in rural places, where people have believed in the power of the screaming skull.’

‘Don’t start losing me, Ben. Stay in the realms of sanity.’

‘I’ll try.’ Cooper took another drink. ‘Well, the belief is that removing Dickie’s skull from Tunstead will bring bad luck. They say it’s been removed three times over the years — as a result, crops failed, a barn collapsed, livestock died, the house was damaged in a storm. The skull has been thrown in the river, buried in the churchyard, and stolen by thieves. The thieves were so disturbed by things that started to happen to them that they returned the skull to Tunstead.’

‘And this thing really is just a skull?’

‘I’ve seen photos of it. It’s just a yellowing old skull, holed and fragmented at the back as if it had been struck with a hammer at some time.’

‘We can establish cause of death in that case, then,’ said Fry. ‘Pity we can’t do it for more recent deaths.’

‘Dickie of Tunstead possesses supernatural powers to prevent anyone moving him out of his home,’ said Cooper, with a note of awe in his voice. ‘When the skull is left in place, everything goes right at the farm. He even acts as a guardian, warning when strangers approach. His real claim to fame was getting the course of the railway altered.’

‘Oh, come on. Railways are fairly solid and practical,’ said Fry.

‘It was in the nineteenth century, when they were building the Buxton to Stockport line. There was a compulsory purchase order for land belonging to Tunstead Farm. The railway company wanted to build a bridge and embankment on the land, but building work collapsed, and men and animals were injured. Engineers said the ground was unstable, but local people credited Dickie. In the end, the company diverted the line, and the new bridge was named after him. It’s still there, Diane. The bridge is real, and so is the skull.’

‘All right. And there was one of these skulls at Pity Wood Farm?’

‘Mr Goodwin says so. He was shown it, when he viewed the property. But it was one of the few things that had been taken away when he completed the purchase.’

‘A severed head inside the farmhouse.’

‘Yes, Diane.’

‘And this poor, gullible Manchester solicitor was told some ghostly legend about it, to keep him quiet?’

‘Well, there was definitely a skull,’ said Cooper.

‘So does Mr Goodwin know where the head went?’ asked Fry. ‘Has Raymond Sutton got it?’

‘In the bottom of his wardrobe at the care home? Hardly, Diane.’

‘Where, then?’

‘Mr Goodwin says the man who took it away claimed to be the farm manager.’

‘Tom Farnham?’

‘The very same.’

‘Let’s go, then.’

‘Right. Oh, Diane — aren’t you supposed to be on missing persons?’ said Cooper.

‘Sod missing persons. They can stay missing.’

Cooper had forgotten that there were areas in this part of the Peak where the viability of farming was already borderline even before the fall in prices, before foot and mouth even. It was obvious when you drove through. Many of the dry-stone walls were badly maintained, farms had scrap heaps of old machinery standing in their yards, and there was a generally unkempt feel to the landscape. Foot and mouth had shown how much tourism and farming depended on each other in a place like this. A rural way of life that had disappeared from most of England had survived here until quite recently.

Cooper recalled his father telling him about farms out this way that didn’t have electricity or running water until maybe twenty years ago. The 1980s, the decade of prosperity.