Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

Fry decided to leave it at that. Some things were always going to be inexplicable. It was the nature of communication between human beings. Or between her and Ben Cooper, anyway.

‘So what did this sweet old lady tell you?’ she asked.

‘A lot of stuff that wasn’t relevant,’ admitted Cooper.

‘Oh, surprise me.’

‘But I think there were a few snippets that might be of interest. I’ll need to check them out, of course. Get some corroboration.’

‘In case Granny is just wandering in her mind, as I warned you.’

‘I don’t think she was. She seemed quite lucid, though a bit too talkative.’

There was a burst of noise in the background — laughter, female. Fry tried to picture the scene, but couldn’t quite fill it in. She could see Cooper himself, sitting perhaps with a drink in front of him, casual and relaxed, surrounded by his friends. In Fry’s mind, the friends were many, but vague and faceless.

‘Go on, then, Ben.’

‘Well, according to Mrs Greatorex, there was more going on at Pity Wood Farm than farming. She said there were often too many people there — far more than there should be on a farm, and not always at harvest time. It would confirm the impression I got from the farm accounts. And they weren’t always men, she says. Mrs Greatorex claims everybody knew this.’

‘So the Three Wise Monkeys are exactly what I thought, then.’

‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil?’

‘Yes …’ Fry hesitated. ‘No — that isn’t quite right, is it? They’re just sticking to the third part.’

‘Meaning they must have seen and heard things. They’re just not willing to talk about them.’

‘Right. That’s the way people are around here, isn’t it?’

Somebody seemed to be speaking to him now, distracting him from the call. Fry had the impression that he might have put his hand over the mouthpiece for a moment to muffle the conversation with his friends.

Of course, these people might not be what Cooper himself would call friends, but just acquaintances, the sort of people he sat with in the pub. Familiar enough to spend time with during his off-duty hours, without having to know anything about them, except what they drank when it was his turn to get a round. That kind of relationship was very shallow, wasn’t it? Not something to regret that she didn’t have herself.

‘Perhaps,’ said Cooper. ‘But that saying is originally from a carving in a Japanese shrine. The three wise monkeys represent the principle “ If we do not hear, see, or speak evil, we ourselves shall be spared all evil .” It’s a play on the Japanese word for monkey. But sometimes there’s a fourth part to the saying: “ Do no evil .” Most people seem to miss that one off.’

Cooper glanced across the pub to see where Liz had got to. She’d found some friends and was chatting happily to them at another table. He felt a momentary spurt of jealousy. But that was completely irrational. She’d left him alone to make his phone call in peace, which was exactly what he’d wanted her to do, wasn’t it?

Fry was very quiet at the other end of the phone. And that was odd, too. Cooper felt she ought to be interrupting his thoughts by now and telling him what to do next.

‘Are you all right, Diane? Shall I come into the office this afternoon and we can talk it through?’

‘I’ve got a new assignment, Ben,’ she said.

‘A new — ?’ Cooper wasn’t quite sure what she meant.

‘You won’t be seeing me for a little while. I’m going on a trip. Mr Kessen wants me to fly to Dublin to interview Martin Rourke. I have to liaise with the Garda Siochana.’

‘Ireland? Well, that’s great.’

‘Is it?’

‘You ought to be delighted, Diane. Anyone else in the department would give their right arm to be off on a trip to Ireland. When do you fly?’

‘Tomorrow. I’ll be away until Wednesday probably. So you won’t see me around the office for a couple of days.’

‘We’ll manage without you for a while,’ said Cooper, trying to lighten the tone of the conversation without understanding why it was taking a downbeat note.

‘You know what’s happening on Tuesday?’ said Fry, a trifle impatiently.

‘Er …’

‘Our new detective superintendent is putting in an appearance. In person. She’ll be meeting the troops for the first time. Except, she won’t be meeting me, because I’ll be in bloody Dublin.’

‘But, Diane, that doesn’t mean anything,’ protested Cooper.

‘It doesn’t mean anything to you , Ben,’ she said. ‘But that’s because you never see what’s really going on.’

When Cooper finished the call, he took a drink and wondered what he should do. The realization that even Diane Fry was worried about her position made him uneasy. This was one of those moments when anyone could be forgiven for covering their backs. He ought to take stock of the things he’d neglected to do, in case he was challenged on them some time.

He looked at Liz. She met his eye, and stood up. Cooper wondered if there was something on his list that wouldn’t seem too much like work. If so, he might just get away with doing it today.

As Liz came over to his table, he remembered. Time for a visit to a nice heritage centre, perhaps.

Two hours later, and the day had been disrupted for everyone. Units were arriving rapidly at Tom Farnham’s house near Newhaven. Cars rattled over the cattle grid, officers were taping off the breeze-block garage, the flash of a digital camera burst intermittently from behind the half-open doors.

Cooper could see that the chiefs were out in force for this one. And on a Sunday afternoon, too. DCI Kessen and DI Hitchens stood conferring with the crime scene manager, Wayne Abbott, in the doorway of the garage workshop. The discovery of Tom Farnham’s body had been reported by one of his customers, calling to pick up a repaired lawnmower.

‘A totally senseless crime,’ said Fry. ‘Apparently, they didn’t get away with a thing.’

‘There’s no sign that they were disturbed in a burglary,’ said Cooper.

‘Apart from the deceased body of the householder lying covered in blood on the floor, you mean?’

‘I mean, what were they hoping to steal from the workshop?’

Fry looked around. ‘Lawnmowers? There’s a good market for them, I’m told.’

‘Yes, there is. But they haven’t touched them. You can see none of them has been moved an inch. And who would beat the householder to death when they were only out to nick an old lawnmower?’

‘Like I said, totally senseless.’

Cooper thought Fry had been much too quick to jump to conclusions about the attack on Tom Farnham. But he didn’t really blame her for it. Senseless crimes were all around them these days — there were stories in the papers every day. People didn’t understand the reasons for them, but they no longer doubted that such things happened. It was almost a first assumption.

‘There could be some other motive. It’s more than a coincidence, Diane.’

‘Oh, right. They were followers of the Old Religion, of course. And Tom Farnham had broken the faith.’

Hitchens came towards them. ‘All hands on deck, chaps. The medical examiner says that the victim wasn’t just beaten to death, he was shot. His attackers used something like a nine-millimetre pistol. They gave him a beating first, then finished him off with a couple of bullets.’

‘Bullets?’ said Cooper. ‘Firearms, not a shotgun?’

‘No, Ben. There’s blood splatter in the woods, and a trail across the drive where they dragged him back.’

The search of Farnham’s house gave fragmentary glimpses into his lifestyle. His interests had run to anything mechanical or technical, from the innards of old garden machinery to simple computer programs. His PC system boasted a number of peripheral devices — scanner, colour printer, webcam, and some that Cooper didn’t recognize. Money had been spent on this system. Surely more money than could be earned by repairing lawnmowers.