Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

In the study, Cooper found a cork board on one wall of the bedroom, covered in photos. All of them showed Tom Farnham himself, smiling that hesitant smile in a variety of locations around the world. But these were no holiday snaps. There was one of Farnham dancing with Marilyn Monroe, another of Farnham shaking hands with Winston Churchill, and one of him standing behind Stalin on the balcony of the Kremlin. Over here, Tom was sharing a joke with Roosevelt, and in the bottom corner he had his arm around Frank Sinatra, like a previously unknown member of the Rat Pack.

Cooper studied them more closely. ‘Mr Farnham was very skilled with Photoshop, Diane. But then, it looks as though he had a lot of practice.’

Fry peered over his shoulder. ‘You mean he put himself into all these photos? Why would he do that?’

‘Some kind of celebrity obsession? He was never likely to meet these people in real life, but he could look at the photos and pretend he had.’

‘They’re all dead, Ben. Dead before he was born, in most cases.’

‘OK, an obsession with dead celebrities.’

‘Very sad.’

‘We all find our own ways of getting through life.’

‘Sinatra, Churchill, Monroe?’ said Fry. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a pattern?’

‘Not that I can see. It’s like a quiz question — what do all these people have in common?’

‘I don’t like questions without answers,’ said Fry.

‘It looks as though Farnham was on the dole,’ said Cooper. ‘There’s a calendar here, but all it shows are the dates of his giro cheques, once a fortnight.’

‘But he was making money on the side, wasn’t he?’

‘Illegally, of course.’

‘I’m betting his visitors last night were some criminal friends of his that he fell out with.’

‘Friends with nine millimetres in their pockets? They sound like some kind of street gang from Manchester or something.’

Fry laughed. ‘Who do we know from Manchester that has a connection to this case?’

‘Mr Goodwin, the solicitor? Surely not?’

‘Stranger things have been known,’ said Fry.

The kitchen reminded Fry of Pity Wood Farm, though only in its amount of clutter. Gavin Murfin had found another door on the far side.

‘Where does that lead, Gavin?’

‘I don’t know, it’s too dark to see.’

Murfin fumbled for a switch on the wall. ‘Ah. Let there be light.’

‘A utility room of some kind.’

The chest freezer in Farnham’s utility room was full of neatly wrapped packages. Fry lifted a few out and fingered their contents. She knew the shape of a joint of meat, or a packet of frozen sausages. But these were strangely sharp and lumpy. She put on a pair of latex gloves and unwrapped the nearest freezer bag. Even before she’d peeled off the final layer, she could see a line of exposed teeth grinning through the film. A second later, she uncovered a single, dark eye.

‘Jesus. What’s this?’

Cooper came to stand at her shoulder, and watched as she slowly exposed the frozen object. Patches of fur had darkened and stiffened around the head. A pair of tiny, clawed feet were held rigid, close to the chest.

‘A rat,’ said Fry. ‘What sort of person would keep a dead rat in the freezer?’

‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘It’s a squirrel.’

Fry’s hands shook a little as she placed the frozen body on top of a plastic Wall’s ice cream box. She covered the animal’s eyes, though she knew it was a mad notion to be afraid that it might turn its head and stare at her accusingly for disturbing its rest.

‘Oh, sorry,’ she said. ‘There I was, thinking there might be something odd about having a rat in the freezer. But keeping a frozen squirrel among your pork chops — that’s perfectly normal, of course. Doesn’t everybody do it?’

‘Well, it depends what it’s for, Diane.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Mr Farnham probably knew a taxidermist. There’s one quite near here, in Bakewell. They’re always on the lookout for well-preserved animals.’

The DCI entered the house and watched them working for a few moments, not being critical but assessing their performance.

‘I understand you have a suspect in custody, DS Fry,’ said Kessen at last.

‘Yes, sir. Mr Jack Elder. But he’s being questioned on allegations of the sale of illegal fuel, and his vehicle was logged by patrols monitoring a dogging site near Sheldon. He has no connection with Tom Farnham that we know of.’

‘He does now,’ said Kessen. ‘We ran the registration number of Farnham’s Subaru pick-up through the intelligence system. One of the other vehicles monitored at the dogging site was his. Mr Farnham and your suspect were present at the same time.’

A few minutes later, Fry and Cooper were heading north towards Sheldon. Cooper didn’t know Godfrey’s Rough, but he had a vague idea where it was, somewhere near the White Peak village of Sheldon.

‘The monitoring patrols recorded Farnham’s pick-up and Elder’s lorry at this Godfrey’s Rough at the same time, but there were no other vehicles present,’ said Fry when she finally came off the phone.

‘So much for the idea that they were out dogging, then,’ said Cooper. ‘I think you need a few more participants, don’t you?’

‘Exactly. And it’s the wrong time of year anyway.’

‘What do you think they were up to?’

‘I wish I knew, Ben. But now that Elder has a confirmed connection with Tom Farnham, he’s involved in a murder enquiry. We’ve got to dig out what his involvement is.’

Cooper shook his head. ‘If they were just meeting at Godfrey’s Rough, we won’t be any the wiser.’

‘They were a long time, according to the log,’ said Fry. ‘The patrol logged their registration numbers at six twenty-five p. m., and again at eight fifteen. That’s more than just a quick chat.’

The car was constantly ploughing through seas of muddy water. Not floods exactly, just a general consequence of wet weather, the result of rain pouring down from the hillsides on to the roads. Here, the dry-stone walls were held together by a sheath of green moss.

A hundred yards in front of them was an Arla Foods milk tanker, heading for one of the dairies at Manchester or Ashby de la Zouch after its daily farm collections. Cooper felt these limestone areas of the White Peak were a more friendly landscape than the moors further north. It felt lived in, shaped by human activity. The White Peak was a particularly satisfying landscape, somehow. Psychologically satisfying.

‘But what else is there at Godfrey’s Rough?’ asked Fry. ‘What would have taken the two of them there for so long?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Cooper. ‘We’ll have a look round when we get there.’

Seeing that his tank was getting close to empty, Cooper took a diversion through Hartington and pulled into a little filling station — old-fashioned personal service, and just two pumps to choose from, unleaded or diesel.

When he was getting his wallet out to pay for the petrol, Cooper found an envelope in his inside pocket that he’d forgotten about.

‘Oh, by the way, Diane, with all the excitement, I didn’t get round to showing you this.’

‘What is it? A photograph?’

Cooper got back behind the wheel and drove out of Hartington, glad that he was familiar with the locations of remote filling stations in this area.

‘I borrowed it from the heritage centre,’ he said.

Fry studied the photo. ‘I can see three men standing in a farmyard. Is that Pity Wood?’

‘Yes. It was taken in the 1960s. When I went to the heritage centre, I wasn’t really looking for anything that old, but still … It was a bonus.’

‘Why?’

‘There’s a caption on the back. Names and a date — I wish more people did that. Here on the right is Raymond Sutton, standing in the doorway of the barn. See him?’