Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

‘Pity Wood Farm. It was the home of the Sutton family until recently. I’m sure you know it. Have you ever been there?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ said Elder, dropping his gaze to the table and fiddling with his beard.

‘Are you quite sure?’

‘Sure.’

‘Only, we do have a witness who says he’s seen you going in and out of the farm in your lorry many times.’

‘Well, he’s lying,’ said Elder. ‘Whoever he is, he’s lying. I know the Suttons, of course I do. But I only ever met them in the pub. I was never at that farm.’

‘You know your answer is being recorded, Mr Elder?’

‘Yes. Well, I mean … I think I should have a solicitor.’

‘You’ll get one,’ said Fry. ‘But it might take some time. It’s nearly Christmas, you know.’

An officer knocked on the door. Fry paused the interview and went out. He passed her a message.

‘Oh, interesting.’

She went back in, and found Elder watching her hopefully in a vain expectation that she might be coming back to tell him it was all a big mistake and he could leave.

‘On quite another matter, Mr Elder,’ she said, ‘do you know a place called Godfrey’s Rough?’

Elder looked confused by the change in the direction of questioning.

‘Where?’

‘Godfrey’s Rough picnic site. I believe it’s a well-known dogging area.’

‘Sorry?’ Elder cocked his head as if he had misheard and thought his ear might have suddenly become blocked. ‘Did you say “dogging”? Are you talking about people walking their dogs? But they do that everywhere.’

‘Walking their dogs? Hardly.’

Elder looked even more puzzled.

‘It’s one of those modern expressions, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Something to do with the internet? Or mountain bikes. Or those skateboarding things. They have their own languages, the young people. I can’t understand a word they’re saying sometimes.’

‘The fact is, Mr Elder, couples park up in some of these out-of-the-way places at night for the purpose of having sex in their cars.’

‘Oh, is that all?’ said Elder.

‘Not quite. Sometimes there are people there who watch them doing it.’

‘Those are peeping toms,’ said Elder. ‘Voyeurs, you might call them. Well, that’s not new. We’ve always had them. We had sex in my day, too, you know — just not so much of it, and more discreet. In those days, peeping toms had a hard job of it, so to speak.’

Elder smiled. Fry felt that familiar frustration of trying to get through to people who seemed to talk a different language from her own. Most of all, she hated those secret little smiles and nods of understanding that sometimes passed between Ben Cooper and people like this Elder. It was as if the fact they were born within a few miles of each other gave them some hidden means of communication that no one else could ever learn. She was glad she’d let Cooper go.

‘You don’t understand, Mr Elder,’ she said. ‘This is watching by arrangement. It’s part of the thrill, apparently.’

Elder’s eyes popped. ‘They want folk watching them while they’re doing it?’ He considered the prospect, didn’t find it appealing, and shook his head. ‘No, I can’t see it. I’d call it perverted. But I suppose things are different now. Is that really what they get up to at night?’

‘And not just at night either. Lunchtimes, even. During their breaks from work. Sometimes it’s at a date and time fixed up in advance. Sometimes they just go along to a well-known dogging spot like Godfrey’s Rough and see what turns up. The people who do the watching are the ones called doggers.’

Elder was quiet, trying to imagine the scene in the woods.

‘I suppose this is shocking you, Mr Elder?’

‘It’s a new idea, that’s all. And it’s a bit too late for me to learn, maybe?’

‘I think not, sir.’

‘Happen they’re not doing any harm, anyway,’ said Elder. ‘Have you thought of that?’

‘The point is,’ said Fry, ‘things can sometimes go wrong. Doggers have been known to fall out with each other. People try to join in when they’re not wanted … Well, you can imagine. It’s fraught with dangers.’

Elder nodded slowly. ‘That’s bound to happen,’ he said. ‘Folks are always the same. But these’ll be city folks, no doubt. Students and such.’

‘Some of the keenest doggers,’ said Fry, ‘are lorry drivers.’

‘Eh?’

‘Lorry drivers. Truckers. They have favourite places where they like to park up for the night. I suppose they get bored just watching the telly in the back of the cab and eating microwaved chips. So they get together sometimes, have a few cans of beer, and go dogging. A bunch of big, hairy truckers can be a bit intimidating, and not quite what people are expecting. Things can get out of hand.’

‘Those will be long-distance drivers,’ said Elder. ‘Blokes doing a haul up to Scotland or somewhere. They’re miles away from home, you see. They have to stop where they can. Most of them are from the Continent these days — Germans and French and Italians. I saw one the other day from a place called Azerbaijan. I don’t even know where that is. I couldn’t find it on the map. A damn great Mercedes he was driving, too. Just think of it. Miles away from home. Miles and miles and miles.’

‘Not all of them are from the Continent, Mr Elder,’ said Fry. ‘Some of them aren’t far away from home at all.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘See this make and registration?’ said Fry, showing the note. ‘This DAF was recorded by one of our patrols as being parked at Godfrey’s Rough. It’s a local registration, Mr Elder. This lorry doesn’t belong to any Frenchman or Azerbaijani. It belongs to you.’

Fry paused the interview tapes again. Jack Elder was developing the classic breathless, bewildered look of the guilty person suddenly finding himself smothered under the weight of evidence that he’d either overlooked or had never imagined could exist.

‘We’ll take a break, shall we, Mr Elder? You can settle into your cell while we wait for the duty solicitor to arrive. It will probably be tomorrow when we can talk again. I hope you didn’t have plans for Christmas.’

Tom Farnham was only thirty-eight years old. He jogged a couple of miles through the woods whenever he had time, and he visited the gym about once a month. He was as fit as he wanted to be, for his age. Though he was struggling financially right now, he had lots of plans for future enterprises, when the time was right. Tom Farnham liked money.

When Farnham went out to his workshop that night, the wind had risen. He could hear a continuous rustling in the woods, as if the trees were whispering to each other, whispering secrets that ought to be kept quiet. It was still raining, and the trees were sodden. In these woods, the sound of dripping water could be mistaken for footsteps after a while.

As usual, he’d left the door of the garage open to disperse the petrol fumes. The lawnmower was pretty much finished, and he just wanted to see how the newly sprayed paint was drying. Those detectives had interrupted him, and he wasn’t sure whether he’d made as good a job of it as he’d have liked.

In a way, it was a relief to have rid of that skull from his property. He’d never liked the thing, and anything that couldn’t make him money was a waste of space, in the end. All the stuff about it bringing luck and protecting you was nonsense, of course. Ridiculous superstition that only the likes of Derek Sutton believed in.

While he was bending over the lawnmower, Farnham sensed that the quality of the light had changed, and realized that his security light had come on outside. That wasn’t unusual. Wild animals strayed out of the woods sometimes and got into his garden. Foxes, badgers, even a small deer occasionally. It was surprising what lurked in Pity Wood.