Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

Cooper took the box from him and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He carefully lifted the skull free and placed it in a plastic evidence bag. The bone was faintly yellow, like paper that had been left in the sun.

‘You couldn’t sell it, then?’ said Fry.

‘What?’

‘That’s what you were hoping for, I imagine.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. Raymond couldn’t have cared less. He just wanted it out of Pity Wood. He’s never mentioned it to me since, so why shouldn’t I sell it? I got nothing out of all the time I spent working with the Suttons, you know. Look at me, I’m broke. I try to make a living repairing other folks’ lawnmowers. A few quid would have helped me out a bit.’

‘But you had no luck?’

‘There were a few collectors interested. But it’s not good enough quality, they said. Too damaged.’

‘Damaged?’

‘A bit of bashing about. Look, at the back there. But that’s to be expected, when it’s so old. I mean, it had been in the farmhouse for, I don’t know — centuries, I suppose.’

‘Are you sure of that, sir?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Can you tell whether this is an old skull, or a more recent one?’

‘More recent one?’

Farnham stared at her, then snorted and began shaking his head vigorously. ‘Oh, no. You’re not going to pin something like that on me. You’re trying to tie me in with those bodies you found at the farm, aren’t you?’

Cooper tensed. The fact that the head had been removed from one of the bodies had not been released to the media, so Farnham shouldn’t know that. But had he really made an admission? Or was he just putting two and two together, and making a clever guess?

‘You’ve confirmed that you were working at the farm during the relevant period,’ said Fry. ‘You must have known who else was working there. If you want to help us, you should suggest some names. That would be your most sensible move, Mr Farnham.’

He looked at the skull Cooper was holding in its new evidence bag. Several teeth were missing from the jaw, and the skull grinned horribly, as if at some private joke of its own.

‘You know, they were mostly workers who came for a few weeks or a few days, then moved on. You can’t expect me to remember their names. I hardly got the chance to know some of them to speak to.’

‘So where did these individuals come from?’

‘They were contracted in. See, that was the way it was at Pity Wood in those days. We didn’t employ any workers ourselves. We had a contract for labour, and when we asked for them, they turned up. Sometimes we wanted people on a regular basis, but other times we just needed a gang in for a few days. It depended on what we were doing. It changed every year at Pity Wood. Every season.’ He looked at Cooper. ‘You understand, don’t you?’

‘All your failed enterprises,’ said Cooper. ‘None of them lasted more than a year or two.’

‘Yes. Well, like I said, it wasn’t my fault they failed. Times were difficult. We had a lot of bad luck.’

‘We’ll need to know who sub-contracted your labour. Who was the gang master?’

‘Look, do I have to?’ said Farnham. ‘I want to help, really I do. But dumping on someone else is not good.’

‘Well, we could arrest you, Mr Farnham, and take you into custody in Edendale. And then we could search your house, as well as taking your fingerprints and your DNA. And we’ll see what that ties you to.’

Farnham groaned. ‘His name was Rourke.’

‘Rourke?’

‘Martin Rourke, yes. He was the man, you know — the fixer.’

‘Is he local?’

‘No, not him. I think he lived in Chesterfield at that time, but he was Irish. I haven’t seen him around for a year or so. I can give you the phone number we used for him, if it’s any help.’

‘Yes, please. And what about the women, sir?’

‘Women?’ said Farnham. ‘Which women do you mean?’

‘Which women? Were there a lot of them?’

Farnham began to look shifty again. For a few minutes, he’d been telling the truth, but now his eyes were roving around the workshop, his hand went to cover his mouth, as if to keep the words from escaping.

‘Well, there isn’t much entertainment out here, you know. Just the pub in Rakedale, which doesn’t satisfy all of a man’s needs, if you know what I mean. And a lot of the blokes didn’t want to go to the pub anyway. If they were dossing on the farm for a week or two, they needed something to keep them happy.’

‘So women came to the farm?’

‘Now and then.’

‘Now and then? What does that mean? Once a week, once a month? A special treat on someone’s birthday? What?’

‘Most weekends, I suppose. But only in those seasons, you know — when there were gangs on the farm to get the harvest in, or to get an order out. You want to talk to Rourke — he was the one who organized it all. He always seemed to have the right sort of contacts.’

‘Are you sure you don’t know where Mr Rourke is now?’

‘Nah. He could be anywhere. He might be working in agriculture, or the building trade. Rourke was the sort who could turn his hand to anything, I reckon. Always good at talking himself up, you know? He might have gone back to Ireland, of course. They say there’s a lot of jobs over there now. No need for the paddies to come to England for work any more.’

‘The Celtic Tiger.’

Farnham rallied enough to make a joke. ‘Yes, I suppose you might call him that.’

Fry never responded to interviewees who tried to be funny or make light of the subject. She regarded Farnham sourly until he stopped smiling.

‘We suspect that Pity Wood Farm was being used for some kind of illegal activity, Mr Farnham,’ she said. ‘We think this was happening during your period there as a partner or farm manager, whatever you want to call yourself.’

‘If anything was happening, you can’t prove I was involved.’

‘The circumstances look very suspicious.’

‘Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you to your speculation. I congratulate you on your imagination, Sergeant. But I don’t have much time for flights of fancy myself.’

‘The evidence is there at Pity Wood, Mr Farnham. Once we have a tight enough case against you, we’ll be back.’

‘Look, I’m not so stupid that I’d leave evidence lying around, if I’d committed a crime, now, am I? So if there was evidence left lying around, that proves that I didn’t do it, right? That is clearly the action of somebody with much less ability for planning ahead and foreseeing all eventualities than I am. So it’s psychologically wrong, don’t you see?’

‘Mr Farnham, we only deal with the facts, not with psychological theories.’

‘OK, you do that. You won’t find any evidence that connects to me. It just isn’t possible.’

Fry was frowning as they left Farnham’s house. Within a mile or two, her frown had turned to an expression of outrage, and she turned on Cooper.

‘Imagination?’ she said. ‘Imagination? Moi? ’

‘So how do we go about finding Martin Rourke?’ asked Cooper.

‘Check the PNC and pray for an accurate address?’

Cooper ran the check when they got back to the office. The PNC could give him convictions, distinguishing marks, place of birth. But that wasn’t enough. He logged into the criminal intelligence system and looked for aliases, changes of address or known associates. No sign of Martin Rourke.

That left only one option. He put a call in to liaison and got a contact for the Garda Siochana in Dublin. Oh, yes, said the officer. They’d do everything in their power to help their colleagues in Derbyshire locate Mr Martin Rourke.

Cooper thanked him, and rang off. Oh, yes? Well, it would take the luck of the Irish.