Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

‘You’re the granddaughter of Mr David Palfreyman at Hollowbrook Cottage, Rakedale?’

‘Yes, my name is Mel Palfreyman. It’s short for Melanie, but I never really liked that name.’

Cooper could have guessed it. It was much too feminine and girly for a teenager who wanted to rebel.

‘Are you close to your grandfather?’

‘Yes, closer than I am to my mum and dad. I visit him all the time in Rakedale. In fact, he’s like a real dad to me. Tells me off, disapproves of my boyfriend. You know the sort of thing. But, yes, we get on fine. I was always Granddad’s favourite, whereas Ian was my parents’.’

‘Ian?’

‘My brother?’

‘You told my colleague that your brother died.’

‘In a car accident. When he was fourteen. Granddad refers to it as the RTA.’

Cooper nodded. Even the use of acronyms dated Palfreyman. No one referred to a Road Traffic Accident any more. It had to be called an RTC — a Road Traffic Collision. If it was an ‘accident’, then no one could be charged with responsibility for it. And in twenty-first-century Britain, there always had to be someone to blame.

‘How did it happen, Mel?’

‘We were both in the car, in fact,’ she said. ‘We were with our grandparents on a day out. We were going to Sheffield to do some shopping. Granny and Granddad wanted to buy us some new clothes. Our birthdays were quite close together, as it happened.

‘Granddad was driving. He made a mistake pulling out on to the A6 near Bakewell. The road was very busy, a lot of heavy lorries. It was near Ashford in the Water. You know the place I mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘We had to wait a long time at the junction to pull out. Cars were queuing behind us, drivers were getting irritable. Ian was impatient, too. I remember hearing him say, “Come on — go for it, Granddad.” But Ian was sitting in the back seat, with me. How could he have known whether it was safe to pull out? He couldn’t, could he? But Granddad pulled out anyway. If he’d been a bit quicker on the accelerator pedal, we might have been all right, even then. But there was a lorry — and it couldn’t avoid us.’

Mel touched the scar on her forehead. It was more noticeable now than it had been before. The memory was making it flare red, like a fresh wound.

‘That’s when I got this,’ she said. ‘I hit the back of the headrest on Granny’s seat.’

‘And your brother was killed?’

‘Yes. Granny and Granddad weren’t badly hurt, but emotionally they were devastated, of course. We were in their care, after all. They never got over the guilt of that, especially Granddad.’

‘It’s understandable.’

‘But they weren’t as upset as Dad.’

Cooper waited.

‘Mum, Granny, Granddad — they were all grateful for the fact that I survived, and they were so concerned about my recovery. Head injuries can be a lot more serious than they seem at first, you know. But Dad — ’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I think Dad always believed the wrong child died in that crash. He showed no interest in whether I survived or not. His beloved son had been killed. And, somehow, that was my fault.’

‘Why did you want to tell me this, Mel?’

‘So that you understand a bit more about my granddad. I know how he likes to come across. He thinks he’s still in the police sometimes. He loved that job so much, he can’t accept that he’s retired. It makes him feel lonely and useless. So he gets cross and bad-tempered about it whenever anyone mentions it. I bet you found him like that.’

‘To be honest, yes.’

‘Also, he always says the modern police have no idea how to do the job that he did. Proper policing, he calls it. I don’t know what he means, exactly, but he’s very disrespectful.’

‘Ye-es.’

Mel laughed at his expression. ‘In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to solve your case for you by now. Or, at least, told you how to do it.’

‘Well, I don’t think Mr Palfreyman has done that,’ said Cooper.

To be fair, he had no idea what the former PC had got up to after he and Fry left his house. If, by some miracle, Palfreyman actually did solve the case of the two dead women at Pity Wood Farm, he wouldn’t be complaining. But he bet Diane Fry would be.

‘Mel, I still don’t really understand why you thought it was so important to come into Edendale and tell us this.’

Mel Palfreyman pushed back her hair and stroked the tattoo on her neck. Black-painted fingernails followed the shape of a Celtic knot etched in blue ink.

‘My granddad thinks you’re trying to set him up as a suspect for these murders at Pity Wood. Are you?’

Cooper couldn’t hide his surprise. ‘And why would we do that?’

Mel began to laugh again. ‘You know, Granddad gave me a lecture once, all about how you can tell if a person is lying. He thought it would be useful to me when I started going out with boys. He said one sign to look for is when someone answers a question with another question. It’s an attempt to divert your attention, instead of giving a direct answer. I think that was the gist of what he said.’

‘That was pretty good advice,’ admitted Cooper, trying hard to hide the expression in his eyes. He supposed that would show, too. He hoped he wouldn’t blush, or start stammering.

‘Yes, I thought so.’

‘We don’t set people up, anyway. It’s just not something we would get away with. Not these days.’

She studied him closely, and seemed to accept what she saw. ‘I don’t know. It’s what Granddad thinks, though. To be honest, I reckon it’s because it was the way things were done in his day. The way he saw things being done.’

‘I can promise you it’s not like that any more,’ said Cooper, tempted to cross his fingers behind his back as he said it.

‘So you haven’t been digging out people who’ll say things against him? You haven’t been gathering circumstantial evidence that would make a case against him, just because he’s a convenient suspect?’

‘No, of course not. Though there are certain circumstances that …’

‘That what?’

‘Well, that might need a bit of explaining.’

‘So Granddad will be questioned again?’

‘Almost certainly, I should think.’

‘I see.’

‘But that doesn’t mean he has anything to worry about. He won’t necessarily be arrested.’

‘Necessarily?’

‘I don’t make these decisions,’ said Cooper apologetically. ‘It’ll be decided at a higher level, by a senior officer in discussion with the CPS.’

‘Will you be there when it happens, at least?’

‘I can’t say. I’m sorry.’

Cooper knew that he’d failed to reassure her. But there was nothing else he could say, without going into details of the evidence, which was against all the rules. Of course, he didn’t feel confident enough in the outcome himself, and he couldn’t tell her things he didn’t believe in, could he?

He showed her back to reception and watched her leave the station, pulling up the collar of her jacket when she got outside. Thankfully, there was one thing that Mel Palfreyman hadn’t asked him at all — whether she was likely to be questioned herself.

DI Hitchens caught Cooper as he arrived back upstairs. Cooper could sense that something was up, from the DI’s manner.

‘Oh, Ben, you’ll want to know this. I realize you’ve been involved quite heavily with this aspect of the enquiry.’

‘Sir?’

‘We’ve decided to stop pussy-footing around, and we’ve brought Raymond Sutton in for questioning.’

‘Here? You’ve put that old man in a cell?’

‘No, he’s not under arrest. We’ve put him in an interview room,’ said Hitchens defensively.